Second Chance Sunflowers

Panic! at the Disco are one of the few bands that I still love from my teenage years. A Fever You Can't Sweat Out introduced me to "heavy" music. (I know Panic's not heavy, but for a tiny classically trained Jen, it was super heavy) 

I remember when their second album came out. I was super excited for more of their baroque influenced rock/ whatever blend, but was quite disappointed when instead I was presented with the beetles-esque  orchestrated rock. I tried so very hard to like that album, but ultimately I gave up on it after a few months of it not quenching my thirst for their previous vibe. 

I've not listened to Pretty. Odd. since I was 16. It was in my thoughts after the release of the new Panic! at the disco album (which is a little hit and miss in my opinion) My music tastes have matured quite a bit since I was 16, so I decided to give Pretty. Odd another shot. 

I am so very glad I did. It's such a beautiful album. I particularly love the orchestration (although I wish they'd used real flutes/piccolo's/clarinets/oboes instead of synthesised ones).  My favourite track (which was one of my least favourite back in the day) is From a Mountain in the Middle of The Cabins. The details in the orchestration are superb, and are pretty similar to a lot of the music I've been getting into lately (Artists like Punch Brothers, My Brightest Diamond and Joanna Newsom that sit on the line between contemporary music, art music and folk) . 

Pretty. Odd. isn't the only album I revisited recently, and ended up loving all over again. About 4 months ago I started listening to Life in Cartoon Motion by Mika again. I originally liked this album well enough, but got sick of it. Again, I completely understand why. It wasn't the sound I was in love with at the time (and when you've only got 4 gigs of iPod space to work with, stuff gets culled regularly and mercilessly.) 

Something I've been thinking about putting together is a list of what's on my ipod with descriptions of the artists/links so you can hear what they sound like. I've got a rather eclectic collection of music, ranging from super well know peeps to those with less that 300 likes on facebook. So yeah, let me know if you'd be interested in this! 

Shirt: Revival, Pinafore: Home Made, Skirt: Home made, Socks: don't remember, Shoes: Store in Sydney near Max Brennar Wynyard.  

Deviating from the music I've been listening to - This is the outfit I wore tuesday. Originally when I put it together, I wasn't intending to have the second skirt underneath the pinafore. When I added the socks to the outfit, it looked unbalanced, so I popped the skirt underneath. It made everything super flouncy, as well as adding much needed colour balance. 

Teeny Tiny Sunflowers

I've been playing a lot recently with The Button Collective who have a dress code of brown, blue and neutral. This means I have been wearing a lot of brown, blue and neutral. I have lots of outfits I love in this colour scheme, but after wearing it for nearly a fortnight, I needed some colour.

And colour I have had! I opted for mostly yellow today to combat all of the muted tones I've been sporting lately. This outfit was also good to combat the heat of the day (After a cold couple of weeks, Australia has worked out what temperature Summer is suppose to be)

Summer break is a really weird time for me. I've gone from disgustingly busy and strictly scheduled to mildly busy and loosely scheduled. It's lovely not having to worry about time. This new (and brief) influx of time allowed me to plant a garden with my Dad yesterday (which was one of his Christmas gifts to me)

Aforementioned Garden

He set up 3 big planters in the backyard, bought some fancy dirt, and gave me a bunnings gift card which we used to buy some plants. We planted snow peas, jalapenos, cucumber, berry tomato, eggplant, capsicum, spring onion, spinach and a sunflower (which we ended up putting in the ground because we ran out of pot space) 

I've really enjoyed gardening since moving out (especially growing stuff I can eat!), and it was lovely to spend some quality time with Dad.

In the afternoon I traveled down to Sydney for a gig at the Union Hotel with Button Collective. The other band that played was Echo Deer, who I've seen a number of times at mutual gigs. They're music is a chill mixture of folk blues and country, and as per usual they played an exquisite set.

So yeah, life is chill. Which is a nice change.

Darkened Sweet Hearts

It's come to that time of year where I start to complain about the heat we're currently experiencing in Australia (specifically my little corner of the east coast ) The sun is in full swing at the moment, and joining it is it's close friend humidity! I actually don't mind "disgustingly" hot days, as long as it's a dry heat. When it's a humid heat you can't cool down properly.

This is one of my go to "It's too hot for clothes" outfits. The material of the shirt is a super thin linen, which allows my skin to breathe. I tend to wear a lot of net stockings like these in summer as well. Again, the net allows my skin to breathe.

As cute as this outft is, I can't wait until the heat no longer dictates my clothing choices. I prefer a more covered up look, but that's just too hard when it's too hot for clothes.

I experienced some subtle sexism the other day, and after reading this article earlier this evening (TLDR: A male science teacher told his class that girls aren't as good at physics as boys) it's been weighing on my mind.

I was at a party, and this guy was there. This was the first time I'd met him, and he seemed pretty solid. I've been getting pretty into photography this year and he's a semi professional photographer, so we ended up talking about photography. Sort of.

I talked about photography, but he taught me about photography, explaining very rudimentary concepts which I'd practiced (and mastered) on my previous camera (which was a teeny tiny point and shoot) Despite displaying my enthusiasm and knowledge about photography right off the bat it was assumed that my knowledge and understanding was minimal.

We ended up talking about our processes and showing each other some bits of our portfolio (which for me is this blog). He was quite shocked when I told him I took them myself with a tripod and timer, as he'd assumed that Ro took my blog photos.

There was this air of intellectual and artistic dominance that surrounded our entire exchange. Assumptions were made on his end that I was not an artistic equal which, after the assumption that my partner takes my blog photo's, I'm entirely sure were rooted in sexist tendencies. I am entirely sure that he wasn't consciously being sexist, but that's what bothers me most - this ingrained sexism (which I've had the pleasure of observing throughout my professional life).

I know it's just a little thing, but it's the little things that add up over time and snowball into bigger things.