Yesterday I had my first ever "Valentine's Day", and in all honesty I've not a clue what all the hype is about. It was just another day really. I went out for dinner with Taylor at one of the local pub/restaurant places as they were holding a proper valentine's night. Which perhaps wasn't the best plan.
They had suggested to book ahead, so I had done that a week or so ago. And they showed us to this table out in a separate room set up for the whole valentine's theme, complete with fairy lights and an acoustic singer. It was so loud I could hardly think. However when we went back to the bar to order the food, we realised somebody else took our table while we were ordering! Although there was a much more comfortable seating arrangement in the bar and it was further from this guy who was singing, so at least it wasn't as loud. I think it was just because the speakers were echoing, so you couldn't think a word in your head, let alone string a sentence together to have a conversation in there. So that worked in our favour a bit. But it still wasn't great. Because they were so booked up, it took an hour before one starter came out for us - salt and pepper squid, it was really delicious. But that might've been because we were so hungry. Finally 10 minutes after that, the main meals showed up but the meat was overdone so again, just yeah.
They're a really good place to eat at, but I guess because they were so busy, things went a little slack in the kitchen. I'd imagine they were working hard out, food was constantly flowing out, it was just a shame it took an hour to batter some squid and then deep-fry it. I was so tired, I was just like, "wake me up when it arrives..."
Overall it was a rather mediocre night, it would've been more pleasant staying home and watching a movie. Valentine's is certainly more of an American holiday, isn't it? Very commercialised.
I took Annie in for her first service yesterday, she's done over 1500 k's now, so definitely well run in. I still like her and I'm still definitely getting used to her, it is taking a little while this time. Although she does need a repair already, just some plastic paneling on the back passenger door has come apart - we suspect in the heat, and it can't clip back in for some odd reason. But because the cars are so new, it'll take a bit to order the part. The frustrating thing is that she doesn't have an"over speed alarm", I can be cruising along at 105 and not even realise it, at least if a bell were to sound then I'd know sooner rather than later. It's not that I don't keep an eye on the speedo, I do, but she just likes speeding. It would be handy in those areas where I'm not sure on the speed limit too, but alas she doesn't have the alarm. Which is rather odd for new cars these days.
Oh so I'm joining a community netball club! I saw it advertised on facebook and suggested it to Chantelle. Last Wednesday was just an info session and tonight are the trials. I'm not too sure what it exactly entails, but at 6 o'clock tonight I guess I'll find out. I've never played netball a day in my life, but I've often wanted to, so they suggested I sign up for a Wing Attack or Wing Defense roll and just go from there.
Trials are tonight and then every Wednesday onwards are training nights - two hour sessions, that should be in the school gym so at least the weather won't bother us. In May the actual games start, so every Friday night I'll be there, although that is outside in another local town so it'll be inconvenient if it's raining! The sport plays until around September-ish, so that'll keep me as a busy little beaver until then. I just figured that I'd rather not have the life where I simply eat, sleep and work and see Taylor. Chantelle and I have been struggling to organise a movie night with Bianca, because it seems every suggested night somebody is busy! So this way Chantelle and I will have compulsory catch ups at least once a week!
Another girl, Maddie, might also be coming. I know her through Taylor as she lives and works with his best friend Luke on one of the farms around here. She's 18 and seems really nice so it'll be good to get to know her a bit more. I just hope that we all get onto the same team after tonight's session.
Playing sport meant buying some decent shoes, so while we were in town yesterday I hunted through Rebel Sport to find a pair.
Did you know the average pair of sneakers start at a whopping $120?
Yes, ok so they're decent shoes from decent brands like New Balance. I bought a pair of them when I was 15 for about $100 and I still use them every day to drive to and from work. Sure, the framing is poking through the material now but they're still very usable, just perhaps not as sports shoes anymore! So at least they last the distance, but sheesh! I went through glancing at all the prices, proper "netball" shoes were sitting about about $240, so we strolled down to the specials/end of lines deals. I finally found a great pair, size 8.5 (perfect fit for me) for $60 - down from $120. So of course I walked out of there with them (in a bag though!) and I've been wearing them around the house to try and wear them in a tad before tonight.
I'm feeling somewhat nervous because I'm not too sure how tonight will go, I know I won't be "perfect" at the game and I've got a heck of a lot to learn, I just hope I'm not too obviously useless at it! Catch the ball Kayger, please don't have butter fingers!! hahaha Please don't run with the ball Kayger, this isn't rugby. Might I also suggest not bouncing the ball either? Yeah, that'd look bad.
Now, to organise myself to go do some stapling on a few new fences on the job we've started up the road, and to encourage myself that I'm being rather well behaved by still having NOT opened the chocolate Tay got me for valentine's day...Dunno how long that will last though...
The weather here is atrocious lately. We've been getting soaring temperatures of over 30 degrees almost daily, and at night the humidity is often unbearable, it's been sitting anywhere between 60-70%. I'm so tired at the moment because I just haven't been able to sleep! Then there's the rain, it'll rain when you least expect it to, and when it does rain it does so in an amount that is more annoying than anything. It just makes everything slippery and then the wind dries it up again. A week or so ago we got 15mm overnight, which was a great dumping. We're lucky though as we don't have any fires like other parts of the country and Aussie do...there was one a bit further up north on Waitangi Day, but that burnt through about 3-4 hectares of scrub, not 300-400 hectares like everywhere else...
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Wednesday, 15 February 2017
Tuesday, 29 March 2016
Tessa
There are a few days, quite often where I just sit at home and get seriously bored out of my mind, to the point where I can stalk through the house, possibly zombie eyed, trying to find something to set my mind to. There are a few things I can do, sure, but they are the sort of things you can only do if you are seriously enthused to do it. So if you aren't enthused, one must go find some job to do that takes no concentration but it needs doing and nothing can be harmed by doing it wrong if your mind isn't set to the task.
That being said, there was one day last week where I was left home alone to watch the dogs and hang out by myself, so I weeded the garden. Quite honestly. I was that bored, I went out there and hacked away at all the deadly nightshade that had taken residence in the potato patch and biffed it all in the compost and also planted some kumara. Some of the sacks of kumara we've bought in the last month or so had started sprouting tubers, so Mum and I thought we'd give it a shot, and put the tubers in some water for a few weeks until I got around to planting them. They're in big pots in the glasshouse now, so at least the cooler weather shouldn't harm them. I'm pretty excited to grow my own kumara, it's like one of the best foods on the planet - just saying.
So now, instead of wandering around bug eyed, looking for something to do, I flick through my new recipe books Mum and Dad gave me at Christmas - 200 chocolate recipes and 200 baking recipes. Sometime last week I made these marbled cupcakes, you know, with real chocolate and a sweet, sweet butter icing. I honestly wasn't too keen on them, but everyone else really enjoyed them. Although I'll skip out on their butter icing recipe (white and chocolate coloured to match the cake) and just do a normal icing next time round. Or perhaps do less icing, something anyway because it was just too sweet./
While yesterday I made a beetroot chocolate cake. Yep, you heard right. I've heard of people doing it before, but scoffed at the idea - eww, beetroot in a chocolate cake, no way. Basically because I hate carrot cakes and that's all I can think of when I imagine vegetables in a cake! But everyone swears by this type of cake, it was in the recipe book, it doesn't need alcohol (why do yummy looking chocolate cakes need alcohol?!?!) so I gave it a shot. I'm impressed.
Apart from looking at the batter with the deep purple colour, and not being game enough to try the batter raw like I would with any other recipe, the cake is perfect. Let me just say that recently I'm not the best at making cakes, the intention is good but no matter how hard I try to get it done quickly without over beating, it always takes far too long to cook and turns out hard on the outside and not quite cooked in the centre. (Our old cake tin died, it makes a difference).
However, this blimmen cake filled with beetroot, so, so good. It is moist, not too sweet, cooked perfectly all the way through, almost 24 hours later it hasn't gone stale and you can't even taste the beets. There is this somewhat after taste in the back of your mouth where you know you've eaten beetroot, but it's not a bad taste. Coming from someone who thinks beetroot is OK but nothing to sing home about, that's a pretty decent result!
So long as we have access to beetroot in the garden, I'll be making it again! And I think I'm going to make it for a few people so they can try it too. I mentioned it to Hamish on the weekend and my neighbour yesterday, but neither of them seemed too convinced. I will convert them! lol
Now you might've noticed above I mentioned the word "dogs". No, I didn't make a typo, we now have two dogs. Puppies, little animals. Whatever you want to call them. Last Wednesday Mum and Dad traveled north to get Dad a puppy, who we'd known about for less than a week. Yes, it might've been an impulse decision, but it certainly wasn't a bad one!
Tessa is a little 10 week old Jack Russell x Foxy, she's gorgeous. If you ever had a "Spot" dog teddy as a kid, she looks almost just like it, with an almost entirely white body with black ears and face, and two large black spots on her back. We all adore her, but she's definitely Dad's dog. The idea is that she will go to work with him to keep him company, such as sit in the spray ute beside him or go fencing with him and Nick. She's gonna need a little hi-viz jacket to look the part, but she's gonna love it. She already happily goes for rides in the vehicles with Dad places and travels really well.
Jackson is absolutely smitten, they have massive play fights where they're both chasing eachother around the house, inside and out. Although she does have that killer instinct already that we're going to need to keep in check. She grabs hold of poor Jackson's floppy ears and does the whole, death shake thing, or latches onto his legs until he yelps in pain. Of course they're just playing, but her jaws are already very strong. With that in mind she respects the cats so now I'm not worried about her harming them, she and Pippa play and chase each other as if they've been mates since birth. Quite seriously, Pippa, Tessa and Jackson all run around outside playing like the crazy animals they are, Pippa with her large psyched eyes filled with unmistakable joy.
Originally we thought that Jackson thought he must be a cat, now we're more inclined to think that Pippa thinks she's a dog, and it's great that after more than a year of her being here she has two best buddies when as a kitten she was constantly traumatised from the other cats beating her up.
I think perhaps the biggest joke is how soft we've gotten. Or, Dad's gotten. Two dogs, in the house, when years ago a dog couldn't step one paw in the house without getting a blasting. The dogs each have their own little pet bed to sleep in, and I got one for Pippa recently too from one of those clearance stores where everything is excessively cheap. Although we think that Tessa snuggles with Jackson at night to keep warm. So at about 9:30 every night, unless I'm already asleep, we all take our little friend to the porch and pop them into their little beds. Kiss them goodnight and they all snuggle down to sleep, it's so cute. The other night Pippa was being so cuddly, she gets like that when she's really tired and it is simply the sweetest thing.
When I was younger the cats were put out at night, no matter what the weather was like, and they were left to their own devices to find somewhere warm and dry to sleep. No matter how much I cried when I was little during those really stormy nights, knowing my poor cat was out there somewhere, Mum and Dad held their ground hard. But nowadays....ha ha! Tessa even sits on Dad's lap at night and watches the TV. Ridiculous.
You have to admit though, she's pretty darned cute.
That being said, there was one day last week where I was left home alone to watch the dogs and hang out by myself, so I weeded the garden. Quite honestly. I was that bored, I went out there and hacked away at all the deadly nightshade that had taken residence in the potato patch and biffed it all in the compost and also planted some kumara. Some of the sacks of kumara we've bought in the last month or so had started sprouting tubers, so Mum and I thought we'd give it a shot, and put the tubers in some water for a few weeks until I got around to planting them. They're in big pots in the glasshouse now, so at least the cooler weather shouldn't harm them. I'm pretty excited to grow my own kumara, it's like one of the best foods on the planet - just saying.
So now, instead of wandering around bug eyed, looking for something to do, I flick through my new recipe books Mum and Dad gave me at Christmas - 200 chocolate recipes and 200 baking recipes. Sometime last week I made these marbled cupcakes, you know, with real chocolate and a sweet, sweet butter icing. I honestly wasn't too keen on them, but everyone else really enjoyed them. Although I'll skip out on their butter icing recipe (white and chocolate coloured to match the cake) and just do a normal icing next time round. Or perhaps do less icing, something anyway because it was just too sweet./
While yesterday I made a beetroot chocolate cake. Yep, you heard right. I've heard of people doing it before, but scoffed at the idea - eww, beetroot in a chocolate cake, no way. Basically because I hate carrot cakes and that's all I can think of when I imagine vegetables in a cake! But everyone swears by this type of cake, it was in the recipe book, it doesn't need alcohol (why do yummy looking chocolate cakes need alcohol?!?!) so I gave it a shot. I'm impressed.
Apart from looking at the batter with the deep purple colour, and not being game enough to try the batter raw like I would with any other recipe, the cake is perfect. Let me just say that recently I'm not the best at making cakes, the intention is good but no matter how hard I try to get it done quickly without over beating, it always takes far too long to cook and turns out hard on the outside and not quite cooked in the centre. (Our old cake tin died, it makes a difference).
However, this blimmen cake filled with beetroot, so, so good. It is moist, not too sweet, cooked perfectly all the way through, almost 24 hours later it hasn't gone stale and you can't even taste the beets. There is this somewhat after taste in the back of your mouth where you know you've eaten beetroot, but it's not a bad taste. Coming from someone who thinks beetroot is OK but nothing to sing home about, that's a pretty decent result!
So long as we have access to beetroot in the garden, I'll be making it again! And I think I'm going to make it for a few people so they can try it too. I mentioned it to Hamish on the weekend and my neighbour yesterday, but neither of them seemed too convinced. I will convert them! lol
Now you might've noticed above I mentioned the word "dogs". No, I didn't make a typo, we now have two dogs. Puppies, little animals. Whatever you want to call them. Last Wednesday Mum and Dad traveled north to get Dad a puppy, who we'd known about for less than a week. Yes, it might've been an impulse decision, but it certainly wasn't a bad one!
Tessa is a little 10 week old Jack Russell x Foxy, she's gorgeous. If you ever had a "Spot" dog teddy as a kid, she looks almost just like it, with an almost entirely white body with black ears and face, and two large black spots on her back. We all adore her, but she's definitely Dad's dog. The idea is that she will go to work with him to keep him company, such as sit in the spray ute beside him or go fencing with him and Nick. She's gonna need a little hi-viz jacket to look the part, but she's gonna love it. She already happily goes for rides in the vehicles with Dad places and travels really well.
Jackson is absolutely smitten, they have massive play fights where they're both chasing eachother around the house, inside and out. Although she does have that killer instinct already that we're going to need to keep in check. She grabs hold of poor Jackson's floppy ears and does the whole, death shake thing, or latches onto his legs until he yelps in pain. Of course they're just playing, but her jaws are already very strong. With that in mind she respects the cats so now I'm not worried about her harming them, she and Pippa play and chase each other as if they've been mates since birth. Quite seriously, Pippa, Tessa and Jackson all run around outside playing like the crazy animals they are, Pippa with her large psyched eyes filled with unmistakable joy.
Originally we thought that Jackson thought he must be a cat, now we're more inclined to think that Pippa thinks she's a dog, and it's great that after more than a year of her being here she has two best buddies when as a kitten she was constantly traumatised from the other cats beating her up.
I think perhaps the biggest joke is how soft we've gotten. Or, Dad's gotten. Two dogs, in the house, when years ago a dog couldn't step one paw in the house without getting a blasting. The dogs each have their own little pet bed to sleep in, and I got one for Pippa recently too from one of those clearance stores where everything is excessively cheap. Although we think that Tessa snuggles with Jackson at night to keep warm. So at about 9:30 every night, unless I'm already asleep, we all take our little friend to the porch and pop them into their little beds. Kiss them goodnight and they all snuggle down to sleep, it's so cute. The other night Pippa was being so cuddly, she gets like that when she's really tired and it is simply the sweetest thing.
When I was younger the cats were put out at night, no matter what the weather was like, and they were left to their own devices to find somewhere warm and dry to sleep. No matter how much I cried when I was little during those really stormy nights, knowing my poor cat was out there somewhere, Mum and Dad held their ground hard. But nowadays....ha ha! Tessa even sits on Dad's lap at night and watches the TV. Ridiculous.
You have to admit though, she's pretty darned cute.
Sunday, 17 January 2016
Nick's 21st
As you all might have noticed, I've been slightly quiet on here lately - we've just been so busy! Yesterday we had my brother, Nick's, 21st birthday party and it pretty much went without a hitch - thank goodness!
We've been so busy trying to tidy the place up before we had people around. Just a general tidy up outside, hanging some doors so people couldn't wander around inside the house too much, finishing our iron fence, to name a few things. We ran out of iron for the fence prior to Christmas and some good clients of ours drove past quite often getting more and more frustrated that we still hadn't finished it. So they called us up, told us they had plenty of iron off their old shed, to come and take it all and finish the fence prior to the party. They were awesome, not even excepting any payment for it. So we finally got that done on Friday night! It's nice to see it finished, I mean, we started it in September, so. lol
My Nana arrived on Friday, as did my Great Aunty Col and her partner Chris and they've been here ever since - I think everyone is leaving tomorrow. Which has been good as Nana and Col have been able to help Mum with cooking up the food and such while I worked outside. The whole food preparation and all that has never fully been my thing, especially when there are so many people in the kitchen fighting for bench space and all the utensils and pots. So I was out mowing the lawns at midday yesterday....don't mow the lawns at that time of the day again, it's torture! All I know was that it was more than 25 degrees, for the first time in weeks. Phew!
It was fun though, in the end we had a fair few family members show up, my sister and BIL eventually arrived in time to help sort the lamb on the spit, my Great Uncle Brian and his partner Sue came, as well as some old family friends from Hamilton. After that it was mostly just a few mates from around here and some of our clients that Nick enjoys hanging out with. So it was pretty neat, I think there were 30 odd people here, and it was the nice atmosphere where everyone just chilled out outside, most people were farmers so it was a typical conversation topic, it was pleasant.
Alesha and I, being the horrible, mean sisters that we are, said our speeches about Nick. going over all the - I don't know how he made it this far, what with all the things he pulled apart etc etc. Both of us picking on him in a sarcastic manner, going over some of those memories on stories that Mum and Dad knew nothing of...so they were left staring at Nick, going, are you serious?! See because I'm slightly younger than Nick, I was the one who could say I had known him my whole life...a whole 20 years where he has annoyed the life out of me! haha, but I managed to spit out that after all these years he wasn't too bad a brother after all. :D And I got it all on camera too!
Pretty much everyone who came gave him some awesome gifts. You know, like the last few 21st's I've been to there have been a few people give presents but most people just come for the free food and the socialising. Like, he was given an engraved knife, heaps of money or vouchers, fishing stuff, etc. So he was stoked. All this for someone who wasn't fussed about having a 21st party, lol!
But towards the end of the night, there were only a few of us there (it's really odd, being a host of something for a change!) our neighbour Sam was the first to turn up and the last to leave, Mum and Dad deciding that he is actually a really nice person to hang out with - think he's a couple years older than us? But one of his mates turned up at his house, so he picked him up and brought him over. Turns out it was a guy we knew as kids, he'd forgotten us. But man he can't really hold his alcohol. After a few drinking card games with my BIL (who had also managed to get quite drunk), there were some funny stories coming out of this guys mouth. Let's just say I was doubled over, in fits of laughter because I've never seen anyone drunk before. Like, I don't condone over drinking - I refuse to drink a drop of it at all and I don't even think he'd really drunk all that much. It was hilarious, he just would not shut up. The filter had been deactivated. You hear of people spouting out the truth when they're drunk...haha yeah, well. Sam was in stitches. Kept trying to tell him they better get going but this guy, he was pretty chilled out hanging with us. By the time they managed to leave, stumbling across the lawn and driving a few metres up the road, it was 1:30am. And then we're like, oh, now we have to tidy up....thankfully we just had to stack up the chairs and bring the electronics back inside before falling into our own beds.
The food was great, there is so much left over. There was a slight issue with the lamb...falling off the spit. When you smell something burning, and then realise the meat is on the base of the spit, it's not good! We got an old friend from our early homeschooling days to bake his cake, it was and is, incredible. It's a chocolate mud cake with chocolate icing, covered in chocolates - most of them homemade. All of the tools actually look real, one girl asked Nick why on earth he had a crescent on his plate, before realising it was in fact, gold tinted chocolate. Gosh it's sickening though, I would think we've still got more than three quarters of it left...thank goodness I'm going away tomorrow!!
This guy I know, Aidan came. That was certainly interesting, he's a nice guy I'll give him that but I think he's aiming to be a little bit more than friends...which is, well, ya know? Not too sure what to do about that one...I don't mind hanging out with him every so often, but I left him to it, both of us knowing he was going to be in the firing line from Dad. Haha! It was funny to sit back and watch, Dad flat out glaring at him from a distance. Him sitting next to Dad, trying to soften him up with casual work conversation...Later on I heard that Dad did as he planned to....mentioning the word "castrator" to him in front of heaps of people. I think they both took it pretty well, thank goodness. But yeah, a slightly awkward situation to be in! Pretty jolly funny to watch, I have to admit. That's not evil of me, is it? ;-)
But yeah, now life is pretty chilled out, I crawled out of bed just after 9 and we've pretty much blobbed all day. Apart from tidying everything else up, it's been nice and easy. Been a long time coming! Now I'm supposed to be up here in my room packing for my holiday! But I'm not! I'm seriously procrastinating. All I've done so far is sit my suitcase on the floor with it opened, and put my laptop in its case. haha, I really hate packing. I think it's that, I have to be bothered to do it - which I'm not. Because that will mean I have to decide what clothes to pack, how to pack it. Consider what I'm forgetting, tidy my room in the same instance to make sure I don't forget everything. Go up and down the stairs, losing track of myself. Yeah, so therefore all I've done is cleaned and put some more leather conditioner on my work boots, other than that it's after 5pm and all I've done is write this blog, charge my Kobo and buy a few more books for it for the circumstance where I actually get a chance to read! Yeah right!
It's a weird feeling, knowing I won't be back here until the 28th. Pretty weird, that's for sure. Breaking Pippa's heart by abandoning her (I'm feeling pretty stink about that!) feeling weird for leaving home when I haven't gone away for a long time. Nana says if she's too tired to drive I'll be able to take over, so that's a pretty odd thought...driving her car. It'll be after Drury anyway, if I do take over driving as I've never driven the motorway before (yes Bee, I know, I'm ridiculous!). Thinking I might actually miss Jackson - Sam, our neighbour really likes him, if he ever goes missing Sam's will be the first house we call on! Above all it's going to be so, so strange talking to Andrew in person. hehe, Nana said earlier, "so how did you meet him anyway?" I'm just like, well, actually! Can't wait, it should be pretty awesome! You just wait, I'll have so, so much to say after the 28th as I would've seen my lifetime friend Jessica too.
Until then, cya round!!
We've been so busy trying to tidy the place up before we had people around. Just a general tidy up outside, hanging some doors so people couldn't wander around inside the house too much, finishing our iron fence, to name a few things. We ran out of iron for the fence prior to Christmas and some good clients of ours drove past quite often getting more and more frustrated that we still hadn't finished it. So they called us up, told us they had plenty of iron off their old shed, to come and take it all and finish the fence prior to the party. They were awesome, not even excepting any payment for it. So we finally got that done on Friday night! It's nice to see it finished, I mean, we started it in September, so. lol
My Nana arrived on Friday, as did my Great Aunty Col and her partner Chris and they've been here ever since - I think everyone is leaving tomorrow. Which has been good as Nana and Col have been able to help Mum with cooking up the food and such while I worked outside. The whole food preparation and all that has never fully been my thing, especially when there are so many people in the kitchen fighting for bench space and all the utensils and pots. So I was out mowing the lawns at midday yesterday....don't mow the lawns at that time of the day again, it's torture! All I know was that it was more than 25 degrees, for the first time in weeks. Phew!
It was fun though, in the end we had a fair few family members show up, my sister and BIL eventually arrived in time to help sort the lamb on the spit, my Great Uncle Brian and his partner Sue came, as well as some old family friends from Hamilton. After that it was mostly just a few mates from around here and some of our clients that Nick enjoys hanging out with. So it was pretty neat, I think there were 30 odd people here, and it was the nice atmosphere where everyone just chilled out outside, most people were farmers so it was a typical conversation topic, it was pleasant.
Alesha and I, being the horrible, mean sisters that we are, said our speeches about Nick. going over all the - I don't know how he made it this far, what with all the things he pulled apart etc etc. Both of us picking on him in a sarcastic manner, going over some of those memories on stories that Mum and Dad knew nothing of...so they were left staring at Nick, going, are you serious?! See because I'm slightly younger than Nick, I was the one who could say I had known him my whole life...a whole 20 years where he has annoyed the life out of me! haha, but I managed to spit out that after all these years he wasn't too bad a brother after all. :D And I got it all on camera too!
Pretty much everyone who came gave him some awesome gifts. You know, like the last few 21st's I've been to there have been a few people give presents but most people just come for the free food and the socialising. Like, he was given an engraved knife, heaps of money or vouchers, fishing stuff, etc. So he was stoked. All this for someone who wasn't fussed about having a 21st party, lol!
But towards the end of the night, there were only a few of us there (it's really odd, being a host of something for a change!) our neighbour Sam was the first to turn up and the last to leave, Mum and Dad deciding that he is actually a really nice person to hang out with - think he's a couple years older than us? But one of his mates turned up at his house, so he picked him up and brought him over. Turns out it was a guy we knew as kids, he'd forgotten us. But man he can't really hold his alcohol. After a few drinking card games with my BIL (who had also managed to get quite drunk), there were some funny stories coming out of this guys mouth. Let's just say I was doubled over, in fits of laughter because I've never seen anyone drunk before. Like, I don't condone over drinking - I refuse to drink a drop of it at all and I don't even think he'd really drunk all that much. It was hilarious, he just would not shut up. The filter had been deactivated. You hear of people spouting out the truth when they're drunk...haha yeah, well. Sam was in stitches. Kept trying to tell him they better get going but this guy, he was pretty chilled out hanging with us. By the time they managed to leave, stumbling across the lawn and driving a few metres up the road, it was 1:30am. And then we're like, oh, now we have to tidy up....thankfully we just had to stack up the chairs and bring the electronics back inside before falling into our own beds.
The food was great, there is so much left over. There was a slight issue with the lamb...falling off the spit. When you smell something burning, and then realise the meat is on the base of the spit, it's not good! We got an old friend from our early homeschooling days to bake his cake, it was and is, incredible. It's a chocolate mud cake with chocolate icing, covered in chocolates - most of them homemade. All of the tools actually look real, one girl asked Nick why on earth he had a crescent on his plate, before realising it was in fact, gold tinted chocolate. Gosh it's sickening though, I would think we've still got more than three quarters of it left...thank goodness I'm going away tomorrow!!
This guy I know, Aidan came. That was certainly interesting, he's a nice guy I'll give him that but I think he's aiming to be a little bit more than friends...which is, well, ya know? Not too sure what to do about that one...I don't mind hanging out with him every so often, but I left him to it, both of us knowing he was going to be in the firing line from Dad. Haha! It was funny to sit back and watch, Dad flat out glaring at him from a distance. Him sitting next to Dad, trying to soften him up with casual work conversation...Later on I heard that Dad did as he planned to....mentioning the word "castrator" to him in front of heaps of people. I think they both took it pretty well, thank goodness. But yeah, a slightly awkward situation to be in! Pretty jolly funny to watch, I have to admit. That's not evil of me, is it? ;-)
But yeah, now life is pretty chilled out, I crawled out of bed just after 9 and we've pretty much blobbed all day. Apart from tidying everything else up, it's been nice and easy. Been a long time coming! Now I'm supposed to be up here in my room packing for my holiday! But I'm not! I'm seriously procrastinating. All I've done so far is sit my suitcase on the floor with it opened, and put my laptop in its case. haha, I really hate packing. I think it's that, I have to be bothered to do it - which I'm not. Because that will mean I have to decide what clothes to pack, how to pack it. Consider what I'm forgetting, tidy my room in the same instance to make sure I don't forget everything. Go up and down the stairs, losing track of myself. Yeah, so therefore all I've done is cleaned and put some more leather conditioner on my work boots, other than that it's after 5pm and all I've done is write this blog, charge my Kobo and buy a few more books for it for the circumstance where I actually get a chance to read! Yeah right!
It's a weird feeling, knowing I won't be back here until the 28th. Pretty weird, that's for sure. Breaking Pippa's heart by abandoning her (I'm feeling pretty stink about that!) feeling weird for leaving home when I haven't gone away for a long time. Nana says if she's too tired to drive I'll be able to take over, so that's a pretty odd thought...driving her car. It'll be after Drury anyway, if I do take over driving as I've never driven the motorway before (yes Bee, I know, I'm ridiculous!). Thinking I might actually miss Jackson - Sam, our neighbour really likes him, if he ever goes missing Sam's will be the first house we call on! Above all it's going to be so, so strange talking to Andrew in person. hehe, Nana said earlier, "so how did you meet him anyway?" I'm just like, well, actually! Can't wait, it should be pretty awesome! You just wait, I'll have so, so much to say after the 28th as I would've seen my lifetime friend Jessica too.
Until then, cya round!!
Thursday, 12 November 2015
I Have the Chocolate...Mwhahahaha
It's Mum's birthday today - Happy Birthday Mum!! Along with a book, I got her a box of Roses chocolates, which admittedly, were opened quite quickly ;) Now though, she and Dad are headed off to Mitre 10 in anticipation to wander around the garden centre - will likely come back with trees and plants we have nowhere to put but that's not the important thing I'm getting at here. I am HOME ALONE, with chocolate - that isn't mine. Sense a bit of mischievous behaviour going on? Absolutely not, hehehe
So we've had quite a busy week - apologies if I haven't gotten around to replying to comments, emails or texts and all that. Just, yeah. Busy. Chaotic. All of the above. You know?
With Young Farmers, there is a competition - now called FMG Young Farmer of the Year, it happens every year, starts off with District contest, the top competitors moving up to Regional and then the overall winner of each region competes in the National Contest.
So, our region we have two District finals, as our five clubs are kinda all over the show. Last Saturday we had our district competition which was fantastic, 10 competitors, seven of whom were from our club and my brother convened it (so he had to come up with all the modules, how they'd be run, organising materials and judges etc etc).
The day was jolly hot, I can imagine everyone got sunburned - myself included. I was helping out with judging the livestock module. (If you haven't really heard of it too much before, in the Districts the competitors rotate from one module to the next and so on, each module takes 20 minutes and you've only got a couple minutes to do a quick mark up before the next person arrives).
With the livestock, Tim and I were in the stock yards all day, with not really anywhere to sit and there was absolutely no shade, bit of a shocker really when everyone else had some form of gazebo. But yeah, it was certainly interesting watching different styles of handling stock. From those people who weren't really involved with animals having the most difficulty, to those who handled sheep more than cattle having a few problems and those who handle cattle every day having the easiest job.
They had to draft out, single handedly, the six heaviest heifers from the group of 10, just by looking at them - not the most easiest as they were all around about the same size. Put them through the race, work out how to use the scales and weigh them. Check the teeth on one animal, and work out its age (some people cheated and looked at the eartag...) and then name breeds of New Zealand beef and sheep from the pictures provided. But yeah, having not participated in the contest before, it gave me a good insight for when I enter it next year as a competitor.
But it was really hard for me, to stand there and watch them struggle to draft the animals on their own, watch them set up the yards prior to drafting (or not doing it at all!) and thinking in my head, nope I would've done that differently! I found it seriously frustrating to stand there and watch, because you can't help unless they ask for it, thus losing them points.
So yeah, the day went without a hitch - kudos to my brother for his brilliant organisational skills, and sadly I missed the judging because I had to go back and milk that afternoon, but hey. The important part, the top four contestants who are moving up to regional level include three of our club members - blimmen awesome!
On Monday Mum and I checked in at the hair dressers for our annual(ish) hair appointment. Me, just a tidy up. $40 later. Pathetic though, she asked if I was still at school? It would've been $25 if that was the case. If I'd known that, I would've said yes! Why? Because all these years I've gone there and they've never, ever asked. So. Annoying.
Mum and Dad are off to Wellington on the weekend, just a quick trip for my Great Aunties' (Twins) 70th birthday party. I don't even think they're down there for 24 hours lol, but trying to get cheap flights means you need to earlier and later flights...and Nick is also somewhat away for the weekend - trekking it up to the Bay of Islands for the other district final contest.
Mostly, life is good. Busy, Chaotic, I think I mentioned it all a little earlier! It is stinking hot, over 20 degrees most days, the ground is bone dry and the little rain we get is a bit of a misty thing every now and again. We had yet another truckload of house water arrive today, our second one already doesn't bode too well. Fingers are all crossed for, I dunno, a cyclone to come through bringing with it heaps of rain?
I'm working pretty much full time, seven days a week for the next three weeks at least, covering about four different farms each week and it gets to the stage I need to look at the calendar each day to figure out where I'm going, how the fuel situation is looking (the windy roads use so much more fuel...) whether I can leave my milking gear at the shed, or am I somewhere else the next day? Why is all this happening? Because yet again, staff are hurting our clients, pulling out of their jobs and leaving them high and dry. The third one this season for one of our favourite farms, you feel so stink for them but all you can do is help them milk the cows. It's great, I don't mind the work and I certainly don't mind the income - it's just those start times at it again, it really mucks up all your sleeping system, especially the 5am starts, which need 20 minutes just to drive there...up I get just after 4 o'clock.... :(
During the day, I need to get the study in, just three and a half months left to go (bring on end of Feb!), I've stuffed around the last two months and now have three assignments to finish and send in the by the end of the month - I don't know why I do it to myself. Just like, seriously kid, get your A into G (as mum would say!). But you have those confidence/enthusiasm boosts, when the one paper you sent in gets returned with, and I quote, "difficult to find faults" comment. Perfect!
I popped into youth group for the first time since around May, last night. It was nice to go back, but it's definitely changed, however it was nice to be back and just get my mind ticking along with what Jeff was talking about. I kinda want to go back more often (helpful when term is almost finished), because, I dunno you feel a little more, alive when you leave? But I'm somewhat considering now going along and trying the Bible study that some older people I know go to, just to try it. It's awkward, being in that inbetween age. Too old for youth group when everyone's still early/mid teens, but too young to go to this other group when the people you've spoken to are a little younger than your parents. But hey, it might be good. I just have to try it :)
So we've had quite a busy week - apologies if I haven't gotten around to replying to comments, emails or texts and all that. Just, yeah. Busy. Chaotic. All of the above. You know?
With Young Farmers, there is a competition - now called FMG Young Farmer of the Year, it happens every year, starts off with District contest, the top competitors moving up to Regional and then the overall winner of each region competes in the National Contest.
So, our region we have two District finals, as our five clubs are kinda all over the show. Last Saturday we had our district competition which was fantastic, 10 competitors, seven of whom were from our club and my brother convened it (so he had to come up with all the modules, how they'd be run, organising materials and judges etc etc).
The day was jolly hot, I can imagine everyone got sunburned - myself included. I was helping out with judging the livestock module. (If you haven't really heard of it too much before, in the Districts the competitors rotate from one module to the next and so on, each module takes 20 minutes and you've only got a couple minutes to do a quick mark up before the next person arrives).
With the livestock, Tim and I were in the stock yards all day, with not really anywhere to sit and there was absolutely no shade, bit of a shocker really when everyone else had some form of gazebo. But yeah, it was certainly interesting watching different styles of handling stock. From those people who weren't really involved with animals having the most difficulty, to those who handled sheep more than cattle having a few problems and those who handle cattle every day having the easiest job.
They had to draft out, single handedly, the six heaviest heifers from the group of 10, just by looking at them - not the most easiest as they were all around about the same size. Put them through the race, work out how to use the scales and weigh them. Check the teeth on one animal, and work out its age (some people cheated and looked at the eartag...) and then name breeds of New Zealand beef and sheep from the pictures provided. But yeah, having not participated in the contest before, it gave me a good insight for when I enter it next year as a competitor.
But it was really hard for me, to stand there and watch them struggle to draft the animals on their own, watch them set up the yards prior to drafting (or not doing it at all!) and thinking in my head, nope I would've done that differently! I found it seriously frustrating to stand there and watch, because you can't help unless they ask for it, thus losing them points.
So yeah, the day went without a hitch - kudos to my brother for his brilliant organisational skills, and sadly I missed the judging because I had to go back and milk that afternoon, but hey. The important part, the top four contestants who are moving up to regional level include three of our club members - blimmen awesome!
On Monday Mum and I checked in at the hair dressers for our annual(ish) hair appointment. Me, just a tidy up. $40 later. Pathetic though, she asked if I was still at school? It would've been $25 if that was the case. If I'd known that, I would've said yes! Why? Because all these years I've gone there and they've never, ever asked. So. Annoying.
Mum and Dad are off to Wellington on the weekend, just a quick trip for my Great Aunties' (Twins) 70th birthday party. I don't even think they're down there for 24 hours lol, but trying to get cheap flights means you need to earlier and later flights...and Nick is also somewhat away for the weekend - trekking it up to the Bay of Islands for the other district final contest.
Mostly, life is good. Busy, Chaotic, I think I mentioned it all a little earlier! It is stinking hot, over 20 degrees most days, the ground is bone dry and the little rain we get is a bit of a misty thing every now and again. We had yet another truckload of house water arrive today, our second one already doesn't bode too well. Fingers are all crossed for, I dunno, a cyclone to come through bringing with it heaps of rain?
I'm working pretty much full time, seven days a week for the next three weeks at least, covering about four different farms each week and it gets to the stage I need to look at the calendar each day to figure out where I'm going, how the fuel situation is looking (the windy roads use so much more fuel...) whether I can leave my milking gear at the shed, or am I somewhere else the next day? Why is all this happening? Because yet again, staff are hurting our clients, pulling out of their jobs and leaving them high and dry. The third one this season for one of our favourite farms, you feel so stink for them but all you can do is help them milk the cows. It's great, I don't mind the work and I certainly don't mind the income - it's just those start times at it again, it really mucks up all your sleeping system, especially the 5am starts, which need 20 minutes just to drive there...up I get just after 4 o'clock.... :(
During the day, I need to get the study in, just three and a half months left to go (bring on end of Feb!), I've stuffed around the last two months and now have three assignments to finish and send in the by the end of the month - I don't know why I do it to myself. Just like, seriously kid, get your A into G (as mum would say!). But you have those confidence/enthusiasm boosts, when the one paper you sent in gets returned with, and I quote, "difficult to find faults" comment. Perfect!
I popped into youth group for the first time since around May, last night. It was nice to go back, but it's definitely changed, however it was nice to be back and just get my mind ticking along with what Jeff was talking about. I kinda want to go back more often (helpful when term is almost finished), because, I dunno you feel a little more, alive when you leave? But I'm somewhat considering now going along and trying the Bible study that some older people I know go to, just to try it. It's awkward, being in that inbetween age. Too old for youth group when everyone's still early/mid teens, but too young to go to this other group when the people you've spoken to are a little younger than your parents. But hey, it might be good. I just have to try it :)
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