wake up and smell the...

this post is inspired by the beautiful flowers i see on my way to work. i can never decide which scent i love the most. this morning i have some jasmine on my desk and it's already brightened my day.

roses - in the garden of a cute little house i pass

gardenias - right where i often park my car

frangipanis - in front of our building and all around

 jasmine - next to the place where i get my coffee

bye summer

it is the last day of summer (officially) and i'm very sad to say goodbye. it feels like it just got here! i'm hoping we have a few more weekends like the one just gone, we have to make up for lost time after all the rain and floods. if it was the last hot and sunny weekend we have in a while though (which i'm positive it's not) i will be content as i had an fun and carefree couple of days. we visited the markets where carly bought some beach prints and a shell mobile amid other summery items, while i enjoyed a mango iceblock and passionfruit melting moment. then we lazed by the pool, taking a dip whenever it got too hot and enjoying fresh watermelon, pineapple and grapes. this was followed by a mossimo ice cream (rocher and chocolate of course) and walk on the beach with the warm afternoon sun above us. sunday morning we set out on a two hour supping (stand up paddle boarding) adventure. we wound our way through the river, then the canals of noosa sound and past noosa woods, finishing at the river mouth. we spent most of the journey trying to push each other off our boards and finally carly succeeded and i plunged into the river awkwardly with a shrill squeal (which i'm very practiced at). my arms hurt dearly today, another reminder of exactly why i need to do an 8 week fitness challenge. after supping we had some more quality time with the pool and sun lounges followed by fish and chips for lunch. so it was an awesome weekend by my standards and reminded me of exactly why i moved back to queensland. please don't go just yet summer!  

tree froggy

i picked up a little green tree frog like this one this morning

he was in a corner of mum and dads kitchen covered in cat hair...

so i dripped some water on him and took him outside to a palm

(not before he jumped on me and made me squeal of course)

i'm pretty sure he smiled at me in thanks

ojday

good morning everyone!

it's a glorious day here. 

i'm starting my day off with an orange juice

what about you?  

today we are going to the eumundi markets and later 

doing a national park walk and having a swim at little cove.

the journey there, day two

some say that getting there is half the fun and despite a little bit of frustration and mild mid flight panic, our journey to and from kadavu island proved this to be true. we arrived at the airport to check in nice and early and after everything was organised we made our way to the gate (tiny room rather) ready to board our plane at 10:40am. as it approached nearer to the boarding time we realised that the screen in the room no longer displayed the time written on our boarding passes, instead it said 1:40pm. no announcement, no explanation, just another three hours wait. the guy at the counter just shrugged his shoulders at me and said it would 'probably' leave at the new time. perhaps our first real taste of 'fiji time'. 

to fill in some time matt and i did a spot of airport shopping. we each bought a 'lazy letter' (pictured above) where all you have to do is tick the boxes that apply and send it off, for example dear a) mum b) dad c) cat. the weather is a) hot b) cold c) raining etc. pure brilliance. needless to say however this did not fill in much time. perhaps actually writing a post card would have been better.  

my next idea was to take some photos, sadly these were the best i could come up with. matt wasn't the most willing subject. perhaps i shouldn't buy a new slr camera and pursue photography after all. either that or i should find a more cooperative muse beforehand. 

 after waiting and waiting and more waiting we decided to look around the airport some more to see if we could find a shop that sold an underwater camera. that mission failed miserably and quickly as all the big shops are in the international terminal which we couldn't access. feeling rather defeated and still with over two hours to go we sat down on a bench outside. an indian man came over and starting chatting to us and we told him that our flight was delayed. he then said to us, 'i can take you somewhere' and then we realised he was a cab driver. his cab was right in front of us (this time a yellow one!), we both just thought he was waiting for someone to arrive. 

 so before we knew it we were in the car and on our way to the garden of the sleeping giant, about ten minutes north of nadi and in the foothills of the nausori highlands. while matt talked to the driver, namely asking endless questions about fiji wildlife, i sat in the back and took some photos. at one point i tried to assist matt by asking 'what native animals do you have here? in australia we have the kangaroo and koala.'  and the lovely guy replied 'we have cows, dogs, chickens. no kangaroo's or koala's here.' so apparently fiji doesn't have native australian animals roaming around and hanging out in coconut trees. good thing we cleared that up! 

 the drive there was worth the trip alone and the garden was beautiful. our new friend and cab driver promised to wait for us and insisted we leave our stuff in the car. matt took our flight details just in case and although as first time travellers we felt a little uneasy about it we accepted his offer. we didn't need to worry of course, he was there to greet us with a smile when we got back as he chatted away to some of the staff. the garden was more like a tropical rainforest and i gave matt the task of photographing all the flowers so we could show his mum, a keen gardener. 

 although this photo of me looks nice and relaxed i actually sat down for about one second before moving on to the next thing. conscious of our flight matt and i raced through the garden like it was the amazing race, almost running past people on the track who slowly took it all in. we took one quick photo of each interesting flower and one quick glance at each pond or big tree. in the below photo i'm pretty sure matt is clicking his fingers to hurry us up! so we made our way back down to the entry, drank (ok, skulled) our complimentary tropical fruit juice and jumped back in the cab for the flight that would 'probably' be departing soon!

 after returning to the airport we were finally ready to board and even more ready for our real holiday to begin. as we walked out on to the tarmac there were two planes, this one and a bigger one. i think we were all hoping it would be the bigger one but it wasn't. while i knew it would be small i wasn't quite prepared for this. i heard more than one murmur something along the lines of 'we are all going to die'. 

 the fact that we were very high up in a tiny plane wasn't helped by a few things. one was the learner pilot. we could see into the cockpit and witnessed the other pilot slapping the learners hand away, presumably when they did something incorrect, which seemed to be a lot. it certainly didn't make for a smooth landing. secondly, i could see out into the sky through the gaps above the door, surely that's not good. and finally the best part was when matt leaned over to me half way through the flight to say he'd been leaning on an emergency exit handle the whole time. you can see it below (taken before we took off), the red flap should be covering the lever but it wasn't! i don't like to think how close we were to numerous different disasters taking place.

as i am writing this almost one week later it's clear we did get there and back safely. it certainly was an entertaining second day and it proved yet again that you never know what awaits you when you move outside of your comfort zone and do something out of the ordinary...

you meet interesting, friendly, trustworthy people. 

you see amazing and beautiful things that you've never seen before. 

you experience being scared for the first time in a long time. 

you feel excited and exhilarated and happy to be living your life and that moment. 

you drink it all in with your eyes and try to burn it into your memory forever.

 kadavu island, fiji. paradise and home for the next seven days. 

week in review

this week i...

had a hot bath, filled to the brim and complete with pomegranate and grapefruit bath salts, highly recommend

baked cupcakes for a work morning tea and ate the most of the mixture, all before 7am, do not recommend

withdrew lots of cashola for mum and dad to start paying off my car, very depressing, lucky i love it so much

heard the sad news that my grandad isn’t very well, have been told not to panic but am still busting to go and visit him in hospital

went on a double date, kind of. matt, myself, anna and jase just had dinner at the pub and the boys provided a great amount of entertainment

praised brisbane for it’s non existent traffic, got home without stopping once at ‘peak hour’ i love bne

tried and failed to upload holiday photos, in the end it was all too hard so tagged myself in all of matt's

gained a new next door neighbour and friend at work, dougal is a grad and he is such a funny and sweet guy, oh and we both like nintendo 64

sent an email to our legal consultants at work and attached a photo of a man holding kittens by mistake, rather hilarious however not at all surprising, a ‘roney’ moment as josh and lu would say

scored a free bike from beth, am going to get naomi's little brother to pimp out my new ride

managed to light a gas bbq at nim's, it took three of us and somewhat inventive methods but we got there in the end

successfully avoided washing and housework all week, gold star for me

woke up at six thirty every morning and got to work early, despite suffering from post holiday blue's

watched the dvd ‘yes man’ and fell in love with zooey deschanel, a long time crush (not in that way) of kahli’s

tuned into two new radio stations, 96.5 family radio and 97.3 playing the 80's, 90's and now, surprisingly awesome

found that my comfy jeans are officially uncomfy, so signed up for an 8 week health and fitness challenge

became very aware that i have only posted about day one of fiji and have six more to go, have been unproductively writing in my head if that counts

spoke to my little sis and little bro, both off doing their own things now and so damn grown up, i miss them

packed my bag for a fun filled weekend in noosa with carly who arrives from sunny sydney at 5, let the weekend begin!

i hope your week was filled with fun, random, relaxing and happy things too. thanks as always for allowing me to share my life with you special few who visit here.

the long bob

do i?

don't i?

love this song

one more thing

go overseas

bula fiji, day one

bye brisbane 

our fiji getaway was so many different things. i have been putting off trying to capture here everything that we saw and experienced in that short week as no pictures or words can really do it justice. 

it was beautiful, peaceful and simple. it was all new to me and yet it felt like home by the end. 

it was everything i could have hoped for and more for my first overseas adventure. 

it is amazing how quickly memories were made and stories were created and experiences unfolded in just the first few hours of us being there. while our passports were being stamped at the airport by a young fijian man his mobile started ringed. he turned downed his portable radio that was playing at his counter and told us it was his mum. while he stood there chatting away i was blown away at how different it was from the same process in our country.

after checking into our hotel near the airport we decided to head into the main street of nadi for a look. initially i didn't want to go as it was all a little overwhelming. already it was clear i hadn't prepared myself for what fiji would be like other than being on the actual island. culture shock was setting in for both matt and i as we drove through the run down roads, in a run down car, past the run down houses and buildings. i didn't even take any photos. 

next to third world countries, places ravished by poverty, famine and war, nadi would be paradise. i felt ashamed for being so shocked at how different it was to australia. i felt ignorant and self indulged. why had i never thought to look beyond my own backyard? i simply assumed that it wouldn't be too different to how we live. but it was very different and it's hard to articulate my thoughts on that first day as i took in the foreign sights.

once i got over the initial anxiety that we were going to be taken somewhere other than our instructed destination in the cab we rode in (resembling nothing like a cab) it started to feel exciting to be making new experiences for ourselves, outside the safety net of a hotel room. i'm sure it was obvious we had no idea what we were doing on that first afternoon though. we probably paid twice the price for our drive into town but it didn't matter. 

once of the first things that struck me was that there were so many indian men and women. a beautiful indian guy working in the restaurant where we had an early dinner gave us the interesting history of fiji. i had no idea that the population was almost half indian and half fijian. it fascinated me having just read a book about india and once again i marvelled at how little i knew about the country that is so close to ours. imagine what i am yet to learn about the rest of the world. 

so this was day one in fiji. there was more to it of course. we swam in the pool knowing it would be our only chance. we ate banana fritters for dessert. we shopped for things to remember our holiday by. we watched tv and laughed at the different ads and shows. we listened to the beautiful singing of three fijian men. we took in the lush and tropical surrounds. we said 'bula' in reply to almost every person that passed us. then finally, just before falling asleep we set our clocks to the correct time. in fiji there is fiji time and then there is also 'fiji time' meaning everything is done at a leisurely pace. 

and even though it was only for a week this is something that we came to know and love and live and breathe. 

bula nadi

adoration

new website i found

cutest custom made stuff

adore the luggage tags

re-post

 playing blog catch up and fell in love with this post by beth

sweetest ever pictures, all in the name of love.

one week later

i am back from my adventure over the sea to the beautiful kadavu island in fiji. i have brought many stories home with me and i can't wait to share them all here.. which i promise to do after all of my washing and unpacking is complete!

be my valentine

p.s. happy valentines day for monday

i hope everyone who has a special someone gets a special something

passport

we get our first passport stamp tomorrow! i know it's not far but it's still really special. i wish you were all coming with me! see you back here in a week.

holiday mode

my beautiful sister alyce and her gorgeous friend emma have just returned from a trip to thailand. i will definitely have to visit after seeing all of her photos. she went to phi phi island which is where kahli is spending some of her trip too. out of the many photos she took these are my favourite. thailand was her last holiday before moving to cairns with her lovely (seriously, so damn lovely) boyfriend elliot and starting a uni degree doing sports education... so proud! can you tell?

 pristine. picturesque. post card worthy.

i think just about everyone has a funny monkey story from bali or thailand. 

no naughty monkeys in fiji. (i think)

alyce and emma. so young and pretty and free at this time in their life! 

oh to be 18 again. 

i like this photo because i always take the exact same one when i lie 

in the sun and look up at the blue sky. 

my flower house

on the weekend kathleen bought a beautiful bunch of flowers for her friend and i really loved the place she bought them from. it was called my flower house and they put their flowers together using 'four recipes'. these feature four different colour schemes that are associated with life experiences, feelings and occasions. they had these cute little cards in store explaining each and i couldn't resist sharing. 

harmony

a collection of white toned flowers to encourage happiness,comfort and promote new beginnings

balance

a collection of green toned flowers to create new opportunities, to heal and to restore growth

love

a collection of pastel toned flowers to open the heart and offer affection, friendship or forgiveness

passion

a collection of vivacious flowers to add energy, create excitement and fulfil dreams

 

this weekend

this weekend i am embarking on my first international journey with matt. it feels like we only booked our flights yesterday and suddenly it is here. we have spent hours and hours trying to decide on where to stay. it is quite difficult trying to a find a place that will suit your budget and meet your high expectations. we still hadn't booked anything until last night and i was beginning to think that we might spend the week at an airport hotel! but then i came across waisalima beach resort and dive centre while searching online yesterday. while it is not the five star luxury that i originally imagined myself surrounded in, it does sound like we will experience the true fiji and i am truely excited about that. we will have to catch a connecting flight and then a boat to get to the island which is located just off the great astrolabe reef. apparently you can see dolphins and jumping fish on your journey so i will have to have the camera on hand at all times. matt and i will be staying in a beachfront bure complete with our own ensuite, hammock and clear blue water just metres from the door. after reading the glowing reviews on trip advisor we're both thrilled with our decision to stay there - matt for the diving it offers and me for the cultural experience and surrounding nature. i promise lots of photos and a full account of everything that happens over the course of the next week. and if you can't wait for my own reviews on where we are going, you can read about it on trip advisor, look at their website or watch a video slideshow right now!

last weekend

last weekend went far too quickly! despite the grey skies i still got to enjoy my favourite things with my favourite people and that is all that matters to me.

i got in late (later than i had anticipated thanks to the miserable weather) on friday night and was warmly (and sleepily - sorry guys!) greeted by kathleen and peter at their lovely southbank abode. after a hot shower and good night's sleep i was ready for breaky the next day at a favourite spot of our groups - mr tulk.

everyone was really happy to see me and made me feel extra special with their questions and stories. it was a relief to know that not much had changed and we could still be the tight knit group of 5 that we were before i left. we did the quiz together and i couldn't answer a single question! never mind. with the perfect amount of avocado, bacon, toast and orange juice consumed i was ready to go and see the new (new for me anyway, old news for my friends i'm sure) myer melbourne.

the store was very impressive. it's a good thing i don't live in the city anymore as i probably wouldn't have a cent to my name, it would all be spent there! i managed to save my shopping energy for chadstone the next day and only bought a water bottle with a fancy filter so i could be like josh, lu and kathleen. after some more shopping in gpo we decided it was time for coffee stop number two which took us to ganache. there we warmed ourselves up with beautiful thick and rich hot chocolates, mocha's and frappe's and some chocolate treats on the side.

after ganache, my time with my friends was almost over :( after a quick pit stop to kathleeter's to collect my gear they walked me to a cab and we said our goodbyes. i promised to visit again soon and plan on keeping it. thank you guys for a great saturday, i wish it didn't go by so fast. and thank you for reading my blog too! it gives me inspiration to post new things as often as possible.

p.s. sunday was spent with my wonderful melbourne aunties and cousins. they look after me so well when ever i see them. the rest of the weekend consisted of nails, cake, coffee, wii, reality tv marathon, homemade pizza, dessert, sleep in, chadstone shop, oriental tea house lunch, rom com movie and airport drop off. i am so lucky to have them in my life and i can't wait to see them again soon too. i feel very blessed to have melbourne to go back to, it's given me so much. now i have the best of both worlds.

reading

i am consumed by my book at the moment which i also want to tell anyone and everyone about!

sorry!

i know i haven't posted in a few days, i'm sorry! work is very busy and i don't have the internet at home at the moment. i think i will come in early tomorrow though as i want to tell you all about my lovely trip to melbourne and my impending trip to fiji!

melbourne me melbourne

hello from melbourne! it feels so familiar still, just like one of my many trips from qld back to vic only now i am just a visitor.. i sadly can no longer call melbourne home. i can not wait to see my friends and family and favorite places.

i heart travelling!

have a l♥vely time in thailand k and alex.

packed your sunnies? x

impractical wants

some cute things i want but don't need and probably wouldn't use.

found on urban outfitters. 

white rabbits!

it's a roney family tradition and competition between my dad and two aunts to be the first one to call each other on the first day of every month to say (or yell!) 'white rabbits'.

since leaving home i've tried to compete but i normally forget and get beaten to it. this morning though i got my aunt janine on my way to work. she was shocked as she's normally the master at it.

white rabbits everyone! i hope you have a fabulous february!

deux bébés

oh my, imagine my delight when i read this beautiful post by my favourite blogger jo from 'a cup of jo' this morning. what i would give (one day) to be strolling the streets of paris with twins in my tummy! her mum is très beautiful. it makes me want to dig up old photos of my mum when she was having matt, alyce and i. her post also reminds me why i take so many photos. there are so many moments in life you want to remember perfectly forever.