Back in my day

 A new page started on Facebook recently all about the town I grew up in.  Its such a memory trap.  All these random people I don't know but lots I do all putting in things they remember about growing up there.  Places we went.  Stuff we did.  Things we ate.  It was crazy for my brain thinking that so many other people had the same childhood as me.  Its a good thing.  I had a great one.
It felt Yellow and Warm and smelt like grass clippings and seemed endless.  Bare feet and Prickles forever.  A lot less houses back then so we made forts in the long grass on the spare sections with all the kids from our street and Neighbourhood.  Nobody seemed to worry so much.  We weren't worried about what we ate, or looneys stealing us, no concerns about the sun or head injuries falling off bikes. Kids fell out of cars when they were motoring down the road.  It happened.  No one called CYPS.  They just came to school in a sling with some wicked scabs to show off.  You got a day off school when your dog died and the whole class would send you letters and drawings to cheer you up.  Kids of 11 or 12 were jumping from a moving vehicle doing the milk run...Jesus now a days you can't even throw lollies from a float in the Xmas parade in case some kid gets run over.  Nobody worried about what age you were allowed home alone after school.  At primary school it was cool to have your house key in your bag cause your olds would be at work after 3pm.  The walk home was an adventure.  Nobody went hungry.  Apples and lemons off neighbours trees sustained us on the way from one place to the next.  If you suddenly turned up at the local dairy wanting to buy a years supply of 1 cent lollies your mum would be called to check you hadn't pinched it out of her purse.  People gave a shit about each other.  It took a village to raise a kid back then.  You didn't organise play dates.  We just bowled on in to a mates house and there parents would chuck you a piklet and point you in the direction of their backyard.
I wonder how my kids will describe their childhoods?

The one time its good to be a follower

One of the coolest things about blogging is having followers or looking down at the little squares of faces down the right hand side of my posts....I only have 7.  I love my 7.  But It would make me do a happy dance to have more little square faces.  Its not a biggie cause I know lots of you wonderful people follow by email which is also awesome but just doesn't show up as publicly.

I am also aware that some are having issues becoming that little face square so I copied and pasted from the blogger help guide to try and make the whole process a little easier.....

Follow blogs

Following a blog shows authors and readers of the blog that you're a fan, and you can keep track of the blogs you follow via your Reading List on the Blogger dashboard. Following a blog will also create a subscription to the blog in your Google Reader account.

How do I follow blogs?

There are several ways to follow a blog. One of the easiest ways is to visit a blog that has added the Following widget and click on the "Join this site" button under the "Followers" widget:
After you sign in with your Google Account (or another account if you so choose), you'll then see a popup window with the options to either follow publicly or privately.
Select how you'd like to follow the blog, then click the "Follow this blog" button. If you elected to follow the blog publicly, your profile picture will be displayed on the blog with a link to your Blogger profile or Google+ profile (if you've opted to link your blog to your Google+ profile). When you become a follower of a blog, the blog will also be added to your Reading List on your Blogger dashboard. You can become a follower of any blog or URL (even if the blog doesn't have the Followers widget) by adding the blog to your Reading List on the dashboard.

Good luck little Sheep x

Hello from Quitter Land

 I wanted to share with you the struggle I have had over the last week, or more precisely the last 4 days...or actually 4 and 3/4.
There seems to be a lot of dieting going on around me.  The Bestie has taken on the flash Cohens Program for the last 3 months and has seen dramatic results.  The husband was too much of a tight arse to follow suit so went and got a book out of the library all about 'Whole Foods'. He also has had dramatic results.  These results have not come easy.  They have been dedicated and have some fucken strong will power to resist anything convenient.  I should know I tried for 4 days to follow in their footsteps.  I wanted to support the husband and see if I could do it.
I am writing this from Quitter land.  I set myself a goal of one week and failed.
These past 4 days have been the hardest of my life.  No milk, No butter, No bread, No sugar, No preservatives, No additives, No Fat, No Oil, No pre-packaged goodies, No chocolate, No Chippies, No Alcohol.  I have just described my complete Happy daily intake.
Every second of each of those 4 and 3 quarters day I impressively made it til dinner time on the last day I thought about food.  Its not like I wasn't being fed good stuff, the husband was providing me with some pretty impressive looking dishes, dishes any normal person would've been salivating over.  But all my brain wanted was Fried Chicken and Hot Chips sprinkled with Chocolate Chippie biscuits all wrapped up in pastry.  That's the sort of random combinations my stomach was demanding when Spinach, Asparagus and Chicken mince was put in front of it.
I knew I was losing the battle when I cooked Chicken Wings for the kids dinner on the 3rd night, the husband was smart and went and hung out outside so not to see or smell the deliciousness....I called to him from the door "Help me, I'm in a crisis position, I can't resist the wings!!"  He just laughed and said "Why do you think I'm out here weeding the garden right now".  I held strong.  But I was definitely a gonna when I walked in the door last night and my nose immediately smelt the drumsticks/potato/gravy/corn casserole creation that was bubbling away on the stove.  I had 3 bowls full.  Dieting doesn't agree with me, ask those who have had to deal with my shitbagness over the last 4 days.  The husband was pleased I gave up so quickly, I'm not sure our marriage was going to survive another 3 days of no Cadbury in my system.

A night out in Wellys

I went to Wellington recently to hang with my girlies.  So so so so fun! The whole point of the trip was to take in some Kiwi sounds at 'the Accoustic Church tour' listening to Annika Moa, Holly Smith and Boh Runga weave their voice magic.  We thought The Church tour was just for the accoustics not for any major religo reasons but perhaps we didn't get the memo about once you enter this holy place you must sit up straight, be silent, wear old lady gloves and suck a lemon.  Maybe not the glove part but it felt very formal We got into town after stopping and picking up the girls along the way. We were a bit late doing the airport pick up for the bestie coming from out of town but you try organising that many chicks after a couple of glasses of bubbles.  It was decided that the best way to begin was with a quick meal at a pub just around the corner from the 'Old St Pauls' venue.  For three reasons.. it was close, it sold alcohol and the weather was shit-house.  This turned out to be not the best decision as it was also the meeting spot for about 600 bright yellow 'pheonix' supporters, all having a pre-drink or two before the big game.  If you can't beat em join em.  As we were on a time limit and there wasn't enough elbow room to actually eat anything I was passed a straw and told to drink up.  We dithered so long at the pub we ended up being the last ones into the gig but due to some serious pew jumping and dedicated seat sourcing by the cheeky accountant in our group we ended up with some pretty excellent seats near the front.  Unfortunately when you get five happy hungry chicks together, it tends to get a bit noisy, especially when two were singing along and one is trying to eat Crunchy Grain Waves as quietly as possible, this resulted in hysterical silent pew shaking cry laughter.  We were literally back in 3rd form in a school assembly.  The lady in front didn't take kindly to our naughty kid antics so spun round and threw a 'SHUT UP' back at us!  She didn't even begin with a stern 'SSSHHHH' she went straight for the jugular.  Harsh.  I mean Jesus it was a music gig not a bloody library!  Obviously the 'Church' environment turned all the other music lovers into uptight stiffs.
The second half thankfully let people put their imaginary bibles away and it loosened up a bit more.
Jeepers Anika, Holly and Boh have some pretty impressive pipes on them.  Goose bump material.
Once the music was done we realised how bloody hungers we all were so set off to find somewhere to fill our tummys...easier said than done at 10:30pm.  After much trudging we saw a beacon of light which turned out to be a fab little Vietnamese place with something for everyone and pretty decent prices.  $6 Cockage seemed reasonable for that time of night too.

The car ride home established just what appendage one friend is interested in and that there are other more interesting ways of saying 'and' Ampersand!  All in all a very awesome night out with some gorgeous lady friends. I miss your faces already!

All things technical

As I take a 'me' moment to blog a little, I am surrounded by 'stuff'.  Lists of things to do or people to call, spreadsheets to fill in, money to bank and warranty books to post away.  Sometimes do you just want to be like someone on the movies who is planning a dirty mid lunch shag on a desk and throw your arm out and dramatically push all the stuff on the floor to clear a spot? I feel like doing that but without the shagging end result.  I just want the clear surface.
But all these things once done will result in me being that few steps closer to securing our new piece of Aotearoa and what a piece it is.  Wicked Strawbale haven on 4000m of established gardens - real estate terms for a shit load of work but Happy Days cause included in the little Chattels list is my dream transport...a freaken ride on lawn mower peoples!!! Its funny how my family haven't wanted to fight me for the job at any of our other houses but all of a sudden I'm at the back of the queue for this one. 
The thing with buying a house is all the fiddly little stuff you have to do first...solicitors, building reports, insurance transfer, Lim...all these words are just making me want to fall asleep...bleh!
Its times like these I really wish my Mum lived next door, she is a demon packer.  That woman gets shit done!  I'm trying to con the husband into using a moving company so we don't have to rope 10 friends in and do 40 trips backwards and forwards but he keeps getting his frowny face on.  Its not looking hopeful.
It feels like an episode on 'The Block' where at the start they all like "ahh we've got ages to get this done, lets have a coffee" and then suddenly Mark Richardson will be calling '1 hour to go' and I won't have packed or anything..fuk!

Lesson #1

Whoop Whoop the teenager passed her learners licence!
It was all very sudden, we decided in between errands yesterday to pop into the AA and book her in and before she could say 'L' plates the man behind the counter said "Do you want to do it in 8 minutes?" I answered for her cause she was looking a bit shocked "Sure she would" I think she thought she might get a few days to worry about it first.  I had been quick firing road code questions at her for the past hour while we were at the mechanics and had put the fear of god into her for a good couple of weeks with stuff like "you better pass the first time, I'm not paying $96 for no reason!" and "I'm not having that car sitting outside my house collecting cobwebs, get your licence or I'll sell it" so figured she would be sweet.  And Sweet she was.
As a reward I let her drive the van home up our road and if I'm honest, I was actually pretty nervous putting my life in her hands.  True there was no other traffic on the road and it was only a 1 minute journey but still it gave me a glimpse of things to come.
7:30pm last night was the first official driving lesson in her new car.  The 7 yr old was very excited and bounced into the back seat.  "Put your seat belt on and sit back" I urgently whispered to him.
I drove her to the end of our culdesac and then she tentatively jumped in behind the wheel.
It's quite daunting teaching someone to drive.  Where to begin? We went through the gears and the importance of putting the clutch in when we are inevitably involved in some serious bunny hopping.
And bunny hop we did.  It was impressive to say the least but she didn't stall and managed a very impressive gear change into 2nd.  When I had recovered from the whiplash and my hysterical laughter, I looked around at the son in the back seat to see the most priceless shocked look on his face.  I figured he was going to call the whole thing quits and get the fuck out of dodge but once the colour returned to his cheeks and he started breathing again he ecstatically announced "I LOVE THE BUNNY HOPPING!!" I had tears running down my face from laughing so hard.  As her new car doesn't have power steering and we figured turning around was a bit advanced for her first lesson, she would drive up our street and then I would have to get in and turn the car around to start all over again.  I'm sure the neighbours were loving it.  My tummy muscles got a good work out from all the laughing and my foot was sore from pressing down so hard on my imaginary brake.  Luckily the husband gets home on Monday so I'll tag him in to take his turn in the suicide seat.

The Teenagers new ride