Someone somewhere thinks I'm better at something that someone else!*

A few weeks ago the lovely Joy from All Made Up gave me a Beautiful Blogger Award, which I was really chuffed about. Even though my little blog is really for my own entertainment, it's nice to know that there are other people out there who enjoy reading what I write. If you've not read Joy's blog, you should - she does a lot of informative reviews and is very knowledgable.

So the point of this is to thank the person who gave you the award, link back to their blog, tell people 7 secrets/facts about yourself and then pass the award onto 10 other bloggers. That's the hardest part, and the main reason it's taken me so long to do this - I love all the blogs I read, if I didn't I wouldn't read them. I have finally managed to come up with 10 that I think everyone should check out.


Beautifully Glossy: For really informative, useful reviews of a great range of beauty products. This is one of the first beauty blogs I ever started reading, and still one of my favourites.

Cclarebear.com: For gorgeous pictures, entertaining stories and a great series of lipstick swatch posts.

Dempeaux: Sarah does fantasticly indepth reviews and seems to know about a lot of products I've never heard of before. On the one hand, I love learning about new things. On the other hand, she makes me want everything she talks about. *shakes fist*

Eyeconic Makeup: Heather is really sweet and does a lot of interesting reviews and FOTDs, along with great swatches.

Girl With The Curious Nose: Stefanie is my perfume buddy, and writes a beautiful blog specifically addressing all things fragrant. If you have any interest in perfumes at all, this one's a must-read.

Jade Musing: Jade is one of those people I really hope I meet IRL one day - I think we'd get along well. She's smart and funny, and a dab hand at writing reviews and creating interesting eye looks.

love vulcanella: For her willingness to get right in there and try things out. I love her reviews - they're always informative, and she's not afraid to post pictures of herself with a face mask on!

Makeup and Macaroons: Lilit is so nice, and her blog has a bit of everything - EOTD/FOTD, tutorials, reviews and swatches, a bit of hauling, and a super handy post about how to press loose eyeshadows.

Shop My Stash: For tons of great swatches - especially eyeshadows, and a friendly, conversational tone that I always find really appealing in blogs.

Tegania's Thoughts: Tegan reviews a lot of skincare and face products like tinted moisturiser, hand creams, primers and so on. We've reviewed a couple of the same products of late, and hopefully we can do more in the future as it's interesting to get different people's perspectives on things (I think, anyway).

So those are the 10 bloggers I think you should definitely check out, if you haven't already. And now to the second part of this, which was really hard, because I already spilled all of my weird quirks a while back, so it took me a long time to think of 7 things I hadn't already told you.

1. I work in welfare and have done for many years. This has made me very intolerant of people's First World Problems - dealing with people in distressing circumstances on a day to day basis gives you a massive sense of perspective.

2. I am not a people person - I'm actually quite solitary - and having worked in an area where I have to interact with lots of people all day every day has made me something of a hermit in my personal life. I don't socialise much, I hardly ever answer the phone, I rarely invite people to my house, and woe betide the one who turns up unexpectedly. Even with people I really like, I tend to keep them at arm's length and not get very involved in their lives. This makes some people think I'm cold and stand-offish.

3. I never, ever walk around barefoot, not even in the house - I hate it. And I don't like seeing other people do it, particularly in the street.

4. Many years ago a friend and I went shopping in the CBD of Melbourne for the day. For lunch we sat upstairs in an Italian restaurant in one of the arcades and looked out the window at the shop opposite, which was a magic store. There was a boy about 12 or 13 years old there and the man behind the counter was showing him how to juggle. The boy kept dropping the balls and the man kept picking them up and showing him again. It went on for a really long time, with the man just patiently showing the boy over and over again what to do, and you could see the boy getting a little tiny bit better each time - holding them in the air for longer and longer before they fell. I don't know why that little episode touched me so much, but it did, and years later I still think of it and smile. It was just a perfect moment.

5. When I was younger (and thinner, lol) people would often tell me I looked like Christina Ricci, although she wasn't really a household name among the Joe Blows of the world so it would be more like, "You look like that girl in The Addams Family", or "You look like that girl in Sleepy Hollow". I don't look anything like her anymore though, which I'm a bit sad about, because she's not a bad one to resemble, if one must resemble a celebrity. I've also been told more than once I look like Missi Pyle, and that girl Jess Someone who was hit by a car in The Secret Life Of Us.

6. And speaking of lookalikes, apparently I bear a strong resemblance to someone in the city I grew up in whose name is Debbie. I would often have random people say, "Hi Debbie" to me, and once I got into an argument with a guy on a train who insisted my name was Debbie, even though I told him it wasn't, and I was pretty sure I knew my own name.

7. Small, continuous noises annoy me beyond reason; the clinking of a teaspoon in a cup, the crinkle of a chip packet, the clicking of a pen, the constant tappa tappa tappa of fake nails on a computer keyboard - all of these sounds can make me snap the head off the unfortunate offender.

*A virtual Tim Tam of your choosing if you get that reference.