It's great to be grateful

Another double whammy, my new found blogging specialty!  

The weeks whizz by so fast and I keep forgetting to take photos which is pretty dumb. But we did take some of our delicious barley risotto from the other night, so I've treated you to a few of those.

Ben and the girls and I were down in Tairua, the weekend before last, at one of the prettiest beach spots anywhere, but we had forgotten to bring the camera so couldn't get any shots other than my Instagram ones. Boo.

Anyway, regardless of the lack of photography, our weekend was still an awesome one, take my word for it.  We had a practice run at putting up our tent, which went pretty well.  It's massive but so hot inside, we only lasted about five minutes before we aborted our tent mission.

We also went to Otara Bay for the day and had a picnic of strawberries, yoghurt, and marmite and chippie sandwiches. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Mila and Ben both braved the water and Bug and I got about knee-deep, which is an achievement for us.

The next day, we headed to Ocean Beach for one last swim and a spot of hard core shell collecting (again Ben and Mila did the swimming, Bug and I did the peripheral collecting) and then we made our way back to Auckland, stopping at Piako Pete's for some fresh smoked fish on the way.

Epic summery Kiwi weekend quite frankly.

The weekend just gone was a little different, it was just me and Ben and it was pretty errand heavy!

I caught up with my lovely friend Hannah on the Friday and what was supposed to be a business planning night was really just a wine-drinking gossipy night, but great nonetheless! We shall just have to get down to business next time..

On Saturday Ben and I house-hunted for a new rental (slightly soul-destroying) and also went out to Martha's Backyard to buy some Christmas presents and various hot sauces. We also went to the local hospice shop and scored a new puzzle, which we are currently working our way through, slightly hampered by our naughty cat who is hellbent on destroying it.

So anyway, that's been my life of late. 

Had a little bit of anxiety about future housing, work, money and my weight, but I'm trying to stay positive. The Universe has a plan and all that!

So in the spirit of positivity, I thought I would finish by listing a few things I'm grateful for right here and now:

Um, so the roof over my head is a good place to start. So grateful for a nice house with nice things and nice human beings (and occasionally a nice cat) inside.

I'm grateful for my early morning cuddles with Mila.  She's our small, dark alarm clock (my mother's very apt description of her when she was a toddler) and I love her for it.  It's also our rare opportunity to cuddle without the four-year-old getting in the middle.

I'm grateful for my health, which seems to be slowly improving day by day.  I've seen my new naturopath a couple of times now and she's given me some fairly rank muck to drink and then these other drops which make my water taste like pool water, but it seems to be helping.  Everyday I sneeze a little less and use a few less tissues. Sneeze-free by summer?  Well, just maybe....

And lastly I'm grateful for big dreams and my crazy imagination. In the last couple of weeks I've envisioned the best job ever and furnished a beautiful house in my mind at least a hundred times.  Always so much fun! 

Loving it - week twenty two

Posting twice in one day, must be some sort of record!

This post is basically a shout out to my garden, which is coming along rather nicely. Ben and I went kinda crazy a fortnight or so ago and now have three raised beds out the back, plus seedlings waiting to be planted out, a strawberry patch, various herbs in planters and a really pretty lavender bush!

We have eaten some of our spring onions, and a lettuce and the bok choy needs to be picked.  I am totally loving being able to go outside and just grab stuff that goes straight into the pan, onto the plate and into our bellies. So much fun!

The girls have spied a couple of strawberries well on their way, so now the race is on between us and the birds to see who will actually get to eat them.  Chances are Olive will get in there first and muck everything up anyway, she is obsessed with the strawberry patch.

I have so many big plans for these fruits and veges - chili oil and relish, tomato sauce, ratatouille, strawberry jam, rhubarb crumbles, fresh peas in my pasta -oh my god, the list goes on.....

Anyhoo, that's me for week twenty one - a happy lady with dirt in her fingernails and probably a slug or two on the dinner plate.

Other things worth a mention...

Loving date nights as per usual - this week Ben and I went to Shaolin Kung Fu Noodles for dinner and then to the movies to see Legend. I thought it was OK, Ben really liked it. My vege and egg fried dumplings were a personal highlight of the evening.  So, so good!

Also, went to a BBQ to celebrate my friend Kiara's nine year stint in NZ (woo hoo Kiara!!), which was really enjoyable and a great nod to the coming summer and all the yummy barbies that lie ahead.

I had my hair coloured last week as well, which immediately makes me feel a million times better and I bought a new moisturiser, which I totally believe will make me youthful again (honestly, that's what the packet says....)

Loving it - week twenty one

As I mentioned earlier, I spent the long weekend in Tairua with Ben and his family. The weather came out to play (sort of) and I spent a really nice Sunday driving through to Waihi to have lunch with my dad.

We went to the Ohinemuri Winery, which is hidden from the main road through the Karangahake Gorge, but is nevertheless teeming with cyclists from the rail trail and other visitors.  I had carrot soup and a delicious chocolate orange mousse and dad had a duck liver pate with crusty bread and then a really fresh lime tart covered in berries.

The Karangahake Gorge is awesome- i really want to have a holiday there at some point.  I'm dropping mad hints to Ben, that we should camp there over Anniversary weekend, but he's pretty lukewarm about it!

I also had my first ever go at playing golf, which was pretty unsuccessful but surprisingly fun. It is so fricken hard to hit those tiny balls, but when you do, the feeling is pretty great.

On Monday, we went to JB Hifi to recoup our stolen losses and walked away with a huge haul of gear.  It was actually pretty exhausting trying to spend that money and wracking our brains about what we actually needed etc... but we weren't complaining.

I got the National's High Violet album, which I haven't even listened to yet, but am looking forward to cranking at some point.  And Ben got a tonne of PS4 related stuff and a PS4... so he's pretty much counting the hours until he's home alone now so he can binge on it.

So, what else am I loving...

Well, we took the girls to Western Springs the other night which was a fun glimpse of things to come as summer stretches out before us. To be fair, we probably jumped the gun a bit- it was kinda chilly and the girls were kinda scratchy, but that could have been because we had been to an open home before hand.

We are looking to move back into town, which is probably gonna be a hella expensive exercise, but we think it will be worth it because of commute hassles and our general dislike of living in Avondale. The house we looked at was a bit small when it came to living space, but it proved to us that there were nice places we can afford in the area that we want to live in, so that was a nice positive outcome to hold on to.

So in summing up... the things I love this week and am forever grateful for are:

Long weekends -hell yeah, gimme more.

Long lunches - my dad is great mealtime company, never dull!

Open homes - a legitimate opportunity to snoop in other people's houses

The perfect marriage of chocolate and orange - I've been craving jaffas all week

Grumpy children - it's always fun teasing them a bit, then having a crack at cheering them up

The National  - why would anyone not love this band

Spending up large when it ain't your money - enough said.