I Like Cats

A mother's thought processes

2011-12-16T13:35:00.002+13:00

Scene: interior of a bright, sunny, cluttered house. The radio and TV are both going and there are toys everywhere. Enter MOTHER and BABY.

Mother: Time for snoozies! Snoozy time! Yes it's snoozy time for my special little guy!
Baby: .....is it? I was sure I just HAD a nap last week....
Mother: Oh yes it is! It's snoozy woozy time! Beddie-byes for the little guy!
Baby:...well if you say so.....

Baby is put to bed.

Mother: now to....
Baby: IS NOT BED TIME
Mother: hush hush hush snoozy snoozy snoozy
Baby: DEFINITELY IS NOT BED TIME
Mother: zzzzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzzzz pat pat pat
Baby....okay maybe I am a little bit tired... *shuts eyes*

Mother does a little Snoopy dance and wonders how many chores she can get done in the usual 40 minute nap stretch.

Mother: Shower. Dress. Dishes. Prepare bottles. Prepare dinner. Washing in. Washing out. Tidy bedroom.
Baby: OKAY NAP TIME FINISHED.
Mother: shhhh shhhhhh pat pat pat more snoozies please
Baby: mmm okay I will give you a break today *shuts eyes*

Mother does another Snoopy dance and sits down with coffee and magazine.

Mother: There's a world out there apparently. What are all these cafes and restaurants being reviewed that I have never heard of? Who would wear THAT? That is a cool nail polish colour. I bet Baby would love that on me.

Mother: Holy shit. I've read this whole magazine. No noise from nursery. OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Baby: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Mother: Oh thank fuck.

Mother: Maybe I should wake him. He won't sleep tonight. No I won't wake him. I'll get some more chores done. Or maybe I should rest. Catch up on Downton. No, chores. Right making baby food....weeding garden.....wrapping Christmas presents. Still no noise.
Baby: ZZZZZZZZZZZ
Mother: This is weird. Maybe he isn't well?
Baby: ZZZZZZZZZZ
Mother: I am undecided.
Baby: ZZZZZZZZZZZ
Mother: Well they all say not to wake a sleeping baby. I'll take it as a bonus and treat myself to a second magazine. Gosh what a lucky Mum I am.....
Baby: NAP TIME OVER!!!!! LIKE REALLY OVER!!!!!!! I WANT OUT!!!

Stupid things I have done #1: Join the Brownies

2011-11-29T09:11:00.001+13:00

Back in 1987 when I was 8 and impressionable, the sight of the older girls in their cute brown pinafores with a jaunty yellow t-shirt underneath meant I began the process of whinging to Mum that I wanted to join the Brownies.
I really wanted that uniform. I don't think I had much idea what Brownies did - I certainly wasn't the type of girl to help a little old lady across the road or learn how to tie a clove hitch in a piece of rope on a quiet afternoon - but I really wanted to stand out.
Much whinging later (Mum was demurring because she remembered her own whinging to her Mother - that she wanted to quit Brownies) enrolled I was.
That year the Guides Association upgraded all their uniforms, and instead of my cute little pinafore I had a hideous green and white spotted shirt that was too tight around the collar, a pale brown tunic and a sash, that I immediately spilt yoghurt on and never cleaned off.
It was the beginning of a lot of disappointments when it came to Brownies.
First of all there was the initiation. Everyone made a big fuss and you were the centre of attention. You pledged undying loyalty to your Brown Owl and then walked around the toadstool a few times and looked into the 'fairy pool' to see the special fairy who lived in there. Gibbering with excitement I leaned over, only to see a mirror and my own disappointed face staring back at me. The first nail in my coffin went in when I grizzled to Ms. Owl that it was just ME and how BORING. I was forever an outcast.
I got maybe 3 badges - unlike the rest of the girls who had badges sewn into the soles of their shoes. I was teased for having the 'new' uniform. I was never singled out for having the shiniest badge, even after my Sixer showed me how to polish it to a high shine on the soles of our rubber shoes. She must have taken a liking to me because she chose me as her Seconder, which meant I had an extra badge!! on my sash - sewn on wonkily and immediately stained.
The beginning of the end came with Brownie camp. The fear of God was put into me when a Brown Owl stated that if anyone lost any item of clothing or personal belongings they would have to sing a song in front of the entire camp. Of course on the first night I lost my watch. Sleepless nights ensued. A hunt around the camp had the watch turn up on a side table with a Brown Owl's belongings. Did she know it was mine? A furtive snatch and grab and a guilty conscience later, I never had to sing in front of everyone.
I did however have to dress up as a lion tamer and whip a girls' butt. Yes the big event of the camp was a Circus. We were given our roles before we left for camp and for some reason Mum decided I should wear a friend's school uniform as an outfit. This friend was also a boy. So wearing grey shorts and a grey shirt - an outfit that screams Lion Tamer if ever I saw one - I met the girl who was going to be my lion. She was all gung-ho and practising her roaring. We practised our routine for about 5 seconds and as we entered the ring I realised I had no idea what to do. My lion looked at me expectantly. I raised my wand and walked around. She immediately got into character by pouncing on my wand and rolling on the ground kicking it with her back paws. Happy to leave her to the limelight - her mane of brown knitting wool was striking - we did a couple of circuits around the ring - it was deathly quiet as I remember - and made a quick exit. I could tell my lion was not pleased with me. Where were the flaming hoops and her chance for a really good roar?
I couldn't have cared less. After a couple more half-hearted Brownie meetings - we went to some old lady's house and picked up rotting grapefruit off her lawn for our 'Do a Good Deed Every Day' - I suddenly realised I could actually be at home eating Krispies and drinking Raro and watching telly.
And that was that. I lasted a whole year and I still have my sash - yoghurt stain and all.

BATM learning the interwebs

2011-11-19T16:50:00.001+13:00

Dad: I got this email the other day. From my friend in England. It wasan Irish joke, it was so funny.

Me: Oh hm?

Dad: Yes, I have a friend in Ireland. I’m going to FORWARD it toHIM! Because he’s Irish.

Me: *facepalm*

Dad: But I can’t find the Forward button. Can you show me?

Brain fog

2011-11-15T13:21:00.001+13:00

So today I have packed up my grumpy little son and taken him to the doctors to be injected with vaccines and inoculations in both little legs. To him this must have seemed like the biggest indignity. He gets extra hugs and cuddles from me and Rich. At the doctors the nurses coo over him and he has more big cuddles with Mum. Then whammo, he gets stabbed in the legs with a horrible stinging liquid. That's gotta suck. No wonder he's been rather fretful since we got back. I am sure he'll thank me for it one day.
Today's non-baby activity has been to buy the items needed to make my Christmas Cake. I normally make it in September so it has lots of times to get nice and mature, but you know, I was rather busy in September. The plan is to make it this weekend, in between feeds and sleeps and settles and washing and naps. Here's hoping it actually gets done! I use the recipe from the place I bought my cake box from - www.woodencakebox.co.nz. It always tastes really nice but last years was quite undercooked, so am going to cook it for an extra hour this year. I like having traditions and I hope making my cake becomes a good tradition in our family. It's funny cause I don't even like fruit cake but my step dad and father in law are both big fans so it always gets polished off.
We recently discussed what to get Stan for Christmas this year - seems a bit ridiculous as he won't have a clue what's going on. So we decided we'd just put some money into his savings account and maybe get him a couple of shiny things - my car keys or something - and wrap them in Chrissy paper so he has something to chew on on Christmas morning. We are having it at Rich's parents this year, and with Stan being their first grandchild, I am sure he will be getting spoiled ROTTEN. Lucky little guy.
Speaking of which, I hear a squawking from the nursery...the overlord calleth.

Back in the saddle

2011-11-14T18:50:00.001+13:00

So last night I was reading my blog archives for the first time in ages. It was strange, and sad, because I used to LOVE to write and if I may say so myself, some of that shit was fun-nay.
I've said it before that Twitter has compromised my ability to make my thought processes longer than 140 characters. So instead of racing off a well thought out, witty tweet (yes they're exactly that, all the time) I'm going to mull it, and hopefully instead turn it into a blog post.
The reason for this is that at the moment, my life is baby. That's all there is. Baby when I sleep, baby when I wake. Baby when I'm happy, baby when I'm sad. I love love love my baby, more than I could even begin to explain, but I've realised that it's unhealthy to think about babies ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY. So at least one part of my day is going to be some kind of writing. About babies, who knows. Could be about cooking. Or my garden. Or that black furry creature who lives with us (not Richard). Or about the state of the youth today. Because in my day, we didn't wear underwear as outerwear (Madonna clones excepted).
I'm also going to re-connect with my blogging pals and get reading and commenting like I used to.
Until then, here's a pic of my special little guy, being ultra cute as always.

Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery

2011-10-07T15:50:00.002+13:00

Scene: dimly lit house interior. Random objects are scattered on every possible surface. Dinner is defrosting in the microwave. Enter AMY: dishevelled, in milk spattered feeding top, ripped leggings (not in a fashionable way) and slippers; and RICHARD: hollow-eyed, in work clothes that are also spattered in milk.

Amy: I can't find my wallet
Richard: *stares uncomprehendingly*.
Amy: My wallet. You know, the purse I keep my cards in? I can't find it.
Richard: What does it look like?
Amy: It's green. And stripy. And.....*gestures with hands*
Richard: *stares uncomprehendingly*
Amy: When did we last use it?
Richard:........Saturday?
Amy: What day is it today? What did we do yesterday?
BOTH SILENT
Richard: Did we leave the house?
BOTH SILENT
Amy: What did I last buy? Have I been to the supermarket?
Richard: I'll check the car.
Amy: *empties nappy bag - nothing - and packs it up again*
Richard: Nothing.
BOTH STARE AT EACH OTHER FOR WHAT SEEMS LIKE AN ETERNITY
Richard: Have you remembered where you last used it?
Amy: Was it Saturday after lunch? We went to the TAB to put a bet on the rugby? Who paid for that?
BOTH SILENT
Amy: *empties nappy bag again*
Rich: *checks car again*
BOTH LOOK BLANKLY AROUND THE WARZONE OF THE HOUSE
Amy: *opens nail polish bag of tricks that hasn't been used in weeks - finds wallet*
Amy: I found it.
Richard: Oh.
BOTH SILENT

FIN

My birth story

2011-09-15T10:46:00.000+12:00

The day of Stan's birth was a lovely one. I had slept in, gone to my yoga class where I promised everyone I'd be back next week, headed to the Mount and got a takeaway salad and juice from Pluto where I joked with the lady that the extra pineapple in the juice might send me into labour ('Ha! I might see you tomorrow with a buggy!') and sat on the beach looking at the waves. It was a very cold day but brilliantly sunny.

Heading home I had a hot bath and listened to my Rainbow Relaxation CD and lay in bed for a bit, then made a massive dinner of spag bol. All well and good.

Richard at this stage was sleeping in the spare room because I hadn't been sleeping well at all, so he kissed me goodnight and I settled down with my book and hypno relaxation white noise application on my phone. Braxton Hicks. Braxton Hicks. Ouch, Braxton Hicks. I read for a couple of hours and started looking up at each BH as they were starting to kinda hurt. The tightenings kept coming and I decided to start timing them. They were 8-10 minutes apart lasting about 45 seconds. I kept reading and could feel my nerves starting to jangle. Was this it?

It was. They quickly went to 3-4 minutes apart, still lasting about 45 seconds. At 12.30 I woke Richard who was very calm indeed. He got into bed with me and we tried to watch a DVD (Steel Magnolias!). We didn't get past the opening titles as the pains were starting to require some good deep breathing and I was getting uncomfortable. We laughed at how cliched this was, having to call the midwife in the middle of the night. She said to leave it another couple of hours and call her back when it gets worse. I was happy with this as they weren't that bad and my breathing and visualising had them well under control.

We drew a bath and I hopped in, with my mating-whales music on. This was lovely and relaxing and helped to pass the time. I think I was in there an hour or so. When I got out the pains ramped up, requiring loud breathing and I had to lean on a wall or the side of the bed to get through them. In between we watched MTV Classic, and I remember watching Jay-Z doing H.O.V.A., which gave me an ear worm that lasted throughout the entire labour! We called the midwife again at 3.30 and she came over to the house to check me. I was terrified she'd say I was making the whole thing up and I had hours to go yet, so it was a relief to hear her call the student midwife and tell her that I was 'rocking and rolling and ready to go!' The baby's head had already descended so far down that she couldn't feel my cervix so I never knew how dilated I was.

We ran about the house putting last minute things in the hospital bag (I put my phone charger in my toilet bag, WTF! couldn't find it for days) and getting the car ready. It was such a cold night the windscreen had totally iced over so I had to sit in the car having contraction after contraction while Rich tried desperately to defrost it. I had about 6 billion contractions on the way to the hosp, another 4 billion in the carpark, and countless more walking to the delivery room.

Luckily the nurses had started filling the pool before we got there so I just had to get nude (didn't give a toss funnily enough) and get my mating-whales music going and the lights down. Getting into the tub was gorgeous, suddenly felt weightless and nurtured. I think I stayed there a good 2-3 hours, during which time I was mostly rocking on my hands and knees, either breathing through a contraction or resting my head on the side of the tub. Rich would feed me a straw to drink water or a barley sugar, but apart from that no-one made a sound. I would come to every so often and realise I had 3 people watching me in the tub which made me a bit self-conscious. I think I let this get to me a bit and felt like I should hurry things along so I decided to get out of the tub.

The weight of my tummy when I got out felt like 10 tonnes. I had to go to the loo and finally had my first show. I put on a hospital gown and leaned over the bed, doing everything I thought I would want to do in labour. The contractions were now strong enough for me to moan through each one. I was keeping my mouth open and moving my jaw side to side to remind me not to grind my teeth. I was finding it was hard to keep my legs straight and was getting a bit shaky. My midwife was monitoring the baby's heartbeat and it was coming back up fairly quickly after each contraction, when I thought I had the urge to push. So I did. Turns out this was bit of a mistake. The midwives were unable to feel my cervix and were going on other signs that I was ready to push, but it turned out later that I was only about 8 cm still. The pressure of my pushing caused a small haemorrage from my placenta and the baby's heartbeat dropped, and didn't pick up again for a whole minute.

From here on in it's a bit of a dream to me. I was put onto the bed on my back which actually felt WAY more comfortable than leaning on the bed. I was given oxygen and what felt like 50 people came flying into the room to check the baby. I was stabbed with 2 IV lines and my midwife put a scalp monitor onto the baby. Richard went blue and had to sit in the corner with a barley sugar. I remember whimpering - actual whimpering on the bed and saying I'm happy to have a c-section, just get the baby out.

Then everyone left and it was quiet again - I still don't really know what happened - and Marie told me that she had to break my waters which she did, and then could tell I was only 8 centimetres. I had to pant through the last 2 centimetres before I could push. However my body was pushing on its own. It was the queerest feeling, like I was lying there and my body was doing it all for me. Having to try to stop pushing was super hard, so my midwife suggested some gas. This was the first pain relief I had. Talk about a duck to water - I couldn't get enough. It removed me far enough to able to concentrate on what they were saying to me and following their instructions.

This went on for a couple of hours apparently, and finally Marie said I could start to push the baby out. She and Rich helped me curl over my tummy, with my feet pushing into student midwive's hips. I was really screaming by now, off the gas, and determined to get the baby out. Rich was getting really excited, telling me he could see the head crowning, which would then go back up. I had to keep the pressure on during the breaks, and all of a sudden I could really feel everything down there streeeeeeeeetch. It felt like someone was poking the entire area with needles or sharp nails. There was suddenly a big pressure release and the head was out. Rich was gibbering like a loon, and I lay back thinking I had to get the energy to do the shoulders but again my body did it for me and, like giving birth to a warm squishy bag of walnuts, I felt his little body slide out and the pressure relief was the BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD.

At 9.27 a.m. on 18th August 2011, Little Stanley was put onto my tummy and I was howling with relief and happiness. He took a while to breathe but coloured up nicely and was put onto my boob and stayed there quite happily. I could not believe it. He sneezed and coughed and looked around and IT WAS A BABY, my baby.

I kinda want to stop writing here because up until this time, everything was perfect. I got my natural birth, I had a healthy baby that was a boy which we had hoped for. But what happened next happened, and it was all part of the journey.

At this stage he was still feeding on me and was nice and warm. I was stitched up with the help of the gas (only 3 stitches, no episiotomy). I was ecstatic and ready to party, waving the gas around and offering it to all and sundry. After an hour or two it was time to do the tests and weigh. Stan was weighed and he was only 2690g, or 5 pounds 15. Alarm bells should have started ringing for a full term baby. My midwife came back after inspecting my placenta and said that it looked like the placenta of a heavy smoker (not since Uni days!) or a very overdue baby. So he hadn't been getting very good nutrients in the womb. I wasn't taking anything in because I was utterly exhausted. I had a shower and we went back to the ward and settled into a bed.

It seemed that 40 different nurses came in to check on us and all had different ideas on what to do. He looked a bit cold, so they put him back on the boob, skin to skin. We were left alone, and I looked down and noticed that he had stopped responding and was turning a yuk grey colour. We rang the bell and all sorts of things happened and basically my baby was wheeled away from me and my husband, and sent down to SCBU (special care baby unit).

It turned out he had low blood sugars, due to having no reserves from a low birth weight and a bad placenta, and hadn't been feeding properly off me. They force fed him every hour down in SCBU and gave him dextrose gel, and he came right.

I visited Stan in SCBU and tried breastfeeding but he was just too small to get much off me. He was tube fed for 5 days and bottle fed plus boob for one then we were allowed home.

He's now being breastfed and bottle fed plus I express after every feed, so it's been a baptism of fire.

But we reckon he smiled the other day, and it made my heart soar.

Introducing

2011-09-15T10:31:00.002+12:00

Stanley, born 9.27 a.m., on 18th August 2011. Pretty much 4 weeks ago today. I still can't believe it and am still paddling frantically to keep my head above water, but as people have said over and over, it does seem to be getting easier! We love him to bits and are so happy to be a family.

The only person not happy? Basil the cat....Stan squawks....Baz runs out the cat door :)

Joining the technological age, starring BATM

2011-08-08T16:54:00.004+12:00

Scene: Large, noisy appliance store, with sale signs plastered to every available surface and 37 different stereos playing different songs - from the soft-porn genre that is Rihanna and Britney.

Enter stage left, AMY, heavily pregnant and resembling a puffer fish, and BRUCE, with a cell phone attached to his belt (says it all really).

Amy: Okay, so these here are the laptops.

Bruce: *wanders off to look at dryers*

Amy: *sighs heavily*

Amy: Now because all you want to do is check out golf tee times at the local club, you don't need anything flash.

Bruce: why does this keyboard have numbers up the top AND on the right?

Amy: Just because.

Bruce: So the lid on this closes by pulling it DOWN, I see.....

Amy: They all do that.

Bruce: And does this one have that maps thing you were showing me?

Amy: Google Maps? Yes.

Bruce: Does THIS one?

Amy:..........yes.

Bruce: *seeing one within his budget* I'll just get that one.

Amy: Good choice. Now you need an Internet Provider. How do you want to connect to the internet? Broadband? With a stick thing? Dial up?

Bruce: *blank look*

Amy: Well, how does your girlfriend connect to the net?

Bruce: *mimes typing on a keyboard*

Amy: Oooooookay.

Bruce: Show me how I can Google on this. What do you call it. Googling?

Amy: Well, just pottering around is really called Surfing the Net. Using Google. Which is a search engine using a browser.....*sees she lost him* Anyway let's just get this and then you can visit Telecom and sort out your internet connection.

Bruce, thinking: But I want my pony NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!

Amy, reading his mind: It's not an instant thing...you need to get the connection sorted THEN you can Google all your golf results.

Bruce: Humph. Can you come over this weekend and show me stuff?

Amy: Sure, if I haven't, you know, GIVEN BIRTH TO YOUR GRANDCHILD BY THEN.

Bruce, thinking: always with the excuses......

Fin.

If anything can bring me out of a blogging hiatus, it's BATM*

2011-08-01T16:53:00.006+12:00

My father lost his mother 18 months ago (not like lost her in a mall, she died) and I think has become somewhat aware of his own mortality since. I have seen more of him in the last few months than I ever have - and we live in the same town. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great. I've said it before and I'll say it again....he's a unique individual.

RING RING. RING RING.

Me: Hello?

Dad: It's your father.

Me: Oh hey Dad, how was Aussie?

Dad: Oh I got back ages ago. (last weekend). What are you doing tomorrow? Do you need any trees chopped down?(my Dad is OB-SESSED - I cannot state this enough - with pruning trees. It wouldn't surprise me to see him on the news for chopping down trees in a municipal park if they were blocking sun).

Me: Ah no. We've had all our trees pruned already.

Dad: silently hurt.

Me: BUT! We are tidying the washing line area - do you want to help out there?

Dad: I'll be round tomorrow afternoon.

Upon his arrival, he directs the truck delivering river stones and fusses around the unloading of them. This takes all of ten seconds. He then wanders around the garden checking things out.

Dad, all disappointed: It's really neat and tidy!

Me: Sorry. You can waterblast the fence if you want to? We want to paint it.

Dad: *visibly brightens*

Me: let's have a cuppa.

Settled with a cuppa and a slice, Dad proceeds to give me a blow-by-blow account of yesterday's Steamers game vs Wellington, or someone.

Dad: "......the ball went forward....this wing out of nowhere.....best try I'd ever seen....."

My mind: "bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

Me: "so my bestie had her baby on Friday....."

Dad's mind: "bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

Me: Do you want to see the nursery?

Dad: sigh. Okay.

He spends 10 minutes admiring the buggy and its ability to move the baby around on wheels.

Me: I made this blanket.....this was a present from a friend.....aren't these booties cute...

Dad: So how does the capsule click on? What does this zip do? Does this hood move?

Me: What do you think of this cot mobile I made from paint charts?

Dad: I really want to buy a computer so I can look at my golf stuff on the internet. Can you meet me next week and help me buy one? Then give me lessons? Say, an hour a day?

Me: Um. Well, I'm gonna be kinda busy soon, but I definitely can help you buy a computer.

Dad: Excellent. Well, best be off.

*When Dad was asked what he wanted to be called for his Grandfatherly title, he thought for 2 seconds and said 'Brucie at the Mount'. My sister giggled and said, no really, what. Poppa, Grandpa? He repeated, 'Brucie at the Mount'. So Brucie at the Mount it is.

Bump Watch - 14 weeks

2011-02-21T15:30:00.003+13:00

I wish I could say I'd had a large breakfast before Richard took this pic but alas, it's all bump.

Things I am enjoying so far in pregnancy:

ORANGES. Sweet, juicy, navel oranges all the way from the USA. The food miles even taste good.
The way I lose the ability to walk once sitting down, meaning Rich has to fetch me my orange/iceblock/knitting/remote/phone/cat.
The moments where I remember all of a sudden that I'm Pregnant! There's a wee baby in my tummy! I'm gonna be a Mum!
Being able to peruse baby clothes and equipment without feeling like a crazy person. I'm ALLOWED.
No hangovers.

Things that I'll already be glad to see the back of:

The bathroom. I am either heading in there, heading out, or thinking about getting out of bed to go because by the time I actually make my mind up, I'll need to go anyway.
The crushing fatigue. Those moments where you have an afternoon of house admin all planned and you get one thing done and that's it - COUCH/REMOTE/ORANGE.
Aches and pains. Lower back - yip. Hips - yip. Sides of tummy - yip. Can't get comfortable sitting down - yip.
The conflicting advice. Most books say to stop Folic Acid at 12 weeks as it doesn't do anything after that, but a leading pregnancy vite says to take it over the 2nd and 3rd trimester as 'that's when you need it most!' Who do you trust?

In other news we went on a lovely bushwalk this weekend - to here www.kiwitrust.org . It was stunning. We're hoping to make a habit of it as long as I can do it - will put some pics together and call it a blog post.

Aims x

A different way to give my liver a break

2011-02-08T15:25:00.005+13:00

When I was about 8 years old, I was walking home from school. I saw a car pull up in a driveway, and a guy got out and quickly went to open the passenger door. His wife got out carefully, and they both fussed over the removal of one baby seat and very new baby from the back. They slowly went into the house, watching the baby like a hawk the whole way. It was a very special moment.

When I bought my home in 2007, I thought about that moment, and I pictured doing the very same to a baby at this house. I was single, had no real life plan, and had no idea that in 4 years time, I would be doing just that with my own husband and baby. Isn't it funny the way life turns out. Or maybe I am just super-psychic.

The last few months have been focussed entirely on my reproductive organs, and I'll warn you right here that this post involves way too much over-sharing and TMI moments, but I know I love to hear other people's journey to parenthood so am guessing I am not the only one. However if you do not and prefer to believe a stork came down the chimney or your Dad found you in his beer, go look at http://www.harkavagrant.com/ because it's funny.

Wanting a child hit me like the proverbial tonne of bricks over a year ago. Halfway through a cycle I announced to Richard that I was throwing out my Pill, and we would just have to 'see what happened'. Surprisingly, he was quite happy to go along with this. I just felt that if I didn't start preparing then and there, something would go wrong.

Funnily enough a month later we were engaged. Perhaps we both had this 17th century belief that if we had a child out of wedlock it would never gain the throne of England, a pox on ye, so we started using contraception. I believe the correct term for these are 'raincoats'. (As an aside, Rich has a UK passport, meaning as his wife I can apply for the same, as can our children. BUT - if we had a child out of wedlock, it would not. How outdated is that?) Now I don't know about you, but raincoats in a loving relationship do not a happy sex life make. We had conversations like this.

"Where are they?"

"In your bed side table."

"I can't find them!"

"Christ....turn the light on."

"I still can't see them."

"They're right there! In front of your face!"

"Ahh. Right so. Let's do this!"

"I don't feel like it now."

Suffice to say it was a relief when packing for our wedding/honeymoon to remove every box of Durex in the house and ceremoniously throw them in the bin.

Note - this is where things get really disgusting, but I knew NOTHING about this before 'trying', which I can't believe but there you go.

During this time of limbo, I read a fabulous book - Taking Charge of your Fertility by Toni Weschler. I spent the entire time reading out bits to Richard, who often went a bit green around the gills. Did you know that when you ovulate, your body produces cervical mucus that looks like egg white? I NEVER KNEW THIS. I have never been so fascinated with my own body. I took my temperature every morning and ascertained that I had a 30 day cycle and ovulated on Day 16. So I knew that to get up the duff, we had to have sex a few days before and after Day 16.

Here's the issue. Sex when you're up for it and a bit pissed and feeling adventurous = good times. Sex when you're bloated, zitty, in your pyjamas, knackered, arguing over who put the rubbish out last = not so good times. Note to future self - husband does not respond to exciting discoveries of egg white. Having to have sex every day eventually becomes a chore. You say to yourself, oh one night off won't hurt. Then you start thinking - but what if tonight's THE NIGHT? What if it's OUR ONLY CHANCE THIS MONTH? (An egg only lasts 18-24 hours). It's a miracle anyone gets pregnant at all with all the horror stuff you read. So you man up and do it anyway.

After one month, my period arrived right on time. I was pretty gutted, but everyone says it takes about a year of trying before conceiving, on average. A year seemed like a freaken lifetime. I should say that whenever I decide I want something, I have to have it right then and there if not yesterday; I'm all about the instant gratification.

After two months, I started getting very sore boobs. I had lots of saliva. Period was one day late. I tested - negative. Two days late - negative. Three days - very, very faint line. Started to get excited. Tested again - still faint. Could have been my imagination. After four days I told Richard because I couldn't bear it anymore. He couldn't see the faint line. On the fifth day I woke up with a bad headache and gut ache, and sure enough, period had arrived. I cried for half an hour then moved on. I still wonder about this - was I pregnant? I had never been late in the past. I had the symptoms. But it was so early.

Anyway we got back in the saddle. This was in the lead up to Christmas - parties, parties, parties, drinkies, drinkies, drinkies. Boozing lowers your fertility rate by up to 50%, I kept reading, so I took it easy. Because I cannot keep a secret and am a booze hag, everyone knew that we were trying.

One day, about 2 days before my period was due, I had light-pink spotting. GODDAMMIT I thought. After all this, my cycle is deciding to go up the spout. However the next day, it had gone. Googled implantation bleeding. Might be, might not be. Not quite sure what to think, I do a test. It was negative. Surprisingly I wasn't that disappointed as we had Rich's work do that day, and Christmas coming up, and my parents were laying on the Moet. So to my surprise it gets to 5 days overdue. I make a pact with myself to test in the morning. I buy some Discover tests which apparently will show if you're pregnant even if you're a virgin, they're that sensitive.

6.30 a.m. Alarm goes off. I sneak out of bed. Pee on a stick. Within 10 seconds, the second line comes up, clear as day. My heart starts yammering. I grin stupidly and I think I laughed out loud. I go into the office where I find a brochure procured from work, titled 'Congratulations on your New Baby', produced by the Inland Revenue (NZ Tax Department). I get back into bed, and poke Richard.

"I've brought you some bedtime reading."

Snuffle snuffle. "What the..." He sits up and squints at the brochure. "Are you PREGNANT?"

"Yup!"

"Oh my God oh my God."

Etc.

That was 2 months ago. Since then we've told parents and friends; listened to the heartbeat;seen baby kicking on the ultrasound; discovered the joys of no hangovers on a Sunday; discovered the horrors of fatigue so bad it means you cannot lift your head from the couch; discussed prams, cots, sterilisers and onesies; cried at every Animal Rescue programme on the telly.

I'm due August 20th and am loving every minute of this. Oh yes, and I haven't had any morning sickness whatsoever, go ahead and hate me.

Learning to Drive

2011-01-26T09:58:00.003+13:00

Every morning on my way to work, I pass a line of cars waiting outside the AA Driver Testing Centre. Sweaty, nervous teenagers, hair brushed for the occasion, fretty Mums drilling them on the give-way rule. I always give them a smile as I well remember those days of learning to control 2 tonnes of metal whilst trying to look super cool.
In New Zealand you are allowed to sit your Learner's license at the age of 15 (the Road Code is a popular birthday present). You must pass a theory test to do so. The questions are somewhat easy. Green light means what? kind of thing. Then, you are allowed to be taught to drive by an adult. Once you pass a practical driving test with an instructor (see nervous sweaty teenagers above) you are then on your Restricted license for about a year (no driving at night, no passengers) and graduate to a Full license after that. Theoretically, you could be on a full license by your 16th birthday, which, now that I am 32, seems insane.
However. The transition from theoretical learning about driving, and actually driving a car has to be one of the most stressful times for a parent/child relationship. Some background.
My father is a sales rep, and spends 90% of his time on the road. He can drive from Napier to Taupo with his eyes closed. He knows all the secret passing lanes, the best roadside cafes, how to unplug a speedometer, and all the hand signals to convey to other drivers that he is the best driver on the road, and they should therefore get out of his way.
My mother forgets that her car has six gears and often will not get out of second. She rolls through stop signs, brakes with such force as to give you whiplash and will sit at an intersection with a queue behind her trying to remember where she wants to turn.

Is it any wonder they divorced?

Having these two teach me and my sister to drive had its consequences.
Dad: 'Okay pull the clutch out slowly. Good. We're moving. Nowdon'tforgettocheckyourmirrorhowmanyrevslookoutforthatcarhe'sturningwhatgearisthis?LOOKOUTwhatareyoudoingTHERE'SACATpulloverI'MDRIVING.'

Mum: 'Okay go.' Silence. 'How do I go?' 'Just....go!' And so on.

It got to the point where I was so terrified to drive - I was a shocking bunny hopper, something that you don't get these days with all these automatics on the road - that I didn't drive a car anywhere for 6 months.

Then Mum met Colin. Nice, calm, car-nut Colin. He took me down to his daughter's horse paddock and sat me in his airplane carrier Rover. 'This is the brake. This is the accelerator. Practice going from one to the other very quickly in case of an accident'. Logical things like that. 'Let's try a hill start - on a flat piece of road. Listen to the engine. Take the clutch out - slowly! Hear the car start to strain? Let the handbrake off gently. Little bit of gas - you're off!'

After a few weeks I was reverse parallel parking on a hill and have never looked back. Although about 6 months later I backed up our driveway and slammed into his new 745 BMW, but that's another story.

This joyous Yuletide

2010-12-08T16:42:00.004+13:00

Firstly I have to apologise for the writer's block. Not that I'm thinking any of you check this blog religiously, dying for another post about my cat, but I do feel aware that I've been neglecting my writerly habits. I enjoy it a lot, so when I cannot think of a single interesting thing to say, I get a little sad. I do have a theory though. Since I'm on Twitter quite a lot now, I think I've lost the ability to write what I'm thinking about in more than 140 characters. As an aside, I also think I've lost my curiosity about things. I used to love researching something that was interesting to me, maybe Boudicca, or the Amish, or arcane Simpsons trivia. Now I'm all, let's just Wikipedia the hell out of that and call myself a genius. Won't somebody think of the children?

Anyhoo. It's December. And December has been very nice so far. We have had the most lovely early Summer in Tauranga. I have been for 3 swims in the sea! It only counts if you get your hair wet. My garden is growing like crazy. We are eating zucchini and plums, waiting on the tomatoes, sweetcorn, beans, peas, chilis, capsicum and cucumbers. I have fresh gardenia by my bed every night, giving Richard hayfever and me the sweetest dreams. The cat is already at full stretch in the shady bits, and curls up on the warm concrete steps at night, when he's not chasing moths.

I have a beautifully decorated tree in the lounge, advent calendar on the pantry door, Christmas presents wrapped and piled artfully. This year, we are having Christmas with my side of the family, pictured below. Except my Dad, cause that would be kinda awkward. Also I have another niece (Mia, 4) and nephew (Daniel, 7ish) who weren't at the reception.

Back - Kirk (BIL) Regan (BIL) Melinda (SS)

Middle - Colin (SF) Mum, Kathryn (SS)

Middle - Ben (BIL) holding Stella (niece) Megan (sister)

Richard and Me

Front - Dad, Amelie (niece) Samantha (niece)

We are a very large family, due to get even larger, because these two:

...are about to get a younger brother or sister in April. My step sister is also pregnant, due in May, so it's just lovely all round. Who doesn't love a newborn. (Weirdos, that's who).

We're having Christmas in Napier at Mum and Colin's. They have built a new home which we're all dying to stay in. It has a LIFT. And a wine cellar. In which I will probably spend most of my time.

Because I love to cook, I have offered to cater Christmas Day. Mum took some convincing. I think she thinks I'm going to have too much champagne and forget to put the turkey in or something calamitous along those lines. But I love cooking, and so does Richard. We are a very good team in the kitchen. I am however bored of cooking the same old things every week so the challenge to cook for 10 adults and 4 kids is a big one. Here's what I'm going to be doing.

When we all moved in together in 1994, a tricky Christmas was had where Mum tried to please everyone and cooked a turkey in one of those plug-in frypans, and did a big roast pork in the stupid tiny European oven they inherited with the house. We always had pork, my new steppies had turkey. It was a bit of a stress out and since then she's just done pork cause everyone loved it. BUT this year, finding a pork roast that'll feed 14 is going to be too hard. Plus, v. hard to cook without drying out the outside. So we're going back to basics and I'm doing a big Crozier's turkey (free-range thank you very much). Turkey is hardly seen at all in NZ so I am going on a wing and prayer and a lot of research (thanks Wikipedia) when it comes to roasting it perfectly. So far I've seen recipes for covering it in butter and a piece of muslin, to brining it for 24 hours, to removing the drumsticks and wings before cooking (sacrilege). All very confusing. Tips welcome.

To appease those who are pork fiends, I'm going to include it in the entree. I'm going to do a super yum coleslaw with grated apple, and will roast a piece of crackling to cut into squares as a garnish. Homer drool. Richard actually came up with this idea. One year, Mum burnt the crackling, and you should have seen the faces around the dinner table. Frowny, they were.

Trimmings are going to be kept simple - roast potatoes in duck fat, green veggies with feta and lemon, cranberry sauce and gravy. I'm also going to attempt a stuffing but haven't quite decided what flavour to make it yet. Anything with chestnuts gets a big hell no. Urgh.

Pudding is going to be trifle, because it's easy and I can make it the night before. And it's quintessentially British, which I like.

What's not British is our Christmas Lunch, intended to be eaten around the pool whilst admiring new presents that float and are waterproof, and lamenting those that were not. We have the same every year; crayfish (for those not gestating a foetus) and cold meats (for those that are). Ciabatta, brie, tomatoes, basil, lemons, avocado, all artfully arranged. Washed down with lots of chilled bubbly. Om nom nom nom nom.

After Christmas we're heading back to Tauranga fairly quickly as Richard is working through. I have over three weeks off in which to read thousands of books, weed the garden and go for lots of swims. Heaven.

Well best be off, Basil is wrapped around my feet demanding his Jimbo's for the evening. He has this thing where he lies right in front of me, so if I have to get up, he's in prime position to sink a claw into my ankle to gently remind me that he hasn't eaten in ten whole minutes. Sometimes I get backed into a corner and have to wait for Rich to come home. Cats. I like them.

Interlude

2010-12-01T17:41:00.002+13:00

Basil helped me decorate the tree today. It tuckered him out.

But then he got back into it!

I'm guessing tomorrow there will be a large mess to tidy.

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air

2010-10-06T10:56:00.007+13:00

I've always been a bit of a music nut, spending my teenager years hovering over the pause button on my ghetto blaster (ghettos in Napier?) all ready to record my favourite songs off the radio. Making a mix tape took a week, with thoughtful selections and song order precisely set just so, to make me look super extra hip and groovy. My Sunday mornings were spent watching the music countdown, videoing my favourite songs (I have a 4 hour video tape that I can't bear to part with, with early Radiohead, Oasis and the like, buried in a box somewhere), I would buy hellishly expensive imported music magazines like Spin or Q, and these days I spend all day listening to George FM.

How I knew I really liked a song though was when I would think, I would walk down the aisle to this song.

Funnily enough, when I met Richard, we found we had....how do you say....rather different taste in music. I love dubstep, he likes Motown. I love Florence and the Machine, he likes AC/DC. So we really had to put our thinking caps on when it came to selecting our wedding music.

Luckily one day we discovered this movie that was showing on high rotation on Sky. Called Into the Wild, we both found we couldn't get enough of it. Starring Emile Hirsch with a glorious soundtrack by Eddie Vedder which we bought and thrashed, we realised we had found a common love.

So for our walk down the aisle, we chose "Big Hard Sun", a song from the soundtrack which you can listen to here. Whenever we listened to it we both got goosebumps.

Now keep in mind we were getting married in a big church with a proper organ and organist, who was rather miffed, shall we say, that we wanted a secular song that wasn't even Celine Dion or Boyzone. We stuck to our guns however and they came sweet which was very kind of them.

For our signing of the register, we initially wanted a choir to sing a hymn. Due to said miffed organist, this didn't happen. My Mum swung into gear and called around to find a couple of singers who would be keen to sing Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem, which forever makes me and my Mum cry. They were amazing. You can watch it here.

For walking back down the aisle I had wanted bagpipes from the get go. I used to love the chapel services at school where the piper would lead in the Harvest Festival procession or what have you. So we called around and found a guy who was happy to play Scotland the Brave for us as we left the church. It was spine-tingling. .

Finally we were taking forever to decide on our first dance. First it was Al Green's Let's Stay Together. Snore Snore Snore. Then it was At Last by Etta James. Cliche Cliche Cliche. Lastly - about a week before the wedding, we had settled on All You Need Is Love by the Beatles, because we both love the scene in Love Actually and our reception had an English theme. But it niggled at me because it just wasn't really me. So - and I'm not proud of this but there you go - I totally went over Richard's head and gave our first dance music to our music person - You've Got the Love by Florence and the Machine. Watch the awesomeness here. Rich was apopleptic when I told him. "I can't dance to this!". However, dance he did, and so did everyone else. And now I get told a lot that when people hear Florence, it reminds them of our wedding. Result!

Bridesmate

2010-09-20T13:58:00.003+12:00

Something that used to drive my mother crazy was that I would never do anything the way it was supposed to be done. I had to be different, be difficut, and I would never take advice, preferring to make my own (many) mistakes.
Which was why she was surprised as we were planning this wedding. A church service? A nice reception? White dress? Flower girls? It all sounded very beige.
But I knew that a wedding isn't just your and your husband's special day...it's also a big party for lots of people who have all travelled a long way to get there, and they don't want to be subjected to medieval costumes or beach front horseback weddings. They just want a nice normal wedding with lots of booze. So we went traditional, but added our own twists to mix it up a bit.
One thing that surprised a lot of people was my choice of a guy for one of my bridesmaids. I had heard of a few bridesmates, and as my friend Cameron is a bestie, it seemed a logical choice. He's the one I go to for big life advice moments....he tells me like it is - much more than a girl ever would - and we have the same stupid sense of humour. I wanted to include him in the wedding.
However there are a fair bit of politics when you have a bridesmate. It pays, of course, to check with your husband-to-be. Richard of course was totally happy about it. (As an aside, if Richard had wanted a girl to be one of his groomsman, would I have been happy about that? I highly doubt it, and therein lies the difference between men and women). It also pays to check with the wife of the bridesmate. I asked Sarah before I'd even mentioned it to Cam. She also was fine with it and was also happy to be our M.C. - what - a WOMAN MC? Surely not! So with blessings given, I remembered to check with Cam that he would be happy with it all. He had two conditions - 1) he didn't want to come to the Hen's and 2) he didn't want to walk down the aisle. Fair enough.
But what to wear? Being a McDonald, and being the last McDonald of this line - I have no cousins nor brothers and my grandfather had only sisters, the McDonald's who settled in Granity on the West Coast in 1880-something have dwindled out- I wanted to celebrate my Scottish heritage, and where better than a nice kilt.
After calling around the entire country - I kid you not -I finally found a guy in Hamilton who stocked one. I drove out there on a beautiful Autumn day and was subjected to a two hour history lecture on Scotland and its pagan roots. No matter - the kilt was perfect and they would sort out delivery and the like. Cross that off the list.
Cameron emailed and called me most weeks to talk about wedding plans. I think because I had been with him and Sarah as they planned their wedding - Cam would restrict us to five minutes which never worked - he felt I had to get my fair share. It was very sweet, especially as they had a brand new baby Tom (now my Godson!).
On the wedding day itself, Cameron turned up just as I was getting into my dress and starting to freak out. He brought me a brandy (see below) and put his hands on my shoulders and said "take a moment to look around. It goes so quickly." Everyone had told me this, but from Cam, it was sincere. I did take a few mental pictures and they are clear as a bell.
After the ceremony Cam drove our wedding car, and had organised some glasses of champagne for us. It was a surreal moment - my new husband, people staring at our fancy car, a cloud of bride in the backseat - but Cam sorted it out by putting on some AC/DC on the radio and driving really fucking fast.
I have to say that while I definitely got some raised eyebrows over having a bridesmate - I think people thought I had an ulterior motive and that Richard must have been jealous/mad, I'm really glad I did it. Cam really is just a friend who happens to be a boy, and why shouldn't we use our boy-friends in our wedding parties?

Doesn't he look brilliant? Och aye!

The leprechaun told me to BURN THINGS!

2010-09-13T14:54:00.005+12:00

I have a long and abiding passion for the Simpsons, and have done since I sat down in our friends bach in Taupo in 1989 and watched the first ever episode screened in New Zealand - "Some Enchanted Evening".

The Simpsons never fails to crack my shit up. I will watch any episode - even the Treehouse of Horror ones - over and over again. I even watched it in South America when it was dubbed into Spanish (I knew the plot anyway). In NZ, on Sunday mornings, they will play back to back Simpsons for about 4 hours. It is the best hangover cure in the world.

Richard rubbishes me all the time about how we have to watch the Simpsons, even if I know all the dialogue and say it before the character does. We should be watching grown-up current affairs programmes instead. But, this one time, I came into the lounge and he was already watching the Simpsons and I wasn't even there! From then on, no grumbles allowed.

Anyhoo, there is a point to all this. In my wedding speech, I was telling the guests about the nice things Rich has done for me and lots of cheesy things like that (I love a bit of cheese). So I said the following:

".........he also puts up with my Simpsons obsession. If there's a Simpsons episode on, we have to watch it. In fact, I love the Simpsons so much, that Richard - can you please take off your wedding ring and tell everyone what I've had engraved on it?"

At this point Rich looks surprised - I've been notoriously cagey about looking after the rings myself and giving them to his best man as soon as possible. He takes it off - and after holding it up to a lamp, starts to laugh.

"That's right - it says "I choo-choo-choose you" - what Lisa's Valentine's card said to Ralph Wiggum."

He loved it. "....and there's a picture of a train on it!"

Read all about it....

2010-09-08T13:38:00.008+12:00

My grandmother passed away a few months ago, and among her possessions was a cuttings book of articles that interested her over the years, from around 1935 - 1960. It's all there, baby notices, death notices, war articles, odd goings-on in Wellington society, anything to do with the Royal family.
My favourite articles are the wedding ones. Here's the one for her own wedding to my Grandfather on 9th of August 1940, I'm guessing from the Dominion Post.

MCDONALD - MORRISON

The wedding took place recently in the Taranaki Street Methodist Church, Wellington, of Grace Evelyn, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. AF Morrison, Island Bay, and Alister Falla, only son of Mr. and Mrs. Elliot McDonald, Granity. The Rev. R.B. Gosnell officiated.

The bride, who was escorted by her father, wore a long-sleeved trained gown of cream embossed crepe. Her embroidered lace veil fell from a halo of orange-blossom ahd she carried a shower bouquet of cream hyacinths and freesias. The bridesmaids, Misses Audrey Martin (Auckland) and Barbara Barnitt (New Plymouth), were dressed alike in powder-blue and mauve shot taffeta and wore mauve topknots and carried bouquets of sweet peas and carnations to tone.

Mr. Eric Newton was best man and Mr. Cecil Morrison was groomsman.

Mrs. Morrison received the guests at the Empire Hotel, wearing a flowered black georgette frock. Mrs. McDonald wore a wine lace gown. For travelling the bride wore a heather-pink suit with navy accessories.

Isn't it just divine? I wish they still did these. I'm going to pretend they still do, and write my own.

MCDONALD - B

The wedding took place recently in the St. John's Anglican Cathedral, Napier, of Amy Louise, youngest daughter of Mr. B. McDonald , Mount Maunganui, and D., Napier, and Richard Simon, eldest son of Albert and Edwina, Papamoa. The Rev. Helen Jacobi officiated.

Church music was by Mr. G. Bowler on the organ, Eddie Vedder, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Graham Blank played a lusty Scotland the Brave on the bagpipes.

The bride, who was escorted by her father and mother, wore a strapless off-white satin A-line gown, with heavy detailing on the bodice and a lace train. Her spanish-style veil was floor-length and she carried a shower bouquet of red roses and some other things she doesn't know the name of. The bridesmaids, Miss E, Mrs B and Mrs H, were dressed alike in strapless sweetheart necklined French Navy chiffon with satin lining and nude shoes, and carried cream roses with winter berries. The Bridesmate, Mr W, wore a McDonald tartan kilt with aplomb.

Mr J was best man, and Messrs B, W and W were groomsmen.

Mrs. D received the guests at Ormlie Lodge, Taradale, wearing a soft pink frock with matching fitted wool coat. Mrs B wore an oyster silk ensemble. Both wore a cream rose shoulder spray to tone with the bridesmaids.
For travelling the bride wore leggings.

Post-marital

2010-09-06T19:49:00.004+12:00

In a somewhat surreal moment, I am back in front of the computer in my PJ's, $4 slippers and 20 year old homespun wool jersey after 3 weeks of truly memorable days.

In an effort to make them even more memorable, over the next few days/weeks I'll be posting instalments describing our wedding, the planning, the honeymoon, musings from a wise married-for-ten-days-and-counting woman, plus my thoughts on the baffling popularity of the book Eat, Pray, Love, Be Narcisstic, seen around the pool at Bali in plague proportions.

Until I write this scintillating information, I'll leave you with a pic of me all gussied up as a bride, something I doubted I'd ever get to be for a while there. This pic was taken about 10 minutes before we left for the church, which was the most terrifying/exciting/anxiety-ridden/delirious ten minutes of my life. A most incredible few weeks and I can't wait to share them with you.

Mrs. B xx

Pre-marital

2010-08-02T14:00:00.005+12:00

I am getting married in 19 days. NINETEEN!!!!!!!!!!

We no longer have heaps of time to do things. I can't tell people, oh, no hurry, just when you're ready, the wedding's not for ages, I'm just very organised.

We have started to receive wedding presents and cards, for which I feel a bit of a fraud, considering we are not married yet. So they are going away for when we get back from honeymoon.

I have this many things to do before the day: a kajillion. My lists have grown exponentially...I find myself writing lists on things that I know I'll never look at: merely to make myself feel like I have a sense of order. I know what I'm supposed to be doing tomorrow.

Today I have to finalise the menu, finalise the order of service, finalise the table settings and begin my speech. Tomorrow I have to pick up Indonesian Rupiah from the bank, have a sunbed (fat looks better tanned) finish my speech, wear my wedding shoes in.

It just never ends. Luckily, I am really enjoying it. Thanks to the fact that I only work in the mornings, so I have all afternoon to do this stuff. If I was working full time we would be getting married in my parents house and 3 people would be coming. Subway would be catering.

Everyone said this to me, and it's so happened, in that you lose sight of the actual point of the day, which is that two people are promising to spend the rest of their lives together. We've made a pact to not organise anything for the next two weekends so that we can actually just hang out together.

In other news, we had Amelie to stay on Friday night. We pretended it was Basil's birthday (who knows, maybe it was) and put on a party. Balloons, hats, cheerios and a fruit platter (she mowed the mandarins) and a game of Pass the Parcel, or as she calls it, Parcel Parcel. Basil got a candle in his plate of food and we sang him Happy Birthday. Then we ran around and whacked each other with balloons. It was very cute. She is just such a button.

Also, I saw my first Spring blossom yesterday. YUSS YUSS YUSS. Winter has been cooooold this year. I am already planning what to plant this season. Number one - tomatoes. Number two - beans.

So there you go....unfortunately all this planning has caused me writer's block and my sense of humour seems to have taken a bit of a backseat also. I promise to be back in force with wedding pics and info and details and all sorts of things I know you're dying to know, but I can't tell you because that would RUIN THE SURPRISE!

Till then, ka ki te ano. (Maori language week here).

Rural backwaters

2010-07-14T20:33:00.003+12:00

Tauranga is a great city. It's big enough to feel important, small enough to know every corner of it, and has great infrastructure. Supermarkets are never too busy, carparking is ample, but where it comes into its own is the roads.

Auckland traffic is the one thing the whole country agrees on. It's awful. Bad drivers, not enough parks, etc. Getting to work meant I swore black and blue before 8am.

It takes me 3 minutes to get to work here. Hilariously, they have a traffic report every 15 minutes. This is how it goes, verbatim.

"Cameron Road is clear. 10th Avenue intersection flowing nicely. Chapel Street also clear. AVOID THE BAYFAIR ROUNDABOUT AT ALL COSTS - there's a 2-car tail back. If you can't avoid it, add an extra 30 seconds onto your ETA."

It's brilliant.

Tick-tock

2010-07-14T20:10:00.003+12:00

I am at present sitting in my sister's lounge, surrounded by the usual detritus that goes with a busy evening's babysitting - gin bottles, ear plugs, large animal crates.

Seriously though, my nieces are my favourite things. Stella is 1, and Amelie is 3. They were so well-behaved, eating up their mince and pasta, splashing in the bath together, popping on their winter jammies and making a pretend birthday cake for their mother (which is tomorrow - hence the babysitting favour). As I put Stella to bed, she grinned at me and blew me a kiss. It was all I could do to not pick her up and squeeeeeze her. Amelie snuggled in for a 2-book treat, then was out like a light.

I can't put into words how they make me feel. They're not even my own kids, but I would do anything for them. They make my heart ache with the strength of emotion I feel for them. I am So Lucky that I can , if I want to, see them every day.

It's funny how women get the urge to have children. I think there are a few reasons for it - everyone else is doing it, time is running out, Pumpkin Patch is having a sale. Being fairly late to have children, I've seen my friends go from social bunnies to being stuck at home with a newborn, to coming out the other side with a gorgeous funny toddler. They all have a different spin on how parenting is. At one end of the scale, it's a long dark tunnel that has a very faint light at the end of it. At the other end, it's wonderful days of love and cuddles and nothing ever goes wrong, tra lalala. I think there's a fair amount of exaggeration with each side of the story. I listen to all the stories. I've already read a lot of pregnancy books. And I still hear a loud ticking noise telling me to hurry up and get on with it, even after knowing about episiotomies that require an epidural to stitch, and infected boobs and meconium poo and never sleeping in ever again. I think it's nature's way to ensure you pro-create. I mean, you hear ALL the disasters, and you still go, yeah I still want one. You never go, oh really? It's quite hard is it? Oh well, that settles it then. Cocker spaniels all the way for me.

Yuss

2010-07-01T16:29:00.004+12:00

There is nothing I love more in the world than being proven right.
In my last post, I talked about the issues I having with my hair, that it had started leaping from my head in large chunks, and I started to look like the Baldy Man. So I started taking Solgar's Hair Skin and Nails, and have been now for about 4 months.

Well. Have just been at the hairdressers getting a trim. Gosh! He says. You've got a lot of new growth here! What do you mean? Says I. Look! Says he, pointing at a big lot of fluffy undergrowth. It's my hair! About 4 months of it! Thick thick hair! About 2 inches long, but HAIR.

I could have kissed him. Don't you love it when something you do actually WORKS????

I am over the moon.

In other wedding and beauty news, we're rounding the corner on the inside gaining on the home straight people. It's less than 8 weeks till the wedding. Last night I put myself through the kind of pain that other women get epidurals for. That's right - the Brazilian.

For those of you who have never had a Brazilian, you should. If only so you can sympathise with other women. And when I say Brazilian, I mean the whole lot. Tail feathers and everything. Or dags, as we so delightfully call them in New Zealand.

I've had them before, and I like getting them because it just looks tidy, and what with going to Bali afterwrard, it means I won't have to worry about shaving my bikini line and walking around scratching myelf like a first year Uni student in a unisex dorm.

But the pain. Oh the pain. I took two mega strong painkillers about an hour beforehand. They were so strong I just about floated off the road on the way there. Did they work? Nuh-uh. I have - ahem - quite thick hair - and my poor therapist nearly has to yank them out one by one with pliars. At least that's what it felt like she was doing.

So there I am, lying on the table, legs akimbo, heart beating furiously, talking about our cats and their shenanigans, and she's faffing about in areas only someone who's prepared to wine AND dine me (yes I'm fussy) should faff about in. It certainly breaks the ice, let me tell you.

Richard came flying through the door after work. So? he says. What? all nonchalant. Did you get it done? What done? and so on. He's so easy to wind up!

Anyhoo.....so that's my hirsute issues over for the month. Feel free to tell me about your stories. Oh here's another one. In my past life as a beauty therapist, I once had this lady come in for a bikini wax. Now for those of you who don't do this, there's a certain etiquette. You shower beforehand. You wear clean knickers. And so on. This lady - a larger lady - came straight from the gym after what looked like a vigorous workout. She was wearing a g-string, bike pants, and a leotard. As she got undressed, the plant in the corner wilted.

And with that, I bid you adieu.

The Blushing Bride

2010-05-28T09:15:00.002+12:00

It's just under three months till the wedding of the century - mine - and I'm going hard with beauty preparation to ensure that I'm happy with my appearance on the big day. Yes I'm vain, yes I'm a girl, yes we're shelling out a fortune for wedding photos that I want to be tip top.
Having been a beauty therapist in my past life, I have a pretty good idea what I can do now to make sure my hair is full and shiny, my skin is soft and clear, and my nails strong and all the same length.
Unfortunately, life doesn't always go to plan. Having come off the Pill last October due to that whole I'M 30 AND WANT BABIES NOW NOW NOW feeling that tends to slam women in the face, my trouble-free skin has turned into a hormonally-charged 14 year old boy's. I'm getting lumpy, painful, blind pimples around my chin and hairline. HORROR. The tempTATion to squeeze the living daylights out of these stubborn lumps is sometimes too much, resulting in scarring. At the same time, the stress of moving house and finding jobs meant my hair - always fine but I had a lot of it - was falling out in handfuls. I was scared to brush it in case the whole lot came off in one big clump. My nails have always been soft, but they were flaking and heavily ridged.
These weren't issues I could deal with using a nice-smelling cream from the supermarket. Oh no. This required RESEARCH.
Going back on the Pill wasn't an option, so I went to the library. (As an aside, how awesome are libraries? I am obsessed with ours. Tauranga has a very good library and I will often go in for 1 book and leave staggering under 8). I found a great book written by some Dermatologist from the States, who basically said BENZOYL PEROXIDE. Now, I am not a fan of putting harsh chemicals on my skin, but I was at my wit's end. So I procured a tube of Pan Oxyl 5%, slathered in on my chin, and the next morning? JOY. It actually works. Now as soon as I get that lumpy feeling, I pop on a tiny amount overnight, and in the morning it's nearly gone. If they do come to a head, they heal much faster and don't scar. The trick with the Pan Oxyl is to not use it all the time as it loses efficacy.
Wanting to heal my skin and hair from the inside, I did some reading into supplements. Imedeen is probably the first supplement you think of, but the price turned me right off. Ridiculous! Having used Solgar vites before and been really pleased with the result, I got me some Solgar Skin, Hair and Nails supplements. Having taken them now for a month, I'm super pleased with the result. My skin is glowing, my nails hard as rock and best of all, my hair is sticking to my head. Richard is also taking them, being a little lacking in the hair department. He's noticed his skin is slightly greasier than normal, but that's a good thing for those who are noticing their skin drying out in this colder weather or as they age.
I've also switched hair products. My hair is straight, long and on the oily side. I normally wash it, dry it in 30 seconds and brush it - that's it. No product, no straighteners, nothing. My hairdresser despairs. Worrying that my shampoo was causing the hairloss, I switched to a sulphate-free range - Evo, which is a super funky Australian brand. Well. My hair is sooooo soft. I make Richard stroke it. He even said today, your hair looks like a girl's from a shampoo ad!
Lastly, I'm prepping the skin that's going to be on show on the big day - just my arms and decolletage. For the first time in my life, I'm applying body creme every day. In these cold mornings, it's a bit of a mission. My mother gave me the most beautiful body creme from Apicare, a lovely natural range made here in NZ. Made with Royal Jelly and Manuka honey, it has a beautiful lasting rose fragrance, and is glorious. I also exfoliate once a week with yummy Karen Murrell body scrub. I'm in love with my skin again.

So there you have it- it's going to plan and it's not costing the earth in beauty spa visits. Of course, closer to the day I'm NOT going to be attempting to wax myself - last time I tried that on a quiet day in the spa I had to remove half the wax with oil and go home with a very wonky bikini line - my brain won't let me inflict pain on myself!

I'm glad my $10,000 beauty therapy training is being put to good use.

The Good Life

2010-05-20T17:22:00.003+12:00

My garden is one of my favourite things. I like nothing more than to wander around it at the end of the day, wine in hand, Basil at my feet, checking all the growth and mentally noting all the horrible heavy chores I can get Richard to do in the weekend.
I garden purely by guesswork and logic. If it's wilting, water it. If it's boggy, don't. Feed it with sheep pellets because they're cheap and I like the smell when they mush down into the soil. Sun and shelter and Robert's your father's brother. This way, I've managed to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli and zucchini (although if you can't grow zucchini, you should back away from the garden and go play with your plastic blocks). I've destroyed a tamarillo (not well staked) and a raspberry bush (not enough sun).
It's very satisfying. But this year we're taking it to another level. We've had a composting area built. 2 big wooden pens built right next to each other. You fill one, let it decompose whilst filling the other. And so on.
Who knew that rotting food could be so riveting?
We put all our veggie and fruit scraps in our container in the kitchen, along with loo rolls, paper towels and other organic matter. I'm a little bit obsessed with this container. I've found myself chopping a broccoli up and going, one bit for the pot, one for the compost. Perfectly good broccoli. Richard made an enormous veggie soup the other day, and all I could think of was, the off cuts are going to be perfect for the compost! I may even buy far too many fruit and veg from the supermarket with the thought that if we don't eat it, the compost will.
Anyhoo. Each day I tip the scraps over the heap and rake them in. The rich loamy smell is intoxicating, and the sight of all the wriggly worms is hypnotic. I often stand for 15 minutes at a time, just watching. A new idea for a TV channel - compost heaps.
Soon we'll cover the heap over with newspapers and let it rot for the winter, and we'll start on the next bin. We discussed moving house the other day, and when weighing up the pros and cons, I thought, no, because I won't get to use ALL MY COMPOST.
How sad is that?

My Hen's

2010-05-03T17:17:00.002+12:00

When we were young, my sister and I liked to play "libraries". We would take all our books - and we had a lot of books - and make a label that stuck to the back cover. These would be "stamped" with due dates. Green stickers on the spine meant Fiction. Red - non-fiction. They're still there on all our old books. Our libraries - for we played this game twice - were called Palm Tree Library, and Windsor Fountain Library. The game seemed to take all summer. No doubt Mum thought we were kinda autistic and weird for shutting ourselves in a room for weeks on end doing authentic-looking barcodes and organising the next-door neighbour's kids to come and "borrow" them (late fees 1c per day) but we didn't bother her, which must have been a bonus.
Now I thought we were pretty cool, doing our own libary, until I spent the day with my friend Meghann at her house. She and her sister Anna ALSO had a library. But they had taken it one step further. They had CATALOGUED their books. An actual filing system. Perhaps it followed the Dewey Decimal, I don't recall. I do recall feeling beaten.
20 years later, Meghann is now my head bridesmaid, and she used these incredible organisational skills to throw me the best Hen's Party any bride-to-be could ever want. She sent lists to my other bridesmaids (sister Megs and Trisha). There weren't any games at my Hen's - there were Initiatives. And each Initiative required a Facilitator. (Can you tell she works in HR)? So Trisha Facilitated the "How Well Do You Know Richard" Initiative. And so on. It was brilliant. I'm going to buy her a headset and clipboard for her birthday - and I can guarantee that she will use them.
So the actual Hen's day. It was the best. Meghann is my head bridesmaid, and we've been friends since infancy. We went to school together, to Uni, and have stayed mates when both of us were living in far-flung corners of the globe. Other bridesmaids are my sister Megan and boy-bestie Cameron as mentioned in previous post - last but not least is Trisha who I've known since I was 11 and lives in Melbourne. She was over in NZ for another wedding so we killed 2 birds with one stone and had a nice early Hen's so that my liver/skin/body could recover before the wedding.
We started off trying on earrings and shoes for the girls. I didn't want pigs-trotter satin horrors that cost a fortune. Luckily we found some very classy nude heels that were actually really wearable. I think I trotted out the usual bride excuse "you could definitely wear them again!!!" Seriously. How many of you have ever worn a bridesmaid dress again?
We had lunch at the Stables on Elliot which is this super cool food-court type place, but instead of 8 kinds of Chinese and 1 dead-dog-on-a-stick (kebab shop) they had Bruschettaria, Italian, German Bratwurst, Creperies and a whisky bar. I had an ENORMOUS bowl of pasta to line my stomach.
14 layers of makeup and a super cool blow dry from Tom at swishy Ryder later (a present from me to me, I am so generous) I'm ready to par-tay.
It's funny how you get 15 women in a room, and in literally 30 mins and a few bottles of bubbles, the decibels go through the roof. Meghann had organised all my friends to send her a story about me and also their favourite recipe, and she made a beautiful album from them. Perhaps this was a Group Initiative? Anyhoo it is the most wonderful thing I own. All these hilarious stories from school and old photos ... I bawl every time I read it. It's special. After presenting me with the book, we did the Quiz. Now, I hate losing. I am not allowed to do Pub Quizzes because I don't let anyone else answer and I get really mad if someone gets a question wrong (thanks, Dad-genes). Cameron had Facilitated part of this Initiative, by coming up with questions for Richard. No "what's Rich's favourite colour?" for Cam. Instead I had to battle with "what does Rich dislike?" "what was his first impression of you?" Putting it bluntly, I failed miserably. I had to be given HINTS. Sigh. Things came back on track with the next Initiative - a music quiz. Thanking my Dad-genes again, my team kicked butt.
It was time to head into town. Donning the obligatory veil, we had dinner at Brew in town, and acted our age by inhaling all the helium balloons in the room. Things get kinda blurry from here, but we ended up later at some totally rando dive bar on Karangahake Road (that's K Road to the linguistically challenged). Before we got there, the bar had 2 people and 6 teeth in it. After we got there, suddenly heaps of guys turned up. Why?! Anyhoo this bar had karaoke. It's another of my downfalls. Like a pub quiz, I don't like to let go of the control. In this case, the microphone. And because it was my Hen's, I was allowed to veto everyone else's song choice, and also take over the singing if I thought I could do better. So anyway I'm pretty sure I sang about 90% of the songs. The next day, my stomach was actually sore from belting out tunes. I have this horrid, awful feeling that a friend was VIDEOING me. Videoing. I'm super glad a Hen's happens only once because that kind of behaviour should not be tolerated as my old school principal would say. I even recall doing Like a Prayer with my veil over my face for the first bit, then I dramatically flung it off as we got into the dance-y bit. Except that my veil got caught in my hair so I'm trying to sing and my friend is trying to untangle me and I'm all, DAMMIT MY PERFORMANCE SHE IS NOT WORKING. Because all of Auckland's homeless were judging me.
So after we blasted everyone's ear drums with catchy 80's pop tunes, we went into Ponsonby to find people with teeth. Now Ponsonby is one of the things I miss about Auckland. Tauranga's night life is dire, people. Dire. There are two acceptable bars to be seen at. You can always get a drink at the bar and usually a carpark outside. Ponsonby - Every.Single.Bar. is packed to the rafters. There's always a party to go to. Heading to The Crib, there's a live band and wall to wall people. A few cougary type blondes tell me DON'T DO IT! But most people are super lovely. At least I think they were. Who knows. By this time my shoes are in my bag and I'm standing on a table. My new dress is covered in wine spillage and my stockings are laddered.
It's time to go home. Feeling no pain whatsoever, I potter around, taking off my makeup, texting various people to let them know I'm okay. (I only know this because they told me the next day). I even leave a message on Rich's phone, reassuring him that I didn't see any real penises whatsoever. I bawl over my beautiful album and pass out with the light on.
The next day - wake up, wish for death.
Bring on the wedding.

Tarts on the Town

2010-04-27T17:12:00.003+12:00

It's my Hen's Night this weekend. MY. Hen's Night. This is surreal to me - having gone through my late 20's with the whole, I'm going to die old and alone with 90 cats fear, I am now finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that I'm going to be Richard's wife. And - oh shit - Richard will be my husband. IT'S JUST SO WEIRD!

Don't get me wrong. It's a good weird. But it's so monumental. We will have a family together. His brother will be uncle to my children. We will be old people together. These things go through my head at 4 in the morning.

In celebration of this fact, my head bridesmaid has organised my Hen's night. It's all one big surprise. I just have to turn up to the apartment in Auckland at 4pm on Saturday. Now, I am not a surprise person. I like to know the full ins and outs of a situation before letting myself go. But this time, I'll just have to run with it.

Judging from past Hen's parties that I've been to, I think I can safely say there will be the following:

Penis shaped straws
Penis shaped jewellery
Penis shaped food
Penis shaped penises (amazing how guys will get naked for a bunch of girls on a dare)
Karaoke
Shots of Jagermeister
Hideous fake veils
Condom balloons
How-well-do-you-know-your-fiance quizzes (I hate losing so am trying to get Richard to give me the answers already - kinda not the point)
Make a wedding dress out of toilet paper games
Tears and giggles and screeching and general girl things.

Funnily enough, I'm actually having a boy bridesmaid, or as I like to call it, a Bridesmate. He's my boy-bestie, and has been since we were babies together. He had 2 conditions when I asked him whether he'd be my bridesmate - that he didn't want to come to the Hen's Night, and he didn't want to walk down the aisle on his own. I said FINE to the first one and suggested he take his little girl Georgia down the aisle with him. His beautiful wife is our M.C., and has just had another baby, the gorgeous Tom. She is going to be at the Hen's, hell or high water, she says.

I always feel funny when people sacrifice their free time for me. I know it sounds martyr-ish, but one friend is flying up from Wellington to be there. Another is leaving her 7 month old for the night to fly up from Napier. All I hope is, I better not pass out at 7pm and have to go home.

In other wedding news, we went to Smith and Caughey's in Auckland in the weekend to do our wedding register. I'm not going to go into the whole politics of whether you should do a register or not (YOU SHOULD) or whether you should put the information for it on the invite (YOU SHOULD) and whether you're a greedy cow who should just be happy to receive 10 toasters and a cracked china pot (YOU SHOULDN'T).

Well it was fun. Smith and Caughey's is a big department store, and is quite posh. However there is nothing else in Auckland that has so many different things under one roof. (Tauranga? Um. Let's just say it's somewhat lacking for nice housewares). We wrote a list of things we wanted, nay, NEEDED, and proceeded to find our favourites and make a list. It took two and a half hours. Rich only looked like he wanted to shoot himself 5 times, but I chivvied him along by going to look at beer glasses. It was funny, after we left, even though we hadn't bought a thing, we both had terrible buyer's remorse. Maybe I should do that all the time. Fake shop.

In other totally un-related to wedding news, who am I kidding it's all I think about these days....the Dean of the church we're marrying in is trying to veto our "walking down the aisle" song choice. Now, when I was young, every favourite song was my "walking down the aisle" music. It's all I thought about. And it's very special to me. So when Richard and I found a song that we both loved (doesn't happen often) and that brings me to tears - I'm probably not going to want to change it for some "nice organ music". I like church choirs, but organ music always reminds me of the geriatric organ lady from the Simpsons. Cat loose on the keyboard. So we are taking a break on the music and seeing if she'll come round with some pleading and puppy eyes. I mean come on. It's only Marilyn Manson. Kidding. It's the Wiggles.

Cluck cluck cluck

2010-04-07T11:25:00.004+12:00

On Sunday, Richard and I were lucky enough to be delivered of one child, namely Amelie, my nearly-3 year old niece. It was our first sleepover. I swore I could hear this howl of delight as her father drove away, only having his 1 year old daughter to look after now, but maybe I was mistaken.

We did an Easter Egg hunt, we foraged for walnuts from our tree, we played the guitar and read Kimi and the Watermelon. We were reminded - often - that she was a big girl who could do it herself - and she could.

She hopped up on a stool and helped me peel the potatoes for dinner, and even cut them into little pieces. "We're having thauthages," she reminded me.

Sitting up for a pre-approved meal of said thauthages, peas, lashings of tomato sauce and mashed spud, Amelie decides she doesn't want any mashed spud.

Well. I am well-versed in child psychology (I'm not really).

"Richard!" I say. "This mash is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten! Try it!"

"Oh wow," he says. "You are right. This is better than Easter Eggs."

"Mmmmm," now positively flirting with my fork, "this tastes like chips and McDonalds put together!"

Richard takes a forkful of Amelie's mash.

"Hey! Yours is even better than ours!"

Amelie is staring at us.

"Try it Amelie! It's soooooo delicious!"

"Yeah, I still don't want it," she says.

One bubbly bath and two stories later, she's crashed out in our spare room, muttering "can do it myself....big girl..all by myself...."

We're zombified on the couch. Add to this daylight savings and the clocks going back an hour, I'm ready for bed at 8pm. All night I doze, imagining burglars and nocturnal wanderings and the cat sitting on her head. At 5.15 though, a poke in the shoulder tells me she's awake. She crawls into bed with us and snuggles up for a snooze. I don't even mind that it's dark and an ungodly hour. It's lovely.

Her father picks her up at 10.30. Richard and I are contemplating a beer and cooking dinner, because we've been up for so long. He laughs at our hollow eyes and stories.

After she's gone, the house is too quiet. I know parenting isn't all fun and games and snuggles, but if what we had for only one night is some of it, then I can't wait.

Late summer

2010-03-22T12:45:00.002+13:00

So yesterday morning we slept in, woke up to a beautiful sunny day, leapt out of bed (as much as the bottle-of -wine-each the previous night would let us) and got ready to go for a walk on the beach and around the Mount while we still could.
I'm out of the shower and drying off when I notice Basil skedaddling around in the corner of our room looking crafty. I go in. "What are you doing in there Mr Brushie boo?"

Turns out Mr Brushie boo was weeing in the corner! Zipping out the door and hiding outside, he gets away with it. Never having had to deal with this before - Basil has always been exceptionally well toilet-trained - I stare at the puddle uncomprehendingly. Snapping into action, Rich grabs the paper towels and I go to work, butt nekkid, hair dripping. Cursing the rule I put in place where I have to clean up poos and spews, and Rich cleans up dead things, I get it off the carpet using just water.

Lately next-door's kitten has found his way into our house through the cat door, and is eating all of Basil's biscuits. It's very hard to scare it away because it has no fear, and it's very cute, a miniature version of Basil but with 6 toes. It's polydactyl (is that the right word??) and has huge paws compared to the rest of it. But we now have water pistols, we've locked the cat door from the outside and we put the biscuits away at night. But Basil is obviously not happy about it, and shows his displeasure by doing a big wee inside. Thanks pal.

Taking the soaking paper towels to the kitchen, I then see a big blot on the landscape. An enormous cockroach has found his way into the house and is cruising up the wall. Now I can handle any insect - snakes - anything - but cockroaches make my skin crawl. I don't know what it is. Screaming for Rich, he comes running yet again with the paper towels, but misses it and it runs under the oven. I spray the hell out of it and wait. Nothing. Knowing there is a massive cockroach IN MY HOUSE makes me feel ill. Eventually it drags itself out, looking like it has survived shelling from the Germans in WWII. Rich nabs it and flushes it down the loo.

Not a great way to start Sunday. Funny thing is, the first thought I had was - if I was in Auckland, this would have ruined my day. We're so much happier here that it takes a LOT to get us down. In Auckland, burning the toast would have meant not speaking all day. Amazing huh?

Top of the mornin' to ye laddie

2010-03-17T16:56:00.005+13:00

So today, in honour of my non-existant Irish heritage (there's probably some in there somewhere) I am making Beef and Guinness pie.

Everyone loves a good pie, with rich dark gravy, tender pieces of beef, with a golden flaky crust. Yum. So I founds me a recipe from Jamie O. I used a slow-cooker - he used a oven-casserole dish. Each to their own. This is enough for the two of us (we are - ahem - large eaters).

1 Onion
1 clove Garlic
1 Carrot
Celery (I hate this, so I left it out)
2 large Mushies
Rosemary
Thyme
500 g Steak (a really tough cut - I used skirt)
2 tblspFlour
1 Tin of Guinness
2 tblsp black pepper

Chop up onion and garlic and fry gently in oil and/or butter. Add carrot, mushies and herbs.
Dice the steak into 2 cm squares against the grain. Add to pan and fry quickly. Throw all in the slow-cooker along with the flour, Guinness and pepper. Cook until tender (I did mine for about 6 hours).

If it's too runny when you're done, pour into a saucepan on the stove and reduce until nice and gloopy.

Put filling into a pie dish and cover with pre-made puff pastry. I'm going to make a little shamrock shape too and stick that on. I really do have too much time on my hands. Glaze the lot with egg wash and bake at 180c for about 40 mins, or until golden brown.

Jamie says to serve with peas but I'm going to do a salad as it's still summery-ish here. We'll also have a Guinness each and talk in stupid Irish accents all night. Potairters potairters fiddle-dee-dee.

Happy St Paddy's.

Wookie

2010-03-10T15:57:00.003+13:00

Here he is, my North, my South, my East and my West, my working week and my Sunday best....until Richard gets home that is. Doesn't feature here nearly enough, but he was sitting purring at my feet and stayed still long enough to get a pic. Isn't he handsome?

Called Wookie because I call him Snookie Wookie, Wurzel Gummidge, Kitten Meow Meow, Mr Brush, Reow, Friend, Pal, anything other than Basil. He's just the right amount of cat - friendly to kids, snoozes with us, chases other cats, comes running to the sound of a tin opener. I luff him.

A spot of gardening

2010-03-10T14:40:00.008+13:00

One of the best things about moving back home is always having something to do. Back in Dorkland, Richard and I would have to leave home to create our fun, which usually meant spending money, or screaming at each other in traffic jams over which way we SHOULD have gone. But here in Tauranga, I have a list a mile on that keeps me happy at home. At the top are always gardening tasks, because I would rather have a tidy garden than a tidy home (I WIN OVER NATURE).

Anyhoo we have a lovely guy Ian Dickie do our lawns (our lawn mower being a fire hazard). He noticed that we had a lot of oxalis poking its head up through our flowerbeds. This oxalis only showed up after we mulched using pea straw. WEED FREE EXPENSIVE pea straw. Hum. Anyway, he gave us a tip that, at this time of year, oxalis creates a bulb way down deep, and all you have to do is dig it up. So today, I did.

Let me tell you, finding these pointy pink knobs deep in the dirt was like popping a huge pimple, or extracting a stubborn ingrown hair. Disgusting but oh so satisfying. The whole garden only took me 30 mins and so long as I'm onto it, we should be oxalis free.

This is my raised veggie patch. I've got, from bottom up, broccoli, brussel sprouts and beetroot. All Rich's favourites. At the top is some late-summer cos lettuce. We have a white moth infestation at the moment so I have to derris dust every day. Not so sure how good it is because I have seen the moths landing directly on top of the dust and there's still tiny eggs on the leaves. Will just have to be vigilant I guess. Looking forward to the brussel sprouts, I was watching Jamie Oliver grow them and they look fantastic, big knobbly stalks. Hopefully we get a couple of good frosts this winter to make them extra sweet. Otherwise they just taste like farts.

The grape vine was left to grow wild while we were away, which means it's a big mess of canes and weeds. Hasn't harmed the grapes any though, and I probably eat an entire bunch a day. They are the most delicious things in the world. Grapes from a supermarket don't taste anything like these. Why is that? Anyone?

This half-wine barrel was the subject of my previous post. Look closely on the ground and you'll see lots of annoying white balls. It looks great on the corner of our deck and the pansies are coming up nicely. Although the "red" pansy is coming up severely yellow/orange. If I wanted ginga, I would have asked for it.

Richard was given this drinks bath as a present in his younger years. When I laid eyes on it, I said "we're too old for parties anyway." Half a bag of potting mix and a few drill holes later, I have all my favourite herbs close by (basil, rosemary, sage, thyme and mint). Plus I can move it around to sit in the different sunny spots according to the seasons. How Martha is that?

This is my edible Thai area, with a lime and chili plant. The lime we took with us from Auckland. It's grown more in one month here than it ever did there - needed full sun, which we didn't get. Unfortunately we'll get no fruit this season but am sure that next year it'll be chockers. The chili has also taken off and is still flowering. Tonight I'm making Thai beef salad with rice noodles and one of these puppies will be chopped into a tangy lime and fish sauce dressing.

And there you go. Send me tips, advice or kudos!

Idiocy

2010-03-01T15:37:00.000+13:00

Richard and I spent the weekend breaking our backs in the garden, getting everything back to how we like it, which to me, is not a blade of grass out of place, and to Rich, is somewhere he can sit and drink a beer.
Last year we bought half a wine barrel for the absurdly cheap price of $30, and it's been sitting doing nothing since then. Finally we put it in the corner of the deck. I decided I wanted it to be full of lovely flowers. So rustic and charming! Anyhoo it's very large, and would cost a lot to fill with potting mix, all for some shallow-rooting flowers. Rich pipes up.
"I saw this thing on a gardening show once, where they filled the bottom of the pot with beanbag beans, and then put the soil on the top to save space and allow for drainage!"
Makes sense to me. Off we potter to Bunnings to buy said beans and also lots of potting mix. Keep in mind we'd been gardening all day, it was 28 deg, and we had fairly bad hangovers from too much wine the night before. Brains were not fully engaged.
Getting home, we pour the beans into the wine barrel. They fill it halfway. So far, so good. We break open a bag of potting mix and start to shovel it on top of the beans. Flump. The dirt immediately sinks to the bottom. We try again. Flump.
Brows are furrowed. Turns out we'd forgotten about the laws of gravity and density. By now, the tiny beans are dotted around the deck and are sticking to our clothing and hands. I have the incredibly bright idea to water them down with the hose.
A good 5 mins later, I realise that the beans aren't spongey, and therefore are merely floating on top of the water. We now have dirty bean soup.
We still don't give up, and try laying plastic sheeting over the top of the beans. We dump more dirt onto the sheeting. Flump. It disappears under the sea of beans.
By now we are giggling like school kids. The beans are floating all over the place, and it looks like it's been snowing.
Finally we give up, and scoop out the beans with a bucket and into a rubbish bag. We are totally covered in the little fuckers and get maybe half into the bag. The rest fly off into the ether.
We end up doing what we should have done all along and filled the entire barrel with potting mix. 120 litres. Ah well. I planted red, white and blue pansies which hopefully will make an appearance in a couple of weeks. It looks rull pruddy.
The white beans are everywhere however and hopefully get munched in the lawnmower. Sorry environment.
Later on, I say to Richard: this gardening show. They used 1 cm of beans with a very small pot didn't they?
There is a pause.
Yes, he says.
Ah well. God loves a trier!

The Ventilator

2010-02-26T15:31:00.000+13:00

We're back in the sunny BOP, in our old home in Tauranga. And boy is it sunny - it's 27 degrees out there says my thermometer - and a load of washing dries in an hour. I'm wearing minimal clothing, much to the horror of the hordes at the supermarket - and it took me half a song to drive there. NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS. No Audi and BMW drivers taking up two lanes. No snooty ladies-of-a-certain-age hogging the hummus section. It was bliss.

Moving back has been a two-sided coin. It is utterly fantastic to be back in our house. To have our garden back, and our driveway, and the ability to put holes in the wall, should I want to. I certainly wanted to when I saw the state that the previous tenants had left our house. Keep in mind, this is with a property manager doing quarterly inspections. And here's where I've given myself the name the Ventilator. Look out for me on the wrestling circuit.

The walls were YELLOW. And sticky. The oven was filthy. The extractor fan literally dripping in oil and fat. And why was this? The family that were renting our home were Indian. They cooked all day every day, and never opened a door or a window, or, it seems, picked up a cloth and some Easy Off Bam (my new favourite thing in the world). The smell is horrendous. And it's not only the kitchen. Every room has stains, marks, and has never been cleaned to any normal person's standards. I am furious on so many levels - at the property manager for not doing her job, at the tenants for being disgusting, and at myself for my naivety in thinking they would take as good care of this place as I did.

After a comedy of errors, my family and I had to clean the entire house ourselves. I have gone through 3 bottles of Easy Off Bam, 4 kitchen cloths, 3 pairs of gloves and an entire bottle of bleach. I've mopped the ceiling, the grouting around the toilet, and removed cooking fat from my washing line. MY WASHING LINE. Honestly, I've been a student in Dunedin, and we were so disgusting, but at the end of the year, we left those flats spotless.

So it's off to the Tenancy Tribunal and the insurance company so that we can fix the damage (food colouring on polished floorboards, mildew on all brand-new curtains...etc. etc. etc.). If you're thinking of renting out your home, DON'T DO IT. Seriously.

After a week of cleaning, it's slowly coming right. I have bunches of lilies around, and a Jo Malone candle in Wild Fig and Cassis that is just gorgeous. The hot weather means all windows and doors are open. Yesterday I spent the day in the garden, cutting back the roses, removing whisky bottles from shrubs (!!!), planting flowers and vegetables. It was glorious. At 5pm, I poured myself a stiff gin and wandered around looking at my work. Basil followed along, happy as a clam to be back in his domain. It was so lovely.

I should probably think about getting a job. I just popped to the supermarket to get some more Easy Off Bam (I should get shares) and ended up spending over $100. Oops. Richard has a new job as a Mortgage Broker and Insurance Something, and has been at a course for two weeks in Auckland. He gets back tonight. A friend of ours gave us a beautiful bottle of Villa Maria Methode Traditionelle for our engagement which is chilling now. I can't wait to clink glasses and wish ourselves a happy and succesful time back here in the 'Raunga.

Also, updating my blog should be much more frequent now that we have internet at home. I've also been spurred on by my talented sister, who has started a blog of her own. Check it out!

xx

In swings the tide....you walk into my life....

2010-01-26T16:01:00.001+13:00

Late last year, Richard and I were heading out the door for our deliciously long holiday break. Nineteen days of pure fun, involving beaches, fishing, babies and bubbles, all our favourite things.

If you didn't already know, I am a planner, and an organiser, and a list-maker. Rich gives me assholes about not doing anything if it's not on my clipboard. I don't HAVE a clipboard - yet. I do however have a laptop and a pen and paper, and when I go into task-mode, you do not want to argue with me, or delay, or decide to watch football results or go to the toilet for a long time.

So on the morning of the 23rd of December 2009, we have packed the car, using every available inch of space. The cat is in his cage, already letting us know his displeasure every 10 seconds. There are fresh sheets on the bed. The furniture is polished, the dishwasher clean and empty, ditto the fridge. I have vacuumed. Rich finishes mopping, backing towards the front door as we go. At the last square metre of floor, he tips the mopping water outside in the garden, and throws the bucket into the laundry, landing neatly in the tub. We close the door, and are happy in the knowledge that when we return, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CLEAN HOUSE TO COME BACK TO.

This is what I'm like to live with.

We high-five, and set off on the 2.5 hour drive to Tauranga, with a stop in Pokeno to drop Basil at a cattery. No holiday for him.

I don't remember much about the trip, other than that we were super excited, and relieved to be finally on holiday after a super shit year. When I say it was Super Shit, I'm not exaggerating. We had to leave our home in Tauranga and move to hell-hole Auckland because I lost my job. We had to endure living in a tiny home, that had no insulation, for one of the coldest winters on record. Our landlord, who lives next door, enjoyed smoking cigarettes outside our bedroom window late at night, or liked fixing his Porsche at 8 at night when the noise of the exhaust made the house shake, and filled the lounge and kitchen with fumes. We paid $450 a WEEK for this. Rent in Tauranga is half this. My new job SUCKED. (I can say this now, because I have resigned). Richard had 2 jobs, which also SUCKED, and he left one, and was made redundant from another. Into this equation also goes 40 minute trips to see friends who live 5 km away (fucking, fucking Auckland traffic), $11 glasses of wine, $80 taxi rides, $10 for one hour's parking. All the while, my house in Tauranga was being tenanted by people who didn't think to open windows, meaning the dampness caused my fresh paint job to peel.

Our trip away on holiday was to be an escape. Yes we had to still deal with the fact that Rich had lost his job, and would need to job hunt when we got back. I had to make a decision on whether I wanted to stay in my role, that was literally bringing me to tears most weeks. But for now, it was all about Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into the Wild, and getting used to being in jandals again, and trying to avoid camping equipment to come loose from its precarious position and whack us in the back of the head on the Karangahake Gorge. It's a beautiful, sunny day, and traffic is minimal. All in all, we're in the best mood we've been in for ages.

We're nearly at Richard's parents, who live in Papamoa, near the beach. Rich says, let's go to the beach! I say, nah. I need to go to the loo. (Once we start driving, we don't stop for anything. God I'm awful). He says, please. I want to see the surf! I say, nooooooo. I really need to go to the loo. Let's go later. He says, PLEASE. This is Richard putting his foot down. FINE, I say, and swing towards the camp ground in Papamoa. There are kids running around in togs, parents in towels and caps and sand all over the place. I feel out of place in my city clothes. We find a park, near a public loo. I use it, grumbling all the time about DISGUSTING germs and FOUL smells and other affronts to my personal hygeine. He says, let's go down to the beach. I say, I can see it from here. Plus, all the Christmas presents are in the car. What if the car gets nicked? There are TEENAGERS hanging around, no doubt up to no good. You go. I'll wait here.

But he doesn't hear me because he's already strode purposefully on. I sigh, and follow, picking amongst the sand and stones in my lily-white, soft feet. I stare at people in their togs, all brown and warm, and feel totally out of place in my office-glow. For some reason, I notice Rich is walking very strangely. He has his hand jammed deep in his pocket. I stop walking, feeling very shaky all of a sudden. He turns around.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE WOULD YOU HURRY UP! I HAVE A RING THAT'S BURNING A HOLE IN MY POCKET HERE!"

He goes a bit further along the dunes and sits down. I sit beside him, already leaking tears.

He says lots of nice things, and I nod and wipe away tears. He asks a question, I say yes, and we hug. It all feels very surreal. We both stare out to sea, trying to figure out What Just Happened.

On the way back, I want to say, OMG! We just got engaged! to people that are around. Instead, we get in the car. Anika Moa's "In Swings the Tide" is on the stereo, fittingly. We get back to Richard's parents. She cries buckets. It's been a long time coming, and now that it's here, she can finally buy a new hat, and plan for a longed-for grandchild. Richard and I are a little bit uneasy. Rich sits on the couch, looking a bit stunned. I am not quite sure what to do. Eventually, we come up with a solution.

A frosty beer. Works every time.

We relax, and hug, and admire the ring, and call my family and friends. Richard had called my parents the day before to ask permission, so they are not that surprised, but still very happy. My friends scream, and cry, and promise many celebratory drinks when we see them.

We go to bed happy, with 18 days of celebrating ahead of us. It made for the best holiday we've ever had, and it turns out that after The Year of Tears and Awful Times is giving way to So Far, the Best. Year. Ever., with our wedding coming up in August, and a new job (Richard starts mid-February) but best of all, a move back to Tauranga, into our old home, with my beautiful garden and carpeted floors and insulated roof. Who would have thought. Maybe it was what we needed all along.

Happy Days!

This appealed to my sense of humour

2010-01-20T14:16:00.000+13:00

This is the front page of the Solomon Star newspaper, from the Solomon Islands, which are over by Papua New Guinea, which is above Australia...which is in the Southern Hemisphere.

Spontaneity

2010-01-13T08:14:00.001+13:00

A few days ago I was reading a question on the Dooce Community. It was asked by a girl who was in the “Trying” stage of pregnancy, and had maybe been having a bit of a battle with it. So she asked: what can I appreciate now whilst I’m still childless? What do all of you parents miss the most?
It was a popular question. The number one answer was undoubtedly sex. Do it whenever you can, was the advice given there. Morning, noon, night, all rooms of the house etc. Resolving to ensure Richard never read this post, I kept reading. Number two most popular was spontaneity. Apparently when you have a child, doing things like going to the supermarket requires a five minute break in between nappy changes, feeds, naps, and laundry. Spontaneous decisions to go to the beach/park/local pub are out the window.
With this very much in mind, Richard and I found ourselves with a commitment-free weekend. We’d done all our Christmas shopping, it was a beautiful day, and most importantly, we woke up on Saturday WITHOUT a hangover. Sleepily, I said, “it’s a sunny day. What shall we do?”
Rich thought about it.
“Puhoi.”
And 30 minutes later, we were showered, Berocca’d (gets you through the party season beautifully) dressed in our best summer casual-dressies and in the car.
Puhoi is an historic village situated about 30 minutes drive north of Auckland. It was settled by migrants in the 1880’s from Bohemia, which is now about 30 minutes out of the Czech Republic. Back then, it was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. New Zealand had literally just been colonized, and there were whole areas that hadn’t yet been slashed and burned. With that in mind, the Government passed the Waste Lands Act. This meant that inhospitable areas of the country could be settled and cultivated by migrants who only had to pay their way to New Zealand. On arrival, each adult was given 40 acres, and each child 20 acres of absolutely inhospitable land. The migrants, who had heard glowing reviews of New Zealand, had suffered over 100 days voyage, leaving in early Spring, to arrive in mid-Winter, turned up at a hastily put together whare (like a bivouac but larger) made from nikau palms. They would have looked around at the muddy paths, the claustrophobic bush cover and the total lack of anything suitable for farming, and no doubt burst into tears. I would have.
You can only imagine the conversations that the settlers would have had with Mr. Michael Krippner, who convinced these settlers to leave their families – never to see them again – and travel halfway around the world to farm mud and bush.
“Um – I’m pretty sure you said there were sea views?”
“Oh yeah, definitely – just climb this kauri tree and squint – you’ll see it in the distance. Maybe build a four story house....from the very available building supplies you see growing around you.”
“Can I have another look at our sale and purchase agreement?”
Anyway. The settlers were hardworking, and soon enough had cleared enough land to build more whares. They made money by shipping the tall kauri trees down river to Auckland, mining kauri gum, coal and ore. Local Maori helped with hunter-gathering. They stayed out in the bush all week, coming home in the weekend to their wives – “it’s YOUR TURN WITH THE KIDS!” – and to attend church.
With all of this in mind, Richard and I strolled around the village, which you can walk across in 15 minutes. There are not many buildings, but those that are there are beautifully maintained. Main attraction is definitely the Puhoi Hotel, a large, ramshackle building with chairs and umbrellas on a sloping lawn, dotted with people enjoying beers in the sun. The bar’s interior is literally covered in memorabilia. There are old photos, signs, newspaper articles, photos of famous people at the pub (Billy Connolly!) and the usual backpacker paraphernalia of bank notes, school IDs, scribbled signatures and business cards. It would take two days to go over it all, but the bright sun was beckoning and we took ourselves out to the lawn with a cider. Friendly dogs were wandering around, and kereru and tui were flitting in and out of the pohutukawa and cabbage trees nearby. It was stunning.
We ordered a ploughman’s platter for lunch. This is my favourite lunch – satisfying, filling, yet doesn’t make you feel overstuffed. Plus you eat with your hands, which always makes a meal extra good. This platter didn’t disappoint. The bread was soft and tasty, the ham fresh off the bone. The piccalilli was homemade with visible chunks of cauliflower and gherkin, and the pickled onions were so strong I got lemon lips. It was very British indeed.
Having eaten our fill, we wandered onwards to the Bohemian Museum, situated in the old school house. Entrance was an honesty box donation of $3.00, and there was not a soul to be seen. I loved this. In Auckland, or overseas, there would be a security guard and alarms ensuring that no one could touch anything or get too close. And while the entry fee may be voluntary, rest assured you will have to fight through three different desks each asking if you would like to pay this fee. But this felt like you were going into someone’s home. Brushing away cobwebs as we went in, (the visitor’s book hadn’t been signed since October) we discovered a charming room beautifully presented in a timeline of settlement. There were prayer books and musical instruments, kitchen utensils (found at the bottom of the river) and wedding dresses. A lot of work had gone into this room, no doubt by some hardworking volunteers. I poked a pipe and the child’s exercise books and waited for the alarms to ring – nothing.
Feeling parched, we walked up a quiet lane towards Puhoi Cottage. Passing a house blaring Christmas carols, a self-righteous boxer dog with a greying muzzle took it upon himself to bark furiously at us from behind a large gate. His owner called him off and he quietened down to a few indignant ruffs. Peace restored, we arrived at the cottage, which is apparently the oldest tearooms still serving Devonshire teas, don’t you know. I knew it would be good when I saw it advertised itself as a “diet-free zone”. A sprightly chap read the entire menu to us and explained who the house was built for, when and what with – I wasn’t listening though because I was still salivating over the menu. 2 “devo” teas – I love Kiwis, lucky I am one - were ordered, and we took ourselves around the overgrown cottage garden. Bunnies and guinea pigs, birds and bees abounded and the sun shone. The teas arrived with scones that were the size of rugby balls. The cream was freshly whipped, the jam gooey and bright and the tea strong and hot. It was perfect. So it should be for $10.00 each.
We started to get dozy in the heat, so we paid up and headed back to the pub, which was of course what we had in mind all afternoon.
It was much busier. Puhoi, like most small settlements in New Zealand, is a haven for bikies (not scary gang bikies, just people that like motorbikes) and classic-car owners. There were ranks of gleaming chrome lined up on the road, and lots of people sweating in their leathers. Richard drooled over a brand new Harley, while I eyed up a fantastic black e-Type Jaguar. My red Golf looked far too jaunty and new.
Sitting down with another cider, we do what all sight-seers love to do. Eavesdrop. Next to us was a large table filling up with people around our age. They werere all wearing T-shirts advertising “Pamplona ’97 Reunion” and “Redback Tavern – London”. One has a picture of a kiwi giving it to a kangaroo in the canine position. This one says “Show them some Kiwi style!” Cheap watches bought in London markets, fake handbags from Thailand on the way home, and all with leather wristbands.
They’re all obviously back in NZ after some years overseas. Drinking stories abound – who’s been the furthest distance away, who’s been away the longest, who can put on the fakest English accent. There are discussions on how they’re going to open a bar “near the beach, do some funny shit, just clean it up with the backpackers mate, clean it up.” I’ve seen these groups before, and as soon as one gets engaged, or has a baby, they all start dropping like flies and moving home. Saddest thing on earth? A guy who just doesn’t know when it’s time to hang up the passport and money belt. They’re all drinking crate bottles of Lion Red – including the girls – and the largest of them all takes his shirt off in the sun. I thought at one stage they were going to do a haka.
Richard and I stop staring and instead take note of a large stag do bus that’s pulled up, no doubt on a tour of country pubs, a very popular stag at the moment. Here is another sector of Kiwi society beautifully presented. About 40 guys pile out of the bus – all absolutely blotto. They’re at the stage where their legs seem to be attached to their bodies only by the merest suggestion – maybe some Blu-Tak. I take a look around. A table of beautiful blond girls quickly get up to leave, no doubt anticipating the amount of verbal banter that will get thrown in their direction. Remembering the last stag do we ran into and the amount of male genitalia that was on show, I decide I don’t want to ruin such a perfect day with that as a memory, and instead we finish up, and head off home.
If this is the kind of day I will fondly remember as I’m up at 3am with a squalling child, so be it. It was wonderful.

The cattle are blowing the baby away.....*

2009-12-21T11:06:00.001+13:00

So it turns out that attending church for the first time in years make you re-think your choice of underwear.
I normally wear thongs, and have done for years, because they are so comfortable and wash and dry faster than normal nana-knicks, but last night whilst getting ready for the Carol Service at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell, I had a re-think. I can’t go to CHURCH wearing a THONG. God will judge me.
And this is odd, because I don’t believe in God. However, I LOVE a good singalong, and other than getting blottoed at the pub and singing karaoke, church is about the only place you can exercise your pipes.
I went to a school that was very Christian, and we attended chapel every day at 8.10 to 8.30. We would sing a hymn, listen to a reading, someone would give a talk, then we’d receive a blessing and be off to start our day. At the time, chapel was a place where you’d slowly wake up, mumble the Lord’s Prayer, get in trouble by eagle-eyed prefects for laughing (I’d always get an attack of the giggles at inopportune moments). However, as much of a drag it was to attend chapel every day, how lame, OMG God doesn’t exist, etc., everyone always perked up when we began practicing for the end of year carol service. Who doesn’t love a good carol, I say. It means the end of the year, summer, exams over, and some truly beautiful singing.
So last week I saw the cathedral advertising its carol service for 2009, and I raved about it to Richard. Being Richard, he agreed to come along even though he can’t sing a note and disliked having to wear suit pants on a Sunday. I love him. We willingly set foot inside a church for the first time in years, save weddings and tourist larks.
And it was truly beautiful. The cathedral is light and airy, and quite modern with a high soaring roof to gaze up at. We chose a seat that was near a seeing-eye dog, because I love animals as you may be aware. As we sat down, a ray of light hit Richard in the face. Smugly, he said “that’s God giving me a sign I’m going to get a job soon.” Choosing to believe in God for that reason, I agreed.
We were surrounded by nodding white/purple heads, hearing aids, God-Squadders, and farmers that had brushed off the tweed coat and driven hours to come into town because it was the traditional thing to do.
As soon as the choir started singing Once In Royal David’s City, I got tears in my eyes. It was so beautiful. I felt like I was in an episode of the Vicar of Dibley. I got over it soon and was singing my lungs out on all my favourites, Hark the Herald, O Little Town of Bethlehem, O Come All Ye Faithful. We even gave $10.00 to the collection plate, it was that good.
We left feeling cleansed and I was glad I could still hit the high notes. I’ll definitely be doing this again.

*this is what my Uncle John apparently thought the words were when he was young.

FYI, it's my birthday soon.

2009-12-18T11:11:00.000+13:00

I just like to remind people of that fact, because my birthday is on the 28th, and everyone - EVERYONE - says, oh that must suck. So close to Christmas! Yes it does suck, because people are shopped out and have a thousand things on, and therefore usually completely forget about my birthday. My own father once played a round of golf on my birthday and forgot to call me. WTF! He called the next day. To be honest, I hadn't noticed that he didn't call, but I still made him feel reallllly guilty. I'm awesome like that.

So because I am selfish and all-about-me, I remind everyone I've ever met about my birthday a long time in advance. You're also not allowed to combine Xmas and Birthday in one present. That's just lazy. Yes, greedy, selfish, rude, I am all these things. But I am also very cuddly.

So I have 2 more days of work left. This last week, if I had to pick one movie title to sum up the mood in the office, I would pick "Kill Bill" in which "Bill" stands for "Everyone in the Entire Office."
Everyone's trying to get things done that should have been done in September, and because we have an enormous long break - 19 DAYS - we're trying to figure out how we can hit the ground running when we get back. When really, all we want to do is listen to carols and eat chocolate and buy last minute presents online.

I have a bit of an escape that I use when the office tension is so thick you could drown in it and the hairs on your arms stand up. Voices, printer, phones, people screaming at each other, idiots giggling over cat pictures (okay that's me) - it all fades away when you listen to this:

http://www.soundsleeping.com/

Birdies chirping, ocean waves, and a gurgling stream. Yes it's very new-agey, but man alive I can feel all the tension leave my shoulders when listening to it. Similar to a white noise machine I guess.

This is my sister's Christmas card this year showing my 2 beautiful nieces and their brand new playhouse. My sister made the bunting and also appliqued the girls clothes. My mother is hugely impressed, as she prides herself on "not being able to sew on a button" which is a lie, because I've seen her do it many times, but I think she was rebelling against her own mother who was a total genius when it came to making our clothes. Although, because Nana was a chain smoker, when the parcel of clothes arrived, Mum would have to open it outside, then wash all the clothes before we could try them on, because they reeked of Rothmans. Funny huh?

Tonight my friend is hosting a BBQ on the deck of her apartment that overlooks the Harbour here in Auckland. We're bringing a green salad consisting of lettuce, cucumber, green capsicum and feta cheese (Rich - feta isn't green! Me - no-one is marking us out of ten for salads). We're taking a bottle of bubbly and looking forward to a nice relaxing night of getting smashed and singing to 80's tunes. Tomorrow - beach, book (reading The Dome by Stephen King - not as good as the Stand but it'll do) and naps in the sun. God I love summer.

PS birthday in 10 days.

Why I Avoid Shopping When I Can.

2009-12-14T12:27:00.000+13:00

Scene: The interior of insane high-end women’s clothing shop. Think pink, frills, ribbons, gilt, faux-boudoir furniture and Lady GaGa singing about disco sticks at half a billion decibels.

Enter: Me (30, casually dressed) my Mother (60, casually dressed).

Sales Freak 1: HELLO! WELCOME! YOU BOTH LOOK SO BEAUTIFUL!

Me: Uh, thanks! (heads over to racks on far side of room).

Sales Freak 2: OMG AREN’T THESE DRESSES AMAAAAAAAAAAZING! I JUST ADORE THAT ONE YOU’RE HOLDING! AND THAT OTHER ONE YOU HAPPENED TO GLANCE AT! YOU HAVE PERFECT CHOICE WHEN IT COMES TO CLOTHES!

Me: Wow, thanks. I’m actually looking for a 50’s style sundress to wear to my step-sister’s wedding in January.

Sales Freak 2: OMG THAT IS SO LOVELY! AND SO CLOSE! YOU’D BETTER BUY SOMETHING TODAY OTHERWISE THERE WILL BE NO DRESSES LEFT IN THE WHOLE WORLD! WHAT’S YOUR BUDGET?

Me: Five hundred.

Mum: THREE hundred.

Me: (feels like a teenager).

SF 2: OKAY WELL DO YOU LIKE THIS ONE? IT’S SIX HUNDRED! OR THIS ONE? IT’S EIGHT HUNDRED BUT OMG, IT’S A ONE OFF BOUTIQUE DESIGN HANDMADE AND TAILORED TO FIT!

Me: Uh, I’m not sure we can spend that much...

SF 2: JUST TRY THEM ON ANYWAY! SRSLY! GET AN IDEA! (manhandles us towards changing room area that is surrounded by stick-thin collagen enhanced cougars and more sales freaks).

Queen of the Sales Freaks: OMG DARLING WHAT FANTASTIC SELECTIONS YOU’VE MADE! THESE ARE SO BEAUTIFUL I HAVE ONE AT HOME AND I ADORE IT! JUST POP IN HERE AND POP YOUR CLOTHES OFF AND POP THE DRESS ON AND POP OUT TO SHOW US OKAY DARLING! LOVE IT! WOOT!

Mum: *speechless*

Sparkly sequinned cocktail style dress – nothing like a 50’s style sundress – is manoeuvred on. It doesn’t fit very well over the “girls”.

QotSF: OMG THAT DRESS LOOKS AMAAAZING! IT’S PERFECT! FOR A WEDDING? OH A FAMILY WEDDING! YOU WANT TO LOOK AMAZING BECAUSE YOU’LL BE IN SO MANY PHOTOS BEING FAMILY AND ALL!

Me: Well I’d hate to upstage....

QotSF: LET’S TUG ON IT AND POKE YOU LOTS TO TRY TO MAKE IT LOOK OKAY!

Me: Yeah, I think it makes me look fat.

QotSF: YOU’VE GOT BOOBS! I’VE GOT GREAT BIG BOOBS TOO! I’VE JUST HAD A BABY AND MY BOOBS ARE AMAZING! BUT I’VE ALSO GOT LONG LEGS AND BROAD SHOULDERS....WHICH YOU DON’T HAVE! I LOOK FABULOUS IN ALL THESE THINGS! LOOK AT MY BOOBS AND MY LONG LEGS!

Me: ........I’m going to try the other one.

Cream tunic dress that actually looks passable is donned.

Me: I don’t mind this. Mum, what do you think?

Mum: *says something but no-one can hear a thing over Britney telling us how she likes threesomes*

QotSF: THIS DRESS IS SO SPECIAL ONE OF A KIND DESIGNER HANDMADE TAILORED TO FIT!

Me: Why does the hem hang down at the back?

QotSF: THAT’S (designer’s name) SIGNATURE! ALL HER DRESSES ARE LIKE THAT! LIKE VIVIENNE WESTWOOD!

Me, thinking: WTF?

QotSF to Mum: THIS IS A DRESS THAT I THINK WOULD LOOK GREAT ON YOU AS A MOTHER OF THE BRIDE!

Mum: As I said before, it’s my step-daughter.

QotSF: DOESN’T MATTER! SAME THING! TRY THIS DRESS ON! NAVY IS SO HIP RIGHT NOW AND YOU’VE GOT GREAT LEGS AND NO BUTT!

Mum, drawing herself up to her full 5 feet 3: I don’t LIKE that dress.

QotSF: OH. WELL I’M JUST GOING TO POKE YOU AND YELL IN YOUR FACE A BIT MORE! AND TELL YOU HOW AMAZING THIS DRESS IS ABOUT FOUR HUNDRED TIMES.

Me: Mum, what do you think about this one?

Mum: I think we should go away and think about it.

QotSF: IT’LL BE GONE. GONE. JUST LIKE THAT. EVERYONE ALWAYS GETS SO MAD AT ME FOR NOT HOLDING THESE DRESSES BUT I CAN’T, BECAUSE THEY SELL THAT QUICKLY. YOU’LL NEVER FIND ANOTHER ONE LIKE IT. EVER. YOUR LIFE WILL BE RUINED IF YOU DO NOT BUY THIS DRESS RIGHT NOW.

Me: Well, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. There are a couple of others we’ve seen around town.

Qotsf: WHERE? CAN I REMIND YOU THAT THIS IS A ONE OFF PIECE THAT’S HANDMADE AND TAILORED TO FIT!

Me: *names well known NZ designer*

QotSF: OH. WELL, I’M SURE I DON’T NEED TO TELL YOU THAT OUR DESIGNS ARE ONE OFF AND HANDMADE. (OTHER DESIGNER) IS JUST A FUNKY STREEET LABEL!

The other dress is SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS and a beautiful 50’s style sundress. Nail in the coffin.

(inside the changing room) Me: Mumthisplaceisscaryandineedtogetoutnow!!!

Mum: Thatwomanisthemosthorriblepersoni’veevermet! Andthezipiscrookedonthatdress!

(outside changing room) Me, smiling thinly: Well, thank you for your help.

QofSF: OKAY BYEEEEEEEEEE! (to other sales freak) THIS WOMAN IN HERE NEEDS A CAMISOLE! AND A CARDIGAN! NOW! GO! OKAY THANKS DARLING! LOVE YOU! LALA I KNOW ALL THE WORDS TO RIHANNA!

Various sales freaks: OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING IN! WE LOVE YOU!

Outside, in the rain – Me: I’m shaking. That was the most awful shopping experience of my life.

Mum: I saw a dress that I quite liked. But I purposely didn’t buy it because she was so awful.

Me: Shall we go back to Andrea Moore and buy that other beautiful dress?

Mum: Definitely.

Fin.

I won’t name names, but this awful store’s designer is Australian, and her name rhymes with SchmAllanah SchmHill.

My girls

2009-12-07T12:35:00.000+13:00

This is me with wee Stella-bella in the weekend. She's 8 months and is so sweet. She's a bit shy so to get this shot of her smiling with me was a real bonus over a mad mad mad weekend.

My partner lost his job on Thursday. Basically it's a year since I'd also lost my job. So I know what he's going through. It's very exhausting and he's taken it very hard (who doesn't). So cuddles with the nieces are the best therapy you can get.

I was putting Stella into her car seat when I notice Amelie staring at me intently.

"Have you got a baby?" she asks, no doubt looking at my less-than-trim stomach.
"No, but I'd like one," I say.

She keeps studying me.

"What are you looking at?" I ask her.
"Boobies," she shoots back.

As you do.

In other news, I've only 12 working days left this year. This is so much awesomeness, but so much to do up until then. I cannot wait until our holiday this year. We are spending Xmas again in Tauranga with my step-sister's family and my step-dad and Mum. All the other sisters are having away games at their in-laws. We'll be doing the usual bedlam present opening, and crayfish and champers around the new pool at Kathryn's house.
Then we're going to be heading to Richard's parents who live nearby for Xmas dins. They're British, and do a proper turkey with all the trimmings. It's AWESOME. Even if it's 30 deg outside and we're all wishing we could go for a swim, the turkey gets mown. Can't wait.
After Tauranga we're heading to Napier to my parents for my birthday (the 28th). It's a nothing special birthday - 31 - but I always make a fuss because it's so close to Xmas. I'm thinking cucumber sandwiches, cupcakes and bubbles around the pool.
Then on about the 30th we're heading to Mahia, where we went last year. It's a tiny coastal settlement north of Hawkes Bay. Unspoilt beach, one pub, one shop, and lots of surfers dudes and fishermen. The best thing? NO CELL PHONE RECEPTION. Ahh....peace. We'll be camping under pine trees and showering in cold rain water. It's brilliant.

So that's our summer plans. I don't have to be back in the office until the 11th. Brilliant. Hopefully at some stage Richard will get a look in at some jobs, but right now, it's a big black hole of nothing and we're both fighting to stay positive.

I will appreciate jokes and pictures of babies and/or cats.

A Bereavement

2009-11-10T15:00:00.001+13:00

All two or three of my long-time readers will recall my posts about my Dad and his idiosyncracies. Well, on Sunday he let loose with another zinger.

"Hey Dad! I missed your call?"
"Hey Aims! How are you? Good weekend?"
"Great thanks! Just been at a BBQ with pals."
"Oh lovely. Listen, Mum died last night. Do you want to come over for dinner?"

By Mum, he means my Grandmother, who I wrote about a while ago, after she broke her hip in a fall. She was 93.

All joking aside, this is very much The Family Way. We don't show emotion and we don't cry or, God forbid, talk about our feelings. Funnily enough I feel like I've been adopted at birth, because I love a good cry, and am always analysing things and talking about how I feel with friends. My mother just worries that my workplace will get mad because I'll be taking the day off to go to Grandma's funeral. At her own mother's funeral she watched my Aunt go to touch the coffin and break down in tears, so she refused to go. I was all, Mum, it's OKAY TO CRY. But, it's her way. And Dad and his brother are the same.

So getting to Grandma's house on Sunday and seeing Dad in tears for a wee bit was very hard. We sat around and looked at photo albums and cuttings that she'd collected, and I cried a bit over finding an envelope of my late Aunt's hair, collected at her first ever haircut. She died in her early 40's of cancer.

Our family on Dad's side is very small, with my Uncle and Aunt never marrying, and Dad only producing my sister and me. So the arrangements have fallen to Dad and my Uncle. Being men, they don't realise that neighbours WANT to come around and drop off food and stay for a natter and tell you about their stories with Grandma. That they are grieving too. So yesterday I took myself around there and got rid of all the "sick" things - her walker, the awful toilet chair contraption, her boxes of tissues and masses of pills. I made the house look like Grandma again and did a heck of a lot of cleaning. 93 year old eyes miss things. It was very cathartic. I found a prayer book belonging to my namesake, Grandma's mother, that had been presented to her "by the Church of England upon the occasion of her marriage, 1915." I found my Aunt's photos and slides of her travels in the 60's, where she looks like a fashion icon. I found photos of my Grandmother done up to the nines off to war-time dances and dinners. I felt like I had never known this person. The Grandma I knew wore trousers and jackets and awful sun hats and had a bit of a temper.

We're hosting a wake there after the funeral so I'll make sure everyone has a napkin and there's some nice music on and enough loo paper and all those things that simply don't occur to men. I'm going to display all the lovely old photos around the room so those who also met her later in her life can see what she was really like.

What was bizarre was me checking my messages this morning after a hectic weekend. First to come up was from Friday night, and it was from Grandma. She wanted to talk to someone "who was out there and living life. Someone young!" she said. I didn't even notice the missed call and rarely check my voicemail, preferring to just call the person back. But this time, I didn't. Am finding it very hard to come to terms with the sadness and disappointment in her voice. Mum says there's nothing I can do about it now and don't beat myself up.

Easier said than done.

Boredom Busters

2009-10-30T12:28:00.000+13:00

We're off on yet another long road trip tonight, back to the Hawkes Bay. Given that we're leaving Auckland right on rush hour, the entire trip will probably take about 6.5 hours.
Now some people quite enjoy car trips, in fact I don't mind them during the day if there's some good tunes on the radio and some lovely scenery, which there usually is in good old NZ. But when it's 10pm, pitch black and you're stuck behind a stinky sheep truck doing 10 km/h around the twisty bends of the Napier Taupo Road and you JUST WANT TO GET THERE, God, the allure of the car isn't so beguiling. Plus, because I am so bored, I tend to get reallllllllly hungry. Last car trip we broke our healthy eating run and had Burgerings, Maccas, lollies, and an icecream. So. This time I am planning.
To avoid the binge eating, I'm going to the supermarket and preparing a wee picnic. Rice crackers, ready-popped popcorn, dried fruit, and as a treat, some lollies. Dinner will be filled rolls with cottage cheese, ham and tomato. Will throw in a 4 pack of sugar-free Red Bull to keep our eyes open. I may buy a chocolate bar for Richard to keep him quiet.
To get the conversation going, as we're both so tired this week and have just about had enough of everything, I'm writing a good thorough list of conversation-starters. Things like:

What was your favourite TV show when you were a kid?
Who was your favourite teacher and why?
What's your dream home or holiday?
What's your opinion on global warming? (Not).

These should avoid those conversations that degenerate into "but you're not even listening to what I'm saying. No, you're not. You're changing everything I'm saying. So much for MY opinion then.." etc.

Am also going to bring out those brilliant car-trip games from my childhood. My favourite was going through the alphabet listing towns in NZ. A was Auckland. B was Bulls. Etc. P was the best one to get because of all the P Towns on the Kapiti Coast. Paraparaumu, Plimmerton, Paekakariki....Eye Spy was another good one. I would always pick something totally random, like the cigarette lighter in the car itself. Although because no-one could pick it, everyone got bored and would move onto something else. The other good ones were car cricket, which was something like you scored a 6 for every red car, a truck was out, white car was 1 run. Of course travelling with my Dad meant we had to listen to the news every 15 minutes UP FULL BLAST, and not the fun news either that went for 30 seconds, it was the full Newstalk ZB read by a very British sounding lady who talked about countries I'd never even heard of. Then Dad would smoke a stinky Benson and Hedges cigarette and drive too fast around corners. We'd be feeling ill in the back seat surrounded by beach towels and buckets and shovels and BBQs, and Mum would be passing us warm Orange and Mango Just Juice. Combination of all this meant we would need to stop to throw up and Dad would refuse because there was NOWHERE SAFE TO PULL OVER so he and Mum pretty much ended up wearing most of it.

Aaaah family life. Nothing like a good tangent to get you reminiscing.

The Wit.

2009-10-27T14:49:00.001+13:00

Colleague: My computer just crashed again.

Me: Did it forget to give way?

See me later on the Comedy Channel.

Close encounters of the neighbourly kind

2009-10-19T14:05:00.001+13:00

This morning, as I rolled over and hit the snooze button for the 8th time, preparing to burrow down for another nine minutes, a sound made my eyes pop open.
It was a fart.
Rich had already gone to work. Basil was on his armchair. And it sure as heck wasn’t me. It was our neighbour.
You see, we share a driveway with our neighbour, and it goes directly along the side of our house. The side where our bedrooms are. The house is not known for its solidness – in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the walls were made of MDF – hence if you walk along the driveway while we’re in bed, we’re going to hear you. You are not all alone, humming a tune, enjoying the birdsong. We’re listening. So when you drop a bomb while you’re getting something out of your car, we’re going to hear it.
A lovely way to start the day.
When Rich and I discuss what we want from life, the first thing – always the first thing – is a big house set in the middle of ten acres, with no other houses to be seen. The joy of being able to sing really loudly to a bad song. To be able to jump around the house doing aerobics without having to pull the curtains. To sit on the deck staring at the stars and smelling the night-scented flowers without being slammed by a wave of cigarette smoke from next door. City life – it’s not for me.

Another reason to move to Australia

2009-09-28T15:58:00.001+13:00

If you can see that, it's disgusting here this week, and gorgeous in Aus. And only 3.5 hours flight away!

The scary thing is, I'm half him

2009-09-24T13:51:00.000+12:00

Just had the following conversation with my Dad, who as you'll know, is....unique.

"Hey Dad! Just letting you know we're down in the Mount this weekend, so are you keen for a catch up?"

"What? I'm working. Flat out. No I'm in Auckland this weekend - Grandma's in hospital."

This is my 93 year old Grandmother who lives 15 mins away from me. How many times have I visited her? Not once. Yes I am bad.

"What? What's she in hospital for?"

"A broken pelvis. It happened two weeks ago."

"Two weeks! Why did you tell me?"

My Dad - being a male - replies thus:

"I've been WORKING!"

Having heard him pull this excuse for most of my childhood I realise that he's under huge stress and is about to blow a gasket.

"Fine. I'll call the hospital and figure out where she is and explain to them why her granddaughter who lives in the same city has not yet been to visit her."

"Thanks honey."

So there you go. What do you take a 93 year old who has never been sick in her life, but is nearly blind?

Australians all let us rejoice......

2009-09-21T15:44:00.000+12:00

So we got back from Australia a whole 2 weeks ago, I know, and only now I'm putting fingertips to keyboard to tell you about it.
Basically it was a delicious warm blur of sand, sunscreen, seafood and many delicious frosty beers. It almost didn't happen however when we stumbled at the first hurdle.
Imagine this. I am checking our passports for the last time. Rich takes a last toilet stop. Reappearing in the hall, he says, I wonder if I need a Visa to enter Australia? (Rich was born in the UK and has never got around to becoming a NZ citizen). I stare at him. I've done things like research ticket prices of theme parks, rental cars, the movies onboard the plane, the distance from our apartment to the centre of town (walking AND driving!) and he hasn't even checked whether he can enter the goddam country. And there, my friends, is the difference between men and women.
I call our travel agent on the way to the airport. He confirms our fears. Rich does need a visa.
In my job, I make sure people from all over the Pacific are in the right place at the right time. Mostly this involves negotiating Visas for various countries. The rule is - you apply about 2 months before you travel, because these things take time.
With this in mind, we drive on. Rich looks as though he wishes he was being run over by the car, not driving it. Brainwave. I call Air New Zealand and explain the situation. The relief was palpable when the helpful lady says we can apply over the phone and it's instant. (Just between you and me, this is about the only logical thing I have heard about airlines for ages. If they can put a pointless 48 hour deadline onto something, they do). We get sorted, and I share a joke about men and their uselessness in certain situations with her.
Rich looks very sheepish. I say YOU WERE LUCKY. Good thing is, he buys me my Ange ou Demon perfume to make up for the extra grey hairs I now have/will have.
Arriving in Australia at dusk, the humidity and warmth is gorgeous. I had forgotten how big everything is. The cars, the streets, the expanse of sky.
We hit Surfers Paradise, and head out for dinner at Main Beach. We're staying in a fancy part of town, and our humble rental car is out of place amongst the Lambos, Ferraris and Porsches. Our neighbours at dinner could be directly out of Underbelly. It's brilliant.

Me eating oysters and drinking champagne. I know, I want to punch me too.

We spend our days eating, snoozing, shopping and drinking. We laugh when, having spent the morning on the beach, we present ourselves at a restaurant advertising a 2 for 1 Winter Special. We are wearing our togs with singlets, jandals and sunglasses, covered in sand and sunscreen. Brilliant. Admittedly, other Aussies probably think we're mad, but it's a good 10 deg hotter than at home, and we're going to take all we can get.

We head to Dreamworld the next day. It's not nearly as exciting as I remember it, but maybe that's because I was 15 last time we went. I endure the log flume, canyon ride, and a couple of rollercoasters. Unfortunately, my motion sickness gets the better of me, and I have to rush to the loo. See you later breakfast. The vertigo does not pass and I visit the loo in Wiggles World, which is batshit enough to make anyone dizzy. We leave Dreamworld early and I have to stop on the side of the road. Rollercoasters? Never again.

The pool at our apartment.

Me and a pal

After a few days of sun, beach, tanning and reading, we head off to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It's enormous, with acres of natural bush and lots of cute things to coo over. There are tiny lizards scurrying everywhere. Rich is terrified of these lizards. I milk this at every opportunity. Even when we get back to the hotel. *rustle rustle* "STOP IT!"

Apparently, it is NOT funny to pretend there's one of these on your back.

We leave on another beautiful Australian evening, and get back to an 8 deg Auckland night, where the shuttle is 30 mins late, and the house is an icebox. No matter. We are way browner than everyone else.

Some stats from our holiday:

Pairs of shorts bought by Richard: 5
T-shirts bought by Richard: 4
Pairs of shoes bought by Amy: 3
Money pit owned by Richard and Amy to pay for said items: Non-existent
Nails painted by crazy Thai manicurist: 20
Decibels of Thai conversation at nail bar: 7,000,000
Times I said I would never eat fries again: 6
Times I then ate fries: 7
Pairs of sunglasses lost while puking, listening to Big Red Car: 1
Amount of dollars said sunglasses worth: 550
Tears shed upon realisation of such: A lot
Amount of weight gained whilst on holdiay: 1 kg
Amount of weight shed after one week back: 1.1 kg (snoopy dance!)
Times we have dropped our holiday into the general conversation upon our return: Numerous (so our friends say)
Koalas cuddled: 1
Kangaroos fed: 3
Snakes held: 1
Icecreams eaten (Baskin Robbins Chocolate/Peanut Butter OMG): Not enough
Tooheys Extra Dry consumed: Too much
Great holidays had by all: 1

Johnny Depp was in that movie?

2009-09-21T14:53:00.001+12:00

A large football field lies outside our offices, and when it’s been recently mown, birds like to hang out there to munch on the displaced bugs. One of the birds usually gets a fright, and the entire flock flies to high ground. Sometimes this high ground will be our roof, which means we have a thousand or so sparrows zooming towards our windows.
“It looks like The Birds,” I commented one day, not that I’ve ever seen it, but I imagine there would be a lot of bird scenes in a movie called The Birds. Yes I’m a logical person.
“That was scary,” says my boss, who was actually alive when the movie came out.
“The Omen. THAT was scary. That freaked my shit out,” colleague 1 says.
“The Ring was bad. I didn’t like that one,” says my boss.
“The Grudge! Hated it!” colleague 1.
I do the croaky noise that the scary kid in The Grudge does.
“Yes! Stop it!” he says.
“Mine was Nightmare on Elm Street and Freddy Krueger. I had to take all my mirrors down,” I say, referring to the bit where Freddy comes leaping out of a mirror, knives akimbo.
Seriously, Freddy Krueger shaped my childhood. That scarred face, those awful knives, and the red and black striped jersey. Seared into my memory. I think if I watched that movie now, the original Nightmare on Elm Street, I think I’d find it hilarious.
What was your worst horror movie?

PS and yes, I’ll be writing about our trip soon!

Office space

2009-09-10T14:59:00.000+12:00

Me. "If you had to describe what Coke tastes like, what would you say?"

Colleague 1. "Coke."

Me. "......"

Colleague 2. "Paper."

Colleague 1. "Oooh I know. It tastes like those Coke bottle lollies."

Colleague 2. "Paper, with sugar sprinkled on it."

Me. "Did you guys used to get the Coke lollies and bite the tops off and then suck really hard to get at the Coke inside? Except there was no Coke inside?"

Both are nodding.

Me. "I think it tastes like lemon."

Crossing the ditch

2009-08-24T15:23:00.001+12:00

I am in countdown mode this week, as we're off to Surfers Paradise on Saturday morning. Rich and I have both been struck down with the flu, for which I am thankful, because how often do you hear of people getting sick on their holiday? At least we're getting it now.
So after what seems to have been an exceptionally long and dismal winter, we're super excited about getting our pins out and wearing our jandals again. I have even bought a new nail polish to celebrate. I know. It's called Suzi and the Lifeguard and is an OPI polish. It's a lovely pale pink with a slight shimmer to it.
We also are feeling pretty smirky because we have a Thing where, if we have coins in our pockets/wallets/back of the couch, we put them into a money box. I hauled the contents into the bank today and the sum total will pay for a new fragrance for us both and should stock up the booze cabinet also from Duty Free. I absolutely love Duty Free shops...I know it's only a bit cheaper than normal, and you can probably find better prices online...but there's something about knowing that you're getting a bargain and everything smells delicious and everyone's happy because they're going on holiday. Brilliant. Fragrance-wise, I'm going to get Ange ou Demon by Givenchy, because it's the first perfume in a long time that I've actually been able to single out from the myriad of others on the market these days. Rich is getting Fahrenheit, which I adore. Mmmm.
So while we're in Surfers we're going to visit some theme parks - Rich is DYING for Wet n Wild, but being a lady and terrified of heights, I might need to talk him out of this one. We're going to Dreamworld too, but what I most want to do is lie on the beach in the sun. It was 31 degrees there in the weekend - and 16 here. Ahhhhhhh.
Basil has also been in the wars this week. He's very....licky. Like, his fur is sticky, he's so licky. I sound like Run DMC. So he's off to the vet tomorrow before his trip to Karakakats this weekend. Poor wee button.
Our weekend was lovely. We had drinks at ours with some friends on Friday night. We made the most delicious nibbles platter. It had wasabi peas, pistachios, havarti cheese, pate, grapes, feta dip, rice crackers and normal crackers. We mowed it. We also mowed a heck of a lot of wine. We then toddled off up the road to a very small and casual pizza place where we terrorized the owner into having a wine with us and giving him all sorts of advice on how he should do his pizzas. We were awful. It was great though. Hangover the next day - not so great.
Last week I had a tiny operation.... I had a neuroma in my leg. It's this thing. This big hurty thing. So the doctor cut it out....it looked like a cooked lentil. Amazing that something so tiny could cause me soooo much pain. Anyhoo, I now have 3 stitches on the back of my thigh, and an excuse to get out of doing pretty much anything. The word "stitches" opens a lot of doors. Thankfully, it's not a tumour. Well, probably not.
I bought a pair of jeans yesterday. This is only because I have lost 4kgs. Me and jeans shopping do not have a happy relationship. Because I am apple shaped, and short, I have a battle of a time finding a pair of jeans that fits around my tummy, and doesn't make my ass look like the saggy baggy elephant. But, minus 4kgs and nothing to eat for breakfast = success! 3 inches of hem are being removed as we speak, so I can finally throw away my old pair of jeans that I've had for 3 whole years. Madness.
Summer is on the way here......the entire neighbourhood has caught the gardening bug. All we can hear is leaf blowers. In my day, we used a broom. It seems that spending 2 hours chasing leaves all over the place with a roaring, stinking piece of plastic is what you do in the affluent suburb where we are renting. The neighbours also chopped down an enormous lovely pine tree near to our backyard, where tui and keruru would play. I think it annoyed them because every so often, a pine needle would fall off, and land on their Audi, possibly scratching the paintwork and necessitating in an upgrade to the newer model. Thankfully, the tui have now adopted the puriri tree in our backyard, so we are treated to their beautiful song day in and day out. Luckily Basil only shows interest in sparrows, of which there are billions, because they are smaller than him and have ninety million feathers for him to distribute around our hallway and under the furniture. Richard and I have a pact - I do poos and spews, he does dead things. We both think the other got a better deal.
So, back to our Australia trip. We're planning on doing a lot of eating, drinking, lazing about, and spending of money. We finagled really good costs for tickets, and accommodation, thanks to knowing people in the right places. So we're going to spoil ourselves, because we have both had such a difficult year - not with each other, but money-wise, job-wise, living-wise, it's been rough. Here's to a well-deserved rest and celebration time, and what a way to bring in Summer by getting a tan ahead of everyone else. Yessssssss!

Foot in mouth disease on the rise

2009-08-14T11:56:00.000+12:00

So today I am happy, because Richard is back from a week’s travel away with work. Basil and I have enjoyed having the house to ourselves, getting those annoying things done like sorting out the undie drawer and doing all my handwashing – the laundry basket is actually empty for once – but I am getting lonely.
So I’ve put the special bottle of Pol Roger that I got for my 30th in the fridge, and I’m going to make lamb pita pockets on couscous. Super easy and delicious.
In other news, last night I dyed my hair. I went a bit darker than I normally do, because it’s been looking a bit red lately, which I don’t like. When I say darker, I mean black as a raven’s wing. The box said Darkest Brown. It should have said Darkest Brown, if by Brown you mean Black and if by Darkest you mean Mega. Anyway I quite like it as it’s made my hair really shiny, and my eyes look greener. It’s funny how in books people with green eyes are always supposed to be extraordinarily beautiful, or slightly mystical, or in the very least, bitchy. I’ve had green eyes ever since I remember, and only once in my whole entire life has someone commented on their greenness.
So I turn up to work with my new black hair all blow dried and I’m actually wearing proper makeup (boyfriend’s home tonight makeup). Everyone notices my hair. They are all complimentary. Until one of the girls arrives. Whoa. Goth! she says. I stare. It’s really dark! she continues. I continue to stare. I mean, one of my friends dyed her hair that dark, and really hated it.....but.... I cut her off and say well, happy Friday!
I mean honestly. A little thinking before speaking people!

Girl's night in

2009-08-07T15:10:00.000+12:00

So this week Rich backed away from me and said, "I've been invited to a boy's night out on Friday...and I've said I'd go," while ducking. I have no idea where he got the idea that I'd be mad if he went out without me. No idea at all.
So I have asked my friend to join me for a girl's night in. We're borrowing my parent's apartment in the city (because my house is just too cold and you can't hang around in PJ's in the COLD!) and we're going to do the following:

Arrive
Make fruit platter
Open champagne
Drink champagne
Eat fruit platter
Get into (horror) togs, robes and slippers
Avail ourselves of the sauna, spa and lap pool
Return to room
Make nibbles platter of crudites, pita bread, dips, chicken kebabs and chorizo
Eat said platter, washing down with more champagne
Do face masks, hair masks, pedicures, and manicures
Watch Twilight (I read the book - the first one - and didn't like it. Another friend of mine who is obsessed with Twilight said I have to watch the movie just to make sure I don't like it. So we are).
Finish off champers and drink lots of water before going nigh-nighs.

If I were doing this properly, each bullet point would be interspersed with another: Gossip. Because that's what girl's nights in are really all about aren't they?

More Cooking with Moi

2009-08-05T16:07:00.000+12:00

Tonight Richard and I are both super excited as it’s that time again. No, not business time...although it is Wednesday....it’s home made hamburgers and wedges night!
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like these, in all their juicy, drippy, crunchy goodness. Ahhhhh.
Here’s how I do it.
Chop up an onion really finely. Or, grate it. Mix with about 500 g mince (we have lots leftover after!). Stir an egg through, and if the mixture is quite dry, bind with some breadcrumbs. Season with salt and peps.
Have some fun with flavourings – Wattie’s Tomato Sauce is my favourite because I am a Kiwi Kid; mixed herbs, BBQ sauce, tobasco, gherkin pieces...the list goes on – experiment!
Shape the patties into fairly large rounds about 3 cm thick. Refrigerate if needed.
Fry on medium heat until juices run clear. Don’t have the pan too hot as they’ll be black on the outside and raw in the middle. Not cool. No matter what I do, my patties always fall apart. I have tried everything. It’s my Waterloo. They look fine once squished into the bun, but I wish you better luck than me.
While they’re cooking, assemble your extras. I like cheese, cheese, and more cheese, along with tinned beetroot. But I bow to nutrition guidelines, and have lettuce, sliced tomatoes, gherkins, and avocado if it’s around.
Lightly grill both ends of the bun, and layer with a sauce of your choice. We like Smoked Hickory, or good old Watties, and a good tangy mustard. Mmmmmmm. Slap it all together, roll your sleeves up, and get stuck in.
Oh yeah – wedges. Slice some nice Agria spuds (or Kumara) into thin wedges. Spray with olive oil and dust some garlic salt or whatever over the top. Bake until nice and golden at about 230 Celsius.
My mouth is watering.

Little Bunny and Mrs Tiggywinkle

2009-08-03T16:51:00.000+12:00

My beautiful nieces. I miss them so much! Stella's hair has started to lie down flat, more's the pity. Sigh.

Family Guy on You Tube.

2009-07-31T12:23:00.001+12:00

“....was there really a movie called Mannequin?”
“It’s manne-kin.”
“Manna-qwin!”
“Manna-kin!”
“Dude, it’s manna-qwin.”
“Manna-kin. It’s French.”
“Why do they use Q-U then? Instead of k?”
“Nobody says QWEEN...oh hang on.”

Different strokes for different folks

2009-07-29T09:35:00.000+12:00

So yesterday my colleague and I were driving back from a meeting, and were shooting the shit as usual. Somehow we get onto the topic of weird things we missed doing as kids. I should point out here that my colleague's childhood was spent in the Solomon Islands.
So I'm telling him about how we used to go docking up at various farms around Hawkes Bay. He doesn't know what docking is. So I explain how all the cute little lambies have to go down a chute, meeting a hot pair of scissors at the end to lop off their tails, and if they're a boy, have their nuts squeezed off too. I tell him how us kids would be running around collecting all the tails and chasing lambs and contributing to the general mayhem.
Part of this yearly ritual was to then build a small fire and roast the lambs tails on it. The smell was disgusting....burnt hair and melting fat. For those of you who don't know, a lambs tails is basically a strip of cartilage surrounded by fat and wool. The taste, after a long day stomping around in gumboots in the cold spring air? Nectar of the Gods.
After I finish happily recounting this story, I realise my colleague is looking at me with horror. It turns out that to him, this is really gross and weird.
So he comes out with a story of his own.
When a melon tree is ripening, it attracts fruit bats, who will roost in their hundreds on the tree. Hurl a stone at the tree somewhere, he says, and you're guaranteed one dead bat. Roast it over the fire - manna from heaven.
It's my turn to be horrified. What about the rabies? These bats don't carry rabies. What about the awful leathery wings? Oooh, that's the best part. Like eating a chicken wing!
Barf. What culinary delights do you remember from childhood that you can share?

Winter whinges

2009-07-14T09:28:00.000+12:00

It’s so cold right now that.....

.....I put a hot water bottle under Basil’s blanket on his chair. Rolled eyes from Richard.
.....I’ve stopped shaving my legs to get extra warmth.
.....I can see my breath when I’m lying in bed.
.....Meat defrosts faster if I put it in the fridge instead of on the bench.
.....I prefer being at work, because of the central heating.
.....I haven’t seen my body for days, apart from brief glimpses when I dart from dressing gown to steamy shower and back again
.....the fireplace is judged, poked, fed, watched over and hugged, all to obtain maximum hotness.
.....the three of us take up 50% of the bed due to the amount of burrowing into each other.
.....I count it as a warm day if I’m only wearing 3 layers UNDER the actual outfit.

It’s really cold.

All my ladies

2009-07-01T10:28:00.000+12:00

In the last couple of weeks I've been contributing to a friend's new beauty website, www.beautygoss.com. My background in Beauty Therapy and general obsession with all things makeup have helped me here, and I love writing for it.
In saying that, we're always looking for new topics to write about, so if you want to know about something, let me know!

Cooking with Moi!

2009-06-25T15:22:00.001+12:00

Thai Green Curry – my way
In the thick of chilly winter nights, comfort food, blankets and slippers, I often get the urge for a sharp, spicy meal to wake up my taste buds. Thai Green Curry is quick, easy and is one of my favourite dishes.
Dice an onion and sauté in a hot pan. Add a big dollop of Thai Green Curry paste (I use pastes because I am far too lazy to make my own. We also have a fantastic range of Thai food in NZ). Stir until fragrant.
Add diced chicken – either breast or thigh. I prefer thigh for flavour, but it’s pretty fatty and rich, so it’s for special treats only.
Add chopped veggies. I like to match the colour of the paste – green beans, zucchini, green capsicum, peas, mushrooms for bulk. Stir a bit to take on the flavours. Add a couple of shakes of fish sauce.
Add a tin of light coconut milk. This stuff is pure poison to the hips – even when you use light milk. But nothing comes close – that Evaporated Milk in Coconut “flavour” is awful. Don’t use it!
Simmer away until the sauce has thickened and the veggies are tender.
Serve with Jasmine or Basmati rice and, I know I’m mixing my cultures here, freshly made pappadums.
Mmmmmm.

As promised.....

2009-06-25T12:25:00.000+12:00

There was lunch at the table.....

Dress ups with new pigtails and Karen Walker jewellery

Playing in Basil's cat tunnel.....with fist stuffed in mouth to stop laughing....

Chasing of ducks.....

and feeding of ducks.

It was a smashing day all round.

Toddler fun

2009-06-19T13:45:00.000+12:00

I'm baby sitting Amelie tomorrow morning and as usual am worried about all the things she could kill herself on in our non-baby-proofed house. Do I light the fire? Or will she faceplant into it? What about the gas heater? Or just strap her to a hot water bottle?
Luckily when Amelie was born my sister made me an Amelie fun kit, which basically has all the toys she didn't have room for in it, along with some of my old books from when I was a wee tacker, like The Nickle Nackle Tree and Amy's Place, or Kimi and the Watermelon.
However, Amelie's attention span is short, being 2 years old and all, so I'm going to have to come up with games and toys of my own.
First on the list is the fluffy toy that's alive! Basil the cat will be roped into a game of chase. Thankfully, Basil is very good around children. He tolerates, but never scratches. Thank god. Basil may even get a brushing if he is very good.
Second is that old favourite, musical kitchen utensils. Pots and pans will be assembled into a kit Lars Ulrich would admire, and we'll wake up the neighbours.
Third is dressups. I have a jewellery and makeup collection that makes many kids' dreams come true. I just know that Amelie can pull off bright red lippie with some feathered earrings and Karen Walker necklaces.
If she's not tired by this time, we'll go for a stroll down by the creek where many ducks are hiding out from the hunters during the season. A loaf of bread, mittens and a jacket = good photo opportunities.
After this, it's on with the Disney Channel while Aunty Amy has a rest and a cuppa.
A couple of rounds of Row Row Row Your Boat might be in order, or as Amelie calls it, "Wo Wo" followed by some dancing around to the Ministry of Sound.
Her parents will no doubt be back by this time so I'll tearfully hand her back and clean up the chaos. God I can't wait to have one of my own.

Introducing Stella Kate

2009-06-18T13:16:00.001+12:00

I've just realised - having gone over my archives for the first time in ages - that I've not posted any photos of Stella-Bella yet. My humble apologies.

Stella was born a very hairy baby, no bones about it, with very light dark hair on her arms, face and ears (it was seriously SO cute, she looked like we could have found her snoozing in a forest being looked after by a unicorn and a wood nymph). Her hair was already a couple of inches long.

This is her at about a week old. You could PERM that if you wanted.
The lanugo hair all fell out as is normal, but to make up for it, the hair on her head has decided to go no-holds-barred, and do this:

Isn't it hilarious? They haven't done anything to it here - funnily enough Amelie's hair did the same - just stuck straight out - but not nearly as thick. Amelie now has beautiful thick straight hair so no doubt Stella's will do the same. Both their parents have got exceptionally thick hair. Unlike Rich and me, who are both non-hirsute, except in parts where we don't wish to be.

I'm getting a visit from the girls this weekend which I can't wait for - have only met Stella when she was first born. Cuddles galore are in order.

Recipe time

2009-06-18T10:38:00.000+12:00

Lamb shanks – cooked my way
Get 4 big ass lamb shanks – big meaty ones, not those ones that came off a lamb more interested in gambolling around the fields than munching on grass. Dust in seasoned flour.
Brown them in some very hot oil quickly. Set aside.
Chop up 2 onions and halve some cocktail onions. Use the frypan that browned the lamb, but make sure it’s cooled right down. Caramelize slowly until tender (may take up to 20 minutes. For god’s sake be patient and don’t burn them).
Towards the end, throw in some diced celery and carrot chunks so that they can brown a bit.
Assemble the shanks and veggies in a crockpot, or large heavy-based sauce pan.
Add a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary, thyme and sage (or any combination of these).
Throw in a can of chopped tomatoes. I love tinned tomatoes...add them to everything. Did you know tomatoes are better for you when cooked?
Add a couple of cups of red wine. Good wine, not the bollocks you get in a cardboard box. Save enough for yourself.
If necessary, top up the pot with good beef stock. Or a trusty Oxo cube. I can never tell the difference.
Couple of shakes of salt and pepper and you’re set.
Bring all to a light boil, then turn right down and forget about it for a day. I always make these the night before.
Let cool, and scoop off the fat. Then, an hour before serving, bring back to a simmer.
I serve with a potato/kumara (sweet potato) mash, made with milk, whole grain mustard and cheese if I’m feeling adventurous, and steamed veg, usually broccoli, or beans, or both.
This is one meal you need to be patient over – even though it’s easy, it’s the time taken to do perfect onions, and the long slow cooking that makes it a wonderful meal. Mmm.

You heard it here first

2009-06-15T16:53:00.000+12:00

Tapas bars. Are they not just the 00's answer to Fondue restaurants? Here today, laughed at tomorrow?
I had the pleasure of being taken out for dinner on Saturday by the parentals, and Mum chose Bellota, a Tapas bar on the Sky City complex. Bellota is by Peter Gordon, Mr Chef du Jour. We had both read reviews about Bellota, and they were ALL good. Auckland restaurant reviewers can be notoriously nasty, so we went along, expecting glory.
Unfortunately, like the All Blacks' same night defeat to the cheese-eaters, it was a disappointment.
Firstly - the wait staff looked THROUGH you, not at you. There is a difference. It was as if they did not like us being in their space. Now, it wasn't busy. Humming, but not busy.
Then, the menu stated how you should pronounce Bellota. I have a THING about signs, or menus, that decide to state (lar-tay) on their signs (pee-no-gree) how their products are pronounced. Maybe I am a language snob, but surely if I'm going to a Spanish restaurant with a Spanish name, I'll know that the double-l is pronounced "yih".
We were "seated" inside the very dim bunker that is "Bey-otta" at a small knee level coffee table, on 4 ottomans. My mother and step-dad are young in mind, but not in body. Having nothing to lean back on, and having to bend right over to pick up their glasses was annoying. Proper tables - yes please. The table was promptly laden in water glasses, our glasses, a large cutlery holder, salt and pepper grinders and a bowl of anchovy-stuffed olives (gross). This left a 1cm square area for the tapas that we ended up ordering.
While we read the menu, around us the space was filling up with exceptionally drunk young persons. With a sinking feeling, we realised that Bellota wasn't a Tapas Bar at all...it was a hip groovy too cool for school piss-up joint, that happened to serve food. Being too late to pull out, we forged ahead with ordering.
It was the usual Spanish stuff - chorizo, jambon, pate, calamari, meatballs, something else I can't remember...it went on and on. Each plate was okay. There was not one thing that I went, OH MY GOD YUM, except for the chorizo/jambon mixed plate. But then I realised that 12 thin and small slices cost us $38!! Which is the normal price for a main meal at a good restaurant. It was here that I started thinking about getting a combo on the way home.
I was sad by this stage - sad for Mum because she felt bad that she'd picked Bellota - when all we really wanted was a quiet place for a good nosh and some delicious wine, not this pretentious, noisy as hell bar that has the misfortune of being the Place To Be Right Now. Maybe when all the bright young things head off to the next venue, it'll settle down to being more of a food destination than a place to get you up the status ladder at work on Monday.
We all decided upon leaving that while we weren't hungry anymore, we also were not satisfied. Having had so many flavours and small mouthfuls, what we all longed for was a bloody good steak. Next time - Jervois Steak House. While Tapas are "fun" and "different" they are also, in my opinion, a major rip-off and a fad. 5 years. At the outside.

Meme-vellous

2009-06-15T14:33:00.000+12:00

Straight down to business.

What bill do you hate paying the most?SKY TV. Telly should be free.

Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?At Clooney, in Auckland. A very extra special treat. Although, my mega awesome pork roast that I did last night was romantic also, but only between us and the wonderful pig who sacrificed his skin for my crackling. Damn it was good. And free-range.

What do you really want to be doing right now?Reading my new Russell Brand autobiography: “My Booky Wook”.

How many colleges did you attend?1, if by colleges you mean Uni. Otago University in Dunedin. Main memories: being freezing, ALL THE TIME, eating Maccas day in day out, fuggy warmth of bed with my boyfriend, constantly drinking beer. Afternoon TV sopoforic.

Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?It’s a wooly jersey, and it’s neutral and warm. It’s blah and cold out.

What are your thoughts on gas prices?I pay what I need to pay...everything’s relative.First thought when the alarm went off this morning?

How many snoozes can I get away with before I have to get up (turns out 2).

Last thought before going to sleep last night?I hope Rich doesn’t stay up too late.

Do you miss being a child?I miss the lack of worry about being responsible for me – but I guess I just worried about smaller things...that seemed big at the time!

What errand/chore do you despise?MAKING BEDS. I cannot make a bed. Always looks like someone’s jumped all over it when I’m done. So I just don’t make it.

Get up early or sleep in?Get up early-ish.

Have you found real love yet?Yes

Favorite lunch meat?Shredded chicken.

What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?Herpes?

Beach or lake?Lake. NO beach. Lake. Lakes are safer. Beaches are prettier. Both.

Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?No way. I love the whole wedding thing. I am a full on Muriel.

Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?Neither. Any programme I have to watch each week – bar Hell’s Kitchen – causes me too much stress if I miss an episode. So – Simpsons re-runs it is.

What famous person would you like to have dinner with?All my favourite comedians – Eddie Izzard, Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais. Graham Norton. Russell Brand. Clive James. Dawn French. Danny Wallace.

Have you ever crashed your vehicle?No, but people have crashed INTO me. Auckland is one big city playing dodgems.

Ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?Never. Quite disappointing really! I did once light a toaster on fire by wrapping a piece of cotton wool soaked in nail polish remover around a long skewer and holding it to the element – ALL TO LIGHT A CIGARETTE (couldn’t find a lighter) but when it burst into flame I just ran around in circles for a few seconds then pulled it from its socket and threw it outside (it was raining). Needed another cigarette to calm down.

Ring tone?Like a Feather – Nikka Costa (work phone) Salmon Dance – Chemical Brothers (My phone). Both adapt well to a ring tone.

Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?In an aeroplane toilet.

Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?Everywhere!

Do you go to church?No, but I think Church is the new black. Good way to meet people.

At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?New career...namely not having to work due to babies!

How old are you?30

Do you have a go to person?Yes a few actually...but mainly Mum.

Are you where you want to be in life?Not quite. When I have a baby, I shall be fulfilled. (This is what I’m hoping anyway!)

Growing up, what were your favorite cartoons?Captain Planet, City of Gold, Loony Tunes, Toxic Crusaders

What about you do you think has changed the most?I notice more what people think.

Looking back at high school were they the best years of your life?I’d have to say Yes. I was thin, fit, could concentrate for more than ten minutes, got drunk on one glass of wine and was always falling in “love”. It was pretty cool.

Are there times you still feel like a kid?TOTALLY. I baby talk the cat and my friends and I have full laughing fits over the stupidest stuff. Then we always say – were our PARENTS doing this when THEY were 30?? No, because they all had 12 kids and enormous mortgages.

Did you ever own troll dolls?No. They were spooky.

Did you have a pager?No – because I wasn’t a doctor on a US TV programme about hospitals.

Where was the hang out spot when you were a teenager?The Botanical Gardens, or the water tower in Napier. To be seen in a mall with a group of young girls meant serious recriminations from our Mums. It just wasn’t “done”. However hanging out in forgotten corners of council parks were okay. Go figure.

Were you the type of kid you would want your children to hang out with?I think so. I was a bit of a b1tch but usually pretty fun. Never did anything seriously naughty.

Who do you think impacted your life the most?
The television.

Was there a teacher or authority figure that stood out for you?No. I do not relate well to authority.

Do you tell stories that start with “when I was your age”?Not yet!

Do this to procrastinate and let me know your answers!

Work shenanigans

2009-06-10T15:02:00.001+12:00

We have a “vice” jar in our office, which I share with my 2 male colleagues. Unfortunately, I have a terrible habit of burping. I know. It’s disgusting. However I don’t even realise I’m doing it. One day I was having a go at Colleague 1 for sniffing. He suddenly burst out “but you BURP!!” My gob was smacked. So I came up with the Vice jar....me for burping, Colleague 1 for every type of noisy bodily function (every fart is announced and discussed), and Colleague 2 for the same, even though he is far too polite to even raise his voice.
Colleague 1 and I have managed to donate to the jar the healthy amount of $11.50 between us. I still have no control over my burps, and well, he just likes to fart.
We counted the jar today, amid squabbles of the ethics of foreign currency (10c coins from the Solomon Islands DO NOT COUNT) and the fact that you must use any loose change you have (goddam the New Zealand Mint who decided to make $2 coins). Colleague 2 is, as usual, quiet amidst the bedlam, then pipes up. “You guys. Here’s 50 cents. I feel left out.”

Aruba...Jamaica.....

2009-05-18T15:14:00.001+12:00

There is nothing worse than shopping for Summer clothes when you’re well settled in to the Winter groove. My body has got used to hiding itself under wraps, stockings and big poofy jackets. So today when I tried on a cute 60’s style scoop neck, sleeveless dark orange mini dress, the sight of my cottage cheese upper arms and roly-dog knees meant that a 2 second “YUCK!” to the mirror was all I needed to whip it off.

Unfortunately I’m going to have to keep persevering because people, I am going overseas. Now when you live in New Zealand, it’s pretty easy to head overseas. Going to the South island is “overseas” in the literal sense....a 3 hour flight to Melbourne involves the full customs rigmarole. But I am going overseeeeeas....the entire Pacific Ocean to be exact. Then I’m flying over the bottom half of North America. Then it’s over the edge of the Atlantic to.....are you ready.....are you sitting down.....THE BAHAMAS.

My workplace is sending me – and a couple of other staff members – to the Bahamas. I found this out in my second week of work. Other people are jealous. Reason we’re going is for this enormous large world meeting thing that I won’t bore you with. But basically – it’s 5 days in the SUN!

To most people in New Zealand, the Bahamas is this mythical place featured in cheesy 80’s movies where everyone drinks cocktails from coconuts and wears high-cut one-piece togs with sun visors. It’s so difficult to get to – and so similar to the Pacific Islands which are not – that I can count on one hand the people I know that have been there. My parents are among them. They stayed there a couple of years ago at this insanely awesome hotel...called http://www.atlantis.com/. It’s like a textbook resort that has everything you could possibly want...but multiplied by ninety. It’s huge. Imagine my shock when my boss says....you’ll be staying at the Atlantis. There are TWENTY-EIGHT restaurants. One is UNDER WATER. There are STINGRAYS and DOLPHINS and LOTS OF THINGS IN THE SHOPS THAT I CAN’T AFFORD.

Now I know I’ll be chasing people around and finding band-aids and currency converters and phone cards and dealing with men on a working holiday with a skinful of alcohol with no wives to chaperone them – but if I get half an hour – just half an hour on that beach with one coconut cocktail – I’ll be happy. Hell, I’m going to be happy to be somewhere that isn’t cold, wet, rainy and MISERABLE. (It’s actually quite warm and sunny today but I’m building up the juxtaposition).

The best thing about this trip to me is the flight. I can’t stand flying usually – when it’s a one hour trip between Dunedin and Wellington and it’s windy as fuck and the plane is bouncing around and my tepid cup of weak tea in a polystyrene cup that I can take home if I want! is threatening to fall in my lap and my stomach is trying to work its way out of my pores and the person next to me has a fleeting memory of soap and low-fat food. To me, that is my personal hell. On a tangent, Rich and I went to Auckland Museum in the weekend. For some reason, there was a big Perspex box full of cockroaches. I looked at it, shuddering, then commented to some old dude that it was my personal hell, right there in that box. He looked at me, and then laughed. His wife came over, said something in German, then he said to her “She said that is her personal hell,” in German. I think. It sounded cooler in German. Or he said “this girl thinks I’m English.” Anyhoo. This flight to the Bahamas will have all the bells and whistles. I may – just may – get to fly Business Class, thanks to a nifty deal with airpoints, travel agents who like me and the recession, meaning many, many empty seats on planes. Luxuriousness....ah.

One thing I’m not looking forward to is LAX. Everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – has a horror story about this place. So am taking a full change of clothes on the plane in case my suitcase does a detour via Timbuktu. (Did you know this is a real place? On the border of the Sahara desert? I only found this out a few years ago. I wonder if people from Timbuktu use Auckland in a similar sense).

Anyhoo I’m off in 8 days. The timetables have changed so much regarding our travel that I’ve been afraid to start packing just in case I jinx it. But it’s too late now....the camera batteries are charging...the MP3 player is stocked (anyone got any new favourite tunes? I have an iTunes mind blank)...the legs are being waxed.

Will be Twittering while I’m away so follow me there – click the link to the right!

Happy Birthday to my little Bunny

2009-04-27T12:02:00.001+12:00

Amelie turned 2 on the 22nd of April, and not a day goes by when I don't think of her little face and squeezable little body and smile.

She has taught me the gift of unrequited love and for that, I promise to always buy her gorgeous little polka-dotted cardigans.

Meme-tastic

2009-04-23T16:55:00.000+12:00

Antonia meme'd her devoted followers today, so I thought I'd put off doing some work, and meme back. Having done the meme, I've read through it, and it makes me sound like a total grumpy cow. This is entirely correct. I am very cat's-bum today. Work has been seriously full on.
So meme it is - questions and answers. Answers are supposed to be in the form of a song title, but I agree with Antonia, reading detailed personal answers are much more interesting.

1. Are you a male or female: Female. I think I have a lot of testosterone though as I am a grumpy, impatient, decisive person, with no time for shopping in large wittering groups, exclaiming over each other’s purchases.

2. Describe yourself: See above. My mother says I’m sensitive, generous and the life of the party (when she is happy with me). Rude, aggressive, and bullying (when she is not). Friends say I am funny, loyal, generous. Enemies probably say I am a bitch. Rich says I’m crazy but he loves me anyway. Basil thinks I’m God.

3. How do you feel about yourself: In the words of every teacher I ever had “Amy does not work to her full potential.” I always feel like I’m supposed to better than I am, but am too lazy to be so. There’s always tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes and you’ve got no friends, no family is talking to you and you’re living alone with 90 cats and bulk buying Lean Cuisines and family packs of icecream.

4. Describe your parents: My father and I parted company when I was 14 due to my parents’ incredibly acrimonious divorce. It’s only as I get older do I realize how much this must have affected me as a person to have to go through. My sister and I weren’t shielded from any of it. Awful. But, Dad is a great pal to have – I get my drinking genes from him AND he let me smoke inside when I was only 15. My friends were very jealous. He loves music, general knowledge and any kind of information that he can bamboozle his buddies with. He works as a Sales Rep for houseware places and his house smells of cheap scented candles and curry. His capacity for forgiveness is incredible.
My mother is tiny, with bright bird-like brown eyes, and short brown hair. She always wears trousers and red shoes. She hasn’t worked for some time, being married to my step father who was very successful after working his ass to the bone for many many years. He got yelled at in the street once for having a flash car. When he came home and told us I was so mad. He worked SO hard, and deserves that car. Grrr. Digressing. Mum loves anything French and to do with food. Our favourite thing to do together is to go to a deli and pick out some fun ingredients to play with for dinner. I can make her scream with laughter, but more often than not, I make her cry. We can be in the same house for about 2 days, but any longer and there’s friction. It’s sad. But we laugh about it. Basically, neither of us like to back down or say sorry. We are very alike.

5. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriends: They were people I liked the IDEA of. But we didn’t get on.

6. Describe your current boy/girl situation: As comforting as some fluffy slippers, worn out dressing gown, purring cat on the lap and Antiques Roadshow on the telly in front of the fire. My happy place.

7. Describe your current location: Work.

8. Describe where you want to be: Not work. Pottering in my garden at my old house. Cuddling with my new niece in her darkened bedroom, cooing at her softly. Cooking at my parents’ country cottage listening to classical music. Having a glass of wine in a funky bar with my friends.
9. Your best friend(s) is/are: people that make me laugh. That’s all you gotta do to be my friend. Oh, and also have cute babies for me to cuddle, or dogs, or cats. Ask for my opinion lots. Offer me your opinion. Don’t be offended when I don’t agree with you.

10. Your favourite colour is: Depends what we’re talking about. Clothes, it’s red. Paint colours, it’s light blue. Flowers – yellow.

11. You know that: Finding and removing an ingrown hair can make a so-so day into a really good one.

12. If your life was a television show what would it be called: I am bad at zippy names. It would probably be a sit com that would run for years and years though, following my first world dramas like what to cook for dinner when the oven is broken, and the season finale cliff hanger – is Basil going to get a younger brother/sister?

13. What is life to you: Something I have to work really hard at. I like this quote: “Each day I rush through so that I can get onto the next” or something. I’m always looking for something better around the corner. As Garth would say to Wayne, “live in the NOW!”

14. What is the best advice you have to give: It’s a bit of a downer actually. “The anticipation is usually better than the event.” Isn’t that sad? Here's a happier one: "What goes down must come up." On my crappiest days this cheers me no end.

So anyhoo. Heading home now - it's still light outside - a miracle. Going to make rack of lamb and watch hours of South Park on Comedy Central with a glass of red wine. Rich is out at football practice (that's soccer for those Yankees out there). Wishing you all a restful and happy night. x

My brush with quasi-fame

2009-03-26T10:34:00.001+13:00

So last night was spent celebrating the birth of wee baby Stella Kate, Amelie’s little sister. I’m heading back to Tauranga to meet her tomorrow so will take many photos to share.
We’re also celebrating Richard’s new job! After what seems like an eternity, but in reality was about 2 months, Rich has been offered a role in sales for a cool new beverage company. He is over the moon, as am I.
So last night meant many champers, brandies and whiskies (am trying to develop a taste for it. Unsure why, but I just read Peta Mathias’s Burnt Barley, her travels around Ireland, and she loooves whisky. I love Peta, so I’m trying to copy her. So far it tastes like smoky nail polish remover, so I have some way to go). My head is rather full of dust and cobwebs this morning.

BUT! As we all know, everyone is allowed a top 5, of people they’re allowed to have sex with even if they’re married or in a relationship. My list goes something like this:

1. Liam Neeson (he may not be up for it quite yet)

2. Prince Harry, or William at a pinch

3. Richard Kahui (latest All Black hero)

4. The guy in those aftershave ads who’s lying in a boat somewhere in the Greek Islands showing off a 12-pack and a well stocked lunchbox. I can’t find it anywhere. If you can, please send to me.

5. Ivan Cleary (coach of the Auckland Warriors rugby league team).

Everyone goes “WHAT????” when I mention Ivan. He’s not classically hot. Nor is he particularly famous. I only know who he is because I have a boyfriend who would watch the Pacific Petanque Championships on Sky Sport if it meant he could open a beer and park up on the couch. But I digress. Ivan and I have an electricity which I can feel through the telly screen. So anyhoo as I mentioned previously, we were out at the pub. I see this guy walk in who looks kinda familiar. I then realise that one of my Top Five is in the same room as me.
Rich immediately goes “I’ll be off home then – give you guys some time to chat.” Ivan takes a seat conveniently directly behind me, meaning I have to find all sorts of reasons to turn around and gawp. Rich kindly offers to change seats with me, having a full view of Ivan’s smouldering, eastern European-ish profile. I decline, because it would probably ruin Ivan’s night, having this half-pissed chick staring at him all night when he’s trying to have a couple of quiets with his mates.
Rich’s number one is Jessica Biel. I fully agree with this, she has to have the most perfect body in the world right now.
When I look at Justin Timberlake’s pics as a teenager, with those zits and albino styles afro, I can imagine how we must look in the mirror standing next to her and know that there is a God. But, Jessica Biel lives a million miles away, and it’s highly unlikely she’s ever going to wander into a pub in suburban Auckland. Rich lives in hope however. I hope to conduct myself with the same grace if she ever does.
So anyway Ivan finishes his second pint and leaves. I stare longingly after him. Then I turn and look into Rich’s smiling face with his lovely blue eyes and cute grin, and I don’t think any more about Ivan. My all-time top of the list number 1 is right here with me.

Fatted calf for one.....

2009-03-04T08:47:00.000+13:00

...the Prodigal Son has returned. Basil turned up at 10:30 last night, presumably after a day's hiding and getting spooked by things. He smelled suspiciously herb-like, so either he was in a neighbour's well cultivated veggie garden, or in the student flats over the road. He was really hungry when he got back.
So thank you all for your positive thoughts..they worked! Now keep them coming for Richard...he has a second job interview today. Crossing all my fingers!

Crisis

2009-03-03T09:09:00.000+13:00

Just to top off our most awesome week, Basil has gone missing. We were keeping him inside until he got used to his new home, which he wasn't happy about at all. He found a gap and shot through, and hasn't been seen all morning. Our new house is surrounded by bush, water, other houses and strange cats and dogs, so finding his way back will be a mission.
Times I think I'm ready to have kids, but if I feel like this for a CAT, imagine how it must be for a parent when their child is missing/sick/leaving home.
I can't concentrate and all I can think of is his little paws picking their way around unfamiliar territory. Shudder. Rich is doorknocking and I've got some fliers to put in mailboxes. Cross your fingers for us.

Lower than the Low

2009-02-27T15:22:00.000+13:00

Note: before I continue this mega-rant, may I just say that a lot of my friends are recruitment agents, and they are all lovely, lovely people. This is not directed at anyone personally. Just those bastards who have been dealing with my man.

So. Things are going well for me. However not so for my lovely other half. Rich has been touting his wares around all the recruitment agencies in Auckland, informing of his availablity for work. Rich is one of those guys who, whenever anyone meets him, they ALWAYS come back saying wow, that is a really Good Guy. He's smiley, happy, friendly, polite and absolutely hilarious.
The amount of times he's presented at a recruitment office to be told "sorry we're busy, sorry we've got nothing right now" etc is terrible. It kills him to keep that smile pasted on, keep his positivity up.
After no contact for weeks, suddenly the Agent From Hell will call.

AFH: "OMG! I have the most perfect job in the world for you! I'm actually calling on my lunchbreak to show you how much I think you are perfect for this role!"

Rich: "Wow! Cool! What is it?"
AFH: "It's (a perfect job)"

Rich: "That's incredible - I'd be great at that !"

AFH: "I KNOW! I'm going to put you forward. In fact, I'm going to tell them you're top of the list. Richard this job comes with a car! And a phone! And all these other things I'm going to blind you with so that you believe me when I say it's the perfect job!"

Rich: "I like cars! And phones are great! This company is the best in the world!"

AFH: "You're meeting with them first thing Monday morning. I kinda have to put other people forward as well, but you're definitely first on the list."

Rich: "Thank you so much. You don't know what this means to me."

AFH: "Well, I do like to think of myself as Jesus Christ, so I'm very humble"

The interview happens, and goes okay. Rich is hesitant.

AFH: "What did you think!!!!"

Rich: "I don't think it was that good. They interrupted me a few times. It was a really tough interview."

AFH: "Are you kidding!!! They LOVED you! They wanted to see how well you'd go under pressure and they said you were brilliant!"

Rich: "REALLY? God I thought I was awful!"

AFH: "Not at all. In fact, you're top of the list. They just need to sort some things out at their end and see the other candidates. But like I say...top of the list...."

Rich: "Awesome! Again, thank you so much! I owe you my firstborn!"

Days go by. Texts are received confirming how awesome Rich is from the AFH. They are received by the hiring company, confirming they will be back to him soon. Rich starts planning the commute to the office.

AFH: "Rich, hello."

Rich: "Oh hey! How are you? Do you have some news?"

AFH: "Uh....yeah. I'm sorry to say you didn't get the job."

Rich: "....oh. Wow. Okay. Why not?"

AFH: "*lists a hundred and one stupid reasons as to why he didn't get the job, none of them true*

Rich: "Okay. Well, thank you for your help anyway. Do you have anything else that's goin-"

AFH: "Rightsowe'llbeintouch, thanks"

Rich: deflates like a balloon.

It seriously kills me to see him like this. He's an upstanding, go-getter kind of guy who has been working Hard since he was 17 years old. The disappointment in his voice makes me want to find these recruitment agents, who built him up so much that his fall is just that much harder, and ram their stupid little cliche sayings and fake natures down their stupid little throats. Whatever happened to honesty? Here are some things they should say instead.
"We're putting you forward for the interview"
"They were happy with your presentation but please wait for a decision before getting too excited and continue with your job hunting"
"I"m sorry. I'm just a twat with a business card and really huge ego. I have no people skills and in no way I should be building you up and telling you you've got the job when it's not my decision to make. I'm going to quit and become a job-seeker Just Like You, so I can really see what it's like."

I've got to go home tonight, and instead of being all excited about moving into our great new flat in Auckland, I'll be pouring beer down Rich's throat and listening to his worries. It's what I do and I'm happy to do it. But seriously. If you work in recruiting, think about what I've said. You are messing with people's lives here.

Happy New Year!

2009-02-16T14:16:00.000+13:00

As Chandler would say, could I BE more late? I think not.
What a crazy summer, mes amies, losing and gaining jobs, moving cities, parlez-ing le francaise, I tell you it's been mad. But am here to tell all about it.

So yes as I previously mentioned, I was made redundant. Which is veeeery common these days in NZ. So I didn't feel too bad. What was horrible, was the amount of recruitment people I had to go and see in Tauranga, who all built me up into feeling like super woman, then at the end of the interview, saying, yeah well, there's actually no jobs but hey...we'llbeintouch. Recruitment consultants: not my favourite people. The jobs I did apply for I wouldn't hear anything from, for up to two weeks after deadline. Then it would be "you are not successful. We had 200 applications for this role" etc. And that was for a lame-ass admin role. Paying diddly-squat.
Rich and I put our heads together and had a conversation that went like this.

Me: I'm NOT moving back to Auckland. I refuse and don't ask me again.
Him: But we're not going to find jobs here. You don't have to sell your house, you can rent it out.
Me: But it's Basil's HOME.
Him: *rolls eyes*
Me: And my garden. My beautiful beautiful garden!!
Him: Take the chili plant with you.

So after many, many tears and arguments, here we are in Auckland! With one chili plant. We have found a place to rent in Remuera, which is the ponciest suburb in Auckland. Every house looks like it was built for a visiting Lord back in the colonial days. How we found the place (actually Rich found it) is a miracle. Maybe someone - FINALLY - took pity on us.

Rich is looking for work - poor lamb, it's the worst - and I got a job - literally had it confirmed - in my last half hour of my old job. This meant I had a spectacular leaving do.
I'm working for a sporting organisation that is based all over Oceania. I'm expected to speak French lots - luckily I studied it at school - and I'll be doing lots of travel. Will also be organising competitions and meetings and various other things. I am fully loving it so far and it's amazing how much you realise the finance industry is insulated. There's a whole other world out there people. Put it this way - I think we had 3 Maori staff at my old office. No Asians. In my office here, I sit next to a Solomon Islander, take orders from a Tahitian and assist Samoans. It's brilliant.

So we are trucking along nicely. We're staying at an apartment in town until our flat is ready - another couple of weeks. Basil is having a fat camp holiday at KarakaKats in... Karaka. Gorgeous place, if anyone's looking for a cattery. He has his own hammock and according to the owner, "eats like a horse". Mais bien sur!

Summer has been alternatively mild, perfect, death like, and now, cooler. The death like days were caused by temperatures of 32.4 deg (hottest ever in Auckland) and 100% humidity. It was like trying to swim through dryer lint. You have a perpetual sheen of sweat. Plastic chairs become mini swimming pools. Poor Rich had to change shirts 3 times a day. However it's back down to the low 20's at the moment and everyone is much more sprightly. Autumn clothes are in the shops, shudder.

We had a very small Christmas holiday and went down to Mahia which is on a very isolated peninsula on the east coast of the North Island. It's Kiwiana to a T. Small, weatherboard baches, on scrubby lawn with no fences. Dogs running free, huge sand dunes sloping down to the most perfect smooth sandy beach, with small tubular waves cruising towards shore. Sunburnt shoulders, sticky fingers, sandy hair and cool beer were the order of the day. Most amazing of all, Mahia has a resident dolphin, Moko. She swims in most days and lazily plays with fellow bathers. We rushed down to the water whenever we saw her come in, and someone would throw a ball or a flutterboard. She would use her nose to bat it away then go diving after it. I got to stroke her twice and squealed like a little kid each time. She felt like a warm wetsuit, so smooth. Some people were muttering that you shouldn’t get too close etc, etc, but if she didn’t like it, she could swim away. She loved it. I could tell.
Rich's favourite bit that he told his teacher about on his first day of school was when he got to go with the fishermen? And catch lots of fish? Like 13 hapuku (groper)? And 10 crayfish? And we ate them? And then got really drunk for New Years Eve?
So anyhoodle that was me for the last two months. My hair has grown even more. I read lots more books. Recently finished Parky. He is totally awesome. Now reading Yes Man by Danny Wallace. Keeping Richard awake with my sniggering. As an aside, I love Danny Wallace. He's in my top five.
So, tell me your news! I'll just make a coffee then sit down and listen.

And lo, she arose

2008-12-09T11:47:00.000+13:00

Internet, does life EVER slow down? Is it ever boring, routine-filled, and stress-free? Judging from the last couple of months, I'm going to say "no".

Things that have happened to me in the last few weeks.

Boyfriend has moved into house! All is going well. Basil has taken to sharing the bed like the trooper he is. I am most enjoying having the rubbish put out for me. AND, this one time, he even emptied the dishwasher WITHOUT BEING ASKED. I know. He's a keeper. He, in the meantime, has clockwork meals, clean undies and a great big shed to fill with man toys. I think it's a win-win situation.
Best friends' baby girl born! Little Georgia Rose is a special little bunny...she and I had cuddles last time we were in Auckland. Her parents are my two eldest friends and we used to hang out in nappies. To be holding their new baby was a surreal moment. Here is pic of me and Georgia. I look kinda drunk, but seriously, I'm not.... much.

Last but not least, I have just found out that my position here at my work has been downgraded to part-time! So if I want, I can work 5 weeks out of every quarter! Unsurprisingly, my mortgage and psyche don't agree with that and I'm now in the position of looking for work during one of the worst unemployment periods in recent years. While I hold no grudge against my workplace as they've been told to cut costs and they're doing it - I do hold a grudge against bloody Wall Street fat cats who caused all this. Grrr. Fear my wrath. Fear it!

So that's basically me. Lots of other things happened, you know, my hair grew, I read some books, but nothing too spectacular. How about yourselves?

My Poppa

2008-09-19T10:57:00.001+12:00

My Poppa died when I was about eight, so I only have a few hazy memories of him. They are mostly of his bent, gaunt figure standing around his garden, with his hands supporting his back, pipe hanging out of his mouth.
I remember he had a working Morse code machine in his pottering shed, a model train set, and, so my mother tells me, a fair few bottles of gin.

He used to send my sister and me photographs of hedgehogs that appeared on their lawn, writing on the back as if it were a postcard, which all our family still do today.

I knew that he'd been in the airforce during World War II, and that he'd been decorated for some daring stunt, but I never knew the full details until last week when Mum sent a cutting up from a researcher who was writing about DFC recipients in New Zealand.

I got quite choked up reading this, and wished that I had known more about it when I was younger. It's one thing to think of the man staring into space over the bluebells, but yet another to think of him landing a plane in choppy seas knowing that he had 5 kids at home and a boring bank manager job to go back to.

Moral of the story - get to know your grandparents while you can.

The Challenge Begins

2008-09-15T14:13:00.000+12:00

This time two weeks ago, I was two kilos heavier than I am now. That’s about five pounds, I think.
Pretty cool huh?
Recently, I was on a shopping expedition with my mother. If you get my mother at the right time, and talk softly toher without waking her up from her trance, sometimes she will pull her Visa card out and melt it with large transactions. On this expedition we tried on lots of clothes. My mother is a size 8. I thought I was a 12. Turns out I’m a 14. Trousers were not comfortable at all. I was losing my jawline. The assistant kept mentioning control undies.
Seeing Summer looming in the distance and the party season nearly upon me, I had a think. Normally after a shock like this I’d be all “I’m never eating again!! Or if I do, only cabbage soup with low-fat water!”
This time though, I’ve been logical and thorough.
The aim is, people, to get to my goal weight in 6 months. I’m going to do this, not only by eating well, but by exercising and getting active.
I have never been an active person and say things like, oh I change my sheets this morning and got all puffed after wrestling with the duvet….that’ll do me for today.
Now I’m off to the gym every lunchtime, and in the weekend I’m making a point of busting a gut for 30mins. Last week we walked up the Mount. It was hard. I’m loving going to the gym, now that it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s fun to see what I can make my body do. Put it this way, 3 weeks ago, I couldn’t kneel onto a Swiss Ball and keep my balance. Now I’m kneeling and doing bicep curls at the same time. Also drinking two litres of water a day (I go to the loo more than Kate Moss out clubbing).
Food is an interesting one. I’ve never really eaten unhealthily, but I eat a lot. Rich eats even more. So we’re dialling down the portions and filling half the plate with veg and salad. We’re drinking only on Friday and Saturday nights. Rich has started dropping weight faster than a supermodel after giving birth. So unfair.
The difference of all of this is if I have a handful of chips at my nephew’s birthday, or a wine with dinner on Fathers Day, I don’t beat myself up. 6 months is a good amount of time, and so long as I stick at my rules 95% of the time, I should be okay. The only downside of this is, all the trousers that Mum bought me on our shopping trip? Can pull them down without undoing the zip. I don’t really feel bad about this.

Some advice

2008-09-09T16:40:00.001+12:00

When you're singing along to the stereo really loudly in the gym changing rooms, making sure we're impressed you know all the words, you should probably pick a song that isn't Hootie and the Blowfish.

Breeding

2008-09-05T09:48:00.000+12:00

Excellent news.

This little monkey....

.... is going to get a baby brother or sister come March. *snoopy dance*!

A day you remember fondly

2008-09-04T10:23:00.000+12:00

Yesterday was a nothing special day, a day during which I went to work, did my work, went to the gym, got bored to tears during the looong afternoon of clock watching, and went home.
And then, people, something amazing happened. I got my mail in. Looked like a couple of bills. Sat on the couch watching the end of the Simpsons. Opened one of the envelopes. A bill for my curtains. Ho hum. Opened the other. What looked like one of those stupid letters from the Readers Digest appeared. “Money in your Hand!” it stated. “Concession Card!” showed a couple of times. Brow furrowed, I read on. And then noticed what looked to be a cheque attached to the bottom. For over $300.00. Made out to me.
I realised then that this wasn’t a nothing special day. It was a day, where, by receiving an unexpected large payment in the post, it became the most awesome kind of day you can have.
Seriously. Who gets cheques in the post? In this electronic age of phone and internet banking, the only time I get a cheque is on my birthday, from my Dad. And that’s for putting up with his shaggy dog stories and endless self-absorption (I mean that in the nicest possible way).
Turns out that the power company I belong to works like a trust, and pays out to its customers a cut of their profit every year. I rang my sister to confirm this.
“Is someone playing a trick on me? Am I going to take this into the bank and everyone’s going to point and laugh and post me on YouTube?”
She confirmed that it was indeed, my money, to do whatever I pleased with. What’s hilarious is that it states on the back of the letter options for you to choose from when dealing with the cheque.

Option One: bank it into your bank account. Well, durr.
Option Two: use it to pay further power bills. Snigger.
Option Three: donate back to power company. They will then donate it to charitable causes. Roaring laughter plus a bit of thigh-slapping.

This cheque is going straight onto my gasping and wheezing Visa card, so it can have a bit of a breather, before this wekeend’s onslaught of buying Stuff for the Garden.
May you all also, have a day like this, sometime soon in your future.

A weekend jaunt

2008-08-28T09:53:00.000+12:00

Richard and I are off to Taupo this weekend for a wee bit of a getaway. I haven’t had a weekend away for 2 months which is not like me at all. As a result, I am as excited as I was before we went to Fiji.
Being me, I have many lists on the go as to what to pack. Bear in mind, this is a 2 day trip. I could just take a couple of pairs of knickers and an extra jersey. But my spreadsheet has columns, and they must be filled with data. Black polo neck: check. Red polo neck: check. Black cardi: check. Other black cardi: check. Other black cardi just in case: check.
Then, what if we go outside? Taupo is notoriously icey, and the forecast is for 12-13 during the day and 1-2 at night. Bunny fur jacket: check. Polar fleece: check. Space suit made from asbestos: check.
And activities! Togs: check. Towel: check. Bikini wax: priceless. Taupo hot pools are gorgeous – go there if you’re ever in the area – up at deBretts hotel.
The other fun thing about going away is cooking different things. Last time I tried homemade pizzas…. Turns out yeast is the one thing you can’t use after its best-before date. It was like eating scones with a light dusting of cement. The topping of caramelised onion, blue cheese and smoked mushrooms was delicious though.
This time I think I’m going to go for a spring menu….but haven’t got any good ideas at present. Enlighten me with yours. Maybe chicken pie? Free range of course…

I have already offered to drive on the way down – ostensibly because Richard’s eyesight isn’t the greatest – but really it’s because I can’t stand being driven by anyone. This is because I am the best driver in the world, and everyone else is shit. Conversations I have with people when driving:

My mother: “Your car has six gears. Why do you only use two?”
My best friend: “Can you please pull over…..I’m going to be car sick.” This because there are 2 speeds – mega mega fast or dead slow.
Richard: “ You can pass him you know. He’s doing 70 in a 100k zone on a straight road.”
“Can you go faster please?”
“Can you please not answer your phone while you’re driving?”
“You’re doing 80. If I were following you, I’d be tearing my hair out.”

Richard – bless him – takes this on the chin. Apparently I am the worst back seat driver in the world and I do freely admit I am. So hey, save us both the pain and let me drive! Not only will we get there in half the time, we won’t argue. You may feel somewhat emasculated, but we’ll make up for that later by letting you empty the car and drink pints down the pub. Now that’s compromise.

More memeliciousness

2008-08-27T11:38:00.000+12:00

Where is your cell phone? On my desk, about to run out of batteries.
Your significant other? Is at work. We had a talk last night about winter flab and we are both going to pull our heads in over the next few weeks. He’s going to start drinking lots more water, so no doubt is on the loo.
Your hair? Is clean, and due a cut already. Seriously, it’s growing really fast lately. Perhaps I’ve been ingesting the fertiliser I put on the garden.
Your mother? Lives in Napier, and is about to go to Tahiti on Friday. I am dithering over my perfume order.
Your father? Lives in the Mount, and is dying to me to go round and see his holiday snaps from Asia. I am demurring.
Your favourite thing. Surprise repeats of the Office or Little Britain on the telly.
Your dream last night. I can always remember my dreams. But not last nights’. Fate.
Your favourite drink. Alcoholically: crisp Sauvignon Blanc. I like Vidal Malborough SB at the moment. Non alcoholically: Sparkling water.
Your dream/goal: To fit all of my clothes by my 30th (4 months).
The room you’re in. The office.
Your ex. Is no doubt still cow farming down south and talking about grand plans.
Your fear. Is that I’ll die old and alone.
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Married with kids.
Where were you last night? At home watching Jamie Oliver’s Fowl Chicken Dinners. Brilliant.
What you’re not? Fake, empathetic, boring, patient.
Muffins. Lemon, poppyseed and cream cheese. Causes muffins over my jeans.
One of your wish list items? An iPod, with an iBook to go with it.
Where you grew up? Napier NZ. Going back for a week in October and I can’t wait.
The last thing you did? Tested a bug from our website and updated the vendor.
What are you wearing? Black trousers, black boots, red woolen v-necked jersey with wide black belt, Karen Walker hearts brooch. A stranger on the way to work commented that I looked nice. Resolved to hand out more compliments.
Your TV? Is a gigantic behemoth that takes up a whole corner of my lounge. I watch it 99% of the time I am at home.
Your pets? Make my life worthwhile. Basil the cat and HotDog the goldfish.
Your computer? Is so crappy, I often look behind it so find the guy pedalling the bike that makes it work.
Your life? Is nothing like I had pictured, and I don’t think it ever will be.
Your mood? Bored with a slice of optimism.
Missing someone? Amelie. She can now say “turtle”.
Your car? Is a red VW Golf. Every time one of my friends see it, no matter what, they say “that car is so you.”
Something you’re not wearing? A coat, for the 3rd day in a row. Winter is on the way out…..
Favourite store? B.A. Reader second hand book store on Wharf Street in Tauranga. Last week I found a garden dictionary from the twenties, and a home-medical textbook from the fifties. An interesting amount of ailments can be cured with either an enema or a douche it seems.
Your winter? Has been a blur of cooking, blankets, drizzle, books.
Like someone? I have done a turnaround on Jamie Oliver…I like that he puts himself out there and gets vilified in the press for what he does, even though he’s just trying to educate us.
Your favourite colour? RED.
Last time you laughed? This morning, while we tried to worm Basil, who was having none of it, nosiree.
Last time you cried? On Saturday, when I gave my best friends a book I wrote for their new baby who is due to arrive in 2 months.
Who will repost this? You’re all welcome to – let me know if you do!

You're reading the writings of a medallist

2008-08-15T16:10:00.000+12:00

So last Friday was our Olympic Day at work, and as predicted, "work" was somewhat thin on the ground. We had tasks to complete every hour, involving rowing machines, speed eating, trivia questions and singing of parody National Anthems. Our team was Australia, which we didn't mind, because being the IT department of a large corporate, everyone hates us anyway.

That's me in the front, looking a bit 'special', wearing Australian everything. Even got Olympic sunglasses on. The actual Olympian is behind me holding her torch.

This is me coming third in the rice eating competition. Mum taught me well with chopsticks.

This is me coming first equal in the Peaknuckle competition. What's peaknuckle you say? You have to hold the other's thumb down with your own and say PEAKNUCKLE! Due to a mis-spent youth flirting with a guy who had a double jointed thumb when I was 12, I am a peaknuckle queen, even with my cat paws. Note that Dick (representing North Korea), the guy who battled me for a long 5 minutes, has hands twice the size of mine. I should have won with that disadvantage. Totally unfair.

Anyway my and my teammates' efforts led to us getting the Silver overall. Pretty good for a bunch of net geeks.

So there you have it - I'm an Olympic Medallist. Michael Phelps couldn't beat me at peaknuckle I'll bet.

Sobering

2008-08-15T11:53:00.001+12:00

Today is an odd day, being one where I am buying a card for a friend who is celebrating the birth of her first child, and a card for a colleague who is mourning the death of her second, to cot death. The shock of the latter still has not worn off, and I don’t even have any children. I couldn’t imagine a worse tragedy for anyone, and if any of you have been touched by cot death, or SIDS, my heart goes out to you.

Mother Goose for the Millenium

2008-08-07T14:46:00.000+12:00

Every night when I get home, a few kids from around the street are playing on the neighbour’s trampoline, in their pyjamas and slippers.
They’re about 10, 8 and 6, and although they have all sorts of games involving the two elder boys double-bouncing the younger, I’ve never heard any of them get hurt.
Last night I was cooking tea with the front door open to let the frying onion smell escape, and was having a sly eavesdrop of their hilarious conversations.
“Jack loves Dayna!”
“DO NOT!!”
“Do TOO!”
“It’s my turn….let me have a go…” this from the littlest one.
“Jack and Dayna up a tree….K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”.
There are sounds of wrestling.
“Jack and Dayna went up the hill to fetch a bottle of water. Don’t know what they did up there but now they’ve got a daughter!”
There is a silence, then the little one bursts into squeals of laughter. I am giggling, not only because they’re repeating the exact same songs we used to sing as kids, but also because in this modern age, a pail has become a bottle.
“Jack and Dayna went up the hill to fetch a bottle of water. Don’t know what they did up there but now they’ve got a daughter!!”
There is so much hysterical laughter that I can’t help it and laugh with them.
A tiny voice pipes up. “Jack and Dayna went up the hill to fetch a bottle of water…Jack fell down and broke….got a daughter?”
“That’s not how it goes, dumbass.” DOUBLE-BOUNCE.

Grandpa Simpson

2008-08-05T13:42:00.000+12:00

So to update, spinach is still not cool, in my books. I actually gagged on it. But it was nice, as Richard claimed, after hoovering up the leftovers for dessert.
It was really fun doing other cooking – I hope I inspired you to try something a little different too. Last night I made something really out of the box – a little “crazy” – a baked bean and cheese toastie. The no dishes thing was a real clincher with that one.

It’s funny how when you’re busy, all you dream about is sitting at home, with the paper and the cat on your knee. Now that I have had 3 weekends of doing just that, I’m champing at the bit for some action. Not “action” action…. Just something to do. I’m bored of re-arranging my magazines and picking up dropped lemons and mandarins from my garden. The linen in my hot water cupboard is perfectly organised and the cutlery drawer is crumb-free. The lack of money and the cost of petrol prohibits a quick jaunt away. I am seriously never content…but is anyone?

Something cool to look forward to – albeit a work function – is our Olympic Day this coming Friday. I am lucky enough to work with an actual Olympic Medallist – a swimmer – and she has brought in all her uniforms and gear from the two Olympics she attended, and has kitted us out in it all. I am wearing - from the bottom up – geeky sneakers, an Olympic tracksuit, an Olympic bum bag, an Olympic back pack, Barcelona ’92 RayBan Wayfarers and a swimming cap… all in green and gold. Oh yes – she batted for the wrong team….but we’ll forgive her because an Olympic Medal is an Olympic Medal. We’re not sure what we have to do on the day but I’m pretty sure that it’ll involve not a lot of work and a fair amount of beer and embarrassing stunts. Nice. I do love the Olympics…a great time-waster. I imagine this weekend will be spent on the couch with the remote in hand, with the cat on my knee.

In other news, Amelie will now point at either a bird, or a dog, or both! and say “bir” or “gog”. I got all teary when she did it. She’s not my little baby anymore. But, she still loves a cuddle. Awwww.

Oh yes, and Dad came around the other night. Again, perfect blog fodder. He’d just got back from Sth East Asia where he visited Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong, and, it sounded like, drank his way through all the beer in every country. I got him around for dinner and seriously, didn’t say a word for three hours. Because he talked continuously, I think without breathing, for the entire time. Rich and I ate our entire meal (rack of lamb with spuds and beans, yum) and I must have drunk a full bottle of wine before Dad even put his napkin on his lap. Luckily, unlike his normal stories of “I got up this morning at 4:30 – no wait, it was more like 5:00 – or was it?”, these stories were interesting. I got a phone call from my sister the following day:
“Dad just left.”
“Get a word in?”

“None.”

Stuck in a Rut

2008-07-29T13:52:00.000+12:00

Living by myself means that my cat often eats better than I do. Take last night for example – Basil had Pate with Duck Liver and Chicken last night. I had lamb salad. Admittedly that’s not so bad. But duck it ain’t.
I have a repertoire of dishes that I have on about a 2 week rota, that I have been rolling out since flatting days at Uni. These are:

Spaghetti Bolognaise – made from scratch thanks, no Dolmio grins here.
Thai green curry – with pork or chicken, using the Asian Home Gourmet spice paste, which is the only one with any heat in it. The Gregg’s one is just green flour paste. Don’t buy it.
Steak, with 3 veg. Boring, but boy do I love steak.
Rack of lamb, with roasties and broccoli. My sister gives me shit about how many times I eat this meal…I’m pretty sure she’d never turn it down though.
Crumbed schnitzel with buttered noodles and corn on the cob. Everyone goes WTF? when they hear about this meal. Mum used to make it for me on my birthday. I never cook it for other people, although Dad reminisced about Mum’s schnitzel the other day. I think it’s what he misses most!
Devilled sausages with mash and peas. My step-dad's favourite also.
Stir fried veg with beef and rice. Most of my friends got so sick of me cooking this Every Monday Night at Uni (to cancel out the Macca's and Beer weekend) that they still now refuse to eat stir-fries.

Boring huh. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to cook. When Rich is coming over I’ll be more adventurous, and will do some long and drawn-out concoction in the weekends, but my week day meals are just blah.

This week I decided to be really out there, and cook things from Monday to Thursday that I would never normally do, either because I hate them, or it’s completely the wrong season. Hence the lamb salad last night. Lettuce has never been my favourite thing – what’s the point of it, you burn more calories chewing it than it puts in – and eating icy leaves is not part of my winter comfort food plan. But, the fresh crispy capsicum, carrots, lemon squeezes and garlic and rosemary lamb strips quickly fried was totally delicious. I had some for lunch today also and am feeling bright eyed instead of my usual afternoon blah. The rest of the week is as follows:

Cottage cheese and spinach canneloni. I hate hate hate spinach, and we used to get this every Tuesday for lunch at school. The pasta was always undercooked, the onions crunchy and the tomato sauce burned onto the tubes. I have refused to touch it ever since, but looking at my above list, I eat way too much meat, and this may be a good vegetarian meal for me to include. Plus I am a better cook than the crones we used to have in our dining hall. Pizza with tinned spaghetti and chowchow anyone?
Chicken paella. I’m doing a really dumbed down version of this, because I don’t like seafood and I can’t afford the proper ingredients, but it looks pretty easy. I used to make risottos a fair bit but got bored with the blandness.
Fish in filo pastry. I really don’t eat enough fish, and when I do, I usually crumb it and slather with tomato sauce. So good. But kinda cancels out the nutritive value. My flatmate in Dunedin used to make this so I emailed her in the UK to get the recipe. She said “wrap fish in filo, and bake”. I think I can handle that. I might make up a tartare sauce to tart (I know) it up.

So let’s see how we go. I had an interesting lunchtime conversation with a few workmates about the cooking routines they have with their partners or flatties, and it was really enlightening. Things that had never occurred to me yet were so simple, like pizzas, or fish burgers. I thought we should all share our routines and pick and choose from each others. There’s almost a book in there somewhere….or a blog. Hey I could even do a recipe sharing website! Oh…it’s been done?

Back from the dead......

2008-07-24T16:08:00.000+12:00

I have no idea if anyone will read this because no doubt you’ve all given up on me….I would have if I was reading me. You suck! I would be saying, and turning to more pictures of cats with funny captions, or totallylookslike.com. Posh Spice and Falcor had me laughing for days.

But please have mercy. You are no doubt well aware that I am always whingeing about something and this month the whingeing was about my job. Not the job itself, but that the work it entailed took over my life for 6 weeks, due to this new Thing we are doing, and only today – today! – have I had time to breathe. I’m not going to bore you with the details of what we were doing….the mere mention of “going live with new system” glazes the eyes of even my closest friends, and Basil rolls his eyes and puts his paws over his ears.

So anyhoodle. Where have I been and what have I been doing! Well.

Firstly was the trip to Fiji in May. God it was beautiful. I loooove Fiji, and Fijians, and Fiji Gold beer, and stonkingly strong cocktails made by gorgeous Fijians. We went as a family group of 13 to Treasure Island, which is about a 40 minute boat ride from Denarau. The entire island is the one resort and you can walk around it in 15 minutes, apparently. That sentence there shows how active I was on this holiday, unless you count dragging the deckchair around on a point to get the most sun.

My feet.

I spent most of my days lying on the beach reading books – I got through 3 including Marian Keyes’ latest and Gordon Ramsay’s autobiography – and snorkelling.
Prepare to be jealous with this little anecdote: I’m off snorkelling with my brother in law Ben – Amelie’s Dad – and we’ve got fistfuls of bread snaked from the breakfast table. Over in the distance I see a big blur heading towards us. I clutch Ben’s arm and we stop. Turns out the blur is this ENORMOUS big school of the most beautiful yellow fish, each about the size of my hand. I hold my bread out and am surrounded by this cloud of yellow. I can feel them nibbling my legs and arms and one ducks down my togs to get at the rest of the bread I’ve stored there. I’m laughing out loud, and Ben decides to dive right into the middle of them. They immediately divide into 2 big beautiful swirls and swim away. We turn around and cruise over some more reefs, when I get the sense we’ve being watched. I look behind us, and faithfully following us along is an enormous big school of yellow fish. We feed them some more and they follow us around for the rest of our snorkel. It was incredible.
Oh yeah, and I saw a shark but APPARENTLY IT WOULD HAVE PRETTY MUCH SHAKEN MY HAND they’re so friendly, but I was scared, so there. 2 dead grey eyes and those awful gills made me walk on water to get out, that’s for sure. *shudder*.
Mum and I having a giggle and enjoying the sunset.

Each night the staff would do a beautiful singalong and it was wonderful to watch, drinking $70 a bottle wine, that if we had bought in the supermarket back home, would have been $11. Luckily, they were doing up the pool complex while we were there, and we all got $300 credit on our rooms. Even with $70 a bottle wines, we didn’t go over our credits, so we almost made a profit on the holiday. Now that’s service.
Where was I. Oh yes the singing. They were all beautiful singers and dancers, except for this one guy, who we called Easter Island guy because his face was an exact match to those spooky rock statues. He was our firm favourite and we cheered him on as he clapped in the wrong places and mumbled the words. Brilliant.

Easter Island guy in the yellow lavalava. I'm clapping...why aren't you?

Amelie was a perfect angel on her trip and gave her Mum and Dad some time to relax even. Here she is cruising around in her cute little romper suit. The staff adored her and she was high-fiving everyone who would stop.

Loving the hammocks that were dotted around everywhere.

The whole crew.

So it was 6 weeks ago now, and Winter hadn’t really started when we left to be fully able to appreciate the heat, and lack of clothes. It bloody has now though, and I look at my photos and get some sense of the caressing warm breeze and silken cool water. Ahhhh. Luckily I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t really noticed the mornings being darker and the nights coming earlier. Last week though we had 4 frosts in a row – Tauranga doesn’t get frosts so this was serious news people – stop sniggering if you’re the owner of a snow plough. My hibiscus and tamarillo tree were severely damaged and the leaves all frost burned so I’ve mulched them and patted them lovingly and here’s hoping they stage a comeback come Spring…only 5 more weeks! Weee!

In other news, the house is 90% there. I was all gung-ho about painting, and even managed to get through the spare room, the office and the hallway, which LOOK OKAY if you squint and pull the blinds. However due to work being CRAP and winter nearly over, Mum came to the rescue and organised a painter guy to finish it off. 4 days later, zip zap zip, and he’s done. Looks AMAZING. A few days after that, the carpet goes down. I haven’t sat on my couch all week. The carpet makes the house so much warmer and smarter. I know, you’re DYING to see photos because other people’s reno pics are always fascinating – but the curtains are going in early August and I’ll take pics then.

I have been doing some really fun art stuff for the house, using old family stuff. Dad had a big coin collection he’d amassed when he did his OE back in the sixties, so I polished those up and am going to do a big design with them and frame them. Not sure what the design will be yet. One was a Queen Vic penny from 1897 which was out of it. I don't think NZ even HAD money then. It was all about the muskets and the blankets. He also had a massive stamp collection going mouldy in his wardrobe, so I liberated that also, and found some Hungarian stamps celebrating the first man on the moon, and Romania celebrating the Innsbruck Winter Olympics and so on. They’re gorgeous and bright, so have put into square white frames. Will post pics next time. Also have framed this jigsaw of lolly jars that my sister and I used to to when we were very young, so it’s nostalgic AND cute to look at. Am very proud of myself as I am not a very creative person.

For those of you who are Basil fans: cute things he has done lately.
I have my goldfish back from a friend who was looking after him – long story – and he’s in a lovely glass bowl on my coffee table. When I got home from work one day I noticed paw prints on the coffee table, and Basil sitting on his favourite arm chair, laser eyes locked onto the bowl. Leaving the room, I hear a thud, and Basil’s jumped back onto the coffee table and is DRINKING THE FISH WATER. I could put the bowl in a high place or with a mat over it but he doesn’t seem that interested in catching the fish – just watching it. Which no doubt makes the fish really un-stressed out. His name’s Hot Dog by the way….a lovely wee goldfish with a very pretty floaty tail.
Basil also loves the new carpet – so much so that he is now sleeping on the floor instead of my bed. He lay on it while the carpet guys were trying to lay it, which was cute. Well I thought it was. He’s very fluffy and round at the moment, due to massive bikkie bowls and Terrine of Duck, and a big thick winter coat. He’s really very sweet.

So anyway, longest post in the world, that is what I’ve been doing for the past 6 weeks – what about you?

Grassroots NZ

2008-06-24T14:43:00.001+12:00

So flying into Blenheim last night was great fun. We were in one of the pencil-planes – no trolley-dollies, one seat either side, 2 pilots in the front with no curtain shielding them from our view.
I was sitting right up the front and was enthralled throughout the 25 minute flight – man there are a lot of buttons and knobs and hand signals and levers. My favourite thing was the altimeter spinning round and round as we cruised up to an enormous 6000 feet. Me being me, I felt like I could climb in the fly the thing after watching just once. Awesome. Plus, the pilots were young hotties. Excellent.
Arriving at Blenheim airport on a cold, wintry night, I’m dismayed to see no gleaming line of taxis. Instead, there’s one rattly shuttle van, that’s been booked by a well-to-do couple heading home after an overseas holiday. I ask the driver if he can drop me off too. “No worries,” says he.
Driving out of the airport, he’s chatting away to the other passengers. I see, out of the corner of my eye, some headlights approaching us from the left. We go through a roundabout, with the headlights zooming ever closer. They don’t slow down although we have right of way. We’re on a collision course, and I squeal out something along the lines of “SHITFUCKSHIT!”
No-one else says a word. The driver slams on his brakes and a farmer in a flash ute just misses us and continues speeding up the road. Doesn’t slow down.
My fellow passenger says nonchalantly, “I think he might have wanted to give way there.”
The driver starts to accelerate slowly. “I think he may have too.”
No-one says a word.
Later, I get out of the shuttle and ask the driver how much I owe him. He says eighteen dollars.
Crap. I’ve only got ten in cash.
No worries, he says. You saved me $1000 excess by squealing before. Sorry about that by the way.
Kiwis. I love them.

Apologies

2008-06-16T13:31:00.000+12:00

Sorry peeps for the long pause between updates. There are many excuses:

Blogging at work has been jammed and my computer at home is slower than a wet week
I’m back travelling around the country for work and at the end of the day it’s hard enough to spoon food into my mouth, let alone write something
Nothing interesting has happened. Oh yeah, except for our trip to Fiji. I’ll post some photos soon…you know, Soon.

I am back in the land of the living in about 2 weeks, so hopefully you’ll hear more from me then, but in the meantime, feel free to check out other blogs I like on my Link List

The Uniqueness that is my Father

2008-05-15T19:11:00.000+12:00

Having written about my father before and decided it was great material, I went to dinner at his place on Saturday anticpating further excellent blog fodder. And I wasn't disappointed.

Dad: This oven. These potatoes are taking forever! And last nights meatballs were the same! GRRR! BLOODY OVEN!!!
Me: You've got it turned to Grill, you big twat.

Dad: The English Patient. What was it about again?
Me (slightly in my cups) : *talks for 10 minutes about the English Patient ending with* and then all this shit went down.
Dad: And then all this shit went down. I'm sure Anthony Minghella would love to hear it described thus?

Me: Can we listen to your mixed tapes that accompanied all our car trips when we were kids?
Dad: *happily trundles off and puts one on*
Me: I can't believe we had to listen to Leonard Cohen. Most families have to endure the Wiggles.
Dad: But now you've got great taste in music!
Me: Touche.
Dad: Let's put on Godley and Creme - Cry.
Me: I love that song!
Dad's girlfriend: Can we listen to the Rose?
Us: *ignore*

Me: I'm going to do our family tree. Who were Grandpa's parents?
Dad: ....
Me: okay....how did Grandpa spell his name? Alasta-i-r? or Alist-e-r?
Dad: .....
Me: Should I be asking Grandma? (who is 92 and sometimes thinks I'm her daughter)
Dad: Yes.

Me: Did you know that you have sunscreen in your bathroom cupboard that expired in 1997?
Dad: I don’t use sunscreen. I have natural oils that protect me (Dad comes from Scottish heritage).
Me: No wonder I’m addicted to tanning. It’s your fault if I get a melanoma.
Dad: *shrug*

Me: Did you get the Sunday paper?
Dad: No. I already know most of what’s in there, and everything else isn’t worth knowing.

Vintage Dad. It was fun.

Things I thought about on my sunbed today

2008-05-09T15:00:00.000+12:00

1:00pm. God this is nice. So rainy and yuk outside.
1:01pm. Survivor Micronesia: who's going to take it out? I'm betting on Parvati. I think the final two will be her and Eric, and Eric has crossed too many people to win. James...he was one built speciman. I felt really bad when they voted that he was most unlikely to be invited to a family dinner. I'd invite him....and get him to do some much needed heavy lifting around the house.
1:10pm. Have I really just been thinking about Survivor for 10 minutes? I am sad.
1:11pm. How could Jen make her kids tidy their rooms? What did Mum make me do? I think she just said if you don't, you can't go play at Natalie's house today. But funnily enough, I can't recall ever tidying, and I can recall playing at Natalie's lots. I have a feeling she bit the bullet and did it herself. Sorry Jen.
1:15pm. I feel bad that Antonia is trying to make friends in her baby group when if all the people there just knew how hilarious and awesome she was they would all be falling over themselves to hang out with her and drink tea. Must suggest to her to hand out a card with her website on it. Guaranteed buddies.
1:20pm. Realise I am a true child of pop culture, using my relaxation time to think about blogs and reality TV.
1:22pm. Dreading going back to the office and having to listen to my co-worker discuss the weather for 10 minutes, and how cold it may or may not be, and ask everyone in the room if it's cold, before venturing outside for lunch. We have floor to ceiling windows which funnily enough, I use to judge the weather from WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE and what pedestrians wandering past are wearing. Try it. And shut up.
1:25pm. Oof. It's getting rather warm in here and my back is all squidgy. I'm kinda wishing the beeps would happen....
1:26pm. Damn beeps.

Warning: medical content may disturb

2008-05-07T10:04:00.000+12:00

Poor old Bazzy. Over the weekend I’d noticed he’d been in the wars from rumbling with the neighbourhood cats. I think they don’t like him because he’s black.
Yesterday I get home from work and notice his wee face is all lopsided. On closer inspection, I see that the whole of one side of his face is swollen with the world’s grossest abscess. It’s stretched his skin so tight that I can almost see the ooze gurgling around inside.
Frantically calling all the vets (they’re all closed) I watch Basil like he’s a landmine. He doesn’t seem fazed, although is not keen on eating. Hardly surprising when most of your face is swimming in pus. He chases flies and jumps onto the couch and rubs against my legs but only on his good side. I have an Uncontrollable, Irresistable urge to stick a pin in it. The emergency vet I called said, don’t play with it. I poke it a bit. Basil leaps away. I put towels and sheets on all his favourite sleeping places and shut him out of my room. Of course when I get up in the morning he’s sleeping on the one place I didn’t put a sheet on but thankfully, it hasn’t popped. In fact, it’s twice the size. Basil now looks like a bulldog who’s chewing on a massive wad of tobacco. Or, the Elephant Man. I notice the abscess has developed a small leak and is oozing down his face. Gagging quietly, I stuff him into his cat cage and we pootle off to the vet, Basil questioning why the whole way. The vet goes, oooh that’s a good one! Normally they pop before they get this big! I feel proud. Then the vet ruins my day by saying he’s going to have to keep Basil in and drain it later on. But I want to seeeeeee! Repressing my urge to ask him to take photos I leave Basil whingeing in his cage and head off to work. Poor little guy. I pick him up at lunchtime so will let you know how he is.

Meme-licious

2008-05-06T16:20:00.000+12:00

Here are the rules:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Done.
2. Each player answers the questions about her or himself. Done.
3. At the end of the post, tag 5-6 people and post their names, then go to their blogs and leave them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Because my blog is read by lovely lurkers, except for Jen (hi Jen!) I don’t know anyone to tag. Maybe I’ll tag Dooce. She’ll respond huh?
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. She’ll know when she reads it!

#1 — What was I doing ten years ago?
10 years ago was my first year at University in Dunedin. I was more than likely busy with smoking a cigarette, watching after-school telly and defrosting chicken on the heater.

#2 — What are five things on my “to do” list today?
1)Give the spare room another coat of paint. Red paint is scary people. It is impossible to get right. Painting rather reminds me of learning to do manicures in beauty therapy school. We always had to do red because it was the hardest to get right. We then strutted around Christchurch in our sack-uniforms with over-waxed eyebrows, panda-tinted eyelashes and stuck-pig fingernails. Mmm.
2)Wash my hair.
3) Make lamb chops for dinner. YUM!
4) Get to bed early and don’t stay up so late reading Graham Norton’s susprisingly addictive autobiography.
5) Call my Mum.

#3 — Snacks I enjoy:
Bhuja mix. But it’s bad for me so I enjoy it on a hardly-ever basis. Rice crackers and muesli bars are my work staple, but if we’re talking pre-dinner snacks then cracked pepper pate on water crackers or toast is my Numero Uno. Or blue cheese with quince paste. Cashew nuts. Salt and vinegar crisps. Stop me now.

#4 — Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Quit my job, pay my mortgage, pay my sister’s mortgage etc. All the usual. Buy a ridiculously cool car. Dodge Viper or that one that Simon Cowell drives around would do. I think it’s a Bugatti.
I would open a super cool cattery/ cat shelter/ animal hospital and I would play with them all day.
Give a lot of money to struggling University students, but only if they pass.
Have a LOT of liposuction but no face stuff….I think your features make who you are as a person. Get my hair blowdried every day. I NEVER touch my hair. I hardly even brush it. Gross huh?
I can’t really think of anything else. I’m easily pleased.

#5: Places I have lived:
Napier NZ, Windermere UK, Dunedin NZ, Christchurch NZ, Perth AUS, Wellington NZ, Auckland NZ, Tauranga NZ. I’m trying to live in every NZ city before I kick it. Next on my list – Eketahuna!

#6 — Bad Habits:
Laziness. I always leave stuff until tomorrow.
Lack of empathy – I couldn’t care less about those that are “hard done by”. I believe that everyone makes their own fate. If something goes wrong with me it’s my fault..no-one else’s. Not really a bad habit but it’s hugely socially unacceptable to admit to.
Gluttony – I love food too much.

#7: Jobs I have had :
Fruit picker. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t last long. Shop assistant in a jewellers. Beauty therapist. Law firm receptionist. Law firm accounts clerk. PA to Director of Architecture Company. PA to Sharebrokers. And now…….Advisor Platform System Administrator at a Sharebroking firm! I know…I love my job title too.

#8 — Peeps I want to know more about (or at least peeps I think may be interested in responding): All of you! Or, just say Hello.

Painting - it's the new black

2008-05-05T10:33:00.000+12:00

So the house is slowly getting there...very slowly in fact.....I have done the hallway and 99% done the office. What was awesome about the office was that once I did the wooden trim, I pulled the masking tape off the wall and took heaps of brand new paint with it! I swore lots!
Have started on the spare room which is going to be bright red, or Resene Hot Chile if you're interested. We did one coat on Saturday and it already looks super cool, but it's mega streaky. I'm hoping that another coat will even everything out.
Poor old Basil doesn't know what's going on, what with me screaming at him every time he goes near the freshly painted wall, and him having to tip-toe daintily over piles of brushes, plastic drop sheets and open paint tins.
Speaking of Baz he's been in the wars lately. We were having a lovely snooze last night when I heard a scritching at the cat door. Hm Basil's coming in I thought. Then I felt him leap off the bed and go a-chasing. That's right, the neighbourhood cats have discovered that there's bikkies on tap at Amy's house, and have started using the cat door like it's their own. Now Basil is not, at the best of times, a Tough Cat, but he's obviously been holding his own. He has a big gouge out of his face above his eye, and I can feel healing scabs all over his back. It makes me feel sad that I can't protect him. I rinsed out his face with warm salty water which he loved and yesterday he even lay on me while I watched telly, which he NEVER does. So hopefully he'll heal quickly and be happy again. If I ever catch the cat that did that to him it will be getting a big kick up the bum, but so far, I haven't seen any hanging around the house.
But anyway. More painting to do this week - will finish the spare room - what's gross about red paint is that is seriously looks like congealed blood. Thankfully all my other colours are pretty neutral. I can't wait till it's all done.
In other news we had Amelie's first birthday party the other weekend. The littlest one was happy to show off her new mad walking skillz - she did 7 steps! And I did lots of cooking. It was a lunch and lots of people were coming and going, so we just had rolls and cold cuts. I got the most awesome cube roll of beef from the butcher and seared it, then cooked it at 170 for about 75 minutes. I poured over melted honey, mustard and garlic with a little red wine and it was perfect for the buns. Amelie even ate some which pleased her Mum, who stresses out a fair bit that she doesn't get enough iron. What have some of you out there done to make sure your toddler gets their iron needs?
Moving right along, our trip to Fiji is only 19 days away. I have been sunbedding and exfoliating, because the last time we went on a family holiday somewhere hot (Malaysia) I got totally fried on the first day and looked like I'd run away from an institute for serious and contagious skin diseases. It made for really pretty photos.
Oh yes, I watched Running with Scissors in the weekend, which I have been meaning to see for ages, since Augusten is one of my heroes. His new book is out, and I read the chapter extract which is so horrible I almost dithered whether to buy it or not. But I know that I will, but maybe not for holiday reading. I think for that I'm going to get Dooce's book (no need to link!!) or AJ Jacobs, the Year of Living Biblically. I just finished his "The Know It All" and it was perfect. He's now my friend on Facebook.
Forgot to say that R with S was not that great with Gwyneth Paltrow absolutely fucking awful in the role, Annette Bening however was wonderful. Of course, nothing is ever better than the book, notable exception The Notebook.
Finally to the weather, you Northerners will be happy to know that it was farking freezing here in the weekend and there is now snow on the hills. I wore my jacket to work for the first time today and had the heater on all day yesterday. Summer - it's been great. Please return early like you did last year. Thanks.

My new favourite person

2008-04-30T11:39:00.001+12:00

This guy is my total hero. I would be a blubbering wreck.

Weather. It's an interesting topic.

2008-04-29T09:52:00.000+12:00

Body clocks are a strange thing - they tell you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat, when to start dreaming about babies. They also tell you what to wear.
Yesterday my body clock said hey Aims, it's the end of April and it's dark outside by 6:30 pm. Put on a wool jersey and socks and boots. You're the boss, I said, and dressed as instructed. Going outside, it was drizzling and foggy and generally miserable. A good day to be stuck in the bright office looking at the gloom outside.
But no. 2 hours later, the sun comes out and the temperature outside goes to 23 degrees. The aircon in our building can't handle the low sun burning into our windows, and craps out. It's 27 in the office.
I resemble a tomato with hair, and have taken my boots off and pushed my sleeves up. People are walking past my window in singlets and shorts. Chugging back a cold L&P, I dream of going home and having a cold shower. Which is just what I do. Shoving on a pair of shorts and a hoodie I head round to R's for dinner, and stand out on his balcony having a ciggie and a glass of wine. At the end of April. And I didn't even shiver.
Seriously, I love my summers, but poor Basil is panting away in his big fur coat, and my plum tree doesn't know whether to bloom or lose its leaves.
Today we're due a whole lot of thunderstorms and high winds and the whole country is battening down the hatches. It's still 20 degrees though, so not so bad.
I want it to get really really cold and horrible so that I appreciate Fiji more....only 25 days to go!

This sums up Kiwi mentality nicely

2008-04-24T11:17:00.000+12:00

This article is unintentionally hilarious. These guys will be heroes at the rugby club.