Big decisions and more swimwear!

While pondering some major life decisions, I decided that coming into Winter is a brilliant time to really boost my swimwear choices :-).  Thank you ASOS!  Both swimsuits were about $20 each, I really need to buy some Winter coats - I have a saved bag with ASOS at the moment and am waiting impatiently for some discount codes before I purchase.  I was actually really pleased with the swimsuits, they are good quality and the dot bikini is padded, the blue ropes bikini comes with halter straps as well.  I have a 20% sale code with Lucy in the Sky clothing website at the moment, but am yet to press purchase on my saved items.  We are pondering a major life change (AGAIN), and its making me nervous about being flippant about buying clothes.  I really really wish there was a guarantee that the choices you make in life are going to be the right ones, life is so hard and you only get one chance.  Sometimes you don't get to have it all and you have to work out whats going to make you the happiest, and thats about where I am at the moment.  Some things I know for sure make me happy:

• fashion :-)
• my baby girl
• my hubby
• having a secure job
• having a nice house (not flash - just nice)
• my loved ones being happy

I know its Winter,but.....

In the tropics its still pretty warm, in fact its about as warm as the mild Summers down south has been getting the last few years anyway!  We (as in me, hubby and baby) have started baby swimming lessons.  I will blog about the baby swimming lessons on my baby blog, but this blog is all about me!  Pre baby I wore skimpy bikinis, like skimpy.  Though I was lucky enough to escape any evidence that I had a huge baby in my tummy and the skimpy bikinis look just find, they are slightly not appropriate for baby swimming lessons.  Scratch that, they are highly inappropriate.  So I decided some new more modest swimwear was appropriate (without being to modest, I still want to wear a nice swimsuit!).  I had a look in a few stores, and nothing really did it for me, the I remember the cool one piece swimsuits that Rihanna was pictured in with Bob Marley on the front and a Panther one as well.  Those swimsuits are done by a label called We are Handsome, and not only are their swimsuits WAY out of my price range, but they didn't have anything that I liked at the moment anyway. BUT then I stumbled upon Black Milk Clothing:http://blackmilkclothing.com/. And I found the coolest one piece ever - the Moonwalker swimsuit, but it was $100 (including postage), so I pondered my purchase for nearly a week and then one day I just decided to bite the bullet and get it.  So it arrived express post, and was AWESOME.  I love it, its really good quality and even though it seems like most girls wear the swimsuits as bodysuits, they are made as a good quality swimsuits with like UV50 material.  I am so glad I took a chance and got this swimsuit.

I am officially qualified to be a bag lady

Remember the Sex in the City episode where Carrie was at risk of being homeless as instead of buying a house she had bought a billion pair of shoes instead.  I think it was the little old lady who lived in her shoe episode :-).  Well thats me with bags.  Except minus the glamourous New York City background.  I have always appreciated a nice bag, and have been quite addicted to Mimco for over ten years.  But there was about 5 years where I really slowed down on the bag purchasing, I bought a beautiful One Teaspoon bag that ended up being my main bag for nearly 5 years - and as pictured in the photos it is still going strong!  Awesome quality, its such a shame she didn't do any more similar bags in the One Teaspoon range.







  So then after going through a long abstinence I bought a Mimco bag, and then I bought another Mimco bag, and then I bought another Mimco bag and then another one... four in the space of year!!  Then Mimco lost its lustre a bit in terms of the quality vs the price.  So I really like the colour block trend at the moment and I got an email from Colette Accessories that they were having 25% off their entire store:http://www.colettehayman.com.au/.  I always liked the bags in Colette Accessories but have never bought any because I didn't want to go down the path of having a lot of 'cheap' bags.  But with my baby I need a bag that I can stick a couple of nappies and a bottle in and I am good to go, and casual totes really seem to be working for me at the moment.  So I bought two extra large cross body bags, I bought two because if you bought over $50 it was free shipping so it worked out to be only $15 extra to buy another bag :-) a total of $52.50.  I bought online because we don't have a colette store where I live.  I was at first disappointed when I got my bags, they were pretty tiny even though they were described as extra large, and they are chains are not really long enough to be cross body - its a bit of a stretch.  But then I realised they were waterproof/baby spill proof and they fitted baby stuff in them just fine! YAY.  I was unsure about the leopard print one but now I love it, and it actually sold out within hours on the website so a lot of other girls must love it as well.

The adventure of kick ass shoes

So I went into Novo - I didn't mean to go into Novo really, I just thought I would have a quick look while I was at the shopping centre, I hadn't been to the shops for ages and was actually checking out some dresses in Ally that I blogged about last post.  Then I saw these shoes and a light shown out of them and I heard angels singing lol.  They looked way to high, but I decided to try them on anyway and even though the heel is like ten centimetres they seem quite fine to walk in and not ridiculous like some heels (I am talking about a certain pair I have that I can't walk in for more then ten meters before my leg muscles start failing!).  And they are just perfect, they are not a boot but a kind of look like one and they are the look I have trying to find for ages, I did find a similar pair last year but bought them in pink and have wanted a black pair still ever since.  BUT they didn't have my size,no problem a store in the same state did so they could ship it down, but I had to pay for them first.  BUT then when I went to pick them up Novo started a 40% off sale, hmmm - I checked online and yes they had my size online and I could of got them for $36 less - not a savings to be sneezed at!  So I went instore to pick them up and said, can I refund them and  buy them at the 40% off price.  The salesperson was very gracious, I could tell she was a bit annoyed but was hiding it and I got my shoes 40% off whoop whoop $full price was 89.95!  BUT then I got home and tried them on and the zipper on one shoe was a bit stiff and took me a bit to get it up, and then once I got it zipped up it busted open and got stuck!!!! Have a look at these shoes and imagine how to get them off if the zipper is zipped up and busted and you can't get it back down :-(, i had to break open and undo about 5 links at the side to squeeze my foot out.  So back to Novo and they are going to get another pair in for me.  So thats the adventure so far of the kick ass shoes.

You may be pleased to know that I am not spending my entire allowance just on myself, I am a mummy now so I have to outfit two girls - Me and my little daughter!!http://yoyoyoyobabypop.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/bloomers-onesies-and-princess-singlets.html.

Post it to ME

So I went a little skater dress crazy with my shopping allowance.  I bought the two previously blogged about dresses, then I went to Ally and bought these two dresses online.  Again I actually went instore to purchase these dresses but they were not there :-(.  However I am not really happy with Ally's shipping times, I received both the other dresses and also another package that I ordered on two days after Ally :-(, but it took less than a week so I really shouldn't complain. I will blog about the other package later ;-).  The dresses are cool bananas, I love the leopard print one, I think it will be getting quite a workout, however the Yellow triangle dress has a sheer top :-(, its skirt is lined but not the top!  I just don't get the trend at the moment to have sheer dresses/tops - especially when they are backless, so I guess the cami I will buy and butcher to be backless for my other sheer skater dress from ASOS can be used for this one as well.  I am not entirely sure I would of bought the yellow one if I knew it was sheer, I had already discounted other ones that I had spotted instore because they were sheer - but I guess thats the ups and downs of online shopping.

I also picked up a bright pink skater dress from Ice clothing that was on sale for $20, to be honest that was an impulsive buy and I don't regret it, but if it had of been a considered purchase I would not have bought it (I am trying to stick to a budget!).  The best thing about online shopping is that it feels like you get rewarded twice, once for the actual finding what you want and buying it, then the second reward is receiving it in the mail.  This will definitely be the last clothing purchases I will make for a while, its cooling down and I have four boxes of Winter clothing to wear.....

Big Mac

Guess what I got for Mothers Day!!!  As previously blogged about, I love my iPad but its really hard to blog with or do any kind of typing exercise.  Our laptop is painfully slow, seems like they only build them to last a couple of years these days.  And the last few weeks I have been doing trying to sort out photos, which has just been SUCH a painful thing to do on the stupid slow laptop.  Hubby (oh and little Baby of course) got me breakfast in bed AND an iMac.  And yes its as good as I had dreamt about ;-).  So fast, blogging takes ten minutes instead of over an hour - its awesome.  YAY.  So we are officially all apples, both iPhoned up, iPad and now iMac - not to mention the iPod which was the first Apple product in our lives.  Now I can blog to my little hearts content.

I was a Skater girl...

I actually find the Avril Lavigne skater girl song highly annoying, however I am SO loving the skater dress trend at the moment.  This week I rewarded myself for sticking to my shopping ban, by shopping lol.  I have actually quite enjoyed the shopping ban as I have savoured every purchase, and I love love my choices.  After this allowance is exhausted I will be another shopping ban though (there may be some big purchases coming up in my near future to which I need to save my money for!).  Below is an Evil Princess dress in Emerald.  I bought this online from an Aussie site, I originally wanted this in black however it was sold out while I was pondering my purchase, it came in other colours but I was not so keen on them, so I stayed stalking the site in the hope the black came back in stock.  Then the emerald appeared late one night, $65 I knew it was going to be snapped up so I bought it immediately - and in the morning it was sold out! Yay, I would of been so disappointed if I had of missed out, I love this dress because its very sexy yet still conservative :-), the site did free express shipping as well!

I also bought from the same online shopping site, this purple dress with bows and a little collar.  I saw it but I had just been burnt by the ASOS sheer top fiasco so wanted to see if I could find it instore first.  I found it instore and loved it, not sheer at all ;-).  However, in one store it was 20 dollars more and in another store 30 dollars more!!! I am seriously prepared to buy instore for the sake of say $10 different.  I get that its important to sustain jobs in my local community, but the price differences are so significant it makes you wonder whats going on in the retail sector.  The online site sends the dress out free express shipping so they are making $30 to $40 dollars less then the stores - so that doesn't really explain the extra cost associated with instore staff wages and shop rental etc.  I find it frustrating as I really would prefer to support my local retail sector.  Anywhoo I have a pretty dress for $49.

Time to Blog!

Since a little G came into the world I have a lot less time to blog, like a lot less lol! Today I was determined to blog, I have so much to blog about - yet little G is having a bad sleeping day. But it's not all bad, I got time to do my nails. Nothing else, just my nails. As blogged previously I really love Sally Hansen's sticker nail art, today I chose the pink sparkle bling. I found it on sale at Chemist Warehouse for $6.95. I think I will go back and buy a whole stack :-). I'm also on the search for a white work. Shirt. Cue is my work wardrobe really, even though I only buy a couple of pieces a year. The thing is, it lasts,you get your money's worth for the quality. But they didn't have the shirt i wanted instore, but they have launched their online store and have it there- for $20 more, which is $110:-(. I'm tossing up whether to buy it as I have found a nice one in Portmans for $69.95 and although Portmans quality is not as good as Cue's, white shirts have a use by date on them anyway. I have had quite a few Cue shirts that have been years old and in perfect condition except I was no longer able to get them to the crisp whiteness anymore. Hmmm sounds like Portmans it is!

Shop shop shop shop

This is the mantra in my head, I think I'm having withdrawals!! Since my 'shopping ban fail' post I haven't bought anything for myself, and only a headband and bloomers for little G. It's only been nearly a month, but it's seriously been the longest I have ever gone without buying ANYTHING for myself. I'm totally over ASOS after the dress I bought turned up totally sheer, which was not evident in the photo or the runway video. To line is to expensive so I am hoping to find a cheap cami that I can butcher (it's backless). I haven't been to the shops for over a month and I unsubscribed from all retail emails. But my will is weakening, I've resubscribed to a few and I've started a few wishlists on my fav online shops. This week I have allocated myself some $$ to do some shopping, it's in my budget and I think I will really enjoy whatever I purchase after my small but significant abstinence. I think it will include a Skater dress, I'm totally obsessed with this trend at the moment!