Whanau and shindigs

l-r me! Dad, my sis Ana(dress made by moi), mum, my lil bro Jonny, and not so little little bro Toby. Noticable in his absence, my big bro David - who is on a plane to Japan. Jealous!

Now for something completely different...family!

My sister's 21st was a whole load of fun. I thought her being 21 would make me feel old, but the complete opposite seemed to happen. The idea of a big milestone party got me super excited, and i had a chance to properly dress up for once. 

When i was 7th form (or year 13, or whatever) my lil sis was a turd. I got lumped with peer support duties and had a great class of third formers to make buddies with, and buddy up we did. They were awesome kids, though quite often i was disturbed by what dirty little minds they had.

About half way through the year my sister came and told me about how one of her mates had cracked up at the fact that i was friends with them before they got to be friends with my sister. 

And she has some great friends, and they kind of all end up becoming mates of mine by default. My point is that hanging out with them makes me feel young, not old and crusty like i actually am... :)

giddy excitement

I have:

• a mini bottle of fluro pink nail polish (finally!)
• black wool suiting
• silver shot metallic fabric
• black shot metallic fabric
• a pattern from burdastyle (free!)
• Black Seeds
• a 21st (my sister's, ohhh i feel...young!)
• a giddy excitement about designing and sewing one of my creations...so very excited!

The 21st is tomorrow night. Yes, I am mad. I inherited it from my mother - all three balls i went to at school, she or i would still be sewing while people arrived for the pre-ball. It was stressy, but so much fun.

I had some time out today to do a bit of shopping for something to wear, but couldn't find anything i liked that was under, oh, $300. and that picture in my mind didn't appear on the racks anywhere. So i've dreamed something up instead. Fingers crossed it works. I need to channel some sewer's patience to be sure it comes out just right.

Pictures tomorrow :)

oh a not so exciting note, the anticipated work madness is creeping up on me...so i am resigned to the fact i will end up at my desk on sunday. But now, to sew!

Dreams

For some time now a wee dream has been evolving in my head. This weekend it's nearly fully formed, in radiant colour, and I can mentally walk around it...

It's not that much, really. It involves:

• A sewing room that is bathed in sunlight
  
• A vegetable patch
• Chickens

Which is all kind of bizarre really cos i grew up loathing everything to do with dirt. Now i find weeding oddly therapeutic. I have no idea what it is about chickens. They're awesome. I don't think i need any other reason except to think they're cool.

Yesterday a visit to Chocolate Frog resulted in some plant buying (kale) and seed purchases...i'm going to germinate them and re-start my pot-based vege garden of last summer. 

I hate the idea of putting chemicals on something i'm going to eat, so i'm doing research on companion planting. This site is great. I've also heard that a certain method of planting during certain phases of the moon makes for crazy growing activity, so might have a wee go at that too. 

Yesterday wasn't just spent daydreaming. I managed to do some more sewing. I managed to tame my overlocker long enough to make half a skirt but it's now packed it in again. ugh. I also had a go at buttonholes on thermal, and i didn't win. I tried a cable bind on and it didn't work for me ... though i'll be the first to admit i kind of tried making it up as i went along and then lost patience. Any tips? Or just forget the buttonholes and fake it?

oh, for snow!

I'm going snowboarding tomorrow! I get to play in 4.5m of snow, and 1m of it is almost brand new! sooooo very excited...and so very grateful to my boss for letting me go. 

I also went out for a run with a guy i work with today. We keep hassling each other about if we've been for one, and i meant to go yesterday but got distracted with the triathlon.

I almost died. Well, not really. But he runs way faster than i do and totally pushed me to keep up the whole time, and told me not to stop. It was hard, but at the end of it i felt awesome. Compared to my usual cruisy run, it was a bit of a shock to the system. 

It was over 6 hours ago, and i'm still feeling amazing for it. like i could go leap buildings in a single bound. Combined with the excitement of going snowboarding, i'm more than a bit giddy. 

I did do some sewing on the weekend - i've almost finished the wasp bag, though i'm already planning some pattern amendments. I realised how much i love sewing again, i so don't do enough of it these days...

life is good

My msn horoscope for today says something about feeling like a beetle flipped onto its back with its legs flailing in the air, unable to get flipped over again. It tells me to wait for the breeze to turn me right side up, and to enjoy the humour of my situation in the meantime.

The sun is shining. I have a new haircut. I ate a tim tam and two pieces of toast for breakfast. I have one new flatmate moving in today. I feel light and relaxed and in control...and i'm about to spend the day sewing. woohoo! I've been waiting so long for a sewing day.

And i ventured into global fabrics yesterday. Did you know they're having a sale? 50% off!! crazy!! i'd post pics of what i bought but i'm having battery issues again. Hopefully by the end of the day i'll have some finished products to photograph.  but first, i have to get out of my pjs and wash the car.

I've made a decision about what i'm going to do next year. I'm excited. 

There is over three metres of snow on mt ruapehu - it's calling me. i've got ants in my pants waiting to get up there again.

oh and did anyone else watch the rowing last night? my whole family was jumping up and down the whole time, it was fantastic! Didn't manage to stay up late enough to watch the rugby or the shotput, but damn, NZ you're awesome!

Olympics and stuff

Right, so still stressing seriously about the flat situation. A great pair of pommy girls came round last night and they were awesome...both working at the hospital, really super lovely.

But they had another place to look at too, and i really really want them to move in. At the current rate of room interest, i will seriously struggle to find others to fill the rooms. 

I haven't heard from them yet. I text them after they left saying how i'd love for them to move in if they'd like the rooms....now whenever my phone beeps it makes me sweat and gives me butterflies because i'm worried it will be from them saying thanks, but no thanks. 

This flat has been no end of trouble. horrible flatmates, not being able to find flatmates, giant powerbills...when will it end? when will my penance be done? I'm not even sure what i've done wrong...it just saps all my energy and i can't seem to make it better no matter how hard i try. If i hadn't given my strongest assurance to the landlords when i signed the lease that i would certainly stay out the whole 12 months, i would give up. I have no idea where i'd go, but i would. But i can't go back on my word. 

and i don't want to get my hopes up for the pair of poms, because i don't want it to be even harder if they say no.

On the other hand i've been throwing myself into Olympics watching. I love it. I love watching everything, i find it so fascinating. The bodies of the athletes amaze me...and i can't help but be utterly attracted to Michael Phelps...his swimming muscles make me melt, just a little. Too bad he's american. Hey now that i think of it, he's only a year or so younger than me. Maybe i have a chance...haha

Apologies

I found Tessuti here. They have Japanese cotton fabrics. and gorgeous silks. And deliver anywhere in NZ. Damn i need to find new flatmates to i can treat myself...

I just scrubbed the bath. It kind of helped.

Expletives to follow

I am ready to have a big fuck off tanty. Evidently with lots of swearing.

I am so done with flatmates. I am so sick of being the leaseholder and therefore responsible for paying rent if someone leaves. I am so sick of people taking advantage. I am sick of fussy people who have no idea. I am sick of the stupid women who work in my office and talk shit all day and have the productivity levels of sloths. 

Have i mentioned that i asked horrible flatmate to move out? Yay for that! he's gone! And i thought i'd found a lovely lovely new crafty relaxed flatmate. She moved in, put her cute stuff around the house, and then decided to move out because the room gave her asthma. She said it was damp. She has a ventilation duct right into her room, it isn't mouldy, it gets the sun - all things that are hard to find in wellington. 

You'd think she would have considered the fact that all her stuff had been in storage for months and would be all nice and dusty. I think the real story is she found somewhere else. And now she wants her bond back straight away, when i've just paid out someone else's, am already paying rent for two rooms and now have to find someone else to go into that room. Talk about fucked off. And of course i'm too nice to say no, she has to wait until i get paid or get someone else in the room.

I am tired, I know have to clean the flat for people to come round tomorrow night, and i am seriously not in the mood to play nice Tash and hope that someone else wants to move in.

Besides that, i now have two highly irritating women working in my office instead of just one. I have to listen to them talk crap all day (one has an extremely high opinion of herself) and am painfully aware that they aren't remotely productive and aren't actually doing the job very well. It makes it so hard to concentrate and get my own work done, especially when i'm already tired and stressed by other things. 

It's all bad enough that I just want to call my mum and have her make everything better. 

Work. Is. mad. I. Am. tired. 

mulled wine, hot fire and dinner to decide upon.

still not sleeping well. boo. 

but snowboarding sunday. Yay. 

that is all. 

Epiphanies and feeling uber zen

I had a crappy weekend. I felt crappy. Not sick, just really super tired. And then I couldn't sleep at night. boo hoo. 

I knew something was wrong when late saturday afternoon I thought, 'I can't wait to go back to work and do this and this and this'. Uh oh. 

Not having slept very well I got a bit cranky and then took it out on the boy on Sunday. He left, I felt bad, and then had some very good thinking time. 

How long has it taken me to realise that men and women are different. Take me (female) for example. I went to an all girls secondary school and had a group of friends that were super competitive and super smart (i was the average one). We were always pushing ourselves and each other to do that much better. Five years of that and i was a lost cause - i'm a hard out. I figure there is no point doing something unless you are going to do it properly and efficiently. I drive myself nuts with it all the time, especially when i'm sitting at work thinking i could have done something much better, much sooner, when really i doubt that anyone else has even noticed. 

The problem with this is that because i have such incredibly high standards of myself, i tend to expect the same of everyone else. Which is unfair. And the person it is most unfair on, is the boy. 

The boy is a youngest child. Something that to me is glaringly obvious every day. He's a total cruiser, anything that can be put off til tomorrow will be, and quite often he doesn't think of how what he does will affect anyone else. Because i suppose, when he was growing up, he got away with everything and noone really worried about him. His parents had probably figured that all the others turned out ok, surely he will too with much less effort.  

He makes up for that with grand gestures - i always get the most amazing presents and surprises from him.  Whereas i make lots of little gestures constantly. 

So the big deal was this: now that we don't live together, i want to hang out with him all the time because i adore being round him. He, on the other hand, just carries on with life as always and knows i'm there if he needs me. Which makes me cranky. 

Until yesterday.

1. He probably doesn't want to hang with me cos i get cranky all the time (duh.)

2. I need to chill out, relax and just let him be him (also, duh)

3. Stop being such a relationship control freak. It's still a relationship even if I don't see him for five days. (yep, that would be duh)

And i feel so much better. I'll be the first to admit it's going to be hard to change some very old habits. But I also need to spend more time looking after myself. Part of that is not sweating the small stuff, and really, it is pretty small stuff. I don't really need the extra stress of being grumpy at the boy because he isn't living my super high standards.

The other reason i'm feeling uber zen right now is that i just got back from playing indoor netball and i feel freaking amazing. Endorphins, anyone? I sleep way better when i've had some exercise in a day, so i think i might start getting up earlier in the morning and going for a run before work. Or after work. Even if it's raining. Because it makes me feel so much better, and boy i'm going to need to be on top of the game for the coming months.