That would be the best therapy for me

My Car
Lemon meringue Roulade
Cheese plate
Twin Cars!






Another good weekend. I entered a competition last week at the YMCA, called the Tour de France. Basically, the first person to work out for 28 hours (max 1 hour per day) wins. For most of last week I had no idea what the prize was, I just wanted to win. But I have since found out the prize is a towel, water bottle, 1 month free membership and movie tickets for each section winner (senior, adult and student) and for the overall winner there is a bottle of champagne and a dinner for two at a restaurant (to be determined). Clearly, as a single lady, these prizes aren't all that exciting... However, as a competitive person, I still really, really want to win. So I am going to work out for 28 days in a row. Katie has made up an awesome work out plan for me to do every second day. So far I have worked out 7 days in a row and am in the lead by an hour or so. Up until today I have been sketchily peeking through the binder to see who my competition is, but every time I do this a staff person asks me what I'm doing, because we aren't supposed to look through the binder (because I guess some ppl might cheat and add more hours). So I have to make up some dumb excuse as to why I was peeking through it. Thankfully, as of today they have a map of the actual Tour de France on the wall with all the competitors and their places in the race.
Friday night I went to Mike's for dinner and since he has traveled the North and South Islands (as well as a ridiculous amount of other places) he helped me plan part of my trip. Which starts in just a few weeks!!! I'm so excited.
Saturday morning I went to the Upper Hutt farmer's market, and it was absolute rubbish. More expensive fruit and vegetables than the grocery stores!! Saturday night I went to Strawberry fare with Michelle and her housemate Meaghan (pronounced Mee-gan). I accidentally called her Meaghan every time. We shared an awesome cheese plate, it had camembert, smoked gouda, blue cheese, old cheddar, grapes with seeds (yuck), pear slices, some weird fruit that looked like tomato and tasted like nothing... For dessert I had lemon meringue roulade (lemon curd filling with meringue and toasted coconut on the outside) with a scoop of honey hokey pokey ice cream. Awesome. A bit too sweet for my liking but I managed to eat the whole thing!
The rugby game was on, Ireland vs Allblacks. We watched it at Four Kings, a sports bar owned and operated by 4 former rugby players. It was a good game, All blacks won by almost 40 points.
Watched Step Up 2 at Michelle's after the game. Its a super cheesy movie, but sweet as dance moves. I was jealous.
On the drive home from Wadestown I was breathalyzed. This time by a lovely cop who explained what he was doing. However, the contraption was different and I just blew on the machine (like the last time) and the copper politely told me that in fact I had to put my mouth on the mouthpiece and blow into that. I balked and asked him if it was a fresh one. He said it was, but I was still mildly disgusted. Anyway, I passed and he let me go home.
Sunday morning I slept in until 945am! I am awesome at sleeping in these days. I think its because the house is so bloody cold and my bed is comfy and warm. I went to the gym and then for a walk up canon point and down to the dam without falling into the creek or getting lost. YES! It started to pour part way through the walk and my sweater STILL isn't dry. That's how damp it is in this flippin country. Sunday night I went to church and after we went to Tracey and Jade's house for pikelets with the rest of the young adults group. Pikelets are basically tiny pancakes, but don't tell any kiwi that because they will argue that pikelets are totally different, when in fact they look like pancakes and taste like pancakes. But you put cream and jam on them. They are delish. But I will keep believing they are just little pancakes. We spent the evening figuring out each other's weird party tricks. One girl could talk with her mouth closed, Kirsten could do the wave with her stomach and make it gurgle at the same time. Warick could look in different directions with his eyes. Cherie could wiggle her ears separately and pop out her shoulder. I could do the wave with my eyebrows and flare my nostrils (which I thought everyone could do...) A few ppl had flexible thumbs, and on and on. Very humorous evening.
Monday morning I woke up on time and ran out to my car, exclaiming to Katie that I may actually be on time for the first day in ages! Got to the car and no doors would open. The driver's side door lock bailed a few weeks ago so I have been opening the passenger side door and climbing across into the driver's seat. A few times I have looked into my rear view mirror only to realize its out of alignment and kept wondering why. Obviously because I bang my head on it every single time I climb across the front seats. I'm losing brain cells at an alarming rate when programming EFTPOS machines, it seems. Anyway, so I freaked out and ran back into the house and googled how to open a frozen car door lock, as it was the first morning when the weather was below freezing. I tried vaseline on the key, but the key wouldn't budge, and I then couldn't grip the key properly because my hands were covered in vaseline... I called a workmate and she picked me up. I was 45 mins late. Walked in to realize there was a man in my seat. I freaked and realized I should have called to say I would be late and since i hadn't called i had been replaced by a new temp! But then my boss was so pleased to see me and i realized the guy in my seat was a temp who was being trained to do my job until i got there and then went back to his other work once I arrived. What a stressful Monday. At the end of the day I found out that I had somehow missed 17 machines and thus sometime this week I will have to search through the 178 machines I had programmed to find the 17 I missed. Ugh. My workmate couldn't drive me home because her son had a rugby game in Avalon, but a friend was able to pick me up on his way home from Welly.
When I got home I tried the car door and it worked, turns out it was just frozen. Just in case, the boys from work had sent me home with some CRC (aka WD-40) with instructions on how to spray it into the lock to clean out and lubricate the mechanism.
This morning I tried the driver's side door and it works too! Hooray for CRC! No more climbing over seats and banging my head on mirrors.
That's all I've got for now,
LOVE!

Globes and maps are all around me now

It turns out that I have spent a lot of money on clothes in the past few weeks! I have neglected to look at my bank accounts and just looked today and its a bit ridiculous...
This weekend was the long weekend, I am loving 3 days off in a row! Friday night I went to jade's for a highly fattening meal of deep fried hamburger, egg and fried bun as well! Sooo much oil. We watched Glee, episode 1, season 2. Its such an awesome show! I so want to watch the first season now!

Saturday I slept in and skyped with Becky and Rachel. Had an amazing home workout and Katie and I went out for dessert at Silverspoon 9which Josh used to manage). I had almond meringue with cream and berries. It was so good. Then we went out for some upper hutt clubbing. hilarious. We walked to the hutt bar, but the pool tables were full so we moved on to the seven bar which had an available table. We played against some members of katie's gym and we lost really badly. Then we met up with the husbands, who were having a poker night, at the cozzie club where you actually have to have a membership to get in. It was full of super old people, but cheap drinks! katie and i went back to the seven bar but it was playing weird music so we met the boys a mcdonalds and piled into the car. They were placing their order as we were running to the car so we yelled out that we wanted cheeseburgers. classy ladies, we are. Really good cheeseburgers, too! Got home around 130, had some chocolate and went to bed!

Yum!

Katie is teaching me how to flex properly
$12.99 wine from Under The Tree Winery in South Aussie
Awesome Almond meringue with cream and berries from Silverspoon
Dress Jade gave me from Dotti


Sunday Katie and Josh were having guests over for brunch and I was going to the 10am church in lower hutt so we were all up fairly early. church was good and i did some shopping for friend's birthdays. and i got myself a thermal, finally. merino wool, its so cosy I will love it when I'm on the south island for sure! Sunday night we had a bday dinner for wayne (josh's dad). josh made butter chicken and michelle made custard square for dessert. soo good, another traditional kiwi dessert I will be bringing back to canada!
Today has been a really laid back day, went to the gym for 2 hours (mostly cardio because im still so sore from my saturday morning workout!) and then came home and made banana white chocolate muffins. Now I'm going to take a nap and then I'm going to kirsten's for a baking night! should be fun!
I really need to start planning my trip to the south island soon, im leaving july 9th! starting to get excited! Still haven't touched my awesome bike. I really need to get a helmet and clean it up. But I just have no drive to do it... Maybe in August? haha
I think my phone knows when someone is thinking about texting me. Its weird because when i get a text it lights up and beeps at me. But sometimes it will just light up on its own and i have no msg. Very strange.
LOVE!

Please write my folks and throw away my keys

The past few weeks have been such a blur, time is going by so fast. Last week I had my one month anniversary of having a full time job! Very exciting. Joe left for Auckland so we had a morning tea party for him. Sad to see him go, why is it always the awesome people who leave and not the creepers!
I saw Blindside last Monday it was so so so good. it was a fundraiser for Kirsten's family friend so we met up to go after work. I accidentally bought a new dress form Glassons, just 15$! Love it.
This past weekend was so fun. Had a girly night in with Katie on Friday night, we just watched friends and ate tim tams! Saturday was busy I hiked up Cannon Point with Jess and Katie and skyped the whole world including, but not limited to, Mom, Dad, Becky, Daphne, Rob, Rosa and Katie. It was awesome. Saturday afternoon I took a nap and then that night I went to Jade's where she curled my hair with her GHD. It looked so cool and stayed in pretty well all night which is amazing since it was humid and raining! We went to Cherie's to finish getting ready and then Kirsten and Lauren took us into town. We had amazing desserts at Strawberry Fare. I had a traditional Kiwi Pavlova with cream and the others had Banoffi pie, its like dulce de leche with graham cracker crust and bananas on top. wicked presentation and tasted great! Soooo pricey though, about 15$/dessert. Worth it though!

After dessert we went towning aka clubbing at Boogie Wonderland. This club was hilarious, it played 70s music and the dance floor was just like dance dance revolution. Around 1am we headed to Shooters, a more modern club and danced until 230am. At which point i was starving to I left with Cherie and her friends to go to Burger Kind where I ate a divine Chicken Grabba meal. The others came in after Shooters closed at 3am. Its the earliest club to close, the latest one closes at 7am. Wild! makes Hull looks like childs play..which it kind of is seeing as only 16yr olds go out there.... but I digress. So I got home at 430 am. And proceeded to sleep in until 11am. New Personal best! I got up and had some brekky and watched friends. then went back to bed at 1 and rested until 4 when I got up to go to Josh's moms for tea. She made the most amazing roast chicken with kumara, potatoes, squash, carrots and broccoli. So yum. Josh made brownies but I was too full for dessert! So unlike me, eh? By the time I was ready for bed at 10pm, I wasn't tired anymore so i read until 2am and then woke up at 630am to go to the gym. Played soccer with Katie and Josh's team tonight. we lost 5-1. I blame myself. I really really suck. But I got a good sweat on and had lots of fun!

Our microwave broke and it seems that I only eat things you can cook in it...of course I only realized that after its broken. I am completely out of my element! haha get it...like a stove element... I watched Rhys Darby's stand up (also known as Murray from Flight of the Conchords) and he often explains his own jokes, its a crack up.

I'm reading a book called '100 things everyone should know how to do' and its pretty neat. So far I know how to make a bed, cook scrambled eggs, flirt, kiss, ask someone out on a date (which i will never, ever do), push ups, sit ups, sew a button, and some other tsuff but thats all i remember right now. each chapter is written by the person who is the master at whatever the thing is. Pretty sweet book actually. Next on my list is 'what colour is your parachute'.
The weekend is the queen's bday weekend. crack me up seeing as we celebrate it on the May 24 weekend, and its the same queen so theoretically it should be on the same day... Funny as. But I get a 3 day weekend and even though I'm a temp i still get paid because i worked the last 5 Mondays. yay!

I am having such an amazing time in NZ right now. I just feel so settled and completely at home. I was feeling a bit homesick a few weeks ago but now don't feel that way at all.
I have to get a warrant of fitness inspection done on my car Wednesday and I'm a bit nervous it wont pass, seeing as its older than some of my friends... So please pray!
Love!
PS very happy birthday to Rosa, we'll have to re-celebrate in November!

That girl's a genius... I think she's serious

So this weekend was awesome! Started out by taking Friday off and driving up to Kuratay for a long weekend. Sure it was a bit cheeky of me to ask for a day off after working only a few weeks, but I am a traveller, so I think it was alright. The boss didnt seem to mind at all anyway. So we left around 530, 5 ppl crammed into a subaru legacy with heaps of stuff in the trunk. We brought all our tramping gear to do the tongariro crossing, but we knew the weather was going to be awful so we probably wouldnt be able to tramp at all so we had decent clothes to wear as well. We stopped at McD's for dinner and i got a hamburger happy meal... so good. We stopped again along the way for sundaes and then again at a little pub for beers and a quick game of pool for josh and katie. We arrived at the cottage (or bach as it is referred to here) quick late and pretty much went to bed straight away. I got my own room and it was glorious. I slept in until 10am! pretty much unheard of for me. Very exciting. We had some brekky and headed into town around 12 after doing 200 crunches with Katie and 2 minutes of wall sits. we are so hard core.
I decided that I wanted to do a skydive since the weather was too crap to do the crossing, we couldnt even see the mountains because of the fog. But it was still a pretty warm day, and the skydive place had an availability at 12:50, which was pretty much perfect. I jumped with 2 british guys and my instructor was Joel. He was nice but not too excited about the jump, he said he does it 15 times a day and had done it over 5000 times total so it wasn't very fun for him anymore. Little bit of a downer. I put on a red jumpsuit apparatus (haha) that smelled of nervous sweat (not mine... it already smelled before I put it on) and a little leather cap and some gloves. The plane was tiny and took off with us all sitting backwards, such a weird feeling. I had to sit on my instructors lap so he could strap me in properly which was a bit weird, and he also braided my hair so it wouldnt get in his face. also weird. but he made jokes so i wasn't nervous. Until they opened the plane door at 16000-ft and then i got scared. I was second. The first guy was out within a couple of seconds it felt like and all of a sudden we were shuffling to the open door. I leaned back for a photo and then I was falling, no warning at all from the instructor. It was freezing cold at first, I only had a teeshirt and lulus on under my suit. A camera man jumped with us to take photos and video. It was such a long freefall it was insane, just over 60 seconds of freefall until the shoot was pulled. We had a nice chat while he flew us down, it took ages and I started to feel a bit nauseous because the wind was so strong that we had to spin in circles to land in the right place. LOVED IT though. I would much prefer to do it solo next time but the sport course costs 4000$ and i dont have the kind of money right now... I bought the video and the photos of my skydive. Pricey but worth it i think!


The rest of the day we did some shopping and got groceries for dinner. We also stopped at Huka falls for photos, the NZ version of Niagara falls. A lot smaller but quite cool nonetheless.


Katie and I made a chicken and avocado salad with bruschetta. It was really good. Jess arrived that night and we watched some tv and hung out drinking beers until pretty late. The next morning I slept in until 830 but woke up with a massive headache and realized I had not drank any water the day before. I read my book until 1030 and then went out to the kitchen for breakfast. It was raining pretty hard but we went for a walk down to lake Taupo anyway. Its a gorgeous lake, the deepest and largest in New Zealand. apparently its great for deep scuba freshwater dives. All that info courtesy of Josh Chapman Derulo. For the rest of the day we hung out in Taupo, and went to the honey hive where they have a museum about honey and let you try local honey in crazy flavours like lavender, peanut butter and my personal fave ginger which i bought a jar of!


then we went for dinner at Burger Fuel. We did sit down in an Indian Restaurant but left because the prices were higher than listed. lame. i got a vego burger made of chickpeas, seeds and other stuff with avocado, tomato, lettuce and much more. it was a gigantic burger, imagine about 3 times the size of a regular burger. So big you need a cardboard contraption called a doofer (pronounced doofa) to eat it. So good. They had about 10-15 burger choices, 4 of which were vego. I was impressed. And the kumara (sweet potato) fries were outrageously good, as was the garlic aioli. The place reminded me of a fast food version of the works on a smaller scale. And all the burger buns were whole wheat with sesame seeds unless you asked specifically for different which i thought was awesome. That evening we watched The Longest Yard and ate heaps of candy which we purchased from pac n save (the cheap grocery store...like no frills).

The next day we drove back to Upper Hutt around 11am. We stopped in Foxton to try Foxton Fizz, a soft drink made in the town. I had my first Creaming Soda, tasted a lot like Inca cola! Not the nasty 10 yr old flat kind, the carbonated kind. We also stopped at the big gumboot for photos and then again at Wild Bean (an awesome cafe found in BP gas stations) where I had my first taste of Ginger Crunch. Its so good, I actually just made some tonight.

Ginger Crunch Recipe:
Base:
125g Butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
Cream together butter and sugar then add other ingredients. Dough will be crumbly. Grease 9x9inch pan ad press dough into pan. Bake at 180 degress celsius for 20-25 minutes.

Icing:
75g butter
3/4 cup icing sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp golden syrup (or honey)

Combine ingredients and ice base once cooled.
Share with me.


After that we stopped on the kapiti coast for kapiti ice cream (used to be made there, but the factory had to be moved somewhere with more space) and a cheese tasting. I tried brie, blue and an old cheddar. All amazing. I got a scoop of delish passionfruit and lemon curd ice cream. So creamy. I bought some blue cheese too. I learned you do not shorten the word passionfruit by saying pash because that means to "make out" here in NZ. oops!
We made it home around 430 and did our grocery shopping before heading to Hannah and Jamie's for a pot luck supper with Katie's other sister Rebecca and her fiance Reg as well. We watched Sherlock Holmes (decent movie) and had roast chicken, beef stir fry, garlic bread, corn and roast potatoes, with cookies and cream ice cream and vanilla cake for dessert. Awesome.
Back to work this morning and back to the gym straight after since this weekend was all about food...
LOVE!

If love is really all that we need, than even all my singing is never going to save me

Flip its been ages since I last posted. I have been so busy its wild. I am still working at sektor payments and loving every second. well, maybe not every second, but i really enjoy it. Working 830-5 was hard at first, but I'm definitely getting used to it. One of my favorite coworkers is leaving to go to Auckland after a very messy breakup. I'm sad he's leaving, but the worst part is that because he;s leaving, a guy i work with in the dungeon is being promoted to work in maximum security (we call it that because the boss works in that room so you cant be silly). The dungeon is where I work, and we have no direct sunlight and are surrounded by boxes, BUT we laugh hysterically and listen to loud music, so I love it. There is also a room we call mexican security. it used to be medium security because the boss walks in there sometimes, but we have nicknamed the boys in that room poncho and alfredo so we changed the name to mexican security. We spend a lot of time in a cold, dark room so we go a little crazy sometimes...
I saw frank turner in concert last wednesday, unreal. He sang all my favorite songs and even a postal service song! The district sleeps alone tonight. and some bruce springstein and chuck regan. I was in heaven. I went with Michelle and Ash. I got to meet Frank after the show and he invited me to have a drink with him but it was a work night so i had to decline...oh well.
I saw an improv comedy show last weekend it was so funny, a guy from church was in it. I also finally got my bike looked at last weekend. The guys at the bike store went absolutely mad over it. Apparently its a handmade falcon londoner, worth a grand when fixed up! So he replaced the tubes and tyres for me, as well as the brake pads, and charged me only 10 minutes of labour even though he spent about an hour on it! Lovely guy. really passionate about my bike (and old biked in general i think). Now i just have to replace the bearings and give it a solid clean. I watched a video on how to replace the bearings online so hopefully i can do it alright.
I went to a 21st last weekend as well. It was sweet, lots of yummy food, and went for dinner at j& k's friends place, they had 3 reeeally adorable kids we played with.
tomorrow night we are heading up to do the tongariro crossing, a legendary 18.9km hike. I can't wait, hoping the weather is good for us.
I went to jade and tracey's for dinner after work on monday, we had baked bananas in caramel sauce with bacon. amazing! and then apple crisp and hokey pokey ice cream for dessert. I;m pretty much still full. I made cinnamon buns last night but they didnt rise properly so i was disappointed. But I made white chocolate and craisin cookies tonight and they turned out well.
Finally, I am disappointed to have missed Daph's dedication but I'm so happy I got to see some photos, thanks Dad!
LOVE

Skirting round the edges of the ideal demographic

I actually love my job. So I showed up on Wednesday at 830 as planned and the only person there was Callum, a punk rock kid with red hair and a lebret piercing. He told me to make myself a coffee and chill out until the manager got there. So far, so good! When the manager got there I was introduced to everyone as Hannah who might be replacing Amanda. I had been told by the temp agency that i was just working 3 days for them, so i was so excited to hear it might be permanent. I got on really well with the boys in the warehouse. its a lot like landscaping in that sometimes its hard work with lifting heavy boxes and preparing for shipping and receiving but for the mist part its pretty chilled out. and i can wear my lulus so its pretty much my ideal job. I mostly program the software and keyload EFTPOS (electronic funds transfer point of sales) machines and test them out. We work 830-5 with a half hr unpaid lunch break. but this week one guy baked cupcakes and brought them in, he also made us nachos and ANZ bank brought us in bakery treats for morning tea on friday. its awesome! also, we can play whatever music we want so i'm being introduced to so many awesome bands. Our team is pretty multicultural with pohms, a philippino, an argentinian, and kiwis of course. Monday mornings we get to order whatever drinks we want and a girl goes to the grocery store and buys it for us! Its actually the best work environment ever. its in lower hutt so it takes me about 15-20 mins to drive there, but there is free street parking (you can park as long as you want!) so its working out quite well.
I saw iron man 2 last night, it was so good. i was supposed to go to an island dance thing at church but i was not feeling it at all. Tonight is the youth planning meeting and im going to eastbourne for the afternoon. should be good!
Oh also Rocko came for a visit thursday night as she was passing through welly on her campervan trip with her sister. they parked outside our house and Rowena made some awesome soup and we did tim tam slams for dessert. so good!
Love

Take me on, take on me

I have been in New Zealand for exactly a month today! Time has gone by so fast I can't even believe it. This weekend was pretty cruisy I just watched the Time Traveler's Wife Saturday night with Josh and Katie and Sunday was Anzac day so we went to these old war tunnels which were really quite cool. They only open like 5 days a year and Anzac day is one of them. The poppies here are so ghetto, our Canadian ones are way cooler. I went to evening church and watched Rush Hour 3 with a bunch of the ppl from young adults. they introduced me to their Kiwi chocolate, Whittaker's. Its so good! And we had fijoa's, they were amazing this time. The last one I had was really rank, but these ones where fresh off a tree. Amazing.
Monday and Tuesday I worked for a couple of hours at a preschool. The teachers actually have degrees and diplomas. They are the same as teachers for primary, but the kids are 0-5, so crazy. But I had fun. Some of the kids were really wild and today they were singing a Justin Beiber some (3 yr olds!!) and I was like how do you know this song! And they deduced that I was obviously Justin Beiber's girlfriend. I tried to explain that he was a lot younger than me but they were having none of it. Kids crack me up.
Tonight I went to pick up my new bike from town and luckily didn't get lost. Well I missed a turn or two and had to do a few u-turns but I did pretty well considering it was pouring insanely hard and I couldn't see a thing. Also wasn't wearing my glasses... anyway so I made it to the guy's house to pick up the bike and it was up on a hill with a ridiculously steep driveway. I had a really hard time getting the bike into my car as the bike is from the 60s and they apparently didnt have quick release tires. I somehow managed to get the front tire off and got the bike into the car. As I was pulling out of the drive way I had to do some serious manoeuvrings and somehow as I got onto the road the power steering quit on me as did the brakes and all the check engine, check oil, check battery lights came on. I freaked out and pulled the e-brake. amazingly enough no one was behind me so I just turned the car off and then back on it everything was back to normal. I drove home in the pouring rain thanking God I didn't get smashed into and promising myself that I would buy insurance ASAP. Its not mandatory to have insurance but I've almost died numerous times on the roads so I think its necessary now.
Last week when I drove to Porirua I got a bit lost when I turned left instead of right (I hate google maps it doesn't say which exit to take off the motorway just says towards a road which is not ever the name of the exit!!), and so I went to ask a cyclist how to get back and he was like 'first of all you are driving on the wrong side of the road...' Ooops! I've only done it once the whole time though!
I just won a bidding war for a sweet as snowboard complete with bindings and boots (all really old school) for 103.50$. Bargain.
Tomorrow I'm working for a company that repairs EFTPOS (essentially debit card) machines. Should be interesting, and I'm just happy to get some hours since last week I worked a total of 11 hours...
Love!