This Is Ess

April 21, 2012

It was one of those days...

Top - mum's wardrobe; belt - Mr. Price, Jeans - Jayjays, Sandals - Maasai Market.

...when the grass looked greener on my side of the lawn.

April 20, 2012

The time had come for me to attempt tribal nails once again. This time I was determined to be more prepared so I even drew out the patterns I wanted to use beforehand. If any of you ladies want to try out tribal nails, I must say that drawing out the patterns really helped! Once I started actually painting my nails however, I changed a few things but it was definitely a lot better having the sketch in front of me. And I also made sure that I had the nail polish with the thinner brushes to help with the strokes which were a lot easier to use than the normal brushes. Durrr.

I used gold nail polish as a base. Brand is Luron but I can't remember their numbers.

My bad.

Taadaaa!! I was so excited about it because this time round it came out a lot neater. You can see my previous attempt on here.

Pic from my phone.

These are the new nail polishes I got with the thinner brushes. I chose the colours based on a similar tribal nail pattern that I saw of the internet.

Let me know if you try out tribal nails or if you've previously had them and put a link below so I can check it out!

April 19, 2012

Olorgesailie

If you know me then you know that I'm a city girl. [Read: I don't really like the wild or camping.] But I guess I forgot to include that in my cv because we recently had a work retreat that took us to the jungle where lions roam in the wild and snakes slither right past your foot - or so I had convinced myself. Truth is, the only animals I saw were some baboons and a couple of donkeys. Oh and a goat which we later had for dinner. Almost made me turn vegetarian for a second there.

Some of the essentials for this lil' safari included a fedora, sunglasses and a bottle of water. Did I mention that there was no power at this place? The Flashlight quickly rose to the top of my 'must have this with me at all times or else I'll probably die out here' list.

Olorgesailie, the place where we had our retreat, is actually one of the national museums of Kenya. It's an excavation site for the tools that they used to use back in the day, say around a couple million years ago. It was pretty cool actually.

We were told it gets pretty hot down there and I can assure you, that was no lie. But one minute the sun would be blazing like it was on steroids and the next there would be a huge storm! We actually had to stop our the meeting cos we couldn't hear each other against the wind and all.

This photo was taken about 45mins after the one above it was taken. This weather would drive me crazy if I had to live here - can you imagine trying to pick an outfit for such a day?

While we were there we'd actually work through the day and since the retreat lasted from Friday to Sunday we got this Thursday and Friday off. Woop!

One of the afternoons, we went for a little hike called the Baboon Trail. It was about a 1hr walk that led us to one side of the river bank and on the other was where the baboons were. They'd occasionally make this loud, weird, grunt-like noise which would lead my boss to shout "Shit. Hyenas!" just because he knew I'd sprint in the opposite direction. The things people do to others just for laughs I tell ya. Ha. We waited till the sunset before walking back to camp.

Check out this cute little tortoise! I think it was really scared because soon after we all crept around it with our 'ooh, can I hold it?', it started peeing all over the place. Poor little thing. We later took it near the river bank as our guide told us that it was probably just trying to find its way there.

Bonfire, anyone?

This was actually a pretty good trip. Made me realise that it's about time I left my comfort zone a little and let my jungle girl roam loose. Can't wait to see where we head off to next!

Jediel

Mum, Jediel, Dad

Grandads.

Aren't they special?

Well the man in the picture isn't directly my grandfather but he counts anyway. He's my late grandmother's younger brother, Jediel.We went to visit him last week and he had loads of stories to share. Some about the businesses he used to run and the role he played in the government. Others about the time he helped put up the our national flag in his village on December 12, 1963 - the day Kenya gained its independence. He talked of how important it was to him that his children were educated and how proud he was of his daughter and her accomplishments. It was amazing listening to him recall events as if they had happened yesterday. He'd remember dates perfectly from more than 50 years ago! You could tell he was really proud of how far he's come too. Just as proud as mum, dad and I were of him. Jediel is cool.

How often do you catch up with your grandparents? Do they like to talk about their past much?

April 16, 2012

A walk down my street

If you've been reading my blog or following me on twitter (@ThisisEss) for a while then you probably know that I'm super, duper, luper, zuper, super keen to get my camera. A Canon EOS Rebel T2i. Cannot wait to have that baby in my hands! I've been trying to take more and more pictures in the hope that I'll learn a few tricks and last Sunday I decided to walk down my street and take a few snaps. Afterwards I played around with the pictures on my computer to get the effects that you see below. I used the family camera, an Olympus but I'm not too sure what model it is.. Hope you like the pictures!!

Ditto

Ellen DeGeneres is one of my favourite people in the world.
Found these images on her show's Facebook page and had to share. Because sharing is caring.