Family soap opera update

So, Mum finally had surgery on her knee this morning. She says she is feeling much better already which is good news. I'm not sure when she'll get out, but hopefully it will be before Lee's graduation on Thursday.

Meanwhile last night I managed to buy a bad batch of frankfurters for hotdogs for dinner. I was up all night with the trots and John suffered the same fate early this morning.

I went to work just to get away from my weekend. With work being so busy at the moment, that's really saying something!

My life REALLY is a soap opera!

It's weekends like this that reinforce my decision to title my blog "My Life Is A Soap Opera". I'm just going to give you a brief rundown because, well, I'm tired and I have to go to work tomorrow.

On Thursday night Mum was taken to A&E in Wgtn because she had terrible pain in her ankle. Turns out that the virus she's had recently made it's way in to her blood stream and developed septic arthritis in her ankle. She had surgery on Friday afternoon. Lee and I visited on Friday night and she was all doped up (she couldn't keep her eyes pointing in the same direction).

Saturday afternoon it was clear that she was going to be remaining in hospital while waiting for surgery on her knee (where the infection now is), but it was delayed due to the massive 4motorbike vs 1car accident on SH1 just past Tawa. Lee and I decided to cancel the bridal shower scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Mainly because it was Mum's thing and we didn't want to do it without her. That meant I had to call all of Mum's friends and all the family to explain the situation. Luckily I have wonderful girlfriends and a quick text message to them was all that was needed - thanks girls!

Meanwhile my cousin lays a few home truths on my Aunty on Saturday afternoon, only to have her spiral in to self dispair and in need of some attention, causing her to take a pill overdose on Sunday morning and then promptly calling my cousin to tell him. Of course now she's in A&E.

Lee and I went shopping for wedding shoes and a few bits and pieces, then to visit Mum. While they are in the same hospital I had no inclination to visit my Aunt. Sounds calous I know, but this is not the first time by any stretch of the imagination that she has done this and frankly, my sympathy levels are hovering around zero at the moment. I'm in a 'no-bullshit' zone right now and that just falls way out side the limits.

So there you have it. My life really is a soap opera!

Another SOOC & Edits

I've been going through my photos in an attempt to delete all the unwanted photos. But instead I find myself playing with most of them rather than deleting them. This pic was taken from our hotel room window in Nelson when Badar and went for a weekend away a few years ago.

SOOC shot

A strong contrasted colour edit

Black & White edit.

SOOC shot & two edits

This is SOOC shot of a sculpture on a plinth outside Te Papa. It's nothing to spectacular, so I did a couple of edits. What do you think?

I'm going to be an Aunty!

I'm so excited to announce that I'm going to be an aunty! My sister Lee and her fiance Morgan ('husband' in one month today!) are expecting a wee baby (we hope it's human) in July.

I was asked - respectably- to wait until at least three months before making any type of comments on here "just in case" and fair enough, but it's been pretty hard containing my excitement I must say. To be on the safe side I waited until now - she's 16 weeks, so we're fairly safe now.

The week before the wedding they are going to have the 20 week scan and fingers crossed (or legs uncrossed to be more precise) we'll be able to find out if it's a wee nephew or niece I'm getting. Honestly, I don't mind what it is as long as it's healthy. Sounds cliche to say, but it's so true. They are considering only telling immediate family what it is, so I'll have to stay tightlipped on my blogs for fear of spilling the beans. Lee even threatened not to tell me what it is! So I solemly promise NOT to spill the beans! I PROMISE LEE!!

Tonight we had our weekly wedding meeting at which I had to ask Lee if she was sporting a little baby belly or a big pumpkin and chicken dinner belly? And it was totally a little baby belly! Apparently at 16 weeks the baby is the size of an avocado, so that's pretty big to be hiding in your belly.

Lee signed up to a website that email's weekly updates of "what your baby's doing this week". Among other things it tells you how big it is that week and it's always the size of some fruit, vegetable or food. The first weekly email I read described the baby as the size of a kumquat. What an odd fruit to compare it to I thought and straight away that's the babies nickname.

Oooo, I haven't even told you how she told us. . . Lee and Morgan told his family over the phone (they live up north) but wanted to tell me and Mum in person (seeing as we are the only family living in Wellington). At the beginning of December they invited us over for a pre-christmas BBQ. When we got there they were talking about their flatmate moving out and told us to come and look at their plans for his room. It went something like this:
Lee: So, this is Greg's room. It's bigger than the study so we're going to make this Morgan's office and study. And then come look at the office. . .
we walk down to the office. . .
Lee: See it's much smaller, but it's sunnier so it will make a good room for the baby. . .
Heather: What baby?!
Lee: I'm pregnant!
Heather: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!! (that's me screaming, jumping up and down and hugging Lee).
Mum: ________________________ (jaw has hit the floor at the point) Really?
Lee: Yes really.
Morgan: (Singing) I'm going to be a Daddy, I'm going to be a Daddy.

It was pretty cool. Mum didn't want to believe it was true just in case she was playing some sort of horrific practical joke. I was just to excited and was about 97% certain Lee wouldn't make a joke of this.

So there you go, now you know why my blog posts were a little light in December  - I was trying so hard to NOT spill the beans. I'm going to be an Aunty! and I'm just so excited!

Here's Kumquats first picture (thousands more will follow in time, but for now, this is the first and most precious one of all):

Coyote Ugly & The Craft

Coyote Ugly is a long time personal faveourite and I've been looking forward to watching this one since we started the project. I knew John hadn't watched and it and was fairly confident that he would once he got in to it. I guess we'll have to wait until he gets around to his reviews to find out for sure but I'm fairly sure he enjoyed it in the end.

Coyote Ugly is one of my long time fave movies. It's musical, it's fun and romantic - the girly tri-fecta.

Violet Sanford leaves her life as a waitress in New Jersey to move to New York to make her dreams of becoming a songwriter come true. But it doesn't go according to plan and she has to find a job to help pay the bills. She gets a job at the Coyote Ugly bar which is run by a take-no-prisoners woman and her bar dancing bartenders. Violet starts to come out of her shell on the bar while she trys to get her music heard by anyone who will listen. Mike O'Donnell accidently hears her demo and is smitten. But can she have both worlds and the man too?!

Piper Perabo is a relative unknown actress, but she does a lot of movies that I love. She does a great "small town girl moves to the big city" character in this movie, really holding her own against bigger name stars - Tyra Banks, Maria Bello, Melanie Lynskey and John Goodman. And, she can sing! While Leann Rimes is featured as the singer that eventually sings her songs, Piper can hold her own with the singing for most of the movie. Australian actor Adam Garcia is one hottie that we should see more of. He too can sing and dance (although I now that from another movie, not this one). He's a great match for Piper Perabo as they have great chemistry together.

I enjoy the singing, the dancing and the high pace of the bar. I wonder if deep down I'd like to have enough guts to get up on a bar and dance in front of that many drunk men - probably not, but I wish I did. The bar scenes are offset by the romantic interludes and all are balanced well.

This is another one of those movies that I find hard to explain why it's so good - it just is. I like movies that make me smile, laugh, sing along and don't disappoint in the end. You should watch it - go on, you know you want to!!

The Craft is not a movie that you'd normally find in my collection. When it was released at the movies it had an R16 rating and my girlfriends and I were 15. Tracy was 16 so we sent her to buy the tickets but they wouldn't sell them to her without seeing everyone's ID's. I don't remember what we ended up seeing, but I clearly remember trying to come up with ways to get us all in. Funny to think that was almost 14 years ago now.

I bet you're just dying to know what the story is all about. . . Sarah is new in town and without friends. Everyone tells her to avoid the three outcasts, but Sarah finds herself drawn to them. They are into witchcraft, spells and all things supernatural, and Sarah is a natural. Together they make up a coven of powerful witches, inflicting revenge on thier peers and making life better for themselves. That is until they go to far and Sarah will do anything to get away from the girls.

Robin Tunney stars as Sarah alongside Neve Campbell (of Party of Five fame), Fairuza Balk and Rachel True (yep, I don't know anything else she's done either). You may recognise Christine Taylor as the snooty cheerleader, Breckin Meyer and the gorgeous Skeet Ulrich.

. . . . excuse me for a moment, I just read on the http://www.imdb.com/ that they've made 'Scream 4' and I'm a little bit taken back . . . . anyway. . . .

The Craft appeals to me because magic, sorcery and the supernatural appeals to me. I'm fascinated by movies that involve magic and witchcraft. I'm a big fan of the TV series 'Charmed' too. In the movie the main characters play with spells and various supernatural phenomenon. I'm ok with it all until the snakes and spiders appear at the end of the movie - I don't do well with snakes and spiders. Euw.

Fairuza Balk freaks me out a little. I'm not sure if she's just a very good actress or if she's actually a bit scary looking. Perhaps it's both. Either way, she does a great job coming across as a terrifying and seriously disturbed teenager messing with things way beyond her realm of her understanding. Teenagers! Sheesh!

The movies has dated - 14yrs to be exact, but what movie doesn't right?! The underlying themes of teenagers being on the oust and just wanting to fit in are still fitting with todays world. That will never change. I just hope that most teenagers don't also try to summon the creator of all magic at the same time.

Should you watch it?! Hmmm, very good question. For me it reminds me of my teenage years (because it's from that time, not because I used to practice the dark arts) and it's magical. For you, it could fall flat. I don't think you'll be missing anything if you choose not to. If you do, just take it for what it is - a movie aimed a teens.

Reviews to come: Crimson Rivers, The Cup, Curious George and the first D - The Da Vinci Code.
Next up for viewing - The Dark City and The Dark Crystle.

The Constant Gardener, Corpse Bride and The Corpse Vanishes

Holy bottoms, it's been nearly three months since I did my last Alphabetical Movie Project post. That's kinda indicitive of how the projects been going recently. While we've had the Christmas and New Year holidays to delay us I've also gotten a little tired of watching so many movies one after the other. Plus, there are just soooooooOOOoooo many C's to watch! I think once we get past the C's we'll have gotten over the 'hump' and be back in to it again. At this point we have only two more C's to watch and I'm hoping that we might get to them tomorrow (if it's as wet and rainy as it has been today it will be perfect movie watching weather).

In the meantime I have six reviews to catch up on, so let's get started. . .

The Constant Gardener is from John's collection. I've watched it several times now and while I think it's very well done and very poignant, I just can't bring myself to really like it. I'm not entirely sure why.

Ralph Fiennes stars as a British diplomat living in Africa who's wife (the talented Rachel Wiesz) has been murdered. He attempts to figure out what she was working on and what she'd discovered that had turned her into a target. He finds himself following in her footsteps - trying to save millions of people, before they can get to him too.

The movie is thrilling and fast paced with never a dull moment. Even the slower and more somber scenes are laced with intensity. The scene where he is in their English backyard sobbing for his wife is spine chilling. It's a scene that is testament to the brilliant performance of Ralph Fiennes, but also to the wonderful cinematography.

Rachel Weisz shows how talented she is with her performance. She plays the investigating, hard questioning character with such intesity that it's the reason I loose a little bit of sympathy for her. She is almost to calculating to deserve the wonderful husband she has and from the very beginning you wonder if she's with him because she loves him or if she just wants to get to Africa. A question that I never really feel is answered. Meanwhile her husband show great loyalty and love for her that you can't help but wish you had a husband that dedicated yourself.

Like I said before, I'm not sure why I'm not more fond of this movie. It might have something to do with how sad I find it. I'm not very good with sad movies - generally not being able to watch them more than once because of how sad the make me feel. If it wasn't so sad I'd probably love it. Should you watch it? Yep, absolutely, especially if you aren't so vulnerable to the sad movies.


Next up was The Corpse Bride. An animated Tim Buton movie.

Victor and Victoria are getting married, but before they can do so Victor practices his wedding vows and accidently marries Emily, the corpse bride. Now he's stuck in the underworld, married to a woman he doesn't love, with no way back to Victoria.

As you can imagine, this Tim Burton film is both quirky and different from what you may expect. Of no surprise however is that the main characters are voiced by Johnny Depp (a long time Tim Burton movie starr) and Helena Bonham Carter (Tim Burton's wife). Both do a beautiful job of voicing these characters, giving them life (or the afterlife as the case may be) and feeling.

In this animation life above ground is dark, gloomy, mono-chrome and dull. It's very boring and dreary, making you wonder why anyone would possibly want to try and life a happy life there. Meanwhile the afterlife 'down below' is colourful, vibrant and musical. Everyone seems so happy and excited to be enjoying the next phase. You are really drawn the the afterlife world, giving you hopes that Victor might decide to stay there forever with the corpse bride.

While it is an animation it is aimed at the more adult among us, rather than the little kiddies. It's pretty dark and sinister for an animation, but it's to be expected for a Tim Burton movie. If you're a Tim Burton fan than this will not disappoint. I highly recommend it to all. It's a good one to watch on halloween if you're not a fan of horrors or scary movies - with this one you'll save face :)

The Corpse Vanishes is one of three Bella Lugosi films that John owns. While he's a fan, I must admit I'd never heard of him before. I'm not much a fan of the 'old school' films. I had been dreading this one - as you've probably guessed by now I am not a fan of scary movies and this one's about corpses! How pleased was I when I realised that this 'old school' film was a short one at just 64 minutes.

Virgin brides are being kidnapped from their weddings so that the crazy scientist can steal their bodily fluids. With the help of his assistant he uses the fluids to inject his ancient wife to keep her young and alive.

Filmed in 1942 in black and white (of course), it's a very simple story to follow. It doesn't skimp on the blood and guts, it's definetly a horror. The black and white works in my favor as it 'dulls' down the horror of it all somewhat. Thanks goodness, as I'm definetly not made to watch these types of movies!

From what I'm gathering Bela Lugosi was in his heyday when filming this movie. I don't recognise any of the other stars, but you might - Luana Walters, Tristrim Coffin and Elizabeth Russell.

If you're a fan of old time movies, than this is a great one for you to watch. If you like horrors and are looking for a classic then you should watch it. Personally it's not one that I will be watching again and not one that I would have watched were it not for this project. But I don't feel like I wasted my time either.

More reviews to come for Coyote Ugly, The Craft and Crimson Rivers Angels of the Apocalypse.
Movies coming up for viewing The Cup and Curious George.
And then the C's (the largest volume - at 28 - of any letter we own) are over!

Harry the Hedgehog

Harry the Hedgehog was found scruffling around in the bushes beside the washing line one night.

Sixteen and Bunker were very intrigued by the little guy until I managed to scare them off. Harry really liked to take his life into his hands by racing across the backyard, through the bushes and along the path.

He would stop and pose for photos every now and then before disappearing in to the bushes again. While Bunker lost interest, I had to hold Sixteen beside me to stop him from chasing Harry away.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

This weeks prompts were a bit more challenging. They've given me a chance to push myself to photograph things that I normally wouldn't and in ways that I normally wouldn't try. If you've seen my work before you'll have noticed by now that I love my macro lens and abstract art. So here we go:

1. Memories

My Grandmother saved all these postcards that she has been sent over the years. Some are as old as 1965. Reading the back is like a trip down memory lane or a small glimpse into the writer's life at that moment. You can feel how special and memorable they are just by holding them.

2. Silhouette

Half way up the path to the Mt Victoria lookout (which overlooks Wellington city) is this Maori sculpture. I edited it slightly to make it more 'silhouette'-y, and I really like how it's turned out.

3. Doorway

This is a large sculpture that is on the side of a busy bypass in the City. It's the size of a house and is the outer walls only. It's very beautiful, I love that it's ornate, wooden and colourful. It fits in with the surrounding architecture and has colourful stained glass too. But best of all, the door works - not that there's much need for it.

4. Reflection

These stars hang in my window. Their reflection make it look like there's twice as many twinkling lights floating around my bedroom.

5. Silver

One of the beautiful rings I wear daily. I'm a silver girl, never wear gold. I bought this butterfly in Santander, Spain.

To my Followers:

Dear Followers,

I'm currently having problems with the photo uploader and the followers link. So, I'm going to try to fix both. I have no idea how to do either of those two things, but I'm going to give it a go. I may end up deleting the followers tool in an attempt to fix it, so if that happens, PLEASE come back and re-follow me. I'd really appreaciate that.

:) Thanks, H

Exhaustion at work

I'd rather be exhausted than bored.

This last week has been sooooooo busy. In the East team ( I work in the West team) the woman that does the same job as me broke her leg in several places and is off work until end of Feb. So my counterpart in my team is working over in East four days a week until then. So I'm covering two teams (Upper Hutt and West) plus supporting Linda's half of West and the team while Linda covers the East team and does as much of her West work as possible. Supporting 120 Families on our network is considered 100% capacity. My normal workload is 145 Families. I'm now supporting 224 Families. Yep, I'm busy.

Plus it's generally a pretty busy time of year anyway - lots of new leads (yay) and lots of things prep work happening for the year. So needless to say that there is now ALOT of work for me.

As I say all of this I do know that without a doubt I'd much rather have all of this work and be super busy than sitting at my desk saving work to spread out over the day and twiddling my thumbs for the rest of it. That's what I've been doing for the last six months and I'm totally over it. Now that the load has increased dramatically I'm too busy to be bored and I'm enjoying my job again. I think I like being the only CSA too. Seems a bit stupid, but that's the way I am :)

Now you can see why I'm exhausted right?! This afternoon I really had to keep my eyelids open with my fingers and was almost asleep at my desk. But I'd much rather have five frantically busy days and be exhausted, than have five slow bored days.

Thank goodness Monday is Wellington Anniversary Day and I don't have to go to work!

Blueberries

Last weekend Rachel and Lu took John and I to the blueberry farm in Upper Hutt. Well, they took me and we dragged John along with us. I've never been before but John used to pick blueberries for a job so he wasn't so excited (and that's puting it mildly).

We arrived at this beautiful farm out the back of the Akatarewas. An area that I'm not very familiar with but am fast coming to realise that it's actually very beautiful and interesting. Lu and I were most excited sitting in the back, laughing at John's grumpy faces from the front.

We collected our buckets - two thirds full was 1kg. I didn't think we'd need nearly that many.

The path led through the fields of tall grasses to the northern acre of blueberries.

John showed us how to find the ripe ones and how to pick them.

John led us along the vines, some of which were almost touching. I almost lost them to some strange underworld.

Or so it seemed. I spent more time taking photos than I did picking blueberries, so the whole gang helped me pick some in the end.

On the way back we decided to go for a swim in the river. The farms website said there was a swimming hole, but we hadn't seen a sign. So John decided to gallop into the field in search of the river.

He led us down a 'path' and on to the rocks, where we stepped gingerly along the banks. We attempted a swim, but it just didn't feel right, so we scrambled our way back along the bank and back to the path. And of course about 50 metres along we found the large "Swimming Hole" sign.

A little sun safety for all and we finally made it in to the river.

Unlike last time the current was slow and the river deep which made for much better swimming. We even attempted a game of "Pooh People" (we taught Lu how to play "Pooh Sticks" last time) but the current kept sweeping Rachel, Lu and I into the same spot so it didn't work to well. We stayed in for quite a while, until the sun went behind some clouds and cooled the river right down.

After a quick round of "turn around so I can get changed", we made our way back to the entrance and paid for our blueberries.

While Rachel made fish for dinner, I photographed Lu and John play a fighting game that seemed to have a lot of rules. 1. No picking up Lu. 2. No tickling. 3. Take turns of 10 seconds each. 4. No repetition of moves. It was rather amusing to watch, and made for interesting photos too!

Of course, no fight would be right without a bit of rule breaking.

The next morning John made blueberry pancakes and they were simply delicious! I was very impressed to say the least. What can be better than fresh blueberries and pancakes on a sunny sunday morning?!



New Year Resolutions

Hands up those of you that make New Year Resolutions and then forget about them by the time February rolls around?! Yep, I hear ya. BUT, so far I'm doing ok on mine.

1. No more than one takeaway night each week.

Update: day 18 of the year and John and I have had only 1 takeaway dinner. 1! We've been doing so well with eating healthier and makin all our own meals. We did completely run out of food by the weekend, but the good thing about that? we ate all the food we bought, didn't waste any and nothing that had to be thrown out on rubbish day. Yay us. :)

2. Pay off my credit card and reduce the limit.

Update: I'm working on this. I've cut my spending (aka splurging) right down and feeling pretty good about it. At the moment I have a lot of things to spend my money on - legititmately (eg: Lee's wedding, flights to Oz, new clothes - honestly, I NEED new pants, it's beyond a joke.)

3. Get a health checkup from the doctor (I'm thinking of going Gluten free, and I need to get my bung foot sorted too).

Update: Ok, so honestly, no progress here. I'm still thinking that this is a good idea, but haven't made any firm plans. I really can't afford the cost of a visit unless it's urgent at the moment. So this one's on the back burner for now. (I have a whole year to get these resolutions done ya know!)

4. Blog more regularly than I have been recently.

Update: As you will have noticed this has been a hard one to maintain. I'm blamining it on a laptop that was kaput until a few weeks ago. Plus I've had a few issues with blogger. Tonight I wrote (and saved) a long post on blueberry picking. But the photo upload link is broken, so that post will have to wait until it's working again.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I LOVED the prompts for this weeks scavenger hunt and spent most of the week coming up with ideas, so having to pick just one shot for each has been a challenge! I took advantage of the stunning summer weather this weekend to bring you these awesome shots:

(unfortunetly due to what I'm calling "The great computer catastrophe of 2010" I have lost the best resizing tool I've always used, so the shots are much smaller than I normally would display. Fingers crossed I get my computer back to normal soon. . . )

1. A Different View

John, Rachel, Lu and I went blueberry picking and took our togs so we could take advantage of the swimming hole boasted on the farms website. But we had a little trouble locating the "swimming hole this way" sign, so John went running through the grass in search of the river. Here he is searching for a "different view" of the river than the non-existent one we had.

2. Looking Up

That evening I was sitting on the floor reading the newspaper and all of sudden there was squeling coming from the couch. I picked up my camera from beside me and peeked around the corner to see the two of them play fighting on the couch. I caught this shot of them giggling before they started the next round of fighting. I love the shot because of the angle I was at and from the giggle you can see in Lu's face.

3. Abstract

Today I finally took down my christmas tree. I love my christmas tree and I haven't wanted to take it down, but today it was time. Of course I used my macro lens on some of the decorations first to come up with some really interesting abstract shots. This one is a sequined star.

4. Hair

Meet Bunker. The hairiest cat in the house. Or more to the point, the cat that molts the most. It may be that his hair is blonde and therefore more noticeable, but even so, it gets EVERYWHERE!

5. Half

I had so many ideas for this prompt, but this shot was never it. I took this this morning when John was making blueberry pancakes. I liked the symmetry of the shot and the simpleness of it. It wasn't until I was loading them on the computer that I noticed that it was half a pound of butter, half a litre of milk, eggs broken in half and (trust me here) half the blueberries in the bag are now in the pancake mix. Pretty good on the halfs I say (and the pancakes were delicious!)

Mellow Yellow Monday

We went blueberry picking on Saturday afternoon. My bucket was yellow which made for a stunning contrast against the deep blue of the blueberries. They were delicious too!

Wedding Planning

We're on the home run towards Lee & Morgan's wedding and there's still so much to do. I had a bridesmaid dress fitting this evening and have almost got the hen's party sorted - I just need to get a invite list from the bride. Tomorrow night I'm having a catch up meeting with Mum to make a full list of all that still needs to be done. Fun times :)

Postcrossing

http://www.postcrossing.com/

Check out this link! It's the website that I keep raving about. The one where you sign up, send postcards all around the world and then you get them in return. It's pretty cool.

Since I signed up I've sent almost 20 cards and recieved 10. I've set up a large pinboard in the spare room with a map of the world. I'm using large pins to pinpoint where I've recieved cards from and small pins to pinpoint where I've sent cards too.

So far I've sent and recieved mainly from Europe, with Finland of all places being the most frequent. I've also had a few in and out of USA, Canada and China. I'm hoping to get some South America ones on the board soon, but I'm not sure how into it they are there. Fingers crossed anyway :)

It's pretty fun, and if you're like me and enjoy postcards then you really can't go wrong. It's also a great way to learn about other cultures. I've sent several to children that have been signed up - I think that's pretty cool.

Anyway, check it out. It doesn't really cost that much (you can get cards at the $2 shop) and it only costs $1.90 to post a postcard anywhere in the world.

2010 - hmmmm, see ya later!

At "that time of the month" I get rather emotional. Call me naive, but I've only really noticed this over the last few years, but I do, I get really emotional. Not emotional good, emotional bad. As in depressed. All of sudden, my life sucks, I hate it and I'm terribly lonely. The good thing about recognising that once I month I feel like this and knowing the reason why, actually really helps. I know I'll have a day of two of hating the world and then I come out the other side all the better for it. Ok, I come out the other side, let's not be to dramatic about it.

I also semi look forward to January and semi dread it. I look forward to the summer, the holidays and the pure bliss in doing nothing. But I dread the envitable New Years resolutions and the realisations that I'm no where closer to where I wanted to be this time last year, in fact if I look around I'm in EXACTLY the same spot I was a year ago. I haven't moved anywhere, I haven't done any of the things I wanted to achieve in 2010. In fact the only thing that's different is that I'm a year older!

Now, what was the point of telling you all this - try combining the two situations! As you can probably deduce I haven't been the happiest of chappies the last few days, but as I now head back to work, I realise that while I felt completley useless and like I didn't achieve anything from my break, I realise that I actually have. Here's what I've learnt since Christmas:

 - My family can are ok now. When I stop worrying and trying to take care of everyone I realise that actually they are ok now and I don't need to be the mother hen. They are actually living their own lives and doing well at it. And that perhaps it's time to let them be there for me for a while.

 - Weddings' don't plan themselves. Lee & Morgan get married NEXT month! and there is still a lot to do and a lot of people to co-ordinate. I really need to sit down and buckle under. I wonder if Lee's coming over for a wedding planning meeting tonight?!

 - I like swimming. We went swimming on Sunday at the Akatarewa River in Upper Hutt and it was beautiful. Very fast current, but fun nonetheless. Ever since then I've wanted to go swimming at Titahi Bay Beach, but the weather has not be very nice and I've been left disappointed each day. Jo and I are planning on going tomorrow after workd. Fingers crossed that it stays fine or at least heats up a little. If not, I'll be there on the weekend! It does get me thinking that I should get a pass to the swimming pool and go after work, either aqua jogging or swimming. Anyone want to join me?!

- I love babies, but I don't love being reminded that I am like the only person in the world not having one in 2011. I love all those that are having them and I sooooooo can't wait to be involved and doing everything I can to help out and be a part of their lives. I want one too! Enough said.

- I need holidays. Mum reminded me that sometimes you have to put down the 'to do' list and sit down with a good book. If I spend holidays at home I have this overwhelming feeling that I should be doing something, or getting stuff done. Don't ask me what stuff, just stuff ok! I feel guilty about reading all day, or about sitting in the sun and not doing any housework. But at the end of the day, that's exactly what I needed and what I need more of more often. So, I'm making a public decleration to take more holidays this year. Wahoo!

- I need to stick to my new years resolutions. If a quick glance back at 2010 is anything to learn from, then it's that I'm going to get nowhere if I don't at least try and achieve my goals. It's going to take some hard work and self sacrifice, but when I get to January 2012 I want to be proud of what I achieved in 2011 and not just diappointed.

- I dont' need to rely on my laptop for entertainment. I've gotten in to a bad habit of working all day, coming home, turning on my laptop and spending the entire evening in front of it. With it having given up the ghost and me still dilly-dallying around about getting it fixed, I've been forced to find other ways to entertain myself. Granted most of these start with me poking and prodding John with a whiny "I'm bored", but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Don't get me wrong, I desperately need my computer fixed, but I'm also vowing to spend less time on it and not rely on it as my sole source of entertainment.

And with all that self indulgence said, here are some photos from the holidays.

Tracy has her first beer for the evening - NYE

Everyone has a hat except John, so he improvises with the Giraffee hat and wears it for the rest of the night

The obligatory boys around the keg shot.

Claire, Jason and their 3 month old - Alyssa. Soo cute!

Canadian Dave and Ele

A giraffee cooking a BBQ - who would of guessed it?! And Candy heading to the "pool" area.

How relaxed are we?!

Jo gets a cuddle with Alyssa.

Citronella candles = Pretty. But my 27 mosi bites would argue that they aren't very effective!

No NYE picture gallery would be complete without a pic of a beer. Tui, from a keg this year.

2 Jan, Lu, Rach, John and I go swimming.

Did someone loose a jandle?!

Me and John stick it out in the cool river.

Lu and Rach take us on a quick hike that starts with a swing bridge. Eek!

John and Lu play follow the leader while Rach and I follow behind them laughing.

Boys will be boys.

On the way up to the top of the dam.

The damn - really rather pretty when you looked at it closely enough.

We found sticks, not to be out done John found a tree trunk.