A Week in the Life - Day One notes

Morning - Drew - Louise's friend stayed the night. Cute cow pj's!
Driving into work - photo of sunrise from the causeway. Red sky in the morning, Shepherd's warning - and true enough, tonight it's persisting down.
Laurelle in reception (Terri was away sick) - Happy Birthday Laurelle!
Still selling Cub Cookies from the basket on my filing cabinet. On our second box!








Posted on my blog. Pretty excited about this challenge!
Lunchtime - Simon met me downstairs and we went to the Downtown foodcourt. I had a BLAT & L&P, he had a lamb kebab & coke. He handed in his notice this morning and after a conversation with his higher manager Geoff is happy knowing he hasn't burnt any bridges.








Evening - after dinner (salad, ham steak and chips) we played the new World monopoly that Simon got for Father's Day. Bran won. Zac was funny reading out the chance & community chest cards.
Lastly before Milo and my book, I checked the email accounts and fed my dog on Facebook. New comment up: Paula is doing Ali Edwards' "A Week in the Life" challenge. So smile for the photographs!

I See... a new album

I found a project I can really get into in the August CK magazine. I usually devour Ali Edwards' pages (I really like her clean style) and this month is no exception.

And it's an album I can continue with as a series.

Words and pictures. Some paper or ribbon maybe. No embelishments. No fancy techniques. Clean and simple.

It's all about what you see in a photograph. One example published was a photo of a cup of cocoa and some marshmallows - and the caption is I See...time spent together (or something like that).

I grabbed a notebook and started to think. One example I came up with was a photo of my kitchen bench, close up on a lemon and some mint. What do I see? I see...produce from my garden. Attention to detail. Concentration on the composition of the photograph (something I have been working on lately).

I'll scan the article and if anyone wants me to send it to them, please drop me an email or comment.

PS - On Ali's blog this week she is revisiting an old favourite, A Week In The Life. It's a fantastic project so get on to it! http://www.aliedwards.typepad.com/ As Ali wrote "This is a creative adventure. It requires little more than a camera and a willingness to pay attention and gather up stuff from your daily life."

PPS - Scary stuff. Simon hands in his notice today to start contracting work. It's a bit nerve-wracking to know he doesn't have a permament contract!

scary stuff

Last night's stabbing in central Auckland is a little too close to home. We're on the fifth floor, the girl assaulted is on the second. The building is still partially closed off and not to make light of the feelings of the victim's family & friends, but we're scared. The office is a lot quieter today than normal and everyone who goes out is going out in pairs.

I hate this feeling. It's hard to be enthusiastic about anything too, even the Warriors tommorrow night and having friends over. Or birthdays (sorry Doodle, sorry Nicole).

altho if you do want to buy any Cub Cookies, drop me a line.

dare 53

well I posted to the Flikr site and hope that it's traceable, but here is is just in case! I'm such a nana...tag is "nzdare53"



the comment hidden is:
Giving Bran the camera, I expected a range of action shots from Zac's game against Northcote Tigers. Mostly, that's what I got. But this one? Stood out.

My kids are weird.

moving on...

I, well, Simon (with a good deal of coaching-cough-nagging) found the perfect tile for the kitchen splash back last week - only slightly darker than the floor, same texture, but a long rectangular shape rather than square, to elongate the kitchen. We started to put them up last night (work was called to a halt due to needing to relocate one of the power points 4 inches to the right) and they look fabulous. I'm so pleased we waited until we found the right tile.

We had a childless night last night and it's amazing how much one can accomplish without the "assistant" underfoot. The upstairs toilet, bath and alcove are all gib-stopped too, with just a few corners needing the final touch-ups. I learnt the painful way it's a lot easier to build up any gaps with light layers than it is to sand it back...

All this and in bed by 8pm!

Spring's coming!!!!

I took a lazy walk thru the garden today - as opposed to yesterday's mad rush with Z and the lawnmower. Did I mention how I generally hate doing the lawns? There's a portion of the lawn which is chamomile, and smells beautiful when stepped on, and then I did accidentally cut a few lemons, which also smelt so good, but the rest is hard slog, just up and down hill and very long grass.

But I did notice the plum tree is starting to blossom. Last year it was covered and we ate so much we got sick of plums. Already Bran's looking forward to pigging out...

From spring flowers

We've had to prop up my favourite tree - in autumn the leaves are the most gorgeous gold and scatter all over the lawn. But it didn't stand up too well to the recent storms but I hope we can save it. Anybody out there know what it actually is?

From spring flowers

From spring flowers

The Boys in September

 
My babies. Typical poses too - Bran looks slightly demented, like a mad scientist who has indulged one too many times with his own experiment;

 

and Zac, who has now taken over the mantle of "most likely to cause " but can stil look like butter won't melt, especially in the proximity of Grandma...

Fantastic sounds

Yesterday I was introduced to the sound of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra - they are absolutely fabulous - look for them on Youtube!
Tonight Bran and I were singing along to their cover of "Weather With You" - such a cool moment. I've got a big grin on just thinking about it.

Weekend

What a fabulous weekend. Only missing the one child for our last league game of the season, and yippee, Wendy from Glenora's fully supportive of monthly get-togethers over the summer months; and then yesterday Bran's team played at Mt Smart in between the Vulcans and the Warriors -and beat Northcote five tries to four.

It was a great send-off to the three departing players and a bloody great game too.

The photo is Bran (to the right, two of his team-mates and Reuben Wiki.




















and this one is of him subbing off the field - it looks so much bigger when your baby is playing than when you're watching Manu thunder down the sideline!