Funnest Night Ever -or- High School Musical Premiere

I haven't had time to blog as I have been way too busy attending Movie Premieres and walking red carpets!!!

I know - how fun!

I am a virgin at the red carpet and what better movie to lose my virginity to than High School Musical 3? So appropriate really.

My equally sad and daggy friend (you may know who I am talking about) had two tickets to the Melbourne premiere and knowing just how much I would love it, took me along to share the joy.

I can not even begin to tell you how much fun we had! In fact I get all smiley just thinking about it... This is the red carpet. Screaming fans, flash bulbs, screaming fans, etc etc. For a brief and shining moment I felt kind of famous.

On entering the theatre we scored the two front row seats, smack in the middle. Not so good for movie viewing you may be thinking, but Oh so good for star viewing!!!

Here are Ashley Tisdale (Sharpai) and Vanessa Hudgens (Gabriella) literally 4 foot from us. It was surreal.

The best was yet to come!!!

Within lunging distance stood THIS MAN....... The delicious Zac Efron (Troy, or Link if you are a Hairspray fan)

I really think my dear friend was concerned that I may try to make a grab for him! I took this photo without a zoom so you can see how close we were. Sigh!!!!

It was a fabulous, hilarious, night and to top it all off the movie was everything it should have been.

And for those of you who aren't sharing the Zac love - here are a few shots to give you an idea of why I was fairly pleased to be sharing the same air with him. Enjoy.

And All That Jazz...

It's taken me a week to recover from Halloween and I've just realised all the Christmas decorations are up in the supermarket!!! I think I'll give poor Surfer Boy at least a week of a decoration-free home before I go nuts on the Chrissy lights. (I did pick up the cutest santa shaped cookie jar yesterday which had him rolling his eyes and sighing. Oh well)

I went to the most amazing performance on Saturday night. It was at the Collingwood Town Hall, and it was the Body Electric Dancers!

My lovely friend - let's call her...Miss Sassy - joined an adult Jazz dance class recently and Saturday night was their big end of year extravaganza. Now these dancers are a whole lot more than your average dance troupe, they are in their 30's and 40's, they are artists, teachers, jewellers, hairdressers, they are anyone and everyone and co-ordination and rhythm do not seem to be prerequisites.

They attend weekly classes to learn the routines and come November they break out the sequins and spandex to perform to those of us not gutsy enough to do it ourselves!

As soon as the first group hit the stage I knew I was in for a treat. With tears of laughter on my cheeks I cheered and woo-hooed with an audience who fully appreciated every step and jazz hand. Some of the dancers were completely unko, stiff and travelling regularly in the wrong direction but gee they were having a ball. Some, such as Miss Sassy, were actually very good but hammed it up just enough to let you know they knew their limitations.

I applaud each and every dancer and thank them for an absolutely brilliant and joyous night of dancing.

'Miss Sassy'

Halloween

Only 1 More Day

Now for some Halloween treats-

Only 2 More Days

I Actually Went Out!! TWICE.

Big week this week.

Went to this...

"Paul Young, and the lead singer from Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley: two of the biggest names from the eighties, together on one bill! Performing all their hit songs and some new favourites: Gold, True, Wherever I Lay My Hat, Everytime You Go Away and many more!"

As you can imagine it was fabulous and hilarious and a great night was had by three chicks who can't quite get over the 80's.

Then 3 days later Surfer Boy and I celebrated his birthday at this...

Tex Perkins proved that even singing bad 80's tracks he still is a 'Rock God'. They were brilliant.

The Palms at the Casino is obviously my venue of choice now.... hmmm maybe Bonnie Tyler in November?

Sunday Night, so relaxing

Tonight at 7.30pm, just as I was getting ready to sit down and soak up the A.R.I.A.s, Surfer Boy suggested we see what our new cupboard (salvaged from his sister's house) would look like in the kitchen...



Thank god I had the forethought to tape the A.R.I.A.s as there was no stopping him and now at 11.30pm we have a completely rearranged kitchen minus one built-in and a missing wall!!! He really needs to get another hobby.






Now I am finally on the couch with a cuppa, a block of Belgian mint chocolate, and The Veronicas are doing their usual fabulous job of performing live. Gabriella Chilmi is a credit to Melbourne and I need to buy Melinda Schneider's album, Be Yourself.


Australian music is tearing it up.

Rabbiting On

This is my formal apology to Lou and Ali and everyone else who reads my blog on a regular basis and are sick of waiting for me to post again. I beg your forgiveness and promise to make this a really long post to make up for my slackness - I have no idea what I am going to write about but I'll start with being a full-time worker!

Darling brother hopped a plane to Bali with his glowingly pregnant wife and left me in charge of CHALK. Surfer Boy took the week off to be a house-hubby and off I trotted feeling very grown up. It was fabulous. For the first time in years I got to spend more than a single day in my own business. I had the chance to potter around with the merchandising, check out new wholesaler catalogues, order new stock, all without I interruption (oh except for those pesky customer things).

Day One gave me a new appreciation of fathers returning home after a day at work. I was buggered and the last thing I wanted to do was help put the kids to bed, I just wanted to veg out on the couch. I was wrecked.

Day Two saw a welcome change which I put down to wearing sensible shoes for a day of standing around all day on concrete - huge improvement. By Saturday I was fully into the swing of full-time work and not quite ready for it to end. I felt like a fully-functioning member of society.

I think Surfer Boy also enjoyed his week. Not only did he manage dinner and school lunches but we had a freshly baked cake almost every day!! Astonishing. In 14 years together I have never seen him make a cake. He did comment after Day One that although he had a list of things he wanted to get, he didn't have a chance to get any of them. He couldn't understand where the day had gone, eaten up with school drop offs, cooking, housework etc. I think his idea that I swan around all day having coffee with other ladies was well and truly debunked.

All in all we came away from the week with a new appreciation for what the other does. Well worth it.

29 degrees today in Melbourne and my most favourite kind of night - warm and still. The kind of night that is made for fairy lights and bbqs and good friends, or just sitting on the verandah watching the world go by with a good book.

Signing off as it is just too nice to be sitting at the computer - promise I'll post again SOON.

Drop In And Visit!

My oh my! I'm on the hunt to see if I can find a photo of this home in summer. It is called the Eccles Mansion and it is in Logan, Utah.
CHALLENGE - If anyone can pick up the bizarre Veronica Mars link let me know!

I know who killed Lily Kane.....

but who the hell sent that bus over the cliff and why oh why is Veronica back with Mr Boring??

And why didn't anyone tell me earlier how much I would LOVE this show???

This Is Australia

More reasons to love where I live...

Photographer - Jared Fowler

Photographer - Michael Wee

Photographer - Simon Griffiths

Never Far From Our Thoughts

I just got sent these beautiful shots of Tas's Paddle and couldn't resist posting them. They were taken by Chris Carey via Blizzy.

I also love this shot I took of Gidget throwing Tas's flowers back after they'd washed up on shore.

My Picasso

FINALLY!!!

Moondoggie has never been a prolific drawer. His pictures are usually of the 'round and round scribble' variety.

While sitting across from me, enjoying our morning cafe break he asked for a pen so he could 'draw' on the napkin. Imagine my surprise when he actually drew something recognisable. Imagine my even greater surprise when he drew the whole thing upside down!! He drew it from my perspective, not his. Is that weird??

By the way - it's the Gingerbread Man with his gumdrop buttons, of course.

Bedtime!

A Life's Design

Stooged

A couple of months ago Surfer Boy and I sold some industrial letters, that SB had salvaged, on ebay. A guy in Sydney bought them and sent a courier truck down to Melbourne to pick them up. All good. Another successful ebay transaction. (and in case you're interested, we sold them for about $80 each)

Today I was doing a bit of web surfing and came across a website for a shop in Sydney that sells industrial furniture, cool bric a brac etc. Imagine my surprise when I realised the industrial letters I was looking at were in fact the ones we had sold! Imagine my even greater surprise when I saw they were selling them for $500.00 each!!! Good on them - I hope they do well with them, - the part that REALLY surprised me was they way they were advertised. Our industrial letters from MELBOURNE, made in the late 80's to early 90's were described thus...

Fantastic Vintage box frame letters. Found in England circa 1950's.

$500 each

It pissed me off so much that they had blatantly bullshitted that I sent them a very polite email correcting the origins of the letters so that they could update their information!

I don't mind if they inflate the price, but I do mind if they lie about where they came from to make them sound more exotic. The other problem is I now don't trust any of their descriptions and wonder how many other supposedly vintage pieces are in fact made last year in some factory in Indo.

SPRUNG! (Wonder if they'll change them??)

Spoiler Alert!

Oh My God!!!!

Jacob has just imprinted!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ohh! Why Not???

I really want to get this Tee, but so far no one in my household has shown much enthusiasm!!!

Porch Dreams

90210

It will come as no surprise to anyone to hear that I am REALLY REALLY looking forward to Monday night! 8.30pm will find me glued to the television for my long awaited fix of 90210!

Anyone who holds a soft spot in their heart for these guys...

must be tuning in to see what the next generation has in store for us.

With Kelly, Brenda and supposedly Donna all on board for the new season it's bound to be a ripper. Nothing will be the same without the boys (but they obviously had more going on in their careers) Hopefully a little bit of Melrose Place in the person of Rob Estes will help ease the pain.

For anyone in the Yarraville area, or anywhere in Victoria for that matter, the Commercial Hotel in Yarraville has agreed to show 90210 on the BIG SCREEN for me. They are providing bean bags and I'm so excited I can barely contain myself. So if you want to come down and have a few drinks and indulge in a little 'Bevvas' we'll be starting 90210 nights on Monday the 15th September. Should be hilarious.



That opening music get's me every time. I'm so glad they kept it.

CHALK BLOG

Don't forget to pop over and visit my other blog. The CHALK blog not only keeps you up to date with all our new stock and the goings on in store, but there are also some wonderful examples of kids interiors - both the good and the dodgy!

Please leave me a comment so I know you have dropped in.

Jen