I can't let go of the past.

Every exit is an entry somewhere.

Well look who it is! Fancy Emily Jane turning up at this hour, after months of Not Having Said Anything At All (well, on Happy Cup Day anyway...in reality I've been talking the hind legs off of several unsuspecting donkeys).

Tis true, tis me. But in all honestly, I'm only here to say that I'm not really here, I'm actually going to be here. My new outlet of nonsense is Love From Life, with much less "Lolita", and questionable fashion advice than HCD, and much more venturing into the many life lessons that one learns by repeatedly making stupid mistakes.

Huzzah!

Thanks for the memories my spoons.

Man Points: The First Issue

Man points are not awarded by an individual. Rather, they are simply woven into the fabric of the universe

Already, so early in my Man Points acquisition, I am a failure. Turns out I should have done some research before I threw myself into this noble quest. Once I'd published my last post, I belatedly asked Google about Man Points, and thus far Google has informed me that I have already lost points for the following things:

• Not having a hairy chest
• Owning a cat
• Lacking in the trouser department
• Not being able to get the lid off something
• Keeping track of Man Points

Funnily enough, the last offence was the one that cropped up most frequently.

Damn.

I'll change my tack, and instead of counting my Man Points, I'll just acknowledge that some more have been accumulated and therefore I am slightly more masculine. That'll do.

Luckily I also managed to redeem myself for not having made my own sandwich this morning, which apparently earns me some Man Points.

Thanks Mummy Emily Jane!

Man Points

Beware of the man who denounces women writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell

It's been a week. I've spent the last week umming and ahhing over what to write. I've spent the last week not having a clue what I can write about. I've spent a week not writing. So here I am, a week later, and the best I could come up with is writing about how I have nothing to write about. Someone, please, sound the originality gong.

Now that I've decided to veer away from writing about fashion (as if I was the Fountain of All Knowledge), I've also managed to veer away from having anything to write about at all. In all fairness, it hasn't been a particularly exciting week. College returned to my schedule, I returned to work and my car returned to functionality. Poor excuses, I know.

When I mentioned restarting HCD at some point on facebook, a friend of mine from college suggested (jokingly, I believe) that I include some Man Point suggestion opportunities. Man Points, for those of you who are unaware, are Points one obtains from doing Man things. These things do not include fixing a fuse or bleeding a radiator. I will refer to the ever knowledgeable Urban Dictionary for a true definition.

1.	man points	114 up, 9 down
	Points that one receives upon the completion of a distinctly manly task. More often than not, intelligent points and man points are inversely proportional. Points received for doing stereotypical macho actions like starting a fight with a professional boxer, taunting someone to throw a dart at your face, lighting a fart on fire, or holding a scorching object in your hand for an extended period of time -Dude, I totally just walked barefoot over jagged rocks. -Wow, you really earned some major man points.

I took this suggestion seriously, and it is my personal quest to earn more of these Man Points. So far I'm on 20,000 points, all of which I earned for accidentally vomiting in plenty of holy water during a trip to India. I'm going to be taking suggestions for activities that could potentially earn me some Man Points. Suggestions can be made in person, or can be emailed to happycupday@gmail.com, at which point they will be considered by a panel of independent adjudicators in the naughty corner of my history class. Once suggestions have been deemed worthy and given a point scoring, I will then endeavour to collect these Man Points, and document my efforts on Happy Cup Day.

Let the Man Points acquisition begin!

Emily Jane swallows her pride and on with it gets

The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly important thing to people

During the months that I spent in Quebec, I truly found out who I am. When you start afresh some place new, you can wipe the slate clean and be exactly who you want to be. I made myself into an eccentric, bubbly poser. And I loved it. When I got home, I took some of it with me, and left other bits behind. Responsibility calls. Employment, education, politics. The months passed and I left something behind that had shaped who I had become.

So when the yearning to restart Happy Cup Day became stronger, I batted the feeling away.

There's a nagging voice in my head that squeals 'Reviving it now will only highlight to everyone that you ever stopped it in the first place!'

It's true. I've let HCD slip through my fingers before, and this isn't the first time that I've promised to get back on the wagon.

However, on a whim (which is how I make most decisions), I have decided that 2011 is a year to face the music. A year to stop procrastinating, swallow my pride, and hurry up and do the things that I want to do. I have already finalised my university choices. Next stop, Happy Cup Day.

This resolution (along with a promise to speak French more) doesn't change the fact that I'm a busy lady these days. I'm on an intensive college course, and I work at my local shopping centre. I also get involved with local politics every now and then, and soon I'll be starting rehearsals for a play. Throw in a family, a 3-in-1 best friend, a boyfriend, and some form of occasional social life, it doesn't really sound like I've got the time to be writing here like I used to.

Happy Cup Day was originally a time filler; now the dynamic has changed. So what will HCD be now? I've got no clue. All I know is that I've missed ranting wildly to my audience of spoons. At the moment, that's all that matters.

Start of HCD 2010 Start of HCD 2011

2011...official year of On With It Get

For Our Information

Always gotta keep busy or the voices start telling me to do wild things

It's been almost two months since I've written a post here. My past few days have been spent considering how on earth I can get Happy Cup Day running again after all this time. The weeks before that, however, were spent running around like a headless chicken.

Here are the major events that have sculpted the last eight weeks:

PROM

END OF STAY IN BAIE COMEAU

END OF YEAR IN QUEBEC

START OF LIFE

"SURPRISE" PARTY

HOLIDAY TO DEVON

So this morning I scribbled down a post to let you know I'm still here. I've been getting such positive HCD feedback recently, and it only seemed right that I should let you know that I've not gone anywhere.

On top of that, HCD is going to be overhauled (a bit). Since I started Happy Cup Day, my lifestyle dynamic has changed. So over the next month or so, the dynamic here at HCD will be changing too, and what I'd like most is feedback!

Therefore, if there's anything you liked about HCD, or didn't like, or would like to see in the future, please let me know. You can reach me at happycupday@gmail.com and constructive (and even non-constructive) criticism is occasionally always gratefully received.

Finally I'd just like to say a massive THANK YOU to all the anonymous Spoons (you know who you are) who, for some reason or other, couldn't work the google account and sign up publicly for Happy Cup Day. I'm so thrilled that you've been following anyway, and I apologise for seemingly neglecting you in the past.

There you have it....Emily Jane is back.

Babelcute: Paintbox

The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

You never realised primary school art class would come in handy? Search deep into the caverns of your memory and try to bring back your Colour Wheel knowledge. Because what better way is there to compliment the impending Summer than with a palette of bright colours?! (Also works to brighten up a cloudy sky...)

This look is firstly about simple, block colours - think primary, secondary and tertiary at a push. Secondly, look to chose colours from across the wheel. We know neighbours typically look good together, now go for a bit of contrast. Be warned - red and green will always be Christmas, so consider fuscia pinks instead. Thirdly, don't over do it. Two colours are sufficient (three maaaaax).

How I do it: Nothing like a bit of sun, sea and sand.

Dress: 725 Walmart

Belt: Matalan

Headband: gift!

Bright idea: Tie in your make-up with your outfit. Go for eyes or lips, and match away. Make sure the colour is identical - turquoise eyes and royal blue dresses don't cut the mustard. This is strictly for the brave at heart.

A better way of doing it:

A look that works just as well from the runway as in real life...and about time too!

Wedding season anyone? We weren't even thinking about breaking the only-the-bride-wears-white rule.

I love LOVE the rule obliterating red and pink combo shoes. If you're going to go for it, make sure it's obvious you know that your pinks and reds aren't the same colour, rather than looking like you've made some sort of classic error...

Black and feature colour? That's where I start sulking because you've missed the point. Remember the paintboxes with little squares of bright colours? Remember what happened when you mixed black with another colour? It went all murky and mucky. Black doesn't belong here. If you're seriously craving, make black your accessory colour and go for a super bright as your base (beware of Halloween pairings...).

The proof: I originally wrote this article by hand in the local cafe whilst wearing the blue and yellow outift featured above. A lady came in and sat at the table next to me.

¨You look like something out of a film.¨

¨Excuse me?¨

¨Taking tea, writing, all beautiful.¨

¨Haha, thank you.¨

¨Yes. I love what you are wearing. Very bright. Yes, beautiful, beautiful. You know who has the best style? How old are you?¨

¨I'm eighteen.¨

¨Exactly. The young women of today, that's who has the best style. If I was young, you're how I would look, how I would dress.¨

Of course, if you want to go all out, there's only one way to do it...

Bright colours = happy mood.

Don't argue with maths.

Or art.

Or me.

Babelcute: Kimono

Akinasu wa yome ni kuwasuna

I am what is known as a Changed Lady. Since January I've been going through a development

that started with Lolita, briefly near Hime Gyaru, through Dolly Kei, onto Mori, and then spread out into God Knows What. I love so many different fashions from Japan, but I'm also branching into more high fashion, and I'm becoming interested in Paris fashions right now...(but that's not the point).

For those who are not particularly interested in fashion any further East than New York, any mention of 'Japanese fashion' often conjures up a mental image of a Geisha, which is not quite what we're about.

But maybe we should be taking the hint...

Kimonos graced the pages of the W*C summer catalogue (thanks to Moments Like Diamonds for the information, check out the post here), and have similarly been on the radar of high fashion...

Alexander McQueen: Royal Kimono from the fall 2010 collection

Again from McQueen, a new approach on the traditional Geisha shoe (ok, so it's not a Kimono, but they're freaking awesome)

Wafrica: Japan + Africa = Ultimate multiculturalism (yay!)

Curly Collection: Pop art colours make for an adorable Kimono look

How to get your fix...

subtly: The Furies - Black Cropped Kimono Shirt

unashamedly: Bodyline - Yukata L053

Want to know what the quote for this post means?

Don't let your daughter-in-law eat your autumn eggplants....