the stroke of midnight

I just thought I would check in tonight while I had a small moment of calm amidst the frenzy that's been my life lately. Things are good in my corner of the universe. I'm still in the middle of a "I don't know what I want to do with my life" phase, but I've been told by a number of people lately (majority of whom are over the age of 50!) that no one really does know what they wanna do/ be when they "grow up". It's comforting, because I know I'm 20 and I have plenty of time but I've got a feeling of FOMO at the moment because if I had stuck with my original plan, I'd be a UQ graduate with an Arts degree under her belt in November of this year, much like a lot of the people I graduated high school with 3 years ago. Alas, I'm no longer at uni, nor do I really want to be anyway. I guess you could say I'm in limbo - I'm not exactly sitting on my ass doing nothing, but I'm not headed anywhere in particular either. I don't mind it mostly because my days are extremely lovely; I wake up around 7 each morning, head out for a stroll before breakfast, go to work, buy flowers and read books and don't have to stress about deadlines and readings on mundane topics that I care very little about. Yet, there's a feeling that something is missing, and I'm not quite sure how to fill that void. 

Despite all of this, (and at the risk of sounding like a broken record) I feel like I've at least made up for not learning a lot in the academic spectrum by learning a lot of "life stuff" in the last 6 months. I know it sounds cliche, but I learn something new about the world and myself every day - often multiple things that change my perspective for the next day, and the next day after that. As much as I poked fun at Kylie Jenner's interview regarding what she wanted/ hoped for in 2017 and finding her response extremely vague and brainless - "I don't know, like... I guess 2017...will be the year of just, like, realising things" - it kinda has been that sort of year for me! 

Anyway - enough waffling about me realising things. Here's a few snippets of what I've been up to lately, because no, I didn't just wear that dress pictured above on a regular day out (although we wouldn't put it past 2013 Maria). 

 - Annually my parish hosts a fundraising ball/ dinner and (understandably) the tickets are quite steep in price so since my car registration was due in the same week as the event, I dismissed the thought of going and carried on. At the last minute, my room mate offered me a free ticket from the newspaper she works for and (obviously) I wholeheartedly accepted. I trailed all the results of Gumtree until I found this beauty of a dress for a measly $60 and despite only needing a few minor alterations, it was the perfect fit and find! I felt like an absolute princess in it and it was a splendid evening of champagne, dancing (haphazardly, mind you... I'm very uncoordinated) and admiring all the beautifully dressed people in the room. 

 - As you know, music is a huge part of my life and lately I've discovered a number of wonderful artists that have contributed to my overall quality of life. Lord Huron being a recent find ('The Night We Met' and 'The Ghost on the Shore' being two stand-outs), as well as Alex Crossan (otherwise known as Mura Masa), releasing his debut album which is an absolute work of art. 

 - Reading: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Now, if you know me well, you'd be very surprised that I'm reading books by a world-famous horror story author, but alas, here I am, sitting at my desk, my elbow resting on an opened cop The Gunslinger, the first book in the epic series by King that so many rave about. I'm dipping my toes into the horror genre because as scary as words can be, I do enjoy being on the edge of my seat, sucked in by a gripping novel. I'll let you know how things go - and you'll know if I start posting at 3am that I can't sleep due to nightmares. Heh.

I hope everything's going well for you, dear reader. I hope you're reading a good book at the moment that's making life interesting, or maybe you've got an exciting new romance blossoming, or you've just discovered an amazing new song that you'll probably play over and over until you start to hate it. I hope you're going well and that you're happy wherever you are.

Winter, 2017

Hi, hello, how are you! 

Welcome to a *slightly* new and improved Avenue Maria! I bought this blog theme off of Etsy a few weeks ago and despite realising that my html coding is still a bit rusty, I am rather pleased with the outcome. I think one of the reasons I haven't really blogged in the last few months was due to the lack of inspiration and not wanting to sound repetitive. Life has been all but repetitive lately though. I know I say this every year (or at least it feels like it), but I've learnt so much in 2017 so far and it's almost compensated completely for the fact that I haven't been at university for the last few months.

I never thought I would be a "turtleneck person", but alas, I am just that, AND I match it to my lip colour... (well, Abbie's lip colour, I stole it)

So, this is what I look like at the moment - yea! My hair is blonde! It's quite a funny story really, I was kinda coming out of a failed romantic endeavour, so naturally, being the spontaneous female I am, knew that the first aspect of life that had to change was hair. So I decided blonde with natural roots were the way to go. It actually went yellow; like a tweety bird yellow... so that was a disaster. Then the next day at work, I had had it "fixed" (but not really), with an ash toner which resulted in it developing into a grey/green colour. It was a little bit hilarious in retrospect, as devastated as I was at the time. But anyway! After weeks of toning it myself at home, it's finally arrived at a decent shade that I feel I can get away with until my next hair appointment. 

Other news; I finally got my passport, which is such a massive deal for me! I've never been out of Australia before and my first trip will be to New Zealand early next year as my best friend is getting married. I'm deliriously excited (albeit stressed, just a tad, about the finances...) about going across the ditch as NZ is such a beautiful country and also happens to be a Lord of the Rings fan's heaven  so you can bet that I will be doing all the typical touristy things (like visiting Hobbiton, and taking a gazillion pictures). 

Ronan and Beatrice's wedding, July 1st, 2017

Speaking of weddings; I've already been to a couple this year! Two of my old room-mates tied the knot in June and early this month and both were beautiful events that I will never forget. It's very surreal seeing such good friends take such a massive step in life with their partners and it gets me pretty excited about what the future will hold for me in that respect too. For now though, as a 20 year old, I am genuinely quite content being single and doing my own thing... I don't feel the need to rush into anything, especially at this point in my life when I'm so young and there's so much to see and do. 

It's raining in Brisbane currently and I'm sitting outside trying desperately to warm up my hands with a peppermint tea (the first of many, it is only 9:30am after all!). I'm debating whether or not I should take my umbrella and go out for a quick stroll before work and I feel like the decider will actually be the fact that if I do, my hair will look like Hagrid's potential child when I get back... hmm. 

I hope you're all doing well and I'll be back soon - hopefully with some proper, non-iPhone, pictures!

1 // pretty flowers from a local florist to bring some life to my bedside table (I really love waking up and seeing fresh flowers first thing... an expensive, but wonderful thing) 2 // Blonde... and blue jeans... 3 // Benefit brow products, Moroccan Oil and Zara perfume have been recent additions to my makeup/ beauty shelves.