Nature's Fury

I have never seen, nor been in, anything like the storm that is currently lashing down on us.

I no longer have a gate to close in my back yard, my glasshouse blew over to the neighbours (which they kindly tied down to keep it from going further) and the other neighbours alumimium 3x3m shed was uplifted and a third of it dumped onto one of my fences. I should have taken a photo, but we were too preoccupied with securing everything and pushing the shed back over so that it didn't get uplifted again and end up through a window or similar.

One of the houses over the road appears to have narrowly missed a tree through their roof, as a huge one has fallen over and is lying in their back yard. There are several trees in the hilly area across from us that have been uprooted and lying down. Not to mention many broken branches that have cracked sharply from trunks and fallen to the ground.

On the way home from work there were trees lying halfway across the road in a couple of places and lots of debris was flying everywhere. Outside is a nasty place to be. We have been instructed to conserve water usage by 70-80% for the next 2-3 days due to how long it will take to fix a burst water main. The power has gone out 3 times in 4 hours.

I am hoping that there is going to be little additional damage to what has already happened and nobody gets badly hurt.

School's Out!

Even though I am working next week, there is a weight off my shoulders that the students are on holiday for two weeks! Even though I like (most of) the students, they are such a drain on your energy......most of the time I don't realise it, but at the moment I am looking forward to a break from them.

Today I had my performance appraisal. I am lucky to have a very supportive boss who is keen for me to find things that interest me, work on course development and do further study.

He even mentioned me going to international conferences if I could find any that were relevant and could be argued to be "needs" based. He said there was one in Turkey in September - haha. Not that my organisation throws money around at that sort of thing, but still, worth keeping an eye out I reckon.

So I am going to spend a week of the holidays relaxing, reading, posting things on TM to sell and sorting out some things around the house. I am having serious memory issues at the moment, as well as chronic "filing" of things I will need at some stage........and then can never find.

Not very exciting, but nice to have a break :-)

Back from (feeling like) the dead

What a miserable week last week - which made for a miserable me.

I had a bad cold that developed over the previous weekend and I had to go to work as there was no relief available. To make me feel even worse my lip developed a huge coldsore, the entire top right length and swelled to lovely proportions for a few days. Not to mention the state of the outside, but especially inside, of my nose. Not nice. My lip is getting much better now and is nearly healed. The inside of my nose is still a bit of a disaster zone, due to a slightly runny snozzle.

Work was not that fantabulous last week either (it seems to be going around), but it wasn't anything too horrible (apart from ongoing accusations by a student - sigh).

I'm very disappointed about not winning Lotto at the weekend as I was expecting to. Very unfair. That puts a spanner in the works for my retirement plans. On well, there's always next week.

Not much else is happening at the moment. Some of my pansies are coming through, which is terribly exciting.

Poor Flynniepup had a tummy upset that involved some projectile pooing - which the poor thing tried to finish in the bathroom - bless him. There were several times on Friday and Saturday night that he needing letting out (9 times in total over both nights), but he slept through the night last night. Yay.

I have to work for a few days next week, but I'm hoping to do a few productive things over the rest of the holidays.

Travel

I have nothing interesting to write about my day. I'm glad it's over and I'm looking forward to a decent sleep tonight. Medium starts again, but I think I will have to tape it as I don't know that I'll be able to keep my eyes open.

I have decided to do 3 favourite travel destinations and 3 wish-list travel destinations.

The best trip I've ever had is my 8 week overland trip in Africa. Technically it was through several countries, but it was one trip in its entirety. We travelled on a truck, slept in tents and cooked on a wood fire. I had a huge sense of freedom during the trip and felt as relaxed as I've ever been I think. The people and landscapes were also amazing. I'd love to go back one day. I've included pictures of one of the places I visited in each country. Not my own pictures as I didn't own a digital camera then.

Kenya - Ngorongoro Crater


Tanzania - Zanzibar Island

Malawi - Kandi Beach (on Lake Malawi, but a sandy beach)

Zimbabwe - Victoria Falls

Botswana - Okavango Delta

Namibia - Fish River Canyon

South Africa - the Twelve Apostles



Another place I've been is Egypt. The architecture and the history was completely overwhelming. It was really difficult to imagine how everything was organised and built with such precision. Unfortunately Egypt also had some very leery people, but it was still an amazing place to visit.

Abu Simbel

The third place is hard to choose. I used to love going down to the Sounds as a kid. We stayed in a bay called Paradise Bay and all the baches were named after the 3 dwarves. We always stayed in Doc and Dopey with another group of family friends as it was the biggest bach. I loved it because it was a fantastic outdoors holiday destination and I always had a great time there.

Places I'd love to go:

Vietnam and Cambodia - for the scenery - a coastline trip from Hanoi up to Halong Bay, down to Ho Chi Minh City and then up into Cambodia to visit Siam Reap and Angkor Wat.

Peru - to do the Inca Trail.

Rarotonga - for total relaxation, snorkeling, clear blue water and their fantastic dancing (which I just like watching, not doing!).

There are lots of other places too - but they're the main ones for now.

Books

Well, another super hard decision as I love books - reading is one of my most favourite things to do - although lately I don't seem to be able to find the time. I should, it's important to me.

Jemima J by Jane Green - I love Jane Green books anyway, but this one I especially like because it is about a woman who is really overweight, sees what she might look like with her face digitally attached to an athlete's body - and becomes so inspired that she gets really into exercise (perhaps a little too much) and loses lots and lots of weight. I have re-read it heaps of times and it always makes me feel like it's something I could do - for a few hours anyway......my self-discipline and lack of willpower with food is my downfall. Sigh.



The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - I have just re-read it as it is coming out as a movie with Mark Wahlberg next year and is being directed by Peter Jackson. It is incredibly well written and easy to read. It is not a very nice story and a horrible thing happens, but I love how it's written. I also like that the story is not perfect and it's emotional and sad and real.



The Secret History by Donna Tartt - this is a favourite from many years ago and I have been meaning to get around to re-reading it as well. It took me a while to get into, but it was worth it. It's about some college students in Vermont and they get up to some interesting mind-altering type of things related to Greek History. I like the historic reality of it and the decadence in some parts.



Today was a better day than yesterday, although now the #$*)#$) student has made several accusations which are being investigated. How annoying. They don't have any substance, but it is still a pain as it means filling out lots of paperwork and reporting, which is a bl88dy nuisance, especially when time is scarce.

After work, it was such lovely weather that I took Flynn for a walk up the Maitai - it is deceptive how quickly it gets dark, which I don't particularly like when walking along out of the way areas. Then I went up to see my grandmother who had a knee operation yesterday. She was good. I spent about 40mins there. I will pop in tomorrow as well.

Looking forward to the Amazing Race tonight. And Outrageous Fortune - yay. I love it.

Jewellery

An average day - nothing much to say. Monday's over. Great!

It was a really hard decision to choose which pieces of jewellery to photograph, but after careful thought, it's these three.

I got this ring in Las Vegas. It's from the Tiffany store at The Bellagio. It's the most expensive piece of jewellery I've ever bought - it was $250US - which back then was about $400NZ, now it would only be $316. Hmm. It's sterling silver and gold and I like it because it's gated and is a bit different. Also that it's from Tiffany and I got the cool little box etc.



This is a pendant by NZ designer Tania Tupu. It is a styalised franipani pattern on a velvety ribbon. I like pasifika things and I had a ring by her, so I got the pendant to match (I also have the earrings - oops). I really like her jewellery - and it is even cooler because she used to play basketball for NZ and now she designs jewellery (so there is hope for me to do something different and crafty for a living one day). Her and her husband own a shop called Coastal Merchant - it has lots of lovely NZ designed things, including clothing. They had one in Raglan (where I got the ring) and now there is one open in Nelson! Apparently they are only going to open shops in towns they would like to live in themselves.



Another ring (I have too many!). This is also from America. I bought it in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. I really wanted to buy a genuine Navajo made piece of jewellery and this one caught my eye as it's such an unusual shade of green. The stone is called gaspeite. I have never seen anyone else with a piece of jewellery made out of this stone.



Crappy out of focus photos sorry....didn't realise until I loaded them onto the computer. Not much else to say :-)

Yellowrageous

I had a wondeful birthday party last night. Lots of decorations and poppers and a lovely cake with a singing candle. We probably overdid it on the food and the booze, but it was an excellent night (and NZ kicked England's bottom). Now I will have to buy an X-Box and Scene It!!

I loved my presents. I got a cyclamen from Ruby Two Shoes brother. It will be added to the other cyclamens we have in hanging baskets.

Ruby Two Shoes parents and grandmother also gave me a present - a lovely jewellery roll. It is such an excellent present because normally I just throw all my jewellery into my toilet bag and can never find it easily. And now I'll be able to!

I got 2 movie passes which is fantastic as there are lots of movies I want to go to at the moment. I got some lovely candles (an example of the cool wrapping paper is in front of them) which smell delicious and some very cool cups with gorgeous etchings on them. The best present of all though is Ruby Two Shoes is going to paint me one of her amazing paintings. I have decided on a Tui one as I love the flax and lilies and koru swirls.

I have no idea what I was thinking when I chose yellow - I have practically no yellow things and I don't especially love yellow. Oops.

This is essential to stop the bugs killing my roses - or so MLB says as he is more knowledgable on roses than me.

My mandarin tree, on which technically the fruit is orange, but the tree looks yellow.

Home grown yellow pear tomatos. They were profilic and I will grow some more this year too.

Flynn's registration tag, which I hope will be a more collar matching colour. Blue would be nice.

One of the bar stools in my kitchen. The whole kitchen and hall used to be yellow, but I painted over it in a more neutral, non eye-popping colour.

And finally, one of my NZ themed pictures. Another glicee. I like the toi toi most.

I have had such a great weekend - thank you to everyone involved :-)

Black is Beautiful

It's my birthday and I have had a lovely day so far. We had a sleep in and then I got my presents from MLB. Here are some photos.

I am sitting with my feet in the bubbly water at the moment. Very relaxing.

Then we went out to Richmond to buy groceries from Pak n Save as MLB had some vouchers from there. It was a super speedy mission as we were due to meet some friends of my for brunch at the beach cafe at 1030am. I had a delicious brunch stack (which I always have, but it's so yummy). My friends gave me this, which smells good enough to eat.

Another friend of my also sent me down this book, with a lovely bookmark and card (to go with my own vroom vroom scooter).

On the way home MLB and I stopped at The Warehouse and got 24 pansies for $14 and two more roses. A blue moon which is a strange blue/lilac colour and some other full petaled light pink one that I can't remember the name of.

After grocery unpacking we went for a long walk up the Maitai with Flynn. The cows are still then and one kicked it's leg out at Flynn this time. Grrr.

When we got home MLB planted all the flowers and I got the food prepared for my wee party tonight. Now I'm doing this.

I have discovered that most of the black things I have are clothes - which is a bit boring.

This is a cool skirt I got in Wellington, but I hardly wear. I like the Maori pattern on it.

This photo frame was a present from a friend one birthday. It is of my parents when they first met - they look soooooooo young.

My polar watch was given to me by my friend Chaise last year for my 35th birthday. I always wear it.

I made this butterfly skirt.

I got these boots in Dublin from Jigsaw. They only had them in a size 40 and I was gutted as I really wanted them - but they were a big fitting and were perfect.

Lush Pied de Pepper. Delicious (thank you Meg!)

Another skirt with bits of paua attached - very creative.

A frangipani painting.

I love this ring and it only cost $5 from The Warehouse.

Purplicious

Apart from the obnoxious guy being a pr**k and me having to send him out of the class, I had a really good day. All my students turned up today, which is unheard of for a Friday. They worked hard and got through a lot.

Then my Wed/Thurs/Fri tutorial assistant and I went for coffee and slice at a cafe called Cocoon. It is her birthday on Sunday, so we had a wee celebration.

I left work about 330pm and went for a massage - my friend had very thoughtfully got me a 45minute voucher. It was a lovely place and my back feels a lot looser.....it was like a brick and the massage wasn't especially relaxing, but it still felt good.

I really like purple - it is probably my favourite colour for certain things. I have lots of purple clothes, but I am not going to inflict them on here, but I will inflict lots of other pictures. Sorry.

The first thing is the Japonica in my garden. It was tiny when I planted it and it has taken hold and spread all over the place.

Anti-Flamme. Excellent.

Flynn's purple collar. It is a bit girly as it has hibiscus on it, but I love hibiscus and he doesn't seem to mind. At the moment I take his colour off at night when he sleeps - because he sneaks into the bed in the cold hours and the collar feels freezing.

A very large amethyst ring from my extensive and possibly excessive jewellery collection.

My puma trainers. They are very practical as well as stylish.

An aubergine from my garden. They only grow to a small size, but taste good.

My absolutely fantastic Waitangi boots from Minx. I should have got the petrol blue ones when they came out (considering I lived in Otaki where the outlet store is). Silly, but I love this colour.

An amethyst crystal. I like how it shimmers.

And another one of my Trade Me purchases - not such a bargain this time, but it was in pristine condition when I got it.

I am so glad it is Friday night. I am looking forward to lots of stress free, work free relaxing this weekend. It is my birthday tomorrow, so such things are expected. Looking forward to tomorrow night especially. Yum!!!