As of Monday, I am an engaged woman!  D produced a giant pink faux diamond and asked me to be his wife.  I responded with giggling & tears of course.  I am walking on cloud nine!  No idea when, where, or anything else, that'll all fall into place I hope :o)

What a great week I've had!  On Saturday morning I flew out to Aussie.  I went for work reasons (in Sydney) but my boss let me take a detour to Brisbane for a few days.  He even paid for my ticket to get from Brisbane to Sydney, yay!  The friend I was visiting picked me up from the airport, and we went straight on an emergency shopping trip.  She took me to a shop which specialises in reasonably priced, pretty clothes in larger sizes.  Basically a trendy fat girls shop.  I got 2 pairs of jeans, a pair of black jean-type pants, a pair of 3/4 pants, and two kimono style tops.  weee heeee!!  I could have got so much more too!  It's usually horribly hard to find clothes that I like.  Places like ezi buy DO make larger (for example) jeans, but I don't think they adapt the pattern to suit your average larger lady.  They seem to just take the regular pattern and make it bigger.  But today I pranced around in my new clothes and felt like a million bucks.  I didn't even need to wear a belt to cinch the jeans in, awesome!  We did other shopping as well, but that shop was my highlight.

On Saturday night they had invited guests over for a BBQ fish dinner, but I got a wicked headache and had to go to bed right before dinner.  I tried really hard to wait as I knew dinner was mere minutes away, but it got to the point where the light was hurting my eyes, and I couldn't really focus on listening to anyone talk.  I woke up at about 4am STARVING, and wishing I'd managed to hold out for dinner.

Sunday we faffed around in the morning, then went to a matinee session of "Miss Saigon".  Our tickets cost $100, and I was looking around the theatre at all the people there, they must RAKE in the money.  I enjoyed it, but must admit I was shocked when she told me how much our tickets cost.  I suppose that's what people pay for professional shows, but it seemed like a lot to me.  Then we went out for dinner.  It had been about 9 hours since we'd eaten, so the wine didn't take long to bring the tone of conversation down..hehe.. gotta love girly wine sessions.

Monday we faffed around some more, then went for a drive to the gold coast.  She has a convertible, and I thought the knots were never going to get out of my hair.  We stopped at a beach and took stupid photos.  Stopped at Surfers Paradise for a walk around, then met her husband and son for dinner & a game of ten-pin bowling.  Fun!!

The next couple of days in Sydney were a blur of work, and not a lot of fun, so will skip by those days ;)

Yesterday D and I went to the Food Show Trade Day.  I got the tickets free though work (yay!), so it only cost us the petrol to get there, and $5 parking.  We walked around the show scoffing everythin in sight.  I have to say, the Food Show is one of my favourite events, I always look forward to it.

So went back to work today and tried my hardest to get through as much work as I could.  Tonight we'll have to go hard out cleaning the house as one of D's friends is staying for the weekend.  I'm having Monday off work too, as it's my birthday.  I thought D & I would be able to go somewhere nice, but it turns out he is attending a schizophrenia conference, so I'll be on my own.  I figure I'll go to one of those places where you can walk in and get a pedicure, maybe try and find a massage place, go to a girly movie, stuff like that.  Any suggestions for neat pampery things to do during a work day when you're on your own?

Oh, and when I got home today, there was an amazon box on my doorstep.  I haven't ordered anything lately, what could it be?  It was about 2kg of Runts!!  Does anyone remember Runts?  Little fruit shaped hard candies by Willy Wonka.  We haven't had them in NZ for years as far as I know.  I've seen imitations, but not the real deal.  Anyway, a friend in America sent them to me, yay!!

I've blabbed for too long, must stop!!

The domestic goddess in me is trying to get out.  Over the weekend I managed to clean windows, skirting boards, floors, laundry, the kitchen, and the laundry.  Well, I didn't do the laundry and kitchen on my own, but the point is I went a little nuts with the cleaning.  Then last night while I waited for the roast chicken to cook, I made wholemeal banana & pistachio muffins, and got todays experimental tomato casserole ready.  So hopefully when I get home tonight the house will be filled with delicious aromas.

Unfortunately last nights dinner guest was sick and couldn't come.  So now we have loads of chicken left over.  I had it for lunch today, and was thinking we might have to have it for dinner tonight, and re-heat the casserole tomorrow.  How long will cooked chicken keep in the fridge anyway?  I can't say I feel like it again, but don't want to waste it.

te_hazazel - it's entirely your influence that has me thumbing through freakin' cook books you know!  All your posting about yummy dishes has got me going kitchen crazy.

There are currently two men drilling holes in the walls of our house, lots and lots of holes.  They will then poke a hose into said holes and pump the walls full of 'air foam'.  Apparently this will make us warm as toast.  I can't help but wonder, what if someone has planted a time capsule in the wall, that will forever be encapsulated in foam.  We just recently planted one of our own behind our new kitchen bench, so chances are someone else might have done so too.

Speaking of cheese, we are having a mouse problem.  The first night D saw one, it ran underneath a wardrobe.  We were dog-sitting at the time, so had two hounds at the ready.  As I was in the shower and unable to assist, he explained to the dogs that when he moved the wardrobe, they must pounce on the rodent.  They just watched it run past them.  Threats to trade them in for cats ensued.

Since then, there have been a few more.  One in particular keeps waking us up at night with it's scratchy mouse noises.  Despite being a pain, I do hope it's not in the walls when the foam goes in, that'd be pretty sad.

***SPOILER ALERT*** (if you didn't watch it last night, that is ;)



I just watched it, and I must say, wtf?! Either I missed a lot of things, or that was a weak season ending. I watched it in double speed while getting ready for work, so maybe I did miss stuff. But can anyone tell me:


I'm going to be thinking about it all morning, it wasn't as good as I was expecting. Especially the final scene, it should have been a much more impressive battle.

In recent weeks, I have:
1) complained about an unaccompanied pitbull that launched at me and my hound while we were walking
2) complained about the hideous smell coming from the meatworks which is apparently supposed to be contained
3) complained about another dog who is not restrained, and lunges at us every time we walk past their property, even though her owner is standing nearby, seemingly oblivious to our yelling and efforts to get his dog off our dog
4) complained about our neighbours who sit in their driveway with their big boomy car stereo playing all night keeping us awake, but who don't seem to speak english when we have tried to approach them about it

I don't know how I turned into such a complaining cow, it's not the kiwi way. I think I'm drunk with complaining power.

If the ground could open up and swallow me...... I think my head is about to explode from the heat rushing to escape.

One of the ladies at work has had to leave for England suddenly, as her dear Aunt found out she has cancer, and not long to live. I was saying my goodbyes to her, and she was saying how she hopes we'll be OK here as we've had to take on her workload while she's gone. And I said:

"Don't worry about us here, life will go on" (arrrghh!! Her Aunt is dying, why did I say that?!!! I must fix this!!!!)
"Well for some of us it will!"

The rest of the conversation is a blur....

What was I THINKING?@!!!! I have verbal diarrhoea, why didn't I stop after the first inappropriate comment?! If there was a rock I could crawl underneath...... *whimper*

I'm having trouble concentrating on work, I keep thinking about last nights episode of Heroes.

Last week when the nurse guy (Peter??) started painting, I wondered if maybe his power was that he could take on the powers of the other Heroes around him, kinda like an empath. It would explain why he couldn't fly until his brother was there. Last night didn't reveal anything more about this theory, and nobody at work thinks I'm right. I want to bang their heads together, it makes perfect sense!

Another thing I was wondering about was location. We've seen 2 maps where people have been identified as having powers about the place. Are the pins on the maps where they have already found people, or are they identifying where they think people should be? Because if it's the latter, then that would explain why 2 brothers, plus the Vegas family all have powers, rather than just one family member. I think it must be the former though, otherwise people like the policeman's wife would have powers too.

Interesting that the posters around town only show 4 of the characters, wonder if the policeman will die. Or maybe they are only showing the group of people who have decided they will go forth and do good things, maybe the others have powers but choose to keep them to themselves.

I like being drip-fed stories on a weekly basis. I started downloading the next season of Veronica Mars, and I know I'll be bummed when it comes back on TV and I will have already seen it all.

So mmmmm.... wasting time thinking about it..... dum de dooooo

Dear LJ, it has been almost a year since my last confession...errr... entry. There has been much goodness happening in my life. The most important being Daniel. Oh Daniel! We met on the interweb of course, that's how I meet so many important people who have come into my life. I'll resist from gushing, but go straight to the conclusion. We are now happily shacked up with our daughter Lilly. She's beautiful to us, but she has a face like a dog. Her paws and tail are kind of dog-like too. But we don't like to talk about that in front of her.

We are living in a really great place. The house is old, small, and half-way through renovations (not helped by all my stuff everywhere, still unpacked), but it's home. It has a really big section, with heaps of fruit trees on it (I think about 12 different types of fruit bearing trees). It has a vegetable patch, which I enthusiastically planted about 25 tomatoes in (what have I done?!) and one chilli plant, which I don't know what to do with. Oh, and I accidentally planted some courgettes. I thought they were sunflower seeds.

Work is going swimmingly. When I think back to where we were a year ago, we've grown quite a lot. Several new staff members, I can no longer sit in the office and sing at the top of my lungs. Well, I suppose I could, but that would be painful for everyone else.

I'm still mildly obsessed with succulent plants, and have way too many. I really need a greenhouse, and there is room for one now. I just need to get organised.

That'll do for now! It's been a long time since my last entry, don't want to strain anything.

They aren't the same weird shapes as the ones I got their seeds from, and are a lighter shade of red, and taste a bit different. I guess the soil must have something to do with that? But whatever, I have tomatoes!!! And I grew them myself!!! Now what should I do with them, I hardly ever use tomatoes :-\

ewwwww I found the grossest thing this morning. Someone put a bag of nuts on top of the fridge without putting them into a container first. Moths ate through the bag, and there was a LOT of squirmy white grossness to deal with this morning. They'd gotten into another plastic container full of nuts (don't know how they got in), and it was just DISGUSTING. I don't know how I managed to eat my muesli this morning, especially given it has shredded coconut in it. ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!

I got an e-mail from i-hug saying that I had gone over my 20gb usage limit and would be dropped down to 56k for the rest of the month. I was quite surprised because I've never hit it before. So I went to check my history, and last month I used nearly 40gb. We used to be uncapped, but they changed it some months ago. I assumed we must be under the limits because we'd never had a problem, but I guess they must not have been enforcing it before. Bummer. So last night I had a look at the other major ISP's, and it seems I have a pretty good deal with i-hug, most of the others don't even offer 20gb or upwards. It seems orcon offers some sort of uncapped plan, but it costs more, and how much longer will they be holding the uncapped bit?

Found out something cool about my cellphone. (as if there weren't enough cool things!) It came with a USB cable and some software. If I plug it in, then click "connect to the internet" on the software (from my laptop)... voila! I have a high speed connection anywhere I go! Wahoo!! I don't know why I didn't assume it could do that anyway, but I hadn't thought about it.

Why is it there seem to be seagulls everywhere lately? I work in Newmarket (as in, not near a beach), and I often hear them outside. Today as I pulled out of the driveway at home one of them came zooming towards my car. I thought they only hung around at beaches and rubbish tips.

Have had a lovely week, but as usual I can't wait to sleep in on the weekend and catch up on some sleep.  debxena cooked me a wonderful dinner on Wednesday and introduced me to Chobits which I LOVE.  Can't wait to see more!  Why was she on the pile of rubbish?  What's the significance of the dropped disk?  ooohhh.... excitement!  I love looking forward to watching something that I haven't seen before.

Have had a mad few weeks. Usually there is about one week per month where I'm super busy at work trying to get everything done. That's the week all of my data comes through from retailers. This month I have had new retailers come on board, which means setting up from scratch, which means busy Rachel! I'm just finishing off the last of my urgent jobs, and it will all start again on Monday. So I've barely had time to breathe.

And I REALLY need to find a massage therapist who has talent with hand/wrist massage. I met one camping at HaeHae (sp?) one year, but she lives in Palmerston North so that's a bummer. I have a regular massage therapist who does great everything else massage, but she doesn't have the skills for hands, which hurt the most for me. The last 3 people I've been to see were the same, good at everything but hands.

My new phone is still bringing me oodles of pleasure. And I don't even have it on vibrate mode. Yes, we both know you were thinking it. My boss gave me his bluetooth headset the other day as he doesn't like it, so I'm dying to make a phonecall where I can test it out. I don't think it's much good for incoming calls, as I estimate it takes about 10seconds to turn the thing on, then wait for the phone to recognise it so I can use it.

My tomatoes are still going strong, though the plants are so heavy even 3 stakes aren't holding them up very well. The cherry tomato plant has even produced edible tomatoes!! I took 2 yesterday, and there are more coming, yay!!

The weekend was good. I intended on going to the Chinese Lantern Festival on Friday, but it started raining so that was a bit disappointing. Saturday I ran around doing the usual errands during the day, then went out for a friends birthday at night. We went to Wild Fire in the Viaduct and ate loads of different meats, then went to the Loaded Hog. Not my idea of a good night usually (I hate sweaty grindy bars), but they had a bikini competition on so we had no problem getting a table. All the guys were standing around the catwalk, and there were hardly any girls present. Our first drink was bought for us by a guy named Lance (of all the uncommon names!), who was completely charming. He bought the drinks, kissed me on the cheek, told me I had a cute nose and slipped into the crowd. We all decided that was very charming! Unfortunately he came back later and ruined it by grabbing one breast and pretty much humping me from behind while I was watching the girls on the catwalk. Not so charming. In fact I would go so far as to say eeeewwwww! It reminded me why I usually avoid that kind of place.

I have dug up my old MS Money software and will be trying to keep myself within a budget. Somewhere along the line I stopped budgeting. Even though I'm doing fine with savings, I think I could be doing better. It seems I can get software for my phone which will allow me to enter transactions on the fly too, which can later be updated to my computer. Haven't found a free version yet, but if the demo versions are good I guess it would be worth it to keep myself in check.

I am so excited, I can't stop giggling like a mad fool! It might be due to extreme tiredness, but it might also be to do with the new cellphone I just got given!@#$!! My bosses just gave me the new Nokia N70 3G handset!!! It's only just arrived in New Zealand, and now we all have one each. I'm not talking a company phone either, it's mine to keep, a gift. How cool is that?! I knew the three directors were getting them, but they own the business, I'm just a pleb. All week they've been talking about what they're going to do with them and making me green with envy. When they arrived today I grabbed one of them and said I'd err..help.... by figuring out how to use S's phone as she wouldn't be in to collect it until next week. (I can't resist playing with toys even if they're not mine). Then D1 said "well how about you keep that one hey Rach?" I can tell you, there was MUCH squealing and hugging and grinning like a fool. They said it was worth the money to see my face. I still have that face on, I can't stop smiling and looking at it lovingly. It's all I can do to not play with it get on with my work!

Seriously, I LOVE my job. This morning I told them how I got a $60 parking ticket yesterday for parking in a clearway at 8:56am, they said they'd pay for it. I will pay it myself of course (even though I thought it was a bit rough given I think 5 minutes either way should be acceptable to allow for different times on peoples watches), but the fact that they offered rocks. ROCK ROCK!

Not only do they look after me like that, but I really like the work I do. It's a very satisfying job. I am a very happy camper!

It has been a lovely long weekend :) On Saturday I went for a massage, which was really nice. It's been months since my last one, amazing how much tension builds up in that time. I was drifting off a bit while she was massaging, and it was weird because when she'd change the way or area she was massaging, my thoughts would change with it. One minute I'd be thinking about cats, she'd move to my shoulders and my thoughts would move to trees. She was conducting my thoughts :-P

On Saturday night was the great hero/fondue party. It was SO freakin' hot though, and I was buzzing around like a mad thing. What a cool (not temperature wise of course) night it was. Everyone pitched in to create a yummy fondue buffet, the drawn out eating was conducive to excellent conversation and relaxation. The movie looked fabulous projected against the wall, and I got to see Saturn and her rings through a really big telescope. Awesome, all of it!

Sunday I went to Whangaparoa(sp?) to my bosses house for dinner and a knitting lesson. Not from him, from his wife :-P It's so cool to hang out with his family, and I was very grateful for a fabulously yummy home cooked meal. It's so peaceful out there, I can see why they love living there. I met her (bosses wife) earlier in the afternoon at Spotlight, and we got some cheap wool. It's that feathery stuff that was fashionable last winter, and a gold colour. So it feels like I'm knitting a labrador puppy, it really does look like fur. I think I've just about got a leg done.

Today I watched Willy Wonka in bed, and watched a bunch of assorted TV episodes, tidied a little bit, and worked on my labrador leg. It's been a lazy, relaxing day. It's about 8pm, and I've only just had a shower :-P Ahhh.... roll on Waitangi weekend!

Two weeks ago my parents got a phone call from some very good friends of theirs, wanting to meet for dinner, they had some exciting news. Apparently they had gone to a website, and a popup had informed them that they were the winners of a cruise for four people in the Bahamas. w00t! All they had to do was pay their own airfare, listen to a 90min presentation when they got there........ and pay US$200 per person for administration fees. So he gladly entered his credit card details and forked over the US$800 administration fees.

They haven't heard anything back yet. Though their credit card hasn't been debited yet either. Maybe I'm being too cynical. Or maybe someone has collected his credit card details and plans on selling it to other folks. Even though the money hasn't been debited, I just find it too hard to believe it could be for real. And I feel so bad for these people, they are retired, and if they are ripped off, this is going to hurt them.

wot a windy 'orrible day it is. I swear the wind is blowing so strong the rain is criss-crossing itself trying to decide which direction to fall.

However the day started in a rather different way to normal. I walked into the lounge to find a fine male specimen getting dressed, and only halfway done. Normally finding half naked strangers in my house when I'm the only one home would make me scream, but he immediately introduced himself as my flatmates friend, and explained that he'd stayed the night on the airbed. Then he put his t-shirt on. Ah well, I guess it was a bit optimistic of me to hope he was there to do the housework in his underwear.

Yesterday I came out of Mitre 10 to find a hole in the bumper, approximately the size of a tow bar. Sadly I did not find a note attached to my windscreen. Does my car have bad ju-ju, or is it me? So I took it back to the panel beater (who I'd only just seen a week or so ago). He laughed at me. Then he told me it'd be around the $400 mark. To which I said pppfftttt!!!

I'm thinking I'll have to live with the hole, it's a lot of money to shell out, and I didn't even cause this one. I wonder if it will reduce the sales appeal when it comes time to sell. Probably a little bit.

My boss just told me another funny story about his kids. He shaves his head once a week, and always has done, so his kids don't know him any differently. His oldest daughter said something about daddy being bald. So his youngest pipes up and says "no, he's got hair at the back, he's just got a big forehead".

Love it!!! Kids really do say the funniest things :-D