Greetings to you on this very sunny Monday, which also happens to be Northland Anniversary Day and therefore a day off work for myself and the Other Harf. I love long weekends

Today the OH and I have been busy getting all ready for a car-boot sale we’re attending in two weeks’ time to raise money for The Cancer Society Relay for Life which is being held on the 17th and 18th of March. It’s the fourth year we’ve done “Relay” and finding different ways to raise money isn’t always easy – but we’ve managed to gather a good stash of unwanted items so I reckon we’re going to do quite well. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and all that…

February is going to be a busy one that’s for sure. Next weekend we are all heading south to attend my cousin’s wedding, then in three weekend’s time I am off to Hamilton to attend the International Tattoo and Art Expo and see my second ever derby game (Hamilton vs Mt Maunganui) as-an-audience-member. I’ve always been a ref or a NSO aka Non Skating Official, which means you can’t “watch” a game as such so I’m really looking forward to it.

At some point, probably within the next two weeks my best friend L is due to give birth to her first baby. I will be jumping in the car and heading for Auckland to meet this new, much awaited and much anticipated little person as soon as I can!

And somehow, I have to make time to help with the hay. There’s going to be over 100 haybales to stack and it’s back-breaking, sweaty, exhausting work!

Yep, yep, yep…

One of the many daisies in our hay paddock. Your time is up!

How are you all my loyal readership? If you’ve even bothered to check in on me after an absolutely appalling month of not posting, thank you thank you thank you!

December was, well, crazy busy. As well as trips to Auckland for work, birthdays, a baby shower, houseguests, Christmas do’s, prizegivings and a Christmas parade I also decided to join the gym, thereby cutting even more spare time out of the month. Time that probably could have gone to blogging.

As for the gym, I’m really loving it, and plan to devote a lot more time to it. I need to get my ankle and my knee strong so I can fulfil my New Year’s resolution: pass my Drills and Skills and play my very first game of roller derby. I loved being a ref, but I know I am going to love being a player even more.

Now it’s January and all the busy has stopped. I go back to work tomorrow after ten fabulous days off, which I’m a bit glum about. Then I remind myself hey, well at least it’s a job I actually like.

2012, I think you’re going to be a great year.

Sunday afternoon and at last there’s some serious rain which is great news as our main tank ran out of rainwater early last week, which meant we had to switch to bore water. Our bore water is better than most, in that it is drinkable (albeit very alkalin-y) and it’s quite clear, although over time it does turn white sheets a pale shade of beige!

It’s a quiet day for the family – Miss 11.3 is sleeping off the excesses of a birthday sleep-over at her cousin’s place last night, and I spent a lazy morning in bed recovering from getting up at 2.30 to drive into Whangarei to watch the New Zealand Roller Derby team play Germany (and beat them) in their third game of the very first Roller Derby World Cup being held in Toronto, Canada. It’s not on the telly but it is streamed live, and one of the girls had her PC hooked up to her 42′ screen so a few of us could sit round and shout for our girls, helped along by chocolate chip and banana pancakes and lots of strong coffee.

We were supposed to be moving into the lounge today, but I have since discovered I have painted the ceiling white in six places (where we have filled in some holes where lights used to be) instead of the proper cream, and can’t seem to summon the energy to go out to the garage and get the stepladder, find the right shade of ceiling paint and fix my mistakes!

Ah well, what’s another week after two and a half years?

Oh hello! I cannot believe I missed posting through the whole of November. I have been prodigiously slack at blogging since I started my job and I am feeling slightly ashamed of myself.

So…thank you so much for bothering to read this very first post of December; I will definitely be posting this month. Promise. Ooh and I better update that banner too….

What’s been happening…let’s do bullet points shall we? Bullet points are easy…

• New job – is really great! I’m (almost) my own boss, doing all the admin and accounts stuff from whoa to go. My office mate is a lovely lady whom I get on really well with and the company is a family run business that has been round for years and is very generous to its staff. All in all completely the opposite to my old job. Yay!
• Birthday – I turned double 21 on the 22nd and after much negotiating I got myself an iPhone! It’s a second hand iPhone 3 (still not cheap and iPhone 4’s are double the price) but it is so, so much fun. The app store on iTunes is my new favourite internet haunt and I am slowly becoming an expert at Fruit Ninja.
• Lounge – finally, finally the curtains arrived and the Other Harf will be putting them up this weekend – and I will be moving us in! Only two and a half years after we moved out. There are lots of empty walls to decorate and I really want a gorgeous gilt-framed mirror to go above the fireplace…better get shopping – now we can afford it.
• Derby – is winding down for the year – it will be our last serious training session tonight and next weekend we will be participating in the local Christmas parade (crossing fingers I don’t arse over in front of a crowd of hundreds). I have made some amazing friends, and pushed myself far beyond what I thought my physical and mental limits were – what an awesome sport!
• Garden – summer vegetable patch is in and it’s the usual suspects: lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, radishes and sweetcorn nom nom nom!
• Miss 11.2 – growing at a rapid rate of knots. I swear she has grown about three inches in the last three weeks! It’s school prize-giving next week and she has high hopes of getting the class trophy for best all-rounder. Last year her father promised her $250.00 if she did so I am sure she has been trying very, very hard indeed.

So that’s November in a nutshell. December, I cannot believe you are here already.

Ahh poor Pips – this is her “why won’t anybody take me for a walk?” expression. I *will* walk her, but not right now, as I have lots to do today – my mojo is officially back now that I’m in paid employment starting next Monday and I’m gonna go great guns this week and get as many things done on My List of Stuff To Do as possible!

Speaking of things to do, it’s my little sister’s 40th birthday bash this weekend – she didn’t want to have a party as a) she didn’t want to organise it and b) my brother-in-law wouldn’t organise it so I put my hand up and said I’d do it. It’s mostly the food and sorting out stuff like ice and decorations, and I’ll going to rope in Mum as well as Miss 11.1 and the nieces to help out, so I think I’ve got it covered.

In other news, my derby league had a great time up in Kerikeri on Saturday night – despite the bruises (yours truly got taken out from behind by a falling skater and ended up landing on her skate right on my butt – ouch!) but now it’s time to find us a new place to play. We have had trouble with being able to play at our local Whangarei stadium and, for reasons I won’t and can’t go into here, we are no longer allowed to – so we are on the look out for a big, empty warehouse that we can use both to train in and put on our games. A couple of hundred people usually come along to watch, so it has to have room for seating or at least for them to be able to watch in safety. Of course, such a place won’t come cheap…so we are all praying to the Lotto Fairy like crazy!

Ah well, better get on with dealing to that list. It’s been great to have time to do stuff like do up the bathroom and lounge, but I’m so looking forward to being paid again!