Rediscovering myself

Incredibly I actually went for a swim yesterday!  My first swim in over 8 years.  I was so proud of myself for doing it.  Full details are in my other blog Nine Gabillion Zillion

So today I opted to go for a walk, that wasn't over our farm.  I knew Whitecliffs walkway wasn't too far away from where we live, so I hopped in the ute and headed off.  It was a bit further away that I thought, but it wasn't as far as it felt, if that makes sense.  You know, the drive back was a lot quicker than the drive out felt.

So first off I found the start of the walk, kind of.  DoC do not have the best signage out, and I couldn't work out where to park.  I parked at the boat ramp to try and work it out, but nothing really came to me.  I couldn't park at the boat ramp for long, incase someone actually showed up with a boat.  So I decided to call it a day, and head on home.

The boat ramp.  

I was actually a bit nervous getting out of there, as it involved reversing, up a hill, on a fairly narrow section of land, and required backing out onto the road, which fortunately does not have a lot of traffic.  I managed it fine, but my heart was pounding a bit.  I imagined myself slipping a wheel over the bank and hanging off the edge.  I have a very over active imagination!

The view from the boat ramp back up the road that I drove in on.  Very picturesque, despite the brackish looking water.

Once I managed to get back onto the road and headed for home I actually spotted some places that looked like parking spots.  I pulled off, hummed and haaaa'd a bit, and thought, well, since I'm here I may as well see if I can find the start of the walk.

And I did.

I was a bit nervous, as I always am first time somewhere new.  The start of the walk involved walking up a private road, past a few houses.  It felt a bit like trespassing.  And I always worry that I've got it wrong and someone is going to come flying out of their house screeching 'PRIVATE  PROPERTY'.  But no one did.  I was on the right 'track' - it wasn't a track, it was a sealed road.  Not quite what I was expecting.

Then you reach the end of the road, and you get to enter onto private farmland, and the seal gives way to gravel.

It was a lovely day for a walk, and since it was my first one I just walked 30 minutes in, to be 30 minutes out, so an hour total.  My 30 minutes in took me to the top of a fairly large hill, which gave a lovely view out over the sea, to the white cliffs - well to some white cliffs, I'm not sure if they were THE white cliffs.

 View from the top (and end) of my walk.

 The gravel road back down from the big hill.

I was actually quite surprised as to how easily I managed this hill.  I had seen it from a distance and thought to myself, I hope the walk doesn't go up there!  But it did, and it actually wasn't too bad!

 There was a corner in the gravel road where these trees roots had been exposed by the constant slipping of the land.  There was a sign there that said, no stopping, slips, so it must slip quite a bit.

Noticed this cool fracture of the earth on my way back.  

I'm not sure if a geographic event caused it, or if it is a result of earthworks cutting into the cliff for the road, and the end of the corner has fractured.  I guess it will break off eventually.  The left section is connecting to an ongoing bank.  The right section is only a few metres long, for the road to curve around it.  Never the less, it's very cool!  If you look back at the picture of the view from the boat ramp to the road back you can see this naked bank in the background by the road.

So I absolutely loved the walk.  I just felt like the old me, which is a fantastic feeling.  I am hoping to get out and do this walk a bit further along, and other walks every other week. 

Oh, it felt so good to get out there!  Boy it felt good!

Where did I go?

Just wasted some time reading my blog posts from 2005! 

When I ran, and tramped, and swam, and mountain biked!

Where the heck did that girl go?!  She sounds adventurous and cool, not lame ass and lazy like me.

It's time that that girl came back!

Yes it is.  YES  IT  IS!

So the best motivator for me, is an earlier version of me.  Who knew?!

Tossing and biffing and chucking

I'm trying to rid the clutter of our house a little at a time.  Note that 99.9% of the 'junk' is my junk, but I'm frequently hassling TJL about his 0.1% - poor guy!

So I'm tossing out stuff as I come across it, kinda.  Like today, vitamins and health supplements that just sit in the pantry, taking up space and not been taken - out they went!  Even the non-expired ones!  We don't take them, and if we change our minds at some later point where we want to take them ... we'll just buy some more.

And I threw out the soap rack in the bathroom.  It sat, by the sink, with the soap on it, slowly rusting away.  The sink has built in soap holders, in which the rusting soap holder sat.  Why?  WHY?  In fact I'm not even sure why I have a soap at the bathroom sink as we have a liquid soap in there, and most hand washing is done in the laundry tub.  So yes, out went the soap rack.  And an empty deodorant can of TJL's.  And a full deodorant can of TJL's that had lost its sprayer thingee, that has sat in the drawer for years waiting, for what?  Waiting for what?  It's in the bin now anyway.

And I finally sorted out my magazine pile.  A huge pile to pass on to my mother, a small pile that went into the recycling bin, and the smallest pile left for me to finish reading.

Baby steps, baby steps.

Stuck on the same weight for far too long

 When I met TJL I was super fit, and looking mighty fine.  Cue 8+ years later and I am a dumpy frumpy dingleberry.

I've tried to lose weight for 7 years, pretty pathetic attempts to be sure, but you know, it's always going around in my head - you need to lose weight, you need to lose weight, you need to lose weight.

And then I tell myself life is too short, I love food, I may as well enjoy myself.

But I don't enjoy myself.  I'm not sad, or unhappy, or depressed, but I could be so much happier if I lost the weight.  Why?  Because I would have so much more self confidence, and energy, and so much less guilt!

Oh the guilt!  Am I really enjoying my food when I feel so guilty eating it?

AM  I  REALLY  ENJOYING  MY  FOOD  WHEN  I  FEEL  SO  GUILTY  EATING  IT?

I also feel guilty about how, when I was skinny, I used to judge overweight people.  Ugh.  Talk about karma!

So weight loss attempt 9 gabillionzillion here I come.

Been a long time between postings

So yeah, not sure if I will get back into it, or not.  I keep a handwritten journal, so a lot of my junky thinking gets written down there, but I've been feeling keen to reconnect with the big wide world, so who knows.

It's just a matter of finding blogs I like to follow, and see if they inspire me, or not.

I also have to sort my head out.  I was surfing the web for 'no kids' blogs.  Then I was checking out home decorating blogs, but I'd scan through first, and if they had kids I'd leave.  Which is stupid.  Just because people have kids doesn't mean that's all there is to them, just like not having kids is not all there is to me.  Judging much?!  Hahaha.

And as I no longer do 'social media' - no Twitter, no Facebook, still Instagram, I need to get some connection somewhere.

So yes.  Time to explore.  Time to grow.  Time to find myself.  Again.

The decision to signify the end

So we had pretty much decided that yep, we are done trying for kids anymore, we are definitely happy to progress as a couple. The end.

The final, final decision is to have our remaining embryo destroyed.  I have the paperwork, it's all signed, and yet I still hesitate.  Crazy!  I'm 43.  I don't want a baby!  I like our freedom!  Yet there is still a small part of me that thinks, what if ...

I had asked about donating the embryo, assuming there would be a waiting list of people want one.  But no.  We'd have to do TWO psych evaluations, plus then the couple have to choose us, we have to choose them, such a huge rigmarole, so I said, nup, destroy it.

I can understand needing our info regarding health etc, and I'd be happy for my email address to be provided should the embryo become a child and they wanted to know about me (I've had the same email addy for 20 years so unlikely to ever change), but I'm just not going to spend the time faffing about with having the embryo adopted, which is essentially how they treat it.

I do get that it's probably a lot more complicated than I think it should be, but still, I do feel a bit guilty that there is someone somewhere out there that might want it.

Calving. It's only 10 days away ... eeeeek

Well our season kicks off in about 10 days when we are due to start calving.  I am so not looking forward to it.  I get stressed out with worry so much, it's just stupid.  TJL can't understand why I stress out about it, I have been on farm for 6 years now, this will by my 7th calving, but I really don't enjoy it.  I don't like taking calves off of their dams.  I don't like sending bobby calves on the trucks at 4 days old.  And I don't like worrying that my calves might get sick.

Ugh.

My happiest day is when calving is finished.  So that will be in about 10 or so weeks from now, all things going well.

Apparently I over think things.  All.  The.  Time.  It is rather tiring, and I end up sitting on my arse avoiding life rather than living it.

Avoiding life by watching Pride and Prejudice.  Again.  And again.  I just love Mr Darcy.  Poor TJL has me wanting him to dress in tails and lacy cuffs.

He won't.

My current obsession with the past has me hand writing in cursive these days.  And I've started looking for fountain pens.

I really think I a bit on the crackers side of crazy.

Positivity

I've been working on my positivity lately.  I signed up to a few websites that email happy, positive emails on a daily basis.  And I watch the videos they send.

It's been great.

And I've been doing my own Christmas Advent on Facebook, with Christmas songs, which I discovered I failed at today as one of the songs I repeated!  C'mon, I only had to do 24 and I managed to stuff it up.  Hahaha.  Perspective, it's no big deal!

I also plan to do a 12 days of Christmas on Facebook involving charities that I like.

I've been really into charities lately.  I've always given to charities, but now I'm really stepping it up.  I think the fact we have been unable to have kids has meant that I am now focus'd on helping some of the worlds poorest.  Perhaps with the goal of actually travelling overseas one day, to volunteer with a charity somewhere for a while.

And I've now taken my positivity to the point if I find I'm following someone on Twitter who is just negative, or mean, or think they're funny when they are being rude, I try not to dwell on it, or what I could respond with, I stop following.

The, happy, end :)

A week of learnings

This week has not been fun.  At all.  To keep it in perspective, it wasn't a terrible week where someone we know died, or got diagnosed with some terrible illness, or lost a fortune.  But it was a week of tough knocks.  Compounded by the fact it was my birthday, which still hasn't been celebrated.  However, rather than dwell on the negative (which I am inclined to do) I intend to learn things from it.

Firstly TJL was drilling, drill broke, cut his wrist, which resulted in a nights stay in hospital.  On my birthday.  If we weren't dairy farmers, this wouldn't really matter too much.  But we are.  And if TJL is out of action, it's my turn to step up.  I haven't stepped up at all lately, so enter PANIC mode, and lets be honest, tears and fears.  I needed to milk Monday night and Tuesday morning, at least, on my own.

Cue my in-laws, in-laws.  Yes, you read that right, my sister-in-laws parents-in-law stepped up to the plate and helped me milk Monday night (as the cows are currently being mated at night, and I have next to no ability to pick the ones needing to be mated).

What I have learned from this experience is that it is amazing the people who do step up to help (perhaps a bit less surprising are the ones that don't).  Obviously my in-laws in-laws will be receiving a big THANK YOU gift from us.

I also learned that I am more than capable of milking, if I need to.  And to make it easier on myself in future, it is time I stepped up big time and helped TJL out in the shed a few times a week, so I am confident in what I am doing, and so my arms keep strong.  Oh how my arms ached after my second milking.  After my forth milking they were beginning to get used to it.  

I also learned how hard TJL works.  It sounds stupid, but he just gets on and does it.  I'm a whiner, not proud of it, but I am.  I don't know how he does it.  No breaks.  Milks morning and night.  Everyday.  No days off, for MONTHS.  I MUST step up and help him.  I MUST.  I didn't even last a week, and that was with him in the shed helping me every day bar one morning.  How he managed to live on his own, and milk without a break an entire season is beyond me.  Although I have realised that I do need to step up and help him more on farm, I have, at least, been here to cook his meals, do the dishes, clothes washing, etc.  Before me he had to do it all!  He is one strong man.

We were also told something during the week which totally knocked our confidence, and made us feel pretty down.  I am not too sure what the learnings from this are.  It has inspired us to go and check out a few farms for sale during the week.  Definitely time to be our own boss, although it all comes down to whether or not we can get enough money together to purchase our own property.  It does get a bit depressing when you (well TJL) are working your butts off and it's still not good enough.  I also learned that I need to be TJL's biggest cheerleader in life, so slights such as these have a lot less sting.  The comment did unite us and made us stronger together.

Today is hopefully the last day of 'awww c'mon' as the pump in the cowshed played up twice this morning.  Then we discovered one of our calves in the neighbours property, and it was awfully difficult to get her back as there are no gates in the boundary fence.

In other news, I have been trying to find my passion in life.  And watching too much TV does not count!  Hopefully, if I work hard at it, I will discover what it is soon.

Ground hog day

It has been feeling like 'Ground Hog Day' around here lately.  Ah, the joys of dairy farming. 

Alarm goes off at 6am, I snooze it twice and get up at 6.20am.  Wash the previous nights dishes (just don't feel like doing it at night, I'm a bit more of a morning person), go out, feed calves, pick up calves, have breakfast, fill in time until 2.30pm when it's time to go out and feed calves again, walk dogs, cook dinner, go to bed, alarm goes off ...  This happens ev.ery.day rain or shine or hail or wind or weekend or weekday. E.V.E.R.Y  D.A.Y

Over it.

TJL has it worse. He gets up at 5am to milk, then works his arse off all day until 3.30pm when he milks again, and doesn't get in until 6.30-7.00pm.  He's a trooper, a work-a-holic, an energizer bunny.  He makes me tired.  And makes me feel guilty.

However, light is appearing at the end of the tunnel.  32 cows left to calve (out of 220) and I have been gaining back some energy to actually get housework, other than dishes and clothes washing, done.  Today, for example, I wiped down all the window sills, talk about fly graveyards!  Yuck!  I am also doing my best to get said housework done during ad breaks, it's actually amazing what you can do during an ad break, especially in NZ as the ads seem to go on forever!

And I am finally getting onto scanning all of my old photos.  Doing about 1 hour a day (ok so that was just over the last two days) so at that rate it's going to take a few years. Then there's all the negatives to start scanning. Plus grandparents old albums.  She's a big job!

And since I have scanned them to our desktop computer, not my laptop, I can't share here tonight.  But here are a few shots from the last couple of days.

French knitting

I had been thinking recently, like just before our nieces visited, that how great would it be if I could find some wooden cotton reels and teach them how to do some good ol' French knitting.

Not long after the girls went home we had lunch at TJL's Mums home, for his fathers birthday, and she had wooden cotton reels, and they were all French knitting at the table.

She gave me two reels.

I love her!

This is actually my second go as one of TJL's nieces took the one I was doing during lunch.  I'm not sure what I am going to be doing with it, just using up woolen scraps at the moment.

And then I went onto TradeMe and bought 5 more reels.  Obsessed, I become, very quickly.

With the weather being awful today, I also got around to finishing knitting this hat.  It's actually a lot more purple than pink in real life.  And it's rather tiny, so I think I will be dropping it (and an identical bluer one) off to the SPCA shop.  I am sure there are small local babies/children that could benefit from them.

I now need to find a knitting project that I can make use of.  I was thinking a blanket, but that might be a bit ambitious for my beginner skills.

NAIT Tagging

We had a big job yesterday, NAIT tagging the vast majority of our herd.  NAIT is all about having traceability for our animals - paddock to plate.  Because we are shifting to a new farm on June 1st, we had to make sure all of our cows were tagged, otherwise the trucks wont transport them.  Out of our herd of 170ish cows we ended up tagging 108. 

Ok, so when I say 'we' I mean TJL does the physical stuff and I did all of the recording of NAIT numbers to cow numbers, which then meant I had the fun job of entering onto the computer today.  The actually tagging was a bit stressful.  While the cows are totally used to being handled in their udder region, having TJL handling their ears was a whole other ball game, and the farm we are currently on does not have the best yard set up.  Fortunately there were only a few mishaps, and TJL didn't get hurt (which was my biggest fear).  I am definitely glad that this is one job over and done with.  As from two years ago, with the introduction of NAIT tagging, we have tagged them at the calf stage, which is a heck of a lot easier and relatively stress free. 

I certainly didn't have time to get any photos of the job, but rest assured, there was a LOT of cow poo to clean up at the finish.  Not to mention the super loud mooing and bellowing as they wanted to be out of the yard and eating some lovely fresh grass.  The pet cows were by far the worst, as they have exactly ZERO respect for us, and if they don't want to go somewhere, they'll just push past, so we had a wee bit of trouble with a couple of them - Georgia in particular, she was being super naughty, but she was super annoyed at not being fed.

And now it's back to packing boxes, and trying to get the blasted oven clean - TMI but it's just nasty!

Knocked around

Man have I been knocked around the last few weeks.  Turns out that my 'man cold' was a virus that really lay me low.  The first week I just lay around on the couch, with little energy to do anything.  I just felt really awful, developed a cough, and had a ton stuff to cough up.  The second week we had 3 of our nieces to stay for the holidays.  I continually thought that I would get better 'tomorrow', so I went over to HB and picked them all up, and drove back home.  The next tomorrow I was worse.  I couldn't get an appointment to see my doctor for 3 days, as the clinic were short a doctor, so I took a punt and went to the emergency room.  Unbelievably my wait in the emergency room was an hour tops!  I had thought I would be lucky if I was seen within 3 hours, so I was super stoked.  Dr told me I had a 2 week virus, so should be better in 4 days time.  I felt relief as my mother had put it into my head that I had a chest infection and might get pleurisy.  Dr gave me a prescription for antibiotics, even though they wouldn't 'cure' the virus, he said I could take them if I wanted to.  I wasn't going to but then my ear blocked, so I figured why not.  I can't remember the last time I had an antibiotic, aside from one I had to take prior to our last IVF.  My ear stayed blocked for the week.  Oh joy!

So, for week two I struggled along with the girls.  I feel really bad, as usually I do arts and crafts with them, etc, and for the week I just didn't.  It also meant that they got away with staying up a bit late, and with being totally messy kids, as I just didn't have the energy to get after them to make them behave.  They weren't too bad, but the mess, ay ay ayyyyy!

So week two looked like this:

Monday - travel from HB to Taranaki with three talkative girls

Tuesday - emergency room visit, took girls to pools

Wednesday - girls painted mugs, took girls for a riding lesson

Thursday - took girls to The Croods 3D, which was fantastic.  Loved it!

Friday - took girls to the pools, let them build a fort in the lounge, which they slept in

Saturday - took girls to speedway at PN to watch TJL race, and stayed late for fireworks, then drove them home to HB - arrived at midnight

Sunday - returned home to a very messy house

Current status, slept a lot Monday and Tuesday, feel better today (Wednesday), but unfortunately have pulled a chest muscle due to so much coughing so every time I now need to cough I am in intense pain.  Suck!

Girls playing on stage at Wanganui, Monday

Girls running down hill by stage at Wanganui, Monday

G riding Toddy, Wednesday

K riding Willie, Wednesday

T riding Reddy, Wednesday

Kerre Woodham's Musings from Middle Age

I just finished reading Musings from Middle Age by Kerre Woodham.  And I did enjoy most of it.   It actually taught me a lot too.

If I wasn't in the headspace I am currently in it might have been a different story - but let me do a quick overview first.

Essentially it is a book for women over 40 (a category which I just fit into), and just how life goes at this stage in your life.  How you become 'invisible' to society.  Men are hitting on the younger ones kind of theme.  Of course this is coming from a 'celebrity' who is blissfully unaware that some of us have spent their entire lives being pretty much invisible, but thats okay with me.  Essentially she covers how women age.  There is humour mixed in with helpful advice, which I thought made it quite a unique read.

The part where I might have struggled is that she, of course, deals with empty nest syndrome.  And it did feel like she referenced to it quite a lot.  Of course, she has a daughter, and it's what she knows.  So if one was not in the right headspace to deal with such topics it may have been upsetting.  However, I am in the right head space, and she certainly intersperses this with tales about her friends that are childless, and/or single etc, so I never felt like I was isolated from the topic.  

Her book also highlighted for me that there are older women, who's husbands may have died and all of their children live overseas, have been left isolated as well.  It showed me, reminded me, that just because people do have children it is NOT a guarantee of your children being around forever.  Really, regardless of whether you have children or not, at some point you will be left alone, either as a couple or single.  So in that case we are far better to ensure we develop and maintain adult relationships to see us happily through these times.

It has given me a bit of a kick in the pants to get back out there and get social.  I have sat around assuming that I would get pregnant and then, woo hoo, instant fellow mummy friends.

That ain't happening so now its time to get busy and find a way to make some new friends, and to solidify, cement, renew old ones.  Trouble is I am hopeless at friendships.  I'm good at making small talk briefly, but forming friends and having them long term, I suck at it.

So would I recommend this book.  Yes I would, as long as you are happy to handle hearing mum stuff. I honestly laughed out loud numerous times, just one of those snorts, eye watering, hold in laughs, but in hindsight I wish I had just let a loud belly laugh instead.

Both my Mum and sister will be reading this book next.

Why farm dogs are outside dogs.

I'm not sure if my photos will do my title justice.  Lets just say Max-a-million was FILTHY this morning, after having chased some birds into the sh*i ponds.

 It's a bit hard to tell, but he is wet, wet, wet, and he's wet with diluted cow poo.  I had thought it was just mud splash from the paddock, but TJL came home and told me off for not hosing Max off as he'd been in the sh*t ponds.  Ooooops!  TJL hosed him off, such a great guy.

It was hard trying to get a photo as he just thought that he should have pats.  Yeah right Max!  Filthy, stinky dog! And that is why they are outside dogs.  YUCK!

On a good note we (the dogs and I) managed our afternoon walk without the use of a lead for Max!  I still took one just in case, but it went really, really well.  Of course there are no rabbits around at the moment (knocks on head, touches wood) for him to bolt after, and the birds he chases just fly up.  Todays walk was so, so, so much better than any other walks we've had.  Of course it is a combination of time spent walking him on lead, ie a couple of months!, and me learning to chill out a bit, and not panic when he gets 'to far away' from me.  

I have to say I was just totally ignorant of the fact that being an older dog meant that he needed time to learn to trust me.  I don't know if ignorant is the right word as logically I know this, but at the time, I dunno, it just didn't cross my mind THAT much.  I was just so focused on everything he was doing wrong, and that was making my life with him miserable.  So, so, so stupid.  And at the start I did lose my cool a wee bit, and when I did you could see him just totally switch off, no eye contact, just a real cold shoulder.  I am so thrilled at how far we have now come.  Part of my losing my cool was me panicking about the trouble he was causing, and part of it was my totally ridiculous attitude that 'I've rescued you from the SPCA, you ungrateful mutt'.  A couple of times I did threaten him with being put to sleep, as I didn't think he would be any good (sometimes they just aren't), but I was also aware that at the early stages it was totally my fault, as I wasn't training him right.  Turns out I just needed PATIENCE and to remember that it was going to take TIME.  And by time I'm talking MONTHS not weeks (or hours).  Unfortunately I do like instant results, I just need to be reminded that animals don't give you that.

Life is a learning curve.

I took a couple of photos of the small spare room today.  It's pretty sparse, since we are moving and I have packed up most stuff, but you get a general idea.  We did not do the 'decorating'.  It's not our house to decorate.

You can see in this first photo how small the room is.  It is as wide as the bed is long, and where the heater is you can see where the door stop for the wardrobe is, and I'm standing in the door.  Where you see the light on the wall is NOT where I plan to have the head, as I don't like heads by windows, incase you get a wee bit of a draft etc. Originally the bed went along that wall by the window.  I think only one niece has ever slept in it, and that was for one night.

This photo was taken from standing in the wardrobe door.  The pillows are new, hence they are SUPER DOOPER high.  And they don't have their proper pillowcases on, as they haven't arrived in the post yet.  Hopefully tomorrow.

So this room is super tiny.  Probably more of an office size.  Once we move I hope to maybe paint the bedside table, to give furniture renovation a go.  I plan to start super small and then, if all goes ok, move onto bigger things.  The lamp I bought looks so TINY.  But it will do, for now.  And you can see the window up above the bed head. That window leads to the hallway.  Oh yes, yes it does.  And that is so when you turn the lightswitch on in the hallway, the light in the bedroom comes on and shines into the hallway.  Yep.  That's how it works.  There isn't an actual light in the hallway, it's in the bedroom.  Fortunately, this being such a tiny house, and we don't actually use the hallway unless we have guests, and we're moving, so it doesn't really matter.

So, if you haven't noticed, I am slightly pre-occupied with our upcoming shift.  Today I packed away plastic containers, and recipe books.  Tomorrow, I need to get more boxes.

So excited!  (I actually am).

Sick again??!! Wot whaaaat?

Was feeling crappy again today.  Twas only about a week ago that I had my man-flu.  Today I just had kind of a niggley throat, and was rather tired, so spent the majority of it on the couch dozing and watching television.

Feeling a lot better now, it was just exhaustingly weird.

I did manage to achieve two things.

One, shopping again.  Via infomercials - no, no, no, no MJ, but alas yes.

Turbo Fire has sucked me in.  90 day risk free, money back guarantee, sucked in.  This happens to me everyone once in a while, like once every 5 years or so.  But TJL thought it looked pretty good, and heck, that's all the permission my spendy spendy pea brain needs.

So it should be here in a week.  11 work out DVDs with 13 workouts, exercise bandy thing, tips and a guide.  Of course I went for the delux offer that has 4 more DVD's, weighted gloves, a jump mat and a journal. 

AND, YES, THERES MORE ...

 ... a free 11 piece knife set.  I KID YOU NOT.  I had the option of a knife set or Thin Lizzy, fortunately I do know myself somewhat and know that the knife set will get far more use.

It does look really good, in that the music seems totally pumped up and the sweat seems to pour off the participants.  I also like the fact that it has a programme for the 90 days, ie what DVD to do on what day, which is what I need as when spoiled for choice I tend to sit around wasting time just trying to make the choice, and then end up doing nothing because it's just too hard.

We shall see how I go.

The other thing I did was rearrange the small spare room, and get it ready for the girls visit in 8 days time.  Stupid thing is that I now have the bed in the position I wanted it all along.  I hadn't been sure if it would fit or not.  With help from TJL it does.  5 years of hating where it was, 6 weeks of having it right.  Better late than never, yes?

Yes.

ShopPING

I do love to shop.  Unfortunately I really can't afford to, but I'm naughty and shop anyway.

Oooops!

But I use any excuse, I'm not a total spend-a-holic but I do just love to buy.  

First up I got Mothers Day cards.  One for my Mum and one for TJL's.

This is the one for TJL's mum.  If you can't quite read it, it says Mum, I realise it wasn't easy raising me ... (inside) The best and brightest are always a challenge.  It's so very, very TJL, and since he was a premie he definitely wasn't easy at the beginning, and he definitely thinks he's the best.  Of course I buy a card for TJL's mum and dad each and every year, whether or not he gets it to them is another story.

 This is for my Mum.  I think this one is a little easier to read.  And again, it's totally appropriate.  Even though I'm 41 I still rely quite heavily on their advice and help.  And I was definitely a difficult child, very very headstrong and stroppy.

Since I was in a bookshop (Paper Plus - my favourite) I also bought an Oprah magazine.  I haven't had one of those for ages.  TJL read it while I was in The Warehouse buying ...

Three cute little bowls.  I will be using these for M'n'Ms, mini marshmellows, and broken up flake chocolate for the girls to put on their sundaes.  After that they will be great for dipping sauces etc, if I ever have anything that needs dipping.  Or candle holders.  Or just for future sundae making.  $3.00 each

I needed new socks.  I love these socks, super dooper cosy.  My gumboots do have a habit of chewing through them rather quickly, but at $10.00 for 3 pairs who's complaining?  Actually I am, for some reason I totally bought the wrong size, noticed only after I removed the tag and wrapper. They will fit TJL if they are totally unsuitable for me. 

Cutsie little column heater.  It's not very big but should be ok for the small spare room we have here when the girls visit.  And I think our 'new' house has 3 bedrooms and an office.  I am assuming that the office is quite small, so new heater should fit perfectly in there.  $40.00, sweet!

Finally I bought a small desk lamp for the small spare room for when the girls visit.  Noticing a theme anyone.  The small room's light switch is in the hallway, as I think the hallway was formed out of the small room to go down to the added on bedroom (hence why the small room is actually TINY).  The wall is topped by glass allowing the light from the small room to also go through the hallway.  Does that all make sense?  Anyway, a lamp was needed so whomever is in that room can actually turn a light on and off from in there, rather than stumbling into the hallway.  $10.00

I also got some teaspoons.  I was looking for little ladle-like spoons but couldn't find any, and since I was in the spoon section I just HAD to buy something.

I also got David Bowies latest CD, which I have left in TJL's ute.  I do like me a bit of Bowie.

After I shopped myself, not out but sufficiently satiated, we headed to Shakee Pear for some lunch.  I had potato and bacon rosti's, served with what I think was a rhubarb chutney and sour cream.  Was scrummy.  Crazy thing was I had thought about ordering a side of fries, but SO glad that I didn't.  Yeah, that would be me.  Have a potato main served with a side of ... potato.  Dork much??!!  Why yes, yes I am.

Hurrah for a practice run

I saw a great idea for the girls to make when they are here, aquariums with blue jelly, and other stuff.  Of course the recipe I saw had fruit as the other stuff, and I went for lollies.

I am so, so, SO glad that I did a trial run through first as EPIC FAIL.  Seriously.

Side view

So from looking at it, it didn't turn out too bad.  The MnM's (gravel) lost their colour, and the mushroom lollies (plants) lost a bit of their coconut, but the chocolate fish handled it all ok.  The jelly was a bit dark, and my container may have been a bit smallish, but the look wasn't the fail.

Top view

Where the MnM's lost their colour I had a grey watery liquid, which was a partial fail.  The big fail was the taste.  Seriously, I figured regardless of what it might look like, the taste would be fabulous.  But no.  Super sweet, and I can do sweet, but this was just off the scale awful sweet.  I don't think that the coconut helped.   Of course TJL and I managed to choke the stuff down.  I should have thrown it out but I hate waste.  And now I know why the original recipe had fruit and a small amount of chocolate.

You live and learn.

So we won't be making blue jelly aquariums with the girls.  We will make jelly, and have lots of other stuff, and they can make themselves ice-cream sundaes instead.  I LOVE ice-cream sundaes.  (If you haven't worked it out already when I say that we will be doing this kind of stuff 'for' the girls, it's really all for me!)

On a happier note, some little cross-stitches arrived in the post today.  It was such a surprise as I ordered them from the USA and wasn't even sure that they would arrive before the girls went home, so super stoked that they arrived a week after I ordered them.  Big ups to JuliesXstitch.com, very impressive service (and yes I have emailed her to thank her).

... Puppy ...

... Butterfly ...

... Fish...

I have wrapped them up in mermaid paper and numbered them (I have no idea what number corresponds to which set) and when the girls get here I am going to have them draw numbers out of a hat (maybe 1-15), and they keep going until they get a 1, 2 or 3, and what ever number they get, they get that package.  I'm hoping it will save arguments over which one they want.

So kicking myself for not ordering myself a set.  Might get around to doing that soon, or may just buy one here in NZ, though choice and cost may limit me!

Guest baskets

In a couple of weeks we will be having 3 nieces to stay for a few days of the school holidays.  Two are my sisters girls, and one is my cousins daughter.  Ages 6, 9 and 10.

To make them feel welcome I decided to make them a gift basket each.

So the first step was to locate said gift basket.  I had a wee bit of a search around and discovered these brightly coloured, and what I consider a wee bit funky, rubbish bins, which will be a lot more useful long term than an actual basket.  Score 1!  Oh, and they were $3.00 each, so inexpensive.

Funky monkey rubbish bin.

Then it was a matter of finding loot to go into the gift bins.  I found out the girls favourite colours from their mothers, to give me a bit of a theme for each girl, and so they wouldn't mix up who's was who's.

I had an idea to get them a named facecloth each, from memory they were around $13.00, so a bit expensive, but great quality.  To go with the 'bath' theme I also bought them a couple of soaps, and a loofa(?).

Bath time!

Aside from liking clean kids, I always like to get a wee bit crafty with them so I got mugs that they can paint, then bake in the oven, they were $12.50 ish each.  I also got a bumper activity pad, stickers, plain pads, crayons, and a 6x4 photo frame.  I'm hoping to get a nice photo of the three of them, and pop that into their frame so they can remember their visit with us.  I have a ton more arts and crafts stuff for them to use, so they are not limited to this small amount.

Artsy craftsy.

And one can't forget to have a few chocolates.  I got a few Easter Eggs on sale a couple of days after Easter, so have bagged them up, and added a lollipop on top.  We got the lollipops from the local Pizza place a couple of nights ago, which was lovely of them.  And to save myself from eating yet more sugar, what better way to get rid of them.  I also have them a 'proper' Easter Bunny Easter Egg in the fridge for them, as I haven't seen them since before Easter.

Yum, yum, yum.

So here it is all displayed out on the table.  It has cost me around $150.00 I guess, but since we don't have kids I don't mind.  TJL has a bit of a heart attack about it, but I point out that we don't have kids, so in the grand scheme of things, we can afford it;

Loot, glorious loot.

Heres the three bins all full to the brim ...

... and a close-up.

The girls will be here for 3 full days, plus 2 days of travel (3.5 hour journey, extended by bathroom and play breaks).  One day we will go to a movie, I'm hoping to go to the Crood's, but we shall see.  One day we will go to the pools, as T & G always have a good time there, so no doubt K will too.  And I've booked them in for a riding lesson for one of the days.  G and K are super excited about the riding lesson, T (the 6 year old) is a little less sure, but I'm sure she will be fine. 

The sheets are washed.  The duvet covers are washed.  It will be all go in 2 weeks time.  

Hoarding

We are moving to a new farm in around 6 weeks time, June 1st.  So I've started packing up the house, which I am actually enjoying.  So far I have 3 bags of stuff to go to the SPCA shop for them to sell, or use for the animal cages in the case of old sheets etc, plus I have discovered stuff that I couldn't locate when I needed, like an electric blanket for the single bed.  Of course I found the two I knew I had somewhere the day after I bought a new one.  Oh well ...

I have also sorted through our multitude of towels.  Why I waited until now I'm not too sure, as stuffing, shoving, pushing, and forcing clean washed towels into our overstuffed only cupboard was just stupid.  I have now cut the house towels down to around 20, and bagged up all the other old ones to be used as dairy shed towels.  Any ripped or torn ones have become mini-sprint towels (dirt track racing = filthy car cleaning).  I have room in our towel cupboard.  Oh yeah!

The trouble with packing is that now an area of our house now makes it look like I'm a hoarder, and truth be told I am a bit of a hoarder (see towel comment above), just not the 'no space left to walk in the house, old newspapers, animal faeces' hoarder.

Taadaa!  Messy much??!!

I use rubbish bags for sheets, towels, blankets etc.  Much easier to 'squash-in' a bag of soft stuff when moving, than extra boxes.  This would be my much travelled, many moves opinion.  Plus they are awesomely handy when unpacking at the other end, and you need a rubbish bag.  See, I know what I'm doing.

Aside from the linen cupboard I have also emptied my closet, and the spare room closets (mostly, one still has Christmas decorations in  it, just need a huge box to put them all in).  TJL's closet is still to go, but I won't start on that one until he has had a wee bit of a holiday, he will need to help or I will throw out something he likes, whether he has worn it in the last five years or not.

Unfortunately I am having to store all of this packed up stuff in my office area of our secondary lounge, which is a bit of an eyesore should anyone visit.  This is because I can't store them in one of the spare bedrooms until the girls (nieces) have been and gone.  Once that has happened I will definitely move all this stuff into the large spare room, which will be awesomely handy for moving, ie has doors that leads to the porch, to right onto the driveway. Perfect!  Until then, we shall survive with the embarrassing mess.

Ugh!

One of the great points about shifting is that you do end up going through everything you own.  This means you can make note of what you do need to replace, and/or get rid of a multitude of junk that you just don't use.  It's pretty cathartic.  And quite eye opening.  I guess if you are a regular spring cleaner you actually do this annually.  And while I'm inspired right now to do it annually, truth be told, I probably won't.