weekend wish list

Today is my mother's 60th birthday party. I'm making up for my lack of New Year celebrations, and going all out on the dressing-up front. I've picked out a pretty dress and some sparkly shoes to wear, and for once I might actually make an effort with my make-up too; flicky black eyeliner and red lipstick! In the meantime, I've collated some pretty things I'm coveting at the moment.

I do love my notebooks, and I also love matryoshka. What could be better than this matryoshka journal?




another excellent combination; peach and sparkles. love this belt!




This dress is divine. One day, one day soon I will get over myself and buy something (anything!) from Modcloth; damn the international shipping costs!

These shoes are darling, I love the colour.

 I'm keeping half an eye open for a leather/leather-look, smart-yet-quirky bag as most of mine are pretty scruffy. This Accessorize bag fits the bill quite nicely; I may have to keep more than half an eye on it...

a nice way to spend a bank holiday + what i wore

Even though every day feels like a bank holiday for me, I've been off work for a month now.

I went to an antiques and collectibles fair in Halifax today. I've never been to one before but I would like to start collecting a few bits and pieces at some point - especially when I eventually have my own place. I loved it; I adore car boot sales, so this was basically an upgraded version, and indoors as well so no freezing my socks off/getting drenched. I was expecting a lot more high-end stuff but there was plenty of random tat, just the way I like it!

Here are some photos of a few things I was drooling over.

pretty jewellery

 

 cute typewriter

vintage sewing magazines

I didn't have much of a budget today, having bought a new laptop as a Christmas present to myself I am having to be strict with myself until the end of the month. However, as I said above there was a surprising amount of affordable items, so I was able to buy a couple of things. I of course homed in on the bargain £1 boxes of jewellery like the bargain-hunter I am!

'pearl' ring, £1

bangle, £1

bangle no. 2, also £1

my favourite purchase of the day, this ladybird purse! It has a little zip on the other side of it, but I'm not going to use it; it's too delicately beaded for that. A bargain at a mere £2, and I shall add it to my growing collection of ladybird-related objects.

dress: George at Asda // belt: Primark // right shoe (!): H! by Henry Holland

wish my spots would go away!

The dress has such a pretty print, I love it; easily the nicest thing I've seen in Asda in a long time. I dyed my hair red yesterday; I've had blonde highlights for many years and before that I was my natural colour (medium brown), so it was a big change for me! Unfortunately my hair is so long and thick there wasn't quite enough dye to evenly do all of my hair (or maybe my mum did a rubbish job for me - I got her to do it seeing as I'd never dyed my hair before, perhaps it serves me right!) so the ends at the back of my head are more brown than red. But it's only semi-permanent so it won't be too long before I can re-dye it. And, as shown above, I can still wear my beloved red lipstick (something I was a bit worried about)!

The Book List

Happy New Year to all! I saw in the new year in my dressing gown and toasted my family with a glass of lemonade; that's how rock 'n' roll I am these days with my dodgy foot.

I am pleased to report I have already gone through two books from my pile to read I posted about here.

The first one I finished was Eleven Minutes, by Paulo Coelho. I'd read the Alchemist and loved it, which was my sole reason for buying Eleven Minutes when I saw it in a charity shop (plus it was just before a hospital appointment and I had a feeling I would be in waiting there for hours so I needed something cheap to take with me). It's a lot less innocent and naive than the Alchemist, as it tackles quite a gritty subject (prostitution). It can be dark, but the main character's general outlook on life is hopeful so overall it feels a lot more positive than you might think from reading the description on the back. The novel has the simplistic writing style as in the Alchemist which I loved, as although it seems quite simple Paulo manages to convey complicated emotions with such simplicity and clarity it seems almost child-like.

I think if anything, I enjoyed this more than the Alchemist mostly because of its dark subject matter; I always love a book that's a bit rude! And it was addressed in a very non-judgemental way, for which I applaud the author.
 

My second book was The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. With no description on the back of the book to help me I had no idea what this was about, but the title intrigued me and I remembered hearing about it before somewhere (I realise I could have just looked up the plot on the internet but I never allow myself to do that in case I spoil it).

This book I also enjoyed. Again, I really liked the writing style, and the characters were likable; the things they went through were affecting and bittersweet, and the emotions were described extremely well. It was also interesting reading in a fictional novel about Communist rule in Prague during the 1960's onwards; while that area of history does interest me, I just cannot read non-fiction at all easily and I never remember anything so I always like it when something like this crops up in a fictional novel, it seems to stick in my head better. You really got a feel for how things must have been back then and the attitudes of people.

There were a lot of things the characters said and thought that I identified with, and there were quite a few thought-provoking statements. I have saved the more inspirational ones and copied them in my big book of quotes, and I think I will be keeping hold of this book to read again some time as I think I will get even more out of it the second time round.

Summary
The two books are quite similar in that they both primarily deal with human emotions; there is a lot more thinking and talking than real action. However, despite that they are extremely easy to read, and I would highly recommend them both equally.