Rosie Hardy

Rosie Hardy is a wedding and event photographer that I have just fallen in love with. Her magnificent works ooze beauty and hints of fantasy that will leave you gasping and staring at the tiny details. If you are someone that loves unique experimental photography like me, you too will hopefully be as enchanted. 

I adore this one.

Have a look at her lovely website here, and for some more information and inspiration read her blog.

The Book List

Books that I pledge to read before I die:

- Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers

- Mark of the Lion Series, Francine Rivers

- The Atonement Child, Francine Rivers

- Captivating, John Eldredge

- The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

- A Thousand Splendid Suns,  Khaled Hosseini

- Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

- Mere Christianity, C.S Lewis

- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S Lewis

- The Screwtape Letters, C.S Lewis

- The Great Divorce, C.S Lewis

- The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

- Looking For Alaska, John Green

- Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

- The Messenger, Markus Zusak

- The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

- Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

- Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
- The Help, Kathryn Stockett

- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

- Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Truman Capote

- A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

- Persuasion, Jane Austen

- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

- Emma, Jane Austen

- Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

- Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

- Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

- Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

- Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

- The Harry Potter Series, JK Rowling

- The Lord of the Rings series, J. R. R. Tolkien

- The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien

- The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides

Words

"The words were on their way, and when they arrived, she would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like the rain."

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Perspective

I stumbled upon this on Facebook today and found it to be so inspiring and true. For me personally, choosing what I want to do with my life has been a long time struggle that has lead me to taking a gap year before I head off to university. I think this decision will be one that I am happy about making for the rest of my life because I know I'm not ready yet to limit myself down to one specific thing, in fact I'm terrified of it. So taking twelve months to be intentional about learning more and discovering what's what in this world will, I think be the most beneficial thing I'll ever do. But this short video clip is so exceptionally true and reminds me of what direction and outlook I need to keep when looking at the future. (TAKE NOTE!)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151397745507577

Celebrations

Here are some snapshots of my New Year's Eve festivities with the best people I know.

Live In The Present Moment

I lose myself in things of this world without even realising it.  I don’t know why it happens. I suppose it’s so easy to let life overtake us, get caught up in so much “stuff” that we forget what’s most important. I don’t know about everyone else but I desperately want to break out of this cycle of insignificant day to day living. I want my life to be set apart. I want to leave this world knowing I’ll be remembered for something good. No, great.  It’s so easy to lose sight of the big picture but it’s also just as easy to snap out of that way of being and look toward change. The difficulty I find, is staying in this state of mind and keeping to the original plan rather than falling back into old habits and short cuts. As we all know 2013 has rapidly approached us and what comes with a new year is normally a list of resolutions that we rarely ever actually achieve. I wrote mine a few nights before the 31^st but tonight I decided to add just one last one, to live in the present moment. So I hereby promise to allocate more time to the people around me and less time to technology. I promise to spend more days doing new things, challenging myself and seeking to stretch my abilities.

“Our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it.” 

- Brooke Fraser