It's not my birthday...

...but this week I seem to be getting the presents. I got home the other day to find a little cardboard box waiting for me* with some fabulous printed African fabric in it (at least I assume it's African, even though it's Mount Fuji brand?? And apparently "superier quality". Not superiOr, superiEr). My friend Helen is in the UK but she's packing up her house so she's getting rid of a lot of stuff, and she knows I love STUFF, especially when it's ethnicky stuff, so we both win. Why is she packing up her house? The usual reason... to go flying across Europe with her boyfriend... in a plane that they are building themselves. As you do. **

Then on Tuesday I went shopping with another friend and we finally exchanged Christmas presents, so she scored a formfitting red See by Chloe top with beads that looks crap on someone lacking in rack (ie me) and I got a green ethnicky looking Zimmerman top that will be fabulous in the summer (I admit it was somewhat of an effort to take pics of it, as it was something like 10 degrees this morning, but I did have help from Suki and Kelly. And I was still wearing my pyjama pants so my legs didn't freeze). I piled on the jewellery ... do you like? I think the bronzey earrings were handmade as they're uneven, they sort of look like shells or some sort of metal won tons.... mmm won tons...
The necklaces are hard to see but they are from Morocco (red beads), Malaysia (animals) and the Salvos (silver and dark resin). Kelly's collar is red with little silver bones on it from a pet shop somewhere and Suki is her usual splendidly naked self, which is a real bonus as I never have to credit Gucci or Prada or whatever when I write about her.

On a less tangible but none the less valuable note, after realising that most of my jackets are various shades of blue, I got some amazing colour advice from someone who I don't even know but read me like a book anyway. Apparently the reason I have not been able to get a thing done creative-wise is because I wear too much blue and not enough red. However I think you should read the actual comment because it is crazily insightful and really resonated with me and therefore I am going to have to start making red stuff ASAP. I've never really been that into reading colours/auras etc (even though a close relative once tried a diet where she lay naked under a red lightbulb for hours and could only eat white food) but this made me think there might be something to it. Yeah, strange that the lightbulb incident didn't convince me, I know.

And .. to top things off.. my dad just said that sitting here talking to me was worth a million dollars. But I think he's slightly biased. He also said it would be worth a million dollars if he were able to get to the toilet unassisted, so I'll leave the inevitable comparisons to you.
Here I am at Buddha Day celebrations in Federation Square last week after writing a wish for his health on a green plastic leaf which apparently gets blessed by the nuns at the temple he used to go to. I'm not Buddhist (or anything actually) but he is so I thought he might like me to do it. I'm wearing the Akha jacket that I added silk lapels to, a leather skirt I chopped off to make into a mini (from the Salvos of course), a bag from an op shop and jewellery from Laos... as well as more op shop stuff... and Tshirt was something like $1 in India, it's what the men wear there as underwear and is probably totally unethical as well as being full of chemicals. Boo hiss.

*OK so it was not waiting for me all opened and in the middle of the garden, but hey, I'm allowed a bit of poetic licence!
** If anyone has suggestions for what Helen should take with her on this little jaunt, ie the most compact travel wardrobe ever, please drop by her blog and leave a comment.