Francesrosey

I had my hair cut and coloured today by the totally amazing and awesome Jolene. (see http://www.stylecounselnz.com/)
I also have my new glasses which I went to painstaking efforts to decide on frames.

So Melinda took these photos using her computer of me so everyone can see the new “look”

http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2124/231/104/567787937/n567787937_2057433_908.jpg

It was a stinking hot day again, so we abandoned T’nealle so she could catch her plane and went to Kaiapoi for a swim and then we decided that we should have eggs Benedict and Margaritas. Not together, but both tonight. So Matt drove us to Northlands where we acquired all the appropriate ingredients for both.

Having just finished the eggs we’re all now bloated and sitting on the couch watching cooking shows on TV.
Later I guess we’ll have some ice cream and then margaritas… Seems like a fairly decent way to spend a Saturday night.

I had a really random kind of day today. I was just tired when I woke up, I don’t function well on little sleep. I just didn’t want to go to bed that early. It was Jason’s last night at the Log Cabin. So the BBQ started at around 9:30pm… which perhaps explains the lateness of my night in general.
I finished off a rather nice bottle of Riesling which T’nealle, Melinda and myself had picked up on the way to a play in the park on Wednesday.

Anyway, it was a late night, and I was awake far longer than I should have been. It doesn’t help that I am generally incapable in the mornings. It takes me 15 minutes from the time my alarm goes off to get out of bed, even though I am awake.Then I have to spend an equal amount of time figuring out clothes. Shower, dress, breakfast… this all takes much longer than all logic says it should.

So I generally felt sleepy till around lunchtime. I listened to T’nealle and James on RDU. They tried to give away Josh’s identity as a prize. No one rang through apparently.
They played me some song by Lawrence Arabia cause they couldn’t find what I wanted on the playlist.

I was meant to have lunch with Nike and Sarah, but they had to bail, so I went to the mall and sat at Aroma in a little dark corner and read a book. Back at work it got really busy, and I was rushed off my feet all afternoon. Then after I finished my real job I went to the park with Diana to do site planning for the festival. I walked to Laura’s folks place from the park as its not very far, and sat on her lawn and waited for her to arrive home from work.

Laura took me back out to Kaiapoi today and I watered the garden before coming home to see T’nealle make disco fries and Melinda kicked my ass at Scrabble.

I’m getting used to wearing my glasses slowly. Its just kind of a weird feeling, I’m sure it will feel quite natural eventually.
I will put up a photo as soon as someone lends me a camera.

Last night I tried to convince Caroline to take up the Harp…. Canterbury Uni have courses to learn available. Hagley College have courses in how to build your own. Sounds like a cool idea… if I could afford it I’d like to go build my own. Alas I already have too many “things” and I suspect a harp would be another, substantial “thing” to add to my clutter. I know I need to have a garage sale, or sell off stuff. Its just such a big task to decide what I don’t need anymore. Things bought for my previous “home” seem totally irrelevant in a flat. There are just some things that I just don’t want to get rid of though. I have been trying to get over the idea of being sentimental about my junk. There is also the problem that as a crafter I tend to rely heavily on the stuff I already have when creating. The craft things may seem like junk when they aren’t yet anything. I think I might stick to night classes which have skills to be learnt not things to be made.
The cupcake decorating one though- that’s a thing to be made which I guess is ok… as long as someone promises to come round and eat it with me?

So the house is a log cabin and villa rolled into one. Guaranteed to be cold in winter, but Eamonn’s dad has provided us with plenty to burn. It is blue, and has a big wisteria growing out front. Apparently the seed pods are velvety… so I won’t be touching them. The grass is a couple of feet tall as we are yet to get a lawnmower to deal to the job. We’re building a vege patch out the back because the yard is sparse so we figured we’d make use of it.
Along one side is a stack of weeds I wouldn’t even begin to dare to tackle…. amongst it is a ping pong table which has seen better days.
I think this house will be a lot of fun though. Melinda and I are in it for the longest haul it seems, well me until I skip town. T’nealle is here until BBE embark on another tour overseas, its good, I like living with T’nealle, she’s much cleaner than I and she likes cooking and creating cool stuff. So far we’ve had Matt from Dunedin house party fame live with us for a month before camp, and Jason, an American who is travelling back to the states at the end of the week. At some point in Feb. I think David and Eamonn might move in, depending on when they are ready to come. T’nealle got us a wall planner to figure out the comings and goings of people.
So far there have been a few great evenings on the verandah drinking and talking, one reasonably sized party where noise control was called. Fair enough too, Miley Cyrus being played loudly down the back of the house at midnight is not cool. There has been a lot of BBQ cooked food. I guess nice weather might be partially to blame for the desire to do that.

I should really take a photo of the house, but I don’t have a digital camera anymore. Just one of the things I never bothered to replace when my old one died. That’s probably something I should do before I take off on this round the world trip… It would suck to not be able to document it.

So I welcomed in the New Year in Gisborne, there on a road trip with Joff and the Bang Bang Eche crew. It was a pretty good night. Rhythm and Vines however was a weird festival. There were plenty of ups and downs on this trip, but as Joff said, if it wasn’t for all the crazy shit there wouldn’t be any stories to tell people.

Christmas in Auckland is always a welcome idea. There really isn’t anything nicer than a lazy swim at the beaches of Whangaparaoa. Over this time I decided, with help from T’nealle and Joff that I should invest in a scooter over a car. The savings I can make versus having a car are significant enough to make it worth while. Provided I don’t kill myself riding one.

Anyway coming back to work was a bit of a downer, I know that it always is after being off on holidays- but this time especially so, the economic downturn has put a huge dampener on the amount of work to do. Therefore filling a day with work for a while was actually quite hard. I am trying to keep myself entertained with the Linwood Youth Festival and Red Panda.
I have to admit I don’t really feel like telling the story of New Years again, I’m sorry… but lets say there was antics, and arguments and overall it was memorable although I don’t think I will go back to Gisborne… unless I become a surfer. The beaches there really are quite beautiful. There was some crap weather and some good weather. Plastic rain ponchos are surprisingly good, people who wear jandals at festivals are surprisingly stupid.
The best investments of my holidays were a pair of size 4 kids Spiderman canvas sneakers. I know I’m not a child, but they were the cheapest, most comfortable thing to wear and easy to clean after getting caked in mud.

My aim for 2009 was to write more about what’s going on in my life… I think its a fairly simple resolution, but for the last couple of years, I have barely “blogged” at all.

2009 has already proved to be a crazy year, probably brought on by the major events that happened in 2008. As pretty much everyone knows by now, Chris and I parted ways… and I’m now flatting again. Its hard to adjust to that, its been nearly 5 years since I really shared a house with flatmates…. James didn’t really count.
This whole thing brought on what I called for a while “the new life plan”. Which sounds like a hippy, kind of touchy feely thing, but its not. I did have to re-assess what I wanted in life, since I’d spent nearly six years floating along without really thinking about it. I figured a few things really had to change, and that now that I’m more comfortable with who I am, and I’m on top of problems which plagued me through my university days its time to really do all the big things.

The first big step is to visit all the places I’ve meant to. I know I’ve travelled a lot already in my life, my passport has plenty of stamps from all over the world, but this trip will be a bit different from the family holidays I experienced growing up. The plan is to see all the people who have moved away from New Zealand or the long time friends I have never met face to face.
So the plan is to travel round South America and visit family. Then to parts of the USA (San Fran, Chicago, New York mainly), go to Canada finally- mostly to see Dan again, hang with Maria in London where I’m sure she has become well versed in shopping and the nightlife. Maybe I’ll work for a bit there if the funds are looking a bit sad, after all, this is the perk of having a British passport.
Finally make it back to Europe, and go from Barcelona to Berlin, visiting Nannie on the way in Switzerland- a plan I had to put on hold about 10 years ago because of things beyond my control. I intend to get those damn salt and pepper shakers in Denmark… yes I plan to go to Lego land.

Then the end of this not so whirlwind tour will have me go to Perth and see the rogues who decided the most far flung place was a good place to go, then on to Melbourne where a decision will be made as to where I will settle myself for the future. Hopefully by then I’ll have a plan for what happens next. I guess that if I travel enough it will come to me as to what it is I really want.