Guest post: Lindsay Nicole

* A guest post, a guest post! Hurrah! I'm delighted that Lindsay from the beautiful blog Lindsay Nicole has written up this post to share with you. It's full of holiday magic, which I hope you're all enjoying at this time of year. And when you're finished reading, head on over to Lindsay's blog and say hi, or happy holidays :)*

Hey There! First, a special thanks to Miss Gaby for having me today. This is my first guest post EVER so I hope you enjoy. My name is Lindsay and you can find me over here at Lindsay Nicole. I would just LOVE the chance to meet you!



Today I'll keep it short and sweet for you. This is my first Holiday season in my very own place. So yes, it's my very first tree, decorations, and all that awesome stuff. And again yes, I will be one of those people who has all my decorations up until right before Valentine's because I just enjoy it that much. Please begin the judging.
Christmas is my FAVORITE time of the year. It also is a great time to be reminded of how lucky we are and to be grateful for everything we have. Whatever our beliefs are, this is seriously a magical time of year. Yes, I just used the word magical - that just happened. So soak it up for all of it's awesomeness. I hope you all have an incredible Holiday season, an awesome New Year's, and great times ahead in 2012.




O and please feel free to come visit me anytime! 2012 will be filled with MANY giveaways, Home to Music Monday, and guest features that could be YOU. Happy Holidays!

Three youtube videos that make me happy

1. Why Men and Women Can't be friends. This is priceless! I found it on A Dreamer's Daze and have since shown it to everyone I know. The girl who goes, "That was one instance" gets me every time!

2. Yoga Girl. This one's been making the rounds on my yoga friend's facebook feeds and I can see why. It makes us all look like the big clichés that we are :)

3. New York City Vinyasa. This one isn't funny but it is stunning! Whether you're into yoga or not, give it a watch. I watched this with my two year old friend Ziggy and then we got on our yoga mat and did "oga, oga."

I'm off, again!

Today has been insane. I somehow just managed to pack (read - throw everything into a bag), clean my house, send off a few invoices and empty the fridge in an hour. It's a new record, for me anyway.

I'll be away for two weeks, and probably won't be blogging much. If I ever do have internet access, I'll definitely pop in to say hi. But you can also find me on twitter and on instagram; my username is thislittleport on both.

And if you don't hear from me before Christmas, I hope you all have a merry Christmas and a happy new year! I'm so grateful for this blogosphere of ours, and all the sweet people I've gotten to know. Here's to another year!

I'm a Christmas baby

Yes, I am. I was born shortly after midnight on December the 25th, and have endured a lifetime of Jesus jokes and combined gifts. So this year, I thought it only fitting that I give you all some tips for how to treat the Christmas babies in your life...

- Just don't do it :) If at all possible, don't have a baby on Christmas day! I actually gave this sound piece of advice to my group of sweet prenatal yoga students on Sunday. I think I made my point.

- ALWAYS say Happy birthday BEFORE you say Merry Christmas. Just do it.

- Try to avoid the combo gift, unless it's the best combo gift ever in the history of the universe. This is particularly important should you find yourself married to a Christmas baby. Trust me on this one.

- Don't wrap birthday presents in Christmas paper. Better yet, wrap gifts in old newspaper; it's eco and birthday/Christmas neutral :)

- Try to make a birthday cake for your Christmas amigo, even if it comes out at Christmas lunch/dinner. I've had quite a few people do this for me over the years and I always appreciate it so, so much. It makes me feel special.

- If you really love them, try to take your friend/partner out for dinner or a drink before Christmas. Most of us stop trying to celebrate our birthdays as soon as we're not kids anymore and we realize that people are busy and distracted at Christmas. I would be delighted to do something just for my birthday!

And so that I don't sound like a complete grinch, there are some nice things about sharing my birthday with Jesus... For example, I can make jokes about sharing my birthday with Jesus. People don't usually forget my birthday and I've never had to work or go to school on my birthday.

p.s. Do any of you have birthdays on Christmas or any other holiday? Have I missed anything on my list?

Calling all my kiwi readers!

Source: mymodernmet.com via Gabriela on Pinterest

Hi there kiwi friends! As I've mentioned a few times lately, I'm making my way over to New Zealand next week to spend my birthday/Christmas. I'm so excited I am actually counting down the days. New Zealand has been on my travel tick list for years!

Husband and I will be driving around the south island for a week and a bit and I wanted to ask you all if you have any special tips/must see places/awesome local shops to check out/things I should do while there... And if a few of you are keen, perhaps we could even meet for a coffee in Christchurch... I hear you have great coffee :)

xo

Gaby

Black Milk

Just popping in to say hi! Husband's away so I'm in a bit of a bloggy pickle because I have no one to take my photos. I have a few projects I've been dying to share, but they'll have to wait until my photographer returns...

In the meantime, I thought I'd share this amazing online shop my friend Anna just told me about, Black Milk Clothing. I'm kind of obsessed. Especially since I'm a yoga teacher and I live in stretchy spandex/nylon. I may or may not have ordered myself a pair of leggings, and the receipt I got said "Give me nylon or give me death". Love.

Chocolate cake for breakfast

Chocolate cake for breakfast?

Don't mind if I do...

p.s. This is the Pioneer Woman's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. And it is, it really is.

My birthday/christmas wishlist

I had a bit of fun yesterday putting together a little birthday/christmas wishlist. Here are my top 6 most wanted...

1. Brown Saltwaters. 2. Ray-Ban Wayfarers. 3. Moop Letter Bag. 4. Ticket to Laneway Festival 2011 (line up is AMAZING!). 5. Eating Animals. 6. Florence and the Machine, Ceremonials.

My life in iphone photos: round 9

Decorations at a new Mexican restaurant, yay!

Celebrating 11/11/11. Waiting at the airport. P.s. I LOVE everything about this magazine cover. Seriously.

Sleeping baby. Flying.

Sleeping under a mosquito net. Pancakes.

Bali blooms.

One of the many hilariously translated signs in Indonesia. Finders Keepers market!

More from Finders Keepers. Christmas exploded all over this house :)

Caffeine hits and gingerbread.

Re-reading an old favourite in the park. Bowling party!

On a date with the husband. Margarita time.

Last four photos are of vegan mexican night at my friends' place. Margaritas + vegan nachos + awesome friends = a PERFECT night

♥♥♥

Getting my Christmas on

As a Canadian, I find it near impossible to get in the Christmas spirit here in Australia. My family's not around, it's the middle of summer and all of the traditions that I've grown up with just aren't here. And it doesn't help that this year we won't even be home for Christmas (we'll be in New Zealand) so we won't be getting a Christmas tree or decorating at all...

But ever since I've been back from Bali, the weather here has been oh so crappy and I decided yesterday to take advantage of it and try to get my Christmas on. I spent the afternoon making gingerbread and listening to my favourite Christmas music of all time, Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas. And I dare say, I did feel a bit more festive.

How have you been getting your Christmas on this year?

My creative space: A Japanese inspired laptop case

After I made myself a laptop case from the pattern in One Yard Wonders, I had a few friends request one of their very own. Here's one I made for a friend/fellow yoga teacher, whose laptop is so mini she couldn't buy a case that fit.

It's made from a vintage kimono that I cut up, and the flap piece is a tiny piece of beautiful Japanese silk that my friend picked up for me. I really love how the fabrics are mismatching, but still work together. And there's no better feeling than making something new out of something old, wouldn't you agree?

For more creative spaces, go here.

That time I ended up at an Indonesian hospital

The funny thing about our Bali trip was that it was kind of a disaster for most of us. From booking tickets to the wrong country to booking a flight with an expired passport (that one was me), we knew from the start that we were doomed. And we were right. Once in Bali, one girl crashed her scooter into a cactus on the first day, three people were stung by jellyfish (one of whom was stung so badly her thigh was covered in welts that blistered), someone else got a bad cold, another girl got Bali belly, someone else got a very painful sunburn and me, well let me paint the scene...

It's just before 9 am on the second day of the yoga retreat and I'm getting ready for breakfast. I'm changing and I've only gotten so far as to put on my bikini bottoms. I take a step and WHAM! I've stubbed my little toe against a suitcase.

But I know right away that it's not just stubbed, it's completely dislocated.

I grab my bikini top and awkwardly clutch it to my chest as I run out of the room screaming, "Katie, I dislocated my toe!!!" Some general running and commotion ensues. Katie's husband comes over and immediately tries to protect my modesty by doing up my bikini top. Only later will I realize that it's upside down and not properly clipped.

Luckily for me, one of the guys doing the retreat is a paramedic so he arrives right away and helps me move into the shade. By now, I'm freaking out because everyone is yelling at me to do different things (things like, "go to the hospital" and "here, I'll just do it" and "I'm going to go get my friend the osteopath, he'll put it back in for you..."). I start to cry, not so much from pain but from panic.

I'm in middle of nowhere Indonesia. The roads are chaotic and not all are paved, the hospital is far and the doctors, well, who knows...

But my guardian angel, a.k.a. Tony the paramedic, gives me drugs. Good ones, strong ones. He thinks the best thing to do is go to the hospital as he doesn't think any of us should pull my toe back into place. So off Katie and I go, in a taxi driven by a lunatic on crazy streets for a good hour long cab ride.

Let me tell you now that enduring an hour long cab ride in Bali with a dislocated toe is not something that you should ever do. Just sayin'.

Once at the hospital/medical clinic the Doctor checks me out and explains in broken English: "I have to be honest, I've only done this twice before and one time I failed. [FAILED?!?!?]. So you can either wait 3 hours for the orthopedic specialist to come and do it or I can do it now." I decide to give him a shot. One x-ray and two very painful shots of local anaesthetic later, I'm crushing Katie's hand as the Doctor gets ready to pull. And then, finally, we hear a pop. It's back.

They tape me up and give me a funny foam cast thing, and send me on my way. The yoga aspect of the retreat is pretty well ruined for me, but I still managed to thoroughly enjoy my time and the awkward yoga I was able to do.

And that's why you should always get travel insurance. Over and out.

I'm Gentri's blog of the week!

Guess what guys?

I'm Gentri's blog of the week this week! Yay! And I won this sweet award as part of the deal. You can check out my guest post here.

I'm so flattered that Gentri thought of me, and I'm delighted to see some new faces popping in. Thanks again Gentri, you're the best!

Bali, part 2

The second part of my trip to Bali was spent at a yoga retreat at Bingin Beach. We stayed at the most beautiful hotel that had the coolest rooms I've ever seen. One room was literally built into a cliff; there were no walls and it was essentially a hobbit cave.

The whole thing was incredible. I wore flowers in my hair, slept under a flowing mosquito net and stretched my body in weird and wonderful ways I never thought possible (hello kurmasana!).

My only complaint... this trip was way too short! I can't wait to go back to Bali someday...

The hotel is owned by French people, so of course the food was divine. Breakfast every morning included these wonderful brioches; they were made fresh every day!

One of the most hilarious things I've ever seen - DISCO BUDDHA!

The food was so good! We spent a lot of time sitting around devouring mie goreng and drinking the local beer, Bintang.

Reading The Help overlooking the ocean.

Jessica trying to expand Ziggy's yoga repertoire :)

We had the sweetest room. A private pool, tv, outdoor living area and kitchen, and to top it all off it was decorated with this strange mermaid porn.

My room.

Our private pool with a buddha overlooking, just cause.

The yoga space is this beautiful circular room sans walls. But who needs walls really?

The gimps.

One of the best yoga teachers around. I'm so thrilled I was able to learn from her all week!

Ready to go out on the town.

Rock bar. Amazing.

Only one more Bali post to go, and it's a good one...