Popsicle colours!

Being a brand ambassador for Graham & Brown is so much fun! This month's design challenge, The Popsicle Trend, has me thinking in all kinds of new and creative ways about how I inject colour into my life. When I think of popsicle colours, I think of the sherbet lollies I loved as a kid, of brights and pastels and ombre tones. With this month's challenge asking where I can see popsicle in my past, present and future, I had a lot of fun reminiscing, creating and day dreaming for this post.

Past

As soon as I thought of the popsicle trend, this amazing tea cup and saucer that was given to me by my friend, Darci came to mind! The ombre pink cup, and the tropical pink and orange saucer complete with toucans and pineapples is the perfect way to inject some summer warmth into your winter cup of tea.

Present

 

  

My little sewing corner is bathed with light in the afternoon,  making it incredibly hard to get a decent photo, but it is definitely the part of my room that fits the popsicle trend most perfectly. Graham & Brown sent me the paint to give my sewing chair an update to make it fit in better with the pastel colours of my room. The colour is Disney's Cinderella's Perfect Pastel. It reminds me of the colour of the frozen yoghurt popsicles I've loved since I was a kid and it's perfect for a subtle hint of colour that compliments the rest of my room. If you'd like to give painting a chair a go yourself, there is a fantastic how-to on Graham & Brown's blog. The mirror above my sewing table is one of my most favourite posessions. It was a gift from my parents for my 15th birthday and it definitely picks up on the popsicle trend with its bright, ombre flowers. The popsicle colour scheme is completed by the print by Autumn and the colourful crochet squares that are my current inspiration for my craft pursuits.

Future

Popsicle by sunae-reilly featuring replica furniture

I really love the mid century aesthetic and think it fits in amazingly with the popsicle theme. Taking inspiration from my toucan tea cup I've put together this beautiful mid century tropical themed living room, featuring Graham & Brown's Flamingo wallpaper. Grahamm & Brown have a super impressive array of wallpapaer, which is my new favourite obsession after watching this season's House Rules. Of course, I had to be a little bit literal in this design, including a retro popsicle poster, which I think would look great above the replica sideboard, with the flamingo wallpaper on the adjacent wall, behind the sofa. Most of the stuff in this image is from my new favourite furniture designer, Matt Blatt and it is definitely a "future" style because there is no way I can afford Matt Blatt furniture for a good few years yet!

What do you think of my past, present and future interpretations of popsicle? Where does popsicle fit into your style?

From Student to Midwife Part 5: One Year In

 How to unwind after a long day full of lessons in personal development and midwifery practice.

Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe I am already one full year in to my midwifery studies? I hope the next two and a half years go just as quickly, because I can't wait to not be a student anymore. As much as I love learning, I think I'd take like a duck to water to not being broke.

This semester has been an incredibly interesting one. It's reinforced my love for midwifery through my introduction to two midwifery units. It's challenged my perceptions of what midwifery is and opened my mind to different perspectives and career paths. It's been a journey of self-development, as I'm assured the rest of the degree is, and it's been exhausting and rewarding all at once. I've done well this semester, with two Distinctions and a Credit as my overall marks in the three units I've taken (if I've calculated correctly. Final grades aren't released yet!) and I've really enjoyed my learning. In Midwifery Foundations, I have learned what it is to be "with-woman" and started to discover the kind of practice I want to develop and in Primary Health Care Midwifery I've begun to develop the practical skills I will need next semester on prac. Right now, with exams far behind me, I am just really looking forward to the next semester's studies! I'm trying not to will my holidays away too much though, and hope to get some creative projects done and books read in the meantime. My head is so full with the lessons I've learned this semester, and yet I have nothing else to say! Complex weavings of thoughts on birth, and on midwifery practice will have to wait until next time. For now, I'm going to relax and binge watch some Netflix. Hope you all have a lovely day!

Mind, Body, Spirit - Finding a path back to fitness

 A time when I felt truly at peace with myself

Recently, I've come to a new understanding of how important it is to keep a healthy mind, body, spirit connection. I came to this understanding through my midwifery studies, when I realised how holistic most indigenous models of health are, and how we are missing crucial aspects of mental and spiritual health in western medicine. Excuse me for sounding like some yogic hippy, but honestly, it feels really good to find that connection between mind, body and spirit and work on maintaining it. This connection may be maintained in different ways for different people, and its about what works for you, but for me, this connection is nurtured through a mix of swimming, yoga and creative output, as well as the work that I so love - my midwifery studies.

The serenity of being under water feeds my soul

I've never been one for willful exercise, but lately, in a desperate effort to ease the pain of fibromyalgia and start feeling good about myself again, I took to swimming. In my early teen years, I used to swim a couple of kilometres a day in the local pool over summer, but then I became an angsty teen who liked her sleep too much for swimming training, and my one form of exercise stopped. It's been over 5 years since I last swam two kilometres without stopping, but last week I donned a pair of goggles and hopped back in the pool again. It was hard. I needed to stop every two laps and I only made it 300 metres all up, but the rush of endorphins it gave me convinced me that swimming was the missing link in my life. The busyness of last week (and the cold) kept me out of the pool, but yesterday I hopped back in again and managed 500 metres, stopping less than I needed to last week as well. Progress in just two sessions! I like doing things that give quick results, and I think working towards my goal of being able to swim two kilometres without stopping will be really good for me, physically as well as mentally.

Source

 

To compliment my swimming, I've decided to take up yoga again, and alternate the two forms of exercise each day. Yoga has really helped me in the past to ease my pain, and has also been really instrumental when I've been through bouts of depression, to help ease my mind and get me mentally healthy again. I'll be doing Yoga with Adriene's 30 Days of Yoga spread out over the next 60 days, alternated with swimming laps in the pool, and I'm hoping to reach my 2km without stopping goal by then. I did the first day's yoga today and am feeling really at peace afterward, as well as being grateful to have stretched out some of the tightness in my legs from swimming yesterday.

While I don't totally hate the way I look (I'm pretty genetically blessed, really) I certainly have been feeling a little frumpy lately, and I'm hoping that as well as keeping me healthy, swimming and yoga might just tighten up my loose tum and bottom a little bit, too. I'll be posting about my exercise journey sporadically over the next two months, as well as other pursuits that feed into my mind, body, spirit connection to keep myself accountable and document this journey as well, so keep your eye out for my next post on spiritual health and what that means to me, as someone who isn't religious.

What do you do to keep fit and healthy?
Does it feed into your mind, body, spirit connection?