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…

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!

Saw this over at Our Wee Farm, and because a) it’s been AGES since I’ve done a meme and b) I should really keep off this sore ankle you know (perfect excuse) I decided to steal it!

A=Age; 41, 42 in November….

B=Bed size; King for five years now – no more crashing of elbows after ten years of having a double! Bliss!

C=Chore that you hate; Doing the dishes manually. We have a dishwasher so there’s no need now, but oh do I hate it when it goes on the blink.

D=Dogs; Pippa, who we got as a 10-week old SPCA puppy. Her mum was a pedigree red border collie and her dad an “unknown” fence-jumping terrier cross. The mum’s breeder was horrified at the thought of raising crossbred puppies and dumped the litter at the SPCA at 9 weeks old! Pippa was especially cute when she was a puppy and had gorgeous hazel eyes. We should have known better when we picked her – she was squishing her little face up at the front of the cage and showing off to everybody. Pippa was such a naughty thing when she was young and sometimes still is six years later – but we love her anyway. Oh, and Max is my parents’ fox terrier. He’s always visiting us, that’s why there’s so many photos of him too!

E=Essential start to you day; Cup of tea. I never drink coffee first thing. Has to, HAS to be tea.

F= Favourite colour; any shade of blue but I do like purples and lavenders too.

G=Gold or silver; Silver for sure

H= Height; 5ft 8in or 171 cm

I=- Instruments you play; I can play Chopsticks on the piano but I am certain this doesn’t count…

J=Job title; Farmer/gardener (like Laura!) – but I’m a beancounter by trade and looking for a job that pays at the moment

K-Kids; a daughter, 11 years old.

L=Live; rural Northland, New Zealand

M=Mother’s name; Pam

N=Nickname; Fi, Fi Fi, Iggy Rat (Dad’s nickname for me when I was a kid, lord knows where it came from), Fiddley Dee (another one of Dad’s nicknames for me when I was a kid. Thanks, Dad…)

O=Overnight hospital stays; Twice – when Miss 11 was born, and then last November I spent the night with her in the Paediatric Ward when she had to stay in for observation after getting her very first migraine. Hate hospitals, hate ‘em hate ‘em hate ‘em!

P=Pet peeves; Bad grammar and spelling and empty loo rolls left on the holder!

Q=Quotes from a film; “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” – Dirty Dancing, of course. And “Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?” Derek Zoolander, Zoolander.

R=Right or left handed; Right

S= Siblings; One sister, who celebrated her 40th yesterday. This makes me feel really, really old. Not sure how it makes her feel…she’s currently over in Australia on a holiday the lucky tart!

T=Time you wake up; At the moment it’s around 7.30, 8am-ish. Love this part about being between paid jobs!

U=Underwear; Everyday without fail.

V=Vegetable I hate: Mushrooms – are they are a vegetable? They taste like dirt and mould all rolled into one. Blurgh! Spinach and silverbeet come a very close second and third place.

W=What makes you run late; Overestimating the time it will take to get where I need to go!

X=Xrays you’ve had; one on my right knee, which I had keyhole surgery on four years ago.

Y=Yummy food that you make; My cheese scones are highly regarded in these parts.

Z=Zoo animals; Always love the meerkats! Cheeky buggers.

Fundraising – an early start helping man my roller derby league’s carwash/garage sale/bake sale. I didn’t get down to any carwashing (not quite the “hot rollergirl” as per the sign out on the main road to attract customers) but I did contribute Ginger Crunch (thanks to duchess_declutter for pointing me towards this recipe – it was very popular and properly crunchy!) and Chocolate Fudge Slice which I found on the same website (delish!)

Watching rugby – we especially enjoyed the Irish/Australia game – Ireland won 15-6 – unheard of! England bet Georgia 41-10 which was to be expected and we also watched Canada get beaten France, which made for some easy on the eye viewing in the form of one James Pritchard… mmmm!

Roller skating – we took Miss 11, five of her friends and her two cousins roller skating on Saturday night – well, the Other Harf and Brunvinlaw did; I had to do my stint as part of my derby league and hand the skates out. I did my skating yesterday – three hours of practising hockey stops and transitions….sore thighs today

Turkeys – our valley is being turkied out! This mob of @30 is doing the rounds of all the local farms at the moment and you can hear them for miles around, gobble gobble gobble!

 

 

 

 

 

Meh. Today I’m feeling particularly unenthusiastic and lazy and haven’t done a scrap of anything yet. Yes, mental list, I know there is unstacking and restacking that dishwasher, folding three loads of washing and hanging out two more loads to be done, let alone all the other jobs.

I’ll get to you.

Eventually.

Yesterday was also a rather slack day on the housework and DIY front too – I was on babysitting duty for my nieces (aged 10 and 12 – they and Miss 11 had a “Teachers’ Only” day, again) and nephews (aged 4 and 2) from 8.30am till 4pm over at the Beige Barn. Oh how different my nephews are to my nieces (and my daughter) – as if they are a totally different species!  The way they communicate, what they like doing, how they go about it, what they can cope with and what they can’t – so different. Takes a bit for this daughter-only Mum to adjust to…

I did have to foist all the kids onto their Poppa for an hour to take Pippa to the vet though. She’s sliced a part of her pad on her back left paw and was doing the skip-diddy-do-dah three-legged limp so thought it was best to get it checked out. After witnessing our silly dog’s extreme excitement in the waiting room (Smells! New person! Smells! Noises! Another new person! More smells! CAT!! CAAAAT!!! OMG!!!!!) the vet was amazed to see on Pippa’s records that she was in fact NOT a puppy; she is in fact a whole seven years old! Anyway, after finally persuading Pip to keep still for her examination it turns out it was a little bit infected but nothing that some antibiotics and staying off it as much as possible won’t fix. Bless her socks.

In other news our derby team is having a carwash/garage sale/bake sale on Saturday. I am seriously tempted to do a major declutter and get rid of some ornaments/tat/kitsch that I have lying round the place as at the rate I’m going Miss 11 will have to crowbar me out of my pensioner flat due to me being completely fenced in by knick-knacks. Yes folks, one woman’s tat is another woman’s tat and I am getting inspired by the thought of offloading some of mine.

Now, if only I could find a cardboard box to put it all in….