secret squirrels

Two of our awesome friends got engaged on Saturday night!!! They’ve been together for a long time and I’m so happy for them!!! Penny is just about to embark on a food truck owning journey as well, so its all systems go in their lives!! Such exciting stuff! Nursey and I popped around for a secret mission to make their house look nice and embarrassing for when they return!! Mission accomplished.

Love…. Love…. Love

autumn daze

How freakin amazing are all the gorgeous colours that we see in Autumn {or ‘Fall’ for some}. My lovely friend Ems and I went for an afternoon stroll through the botanic gardens the other day and I was buzzing on the beauty…. I was this close to taking leaves and making leaf prints in autumnal colours when I got home… Then I remembered I wasn’t 5.

Oh yea….. And we bought a guide book to the gardens because we wanted the real touristy deal. Ems navigated us around those gardens like a Boss.

Ahhh I nearly forgot…… The boingy tree. When I was a little kid we used to go straight to this tree when arriving at the gardens…. Huge branches hang low to the ground and when moved they start to bounce up and down pretty buoyantly. It was still fun at 28!

thanksgiving.... better late than never

We had an awesome thanksgiving celebration here on Tuesday….. Sarah and Maurice, my American brother in law and my sister, were supposed to be here for thanksgiving last year but sadly they couldn’t make it…. Maurice has traditionally invited all of his friends to his place to celebrate thanksgiving in New Zealand…. It’s really lovely and novel for us kiwi’s because it’s not a holiday we celebrate obviously. I love the idea of it though, such a great thing to get all of your family and friends together and throw in a heap of good vibes.

I was in my element. Chained to the kitchen, trying new recipes!! I have never made a pumpkin pie…. Or pastry for that matter but I did both, and I must say they were pretty delishiiiimo!! I also made these fantastic little peanut butter treats called ‘buckeyes’ I found the recipe on the smitten kitchen blog. {I love that blog….. LOVE!!! The food is amazing, her spinach and gruyere strata is one of my favourite things to cook for brunch}

It was such a wonderful night with family and meeting new people.

Oh and the next morning I found this fella doing some cleaning up while still in his pajamas….. Wearing my scarf. Worried? Umm…Yea maybe a little. Mainly because I think he may look better in it than I do….

beery good

Wwwwhhhhhhy do I love beer so very much!!! I wish I was partial to a vodka soda or a minty mojito (anything classier than a pint of belly bloating gold lager!) but I’m not. So beer it is. And last night, I had plenty.
It was worth it though because i had some hilarious catching up to do with my sister, brother in law and my sister from another mother.

There were crocheted gang patches, Merivale bouffants, smelly ponds and the debate over burnt pig hair. Had to be there? No doubt.

My scarf is my new favorite snuggly thing. More on that later.

we all fall down

Yesterday was a very strange day…. My sister who is visiting from Melbourne, my Dad and I went for a drive to check out a couple of art galleries…. Seems easy enough right… WRONG!
Wowza, our city is a demolition zone… For those who don’t know, Christchurch has been hit with a series of earthquakes, with the most damaging quake (22/02/11) destroying a lot of our inner city buildings and claiming the lives of 185 people, including one of my absolute favourite clients.

Every street we turned down was blocked and whenever we did get to drive more than 200 meters, the rubble of demoed buildings that surrounded us was somewhat soul destroying…. I know it’s only bricks and mortar but it’s a reminder of all of those people who lost their lives that day and of the ones they left behind that have to endure that loss every single day. The city has lost its soul…. It’s just bricks and rubble and rather depressing.

A friend said yesterday, it has to get worse before it gets better and I think maybe she is right…

Looking forward but definitely not forgetting.

all together now

Saturday was an awesome day…. Both of my sisters arrived home to visit for 2 weeks!!!!!! Sarah (middle child) is living in Minnesota with her husband Maurice (aka Birdman) and Lisa (the eldest) has been living in Melbourne with her Hubby Gafa (pronounced nafa) for way too long. Gafa arrives in 5 days so we are all hanging out for him to get here too!! It has been so nice having them around… It helps that we practically live in a family communelive next door to my parents, it means all of us can mingle between the two places…

Sarah, Lisa, me

We drove out to Sumner beach for a walk and it was a good chance for everyone to check out some ‘post earthquake’ changes…. The mighty shag rock has now become shag pile…. Amazing example of the force of nature….. Kinda creeeeeepy. That is cave rock in the photo above… You used to be able to climb it and go exploring in the big cave underneath it, but the whole thing has been fenced of these days.

Ma and Pa

It was my favourite time of night… Sunset and dusk…. Everyone looked golden…. And each of them are!

birdman can fly

waiting for sleep

2 more sleeps. This pic was taken at Lake tekapo on Easter Friday. Such a fun drive down south with Guy and Jed.

Ok, it’s 11:21pm and I’m lying awake looking at a picture of my husband who has only been gone 4 nights (4 NIGHTS!!!) I’m not gonna lie, I like that after 9 years I’m still this ridiculous. Good night x

retail therapy

Oh those days!!! You know the days when you probably shouldn’t cry into your hot water and lemon but you do anyway. Well I had one of those this morning…. Over a small thing in the grand scheme of life… but we’re all human and we are allowed those mornings, the mornings when hot lemons are saltier than ever necessary. I spoke to my dear sister and she listened and empathized. Empathy…. It can be incredibly comforting. She gave me some great advice…. Go shopping!. Ok well she actually said “do something that makes you happy” and suggested I watch twilight… But I didn’t feel like reciting a movie, So I said, you mean go shopping? Yes, yes that’s exactly what she meant. Do I really need this top, jeans, skirt, shirt, decor….. Yes, Lisa says yes.

Comfy new jeans and seriously cosy jumper

This is a 12year old coat that used to be white…. That had turned slightly yellow in its old age. I had it dyed Navy (my favourite colour) and now it has another 12 or more years easy!!! It is such a great shape and I love how the wool is all raw edged…. I’m going to replace the slightly dyed blue buttons with something wooden. Getting this back from the dry cleaners cheered me up for sure.

2 more sleeps until Nursey is home…, can’t wait to see him!!!!!

missing the pook

So, I call Guy pooks….. It all stemmed from this ad on TV where a woman surprises her husband with a personalized car number plate that says pookie…. A little skater kid stops and laughs at this silly grown man with a ridiculous number plate….. So I started calling Nursey pookie to wind him up, which worked for a while…but then it kinda stuck and now he is pooks, I am pooks and Jed is pooks. Family of pookies. Completely irrelevant information leading to nothing, actually only been said to describe the title of this post…. There, now you understand the title you will be able to drift off to sleep with ease tonight. Your welcome.

Today is day 2 of Guy being away…. He is on a hunter gatherer mission in the South of the South Island…. It involves jet boating up a scary river to an area of bush where they will set up basecamp and start to hunt (don’t worry he has promised to steer well clear of ‘bambi and their mother’ types). Last night I woke up and stayed that way for 2 1/2hrs just straight up losing my mind down the deep dark panic hole worrying about all the things that could go wrong on a trip like that. I know, what a horrible thing thing to torture yourself with…. clearly I’m a mental. I have to say its a dangerous thing loving someone so freakin’ much.

So it’s sad face palace here at the Nursey Casa this week…. I think Jed is clinically depressed. If you’ve never seen a dog mope before, let me assure you it’s as ridiculous as it sounds. I don’t blame the little ginger kid though, I feel a tad mopeish myself (Nursey is quite popular around these parts if you haven’t figured that one out)

Take a look at that dog…. And try not to feel a wee bit sad for him?!?

On the up side it’s only 3 more sleeps until he gets home and 3 more sleeps until my sisters and their husbands arrive from Melbourne and Minnesota!! So much excite!

what a weekend

Seriously…. I may be biased but I’m pretty sure that I live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world!!! For reals. This weekend was such a treat. Guy’s cousin Dan, his wife Penny and their two adorable kid’s Carly and Andrew are here in NZ from Canada…. We had such a great time hanging out, going for walks and watching tiger moths do loop-de-loops from a high country paddock… And if I was clucky before this weekend I don’t even know what category to put myself in now. I’m off the cluck’o'meter! I just said that.

I just gots to share my favourite quote from the weekend. Andrew, 4yrs old, with the most delicious Canadian/new yorker accent (Dan and Penny have no idea where the new York twang has come from) and to make that little combination cuter, he replaces r’s with w’s……

Hey Kat, I weally love Kary Pewwy (aka Katy Perry) but I’m not allowed to watch her videos ‘cos my Mom says they’re inappwopwiate

yep that was real life…… He really is that cute and he was so serious.

Wanaka really did pull out all the stops to make itself look really, really, ridiculously good looking… Autumnal colours on crack juice. Just look at it.
We got to catch up with some good friends who live in the lusciousness that is Wanaka…. One of my lady loves has only just followed her wee heart down there for a boy and left me ‘one lady love down’ in Christchurch, so I got to see her again and our fur babies were reunited…they frolicked like dogs in a river….. And Bear accepted Jed with his bad haircut… Phew