Chilling Out

It was only 7 degrees this morning when I arrived at work just prior to 6am; it was freezing! Okay maybe it wasn't freezing, but it was blimmen cold! I had goosebumps on my arms all milking, by the time I left at 8am it was sitting around 14 degrees. Mum and I are home with the heat pump going, and I'm wearing socks and sweatshirt - a very uncommon sight.

This morning I've made hot chocolate muffins, so although it is cold life is still good!

A week or so ago I toddled off to the dentist with serious toothache that I'd put up with for a week before it was getting to be too much. It was odd and seemed to happen overnight, with pain you'd expect if a filling simply fell out. I know there is a filling up there somewhere in the same area, so I didn't rule it out. Typical for me, the dentist couldn't find anything wrong, he couldn't even tell which tooth it was until they used the tool that blows air along my teeth...until I basically jumped through the roof.
He decided to polish down the tip of that tooth (with no numbing!) and then put some filler on top, saying that it should help. Well it hasn't. I can't eat or drink on that side. If anything cold hits it I'm almost doubled over in pain, and I've resorted to no hot drinks either which is rather unfortunate in this chilly weather.

We got to try on our uniforms for netball on Wednesday, they're all green - quite a nice green if I must say. They consist of a dress, that is quite on the short side. As was the discussion, it's netball, where you stretch upwards and jump. What happens to a short dress in that situation?! So I know I'm off to find some shorts of some sort to wear too. Then we also have a t-shirt to wear overtop during warmup, and we've also got a jacket. They say we're not allowed to wear the hoodie's we've bought as extras on game nights because it doesn't have the uniform sponsorship on it. We could wear them, so long as the jacket is over it, however the hoodies are quite thick and the jackets are small, there's no chance you could wear the hoodie underneath!

It's hard to believe the games start in two weeks, May 5th. With only two training nights before then, we still don't have all of the team members showing up and there are only nine people in my team. Our club has two teams and we're never able to practice a full game with 14 players because there are always people missing! The training last week we used two bystanders to fill the court, they both know how to play, one I think is possibly going to be a coach or an umpire. Oh yeah, we have no coach - brilliant, huh?
However the other lady fell and rolled her ankle, so we had to drop the wing defenses on both teams. I had been WD on my actual team prior to the lady getting hurt. Then I swapped to wing attack on the other team.
WD is probably not the best position to play as I hardly get a chance to touch the ball, I'm simply running around trying to stop the opposing WA from getting it. However she is tall and very good at the game so I may as well not be on the court at all! Once I moved over to WA there was no WD trying to stop me, so although I was able to play and catch the ball, it wasn't experiencing the position properly which is quite frustrating.

Also because players aren't always showing up to training we aren't able to train as a proper team so we can't get to know each other properly. How can you work in a team situation if you've never played as a team? It's ridiculous, I know I can't really talk because I've missed two training nights - once I was too sick to leave the house and the other excuse was a flooded road during the cyclone...

I still don't know what position I'm most likely to play, our main Centre player has come back now and I see what they were talking about - she's good, very good. I don't see me ever getting to try C again unless she has to sub out, which is unlikely. Thankfully they don't put me in the goal circle anymore - I'm too short to defend the goal and I'm no good at getting the ball in the net either, so I'll always be WA or WD, unless I'm a permanent sub so I could get any position really.

Wednesday morning I had an argument with a can lid and ended up with a slashed thumb, so during netball I had a big thick plaster on it to prevent any further damage - but it made catching the ball difficult - I feel so small when they throw the ball, anticipating me to catch it. And I drop it. Plasters provide no grip apparently, so the entire game or warmup routine has to stop until I manage to get the ball in the air again...I think I'm doing pretty good, sticking around and staying in the team, even though I'll probably be the one they rely on to pass the ball in a major game. I'll be the one who almost literally hands it to the other team in time for them to win. It takes a lot of trying to stay on the team and keep learning as best I can, without holding my team back too much with my being there either.

Work is going OK, nothing has really changed. Working with Cam and Hamish is taking less time now as I no longer need to help with any calves - calving is almost finished there. However, my other farm is taking longer and longer. Yesterday morning almost took four hours to milk! We're only milking about 430 cows there (12 rows), but there's still another 120 or so left to calve, calving has slowed right down and they'll still be plodding along well into May! Milking 550 cows is going to take a fair while through June when they're all milking at peak production...

We've had a heck of a lot of rain, my boss Cam who's a few minutes down the road recorded 570mm from the 9th March - 16 April. That's almost half a year's worth of rain in 6 weeks...

Maggie's new jersey :)

Puppy snuggles :D

A friendly Monarch butterfly :)

Maggie and Rose, collage as they got older

I got flowers for Easter!

Tay's kitten, Charlie - grease kitty (not monkey lol)

More of Rosie because when she's clean she's so gorgeous!

Feijoa

It's been a funny week, one filled with so many feijoa's that it's difficult to get my head around them. I made five, yes five feijoa cakes in two days. The first day I made one, simply for something to do in between my milkings. A bit of an experiment, if that's the best description for it. Just to see what would happen, and yeah, with the intention of killing off a couple of those green fruit! Ok, so maybe just three feijoa's were needed in the making of that cake, but it was so yum!
I went to work telling Cam that I'd spent a part of my day making this cake and he replied, jokingly - "did you leave it in your car?" AKA, he kinda wanted some, now that I'd mentioned it. Honestly, lol.

I'd done a whole seven day stretch on this farm for a change, and finished up on Thursday. So that afternoon I took along a feijoa cake for Cam and Hamish to enjoy before I came back today, Saturday. I had spent quite a decent part of my day making four of these cakes, freezing two of them for winter (we've been freezing quite a few sponge cakes as well, just to use up the eggs we're getting), leaving one for us and taking one to work. But I sliced them in half and filled them with cream and sliced feijoa this time round - apparently it was really good, so that's some good feedback. Actually, they ate the whole thing in one day, so. lol

*Edit, fast forward to Sunday :)

Yesterday I made a good effort and did some feijoa preserving, only seven bottles as we didn't have enough seals. Today I got in another 12 bottles. however now I look at those evil little green things (or not so little, in some cases) and squirm. Almost 20 bottles later and I'm sick of the idea of them! There's still a fair few on the tree and on the ground, but I reckon they can just stay there and go back into the cycle of nature, or something!

I'll tell you what though, I'm sick of this cold weather, and it isn't even winter yet! We're getting the southerly winds now so it's pretty icy. One minute the sun is out - take Friday for instance, we were scorching in the heat building some stock yards for a client. Now, the wind and rain comes with random bursts of enthusiasm, and the likelihood that it will suddenly start raining when you decide to pop outside (when previously it was quite sunny), is very high. It's annoying. Autumn has been quite chilly this year, but I'm still in the summer clothing - save for wearing a jersey every now and again. I'm kinda thinking that pulling out the old trackies for future use might just be the way to go in the next couple days!
Tessa the Terrier is always feeling the cold, constantly in her little doggy jumper or snuggled up on our lap, trying to soak in some extra heat. I'm telling you, these dogs of ours are fire and ice, one can't handle cold weather (my gosh, if she lived in the south island!) and one can't handle the heat. They freaked out with their first thunderstorm on Friday night, so winter/spring with the little rascals is definitely going to be interesting.

Last Monday was fun, I took the afternoon off work and went to Rainbow's End with Chantelle, Sam and Bee. A real girls day out for Chantelle's 21st birthday. It was fun! The last time I went there, I was only a little kid, probably in the region of about 3 or 4 years old. I can hardly remember it, but this time was really cool.
Chantelle, Bee and I all went on the "Fear Fall", which isn't actually that high, but in saying that I won't be going on it again. That moment of - holey moley we're falling, was a little too, yeah. See if I jumped off something - say skydiving or bungee jumping, at least I would know when I would start trying to defy gravity. But just sitting there, up in the air, looking around and omgosh we're falling! For about a second. Then you're back on the ground again. It wasn't exciting, wasn't terrifying, was just one of those things I probably wouldn't bother with again!

But it was super fun over all, I had two favourite rides, Invader and the Stratosfear. The latter of which is like a pendulum, that swings 360 degrees, so you're hanging upside down for a little while which is pretty awesome. I just couldn't stop laughing on that one, you expect people to be screaming - a few did, but I'm hanging upside down in hysterics because it's so blimmen stupidly weird. It was funny.
The Bumper Boats were cool, apart from getting soaked. They sure are a ride for the more warmer months. We went out for dinner afterwards to Nando's then trekked our ways home again, leaving poor Bee in Auckland (I really couldn't live there!) and Sam drove Chantelle and I home back to a more northern part of the country. Sam got her Visa to go to California that morning, so it won't be long until she leaves us in September for her big study trip to the USA. It's gonna be sad to see her go.

But alas it is almost milking time again. I get to go out for an hour and a half and annoy Hamish with my sarcastic comments and jokes. I'm getting really fast in my aging youth, that I quite often spit out a funny remark without even really thinking about it. It's pretty funny. Then I've got days off again on Monday and Tuesday - a trip to town is in order on Tuesday with Mum, to get some things done and get my car repairs done at the same time.
Thinking forward, I've got Kurtis' 21st birthday party to go to in two weeks, then the wedding I'm going to a week after that on the 11th. As I'm sitting here with a shivering puppy on my knee, I'm getting more and more conscious of the fact that winter weddings aren't too clever. It's okay for guys, they'll all be wearing their suits or nice jeans and jackets. Girls with our nice dresses and shoes are going to freeze our toes off - I will hazard a guess that I'll come home with blimmen frostbitten toes. Ok, hehe, maybe not that bad, but it's gonna be cold!

Boxing Day

Christmas Day has been and gone - you wouldn't even have thought we'd just celebrated it, as all the decorations and the tree have been removed and the lounge is back to the way it was again. Apart from the fact that both fridges are still full (yes, we have two fridges!) of food and drink, and there is so much stuff lying around - chocolates and biscuits that we've either bought or been given, that nobody is interested in eating. We're going to be eating this stuff for weeks!

On Tuesday I caught up with Sam and Chantelle, for our yearly tradition of going to the beach and seeing the Christmas lights prior to the big day - typically our last catch up for the year. That was nice, we had ourselves some dinner then bundled into my car and drove to the beach for a wander around. Then went up to one of the local towns to see the light display at a particular house...

All in all though, Christmas was good. Nana drove up from Rotorua on Christmas Eve, then that night Mum, Nana and I went down to the Church service/Carols. Not quite as good as last year, I thought. Christmas Day came around, I was up again nice and early - 4:45am, a slight sleep in! Milking was good that morning, and I wore my merry christmas hat that has antlers and popped it on a couple cows! Introducing; Manuka!

 My sister and brother-in-law arrived that morning, we had pancakes for breakfast thanks to Nick then opened some pressies. I actually really liked Christmas this year, it was basic and easy and the presents this year that everyone got and gave were pretty neat! For once there was no gizmos or gadgets, the gifts were quite practical and what the person needed or would definitely have a use for, which was nice for a change :) I was given a fair bit of house related items, for when I move out one day. I've got a nice collection of towels building up now, a lovely cutlery set among other things and two gorgeous cook books. I'm talking, 200 chocolate recipes and 200 baking recipes - what more could a girl want?!
Alesha and Chris have finally printed out a heap of their wedding photos from February - we've been wondering when they would get that done, so we got a few of them as gifts too. A beautiful canvas and some photos that have been framed. Finally, we've got some nice family photos up on the walls! And I know that my rule for blogging is to not post any pictures of myself, the last two I posted didn't matter because it was that long ago, but I figured it couldn't hurt to break the rule, if only once. So, here's what I got from them. I really love this picture of me, it's amazing what some makeup, correct lighting and a professional photographer can catch on a lens. If you knew me now, not even a year later I look nothing the same, I'm sure!

Later on we decided we needed to give the dog a bath - wait! You guys don't know! We now have a puppy, an inside puppy. A ShihTzu called Jackson, he's the cutest little ratbag I've ever seen, but man he's naughty. He arrived on a plane from Christchurch on Tuesday night, along with a little toy lion. Bought for Mum's birthday back in November...He's got a bit of a habit of sleeping on his back and he gets really hot, really easily. But behind the adorable-ness is a little puppy who misses his litter. Every night since Tuesday he cries and cries and cries. REALLY LOUD! Tuesday I think I got about 2-3 hours sleep with an early start, Mum ended up sitting up with him to keep him company.

Wednesday night he was eventually put on the outside porch in his play pen, and at about midnight Mum wondered downstairs to tell him to be quiet - didn't work. Then I went down, sat outside in the chilly air and managed to coax him into falling asleep, I felt so stink for him, gave him lots of cuddles and a pep-talk until he fell asleep. Ten minutes later he was bawling again. Another early start for me.
Then on Christmas eve he didn't make a sound, but when I went to work on Christmas morning I found Mum asleep on the couch with him on the floor beside her -  happy as larry!

Then last night, Dad had a word to him and he was quiet all night, we're not quite sure what he said to him but it worked! Either that or we were all so tired that we didn't hear him!
So yeah, he needed a bath, he hated that but it was hilarious! Him in a kids paddling pool, in the shower looking like a drowned rat. Then we dried him with a hair drier on low heat, hehe

 

He's a definite trouble maker, he's learned that chasing the cats is a glorious exercise to take part in. He never used to move very far with his tiny little legs, but when it comes to chasing the cats, man he can move. The great thing is that he can't climb the step into the kitchen so it keeps him somewhat confined! Now he's stealing the cats toys and Pippa has stolen his lion. He eats the cat biscuits whenever he gets the chance and Frodo eats his food. Soon we'll have a meowing dog and a barking cat. Sheesh!

But today has been cruisey, I'm having my first "weekend" off since the start of the season, we've watched a movie - Flowers In the Attic, based on a novel series I read when I was younger. Dad and Nick have been doing some fence work around our place - lots of changes are happening here! Now I've just got to figure what we're doing tomorrow, apparently when one turns 20 you need to have plan in place for how you are to celebrate it! Me, well, I'm just sitting here kinda sad knowing that I'm getting so blimmen old! Hmm..

Hope everyone else had a lovely Christmas!