Bumper 2010

What did you do in 2010 that you've never done before??

Wore platform-type wedge-ish shoes. Became aware of my thyroid. Saw a 3D movie. Had my hair coloured.

Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year??

2010 was all about recovering from the car crash that was 2009, with a couple of super-stressful exams thrown in. 2011 will be about building further on that - further development of my work brain, less takeaway food, better organisation / tidiness, and losing enough weight to make some proper headway with yoga.

Did anyone close to you die?

Sweeney's grandma Joan died after a long, unfair illness.

What countries did you visit?

Good lord, I don't even think I have a passport anymore ...

What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

Well, I'm going to have full health after a wee bit of surgery and a blast of radioactivity in the next six weeks. That'll be awesome. And I don't know that I lacked this, but I will have a schoolboy in the house, come June.

What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

This is a bit sad, but it's October 1st, because it's the date the Budget personal tax cuts were implemented, and that's what most of my work life this year was about.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Workwise, I passed two exams that I convinced myself I had no chance of passing. Personalwise,

I resumed my yoga practice and I swear to all the gods that it's given me another centimetre of height.

What was your biggest failure?

I haven't decluttered nearly so much as I need to. And I totally didn't cure Sweeney of arguing with me every time I ask him to do anything / offer him anything / issue a direct order relating to his safety.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

Actually, I spent a lot of this year feeling sub-optimal. There's a muscle in my shoulder that goes out if I think a sideways thought, and the months leading up the the Great Thyroid Diagnosis were just vile. Yoga has mostly sorted the shoulder, or at least given me a way to alleviate it, and I'm embracing western medicine for the thyroid. Feel much better these days ...

What was the best thing you bought?

My Huffer raincoat. Weather is so not the boss of me anymore.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Everyone representing the company, the miners, their families and their community over the Pike River disaster. They were respectful, refreshingly open and honest, and held it together under devastating circumstances.

And the team I've been working with for the last six months. Man alive, they are beyond words. You got your tax cuts and increased Working for Families tax credits this year?? That's because of these people and their knowledge and their dedication to doing a quality job for the public. Management, take note.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Our current government, especially our so-called Social Welfare minister, Paula Bennett. Do not get me started. This latest debacle with the wee girl whose mother sought help directly from the PM and Bennett's office just makes me wish we could get a coup going ...

Where did most of your money go?

The same old chestnuts - the mortgage and preschool. With some chunks here and there for house maintenance. And a lovely holiday in November.

What did you get really, really excited about?

Seeing the Pixies in Auckland. Seeing the team through to October 1st. Sweeney's birthday.

What song will always remind you of 2010?

Celebration, by Madonna. And I Bleed, by the Pixies.

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Lego. No contest.

Did you fall in love in 2010?

Only with the apricot slice at the Cozy Cake Shop. You will, too.

What did you want and get?

I saw the Pixies, passed my exams, landed in an entirely suitable work situation, got the willow pruned.

What did you want and not get?

I keep putting off buying a new duvet. And I really have to get the hang of iTunes.

To close, I'll leave you with the most horrifying image I've seen in ages. Take care, people ...

Block Party

Ahhh, Boxing Day. According to something I read today, it's the one day on which it's acceptable to eat trifle for breakfast. I love trifle for breakfast any day of the year. Unfortunately the trifle I fancy is something that only my Mum makes. It's nothing like anything I've ever encountered anywhere else, except when my Nana was alive and she would make it. The unfortunate thing is that my Mum doesn't do deliveries ...

Today I slept in, brought coffee back to bed once I did lope downstairs, listened to the music that is someone else doing the dishes - thanks Dad!! Then Sweeney came up with part of his lego haul from yesterday and we spent what felt like twelve years putting the bottom of a speedboat together.

Then we went to a barbecue at Sweeney's Uncle Dom and Auntie Emma's house, where I found that I can beat a nine-year-old at table tennis.

Home again, and in honour of it being Boxing Day and a holiday and all, we had chips and dip for dinner and Sweeney stayed up well beyond bedtime.

And I finished off the speedboat, then felt all lego-hungry and knocked up a few other vehicles and a petrol station. In other news, preschool broke up for Christmas on Friday. To celebrate, Lana, the incredibly clever face-painter-who-also-does-the-food-for-the-kids painted all the kids up. She's the woman behind all the tigers, cheetahs, leopards, goblins, pirates and whatnot that Sweeney arrives home as. She totally researched Spiderman, just for Sweeney and his Spiderman-crazy friends. He campaigned hard to avoid the bath that night ...

Hope your Christmas is turning out just as Spidey as you'd like!! Ours is. I'm going to make an aeroplane now ...

Smitten for the Mitten

I joined in with a Christmas ornament swap. I've never done one before, and I was a bit intimidated by other people's efforts to start off with. Then I had a couple of false starts, a few u-turns.

And then I tried making some teensy-tiny mittens. Not very New Zealand, I know, but what the hey. Then, when I was faced with a pile of ten of them, they just looked kind of utilitarian and I was a little disappointed with that.

So I tried out a bit of gold thread embellishing. I thought they turned out dinky, but of course forgot to take photos of them before I packed them up. So here's a photo from Miriam's blog ...

One thing that came out of the whole experience was reminding myself that I'm rather handy at french knots, and I've never before used gold thread. Really should knock some up for ourselves, I reckon. Next post will feature the ornaments I was sent. They're all splendid.

Just one thing that completely slipped my mind until today. Have to get us a tree, don't I ...

Tell Me Why

Does my child choose to leave the house and enter society looking like this??Whyyyyyyy??? He promised he that he was putting on sandals, but when he came out of his room, he was wearing long socks and walkshorts. Good grief ...
I'd like to blame it on his recent lurgy, but no, he's actually a box of birds now. Fit as a flea. Enjoying the rudest of health.
As we walked along this morning, I realised his legs are all of a sudden about 10 feet long. Okay, maybe not 10 feet, but pretty long and even a little knobbly, as it happens.
And eating like he's starving to death. I got in this evening and he sidled up to me almost immediately with a three-pack of baked beans. Looking forward to when he can fix me a cocktail and sidle up to me with my slippers ...

In other news, yesterday was Kimberley's birthday, Dad made a lamb roast for her, Sweeney went to the cricket with his uncle Regan, and I vacuumed the floors and hosed down the steps. We set a cracking pace around here.

Burnin' Up

Sweeney's rattly cough never quite went away, and now I find his chest infection is back, and he's got a little ear and throat infection, too. Poor little guy. He mentioned a sore throat two days ago, and I put it down to a spot of hayfever, because I've got a sore throat and I reckoned to myself that it's hayfever.

Of course, it's not hayfever. We've both got our chest infections again, but not nearly so brain-wrenchingly bad as previously. I had a glass of wine after the funeral on Thursday, and woke up the next day with throbbing in the hangover portion of my head. It went on all day, then through the weekend, and on to today.

Of course, it wasn't a hangover.

So, we're all loaded up with medicine and it's going to be okay. Sweeney's got a bit of a temp, and I may have to hook him up and run the lights off his flaming core.

In other news, it looks like the run of perfect weather may be over. Which isn't so bad, because it makes the rattly coughs feel a bit more appropriate, seeing as it's windy and rainy and kind of wintery and all.

In other, other news, I'm knitting up a storm, getting my shizz together for the Christmas ornament swap. More on that later ...

Dear John

Today Sweeney and I went to a funeral for our friend John. He was 83 and had been ill for some time. John was a lovely man, always up for a chat, always smiling.

It was a great funeral, with a lovely get-together afterwards. One of John's sons was my partner for several years a long, long time ago, so most people there, I hadn't seen for aaaages.

It was sad but nice, and I look forward to seeing a bunch of them again over Christmas.

Sweeney handled the looong service rather well, although we did nip outside for fresh air a few times to break things up a bit. He went a bit mental at Makara cemetery, had to go for a long, long run, then a long, long sit under a shady tree. We popped in to Karori cemetery on the way back into town, then back to Peter and Ginny's for the get-together, where he found an attic with Lego AND Playmobil. And this was AFTER he had lemonade to drink.

In other news, I'm watching Zombieland right now. I'll never, ever let Sweeney watch it, what with the swearing and the carnage, but it's terrifically funny. That cute little girl from Little Miss Sunshine's sure grown up ...