1950

It's the weekend again and we're really, really REALLY loving our house. It gets fabulous light in the day (especially upstairs) and our yard is growing in nicely. I know I keep saying this but I can't WAIT for summer. Even Tama is excited and was racing around the yard and rolling around on the patio.

For no apparent reason, we both fell into uber-traditional male/female roles today: Iain mowed the lawn, pruned some trees, and took the car in for inspection. I did laundry, cleaned (sorta), and made lunch. Iain relaxed in the afternoon with a rugby game while I got a manicure.

Perhaps this evening I'll catch up on my needlepoint while Iain dives into some gin.

Iain got a teensy bit too aggressive with the pruning of the plum tree so we now have to hold it up with an old chair. In his defense, we didn't realize that the tree's center of gravity was so lopsided. We're hoping it doesn't die. He also got rid of all of the vines and weeds choking our palm tree - it looks loads better now!

USA! USA! USA!

Thanks to Facebook most of you know that I was in the US for two weeks, getting my annual Target fix, plus enjoying other "must dos" like rare hamburgers, Greek food, Oprah magazines, having a decent cocktail, and indulging in lots of my mom's cooking.

There were a few downers. I left 2 bracelets at the LAX security checkpoint and didn't notice they were missing until I was in Charlotte. It took my mom and I about 34 threatening phone calls and 5 days to get them back. We were on the phone at least 15 minutes every day, leaving voicemails, getting transferred to different departments, hearing a different story every time. There's a number to call for Lost and Found, but it's voicemail and they never ever ever ever ever call you back. I called so much I was like, "Hey, yeah, it's me again."

The whole ordeal culminated in my mom going right to the head of HR to demand to speak to the head of security. This was on day 5. I received a humble callback from some chick named Patricia. What's interesting is that I'd already left Patricia 3 messages, each time growing more and more frantic ("PLEASE call me back!!"). Danielle said that I sounded like Liz Lemon. I guess when Patricia's boss got involved, she rang me back immediately and was all, "How can I help you?" Horrible. But the bracelets are back and I've learned a very valuable lesson: take off all of your jewelry before flying.

The rest of the trip was pretty fabulous. A lot of relaxing, a lot of visiting, a lot of eating. While I was sipping Veuve on my parents' lovely patio, poor Iain was back home dealing with a fender bender and a flea infestation. Poor guy. This year we've got some fun New Zealand travel lined up for the both of us.

Here are two cool pictures of my fam - the rest are all on Facebook.

OH: I learned another valuable travel lesson. When you can, purchase the day passes to the airport lounges. For $40US, I booked a day pass to the USAIrways Club lounges. I had 24 hour access in any airport, so I was good to go for Buffalo, Charlotte, and finally LA. It was a godsend. Free wifi, comfy chairs, a clean bathroom, it's QUIET, and you get a free glass of wine and/or free water, coffee, tea, etc.

Brunch!

We continued our theme of having friends over for brunch and hosted Julia, Ian (not to be confused with Iain), and Tash (short for Natasha) last weekend. While I'd like to say our riveting conversation kept everyone around until the late hours of the afternoon, in reality I suspect it was the radiators.

Iain broke all the "brunch" rules and made a delicious roast beef, cooked to temperature for each individual. This was possible only through some serious mathematical equations and two pieces of meat.

A Good Two Weeks

It's winter here which means a few things:

1. Clothes take like 4 days to dry unless you have a dryer (we don't).

2. Because NZ has this ridiculous idea that it doesn't get cold, 90% of restaurants have little or no heat. Certainly none of them have central heating. We went out to eat last week and you can see me pictured, right next to a fire with about 3 layers on. The food here was really crap, too. You know how places in really incredible locations (right on the beach, anywhere in Niagara Falls, etc.) often have really bad food? This is one of those places.


3. Blue is doing really well -- getting lots of love and attention!

4. But the winters in Auckland aren't horribly cold, really, so you do get some lovely days where you can sit outside. We had friends over for brunch and enjoyed an hour of warm sun before it got chilly again. Thank god we have central heating!


If you're wondering what that red liquid is in our friend Catherine's champagne glass, it's evil sparkling shiraz. It combines the fun of champagne with the hangover of red wine. It's delicious, but you can only have 2 glasses or you'll hate yourself the next day. Last year they had a party with a bunch of this stuff and we're still talking about it.....

Catherine and her husband Steve just returned from a 10 week honeymoon around the world. Incredible!

Packing!

Packing has begun. The cats know something's up. Blue refuses to give up his favorite spots, but they can definitely tell we're moving. Again!

One Year

I realized that today marks one year of being in our house!

Labor Day!

It's Labor Day weekend over here (that's right - I'm leaving out the "u" in Labour). We're enjoying our day off by sanding & painting (Iain) and writing code while obsessively checking Facebook and email every 10 minutes (me). It's terrifying how addictive Facebook can be. I hate it - but I kind of love it, too.

My updated site is up, after a few weeks of finessing. It's still a major work in progress, but at least now I have something to show prospective employers. I added a client login feature that doesn't work yet, but I'll worry about that next weekend.

Our useless group project at school is over, and tomorrow we're scheduled to begin learning Flash. I am really psyched!

Last night we caught about 10 minutes of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". What's the deal with this show? I've never watched a full episode but every time I catch a snippet of it, it's about someone who either fought in Iraq or had something to do with 9/11. Whatever it is, whoever it is, there's always an American flag and someone crying. It's completely bizarre and a little too subversive for my taste.

Once Iain finishes up some painting we're off for brunch!

Awesome

This is BRILLIANT! I totally want one!