Current Obsession: Give in to Me

I'm the kind of person who once I find a song or album that I love, I'll play it to death. I won't get sick of it  just the people around me get tired of it and eventually so sick of hearing it I have to change it. I can usually go for about a week or so before this happens so I figure I'd start to share these songs that hook me in and make me truly obsessed.

This past week I watched the movie Country Strong. It's the story of "a rising young singer-songwriter (Garrett Hedlund) gets involved with a fallen, emotionally unstable country star (Gwyneth Paltrow). The pair embark on a career resurrection tour helmed by her husband/manager (Tim McGraw) and featuring a beauty queen-turned-singer (Leighton Meester). Between concert, romantic entanglements and old demons threaten to derail them all".

*Synopsis taken from the official website for the movie

It was a simply beautiful and surprising movie and the soundtrack was perfect. While a lot of the buzz from this movie surrounds Gwyneth Paltrow, Garrett Hedlund and Leighton Meester were the real stars of this movie - their ease and grace on screen was something to behold. They scored most of the major moments in the film and were hard to surpass.

After watching the movie my sister looked up the soundtrack and we were surprised to learn that Gwyneth dominated the soundtrack and most of the major songs that Garrett and Leighton sang were for some reason sung by other "real" country music stars (like Faith Hill). To me that seemed like a massive shame so we dug a little deeper and found that they have released two soundtracks - the second had the songs as they were sung in the movie. Ahhh a breath of relief.

Here's the one song that I have had on replay all week - it's a beautiful love song.

It's nice to know that Garrett Hedlund emerged himself into the country music scene to prepare for his role in this film. He auditioned in a karaoke bar then spent four months learning how to play the guitar, took voice lessons and started working with a record producer in Nashville to become a county singer. This helps it feel more real and creates an authenticity in the movie that shines through. This man is a superstar in the making.

I absolutely recommend checking out this movie - and also the "More music from Country Strong" soundtrack. It was shocking, heart wrenching, beautiful and sweet and the music in the soundtrack reflects this.

I sometimes surprise myself in the music and songs that steal my attention - this one certainly took me by surprise, but I'm so glad it did. 

Enjoy the music

 - Brooke

Happy Shopper: Travel Journal boygirlparty

Today I received a lovely parcel in the post. After finding a link to this travel journal on SRSLYLIZ.com I knew as soon as I saw this listing on etsy that I needed to own this travel journey.

Here's some of the features of the Bon Voyage travel journal as described by seller boygirlparty:

* It's full color throughout, whimsically illustrated by me with birds in roller skates, cats and owls being carried away by balloons, and paper airplanes!

* It features a protective phthalate-free vinyl slip cover, complete with pockets at the beginning and end so you can store your travel memorabilia (tickets, notes, etc)

* It has 4 tear-out postcards that you can send while traveling

* It features tons of space to write, journal-style, but also has prompts throughout to record specific travel memories (ie, "my most recent meal: _______")

* It features a directory at the end to keep in touch with travel friends and photo pages to glue snapshots (ie, photo booth photos!)

* It features "You are here" world maps throughout so you can record your locations visually

* It features lists such as "don't forget to pack" and "to do"s

* It measures about 5.5 x 7.5"

IT IS SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL!!!

I'm a traveller and I love to have somewhere nice to write my stories as I'm travelling. I feel less inspired when I don't have somewhere beautiful to write. I've always been on the look out for fun pretty affordable travel journals and have usually come up short. For some reason shops in Australia either don't sell travel journals, or they come unlined, or they're really expensive and ugly. 

This travel journal is different. As soon as I opened it I was in love. It's the perfect size, not super heavy and it's SO ADORABLE! 

I want to go on a big adventure so that I can fill it's pages with my travel stories and little mementos. I want to take instax mini photos on my adventure and stick them into my new journal. I want to get home and be able to flick through filled pages and smile and remember all the fun I have had along the way.

I'm already thinking about who I can gift one of these travel journals to - unfortunately most of my friends don't have plans for big travel adventures at the moment but I'm sure someone out there will be able to find someone who could use one of these journals. 

There are also some fun notebooks, t-shirts and recipe cards as well as other items in her etsy shop - if the quality is anything like this journal, you won't be disappointed.

Can I get a month off to travel now? Plans are for the USA in October but that seems like so far away (here I am complaining after I just posted that I'm going to Thailand at the end of next month - can anyone say lame?).

Happy dreaming

 - Brooke

Travel Inspiration: Koh Samui Thailand

On the 25th of May I'll be jetting off on another work trip, this time to Bangkok and Koh Samui in Thailand. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing yet but it'll be a longer trip than my Bali trip. 

I've never been to Thailand before and I'm pretty excited to finally get to experience an area of the world that I send so many people to. Thailand is a big seller for Australian tourists and I have sent my fair share of people to that fair country. 

I did some Flickr searching and found some amazing photos of Koh Samui - it's made me so much more interested and excited to get to enjoy this beautiful country. 

I especially loved the set of photos I found on "element_photography" photostream. These made me smile and look forward to some sunshine.

I want to see beautiful sunsets, drink delicious fruity cocktails, eat amazing food, lounge around by the pool, snorkel and inspect some beautiful hotels. I'm not 100% sure what I'll be doing or if I'll have time to do much of these things but the prospect of experiencing anything like these beautiful images is simply inspiring. 

As always - click on the images to be taken to the source.

Happy travels

 - Brooke

A new Nephew - Tate William

This morning a new cutie entered our world - Tate William was born around 2am.

I woke up this morning at 5.50am to a phone call from my very excited brother Nathan. This is his wife Nicole's and his third child - and first boy (they have two adorable girls). 

He's such a cutie-pie with teeny tiny wrinkly fingers (and finger nails - OMG). When I had my first cuddle he some how got the hiccups. His whole body shook with each hiccup and he scrunched his face up with each shake. 

I only had my iPhone with me (as I rushed over after work to meet him) and these were the only pictures I have so far. I'm sure that'll change soon enough. I can already see some of the features that Bridie & Evie had when they were first born in Tate - it's that lip/chin area that looks super familiar. 

Nathan showed me pictures of Bridie & Evie visiting their new brother - they were such adorable photos. I can't wait to see them all together.

I'm a super happy Aunty right now.

Smiles and glee

 - Brooke

Quick Update

These beauties are MINE!

Yeah last week I had a bit of an Internet shopping binge. It's lovely to have all the items and parcels are beginning to arrive. Today I received 2 parcels from ASOS.com that included the above shoes as well as some other delightful items. 

My weekend was super lovely catching up with friends and watching crazy movies. I'll give you my mini review on Scre4m tomorrow night (after I watch the new GLEE episode). 

'Scuze me while I watch Pineapple Express on TV (even though I own it on DVD)

Smiles & Grins

 - Brooke

P.S Who else keeps reading about Coachella this past weekend and dreaming and wishing that they were there? Oh it was beyond torture - I couldn't bring myself to watch the live stream.