Loving it - week 30

The school holidays are dragging on, it seems like a lifetime ago that Mila was actually in school! But the school stationery arrived yesterday, so that's a sign that it is nearly drawing to an end. 

Mila spent a few days down in Wellington with her grandfather and cousin recently and came back to us on Monday, red-faced but happy.  She informed me that it was much cooler in Wellington and trying to sleep hadn't been nearly as bad as she was finding it back home. 

To help Bug get over the pain of being left behind (her time will come when she is eight) Ben and I put a leetle extra effort into keeping her occupied back here in Auckland.  We made it to the zoo on Saturday and lasted a few hours before the sun got the best of us. 

Highlight was definitely the kiwi, we are pretty sure we saw two of them doing the wild thing right in front of us! It was kinda hard to tell though, there was lot of feather pulling and then running around.

We also tried out the new waterpark in Waterview, but by then we were all dying from the heat, so beat a path back home for ice blocks and sprinklers on the front lawn.

That night we went to Burger Burger for dinner. I had fish, Bug got chicken and Ben got beef.  All of them were pretty epic, as were Bug's fries. We also got potato skins, but the truffle oil was a tad intense for me.  Next time, I'm trying the broccoli.

Sunday saw us travel up to Orewa to catch up with Sharon, my step-father's wife. We had cheese scones and coffee before heading down to the beach for a swim. It was great, despite Juno swallowing half the ocean. 

Sharon gave me some of John's things- photo albums and also a photographic series he did when he was still able to get out and about after he retired. I already have one of his photos on the wall, so am currently in the process of figuring out where the rest should go. I need a gallery space!

So as you can see, a lot to love this past week and all of it to do with family....awwww sweet.

Here's some other highlights....

* Made it to yoga (yay me!)

* Lost one kilo

* Watched a cool mini series called And then there were none (watch it if you like Agatha Christie)

* Caught a glimpse of an Orangutan at the zoo

* Managed to throw some crap out (props to Ben for tackling the garage)

* Had pizza from Sette Bello

* Got Olive a cat door

Winning!

Catching up... big time

So I think I must be up to about week 27 or 28!  It's been a pretty busy holiday period for us, we spent lots of time away in Tairua, Coromandel Township and Cambridge, Actually, by the end of it, it was almost a relief to be home! Well, almost....

Anyway, I'm gonna let pictures do most of the talking here and use words to fill in the gaps.

Christmas Day was pretty ace... a slow, leisurely start with brunch up at Ben's parents with my dad in tow.  Then we worked on Christmas dinner and has a few drinks in the sun before everyone, my girls included, turned up for presents, turkey, salmon, Christmas pudding, salads, drinks, pumpkin pie and well, you get the idea.

After that it was down to Tairua where we hung out for a few days, enjoying some epic sunshine and day tripping to Whiti Farmpark (June-bug got bitten by a miniature horse!) We also spent time down on Ocean Beach and had a sandcastle competition.

It was back to Auckland for New Years at Simon and Vivs, which was really cool.  I got to see my cousin Dave and his wife Helen, who I haven't seen in way too long. New Years is also a time for making resolutions, of which I have fricken tonne, but I'll save all those for another post I think.

Next up on the holiday to-do list was a camping trip in Cormandel with Simon, Viv and Luca.  It was pretty cool, but I did kinda struggle.  We were a little ill-prepared, even though we felt like we'd packed everything bar the kitchen sink and we literally could not squeeze another thing in the car. Our air mattress was a deflater too, so that kinda sucked.  But whingeing aside, the holiday was fun.

The kids had a total ball, running around making friends, in and out of the water and in and out of the tent. I really liked the evenings- making dinner and then having a drink as the sun went down, was pretty damn pleasant.

We had a couple of day trips as well- we went to the Coromandel Mussel Kitchen for lunch one day and the next day we headed to Waterworks, a kinda hokey theme park hidden in the bush.

After camping came Cambridge, We spent a weekend here and then left the girls behind for a week of fun with their nana.  While we were in Cambridge Ben and I went to the Hamilton Gardens and tried to not to wilt away in the heat. We also hit the farmer's market and trash-to-treasure, where I scored a new apron (as you do).

So there you have it, my summer holiday done and dusted.  I said i'd let the pictures do the talking, but clearly I lied, because I just wrote a novel!

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 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.

Another birthday....

I am now the lucky mother of one very sweet eight year old.  The last stretch of September and the beginning of October are a fairly busy time for the Russell family, with my birthday and Harriet's birthday in September and then my niece James, my dad and Mila all together at the beginning of October.

On Friday the ninth, Mila turned eight and had a sleepover party at her dad's, which, by all accounts, went very well. I got my hands on her on the Saturday, which happened to be my dad's actual birthday and he was up staying with us so that was a bonus!

We headed out to Mission Bay for some playground fun and a picnic lunch with bacon and egg pie (Mila loves pies) and veges and raspberry suckies and other such yummy things. We also set up Mila's new soccer goal and had some fun kicking the ball at it and whoever had the misfortune of being goalie. But the weather wasn't overly pleasant, so we moved on kinda quickly.

Next stop was Lilliputt, where we all played minigolf on the original course, which was way quieter than the T-Rex one. Both girls got a hole-in-one on the first hole, so that was a pretty good way to get things started.  Ultimate winner was Ben, with Grandad a close second.  Us ladies were a little off the pace, it's gotta be said.  Still it was fun and I think the girls enjoyed it, although Mila did look set to throw her club on a few occasions.  

We headed back towards home after that, stopping for ice cream at the Tannery.  I had a golden syrup flavoured ice cream, which was delicious. June-bug went for chocolate, Mila had cookies and cream, Dad had a lemon curd one and Ben opted for strawberries and chocolate. Overall consensus is that Kohu Rd ice cream is the biz.

After that it was just home for some gardening, more football, chicken curry for dinner, birthday cake and a movie.  All in all a pretty sweet way to celebrate a pretty sweet kid's big day.

I swear, I can't face my children's birthdays without thinking back to the day they were born. For Mila that means memories of an atrocious labour that seemed to last an eternity, being admitted to hospital and then finally having my little girl wrapped up beside me (actually, not so little, a whopping 9+ pounds). 

I remember looking at her and feeling the weirdest rush of emotions- she at once seemed so alien and familiar. I thought she was weird looking but also the most beautiful thing I had ever clamped my eyes on. 

I wasn't great at parenting a young baby its gotta be said, but it didn't seem to put Mila off. She has been my staunchest supporter and ally from the get go.  She gives me the best cuddles, and the best advice when I lose my way.  She is great for a laugh, she loves a practical joke (as long as she's not the butt of it), she loves family, friends and most of all every kind of meal be it savoury or sweet.  Everyday I think how lucky I am to have her. 

Happy birthday Mila!

And it's been a while, but here some things I've been loving over the past month

* My new yoga course at The Yoga Ground.  I'm halfway through the eight week course and starting to feel like i'm finding my feet... or hamstrings, or glutes, or triceps.....

*Our vege garden, which is slowly starting to take shape.  Dad has helped us plant some seedlings and we have built a couple of raised beds to accommodate a lot of veges over the coming summer months. I'm so excited!

*Tacos.  Specifically the mushroom one I had at Mexico, when we all celebrated my friend's 40th and the pulled beef one I had at Miss Clawdy's where we went for a bang-up meal for Dad and James' birthdays.

*Friends, wine, summer plans.  Dreaming and scheming about New Years Eve and camping fun over a glass or two of wine in the late afternoon sunshine with a friend, is the perfect way to round out the weekend imo.

A catch up post (again)- week sixteen and seventeen

Once again, I'm playing catch up!

Quite a bit has been happening over the last couple of weeks, I started my new job with Auckland Libraries last Monday, which has been pretty time consuming and exhausting. I honestly come home so tired, I feel drained of energy. But, I figure that once I learn the systems things will be come a bit more normal and i'll stop being so goddam sleepy!

Last Friday Ben and I went out to celebrate the end of my first week, which was fun. We went to The Cav on College Hill, then Bonita in Ponsonby for a drink and finally stopped in for dinner at Mekong Baby, which was super delicious and I can't recommend highly enough.

The previous weekend was fairly low key...the girls were with Anton and Ben and I hung around the house and went up to his parents for Father's Day dinner on the Sunday. On Monday, after school, the girls gave Ben his 'step-father's day' present, which was a pie magic- kind of a present for all of us really... We made bacon and egg pies, which featured the silverbeet Bug had grown in our vege plot.  They were pretty tasty.  We have also been eating a lot of the broccoli out of our garden, so we are achieving to an exceptionally high gardening level.

I've got quite a lot to love at present, though my positive thoughts vibe is clearly a little skewed as I somehow managed to incur two speeding tickets within an hour of each other on the first day of my week off. Furthermore, that entire work-free week I carried around an annoying head cold that wouldn't quit and I ended up on the couch watching telly for half the time.

Ah well, you can't win them all I guess :) Thankfully, there were some highs to celebrate among the lows.

To start; I checked out Kim Gordon's autobiography Girl in a band  and I'm really enjoying it so far, she's an awesome writer.  Also, we went to the museum with the girls on the weekend and I hadn't been for ages. It was cool, I liked the special Auckland exhibit currently on as well as old favourites like Wild Child and Auckland 1866 (the old school town set up with the apothecary and whatnot).

A couple of weeks ago I went out for lunch with Viv, Luca and Liz at the new Scratch Bakery in Milford, and Viv and I did a spot of shopping afterwards.  I got myself some new pants from Topshop and a couple of of plain tees from Glassons.  I always love getting new clothes! I also went out for lunch with Ben and his mum on my week off (I've been lunching a lot of late) and I got some new dinner plates from Deco to Retro as well as two second-hand Elton John records- score!

I'm also loving my new coffee spot Elsie on Mayoral Drive, the novelty of using public transport for the first time in ages, working with a bunch of cat mad women, watching Bug throw herself into her swimming lessons (finally), catching up with my pals at a baby shower, getting to goo and gah over little people and lastly I'm loving the anticipation of the long weekend that lies ahead in honour of my upcoming birthday....hurrah!

Loving it - week ten and eleven

A double whammy this week, due in part to general slackness and general busyness!  So much has happened since I last touched base including a new job offer, which I accepted.  So, in one month's time I shall be heading over to Auckland Council to work out a one-year contract working on their library website.  I'm pretty excited about the new opportunities that lie ahead and figure it's a step on the path to self-employment (aka world domination of the webby kind).

The weekend before last, Anton and I took the girls to see Disney princesses on ice, which was actually pretty cool.  A total overload of young girls all frocked up and high on sugar. The best part of the whole thing was managing to keep it a secret from Juno and Mila, who right up to our arrival at vector genuinely thought we were just all going to get coffee 'as a family'.  Parenting win for us!

Other fun events last weekend included dinner out with our friends Simon and Viv on the Friday and dinner at Ben's friends house on Saturday to fare him well before he went off to Europe.

This weekend that has just gone has been a good one too.  We took the girls down to Tauranga to see my dad and checked out the Mount, went for a swim at Welcome Bay pools (my favourite), hit the Tauranga Farmers' Market, made Lemon Meringue Pie for dinner, took a ride on a miniature train and just generally had fun with grandad. 

So, in honour of my busy two weeks, here's some things I'm loving at present...

I bought a new swimsuit in preparation for my trip to Samoa this week and I love them.  Black and kinda slimming i think?  I didn't cry in the changing rooms anyway, so that's a win!

I also got some new makeup, which i love.  Nars foundation and Stila primer. I'm determined to learn how to put make-up on like a proper adult and not a kid that raided her mum's makeup bag.

I'm loving Jamie Oliver's bircher muesli recipe, which we have been eating for breakfast for the last couple of weeks. We take it to work with stewed fruits and it is really good. And actually keeps me full- success!

I got a hard copy of the Kings Seeds catalogue, which makes for great reading and planning and plotting and dreaming. Kind keen to grow my own loofahs at some point....

And lastly I'm loving weekends out of Auckland with my crew. Fun times x

Loving it - week nine

Well, it's practically week ten but I've said it before and I'll say it again- better late than never!

I'm trying hard to stay positive at the moment but the stress of having an uncertain job future lying ahead of me has taken a toll on my body somewhat and my pbs has flared up.  Having a chronic condition is a real pain in the ass.... like totally.  I have been pain-free for quite some time after months of prolonged discomfort and 'flare up' after 'flare up'. So as you can imagine, I was pretty upset when I was struck down on Tuesday. I ended up crying on the couch, pumping myself full of nurofen and hugging a hot water bottle. Ugh.

Anyway, the thing about chronic conditions is that you're stuck with them, so at some point you have to make peace with it.  I've spent too long envying other people their ability to eat anything and drink anything, to never have abdomen pain that feels like fire in your lower belly. Getting stressed about the situation only makes it worse, so now I try to be as zen as possible about it. But sometimes that's easier said than done.

Still, making my list of things I love serves to remind me that life 's not really that bad and of course they're all things that make me happy, so the stress levels drop and the pain reduces - score :)

The pics above are all of  a cake baking session Mila and I had when we hung out during the school hols.  We made a chocolate cake on Bastille Day in honour of my nana Sylvie, who died earlier this year.  July 14 is her birthday but I couldn't really think of anything particularly French that my nana would like (she was a pretty fussy eater). She did love chocolate cake though so that's what we went with.  A little bit of tweaking was required as I didn't have exactly the right ingredients (happens to me all the time) but Mila and I were pretty stoked with the end result. The cake we made was adapted from a recipe from the book Gran's Kitchen by Natalie Oldfield.

Other fun things we did on our day together, which I'm loving, include watching make-up tutorials for ages and trying to achieve a 'smoky eye' (we didn't) and also doing a couple of yoga videos thanks to the lovely Adriene from YWA (she's awesome, youtube her). So basically I'm loving the internet, days off with my daughter and chocolate cake!

The International Film Festival is on in Auckland at the moment and I've managed to check out two films so far. First up was The Lobster, which was the opening night film.  It was so good, but so weird. On the weekend we took the girls to see Enchanted Kingdom in 3D, which was an Our World-type nature doco about Africa.  It was pretty cool to and was narrated by Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from the Wire), which for some reason made me giggle.

On the Thursday we saw The Lobster, Ben and I also went to Little and Easy for an after work drink and checked out the Street Food Collective for dinner; a pretty sweet date night all in all. I'm definitely loving the Street Food Collective and am keen to head back to try some more stuff.

And well yep, I think that sums up what I'm loving at the mo.... onwards and upwards I say xx

A nod to tradition

On Saturday night, the girls and I sat down to eat meatball subs on a picnic rug in the lounge as we watched a movie together. The whole ritual of making a sauce, then meatballs, compiling subs, picking a movie and then eating together has become our own little family tradition and it's great.

It's weird how once you have kids little things slip into your routines that become part and parcel of any event.  While Anton and I were together, we created our own traditions/stories for the kids, like fairies in the shells of boiled eggs and Anton's favourite fun-fact that ALL horses come from Cambridge (is it tradition to make your three-year-old constantly sing back to you that horses come from Cambridge every time you go to visit your mother?).

After we broke up, the girls and I moved into a tiny flat; our very own space for the very first time. It was devoid of any tradition and at times, I guess, a somewhat sad (yet oddly liberating) place to be.

It was Ben who introduced us to the idea of an inside picnic and it was Ben that won us over with subs as a dinner choice. The first time we all sat down together it was to watch The Croods.  Our plans for an out-of-doors feast had been thwarted by the weather, so we got creative with the blankets inside instead.

For some reason, the habit of eating inside on the floor and always eating subs kinda stuck and now I would say it's pretty much tradition round our ways.

A lot of the time it's just me and the girls and it ends up being something I really look forward to. Thinking about the movie, getting all cosy together and just chilling out on the weekend is bliss.

In the early days after Anton and I separated, I would spend those Saturday nights alone with girls and sometimes feel like I was the only person stuck at home, that every other person my age was out having a life or with someone else, socialising, having fun, making the right life decisions.

With time, I have totally got over that weird misplaced fear that I might be missing out on something better all the time.  I don't know why I felt that way, but to say i'm generally a FOMO sufferer is putting it mildly.

Now I can't wait for a chance to put the 'tradition' card into play and do nothing but watch telly and eat with my favourite girls. Sometimes Ben makes it along, my sister and nieces have gotten involved before and that's great, but if it's just the three of us keeping each other company and generally having a laugh, well that's pretty great too. xx

Loving it - week three

It's been a funny kinda week out here in Avondale...  After the long weekend slipped by, my grandmother also slipped away and then suddenly it was a Tuesday and only four working days stretched out ahead of me and at the end of the road there was meant to be a kitten.  But alas!  The following forks in the road followed... Illness and a sickie on Wednesday threw a spanner in the works and then on Thursday the cat breeder rang to say our wee poppet has really bad diarrhea and couldn't be collected on Friday after all and we would have to wait till Wednesday. Ugh!  Major disappointment.  Still, despite this, I have managed to find a fair few things to be thankful about this week.

First up is the unexpected fancy breakfast you can allow yourself to have when you are 'sick at home'  (no honestly, I was sick). On Wednesday, once my early morning school run was done and the emails had been sent and the coffee drunk, I turned my attention to making a bang-up brunch and I was completely satisfied with the end result. One piece of multi-grain bred, some feijoa chutney, delicious ham, avocado, rocket and a fried egg - what's not love about that?

The next thing I'm loving is a Friday night date with Ben, which really just consisted of wine, burgers and the telly at home... So good though! Sometimes it's all you need to kick a shitty week to the kerb. We made epic cheeseburgers with ingredients we picked up from Farro in Grey Lynn (a spot we don't get to much, now we're westies) and we listened to the new Florence and the Machine album while we cooked, which was another thing worthy of some lovin'. Long live child-free, slightly boozy, food-filled Fridays I say.

Last but certainly not least, I wanna give a shout out to family fun times, a concept I reckon we in our tri-surnamed household have down pat.  Today it was a trip to Avondale markets before home for a cooked brekkie and then out to the art gallery and later Silo Park. The girls love the art gallery and we spent an easy hour there checking out the new Laurence Aberhart exhibition and the Lisa Reihana work on the second floor.  They also loved the interactive light display in the kids section on the mezzanine and the gift shop (naturally). After our art gallery fun times, we headed down to Silo Park, which is another cool place for little people. The girls went nuts on slides, astroturf hills, swings, sand pits and what not and we also got to check out some cool photography festival exhibitions in the silos. Lunch was fish and chips form the seafood market; salty, crispy and drenched in vinegar and tomato sauce - perfection.

(Shout out to Ben for taking great pics at the gallery today xx)