Oh the stress :P

Isaac's car has died. Just as exams are starting for him.

Worse still, it's the alternator that has died and it's gonna cost between $300-350 to fix. That's JUST the alternator. The problem with the alternator happened because of an oil leak that was too close to the fan/cam belt causing oil to splash every where - including into the alternator.

So, in order to prevent this from happening again we need to get the oil leak fixed too.

I hate money. And I hate how much cars cost to fix!! Argh, I swear mechanics are always ripping us off!! Bastards.

It has been a long day. Long, long day.

If we weren't going overseas this wouldn't be an issue at all. Damn.

Relations

Sometimes it feels like everything is all edges and whenever you try to get close all you do is aggravate and hurt.

That is what it feels like right now.

It sucks, we're both so busy it's like there's never enough time.

Proof!

We are not just "the floor" - not that I think the floor is not an awesome place to be :) But this man is THE man when it comes to bass playing. About three minutes in he REALLY lets rip!

Old people

I recently received an email from my grandmother - whom (I might add) I love very dearly - however, she does say some rather shocking things. For example, in her email (yes, my grandmother emails!) she said "I see that the Maoris are causing the government some trouble again, it was one of our news items here".

Firstly, I didn't realise that the Maori community as a whole was stirring up trouble for the government. Secondly, I have no idea what she's talking about - unless it's about the people who were arrested for having those crazy firearms who are accused of being terrorists.

I'm not entirely sure what I believe about that, I'm not entirely convinced that they're terrorists - but I'm not as informed about this as I could be so I will hold my peace.

It is rather typical of her to make a wide sweeping statement like that. For someone who comes from a multi-racial country she can actually be quite racist sometimes. Meanwhile, the government is always right - naturally.

Although, I can't see a Singaporean MP being accused of hitting an opposition MP in the parliamentary lobby. Well done Trevor Mallard!

Given what goes on in the Debating chamber it was probably justified. Sometimes I feel like our MPs are squabbling children - especially when you see them bickering on TV...

It is pissing down outside...

Hail, lightning and always with the crazy wind at the moment. A little something to remind us that yes, it is spring :)

I seem to have an obsession with macro close up photography at the moment!

The Sounds

The view from our room!

I am back from The Sounds. Yay - was SO good to get away out of the city and know that there was absolutely nothing that needed to be done because I am on mini-holiday. I am still on mini-holiday by the way :)

I've never really spent any time up the north end of this fair island...I've been down south a reasonable bit. It's really pretty there, but it's a different kind of pretty up north.


It's all rolling hills and bays up there. Down south it's more flat lands and high craggy mountain tops.

Still...very pretty. AND because we're so near the sea there's a lot of seafood. Which I love - Isaac does not love it quite as much as I do.

Mussels from the Mussel Pot!

We were staying just outside Havelock - which is apparently the greenshell mussel capital of the World. So we had to have some! Yummy!

Note, mussels are REALLY gross to look at if you look at them too closely...yuck!

It was fun times, even if we were only there for two days! We went walking, explored the area, slept lots and caught up on reading!

I love public holidays :)

We had a bbq last night, much fun. LOTS of food and drink. Jeremy inadvertently spiked Smiddy's coke with Bacardi - he was so sure he'd asked him if he'd wanted the alcohol in there! Haha, funny. We are such random people. So random in fact that I have an album on facebook dedicated to our randomness!

Also, finally managed to watch some Flight of the Conchords last night, funny stuff! Haha. Isaac's been hounding me about it for weeks now! Oh but he was right!

My current favorite!

YAY!

The photos sold!!! I was quite sure they actually wouldn't sell AT ALL. But no, some savvy buyer out there used the buy now option! Yay!


All gone!!!

AND we're going to the Sounds for the weekend! Double yay - I can't wait to get out of town for awhile!

Thrills!

Guess what? Guess what, guess WHAT??! For the first time EVER (or at least as long as I can remember) a TOTALLY hot awesome international act is coming to CHRISTCHURCH!!!! (Take that Auckland and your crappy Vector Arena!)

BON JOVI is coming to Christchurch on the 27th of Jan. BON FREAKING JOVI!!! That makes me want to squeal and jump round all over the place. The man is HOTT. And yes, he deserves two "t"s for that. Not to mention that the band are just freaking awesome anyway.

I so want to go! Isaac will kill me, he hates it when I love all over famous people. But it's BON JOVI.

Consumerism

I bought my first eye cream a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was about time and the motivation behind it was that now was the right time to try and prevent wrinkles from appearing AND also because I've been getting these dark, dark shadows under my eyes.

So...because I'd heard good things about another Garnier cream, I thought I'd give this one a go. It's not so much an anti-wrinkle cream as one that is supposed to nutritionise (?) the "contour" under/around your eyes.

I've been waiting three weeks for something to happen now...

Any longer and I'll have to conclude that I was sucked in.

Date night

We went out - by ourselves - for the first time in AGES last night. Wow - prior to this I can't actually remember the last time we went to a nice restaurant.

Anyway, Isaac made a booking at Henry Africas - neither of us had been there before, but it was in the gold section of the entertainment book so we figured that it must be good.

To cut a long story short - the gold section of the book does not lie. They have GOOD food there. Normally - especially in the gold section - the fancier the food/place is the smaller the size of the meals. Not so at Henry Africas. We got HUGE meals. Kind of like what you'd normally get in a pub. They were a very decent size for what we were getting. And they do a GOOD Montana wine too! So, with the card, two mains, plus wine, plus dessert (Gorilla Balls...must be tried to be believed!) it ended up at $54 - which for the amount of food we got was pretty decent! And the service was great too!

After which we went to see Hairspray which I've wanted to see for ages (and which Isaac hasn't been too keen on seeing...). And it was great!!

I think even Isaac liked it. I'll admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for Zac Efron...and Amanda Brynes. Yes, I am a teenybopper. And damnit if John Travolta wasn't bloody brilliant in the movie. I never thought I'd see the day in which he plays a woman AND sings AND dances IN high heels. Currently, in my mind, he is THE man.

One thing I have to say though - his singing voice hasn't changed in all these years. Whenever he sung I was sure I could hear Danny Zuko from Grease!

There's quite a visual difference there! Haha.

Anyway, Nikki Blonsky is awesome. I see why she's the next big thing in Hollywood. She's just the anti-thesis of all the HOT people who are big in Hollywood at the moment. She's so little and cute! AND she gets the guy :)

Ponderings

I want a tattoo.

Just a little one. Probably on my wrist somewhere. Something patriotic like a Silver Fern. (Especially since we lost the rugby)

Isaac is opposed to this idea. As my parents would also be. I am also opposed to the pain as I dislike pain greatly.

Hmm...

But oh how cool would it be?

Birtday!!

Was Jennifer's birthday on Sunday - we decorated the house and had a PAR-tay!!! Fun, fun times with LOTS of good baking :)

Jeremy is quite strategic with balloons!

Cake!!!! Candles! Coke!!

The designated hair holder backer...

The boys :)

It was fun. Jennifer is awesome at baking and she made VERY good chocolate cake...AND lemon meringue muffins AND lolly cake...yummy!

Shortland Street is BAD TV...

Speaking of which. We caught the final episode of this random as program called Flavour of Love last night. It's like The Bachelor or Bachelorette. Basically 20 girls fight over this guy:

Who's name...believe it or not...is Flavor Flav

Yep...he's a catch all right! Not only does he persist in wearing a large number of HUGE-ass clocks around his neck, and some SERIOUSLY weird outfits:

He's not actually attractive either!!!

Seriously, these girls were HARD OUT fighting over him because he was supposedly the love of their lives. I did a little research - because I have nothing to do at work - and the show is in it's second season (so it OBVIOUSLY wasn't true love the first time round) and has even got a spin off series. AND it was VH1's top rated show of ALL time.

I mean, this guy is all class!

WHAT are people watching these days???

Doubts

Doubts are funny things. They kind of undermine you and seep into your consciousness. They don't start out as a big deal...just a little niggling possiblity or fear. But if you give them leeway they explode into this huge THING.

I think it's natural to doubt.

Everyone has doubts some of the time. And sometimes we perhaps don't doubt enough. Take for example the wave of despair and anguish that is currently sweeping the country. We were all so sure the ABs would make at least the semis.

Oh the woe.

It's been quite the big weekend. Back to work today. Oh the joys.

Poor boy got sin-binned! Aww...

Cuteness

New Auction!!

Right, I have some original photography up for auction. It's a set of three black framed pictures of daisies.

Auction is here

Yes...I know you can see me in the reflection! Even if you don't like them tell your friends about it because I don't know I my self-esteem can handle the rejection!!

If you live outside of NZ then you can also buy the individual prints from my profile on deviantart.com

Woes

Argh. There is something wrong with facebook. I cannot log in. Or at least, I can log in and then it logs me out again.

WOE!!!

Health

I finally caved and bought some vitamins. I was sick and tired of...being sick. And tired. (Haha - I crack myself up sometimes) Anyway, they were $26 for a bottle of 50 - which isn't TOO bad when you think about it. They'll last over a month, more if I forget to take them.

It's strange but I'm actually taking better care of myself - or at least it seems that way. Maybe I have "new lease on life" or something. What with the vitamins and (semi-regular) exercise I'll be fit in no time.

Actually, I might already be fit. I'm not sure. But Trace and I were doing tae bo last night - yes we are hard core!! - and we decided to do the longer excercise rather than our usual 8 minute (which is actually 16 minutes!) workout. This was the workout I had originally started with when we first started doing Tae Bo, and when I first started doing it it completely nailed me - this was probably back in June/July-ish. But I actually managed to get through the whole thing (or at least the warm ups!) without too much trouble!

Yay for fitness.

The boy is thinking of playing touch this year. I have been persistant in weaning him off tennis. Yes, I know I'm horrible - tennis just takes up a lot of time when it's competitive. Touch I can handle.

Anyway, we have been getting lots of sun lately - which is nice. I'm over working though. I'd rather be...lazing around (hah!)

And just like that...

The weekend's over.

Lucky it's a three day week for me this week!