FROCKTOBER!

So this October I have participated in Frocktober, which is where I wear ONLY dresses for the month of October and raise money for research into Ovarian cancer. I have been uploading daily photos to facebook but I thought I would share them on here too.

Day 31: I have 52 dresses, $640 for charity and one month under my belt of wearing ONLY dresses!
To everyone who told me they liked seeing my dresses on facebook, or donated, Thank-you! the encouragement made this month more fun and a lot easier than it might have otherwise been.
My last dress is actually Binnys. I wanted to go out with something interesting, and there is nothing better than a Princess dress!!

 





Day 30: I bought this dress at a garage sale, the girl selling clothes had the most beautiful dresses, but they were all size 8! This was the only one that fit me.

Day 29: giant old lady dresses are an amazing source of cool fabric, and so much cheaper than spotlight! This is the Clayton's of dresses. The dress you wear when you don't want to be wearing a dress. So comfy!

Day 28: unlike day 19, this was actually my very first dress (voluntary) dress. it was $100 reduced to $10. I wore it to the sweetheart dance when I was a freshman at Fillmore. That night was when I knew that Stephie and I would be best friends and I realised I had such a crush on Cory.

Day 27: I went to Chadstone at the start of the year to try and buy shoes to match a dress that I wanted to wear to Sam's 21st and accidentally bought this new dress instead. in more exciting news i have just about reached my target amount to raise for frocktober! but we should definitely blow it out of the water!

Day 26: This is the first dress I ever altered from the Op-Shop. I got a positive response and I realised that making and altering dresses was something I could do alright.

  

















Day 25: castle day and I'm late! rocking the Op-Shop dress

  

















Day 24: I made this Richmond dress for my football themed 21st. My favourite bit about it is the fully functional zip on the front.
Can you tell I like Richmond a bit?

  












Day 23: I made today's dress at the start of this year but I really don't care about that because I HAVE A NEW CAMERA AND IT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IN THE WORLD!

  

















Day 22: today is dedicated to me telling you how amazing the store H&M is. I love it. I love it I love it I love it! When I travelled in my gap year it was basically a world tour of H&M. This dress was from the American store.

  


















Day 21: I can't go to judo tonight because I have to wear dresses :( this dress is sooo comfy! It was bought with granny birthday money last year 

Day 20: this dress affords me zero modesty, when I wear it I just have to accept the fact that everyone will see my bra and Undies. It's hot, so sue me.

  

















Day 19: this dress has so much sentimental value, it was the first non formal dress I ever bought. I remember thinking that it was the happiest most beautiful dress I had ever seen and when I tried it on it fitted perfectly. There is no joy like the moment that zip goes up and you realise it was meant to be.

  

















Day 18: I am soooo sick :( the only thing making me feel better right now is my Nutella toastie and the wedding dress shows on tv. I made this dress and it is the first thing I have ever accidentally shrunk in the dryer. Luckily I made it too big to start with. 

Day 17: I tried to wear a different dress to annual dinner but I panicked and changed to this one at the last minute. I think its the nicest dress i've ever made. Ok now I am carsick from uploading this whilst on a party bus 

Day 16: I made this dress, My favourite part of it is the red zipper at the back that you cant see in this photo.

  

















Day 15: woaaah we're halfway therre!
This dress is not from the little op shop in Yarrunga, but the little little op shop around the corner from the little op shop in Yarrunga. it cost a whopping $2.

  

















Day 14: For the life of me I could not get a photo I was happy with today, which is odd because I LOVE this dress! it was $10 new from Bridge Rd.
I hope you like the photo because I accidentally made myself motion sick whilst taking it, and now I feel rather poorly  :(

  













Day 13: This dress makes me feel like a fairy princess! I bought it in Germany, where I decided that I don't like museums and art galleries and I was by myself so I went shopping instead. I never buy white things, but this is my favourite exception to that rule.
If you guys want to donate to frocktober don't forget to head to this link
https://frocktober.everydayhero.com/au/cecelia

  

















Day 12: this is the dress that was decorated at tight write on bright function. It doubles excellently as a nighty for october. Today I care entirely not at all about what I look like, so it finally happened. I wore pyjamas into Mcdonalds.

Day 11: I have had 5 hours sleep, I have to start and finish an assignment today and the INTERNET WONT WORK PROPERLY! I bought this dress in Italy 5 years ago. It was my very first impulse buy and remains the most expensive dress that I own.

   

















Day 10: Committees last function!! Today was the first legitimate challenge I had in frocktober. I REALLY wanted to wear a sparkly leotard to this party but I couldn't #firstworldproblems

  
















Day 9: ever have one of those days that your face refuses to be nice? I hated this dress when I made it, but it is slowly growing on me.

  

















Day 8: this is my root canal dress, I bought it as my reward for getting a root canal. I needed a comfy dress today so I could study.

  

















Day 7: I had my first practical class today. Runners and a dress, not a good look! I think I probably flashed everyone during the vertical jump but they had the good decency not to mention it :)

  

















Day 6: this is my hens night dress, believe it or not it was MORE ugly before I altered it.

  

















Day 5: I know I have enough dresses already but I accidentally bought another one at the op shop today. I think it might be an illness, is there a word for that? Dressophilliac?

  

















Day 4: This is one of my favourite dresses! It is made out of old sunday school songs.

  

















Day 3: ok, so not the best photo. I went to a guy today who worked on my knee. I did not think this through because that dress is quite short!

  

















Day 2: The inconvenience of gardening lay not in the dress but in my inability to use a shovel with bare feet.

  

















Day 1: Victoria is in the clutches of some crazy wind storms, so it was a very immodest start to frocktober.

  

21 for a whole year!

So I am pretty sure that 100% of the readship of this blog already knows this but there is waay more action going on at www.21cecelia.blogspot.com.au
Just to let you know :)

Who knew readings could be interesting?

So I don’t know if you know what I want to do when I grow up. Have I told you? I want to work for the AFL, in conjunction with beyond blue, to try and eradicate (or at least really really reduce) the homophobic attitudes that are prevalent in our society, especially in sporting circles. I know that sounds like a pretty big call given that these values seem pretty well entrenched but today I found something that gave me hope. I was reading prescribed article about Yoga and AFL players when I stumbled across this paragraph that validates my dream as having legitimate potential.

“Tim is encouraged by the response

of the players and has seen a change in

the perception of yoga in his community,

since an article appeared in the local

newspaper about the Geelong players

practising yoga. “Most yoga classes are

80 per cent women,” he says. “But after

the article appeared, mothers brought

their sons along to class, or their

partners. Some men came off their own

bat. One woman had been trying for

years to get her partner to yoga, but after

putting the article on the fridge, he finally

came and got lots out of it.” Sometimes,

it takes a sporting role model to help                                                                   

change long held prejudices; but once

this kind of gender barrier is down, men

too, can find that yoga has a lot to offer”

So no guy is going near yoga with a ten foot pole (exaggeration, yes I know) and then a bunch of footballers say how great it is and there is a noticeable shift in the perception of men doing yoga in the community. HOW COOL IS THAT?
It is a terrifying thought that one group can have so much influence, but to use that influence for the betterment of society would be so cool!

Also, I thought you'd appreciate the funny and so thankfully outdated meme.
RICHMOND ARE IN FINALS THIS YEAR!!

not 1000 pieces, actually 1008.

Last night Mum and  I sat down to to do a spot of puzzling before bed, when we looked up it was 1am.
With a harmonica assisting us with sultry tones (well, the sound of me breathing heavily into it, or, at best, an out of tune rendition of the last post) we unintentionally delved into the mesmerizing world of puzzling.
Today we gathered the expert patience of Jocelyn and together we crowded around the puzzle for three hours finishing all but the perplexing greenery at the bottom.
We discovered an added challenge to the puzzle, the carpet! like bobby pins, earrings, mums scarves and small children, puzzle pieces have a knack for completely disappearing the second they hit the carpet. this made for some amusing retrieval operations!
I took some photos of our exploits as proof that puzzling can be an entertaining and social way to spend the afternoon.

procrastiblogging

Here is a contrast to my last blog post:
I am currently supposed to be doing a group assignment, which is being the absolute end of me so I thought I would procrastinate and also get my head into writing mode by writing a blog post about things that annoy me, because right now I cant think of anything that doesn't.

1, sneezing. No, dont get me wrong I love sneezing (and for all of you who are going to say its because a sneeze is 1/6 of an orgasm, you are wrong. I looked it up.) but what I hate is when your nose gets all stingy and you start crying and all you want to do is sneeze but instead it just fizzles out. I hate that!

2, the internet, or lack there of. If something is going to make us completely dependent on it then the least it can do is be completely dependable.

3, nightmares. they take ages to shake off so you spend the whole day worried that you are going to be abducted.

4, turtlenecks. the perks of looking cute definitely do not outweigh the irritation of having material choking you to death.

5, petrol. that shit is expensive.

6, boys. there is a perception that anyone who does not have a boyfriend must be in want of one and anyone who is happily single is about to get one. maybe its possible to be happily single NOT as a precursor to being swept off your feet.

7, part time work. seriously, who has to make a promotional video to get a job? if I make a video my potential employees will see that I am not nearly cool enough to work at bounce.

8, Baby pandas. are you kidding? no-one could ever hate baby pandas.

9, Richmond. They are letting me down again. This year we were supposed to make finals. and yes, we can beat the bad teams but we have shown no evidence of beating the good teams and there are enough teams with a real chance for the 8 that we need to step up our game if we want some september games.

10. group assignments. I have a hard enough time writing assignments for me. Now I have to write an assignment that is going to have other peoples name on it as well, which means it needs to be perfect. perfect is impossible. why would I attempt the impossible? So now I think that I cant do it and instead of just writing bullshit so we dont all fail I am sitting here bitching about other things that annoy me.


OK, time to do some work.

Unilyf

Have you ever had something that you just want to shout from the rooftops and tell the whole world. you want to run down the street singing it and walzing with random bystanders. Maybe you have just had a date with your dream boy (or girl), maybe you're pregnant, maybe you just finished the rubiks cube for the first time, maybe you have just eaten a life changing steak. well, my course is on that level of wonderful. I dont have a rooftop (Mannix is really high and quite slopy and despite all the shenanigans that go on at that place, rooftop meanderings are not one I'm familiar with.) but it occurs to me that I have a blog. it is my metaphorical rooftop. So for all the people who are living in a cave (because that is the only way you wouldn'tve  heard yet)
I FREAKING LOVE MY DEGREE!!!!

the font cant be any larger, I tried.

I love everything about it.
I love having the half hour commute to class because it gives me time in my own head, which is something mannix doesnt seem to allow.
I love that you can rock up on monday morning and discuss the weekends football until the end of tuesday.
I love that watching youtube videos of sporting injuries is a perfectly legit thing to do in lectures and tutes.
I love that actually no-one cares about ATAR scores
I love that i dont have the shortest attention span in the class
I love that sharing my study secrets (starjumping so I can concentrate properly) is helpul and not met with looks of confusion and derision
I love that in a two hour class at least an hour is running around, and it is serious learning
I love that my assignments are based on relevant issues, such as doping in sports
I love that I get volunteer opportunities with football clubs 
I love that I have 9 contact hours
I love that I don't know exactly where this degree will take me but I know that any job I get from it I will love because I love everything about it.


So if you are wondering how I am, I am good. sometimes life feels like you've been hit over the head with a sack full of hardened manure but if you ride it out, good things can happen too. The idea of going back to study after this summer and enjoying it seemed basically impossible and yet it has been the best thing that has happened to me in a VERY long time*.

Anyway, I am going back to study now because I WANT to do that these days, because my degree is excellent.



*this is a big deal because good things happen to me a lot.**

**#winningatlife

Bar bara black sheep have you any wool?

From the moment the bell on the door jingled I had eyes only for the neatly lined up beautiful glass jars of lollies on the counter. I would pour over the lolly purchase decision, carefully wighing up the best value for money and contemplating, as always to no avail, whether or not I should take a risk and lash out my entire $2 on some dried mango. But it wasnt the temptation of dried mango, the delectable honeycomb or the OCD perfection of those lined up glass jars that kept me coming back, it was the unfailing patience, kindness and friendship of Barb the shopkeeper.
At a time when school didnt feel safe and home was no comfort, Barbs shop was an oasis. While the politics of puberty and bullying at school left me feeling isolated and helpless, Barb was a mature and comforting voice of reason and encouragement.
Barbs full name was Barbara. She told me hated it! At school the boys used to call her Bar Bara Black sheep and taunt her constantly. She understood what it was like to be bullied and also stood as a beacon of hope, a promise that one day my hellish treatment at school would be a mere memory and I would be able to live my life not in fear.
Most days I would sit and talk to her while she chopped vegetables and pottered around. Frequently I would ask questions, eager to learn why she cut her vegetables that way, what her kids were doing with their lives and what the glucose syrup for sale on the shelf was used for.
Glucose syrup, she told me, can be used to make hard boiled lollies. That fascinated me and I was determined to buy the jar of it so we could make them together one day like she promised. At $10, it was wildly out of my price range and I set about saving up so I could one day afford it and see the magic of homemade hard boiled lollies.
One day while I was chattering away and and Barb was baking, something remarkable happened. Barb cracked an egg and inside it was not a double yolk but an entire miniature egg with a shell and all. It was amazing and a miraculous discovery that we shared together with no-one else. Years later she brought up the egg incident to see if I remembered, which of course I did and we traded stories about how no-one ever believes us when we tell them about the eggception.
When Barb shut the shop and started La Cucina I saw her far less frequently than in that year, but upon every meeting for the following 9 years she always met me with the same enthusiasm and interest in how I was, and she never made me feel any less that incredibly special.
What an amazing friend.