taryn k.

taryn k.

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My name is Taryn. I'm in my twenties. I come from the land down under. I'm married. I work full time. I like pretty things. My favourite food is watermelon. I hate dancing. I like to talk. I tend to contradict myself. I hate snails. I like you for reading my blog.

Layout: vehemency
Email: here
Twitter: here
Bloglovin: here
SHOP TARYN K: here

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2:28 PM

Washington - Holy Moses

There's glitter and a kazoo - how can you not love this?

Labels: Music

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2:11 PM

It sure has been a while...

Hello lovelies! Long time no see! Want to hear my excuses?

I hadn't really been buying that much, you know, stuff;

I've been wearing the same favourite polishes over and over;

My holidays ended, so I've been wearing only my uniform (sadface);

It was my birthday;

We've been house hunting.

Actually, I suppose it has only been a couple of weeks, but I feel like I haven't blogged in forEVER. Happily though, I have a lovely birthday haul for you all. This isn't everything that I got, but a few of my favourites :)

Beyonce Heat perfume - delicious. I'm not much of a Beyonce fan, but I tested this out of curiosity. Not sure I love it as much as I do Sarah Jessica Parker's NYC, but a I feel it's a sexier option for night time.

Want to be my friend? Buy my a gift voucher and I'm yours. I know a lot of people think gift vouchers are impersonal and an easy option, but I look at it as if you're giving me the gift of shopping. And I love that.

You know I love green tea. These are flavoured loose leaf tea, both of which are delicious. The "gen mai cha sencha" has rice-bubbles in it! Okay, probably not actual rice-bubbles, but you know what I mean. It has quite a nutty smell, which I like. The "Gorgeous Geisha" smells exactly like strawberry-and-cream lollies. Amazing. It has dehydrated strawberry chunks throughout, which give a much subtler flavour than I was expecting. I suggest you try these out. You can order on their site T2tea.com, which ships internationally.

This clutch is amazing! I asked the girls from work for this and the watch below (we all pool our money together for birthdays, $10 each, usually gets you a fantastic gift, rather than lots of little gifts, and is a hell of a lot easier). I photographed the clutch with the gift voucher, which is the size of a regular credit card, so you can visualise just how huge it is. I love it. You'll probably see it soon in an outfit of the day. You can get it here

I haven't taken this watch off since I got it. I love it. Now I just need a Michael Kors oversized gold chronographic, and I should be pretty set for a good few years. I love how it's such a classic shape, and I love the black and gold together. Timeless. You can get it here

And lastly, my lovely friend Jade got me this lovely scarf. I love grey, and I love lightweight scarves with a dainty pattern paired with a leather jacket, so this is perfect. She knows my taste so well.

For some reason, I have absolutely no photos of my party. I had my camera all charged ready to go, but I think I got so excited that I just completely forgot about it! One of my girlfriends is usually very good about making sure there is plenty of photos taken at parties, but she was away in Melbourne, so I got nada.

Labels: Hauls, Online Shopping, Perfume

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16 July 2011, 10:08 PM

Random thoughts

I've got a few things I want to talk about, but nothing of any real substance, so I'm gonna do it in bullet form. Sorry in advance for any randomness!

I've just created a twitter account. I've had a personal twitter account for a little while now, but I never would do my own tweeting, Just didn't really think anybody would actually care about anything I had to say. So, since I have an iPhone now (upgraded from my old brickie thing that didn't have internet access), I've decided to set up a twitter as an extension of this blog. So follow me if you like :) Pretty, please?
My holidays are drawing to a close (sadface). I have to go back to work on Monday and I'm not really looking forward to it. I like my job and all, but holidays are sooo much nicer. Especially since Joe is on holidays for another week - being a school teacher sure has it's perks! I hate having to get out of bed when he doesn't have to. My favourite thing in the world during winter is to sleep in, so I get a wee bit jealous.
I've almost finished painting our house. ALMOST. I have one room to go. I will be so excited when it's actually done. But then we'll probably move houses and I'll have to start all over again.
My husband has been watching the Tour de France. I must admit, I am not a fan. I do like the scenery though. It makes me want to go back and visit France. One of my friends is over in Nice at the moment, seeing all her photos gets me all nostalgic for my own eurotrip adventure. Last year at a particularly slow part during the race, one of the cameramen decided it would be a fun idea to have an incredibly and overly extended shot of a snail crossing the road. You can imagine how long this took. You may also be aware that I am absolutely terrified of snails (I know it's ridiculous, don't worry). This was not a happy night for me.
I took a trip to ikea the other day. All by myself. Not something I'd recommend really. For one thing, you can't take your trolley to your car if you haven't parked in the underground. I don't know if this is all ikeas or just mine. I had quite a few items, I'm sure a few people got a few laughs watching me struggle with it all piled up, trying to get back to my car sans trolley. I loved everything I got though - a couple of bedside lamps for our bedroom, a side table for the living room, a throw and a few candles. The best part is assembling everything. I know not everyone will agree with that, but I do consider myself quite handy, so whenever I manage to put something from ikea together, I feel validated.
I've been reading Mamma Mia! by Mia Freedman (Cosmo Australia's youngest ever editor), and I love it. I thoroughly recommend it if you are at all interested in the magazine industry. I'm only halfway through, but that only took me a night of hardcore bookworming - looking forward to finishing it off in the next couple of days.
My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks - I'm having a 1990s themed party at home. I've been putting the playlist together over the past couple of weeks, and let me tell you - there are some gems. I can't wait, for the music alone. No idea what I'm going to wear yet though. I recently finished a massive Friends marathon, and was getting very inspired by Rachel's outfits in the earlier episodes. Just a matter of finding some good stuff. To the op-shops I go!

Labels: Blah blah blah

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15 July 2011, 5:51 PM

i should really get a tumblr

One of these was taken by a good friend. The rest taken from weheartit.com

Labels: Mood board

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4:48 PM

The Nail Files #15 & My New Favourite Ring

I tried to do an outfit of the day for you using my iPhone yesterday. Turns out the iPhone is not better than my HD flip-cam thing for outfit of the days. Eh. I might end up putting it up but I doubt it.

Anyways...

I was wearing China Glaze's Below Deck in the outfit of the day. I love it, it's right up my ally - a muddy, dusky purpley grey. The consistency on this one is great - creamy and opaque in one application, just how I like it. I did two coats for good measure anyway, but I really didn't need to.

My one negative is that this is my third day wearing it and you can see the tips have already begun to wear off. I have a couple of chips on the other hand as well. So not really a good long term polish, it's better suited when you change up your polish every couple of days.

In other news, I bought this AMAZEBALLS ring the other day.

How much do you think it cost me? Go on, guess.

Here, I'll give you some room to guess.

It cost me $3. THREE DOLLARS PEOPLE! From Diva. Now, granted, it actually fell right apart as soon as I removed it from the packaging, but that is nothing a little bit of superglue can't fix! I am so in love - I can see myself wearing this to death. I don't even know if it's still available, since I got it from an outlet store, and it was on sale there. It's not on their website either, but they don't usually have all that much available on there.

I'm just killing time now before I go pick up my husband from the airport, so I might post something else later on. Who knows? I'm in a blogging mood.

Labels: China Glaze, Jewellery, Nail Polish

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2:24 PM

What I'm Reading

It's been quite a while since I did a "What I'm Reading" post, so I've got a few books to review for you. Everything I've read lately, I've really enjoyed, with the exception of one that I'm a little bored with, but am trying to get through. Winter has well and truly set in over here, so I've been loving getting into bed early with my ereader and reading for hours and hours. Where shall we start?

When I last wrote, I listed a whole bunch of books I was planning to read - first of all Garden Of Shadows by Virginia Andrews, the prequel to Flowers In The Attic, since I was in a nostalgic mood at the time. So I read it again. It's so damn trashy! I love it! This is probably the third time I've read this book and it always draws me in. I feel like it's almost a rite of passage for teenage girls to read Andrews' Gothic romances, even though the content is a little unsavoury at times.

For those of you that haven't heard of the series, the novels follow the Foxworth/Dollanganger family, an upper class Viriginian family living in the 70s (I believe). The general gist is that Corrine, the mother of the central main characters, Chris, Cathy, Cory and Carrie, is disinherited by her wealthy and cruel father, Malcolm Foxwoth, when she marries her half cousin. Upon her husbands sudden and unexpected death Corrine is left to raise the children herself, and with no form of income she feels she must attempt to get back into her fathers good books. She returns to her childhood home, but must hide the fact that she has borne children to her half-cousin, otherwise she will never be granted forgiveness. At the time the novels start it is believed her Malcolm is on his deathbed, not expected to survive a month. The children are hidden away by Corrine and her evil mother, Olivia, in a room with attic access in an unused wing of Foxworth Manor, with the intention of Corrine winning her father back, receiving her inheritance when he passes and then living comfortably with her children. Unfortunately for the kids, Malcom clings on to life for quite a long time. What follows is a soap-opera like family drama with so much scandal and shock (incest anybody?), you're left laughing (but enjoying) at the absurdity. Rumour has it the series was based on a true story, but who really knows how much further Andrews' takes it.

The prequel to the series is told from Olivia's point of view, starting when she and Malcolm courted, right up to the arrival of Corrine and her children of the night of their imprisonment. There is so much more scandal and so many more secrets in this book that are never even alluded to in the rest of the series, so it is a fun read if you enjoy the other novels.

This novel, and series, is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine, and has been since I was about 12. I'll definitely get around to rereading the rest of the books in this series, but other more exciting books became available to me as soon as I finished this one.

Namely, the most recent Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris. I LOVE these novels. Love them. Especially at this stage of the game where Sookie has broken up with her beloved Bill and moved on to better and blonder things. Like Eric. Sigh.

I wouldn't really say that this is a spoiler for the TV show since they seem to be going in an entirely different direction than the novels take. It was a while ago that I read this, so I can't remember all the details, but from what I remember, Sookie is quite happily coupled up with Mr Northman - vampire married actually - and living in relative peace after his maker was killed and the vamp political hierarchy had been shaken. Then back along comes Eric's boss, with whom there is a long standing grudge since the revolt against the royals a few books back. He pretty much wants all the people Eric loves dead. Including Sookie. Poor Sookie.

So then Sookie prances around a little, as she does, interacting with a bunch of different people and kind of wallowing that she is all tied up in supe business, as she does, and making STUPID decisions. As she does.

I did really enjoy this book, but it didn't really seem to end. There wasn't a whole lot of questions unanswered and it didn't move forward with Sookie and Erics relationship. We basically left off exactly where we started - which is Sookie isn't sure who she really wants. At least if theey'd broken up (which I am totally against, just to be clear), we would have at least had some sort of progression. I'm pretty sure Harris has said there are only two or three books left about Sookie, so they're gonna wanna start getting to the point soon.

I have a terrible feeling she's going to end up with Sam. And that will piss me right off. I'm just not a fan.

The Hunger Games. Oh my god. I am in love with this series. I could not put it down. I downloaded the entire series in a big omnibus form from Amazon (in fact, I downloaded all these from Amazon), because I couldn't find the separate books in ereader format. So I was reallllllly hoping I liked it. So yeah, it turned out well. This is one of the best series I have read in a long time. You will notice I am quite partial to the teen-fiction genre. Even though I'm nearly twenty four. *shrugs*

Katniss Everdeen, a teenager living in Panem, an almost post-apocalyptic world. It's Earth, but not as we know it. The novel takes place, probably a couple hundred years in to the future, in what was the US. Panem consists of the Capitol, an incredibly wealthy and excessive city, and twelve outlying, poverty stricken districts, which are very much under the thumb of the Capitol. At some point during Panem's history, the districts tried to revolt against the Capitol and failed miserably. As a reminder of the failed attempt at taking them down (although it's thinly veiled as entertainment and as a prestigious event), the Capitol produces an annual TV reality show, where they take two teenagers, a boy and a girl, from each district as tributes and have them fight to the death in an arena. So yeah, not a happy world. Katniss becomes one of these tributes and we see her journey and struggle through this unfair world.

There is a romance factor to these novels, but unlike most teen novels, it's not the most prominent theme. I think a lot of readers try to reduce it to this (ie. Team Peeta!! Team Gale!!! Team Finnick!!!!!!) but it is so much more than that. It's a war series, a series about survival, about protecting what is important to you, about how far you would go to protect your own life, about valuing your life above others, about politics and inspiration. It's also more realistic than other teen novels, in that good characters die. As I was reading Mockingjay, I got to the point where I was thinking "Is ANYBODY going to survive this??".

I can't say enough good things about these books. I can't wait for the movie to come out - I really hope they do it justice.

I'll leave it there for now, because I can just see myself rambling on and on - I'll post the next few books in the next couple of days, I promise. As always, thanks for reading. Talk to you soon :)

Labels: Books, True Blood

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12 July 2011, 6:40 PM

I love ticklish Eric

Best quotes of last nights episode:

Eric: Sorry, it tickled.

Eric: Are you mine?

Sookie: No.
Eric: Do you belong to some other vampire?

Sookie: No.
Eric: Oh. Would you like to be mine?

Sookie: NO!

Sookie: Eric! You just killed my fairy godmother!
Eric: Oh. Sorry.

Pam: I will eat, *beep* and kill each of you.

Jason: If this is an emergancy, dial 9-1-1 and ask for me.

Eric: Who the *beep* is she? Oh sorry. That was rude.

Eric: I know I'm a vampire, Snookie.

Labels: True Blood

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07 July 2011, 7:52 PM

The On-Holidays Haul

Weee, I'm on holidays again! Yesterday was my obligatory first-day-of-holidays flop around lazy day, and today was my obligatory holiday shopping day. I didn't really get too much today, but this is what I've picked up over the past few weeks.

Cosmetics first.

Bloom lipgloss in Gypsy, Loreal Telescopic in Carbon Black, Loreal Super Line felt tip liquid liner in Silver Black, Bloom concealer, Batiste Dry Shampoo in Diva, Bloom Thirst Quencher Vitamin E Body Cream, Chi Chi polish in Disco Diva, Manicare Glam Nails top coat in Ice Ice Baby, Bourjois bronzer, Red Earth blush in Cherry Blossom.

I've had the bronzer for a couple of weeks - everyone was raving about it, and my old one had just run out so it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'll admit, it is a nice colour and the scent is delicious, but I'm pretty sure it has been making me break out. I'm assuming it's the scent. Sadface.

The nail polish is gorgeous - I'll have to do a swatch soon to show you, I can't explain it. I wore it to my sisters Winter Wonderland themed birthday party and it was perfect. Looked like ice.

I haven't really had a chance to try out much of anything else, but I'll let you know as we go along. I'm looking forward to the blush :)

I've been obsessed with sideways crosses for a little while now and had been looking for a double ring with the design in gold. Found this is Sportsgirl today, and decided to grab a matching bracelet too :)

I love this shirt - I've recently realised I'm quite partial to white button down shirt. This one is by Bardot, is sheer, with cuffed sleeves and slightly military. What's not to love?

And finally, a pretty pink t-shirt. I can't believe that I'm such a girly-girl, but I don't - and I don't think I have ever - own a pink t-shirt. I love this one from Sportsgirl, mostly because of the little knot. Now I can't wait for summer to come back around so I can wear it with denim cut offs!

Labels: Bardot, Bloom, Chi Chi, Fashion, Hauls, Jewellery, Loreal, Nail Polish, Red Earth Bourjois, Sportsgirl

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03 July 2011, 8:04 PM

I Wanna Do Bad Things With You

I know i"m a week late on this, but hey. True Blood is back. Woop woop! I've seen the first two episodes of the season, and oh my goodness, I am hooked back in (not that I was ever unhooked mind you).

I probably won't do a week by week post because, let's face it, I'm kinda lazy. But let's chat about what we've seen so far. Spoilers ahead people, so if you haven't seen it, now would be a good time to click away :)

First off - I am loving Eric this season. I love Eric every season, but this season especially. I can't for the life of me understand why they've made

Sook-eh so anti-Eric in the show. At least in the books she admits she likes his cheeky personality and thinks he is uber-hot, even if she doesn't want to be in a relationship with him at first. The look on his face when Marnie cast her amnesia spell! And then he was running down the street all topless and vulnerable - just, oh...

Okay, back to the beginning before I get all carried away. I was a little ehhh when they started off in the Fae dimension, with the fruit and the light and the time difference and the silliness. Quickly got far more enthusiastic when they started turning evil and throwing weird fae fireballs. I squealed when they jumped for the portal and Bill and Eric sensed her presence, and actually got teary when Grandaddy died. Seriously. How pathetic of me.

Jessica and Hoyt are as adorable as ever - even their fight was endearing. Although, I could've done without seeing Hoyt eating raw eggs. I think I gagged a little there.

Beel didn't annoy me quite as much as he usually does. He seemed a little less wimpy than usual, and such an improvement with his hair. Loved the English accent in the 80s flashback scene. Not sure how he's going to go as the King though. I was a bit disappointed that they killed off the Queen. I quite liked her as a character and I thought they still had a bit of use for her. Oh well. I really hope they keep Bill and Sookie apart for at least this season. They really need to leave that storyline alone for a little while.

Sam was kind of boring. I'm not really a fan of Sam, I must admit. I don't dislike him or anything, but I don't think I've enjoyed any of his story lines. I'm already bored with this Luna thing, but I guess the shifting into another human thing has potential for being interesting.

How funny was Arlene and her evil baby!? Haha. Poor little thing! And Andy hooked on V - hilarious!

Tara is sooooooo much better as well. I like that she still has the 'tude, but she's not "the world is against poor little ol' me". I wasn't particularly surprised that she'd moved on to women for some reason. Her lover is very pretty too - well done Tara!

Lafayette was great as always, although I'm not digging the new 'do.

Jason's storyline is freaking me out already. Crystal is just a crazy beyotch. CRAZY. When those panthers started biting, I was like "EEEEEEK!!"

And finally, thank the lord people, they have actually shaped Sookie's eyebrows into a decent shape. Really, how hard is it?

I can't believe we have to wait another whole week for the next episode though. I can't wait to see more of Amnesia-Eric. And I wonder when Alcide will show up again? And does Marnie actually realise what she's doing or is she really just a vessel? Are the faeries evil? Will they keep the Eric-Sookie relationship similar to the book? Are we going to see more of Nan Flanagan this season? Is Pam going to kick ass when she finds out what has happened to Eric? Will Russell Edgington break free? Will Beel spend some time with Portia Bellfleur then find out she's his great-great grandaughter?

Did I mention I'm Team Eric?

Labels: True Blood

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