Loving it - week six

It's a Monday and I'm already fantasizing about the weekend and the down time that hopefully lies ahead!

The weekend just gone Ben and I road-tripped up to Whangarei to buy a new bbq/smoker type thing he bought off trademe. We missioned up early Saturday morning, stopping in Wellsford for a pie. On the way back we hit the op-shops in Waipu and stopped in Warkworth for a snack and a beer. We also had an 'almost' accident and nearly slammed into the back of another car- way too exhilarating!

Still there was plenty to love about the day- lots of sunshine and a bit of adventuring.

We also went out for dinner which was super nice, and one of the things i'm loving this week is definitely friendship. Friends are ace and without them the world would be a lonely and boring place.

Here are a few other things I've found to love in the week gone by:

* Pad See Ew (spelling is iffy) from Mekong Neua -yum.

* Chia pudding - Ben and I are late adopters when it comes to jumping on wholefood crazes, but better late than never with this one, so, so yummy.

*My poppa - I visited him twice this weekend in hospital and he's just so damn sweet.

*My step-dad John's birthday afternoon tea up in Orewa- Harriet took me up with my darling nieces and we got to eat delicious egg sandwiches and catch up with step rellies that I haven't seen for ages.

*The NZ International Film Festival- tickets went on sale on Friday and we've booked ourselves in for The Lobster and Enchanted Kingdom, which we are taking the girls to.  Exciting!

Still so many things up in the air at the moment; haven't heard what's happening with my job yet, my poppa is in and out of hospital, my mum's been sick, I seem to have spent all my hard earned dollars in about two seconds flat and... Olive ate my iPhone cord!  Aargh!  

Yet, despite this, I gotta say things have been pretty sweet and I'm just glad i get to spend most of my time with those crazy loons in the photos up the top.

xx

Loving it - week five

A little bit late with the post this week, but better late than never right?

Quite a bit to be loving of late; good coffee every morning from eightthirty, a weekend with the girls, working on Mila's school project with her, Ben's epic lemon cake and stew and mash for dinner. But of course, the thing I love the most this week has to be wee Olive, our new kitten (excuse the pics, she never sits still).

In honour of Mark Haddon's book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which I've just finished reading, I will get all Christopher-ish on it and give you a list of reasons why Olive is so great.

REASONS I LOVE OLIVE:

*She wanted to be our friend pretty much straight away
*She purrs like a trooper
*When Juno calls her name she calls her 'Ollovve', which is cute
*She likes having her chin scratched
*Her cry when she's hungry is borderline manic
*She wiggles her butt when she pounces
*She's super adventurous
*She's so goddam cute

I could go on, but I think you get the idea!

Loving it - week four

Another week has raced by and I had thought I would have blogged mid-week, hopefully about a wee kitty that's meant to be coming into our lives but, alas, she has been waylaid (again). So once again, I'm faced with making a list of things I love having survived a somewhat disappointing, topsy/turvy week.

But still... there were quite a few things to love, like a weekend in Tairua, dinner with the girls and Ben at Happy (a curious Japanese joint in New Lynn), combing through Kings' online seed catalogue and smashing fish and chips at Kaiaua on the way home today.

Actually, when I really wrack my brain I realise there's even more to be loving this week, like:
 (in no particular order)
* Reading the Viva on Wednesday (a work highlight)
* Eating banana bread (even though, really, I'm meant to be sugar-free)
* Making it to the gas station when I was convinced I was gonna run out at any second
* Dog cuddles from Bonnie
* Dumplings for dinner
* The sympathetic 'I'm on your side' look from a stranger in the supermarket after I yelled at my seven-year-old in the ice cream aisle about the importance of sharing and considering other people's needs

* The equally sympathetic look from the Countdown worker, who tapped me on the shoulder while I was paying to give me back the sanitary pad I had hiffed out of my bag when I pulled my wallet out
* Getting lost on The Planthunter website looking at beautiful gardens and then getting to new levels of 'inspiredness' dreaming up all the epic things I could do in our backyard
* Managing to re-pierce my ears so I could wear my nana's earrings!

Have a happy week everyone :)

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)

Loving it - week two

Sometimes it's hard to see the good in anything. Especially when you're hit with the 'disestablishment' of your job and then the somewhat unexpected death of your grandparent, whilst the other grandparent lies in a similarly desperate condition two rooms down in the same hospital ward.

But on the whole, I have always been a person who sees the positive in any situation and since I've dabbled a bit in trying to understand the law of attraction and positive vibrations and whatnot, I have made a concerted effort to try and see the good in everything no matter the circumstances!  So on that note, check out all the things I'm loving this week.

First up is soup. I've discovered I could pretty much eat soup all day long and never grow tired of it if I was allowed.  For the last week the boyfriend and I have been on somewhat of a soup bender making various batches like vegetable and barley, leek and potato and pea and ham.  I currently have three quarters of a pumpkin squandering its life away in the back of the fridge and I can see it making a pretty damn tasty soup too, so its days are numbered.

I'm also loving a bit of sugar-free experimental baking, the likes of which has been a weekly occurrence in our kitchen. I do still occasionally crave something slightly sweeter than the treats I have created (pictured are raspberry, yoghurt and oatmeal muffins) but on the whole things have turned out pretty well.  Not strictly sugar-free as honey often makes an appearance, but more often than not things are sweetened with dates, bananas or berries. Nothing has been exactly how I envisioned it yet, but the experimenting is half the fun... and best of all, it all seems to be getting eaten (surely some sort of parenting win).

My last shout out of the week goes to mandarins, which, quite frankly are epic, juicy, mind-blowing morsels of winter deliciousness.  We (stupidly, because it pissed down) tackled the Avondale Markets this weekend and came back with about a kilo of easy-peel beauties, which not only taste great but look super pretty in the kitchen too.

It hasn't escaped my notice that everything I'm loving is basically some sort of food, but hell, when you're having a shit week, it's often food that offers the most basic of comforts, so why fight it?

Setting trends and all that jazz

The Documentary Edge Festival is currently on in Auckland and there are heaps of great films to see. I've only nabbed tickets for a couple, one of which was Trend Beacons. This film looked at people who worked as trend forecasters, taking what they see happening around them now and then predicting how that translates to fashion two years down the track. The other one we plan to see is Sweet Micky for President on Thursday. There are heaps more that sound really good, like Deli Man and Actress for example, so if you're in Auckland you should grab a programme and check them all out. You gotta be quick though, it finishes on the first of June.

Loving it - week one

Hi. It's my first ever post here, so I thought I might as well make it about things I'm loving right now. If you want to know why I have decided to start blogging (pretty sure the reasons mimic thousands of other 35 year old women...) then click here to read a bit about me.

This will be the first of many Loving it posts so hopefully I'll see you back here in 52 weeks time to see what I'm loving in a year.

And yes, the end of May is a completely random time to suddenly start having New Year's-esque resolutions, but that's when I had mine, so there you have it....Week one is now!

First up, I'm currently loving our brand new vege garden, which my dad helped me plant a fortnight ago when he came up to stay. This is the first of hopefully three plots we will have so that we can pretty much sustain ourselves vegetable wise (over the summer months, anyway). We have planted pak choy, spring onions, broccoli and one lonely silverbeet plant, which June-bug grew from a seed at kindy.

Secondly I'm loving new shoes, of which I have recently acquired two pairs! The first pair are boots from Topshop, which are little pieces of clunky perfection at the end of my jeans (also a convenient waterproof option in these wetter months, which heaps of my shoes are not) and the others are a present from Ben; Nikes he picked up while he was in the States. These are super comfy and another exciting addition to my ever-growing sneaker collection. He also bought the girls a pair each too, so now we are the most stylishly shod crew in Avondale (maybe...?).

Last but not least, this week I'm loving hot chocolates, ones made with extra dark cocoa powder from La Noisette to be exact.  Since I've tried to cut refined sugar from my diet, I've basically eaten no chocolate, which actually kind of sucks for me because I love chocolate more than pretty much anything! I also love baking and eating cakes, muffins, donuts, slices, biscuits.... you get the idea. Anyway, sometimes, usually at work in the afternoon, my desire for sweetness takes over and no amount of raw almonds in the world are ever going to cut it.  At times like these I head over the road and get a hot chocolate.  It's made with really dark chocolate so it's not exactly sweet, but there's something really comforting about about the drink.... I'm kinda addicted.