Back to school

As delightful as they may appear, I am ready to send them back to school.

Upholstery 102

I am writing this post a bit prematurely but I'm so impressed with the results of my first "real" upholstery project (see Upholstery 101) that I can't wait to show you. The kids tell me to stop bragging but I'm not bragging, I'm just happy the chair turned out how I had imagined it. The timber work isn't quite finished but that won't happen till late January and who wants to wait that long? – Not me!

My tutor Dave is a fountain of knowledge and experience when I comes to upholstery. I have to say, I almost blushed when he said my measurements and sewing were so good I must be a perfectionist. But a perfectionist, I am not. Call me a 80%-er; I'll gladly wear that label. I seem to have a finite pool of patience and diligence and when that runs out I take whatever shortcuts I can to get to the end.

So here it is...

The before shots

And the after

So even though I can tick that one off my "To Do" list, I already have my next project lined up. I'm sure my friend Charmaine will be glad to get it out of her garage!

Quote of the day

 

From one of my all time favourite movies Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I couldn't have said it better myself and a timely reminder at this time of the year.

 

m, xox

Love your mountain

Yesterday was Love Your Mountain Day at Maungawhau. The residents of Mt Eden can't help but love the mountain that watches over them.

A calm week

I packed Eadie up and sent her off to camp on Monday. For the record, she's not crying just embarrassed by me taking photos of her. In fact, she couldn't stop smiling and was super-eager to get on the bus.

To add to that, Steve went to Sydney the day before. The shift in dynamics has resulted in a much quieter household. There has been the occasional rousing (they're not perfect after all; and neither am I).

Last night, Ava and I watched Ruby's choir performance at Town Hall. It's so nice for them to be able to perform in such a lovely venue.

I think I will try and end the week on a high and have dinner out with the girls before I all returns to chaotic-normal on Friday.

Helloooo, I'm back!

It's funny how you spend weeks, months even, planning a holiday. And whilst you're on it, you get to turn your everyday routine on it's head and enjoy new things, experiences and tastes. Then when you return home, you quickly re-assimilate to your old environment and routines/habits and it's almost like you never left.

Then you can start dreaming about the next holiday...

PS. Our holiday recap is coming soon!

I'm looking forward to...

a holiday in Sri Lanka.

Preparations are well underway. We've had our jabs – some people were very unimpressed whilst others took it in their stride. I'm really looking forward to experiencing all that the Sri Lankan culture has to offer but I'm not sure about swapping coffee for tea although it's probably adviseable.

Some things on our 'To Do' list:

• Soak up the sun on some of the beautiful beaches (surfing for some)
• Visit the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage
• Go to the tea country and tour a factory
• Visit the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (supposedly contains a tooth from the Buddha)
• Spot a leopard in Yala National Park (fingers crossed).

Trash and treasure

Who would have thought that a battered old filing cabinet I picked up on Trade Me (the Kiwi's answer to eBay) for $20 would transform my world. I feel so much lighter now that everything is filed away in an orderly manner.

There's something about a bad boy

Don Draper reblogged from the suited-gentleman

Super moon

This is a delayed post about the super moon. If you live in the southern hemisphere it happened on Sunday, 8 May. The experts tell us it was when the moon approached within 357,000km of Earth.

There's a bit of a background to my story, it goes something like this: The day before, at about 5.30pm I went for an evening walk which involved walking up Maungawhau (Mt Eden). When I got to the top I was rewarded with the most spectacular sunset; we'd been experiencing clear, blue skies for about a week. There were quite a few people up there, many with cameras set up on tripods. In the opposite side of the sky, the moon was already up – very big and round. It was really an impressive sight.

Naturally I thought it would be a nice family experience to take a dinner picnic up the mountain the following night to see the "super moon". Well Sunday turned out to be a pretty full-on day and we ended up racing the clock to get our picnic sorted to take up the mountain. It is worth noting that in the whole time we have been living in Auckland, we have driven up Maungawhau about two times, always opting to walk up. However, on this occasion, we decided that if were were going to catch the sunset we would have to drive up. With kids in car and picnic packed, we headed up. On the drive, Steve commented that he had never seen so many cars driving up; then we got to the top and got stuck in a grid lock. Steve graciously let us girls get out of the car with the picnic and attempted to turn the car around to park further down the mountain; but he wasn't going anywhere. I ended up re-directed the idiots who were still trying to turn into the top carpark. Event-u-ally, Steve managed to get the car down and join us for the picnic.

The sunset wasn't to thrilling as the sky had started to cloud over earlier in the day. When the sun did set however, the moon quickly rose in the other direction. Despite sharing the experience with a crowd and the stress of getting there, it really was worth seeing and turned out to be quite a pleasant night.

Other, possibly more impressive pictures of the super moon taken around the globe.

Dawn Service

I'm the first to admit, I was a little surprised at the enthusiasm shown by the kids when I suggested we go to the ANZAC Dawn Service. It did wane slightly when we told them they would need to get up at 4.15am, but still, they agreed.

The service was held at the War Memorial Museum in Auckland which provides a majestic back drop.

We secured a great position at the heart of the happenings. It's possibly the closest I will ever physically be to the NZ Prime Minister in my life. As always, I sprouted goose bumps when the bugle boy played The Last Post – very sombre.

When it was all finished, we had a cup of tea while we waited for the crowd to thin out before heading home. Now I'm off to try my hand at making some gluten-free ANZAC biscuits but I haven't had much luck in the past.

I wonder why...

On Saturday I was at the supermarket, stocking up before the rest of the family returned from Oz later that day. As I approached the bakery section I was surprised to see they were still selling hot cross buns and couldn't help but wonder why.

I mean, I've still got some in the freezer which I am dutifully working my way through but that's different. Who would want to buy hot cross buns when the shops have been pushing them since February? Surely everyone is over them by now and has moved on to the next thing which we all know is ANZAC biscuits!

Banana cake with passionfruit icing

I just had a piece of this cake which I made this afternoon. It was really moist and deliciously yummy but better than that, it had so many good things in it, I almost felt virtuous eating it. I say almost because there was the God of all evil: sugar. But add to that quinoa flour, brown rice flour, almond meal, natural yoghurt (made with my Esiyo) and over-ripe bananas which I got from the fruit shop for next to nix and you have every reason to feel good. In fact, your halo is sure to get brighter with each bite, I can almost guarantee it. Top it all off with passionfruit icing made with the fruit from our neighbours vine that overhangs on our side of the fence, and you have one tasty little treat. It's so good, I'm not even sure it will make it's way to the lunchboxes tomorrow.

OK, so the ice-cream is not so virtuous.

This recipe and other delights can be found at my darling lemon thyme.

Quality time

Our children's idea of spending quality time together is being in the same room, each on a separate i-device. It means they don't have to talk to each other but they do like to communicate via iMessage. Go figure!

24 hours in Melbourne



 Hosier Lane is famous for its cobbled showcase of street art.

After much organising which involved farming three children out to three different families, Steve and I managed a quick rendezvous in Melbourne last weekend. I had a few hours to myself on Friday morning to check out the shops then I met up with Steve for lunch. We went to MoVida at the end of Hosier Lane for some of the best tapas I've ever had. This chorizo burger was to die for.

This picture is the facade of the old Myer building taken from inside the new Myer building. Having lived in NZ for the past two and a bit years, I was completely awestruck by the glitzy Myer refurbishment. There is nothing like it anywhere in NZ. I definitely felt like a country bumpkin.

We were booked on a 6am flight back to Auckland but there was an "unauthorised sleep-in" which meant we missed it. Personally, I can think of worse places to be stranded. But stranded we weren't. We got on a later flight which meant that we got to enjoy breakfast at a cafe on the Yarra. This trip reminded me  how hip Melbourne is; I think I'll plan a longer trip some time soon.