Trash and treasure

I stumbled across these old Reader's Digest books in a "Help Yourself" box at a second-hand shop recently. Who could pass up such gorgeous covers! I think they would make lovely secret book safes. But for now they will just sit and be admired.

The kids asked if I was actually going to read them but I think that's unlikely.

Resolutions [an update]

How boring am I do deliver such a stock standard list of resolutions when there is so much to work on? The truth is, when we dig beneath the surface, what we find can sometimes be a little confronting–even scarey. So much so, that we may want to keep it private and get used to what we find before sharing it with the world.

That said, my revised NY's resolutions are (and I figure it's not quite the end of January so I can probably get away with this):
Exercise: Well, I'm still on holidays but I'm committed!
Drinking: See above.
Passion: Still searching...
Food: I'm a carnivore but I think that most of us can benefit from eating less meat (and that doesn't mean substituting it for smoked salmon!). The truth is, I find it easy to create a meal around meat but without the animal, and apart from pasta napolitana, I don't really know where to begin. I am on a quest to have a few hearty, vegetarian meals in my repertoire.
Laugh: I definitely need to lighten up and laugh more.
Anger vs Peace: (this is the revealing one) I am going to try and deal with my anger. I'm not sure where it comes from but it's always there beneath the surface waiting for a trigger. I'm really going to work at resolving this because it has the potential to affect the rest of my world–for good or bad.

Why men are like buses

Phew! Finished at last. I've been reading Just in Time to be Too Late - Why men are like buses. It's not that it was hard book to read, quite the opposite really. It's just that I had Steve breathing down my back as I read it. Each time I put it down he would pick it up so we were reading it simultaneously. Many of you will know that I am a S-L-O-W reader - it can take me months to get through a book. Steve is, well, the opposite, yet I was determined to finish this book before him which, despite having a head-start, I only just managed to do.

It's a good read if you want to know what it's really like to be a man in the 21st century. Written with humour and wit. If you don't really care about the male perspective then you may prefer Can We Help it if We're Fabulous? And other thoughts on being a woman which is about being a female. I haven't started this one yet as I am saving it for our week holiday at Mt Maunganui.

Steve has declared that he probably won't bother reading the latter. I guess he thinks he knows all he needs to know about women. Maybe we'll still be needing the relationship counselling afterall...

A Boxing Day tradition

It seems the Aussie tradition of heading to the beach on Boxing Day exists for Kiwis too. After lunch we took a short drive to Mirawai. The girls and I had a pleasant afternoon on the black sand - the girls played 'cat' games on the large rock in the middle of Maori Bay and I got engrossed in Just in Time to be Too Late - Why men are like buses which Steve gave me for Christmas. Steve disappeared in the waves and we didn't see him for some time. Some things never change.


The following day we ventured further north but were a little slow leaving the house and before we knew it were crawling alongside hundreds of others on the highway. It was a bit like the traffic jams you get heading up to the Sunshine Coast from Brisbane, minus the blazing heat. Did I mention we've got a DVD player in the car? Before we got it I used to make snide remarks about parents who would stoop so low. Well, it seems it is not beneath us and never did we imagine it would be such a hit - the kids like it too. We didn't hear a single complaint. The only whinging was when we actually reached the destination (Pakiri) and turned it off!