What is making me happy: a new year just begun

Lunch and salad and beer and books

The main thing making me happy is the fact I’m still on holiday. Bliss!

I have been making an effort to be social which has been pretty great - so, Skyping with Bex, coffee with Mum, catching up with lovely Ange and family, and plans to visit my grandad on Saturday. I’m also hoping to see Liz while she is over here from the UK.

The question then is: will I be able to maintain this level of socialness when I am no longer lounging round the house? I’m not unhappy with how social I was last year, but I’d like to do a better job keeping in touch with certain people. Perhaps this should be another New Year’s resolution.

READING: I am blasting through things, and making some mature decisions about putting aside books that I am not interested in finishing (looking squarely at London: A biography).

• I have been reading many Phillippa Gregory books because it’s summer, and thus the best time to read something a little trashy. I finished the Wideacre trilogy which is spectacularly silly. All incest and frocks and mysteriousness and horses in the Sussex countryside.
• Affinity by Sarah Waters, which I am loving. I wanted to read The Paying Guests but I’d need to buy that, and I already had a copy of this lying around that I’ve never read.
• Still trucking with the Portable Dorothy Parker and Middlemarch (but I feel Middlemarch is a bit worthy for summer holidays).

WATCHING:

• The Staircase and all the DVD extras. Mon lent this to me after a very long discussion about Serial, and it’s a pretty amazing series. We watched the whole lot in one evening which meant that we went to bed after midnight, but it was well worth it. I urge you to seek it out.
• Midnight in Paris - pretty silly, tho' I thought the Hemingway characterisation was on point.
• Only Lovers Left Alive - Katherine recommended this to me (it was one of her top movies of 2014). A super stylish movie that features Tilda Swinton as a vampire which is A+++ casting.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: It’s a little late (and off-topic?), but the Christmas episode of the Truth was great and I experienced some LOLs while listening.

KNITTING: Making great progress on my Madeline Tosh Featherweight cardigan. I also made a wooden yarn bowl using a second hand fruit bowl and my own ingenuity. More information to follow.

SEWING: I made yet another dress with no waistband (a current passion) and a top I adore out of apple print fabric. Again, more information to follow.

What is making me happy: Christmas week and summer holidays

Two Christmas trees are not enough. Also, please note my artful(!) use of vignette: I should not be allowed to play with filters.

I am on holiday now - three weeks of glorious me-time; cooking and sewing and knitting, and planning for Christmas and next year’s projects. Yesterday I put up our beautiful tree, I’ve made some simple mincemeat and we have a fancy free-range ham in the fridge for Christmas Day.

After New Year, Shannon and I are going on holiday for a week with the ever-lovely Nat and Mark - Taupō and then maybe Tauranga. Sunshine is nigh! Exciting because until very recently, Wellington has been proving itself true-to-type in the weather department. *Sighs as though her heart would break* *looks wistfully out the rain-smeared window at the rain with chin in hand*

Related to Christmas planning: I’m also enjoying planting succulents in teacups/stoneware goblets/dessert glasses.

READING:

• Naked by David Sedaris - I bought a copy of this for Nat for her birthday and then borrowed it off her - only to discover three essays-in that I had definitely read it before. I had a look on Good Reads in the vague hope that I’d actually made a note of it and it turns out I'd totally read it in August last year! How about that.
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - long conversation with Mon after I’d read this about loving everything that Margaret Atwood represents but then not really loving the books themselves. There was so much I liked about this book, but I did feel it was a bit laboured.
• The Portable Dorothy Parker - dipping in and out of the short stories, and skipping over most of the poetry. Not keen on poetry, even the comedic rhyming couplet type.
• Always sitting in my reader and making me feel dismayed with my lack of commitment to Serious Reading - Middlemarch and Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography.

WATCHING: A lot (SO MUCH) of Nigella Lawson. On Saturday I watched two series of Nigella's Christmas Kitchen in a row, six episodes in all. I am totally Christmassy right now. I want Poinsettias.

Also! Last night: Home Alone which was better than I remembered.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: Fugitive Waves (the Kitchen Sisters) - the Nights of Edith Piaf. SO.GOOD.

The Kitchen Sisters are amaze, also I am fascinated by Edith Piaf's life story. I love a mostly non-narrative/non-editorialising podcast with lots of oral history and primary sources - so: A+++.

KNITTING: I bound off a pocket of my tunic dress and have put it away until next year.

Finally, I began swatching for my Featherweight in Madeline Tosh Lace and the tiny stitches are basically quite terrifying.

SEWING: I have many plans, lots of patterns and a fairly hefty stash - but an empty cutting table. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LISTENING: Michael Buble’s Christmas album is on high-rotation at the moment. I enjoy his unabashed cheesiness mightily at this time of year.

A week Two weeks in SCP history (June 3-17)

An amazing Andy Warhol polaroid of Liza Minelli

Oh hello there! I have dropped off the face of the planet, blogging wise. I wrote this post a while ago now and during a transfer from blogging clients it some how ended up full of junk html (aside: if you know of a good blogging client for Ubuntu, please let me know!).

At the point where I realised that the formatting was all up the whatever, I felt too exhausted to do anything about it - and then for the next month I fell into a funk/anxiety haze where I felt mostly too exhausted or stressily het up to do anything much of anything, really.

But I am feeling more regular, and so will publish this post in preparation for something more substantial later this week. I have been making lots of things!

It looks as if June has often been a fairly prolific month here. Although I have nothing to report for this week from 2010-2012, I was posting substantively over the rest of the month during those years.

I’m putting this June enthusiasm for blogging down to the longer, colder days of winter, when nothing is more desirable of an evening than to cosy on down. (In fact I am ALSO internally cosy at the moment - full and relaxed on mulled wine. SO.GOOD.)

2009

• Cycle Rant- I am mad about the attitude towards cyclists as expressed in a Dom Post article. (I am often still mad about the attitude towards cyclists).
• You need to see this - I will knit for tattoos.
• Fashion bloggers v Pam Hogg - Fascinated by a now-ancient fashion blogger controversy.
• Saturday morning trauma - More about cycling in Wellington.
• Roller skates and roller skating - I hurt myself again at roller derby.

2008

• Roller Girls - watched Roller Girls for the first time and became deliriously excited about roller derby.
• Wednesday List: Liza Minelli - Liza Minelli is fabulous and awful. Yay Liza!
• A tour of my Kaikohe hotel room - the most retro hotel room I have ever stayed in.

2007

• Tongan Police Brass Band - heh, this is pretty awesome.

2006

• How serendipity on instant film - some thoughts on Polaroid film, which I still deeply love. Where can I buy cheap Polaroid film in NZ, people?
• Existing in real time - a list of things I happened to be well into at the time of writing.
• The World Cup has stolen my boyfriend - hilariously, I recently found a draft for a post about much the same thing that I’d written before the Rugby World Cup in 2011.

2005

• International Woman of Mystery - writing my first blog post in Australia.
• A Series of Observations: things that blow my mind - stuff in Adelaide, including the local passion for flavoured milk, the coins, and the crazy lack of people.

Do June and July fire in you the passion to do nothing but sit around at home and do indoorsy things, like blog?

What's making me happy this week: the only way is cosiness

Honestly, this week - despite being a short week - has been pretty bleak. It is totally, officially winter, and I am totally officially experiencing the dull glumness that comes with going to and leaving work in the dark, and being freezing cold at home because of our ridiculous lack of insulation and the southerly blowing through the cracks in the windows and floor.* Cold! In my house! All the time! So, given the constant fight to get and keep warm, the thing that is making me MOST happy this week is cosiness, which I imagine looking a little like this:

Stella Nicolaisen

I am writing this while sitting as close to the fire** as I can without my clothes melting, dressed in full tracksuit. I am wearing slippers with fur liners and stockings under my yoga pants, and a polyprop that smells a little strange, in the way that only old polyprops can.

The creme de la creme of cosy, is of course, Bed, and the last few days I have been going to bed as early as seems reasonable for a 31 year old woman. While in bed, I like to curl up with two delicious hot water bottles, in full pyjamas, under a feather duvet and two crochet woollen blankets, and with another person. In a nest of pillows. There can never be too much cosiness!

Other things:

READING: Yep, still working my way through The Confusion. Can't help thinking I'd be making better headway if I was reading just the one book? But why not wade rather than rush... it's not a competition after all.

I've also begun my anticipatory holiday reading. Fran leant me a copy of Paris: The Secret History by Andrew Hussey. Parisian "outsider" history, allegedly. TBH, I've perceived it as only vaguely outsider thus far - but I'm only up to the Renaissance so there is defo room for further developments. I hear the nineteenth century was good for such things, and I hold high hopes for an excess of twentieth century material.

WATCHING: After a discussion during a drunken Friday catch-up, Katherine sent me a link to food history series Supersizers on YouTube. Basically, the premise of this show is that Giles, a restaurant critic, and Sue, a comedian (allegedly), investigate the food and costumes of a particular historical period and are completely gluttonous in the process.

Shannon has described the show as 'nihilistic' and there is something deliberately bleak about the way that they throw food around. I keep thinking 'ARGH! WASTE!'. And how they complain - about what is essentially my dream job.

There are umpteen complete episodes on YouTube, and you should definitely check it out, if only for the cockatrice and the cock riding a piglet in the Medieval episode.

helmeted cock

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: Wireless Nights with Jarvis Cocker - Nights of Passage, mostly because of the story about a woman falling off the Newcastle-Amsterdam Ferry and into the waters of the English Channel.

I usually find Wireless Nights self-conscious and a bit annoying - it takes the "radio-ness" of Radiolab to the Nth degree and it feels rather laboured. I think that the more recent episodes are a bit more settled into the format.

Maybe I'm just not enough of a Pulp fangirl to be listening to this podcast.

KNITTING: Cast on a new pair of socks! And after completion I will have a break from socks for a bit I think.

Do you have a good solution for dealing with all this COLD?


*This sounds only a little more Dickensian than it actually feels.
**heater that likes to pretend it's a fire.\

What is making me happy this week: family lunches

Miners and Their Families Gather to Talk and Enjoy the Outing at the Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company First Annual Picnic at a Tennessee Valley Authority Lake near Jasper and Chattanooga, Tennessee. They Ate a Barbecue Lunch, Participated in Sports, Watched a Greased Pig Contest and Heard the Company Officials Explain Health and Retirement Benefits 08/1974 via Flickr Commons

I like to listen to an NBC podcast called Pop Culture Happy Hour, and my favourite bit is at the end of each podcast when the presenters talk about what has made them happy that week. It's like, Things I Love Thursday without an entire list of twee or including compulsory pictures of beautifully iced cupcakes.

This week, what is making me happy is: family lunches.

I had my mum and my three brothers around for lunch on Mother's Day, which involved me cleaning my butt off on Saturday and then cooking what remained of the aforementioned butt on Sunday.

I made a huge pot of French Onion soup with requisite gruyere croutons, and then a lemon and sour cream cake for dessert - I imagined that it would be the sort of lunch that a character in a PD James novel might serve. (I cannot tell a lie: I went to the trouble of actually imagining a PD James type menu and then carrying it out. Could become a hobby (proposed next lunch: a Harry Potter menu of treacle tart and steak and kidney pudding)).

At any rate: my family is loud and talkative and loud and somewhat exhausting. They are also MINE, and funny. I struggle sometimes with getting family balance right (which I can't explain without saying - too much) but when it works, it works so well. I want more fabulous family lunches in my future.

And quickly, my pop-culture consumption for the week:

READING: The Confusion, Neal Stephenson and Liar's Lullaby, Meg Gardiner. The first: epic, fabulous, funny. The second appears to be basically quite trashy and I'm looking forward to rotting my brain cells with it (I have only read about ten pages so far).

RECENTLY WATCHED: I'm working my way through the 2003 series of Time Team, after watching the 2012 series in one sitting.

FAVOURITE PODCAST EPISODE: The Radio 4 Nature doco series on the poetry of Edward Thomas, The Pursuit of Spring. Much inspiration for my proposed toddle in the UK.

LISTENING: I've been scrounging singles from the new Vampire Weekend album on Grooveshark - planning to listen to the whole thing next pay day.

Arohanui: things that I'm loving on a week in April

April already. Is it too too trite to comment on the speed in which the year has passed? Yes? I thought as much.

Things I'm loving on this week:

New found enthusiasm for many things after a long weekend away: over Easter I was away from my home, my computer and my internet connection, and all of my creature comforts. By the third day I wanted to floss and Eat All the Vegetables and knit and to write and I had a million blogging ideas. New found enthusiasm is delicous.

My workroom/offfice/sewing room: in the new house, Shannon and I share a work room, meaning that he sits over on one side of the room and does his electronicky things, and I sit over here on my side and sew and sit on my computer. Working in companionable silence in the evening is great (better than television, she says smugly), and I love having a dedicated space to work on my things. I'm planning on getting a bigger desk in the future so that I can spread out a bit more, but things are working just fine at the moment.

My blogging whiteboard: I have the week of blogging worked out on my dedicated whiteboard/inspiration board. At present I am (apparently) inspired by macramé owls, kitchenalia fabric, knitted moustaches and 19th century paintings of sheep bleating over the bodies of their dead lambs.

 

Augustus Schenk, Anguish. I know that my love of this painting seems a little, ah, macabre. But I love it for the intense anthropomorphising of the ewe, and the ewe's ridiculously noble bearing. Noble ewe!

 

Working to find my money management mojo: It's been a struggle to find it again but I'm getting there. This week I still had money in my account at the end of the pay week, and I liked that feeling. I'm officially committing to this, because it makes me feel rich and effortlessly affluent. Furthermore, I am revising the Unicorn this weekend, which is basically a lie as it stands. Time to be truthful about your money again, Ginger. Money Truth is hard.

And more things to love in no particular order:

♥Applications: Evernote, MarsEdit, Pomodoro Timer, EyeLeo ♥ Getting goofier about the Boy by the day ♥
♥ Not hating my job and finding new things to learn all the time ♥ Having a room full of people laugh over a ridiculous video that I helped to make ♥ My family ♥

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

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.

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. 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?

Arohanui: boys singing drunkenly edition

Top of my list: this ridiculous photo of Shannon (L) and Martin at the wedding the other weekend. It is universally not remembered what they were singing along to. But it obviously moved them.

My lovelies:

Are you all loving on stuff this week? I am, rather. It's been a good week to be me, I think. In fact, apart from the Anxiety times, most weeks are pretty good weeks to be me. Like, I earn decent money and I have no major disabilities and I eat well and people love me.

Specifically I'm loving on:

Over 1000 visitors to my blog this month! Welcome, new visitors, make yourself comfortable x ♥ new ways to wear ALL THE SCARVES ♥ Six Items or Less! ♥ red lipstick ♥ homemade iced white tea with peach syrup ♥ cherry cordial ♥ chocolate halva (OMG) ♥ my bedroom and having my own, perfect, space ♥ glasses anticipation (especially these ones) ♥ Steve Buscemi ♥ The Gift by Lewis Hyde: it's taken a while, but now I'm feeling inspired ♥ coffee ♥ dealing with Katherine for stuff at work (because she is hilarious, awesome, and super helpful) ♥ affogato from Kaffe Eis made with hazelnut gelato (swoon) ♥ lying on the grass in the sun during my lunch break and listening to audio books ♥ blasting "personal bests" on my blog stats ♥ my Blue Harem pants have escaped the world-wide pants cull!

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

Arohanui: Bite Sized Lovingess Edition

Mmmm. Bite sized Arohanui tastes like rose-flavoured bon bons (true!)

(clockwise) via Women Reading,  Twee Core, Supersonic Electronic, Lola is Beauty.

♥ AnticiPAtion: Potterthon 2010 on Saturday, coffee with Fran on Monday, Dear Time's Waste tonight with Jo, clothes swapping, Lady of Leisure week ♥ Calling my workmate Big Bill ♥ Sunshine ♥ Unnecessary lunchtime burger ♥ Giant coffees in my new Keep Cup ♥ Seeing people I haven't see in forever ♥ Quick chats with Bex via Skype ♥ Sleeping in with the Boy ♥ Lucas' Papaw Ointment (you need it) ♥ Sunshine ♥ Frangipane tart for breakfast ♥ Whittling away my debt ♥ Peonies and peony presents ♥ Floral brogue crushes ♥ Re-loving yoga and embracing the flexi Ginger within ♥ I like your face ♥ Sunshine ♥ Looking at our vegetables grow. They're so happy! ♥

Arohanui: Loudly, and with Feeling

FORTE FORTE LOVELIES!

Here is a list of things I am all loving on, quickly and in no particular order:

♥ QUITTING FACEBOOK! Huzzah, kiss it FB!

♥ Discovering that I love the yoga place next door. J'adore cheesy guided relaxation so much xxx

♥ Cherry danishes as a Friday breakfast treat.

♥ Surprise visits from my Dad.

♥ Surprise cheap eat dates with my Boy.

♥ Vege garden is going nuts!

♥ Emails from Bex and Lizzie.

♥ Telling my Dad that my Auckland trip is not possible (no moolah). SUCH A WEIGHT OFF MY MIND.

♥ I've paid $2000 off my credit card debt!

♥ Making progress on the French knicker front. Need silky bits now.

♥ Anticipation: my Lady of Leisure week, more sunshine, becoming increasingly flexy through yoga.

EDITED TO ADD: You should totally read this item too.

Arohanui: in which Ginger gets down with her loving self

It's Thursday! My, this week has moved rapidly. As I write I am sucking rose-flavoured French sweets (yum, aniseedy centre), and listening to Hindesmith: Kammermusik. I am feeling not-ragey! And well rested! It's incredible.

So, in no particular order, here are somethings that I'm loving on.

via the whinery

♥ Anise de Flavigny rose bon bons. See how pretty the tin is? I just found out that this kind of sweet has been made in Flavigny since the 700s. COR BLIMEY.

♥ Going to the library and finding new music. I've spent something like three weeks becoming increasingly frustrated with my music, and I've finally done something about it. So much listening ahead of me this weekend.

♥ Crusty French bread with butter and ham and a good cup of coffee.

♥ New morning routine, reading before work and drinking lemony hot water before my first cup of coffee.

♥ One glass of wine! The power of "only one" is intoxicating. But not as intoxicating as the many glasses of wine. Which is good - because the lack of intoxication is pretty much what I'm going for.

♥ Being loved.

♥ Sending thank you emails to people I don't know and getting wonderfully friendly replies.

♥ My herb garden, and the little bits of new growth that even now are beginning to come through.

♥ Bag! So capacious! So wonderful!

♥ Stretching out in bed when the Boy is away for work.

♥ This quote, from anthropologist Marshall Sahlins:

❝One can be affluent either by having a great deal, or by not wanting very much.❞

♥ Sunshine for SO MANY DAYS IN A ROW.

♥ Sunday night barbecues.

♥ Paying $1700 off my credit card, and otherwise being on top of my finances (so.stoked.)

♥ Citrus fruit and cake in my bag for lunch.

♥ Being rested.

Many kisses for you my lovelies! Hope that you are all going well x

Arohanui: now with extra Verse.

Gil Elvgren via Supersonic Electronic
So embarrassing! Ketchup everywhere *giggle*

♥ Coffee and Danish for breakfast. Crazy delicious. If I ate this everyday I would die of butter poisoning pretty rapidly, but once in a while is fine I think.

♥ Having a beautifully tidy bedroom that is looking less and less cluttered each and every day. I wrote my bedroom a poem; be gentle as it's the first I've written in a very long time.

J'adore my bedroom
It's my special space.
It's full of bits and bobs and stuff
And badly knitted lace.

I'm thinking I might cross stitch as a verse on a sampler. I'm not very good at cross stitch, so the medium might suit the message quite well I think.

♥ Second hand books. I'm always getting rid of them, and acquiring more at much the same rate. My main subjects of collection are literary biographies and Anais Nin books. Man, I crush that woman so hard. I also am hyper critical of her?? Everytime I see an Anais Nin book that I don't already have I am DRIVEN to possess it. There is an Anais Nin possession devil in my body and it needs to write erotica and live in a garrett somewhere.

♥ Long pep talks about getting off my arse and writing something that isn't a blog entry. Dudes, I CAN DO IT. The prospect really is rather lovely - it's going to be fun and all for me and I'm going to GEEK.OUT. It's fantastic to talk to someone who seems to know so much about the excuses that people use not to write, and to hear them tell me of all the possible topics I've already discussed, and then give practical advice as to what I need to do to settle down and write. I feel really excited.

♥ Mini breaks and sleeping for hours. Sleeping in while in a hotel room is a completely different fish to sleeping in at home. For a start, there isn't any threat of laundry hanging over your head and thus considerably less pressure to leap out of bed and clean relentlessly. I don't feel even a tiny twinge of guilt at the prospect of reading till the afternoon in a hotel room - at home I always feel as though I've wasted a morning. BOO.

♥ Discovering that I'm going to scratch the term "wasting time" from my vocabulary. Dudes, if I'm enjoying myself it's not wasting time! Eat my disapproval "Wasting Time"! You shall no longer rule my weekends!

♥ Sharing the knitting love. I've been reminding Jo how to knit and it's so nice to have a skill that can be taught and shared with the people around you. I'm sure I've ranted before about how I love the way knitting connects me to generations of people who've used yarn to create, whether out of necessity or enjoyment. Teaching someone else and passing on the knowledge is surely the next step? I used yarn gifted to me by Katherine and needles gifted to me by Bex to show Jo how to knit and that made it even nicer. Three women in the immediate historical vicinity standing behind her, and then a beautiful silken thread to the women of the past, including her Nan who showed her how to knit the first time around.

♥ Buying beautiful silk shirts for a dollar and carefully remaking them. Careful being the key word. Everytime I sew something in a non-slapdash manner I have an enormous surge of pride in myself. And this silk shirt is truly gorgeous. I can't wait for summer so I can wear it everywhere I go.

♥ Packing light. When I went to Chch I experienced this for the first time ever, and I am so stoked. Packing light is fantastic, and I am a convert. Only the lightest packing for me from now on.

♥ Surges of pride in myself for all the great changes that I've enacted over the last few months. Possibly the best feeling ever.

I think I've posted this before... but I am awfully fond of it so I'm doing it again.

Feeling the Arohanui

ey my lovelies. It's Thursday, where in homage to Gala Darling's "Things I Love Thursday" I write my own TiLT, and call it Arohanui.

You know, I'm all for the name "Things I Love Thursday", but the word "Arohanui" is pretty beautiful. If your Māori isn't awesome, I shall enlighten you: it means "lots of love" (or "big love", I guess). As a word it makes me want to squee.

And so, without further ado, here is a bunch of stuff that I'm loving on this week:

♥ Filofax! This is it: please excuse the tiny tiny photo, I took it with my phone. The style is "Urban" which is made mostly of waxed cotton, but I have cunningly applied a vintage felt applique that Lizzie gave to me years and years ago and that I've never found anything awesome enough to apply to. It's grey (which you may or may not be able to tell from my shitty picture), and it's the "Personal" size. I felt that anything smaller was - well, too small. SIZE MATTERS WHEN IT COMES TO ORGANISATION. I feel this is the right size for me to be truly organised.

Things I am enjoying so far about my Filofax: heaps more room to write than in my last diary, "To Do" list interleaved with the daily planner, (finances, List of Want) lists all neatly itemised and filed in the same place. Lots of notepaper and everything kept together instead of across a number of different notebooks and diaries.

♥  The Stone Soup. Have you seen this website yet? I'm can't imagine how it's taken me so long to find! The concept is "minimalist home cooking" - five ingredients or less, and food made in under ten minutes. The lady who runs the website has also made a free ecookbook, and my life has changed. Being able to pull together something tasty and simple in record time is absolutely fantastic. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

♥  Ongoing Declutter of Awesomeness.  I'm totally addicted to getting rid of my crap at the moment. Hoop is sold, another pile of books is sold, I've reduced my CD collection to about ten CDs that I actually want to keep, and I've scanned in all the documents in my massive file of doom. My next plan is to clear out the clothes again - I'd like to try and get rid of fifteen items of clothing this weekend, using my new found technique. Also, I'm planning on heading to the garage and itemising everything I have in there - there must be a bunch of stuff that I can get rid of.

♥  Never having to finish Lipstick Jungle. I struggled to about halfway through, but I presented what I'd done to Book Club on Wednesday night and I'm stoked to know that I will never, ever, have to struggle through the last half of the book. Candace Bushnell: you will be first against the wall when the Revolution comes.

The rest of my books now look very attractive and I'm stoked that I'm going to have time to read something worthwhile. I've decide that it's a good thing to read something rubbish once in a while - if it encourages you not to take good books for granted. Darlings, they are a blessing. I'm so happy to have the ability and time to read.

♥  Anticipation: Chch trip in less than a week!, Archival Survival Society on tomorrow night, live blogging RCRD's next bout "The Rubble Rouser" on Saturday (I'll be tweeting from the @richtercity Twitter account). Finishing Shannon's scarf!

ALSO: ♥ leopard print tights ♥ easing myself back into the world of heels ♥ going to yoga with Nat and gossiping over tea and hot chocolate afterwards ♥ living within my means ♥ being loved ♥ fabulous op shop acquisitions ♥ cheap clip glass photo frames ♥ a beautifully made bed ♥

Meera Lee via Super Sonic Electronic

Thursday. Arohanui time

 haven't been feeling the blogging mojo so much this week. But it's all good! All about enjoying the habit, isn't it?

So, anyhow (and if it isn't patently obvious), Arohanui is Things I Love Thursday by any other name - originating from Gala Darling, an opportunity to make a list of things I love and, thusly, be super enthused for the rest of the week.

In no particular order (and apparently involving a great deal of CAPS LOCK):

♥ Sleeping with the Boy. Gushy and kinda gross to share I know, but I adore sharing my bed. And I haven't been late to work one day this week, so I must have found a way to mediate this love of spooning with productivity?

♥ Yoga times. My favourite things at the moment are: shoulder stands and being stretched into position by my instructor, and THE SPACE. Choosing to go somewhere and do something solely for myself, by myself. It's the polar opposite of roller derby in terms of exercise, and there is no pressure to make attendance. I love not having to make attendance anywhere.

♥ The ongoing underwear making habit. I'm learning the fine art of Patience in Sewing, which is an excellent lesson indeed. My most recent prototype is Prototype 4 - I've drafted a pattern but I haven't yet sewn a pair of those bad boys. BUT I'M EXCITED TO TRY! Tonight is the night, verily.

♥ My new flatmate. She is fun and likes drinking wine and makes pie and other delicious foodstuffs, and isn't afraid to eat all the porky dumplings at yum cha. Also, it's fun to have another girl in the flat and talk about shoes in the kitchen. Apparently, the sound of cackling fills the house. Ah, cackling. Also also, I haven't tried yet but I suspect that she would DANCE IN THE LOUNGE to "Single Ladies" should I apply pressure at the right time.

♥ I'm in charge of my money! And I'm in love with the feeling. It is one of the best feelings ever to know where my money is at, how much I have to spend and how my debt repayments are going. I don't feel fear when I log in to online banking, I feel pride. It's a pretty fucking cool feeling. Tears baby, tears.

And now, for your time wasting pleasure:

Thinking this would be good to see at the cinema... Can't see a release date for NZ yet though. DRAMATIC.

Arohanui

It's been very quiet around here lately. Have you noticed? I've been squirreled away working and then obsessively watching the first series of Underbelly with Shannon at night. And also knitting a wee bit.

Also, it's pay week, which means that I can make a bunch of payments, which means that I'm paying off my debts, which I love! So I'm going to start off my list of things I'm loving with my debt repayment unicorn.

I've divided him up so you can see how I'm getting on and how much I have to go. Please note that the pink indicates how much I've paid off so far. It's down quite low so far. But never mind! I'm getting there. Baby unicorn steps.

Other things I am loving on in no particular order:

♥ Being spoiled by my Boy ♥ yoga anticipation ♥ discovering Hashigo Zake Cult Beer Bar finally ♥ six month birthday scheming ♥ nailing my to-do list ♥ Facebook purge ♥ new flatmate! ♥ plans for summer wardrobe overhaul ♥ endless episodes of Underbelly ♥ peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (FOR LIFE, dudes) ♥ resolutions resolutions resolutions ♥

Arohanui on Thursday when I'm loving on stuff

(L-R) Claire Scully via Supersonic Electronic; via Audrey Hepburn Complex; Judith Braun via Supersonic Electronic; Maedchen in Uniform via All Things Amazing.

sing up some of my enormous stash of yarn. I think it's almost more exciting crafting out of the resources I have than going out and buying new yarn for each project. There is an element of challenge to finding the perfect project for all this yarn I have. In some cases the challenge is mostly in matching the yarns to make something multicoloured and non-hideous. At the moment I'm making a patchwork scarf for S (more about this tomorrow) and it's pretty much the perfect project for clearing a space in my stash drawers.

♥ Having my little brother Tom around for dinner. I feel as though I haven't seen him forever, and also I'm looking forward to pillaging his hard drive for episodes of Time Team that I haven't seen yet.

♥ Also in the family vein: hooray for a new baby cousin! 

♥ Rediscovering the Joy of Blogging. I've been having the most enormous blog cravings - to write enormous posts and to start new projects and to investigate everything I have tagged for blogging in my reader. Hence, the beautiful Drop Capital which comes via Jessica Hische. I'm intending to start taking some better photographs of my projects too - I've read an awesome article about photographing your Stuff on Craft.com recently, and it made me so excited. More photographs for the blog!

♥ Having heaps of food stashed away at work. Yesterday I nominated a "spend nothing" day and succeeded - I drank coffee and tea in the office and nibbled on the supplies I have in my desk. Toasted sandwiches were my special lunchtime friends. The initial plan in having all this food at work was to save some money but given that I do most of my food shopping for the office at expensive delicious Moore Wilsons I don't know how much this is working - though it is exciting having such a variety of food to hoe down on without having to venture into the freezing outside.

♥ Feeling in control of my spending. For the first time in an incredibly long time I feel as though I am in control of money, or at the very least, I know where it is all going. Dude it's totes empowering, and when I'm drooling over something I have no need for, the adrenaline rush that I get from keeping on top of things neutralises the Want also.

♥ Drooling over travel. I'm definitely feeling the itch and the debt repayments and savings I'm managing to do while living well makes me realise that travel IS a possibility. The next issue then is: WHERE TO GO? So many possibilities! So much excitement!