Christmas Holiday and plans for next year

I'm writing this from Shannon's grandparents' house in beautiful, sunny Tauranga - where I have just spent the last three or so hours sitting out in the sun, drinking very large gins and reading a narrative biography of the Curzon sisters (who were all, frankly, appalling). The summer up here is about twenty times better than what Wellington was offering, and while smothered in sunscreen and permanently topped with a large sunhat and sunglasses, I am not trying to keep out of the sun at all *sips gin*.

S and I came to Tauranga via Kawhia Harbour, which is a somewhat circuitous route. We spent two nights in Kawhia and went to Ocean Beach where we dug our own hot pools (a la the Coromandel's Hot Water Beach), boiled ourselves and then ran into the sea. The site we were given at the campground was right on the edge of the harbour - which is really more of a large tidal estuary. Shannon walked from our tent to the other side of the harbour while the tide was out.

Other things That Are Good include my new job, in which I am learning and being challenged and have lots to do, and finishing school. My final assignment is online and operational: you can see it at Lake's web site (urbantramper.com). The thing that I'm most proud of on the site is not visible to the casual user for it is my content management system - I crafted it from scratch and I think I did a fabulous job. Still ironing out some quirks, but a fabulous job nonetheless.

In the New Year I'm undertaking a new blog project - Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days of Peta. The easiest way to describe it is that it will be a Julie and Julia style experiment, where I will be the Julie and the ever-fabulous Peta Mathias will be the Julia. However, there's a little bit more to it as Peta writes about all sorts of things in addition to Food - relationships with mothers and men, travel,  France, and What You Should be Wearing. I'll be doing my best to make a bunch of her recipes, but I'll also be taking cues about, amongst other things: eating in general, drinking, dressing, interior decorating, music, ageing, and hopefully travel. I think that it will be a very fun experiment. At the least it should satiate my Peta love while keeping me out of mischief over the course of the year. I'll probably be a big-lameo and cross-post most of my posts.

So, tell me: did you have good holidays?

Pretty fab so far

I'm such a creature of the weather. As soon as there is multiple good-weather days, my mood increases astronomically! This week has been amazing, so nice and warm in the sun and I've been buying spring flowers and filling my bedroom/workspace with them. I can't wait for the peonies to start.

My bedroom in the sunshine: observe irises, and the suitcase that plays music. And my teddy.

We've been working on a group project at school, making a website about kefir (which is a fermented milk drink FYI). I was horrified at the concept of working with fellow students, but it's been kind of fun - and I was so pleased to see how much more straightforward coding has become for me. I don't know if I'll ever get over the fact that I can code as it seems so much like some kind of occult wrangling. Demonic.

Last night I had two of the menfolk over (Dad and Tom). I felt like eating a super simple salad-style meal, and I was stoked with what I made: I cooked the most beautiful piece of free-range pork on a big bed of thyme, roasted a big bulb of fennel in butter and olive oil so that it was a bit caramelised, and made a big green salad with goats cheese and cucumber and sprouts and a lemony vinaigrette. And then we had affogatto and coconut macaroons for dessert which was pretty much heaven.

This summer is going to be characterised by an overconsumption of salad I feel. Drinks of the summer will be characterised by, but not be limited to, rosé and homemade lemon iced tea with gin. Oh summer, how I have craved thee.

Arohanui ...

... which I haven't published forever. Before I go to sleep at night I like listing three good things from my day, but I wonder if Shannon is over playing the Glad Game while we're in bed. Thus, The List!

From the Boy's trip to Nepal

• I'm writing this in class as I'm suitably on top of my assignment (my thrift shop database), and I really only need to test it on a mobile emulator and to pad out the information in the site. Suffice to say I'm feeling pretty confident about it all, but I'm dreaming big ... how I will migrate it and make it much more exciting. Drop shadows! CSS3 animations! MySQL databases! Feeling very pleased with myself.
• Yesterday I broke the bread-baking curse that has afflicted me on my last two attempts and produced two beautiful no-knead wholemeal loaves. They are simply gorgeous.
• Experiencing snow fall for the first time in my life. I love the tiny bit that I experienced, but I don't want to get too too excited in case my relationship with snow ends horribly, ala the series 5 episode of the Gilmore Girls that I watched yesterday.
• Sitting in bed with a hot water bottle, knitting hats and blankets and tiny baby shoes, drinking Baileys in tiny little champagne bowls and watching episodes of the Gilmore Girls until my eyes pop out.
• Anticipation: wedding dress shopping for Nat, dinner at Bella's, handing my assignment in, and I've put aside next weekend as a sewing weekend.

Roll on the weekend lovelies x

Camera Obscura | Whiskey and Water

Right now: Camera Obscura and whiskey and water from a Crown Lynn Colourware teacup.

So, would you believe it, mere hours after Saturdays chirrupy little post, I was smote with a ghastly dose of food poisoning/gastroenteritis which put me completely out of action for Sheryll's party and for the rest of my time in Melbourne. Even the thought of food was horrifying beyond belief for the rest of the weekend, and drinking alcohol was completely out of the question. I'm sure you can imagine that the trip back on Monday was no fun at all -- I swear the woman sitting next to me on the plane could hear the tortured gurglings of my stomach.

I decluttered the RSS feeds in my reader and purged a bunch of feeds that I never read anymore or have been skimming impatiently for months. I love decluttering so much that I get disproportionately excited whenever I get the opportunity to declutter another aspect of my life. Soon I plan to take on Shannon's wardrobe [evil laugh] as I feel there is a great deal for me to work with in his room. So much to get rid of.

Finally, just wanted to show you a website I made in class and that actually (mostly) works! Depending on time constraints and my relative success in making usability changes to the backend, I think that I might actually migrate my blog there in the future. How exciting would THAT be, to run a blog that I had built myself from the ground up! Making stuff is fun.

The prototype blog is here.

The next assignment that I'm due to start on (and in fact, should probably do now) is something I'm pretty excited about - a mobile database of the thrifting, antique and second hand shopping opportunities in Wellington. I've seen one New Zealand op shop directory site (it looks like it's based in Auckland) but I know that I could make a better one. I'll let you know how it pans out!

I'm in Melbourne, and still examining my navel

I'm writing this perched in the computer/kitchen room at Shannon's mum Sheryll's house in the suburbs of Melbourne. The house is all nestled in the Australian bush and there is something very nice about all the gumtrees and parrots - living in a house nestled in the New Zealand bush would be rather more damp, and there would be infinitely less parrots, light and warmth. Warmth is so hott right now.

So far, my little weekend away has been wonderful - no school work, a surfeit of self-improvement blogging-style light reading (I'm reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project), and amazing food. Also, Sheryll and her partner Daryl have a super lovely big dog called Mia and there is nothing quite like having a temporary dog about the place - all the petting and loving with none of the bills. Tonight we're going to get down with our bad selves at Sheryll's fiftieth birthday party which should be quite quite fun, I feel.

Since I've been well away from computers, my urge to blog and to write has become much more pronounced. Back into it, for reals, I think. Thanks for sticking around if you've still dropped in every now and then! The Web Development course has made my whole relationship with the internet change ...  I love seeing what people can do, structure wise, but I don't see being online as a hobby or a fun leisure time activity anymore. I guess that my attitude will evolve in the future. I still like writing and reading the posts that other people are making, even though my input is a lot smaller. I think perhaps I'm going to have to create time for blogging in the evenings and weekends, instead of waiting for the urge to hit me like a thunderbolt. A camera would help me out a lot too! Anybody selling a snap and go camera at a derisive price? Want to barter for a skill that I have? I could knit you something or bake something ... cater a dinner party? Build you a site? Just putting it out there, people. Let me know via the usual channels.

Some things I have been doing lately

I am stating the obvious when I note that have been very quiet here. Truth be told, I am back to feeling completely underwhelmed by the prospect of using the computer after work and school. In my spare time I’ve been pursuing Real Life activities, but my camera has died a terrible death, and my cellphone camera bites arse so although I want to show off and upload images of things that I’ve been making and eating, I have no way of doing so unless I put up a very small, very dark, thumbnail-sized image, which means that I might as well not even bother.

Those are my excuses. I remember reading a NZ Post advertisement years ago that said that you should never apologise for taking a long time to write a letter - that every letter is a gift and no guilt should be attached. Are blog posts the same? I guess not so much if I am serious about readers and their opinions et al, but I’ve never been that good at sticking to one theme at any rate so the blog is more of a sprawling scrapbook of a thing than a curated magazine, or a Deeply Meaningful Expose and Examination of my life. My journal stops and starts in the same way with months between entries and then feverish writing for days and days.

So, lately:

I have been getting my craft on a wee bit more: I made three pairs of pyjama pants, and have started on a patchwork duvet cover which will be my first foray into the world of quilt making.* I made a pattern for the pyjama pants an old pair that I picked apart, and used some old sheets for fabric. I was absolutely stoked with how well they worked out! Having three new pairs of pyjamas has been fantastic: I have been suffering from a great Falling Apart of my bedwear recently.

The patchwork duvet cover is based on this idea - I am overlocking smaller strips together and then cutting them squares and then overlocking those squares together … I have bags and bags of scrap fabric which I am using as the material, and I’ve worked out that I need to make 132 squares out of these scraps and bits in order to make a queen-sized duvet cover. On Saturday last I made forty-odd before losing all my enthusiasm. There is SO.MUCH.WORK in your average quilt, and apparently lots and lots of work even in the totally rough and ready way that I’m making this one. Having a cutting board and a cutting wheel would make a difference, but would also defeat my intention to make do with the materials and tools that I have for the time being.

In terms of knitting: I unpicked a hat I made a few months ago and reknitted it with the right sized needles, which means that it actually fits me instead of swamping my head. The pattern is called Amelia Earhart cap. This is the previous evocation (ie the super large version)

I think it’s adorable. I used possum merino yarn so it’s super fluffy and warm however I feel less like Amelia Earhart when I’m wearing it and more like a Medieval serving wench, which is something to do with the very country-fied something about it.

I found a fabulous book in the library in which vintage patterns are made over for modern knitters. I'm making a wee shrug out of some blue lambswool that will be very pretty I think! Far too cold for the moment though. Brr!

Also, I've been knitting tiny clothes. Not for me, but I'm keeping the disclosure on the down low, so forgive me if I say nothing more on this topic at present.

At school, I am doing a project whereby I intended to redesign this blog and give it some interesting functionality. Suffice to say, my coding skills make this whole process tedious beyond belief. I have so much respect for web developers who can understand and use coding languages, because I know that I will never be fluent.

However, I am getting some things out of my course. Firstly, it's great having a good idea about what is possible in terms of development, and how one might go about doing it. Secondly, I am learning empathy with people who struggle with comprehending things on a daily basis. As in, I've never struggled so much with something in my life, and I figure it must be character building. My character is being built upon daily.

At the moment I'm reading the biography of Ada Lovelace who was one of the first women to write (hypothetical) code... one of the people who helped "invent the computer" in the early 1800s. I think she must be truly amazing with an incredibly tortuous mind, because to come up with this stuff is MIND BOGGLING, I tell you. I can't wait to feel safe and happy in my little history world, once again.

My other exciting news is that the holiday I blogged about two months ago is mere days away! We fly to Auckland on Saturday morning and I will then spend a week in a studio apartment on a beach and drink coffee and sleep and sleep and NOT DO ANY CODING. I also intend to read a great deal. And visit the vintage clothing store in Waihi. And op-shop until my feet fall off. Hoo-bloody-ray.

Arohanui: Come-Hither Strawberry edition

via All Things Amazing

I should be working on my assignment, but after spending all morning moving buttons and headings five pixels to the left I'm kind of over it. But I will resume again this afternoon, finish off all the shitty HTML and CSS changes I need to make and figure out why on earth the footer on one page has taken on a life of it's own and floated TOO FAR OVER TO THE LEFT. Just stop floating already, footer dude.

In the spirit of procrastination then, I present you with some things I've been loving on this week. In no particular order (an unordered list, if you will).

• Onion Soup. In particular, this recipe for onion soup which I made last night and had for lunch today. Fun tip! If you're using homemade vegetable stock and you're worried about it's robustness in the soup, why not beef it up with a big spoonful of Vegemite? I'm not sure that Julia Child would approve, but it worked a treat.
• Using conditioner again. I'm pretty crap about bothering to use conditioner in my hair, but whenever I do I feel about 30% more presentable, like I have a big silky head of class.
• Being in control of the assignment to the extent that I don't really have to work hard to justify my procrastination.
• Getting back into my Reader. I forgot him for a wee while there but I'm going strong now. There were a bunch of sites I was subscribed too that fed too much and made the Reader seem overwhelming, so I moved them to a "Time Wasters" bookmark folder on my browser. Now when I go to read anything in that folder, I'm acutely aware that I'm just mucking about on the computer  -- perfectly fine if I have the time or inclination to muck about, but otherwise a reminder to myself to get back on task.
• I'm meeting Eli for coffee this afternoon, after running into her randomly on the street. She was riding past on her bicycle and I was leaving class and it was like, all the planets were suitably in alignment because I'd been meaning to get her around for dinner for ages and it hasn't seemed to happen.
• And I get Nat tomorrow. She's coming for a beer after school and I am suitably excited - both because I am rather fond of a good beer and because Nat is wonderful.

And now for something that is pissing me off: being, that the New Zealand Government is presently rushing through so much legislation under urgency. It really is DISGUSTING, and also, incredibly hypocritical given the costs associated with the urgency process and the fact that the National Party themselves rants constantly about cost cutting in government.

NEW ZEALANDERS: do yourselves a favour and flex your democratic muscle this year. We need to turf these horrible people, and right the balance back to the people that make the country run, rather than the industries that are in bed with the Nats.
Incoherent political ramble ends.

The week in review

Another flat out busy week between work and school assignments. I've been designing and making a website from scratch (lovingly hand-coded) with eleven separate pages which has basically taken up all of my spare computer time. The good news is that I only have one more page left to make, and then I can get on to doing the JavaScript - oh ho, what fun THAT shall be. JavaScript is a frightful concept for me, I must say, but it's just a matter or acquainting myself with it proper like, I think.

State housing, Naenae, Lower Hutt, photographed by John Dobree Pascoe, 30 October, 1944 via Timeframes

Last night I went out with people from the Television Archives (where I used to work - a good two years ago, so I feel safe in naming it). Most of the people that I worked with have left, but the two people still remaining were able to tell us a little bit about the closing down the television studios at Avalon. I always think that facility is such a sad little waste - the equipment and studios are all there, and it's too far away from the TV making centre of Auckland, or even from Wellington itself. So much purpose-built potential going to waste.

There is something about going out to the bleak depths of Taita and finding this amazing early '70s facility that really highlights the kind of optimism that existed in New Zealand at the time. I like to imagine all these people moving out to the state houses out there in the 1950s with their faces shiny and well scrubbed, cooking enormous lumps of sheep and eating huge slices of butter, and just knowing that they lived in The Best Country On Earth. And now it's so bleak and forgotten, overgrown verges and the periodic crumbling concrete wall.

Related to the Kiwi Good Life: I've been on a New Zealand classic baking and cooking buzz lately - replacing my previous obsessions with American baking, which is good but so sweet. Too sweet, one might say. This week I made a delicious date loaf, Anzac biscuit, a bacon and egg pie and a roasted vege pasta recipe from the kitchen of the über-Kiwi Simon and Alison Holst, bless their cotton socks. I count this as a Kiwi classic because it's so awesomely the kind of bastardisation of "International Dishes" that can be found in the Edmonds - it reminds me of this lamb curry that Tom used to make that was both delicious and completely inauthentic.

In saying that, I'm quite keen to try this recipe for muesli bars (American no doubt, due to the use of molasses and the reference to granola).

The knitting has pretty much been at a standstill. I am still only cuff deep into my lace knit offering mitts in black, but because I wanted to do a little bit of brainless knitting I picked up the blanket I've been working on forever and knitted a few more squares, and now I am only one peggy square away from finishing! Amazing! I've been working on this blanket since forever - it's very *ahem* eclectic, made as it is from four different knitted and crochet blankets that I picked up in various op shops, and with the remaining gaps and holes filled in with my own crocheted and knitted squares. It's HUGE, well big enough to go over a queen sized bed, enormously colourful and super homey and warm. I have big plans to crochet right around the edges of the blanket to unify the whole lot, but CAN YOU IMAGINE how long that is likely to take? Good lord!

Still working my way through the Virginia Woolf bio, which is rather hard going (have I already mentioned that a hundred times?) I bought a Ngaio Marsh omnibus and it's hard to convince myself to read something worthy when I have Inspector Alleyn on my bedside table, and he's dying to make some snide remarks about middle-class elderly spinsters. However, I am determined to finish Virginia because, after all, Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?


And on that fully predictable note, I will go out and have a beer with my Boy.

Arohanui for my poor neglected blog

Poor old blog dude. Are you saaad with the neglect? Sometimes I neglect you because I hate the world and sometimes because I am overexcited by the world, and this time it is definitely the latter. *Please insert earlier list of excuses here*.

via We Heart It

So, today I give you a list of things that I'm loving at the moment:

♥ I'm quite keen on this Cooper's Pale Ale that I'm drinking at this very second. So thirst quenching! Another good thing about it is that this bottle shouldn't even be here - I took it to my friends' house for dinner and deliberately left it there for them and they have FORCIBLY returned it. So. I figure that it must be mine, and Fate has determined that I drink and enjoy its hoppy hoppy goodness.

♥ I was lucky enough to have three birthday dinners - two of which were cooked for me, one by lovely Nat and Mark and one by my lovely Mum. Isn't it wonderful having dinners cooked for you?

♥ I have a new-old sewing box: Shannon thinks it's made of rewarewa, but anyway, the wood has a lovely grain and the box itself is one of those vintage ones with the concertina layers that fold out and that sits on its own little legs. My mum gave it to me for my birthday and I love love LOVE it.

♥ I am about five days ahead in my assignment - I don't need to hand in the proposal until next Monday but it's already ready to go.

♥ I have such a big crush on Tasty Cheese at the moment. I want to put it in everything.

♥ I love my student lifestyle! Books and tv shows and eating and running (a bit) and working from home. And learning, of course.

♥ Meeting lovely Twitter people - or perhaps, forcibly introducing myself to Twitter people? While away at WOMAD I met Scuba Nurse, I forcibly introduced myself today in Deluxe to Sarah Von from Yes and Yes (who was with Kim - @_vitamink), and on Sunday I poked my head around the door of Knitsch's new shop in Petone and forcibly introduced myself there. Most of the time this wasn't really awkward.

♥ Surprising myself with hidden movies - I went to use and old thumb drive the other day and on it I discovered The Innocents, The Wicker Man, a tv series about reading the architecture of churches, and the 2010 Fry and Laurie reunion. And while this does indeed sound a lot like the kind of things I like watching, I can't for the life of me remember where it came from. How mysterious!

I don't want to make too many promises but I'm hoping to redress my lack of blogging sitch. Hang tight, lovelies.

Arohanui! Friday! All the good things at once!

ello poppets

WOW. This week has seemed very, very long. Odd isn't it, how sometimes the time just runs away with itself and sometimes it just drags by soooo sloooowly, it's beyond all belief. Defo this has been a week in the latter category - and I couldn't even tell you why, because it's been a week filled with awesomeness! WITNESS:

♥ I am extremely spoilt and the Boy bought me a ticket to WOMAD, which is happening next weekend! Exciting.

♥ My cooking mojo is back with a vengeance. I made two really great dishes over the last two nights and also baked an unbelievably good chocolate peanut butter slice type-thing.

♥ ALSO I didn't realise how big the slice recipe was and I ended up making far more than we could eat in our flat so I got to give it away as well, which made me feel awesome. Giving people food is a wonderful thing.

♥ Shannon went back down to Christchurch to work and came back a day earlier without telling me which meant: A Surprise! I love surprises!

♥ I passed my first assignment pretty much perfectly. Awesome.

♥ Bella came over for dinner last night and it was fabulous! We ate risotto and drank red wine and talked and then Bella made harissa in my food processor.

♥ HTML and CSS now make sense to me in a vague kind of way - as in, I can actually use it. It feels weird because it's bemused me so much over the years and all of a sudden, I've been given the tools to read it and understand what it's doing.

♥ And finally I get to make (or rather, re-state) another resolution - to exercise more. And I LOVE resolutions, they're like, my favourite thing ever to make.

Have a fabulous weekend lovely people! Can't hardly wait!

Investigative Money: studying, and the fine art of living on next to nothing

My money situation has done nothing but improve since I've started studying. I think I've ranted before about how liberating the lack of money feels - my acute awareness of the lack of money means that I'm not overspending week by week, rather, counting (and accounting for) every cent. I've been very accurate with my budget, something I have been not that great at doing in the two or three months leading up to beginning study. And it feels absolutely fabulous. I really want to take this feeling of control with me into the post-study, post-debt stage of my life, and it's something I'm going to work really hard to maintain.

I could never have imagined myself saying this 18 months ago. Bizarre.

Truth be told, I've had a couple of great things that have happened that have further freed up my money situation, including the tax people being very understanding with my tax repayments (did I mention my $5000 of overdue taxes? No?). Basically, I had paid off about half of this debt and - be still my beating heart - have been "excused" from the remainder, due to hardship. That is: I rang the IRD to advise them that I would have to pay off the debt at a much lower rate per week, and they just wiped it entirely. When they rang me to tell me this, the phone had woken me up from an afternoon nap and I was absolutely convinced that I had dreamt it. I had to wait until a letter arrived before I could let myself believe. It felt like an enormous weight melting off my shoulders, dissolving into the ether, slip-sliding away ... Moral of this story: TALK to the IRD petals. TALK to the tax people. Do not run away from the Tax.

Would you like to see the Debt Unicorn?

Cunning things to notice: I am just over $1000 dollars still in debt. I'm paying off about $100 a month at the moment (down from $600) and just whittling away at it for the time being. I plan to pay off the rest in a couple of big chunks when I'm working again and then dance in my underwear for about three weeks non-stop.

Ok, so enough of the skiping already. Want to hear my top things for saving money at the moment?

• Taking a leaf out of Ange's book, I am giving myself "espresso days" and not drinking espresso coffee on any other days (unless, of course, I am given one as a treat from my Boy). So, at the moment, I'm only drinking espresso coffees on Monday, Friday and one day in the weekend. Sometimes on Monday I think "oh, I'll treat myself tomorrow instead", but my self imposed rule means that even if I shuffle my treats around I'm still limiting my treats, and given that the coffees are now like, $4 each, the limitation sure is something.
• On the rest of the days, I take my wee flask of coffee to school and drink it in the student common room. It's officially the geekiest mature student thing that I do.
• Having breakfast means that I'm not hungry during my morning break - I come home and eat something substantial for lunch, leftovers or poached eggs on toast. Lately we've had a lot of soup around. So, no buying food out, unless I'm going for dinner or some other kind of meal - and then it's a social event, which is another matter entirely.
• If I'm not drinking any coffee and coming home for lunch, and then working from home in the afternoon, I've found myself having "spend nothing" days almost inevitably.
• I'm back on the cash band wagon. I take out $100 dollars on pay day, knowing that it should be enough to last the week. And, so far it's been pretty good - I've even been able to put a little money in my savings account because there has been money in my spending account that I haven't even touched.
• I've been saving for things I want! I've thought out any big purchases I'm planning to make over the next six months or so and I know about when and about how much I'm going to have to stump up. Organisation with money is a strange and wonderful thing.
• I'm not allowing myself to owe people money. If I can't pay for it, I don't do it.
• I've purged yet more of my clothes, and have taken stock of my clothing situation. The only clothing I can imagine myself needing or wanting over the next year would be a pair of black pants (I imagine cigarette-style pants). I've taken in a bunch of my clothing to the Recycle Boutique so I should have a little money there to help me get a new pair.
• And finally - tiny luxuries make me happy. I'm trying to treat myself to something little and luxurious week by week, knowing that (like the coffee) it's a little treat to reward me for all my good work. At the moment I'm looking at my lovely little miniature roses and reflecting on how pretty, lovely, and cost efficient they are. 

I'm loving on my tiny, concise world at present. Of course, I'm pretty much a hermit. But, I love that as well so HEY HO.

Some Mature Studenty Navel Gazing: New routines

I guess the hardest thing that has come from starting school and working from home is the change of routine - as much as I hate the idea, I am totally a creature of habit. I like the feeling of safety and surety. Conversely, if my routine is thrown then I'm all over the freaking show. Things drop off my radar and don't get done and I begin to neglect things that I've been loving mere moments before. Blogging, yoga, running, seeing my friends, reading other people's blogs, and such like.

via Simply Breakfast

So, how does the new routine look? Mostly it looks as though it starts a crapload earlier. One of my main complaints is having to start getting ready for the day half an hour earlier than I used to. By which I mean: I still get up at the same time, but I don't get my half an hour of pottering about anymore. (WOE.) It gave me such a nice structure to my day, and I always felt as though I'd actually achieved something before I had to start work. I flatly refuse to get up any earlier than seven o'clock so consider that option defenestrated. I'm moving slowly into a new routine that involves: leaping out of bed, eating breakfast, and leaving the house in three quarters of an hour. As a rule I'm terrible at breakfast but I have noticed a marked difference in my functionality when I have eaten something first things (quelle surprise, non?). So. In order to make the most of the money that I'm spending on study and investing in my future, I'm trying to have a couple of poached eggs, or some home made muesli and stewed apples, or even a big banana, blueberry and spirulina smoothie for breakfast. The food makes me happy.

I wonder if I would have been less grumpy when I was working if I'd had breakfast more regularly. Le hm.

The second part of my routine involves the transition from study to work - I get home from class about midday and spend an hour eating lunch and reading a novel and listening to music before I hoe into the work that is building up in my inbox. Once I've finished with all that I clean up the kitchen, tidy my bedroom, light something rose-scented (candle, incense), switch on my fancy around-window fairylights, and then log on to my work email. And I can feel my preparedness to work.

I think the next thing that I'd like to introduce into my routine is some afternoon exercise - heading out to yoga (which I can start at 4.30 and miss the corporate crowd) or running around the block a bit, even just a couple of days a week would be good. I'm just so proud that I've got this far with planning out my routine! Once I've got it all sorted in my mind I feel a hell of a lot better.

Arohanui. FUN!

Rachel Sumpter via Lost at E Minor

Hope you are well my darlings! The weather is beginning to sloooooowly shift towards autumn here - there are some very "late summer" feelings in the air. I'm still managing to read outside, at least in the afternoons, but MY it is chilly in the shade.

Last night I read this item on Yes and Yes about the phrases "want to" and "have to"- that is, the power of using words to change your attitude through saying that one wants to do a thing, rather than that one has to do a thing. This is something that I talked to one of the therapists about one time, and it made me revisit a bunch of stuff that I wanted to do but had managed to append a "should" to - and how that "should" was holding me back! So here I am, again - because I WANT to write a delicious list of things that I am loving on at the moment. For realz, j'adore!

So, in no particular order:

♥ Free time! Between study and work I feel as though I have far more free time than I've had in a very.long.time. Maybe since I was at University? I keep telling myself that it's just a false impression but consider me very happy in my present delusion.

♥ New school supplies: The Boy took me shopping and between the beautiful pens, leather pencil case and Moleskine notebooks he bought me, and the new school bag and Thermos that I bought myself, I am officially the most satisfied and probably also the most stationery-geeky person in my class.

♥ My Boy is super awesome. And leaves me totes adorb notes about salads in the fridge. And yesterday he caught a crayfish!

♥ Living within my means and nailing my debts: I am so, so happy that this is all coming together! Somehow, the decision to live without very much (otherwise known as studying) has paid off in terms of getting me to live within my means. It's early days but so far but I'm really enjoying the idea that my income covers all the essentials that I need to pay for - and how that feeling encourages me to keep all my "wants" to the very bare minimum. Is this what minimalism feels like?

♥ Learning: I think my brain is getting fried due to learning at such a pace (it's suddenly picked up), but also - it's GREAT. When my mum went back to study she said the hardest thing was learning how to learn, and I thought I understood at the time. The reality is that it's a lot more complicated than I'd thought at that time - but I absolutely love learning, and I know that once I've warmed up and got the big old Thinking Muscle stretched out, I'll be totally good to go.

And that's me for this Thursday my darlinks. Please share something fabulous with me?

Dear Blogging Mojo: Where the Fo' are You?

I'm having a terrible case of writer's block. Where has my blogging mojo gone? I do not know. This post, then, is little and introspective.

Today was my first day of school: last night I had a moment of being complete overwhelmedness and had to have a lie down because I hadn't made enough spaghetti for dinner. That is, I was making the spaghetti and staring down into the portion I had made as it sat, in the pan, and I suddenly realised that I hadn't made enough to feed everyone in the flat. And I was terribly tearful about it - I felt moments away from seasoning the pasta with my own tears. I went and had a lie down and felt much much better after a little sleep, a very little cry and some Agatha Christie. But strange, isn't it, how the Anxiety manifests itself? Because that's what I figure the spaghetti tears were all about. I was scared about school and that maybe I had made a terrible, horrible mistake and I was going to be screwed for work and completely broke. Woe! Anxious time!

School itself was remarkable in it's anti climax - as I predicted there were a lot of sweaty teenage boys there. We had a rather awkward powhiri-type welcome that was conducted entirely in English. The food afterwards was a selection of muesli bars and some cheap juice (of which I didn't partake in). I used to go to exhibition openings with the tutor that showed us around the building but he didn't appear to recognise me.

On the plus side: all the girls seem to be very cool people. And I'm learning! Despite the panic of last night I'm really excited about the prospect of learning something new. Also, I get a discount at Deluxe which is like my most favourite cafe ever. And as I've said before, if nothing else then I can work on making this blog super extra fabulous.

I'm hoping that this little introspective blog entry will propel me into blogging again.

Arohanui! - creepy ectoplasm picture edition

Hello my darling darlings. Are you back at work yet? I am as of yesterday. But only for five weeks and then I am Queen Bee McStudy Pants and will be studying Web Development full time! I am so excited it's like, a tangible sort of ectoplasm. I am ectoplasmicking all over the place. (Incidentally, ectoplasm is freaky gross as a concept).

Here are some other things I'm loving on this week:

♥ Having a desk in my room! It's not the world's most sexy piece of furniture but I'm afraid that I have had to take monetary considerations into concern. Thus I am using the Boy's old desk which is made of a delightful mock-maple veneered particle board. Tres chic, non? Aesthetics aside, there's something simply super about having a proper workspace again. I'm predicting a New Year's resurgence of blogging mojo. Booyakasha.

♥ Newly rearranged bedroom. This I had to do in order to fit the desk in, but as Jojo says, there is nothing like rearranging things to refresh the energy of a room. My room has had it's energy thoroughly refreshed let me tell you. Also, cleaning and dusting always helps. Bare wooden floors are the absolute worse for dust. Usually, I live in a dust bunny colony.

♥ Weleda Almond Oil which is super for removing eye make up and also makes a lovely moisturiser for my increasingly sensitive skin. Good product. Not ridiculously crazy expensive. Yay!

♥ Reading in the sun, in bed, on the grass et al. For two weeks I've done little else but read read read and it's something quite fabulous I must say. I've finished a bunch of books I've had lurking about for ages with an uninspiring chapter and a half left to read and the feeling of completion is epic. MMMMMMM EPIC COMPLETION MAKES MY SKIRT FLY UP.

♥ Discovering the Tweetdeck for Chrome app. I like Tweetdeck but I already have a desktop client downloaded and I didn't want to download another. Tweetdeck for Chrome has made all my geeky Twitter dreams come true and I am now feeling far more streamlined. I mean, it's in my head, but it's a freaking beautiful delusion y'all.

 
♥ coffee ♥ Shannon ♥ resolutions ♥ walks in the Town Belt which begin right near my house and take me MILES AWAY ♥ simple pasta dinners ♥ potatoes from our garden ♥ the amazing blogs that I'm incredibly lucky to be able to read (all those people giving their time and enthusiasm for free!) ♥ Agatha Christie dramatisations ♥ Phil Harding ♥ the really good French style cider that tastes a bit like feet ♥ finding an awesome and ridiculous pair of blue harem pants in our garage ♥ spending New Year's Eve with a spectacularly eccentric and fabulous bunch of people and NOT BEING HUNGOVER THE NEXT DAY ♥ bread and butter pudding made with panettone ♥ oh, and coffee ♥

Lay your wisdom upon me my lovelies. And welcome back to work if you're already slaving away like I am xx

Thanks Letter from Tech