Accessories and clothes

With all of the bad news about at the moment, this is a totally frivolous post about some of my clothes/accessories finds in Perth, while I’ve been out and about doing various chores for mum.

The first is Back in time, located in The Lakes Shopping Centre, at North Lake Road, South Lake, Western Australia. Don’t be deceived by the discount feel of the shopping centre. It hides this gem of a shop, which stocks beautiful designer clothing, handbags (my favourite Olga berg designer bags), jewellery, gifts etc. There’s such a range of interesting stuff. I could easily have spent more time there, but I had to get mum home to rest.

The other is Ice Accessories. There’s a few branches in Perth, but the one I’ve been to is Shop 45/425, in Perth Forrest Chase. It stocks the latest accessories at very cheap prices (about $5 upwards!). It mostly stocks costume jewellery, but there are some bags, a tiny selection of cheap scents, and various lip glosses etc. I first discovered this store on my last trip to Perth earlier this year.

The final is a clearance outlet named X Dream. It can be found at Shop 4 of the Concourse (Perth central train station, opposite Angus & Robertson bookstore). Lots of the latest fashions at cheap prices. It’s a pity that I don’t like the current gypsy look, else I would have gone nuts in there.

Of course there’s always Harbour Town (why don’t we have anything like this in Canberra?).

Popping through

I’ve just gotten back from Adelaide where I was running some usability sessions. We had some big issues with the testing environments, but overall the sessions went well.

Just popping through to say thank you to all of you for the good wishes for my mum. My sister has been posting photos of mum’s progress in hospital. It makes me sad seeing mum looking so helpless in the hospital bed.

No matter what kind of disagreements I’ve had with my parents in the past, I love them very much. I tend to think that parents are always strong and nothing will go wrong, so it’s a bit disconcerting and scary seeing a parent being scared and helpless.

I’m off to work today (as it’s past midnight), then Thredbo for a wedding where we (Raw Honey) will be singing, then back to Canberra on Saturday where I’ll be flying into Perth to be with mum for two weeks. I can’t wait to see mum!

So far so good

Got the good news tonight – mum is out of the operating theatre, and despite being in pain (which is expected), she is doing well! She will remain in the ICU overnight for monitoring, before being moved into a ward. Can’t wait to see her in a couple of days!

Invites and a dress

For something that is four months away, the wedding date is starting to zoom up upon me. It started feeling more “real” on Saturday, when the very first invite was made up. After working in the web space for some time, switching to the print media was an interesting experience. The same design elements still apply – type of font, font size (unfortunately, there’s no way for the end user to control the font size ;) ), white spacing, line spacing…. I went through about eight drafts but I’m happy with the end result. The invites are simple with a nice metallic red background!

I managed to purchase the materials for my wedding dress yesterday. Who would have thought that the materials would have costed that much? When I was told the final price, you couldn’t have told on my calm (I think!) face that I was having a mild panic attack. I gulped, and then handed over my credit card. So I’m now the proud owner of seven metres of white satin, five and a half metres of white chiffon, and seven metres of lining, which will shortly be made up into a dress. A consoling thought is that I’m not spending thousands of dollars on a dress.

Mum is going in for her operation today at 6.30am Perth time. Wish I can be there when she comes out of the operating theatre, but at least I’ll be seeing her in six days when I fly back to Perth.