wordful wednesday: why i love new zealand

every morning on our way to work, mr scrappy and i walk through parliament grounds.

that's the beehive you can see in the upper right hand corner of the photo

it's named thus for obvious reasons

i've actually worked in there too!

BC - back in the mid-80s when you could walk in and out of buildings without swipe cards and all manner of other security measures

ANYHOO...

this guy is the the sole security presence at the grounds of our parliament buildings on this fine monday morning

...and that is why i love new zealand

we're a bit casual like that.

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

mostly wordystory friday: i wish i had the energy to blog

but i don't, so here's a recap of the week:

i worked lots of [paid] hours

i loved it

it rained

it stopped raining

the sun came out

it rained again

then the wind blew

and it was cold

children cooked meals

parents ate them

they were good

enough laundry was done so that everyone had enough smalls to last the week

we went out for dinner

[because] 

someone turned 21

something else i dont' have time for right now?

photoshopping out some of those crows feet

but what the hell

i earned each and every one of them.

next stop:  saturday night: the boiling point murder mystery at boomrock lodge, as part of the wellington on a plate festival

i didn't do it.  i swear!!!

[it was the butler].

something else i did this week?

use a lot of square brackets

[just because]

PS:  i didn't make those cupcakes.  (no time)

but this lady did - and she delivered right to my office!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

the shortest photostory friday ever

even though my kids are doing all the cooking while i'm working full-time, working full-time still doesn't leave much time for anything else - let alone blogging!

i just had to share this with you though.

this photo was taken at approximately 3.45pm on friday afternoon

around a dozen of the office staff had just completed the 5-minute quiz that features in our daily paper (we got 9 out of 10 - AGAIN!) and someone suggested that we break out the wine.

being a temp

being a total swot

not wanting to look like a total slacker/alkie (they still like me!) - i went back to my desk to do something terribly important like indexing 451 power point files one-by-one (i'm up to #13) - when i heard the tinkling of chardonnay arrive.

can i just say

I LOVE MY JOB AND ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WORK THERE!?!?!?!!!!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday: take time to smell the fresias

this is how i felt today

but without the baby and with 4 more cats

and a call from school to collect a sick child

with no transport

and a cancelled train

and a handover before 2 and a half weeks full-time work

but i DID get given these yesterday

gorgeous FRAGRANT freesias (and that bottle of chardonnay on the right)

with a hectic couple of weeks ahead of me, i'm reminding to tell myself to take some time and smell the freesias

..and hang on tight til friday night when we're off on the

COURTNEY COCKTAIL CRAWL!!!

and yes, that's exactly as it sounds

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

photostory friday and a life update

Confucius say: 

as soon as you vacuum your floors, 1 or 3 or all of your cats will bring in a bird and make this mess.

TWICE.

in other news:

- after 6 weeks or so as a lady of leisure, i've landed a contract with the human rights commission in an executive assistant position.  it's a WAY COOL job with WAY COOL people.  i'm job sharing, so working 5 mornings, with 2 1/2 weeks full-time starting next week.

this contract runs through until mid-september, or maybe november!

i finish at 12.30 and get the 1.02 train and am home before 1.30 which gives me 2 hours before the girls get home.

it's VERY civilised.

- i'm officially over winter.  it seems to be getting COLDER instead of warmer.  the weather is WILD tonight.  wild i tell you.

- my baby will be 21 in exactly 12 days. my eldest baby that is.  she's gone flatting and it's going swimmingly.   our relationship improved 375% pretty much the instant she left home.  many others will tell you that this is the way it goes. 

we (she and i) couldn't be happier about it.

- i went to a quiz last night (and you KNOW how i love a good quiz) and we got 2ND!!!  played our joker in the wrong round (we would have won), but that's the way the cookie crumbles.  i discovered that ALFRED NOBEL and TAIO CRUZ have something in common.

wanna know what it is?

DYNAMITE.  (i did not personally know this).

- my eyelids are heavy.  with worry.  nothing i'm prepared to share, but i know how supportive y'all always are, so i'm just putting that out there.  for now, let's file it under 'parenting causes worry' and leave it at that.

- i'm not alone wishing that saturday morning sport will be cancelled tomorrow!

this does not make me a bad parent.  i've umpired TOO many times in the rain this winter.  last week i umpired INTO sideways rain with water running down the inside of my neck.  kinda like that time i was umpiring with water running down the inside of my bra.

- august is going to be a very social month.  mr scrappy and i are participating in several wellington on a plate food festival events - yeehaw!  fuel espresso tasting evening, a murder mystery dinner, and the courtney cocktail crawl, just to mention a few - bring it!!!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday: freaky people

i think the fact that i had the ISO set all wrong on my camera and i had to photoshop the crap out of it to make it look halfway decent just adds to the 'flavour' of the photo - don't you?

i love that they were happy to pose for me too

they are WELL used to me pointing a camera in their faces by now!

this photo was taken outside a cute little nic nac shop in moolooaba

for more wordful wednesday visit angie over @ seven clown circus

photostory friday: a bolt from the vault

i honestly couldn't find any inspiration for this post from my recent photos, and you're probably sick of seeing holiday pics from our latest trip to australia.

so i trawled the archives this afternoon, and this is what i found:

photos from when miss 20 (age 12 in this pic) was still happy to play with her little sisters

i mean REALLY play

i don't remember taking these photos (obviously i did), and lot of 'those years' were a total blur, but i DO remember that all 6 of us used to crowd into this family room most of the time; there was mess, noise, laughter, tiredness, more mess and more noise, but i'm so glad i carved out all that family time.

because when you carve it out here

and CONTINUE to make time for it

it's easy to keep going

toot toot for family time.

may it never end.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday: this one's gonna need a little explaining

if you've been following my blog for a while, you'll know that the most popular sport amongst young new zealand girls is NETBALL.

netball is KINDA like basketball, with the following differences:

7 on a team instead of 5

no dribbling

no contact (although that's mostly a joke!)

one of our national players is a wonderful woman by the name of irene van dyk

irene played 74 tests for south africa before moving to new zealand, where she was forever taken to our hearts.  she is the most upbeat, happy, smiley, non-celebrity celebrity you could ever hope to meet.

she once came to the girls' primary school to teach some netball skills and i wrote an article for the local paper.  she even gave me her cell number in case i needed to check some details for when i wrote the article!

she's that down-to-earth.

this is miss 12 at netball practice on monday

here, they're practicing a set move called "IRENE"

at a thrown-in from the sideline, the players are bunched.  all but one FAKE a move to the right (your left), leaving the receiver wide open.

as you can see, the non-contact is a joke, as miss 12 is about to be elbowed out of the way!!!

i wonder if it will work on game day!!!

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus