Day 61

so exhausted today. i'm not sure if it's the weather which has taken a downward turn, or if i just haven't been getting enough zzzz. even the sugar hasn't been keeping me fired up!
flippen furkids have been rather nocturnal of late. doesn't help that they keep bringing uninvited guests into the house to play, or rather one guest.
the next door neighbour got a ginga' kitten a few months ago, which means we need to keep a water pistol, fully watered in the kitchen at all times to defend our (pathetic) cats food. seriously, they just sit there and stare at him when he comes thru the cat door.
a few weeks ago i came home to find him and terry(meg's cat) curled up together asleep on my bed.....i mean com'on guys!
well last nite meg's awoke to terry scratching to get out of her room. she got up, let him out and went back to sleep...only to be woken a few minutes later by more scratching. terry can push the door open so she was a little confused...turned the light on and who should be in her room, but ginga'!!! guessing he had been taking another siesta!
i was awoken early this morning to bedlam coming from the lounge....got up...apparently it was playtime....three bloody cats chasing each other all over the furniture!
so i am tired.... cat door will be locked from inside tonite me thinks

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Day 60

some days things just don't happen like you want them to. or at least not how you intended. most days are like that for me....i'm sure i have mentioned that once or twice. today was no exception! going back to bed after i had gotten up wasn't a good start. whoops!
i was intending on going to an art installation in the square. it was only oup for two hours and today only. a combination of laziness and the 'end of the golden weather' prevented me from getting into see it....it was cold and wet alright!
i finally got my a moving in time to deliver lunch to boy and make it to a one o'clock appointment, which was, one, thing i managed to achieve today!
home for the arvo....it disappeared...then movies tonite....another slight disaster which you will soon see.
went to wolverine, potential for bad, potential achieved. have to give the ups for stunning shots of nz tho, great sfx and some pretty awesome lighting at times....oh and ryan reynolds with no shirt on! yuss
final failed intention for the day......

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Day 59

so most of you know the every day going on's of my life without me having to write it here. if there is one thing i am pretty good at it's keeping in contact with my friends.....constant contact. possibly a reason why i rarely get anything productive done. or apparently productive.
therefore most of you know all about the boy. bless him. he's making life pretty fun right about now. and i am slowly feeling the creativity boiling from below, which is fantastic!! it's still taking a while to make it to the surface though, unfortunately.
so, you've heard about him, but not so much seen him.....well here he is.

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Day 58

every bloody morning this is the state of me for at least 30mins......





seriously - you would think somewhere in there, there would be something to wear.....if not there, then the other two sets of drawers in my room.....full of clothes.

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Day 57

ok, so, it's almost the end of april, which means we're well into autumn! try telling the weather that. at 445 this morning it was 16 degrees!!! and it wasn't a nor-wester. go figure! of course, not that i am complaining, especially as it was my cousin's birthday today and therefore a girls lunch and the opportunity to get a little dressed up! bring out the off the shoulder number i said!
getting a whole group of ladies together combined with bubbles is of course the perfect recipe for lots and laughs and craziness. we had a private room out at the old vicarage which is the most divine restaurant/ cafe on the outskirts of christchurch. we had our own special menu which was absolutely gorgeous. seared tuna, yum thank you very much!
i had expecting just a small lunch that would just be a coupla hours, but it lasted much longer than that and was a thoroughly pleasant arvo....yay for girl time!

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Day 56

anzac day - lest we forget.
each of the past three years since i moved to chc i have intended to attend the dawn service in the square. each year i have not made it(hence intended). pure laziness is the only reason.

i went to my first (oh and only) dawn service in 2005 at the auckland domain. it's an amazing place to be especially at the sun begins to rise and the harbour is lit by that early light. i had never really been interested in anything to do with war and anzac day has never really held any importance in my life. i guess not having any relations that fought in any of the wars was probably the reason for this. but after attending that anzac service, back in 2005 it, brought it into perspective how big a part war has played in so many peoples lives and how much the outcomes of ww1 & 2 have influenced our lives today. many of you probably haven't taken it for granted, but i sure have, hence the intention to attend an anzac service....sheesh i am bad, especially as all i did this morning was watch the latest episode of grey's!
maybe i do forget

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Day 55

when i was last in auckland i did a series of portraits of my good friend sarah's twins. they were three months old, which i have to say is quite a hard age to photograph. they still aren't doing much at that age except lie around. it made me really have to think about how i could shoot them in different and interesting ways. it also made me realise that i still have a lot to learn.
today i got back the canvas' that sarah wanted printed. i personally avoid printing portraits on canvas so i got a awesome buzz when i saw these ones. they look awesome! i really love them. hopefully sarah will too

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Day 54

in 2005 i was on a flight from Australia to New Zealand where we had to make an emergency decent mid-flight. it was pretty scary to say the least. we dropped 10000ft in at the time seemed like a couple of minutes, when it actually was probably only 30 seconds or so. i had a massive rush of adrenalin at the time, and ever since then my flight or flight instinct seems to be on red alert. it doesn't take much for me to get an increase in adrenalin, which when you don't require it, just causes a lot of anxiety.
this isn't particularly pleasant when you have so much goodness happening in your life and you are seemingly down because of the excess of chemicals in your body. it's crazy.
it's also hard work and tiring. getting through a day when your body is trying to 'fly' away from everything is hard. very hard. personally, i can't concentrate, my head is thinking about 5000 things all at once and physically, my body is a shaky mess & i just want to vomit.
in the past few weeks these anxiety 'attacks' seemed to have occurred more often than usual. why, i'm not sure. maybe it's because i body is already heightened by my senses and emotions....who knows. what i do know is that it is hard to get through the day when i am like this. definitely near on hard to be creative, (which is a right pain in the arse these days). mainly it's the lack of concentration that is the hardest.....i really just have to break it down to basics, and put one foot in front of the other to get through the days.

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Day 53

i was having a conversation with my tutor a while back about wishing i had an office at my home. a space that i could leave as messy as possible, cover the walls in inspiration, well basically just have a space(although megs would probably say i already do do the mess!). he had a thought that maybe i could have one at school. i was going to try and create a space in the 'matting cave' but we hadn't organised our shit.
so john talked to the bdes dudes about me having a lil space in their meeting room. they were cool with that, so today i went about setting up my lil space.....



k, so not too much has been done yet......

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Day 52

it's autumn......or fall as it's know in the us of a! the word fall is traced to origins of old Germanic languages. The exact derivation is unclear, the old english fiæll or feallan and the old norse fall all being possible candidates.
these all have the meaning "to fall from a height" and are most likely derived from a common root or from each other.
i digress....well not really.....with all the harvesting that has been going on of late, there has been a lot of stewing, poaching, boiling etc of fruit and veges in our household. chutney's, jams, butters (yup made apple butter at the weekend).
we received two massive shopping bags of quince's at the weekend also, just when we thought we had got to the end of all the fruit. so today i started on doing something with these quinces....well actually just boiling them up so that they can be cored and skinned easily, they're tough little buggers!
they are such an interesting fruit, so had and yellow, yet when you boil them they become pinky red. once i had boiled them up i made an apple and quince crumble...yummo....using the apple butter i made at the weekend....also tried a derivative of anzac bikkies with the apple butter also....should be interesting! actually might have to go try one now......

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Day 51

i used to dream a lot. especially when i was ill. it exhausted me. i would wake up feeling like i hadn't slept....apparently my brain hadn't. when you dream a lot and can remember, you aren't getting 'brain rest', so the story goes. well i was like this for at least a year, and boy did i have some 'great' dreams. well maybe not great, more along the lines of slightly insane, weird and trippy!
for the past two years i haven't been dreaming so much, well not that i can remember. it's been peaceful, albeit, a tad more boring in the morning, waking up to 'nothingness'. no exciting, crazy stories to repeat during the day, to reiterate my kookiness to all! i do still have odd dreams on occasion, but just not at the constant rate of before. the perfect example was the dream i had about a class party last year, and our tutor turned up in a pink puffer jacket with floral lining. I asked him why on earth he was in a pink jacket! apparently his wife was pregnant and couldn't fit it, so was wearing his black one and so he was wearing hers!
at the time of that dream it just seemed weird. i told my tutor and i think he thought i really had gone quite mad.....that was until a few months later when he told us all that he and his wife were expecting their second child and he then added an aside to me, that they found out that same weekend i had had that dream.....oh gotta love that stuff!

lately my crazy dreams have returned, gotta love it...even if i am getting tired again. lets just hope it spurs on my creativity.

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Day 50

i love technology...or more to the point, i love communication. technology makes communicating SO much easier. i can call, text, email, message, chat, skype, twitter, facebook, oh old school writing even...the list goes on....basically for me it's great! i can live up to my namesake - the 'constant communicator'! it's great, it means i can stay in touch with so many people - and all at the same time too! love the multitasking nature of it. admittedly, as most of my friends will confirm, i'm not so good at the talking/ messaging combo! i'm also not so great on the old fashioned telephone. if you are not online, in front of me, i get a bit slack. my bad bad bad! but hey, you won't know that, coz you won't be reading this. you'll think i have just forgotten.
for those of you that are reading this, you will know of my constant communication. i'm always the first to say hi, i will constantly berate you with texts, i'm always in your face. i can't help it, i like to talk. i like to make sure i know you are ok. i like to know what is going on.
the ability i now have to stay in contact with friends in other countries is fantastic. in fact, i think i communicate more with my good friend nomes more now on the net that when she was living here in nz. still it isn't the same. we don't get to share experiences and do things together, which maybe led to my little idea while chatting to her today. a dinner date via skype. we both cook the same meals etc, and have a dinner date via the web. it will be grand!

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Day 49

saturday's are my day. it's the only day of the week that i don't have to go to work. even though i only do a few hours a day during the week, i still have to get up and go thru that whole process of showering, dressing, breakfasting, coffeeing, etc. sunday i work at the shop.
today i had a fair idea of how i wanted my day to pan out and how i really wanted to do very little, basically just chill. well that just didn't happened. the day was not as relaxing as i had intended. there was lots of to-ing and fro-ing from the house to get things, pick up things. lots of interruptions disrupting my relaxing 'flow'. it was so frustrating. i just really, really wanted a day of nothingness, where there were no pressures to do anything and it was all up to me what i did and didn't do.
to say i was exhausted by this evening is an understatement. mentally exhausted. partially this is just me. i struggle with change when i have it in my head that this is what i am going to do, want to do. i still am constantly amazed that i loved production so much, esp the constant changing dynamics, i got high on it! i guess it wasn't directly my life, and i expected there to be that constant uncertainness. unlike when i have my own thing and want it to happen my way! pity we can't really have that much control over our lives.....although i guess in reality it would not be so much fun...knowing everything that was going to happen every moment of every day....
anyway, today is a write off - but there is always next saturday and at least everything is shut until 1pm....semi-enforced nothingness....well no chores can be done!

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Day 48

the last few weeks have been rather surreal....i think i've probably said that already. today it got a little more surreal. i have to say....i never thought i would utter these words.....today, i painted my boy's fingernails.

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Day 47

some days just aren't as good as others. of course they aren't. imagine how boring life would be if they were all the same, even if they were good. bad days are required to remind us how great the good days are.
today i had a few 'ish moments, where i really just wanted to crawl under a rock and stay there for a rather long time. alas, as a 'grown-up' it's kinda hard to do. lucky i don't have, too, many responsibilities in my life, so if i really want to, i can just walk into my little world and stay there for a bit.
besides, my little world ain't so bad, as my darling friend erin pointed out a few years ago, 'they all know you there'!!!!

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Day 46

friends are so important, especially to me. lately i have realised more and more, what amazing friends i have.
when i moved to christchurch i was in a better place than i had been the year before, but nowhere near a good place. i still can't believe i actually made the move down here. to leap out of my comfort zone the way i did was really, quite unbelievable, especially as i love my comfort zone so much. moving to a place where i knew only a handful of cousins and one other person, for me, that was stress. my friends are so very important to me and i was leaving them all behind in auckland to pursue an almost impulsive idea.
two years later and i have a whole lot more totally amazing friends, both here and in auckland. the extent to which i have made new friends, reconnected with old ones and even created good friendships with acquaintances over the past coupla years astounds me. the fact that i am now in such a great place in my life that i can make friends, hold onto them and enjoy each and every one of them for who they are, is simply awesome.
in the past few weeks, every friend i have spoken to has told me how happy they are for me having found my boy, which quite honestly astounds me. the joy, warmth and love i hear in their voices is so genuine. again, why i second guess this i have no idea. i would be exactly the same in the reverse situation. but it really does make me appreciate every friend i have and how thankful they are in my life and enjoying the journey with me.

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Day 45

having someone tell you how beautiful you are is pretty cool, i have to say. but for me it makes me critically analyse every little part of me....well i realised it did when i was brushing my hair the other day. i was looking in the mirror trying to work out what on earth is beautiful, about me? i have a angular nose, my skin is blotchy, i have a funny chin...etc.
what is is that makes us think we aren't beautiful in our own right. is it because we know ourselves too well and can see all the bad bits, inside and out. or is it that simply we don't find ourselves attractive, because that would not be reproductively sensible! because when we boil everything down, we really are just reproducing mammals, who are designed to find their mate, someone who is genetically different from ourselves, so that when we reproduce there is a greater chance of survival.
or is it that societal views are so powerful and influential, that we have been conditioned to think that we are never good enough. weird considering we think everyone around us is good enough.
or, maybe, just maybe, it is just me, and the weird and wonderful way my head works.

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Day 44

it was another one of those totally unproductive, uncreative days and when i start to wonder where this year will go....what will happen....will i accomplish anything....sigh

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Day 43

i have, for once, made use of having four days off and got out of the city more than once this weekend. on friday i went over to diamond harbour, somewhere i have never been before, and had a lovely afternoon drinking coffee, and walking around the peninsula....it was a bloody good walk.
today we (megs, her parents and the boy) headed up to castlehill to have a lookie at the art exhibition they have up there over Easter. my good friend john o'malley was exhibiting, so i was keen to go up, and i just wanted to get out of the city for a day.
it was a divine day, great weather, great company and a great drive. took a few photos. had some ideas. all in all a fab day

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Day 42

things have got a lil out of balance this week.... or rather i have allowed them to get out of balance. i've been spending rather a large amount of time on one particular part of my life and neglecting a lot of others, particularly my photography (sorry john!!).
a few weeks ago i got unexpectedly knocked off my feet, by a rather cute boy. so much for living the single life....don't get me wrong i love being single, but one can't really say no to a hot man, right?
i always struggle in the beginning of relationships. even though i have been through 'the beginning' before, every time i still wonder what is the 'right' and the 'wrong way of doing things. i guess that is it really, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way. you just have to do what you feel is right at the time. at the moment, what i am doing feels right, so i will just go with that.....something i'm not so good at doing.

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Day 41

i personally don't celebrate easter, well not these days. i mean why should i. i'm not a christian and in our society easter relates back to the christian celebration of jesus dying on the cross for 'our' sins. today's society seems much more interested in buying as many chocolate easter eggs as possible and making ourselves sick. oh and the days off work/school. in saying that i do like hot cross buns, and always make an effort to have them on good friday.
this year i got thinking, especially as i live with a christian....what does the word easter actually mean. it doesn't sounds particularly related to the death of someone on a cross. although celebrating 'crucifixion' would maybe be a little morbid. resurrection possibly not so bad. so i looked up the meaning of easter.. which in fact comes from an old pagan festival, which as megs explained to me, is quite common in christianity. the old church often took pagan festivals and made them into their own, per say. so the meaning of easter is thus; "old english ēastre; of germanic origin and related to german ostern and east . according to bede the word is derived from eastre, the name of a goddess associated with spring". and hence the eggs & chicks & bunnies etc.....new life, which we all knew about. this also ties into the timing of celebration of easter which always occurs on the first Sunday, after the first full moon following the northern spring equinox, so in our cases autumn equinox (this is only true for western christianity, eastern is different again as they use the julian calendar).
which brings me round to easter celebrations and how once again we (down south) are dominated by northern hemisphere in our celebrations.....snow at xmas, new life at easter although we are in the opposite season. i know it's tradition, and way back when we didn't even exist. i guess going back to the christian origns again, it is meant to be a celebration of jesus' life and his resurrection.
i have extremely simplified it here, as i could keep going and going but i guess the main point really is that, for so many of us, that get frustrated and annoyed at religion and it's connotations, we are seemingly happy to jump on the band-wagon of their celebrations.

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Day 40

i got some fantastic news today. my very good american friend from the past two years at tech, jonathan, told me he is coming 'home'. i'm soooooo excited. jo is just so much fun. he made school life extremely interesting.
half way thru our first year he brought a van, and then proceeded to live in it....seriously! he had some extremely ingenious ways to ensure watering, feeding and washing occured....it wasn't a 'kit-out' van.
besides his interesting abode, he always ensured that there was plenty of fun and hysterics continually occurring at school such as this. i'm still not sure i have fully recovered from that nite.
jonathan, also, took any chance to get his shirt off and 'fly' the american &/or the arkanas flag!!
basically, jo is just a shitload of fun and september can't come soon enough!!

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Day 39

i'm at a loss for words. hard to imagine i know, but it does happen, very rarely! i have seemingly lost my ability to think, process and formulate my thoughts, any thoughts for that matter. well they can only be my thoughts huh!? some of you i'm sure are pissing yourself laughing by now, just shut it :P. it's not so cool for someone who is such a thinker. someone who is constantly processing her thoughts. i feel like someone else has taken over my body, or at least my mind.
i guess if i am completely honest there have been some things happening in my life that may be responsible for my lack of 'concentration'...but that's another day's story.

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Day 38

i love the unexpected. and this week the unexpected happened. oh, oh, and i found my red lippy. bonus!!

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Day 37

it's kinda weird that i talked about mum yesterday. today dad was in town for the day. he had a meeting and then extended his time here to hang out with his favourite daughter. yeah, yeah, his only daughter, but hey, i'm gunna take it!
this is the second time this year that i have had father and daughter time....quite impressive i have to say. i thought i had my specialist appt
this time it was my choice of what we did, so we toddled off to the art gallery to see the rita angus exhibition. dad actually made some very astute comments about the works, which by the way are amazing. wow rita angus was a fantastically talented artist. her watercolours were truly stunning. also she had a bit of a penchant for self-portraits too....so i naturally had an affinity toward her. i enjoyed it so much i will have to go back.

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Day 36

a lady came into the shop today. i'm not entirely sure what it was about her, but she reminded me of my mother, so much so i almost burst into tears right then and there. i have to say i was quite overwhelmed by what i felt and the reaction i had. but right then i really missed my mum. to add to that, the next lady that came into the shop looked like she had possibly recently been thru chemo.... bamm! more emotion.
it's interesting that the older i get the more i miss my mother. and it's at odd times that i do miss her. like this morning, being reminded of her by a complete stranger. when i'm enjoying a gorgeous day and think how great it would be to be having a tea with my mother right now. i miss her when i am feeling a surge of creativity, and want to share that creativity with her, get excited with her about what i am thinking and feeling.
of course, i also miss her love, at the times one would most expect. when i really just need a hug and someone to tell me that it will be ok. that it will get better. that it is all worth it. that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
i realised many years ago that the only unconditional love in this world is between mother and child. i think until you lose it, you don't actually realise what you have. or maybe it's that i am so cynical, and i feel this way that i will never experience this kind of love again. you would think feeling this way that i would want to have children so that i can feel that overwhelming sense of love. or maybe that is the exact reason i don't want them, because the pain of losing that love is pretty hard to bear, especially as time passes.

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Day 35

(sigh), as my darling friend often does when he is with me. don't ask me why! it's as thought he is frustrated with me...not possible.

my weekend is over already, (sigh). tomorrow i have work. all day. i want my weekends back. i'm over one day weekends already. you get nothing done, or rather, you have no nothing time. i want my nothing time back.
at least today was rather leisurely. i went to a vintage market this morning. oh there was some choice stuff there. i was restrained tho, very restrained. only walked away with a rather delightful top. could have got so much more....but....well, it's just stuff. stuff i really don't need.
i'm tired. my eyes must rest.

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Day 34

tgif. it feels like this week has gone on forever. i'm guessing it's my state of mind more than anything. i've been feeling out of sorts. a lil anxious, confused, mindless, bored, angsty....the list goes on and on. there seems to be so much going on, with not too much being achieved really, as previous blogs stated. tomorrow is my only day 'off' and it's chocka block already....sigh.
one would think that when one wants to rest, they would do that, but no, not this idiot. she packs as much as possible into each day, particularly events that prevent her from doing the real work at hand! procrastinator!!!!!
well easter is coming up and that means four days of nothing....lets hope i can stick to that nothing, coz some nothing is definitely required.
silver lining of my day....my new red scarf. decided colour is needed in my wardrobe, and am slowly working on the accessories. in saying that, the red scarf had to be bought to go with my, green, top....mmmm wool for winter.

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Day 33

today was thursday. today still is thursday. tomorrow it will not be thursday. yeah so, nothing much happened today. i mean it did, but it's not worth talking about. it was just mundane. maybe tomorrow
tonite i went to petcha kutcha. it was interesting, but seemingly just a advertising outlet for many. oh well, grab it where you can i guess.

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Day 32

Autumn is most definitely here. in fact tonite it felt like winter was here. the drop in temperature at around 830 was pretty drastic....so drastic i had to get my heater out for the first time this year. i have a pretty pathetic heater, so it really wasn't much help at all. for all my facebook friends you will know this as i stated on fb last nite
'bugger the heater - it's doing fa. time for my early bday pres guys....a living, breathing hot water bottle thanx....and NOT one with four legs'.....
it should have really just read, '.....a living, breathing hottie....'. i was offered one, but i'm not quite sure what kind of hottie was intended.
this brings me to the, most, insane idea i have ever had(and hopefully ever, will, have!).
now most of you are aware of my pro-longed single status, which i do have to say, surprisingly, actually quite enjoy. anyway, i figure, that really, i'm not actually even making an effort on the boy front and that maybe something needs to be done about this. i was thinking something crazy and insane and impossible to miss....and i came up with this....
now we all know that i don't often have the best best ideas...so bare (or is it bear? i never know) with me!
my pathetic extreme idea was along the lines of advertising myself by wearing a sandwich board around town.....naked of course!!
ok, i really didn't put much thought into this. and instantly i figured that really, yes that would be insane and probably impossible to miss, but then i also would never be able to show my face in public in christchurch again. so back to the drawing board...any ideas would be welcomed :D
but honestly, do i actually want to go to the effort, and drama of that. as much as i like a drama, that really might just be a little, too, much drama, even for me.
so for now, i'll just stick to the heater....and hope it helps, at least a little.

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