• The Other Harf is getting a bit mopey not having a paying job and not getting any interest in his new beancounting business venture and has even mentioned the dreaded word “Auckland” – that is, getting contract work and living with friends during the week and only coming home for the weekend.
• This idea makes me want to scream at him “No! Over my flippin’ dead body!”
• But we are no longer able to afford the fabulous things like holidays, landscaping, DIY, new clothes, new toys, going out to restaurants – a lifestyle that comes with two salaries.
• However, we can still afford the necessities in life, plus treats, such as wine, chocolate, DVDs and the occasional takeaway on my salary.
• So there really isn’t any need for the OH to get all overdramatic and flee south Mondays till Fridays.
• We will be fine.
• Miss 9.6 is not having a great week either.
• Not only has she lost her trainers (new last year “Bernice Mene” netball shoes) she’s lost her cousin G’s pair (that she borrowed as she’s lost her own).
• This has made not only her parents furious, but her cousin and her Uncle and her Aunty too. Her grandparents are not impressed either.
• Her pocket money is now being diverted till she has paid for two new pairs of trainers. Oh the woe!
• To add to the woe, she has spent the last three afternoons after school cleaning her bombsite of a room, and still, still, still it’s a complete mess.
• So there’s no telly, no computer, no pudding, no FUN fullstop until it’s spotlessly tidy.
• As for me? Well, today I learned that my job is going to be very safe, and there will be no redundancies (a rumour that had started floating around, again).
• It’s Friday tomorrow, and we’ve got absolutely nothing planned for the whole weekend.
• I’m not feeling mopey, nor woeful.
• In fact, I’m feeling fine.
• Which almost makes up for my husband and daughter…

Finally March the 20th is here, and my family and I have 24 hours of relay walking in front of us. So far I’ve raised nearly $700 (cupcake sales and online credit card donations) and the Other Harf, in a huge lurch out of his comfort zone, stood outside Woolworths with a collection bucket and raised $150 in three hours! I was mega-impressed, and very proud of him.

We’re all camping the night, and from experience I know it gets bloody freezing, so I’ve got the OH to drag all the suitcases with the winter clothes down from the loft so I can pack us some lovely woolly jumpers to keep us toasty. We’re talking hat, fleece, socks, thermals-type cold – not conducive to a good night’s sleep if you’re not kitted out!

And in order to keep myself amused while I walk round and round and round the designated 400m track I have just loaded up my iPod again with some cheery, upbeat, get-your-ass moving songs.

My aim is to walk 40kms, which is 100 times round the 400m track (but you knew that, didn’t you) – I estimate that I’ll have to walk at least nine hours to do this. Yeouch!

Fortunately I’ve got Monday off work and plan to spend most of it in a horizontal position.

Wish us luck and NO BLISTERS my friends!

Yesterday the Other Harf, Miss 9.6 and I made 100 cupcakes (well, 97 to be precise, but 100 sounds much more impressive. I’m using Swedish Rounding here) in order to persuade my work colleagues to part out with donations to the Cancer Society this coming Wednesday.

My idea was that instead of selling the cupcakes at $2 a pop, anyone who made a donation would get a “delicious, handcrafted, homemade cupcake FREE” – this way I’m hoping that people will donate $5, $10 or even $20!

It’s all in aid of the Cancer Society’s biggest fundraising drive, Relay for Life, which we are participating in next weekend. It’s lots of fun, bloody hard work but most of all it brings in money for a wonderful charity that receives not one single cent of funding from the government.

This is the third time I’ve participated but it’ll be the first time for the OH and Miss 9.6, as well as Lil’Sis, Bruvinlaw and the nieces. I’ve advised them to bring their squishiest socks, thermals as it gets really, really cold in the middle of the night and enthusiasm, lots of enthusiasm – essential at 3am!

Wish us luck!

At last! 97 cupcakes later Miss 9.6 finally gets to lick the spoon…

Reading – Life According to Lubka by Laurie Graham:
Pittsburgh was too small for Beryl Wexler. Barely out of high school, she changed her name to Buzz and set off for the bright lights of London. She never looked back…

Oh joy, a new Laurie Graham! One liners galore, clever dialogue, funny, honest, wonderful characters – it’s been too long since her last book! Just when I was about to order it online a copy only goes and turns up on Whangarei Library’s shelves. Thank you for saving me $28.99 plus postage and packing, Whangarei Library!

I’m saving this one for my long-lie in on Sunday morning. *Rubs hands with glee*

Liking – Masterchef New Zealand, OK Go’s latest album, that Hot Cross Buns are in the shops WAITING FOR ME, that I got 8/10 for my first assignment for my photography course, that “Go Girls series two starts next Thursday and most of all, that it’s freakin’ Friday tomorrow! Woo-hoo!

Hello there! March already? Yes, I did have a wee bit of a blog-break, which a) was partly due to being away for four days and b) partly due to the wonderful head-cold I caught from too much communal living with snotty nephews.

I swear, all vestiges of creativity this past week have leaked out of me along with a gallon of snot, but I won’t gross you out with the finer details (um, too late…) – safe to say that at the moment I love me some Coldrex in the morning, midday, and just before going to bed.

Anyhoo, the weekend away was quite lovely, and the bach was perfect, and the wedding went off without too many hitches, except of course for the bride and groom: they definitely got hitched. The tsunami warning at 6.30am on Sunday was a little bit alarming, but fortunately it proved only to be a minor inconvenience in that we couldn’t go to the beach the WHOLE day.

And seeing as it was stinking hot, and some of us were ever so slightly seedy due to overindulging in keg-beer/cheapo sparkling wine, a swim would have been just the ticket…

Well, no big deal; at least we were all safe, and not in any great danger, and my thoughts soared up over the Pacific to the poor, poor people of Chile, whose lives had been ripped apart in minutes.

Monday I came home with Lil’Sis to a relatively empty house (via Hot Water Beach, just gorgeous, despite the tourists…) as the Other Harf had gone home Sunday evening with Miss 9.6 as they were both off to school camp for two days first thing Monday, along with the nieces.

The Other Harf managed to call later that evening from a cow trough in the middle of a paddock, where he was lying in wait as a Scary Person, ready to frighten the living bejesus out of 60 kids on the Burma Trail (a blindfolded night walk which follows a rope along a trail). My kind of evening!

The next night he called again, interrupting my Chick Flick (Julie and Julia) and Curry (takeaway Chicken Tikka Masala) evening with the news that yet again he had been chosen to be one of the Ugly Stepsisters for the Parent/Teacher offering of Cinderella – a role that he and Bruvinlaw had taken on at school camp two years ago. Coincidence? Me thinks not…

You know, I really do need to get along to one of these school camps one of these days but hopefully not get picked as the Ugly Stepsister.

I leave you with photographic evidence of a perfect summer weekend on the Coromandel…

var so = new SWFObject(“http://www.db798.com/pictobrowser.swf”, “PictoBrowser”, “659″, “550″, “8″, “#EEEEEE”); so.addVariable(“source”, “sets”); so.addVariable(“names”, “Cooks Beach Feb’10″); so.addVariable(“userName”, “KiwifruitFi “); so.addVariable(“userId”, “95975011@N00″); so.addVariable(“ids”, “72157623444429003″); so.addVariable(“titles”, “on”); so.addVariable(“displayNotes”, “on”); so.addVariable(“thumbAutoHide”, “off”); so.addVariable(“imageSize”, “medium”); so.addVariable(“vAlign”, “mid”); so.addVariable(“vertOffset”, “0″); so.addVariable(“colorHexVar”, “EEEEEE”); so.addVariable(“initialScale”, “off”); so.addVariable(“bgAlpha”, “90″); so.write(“PictoBrowser100307173001″);