Working holiday

Excuse the photo bombs, so many pictures, so little time.

 

The shed is being framed up today after a very frustrating mix up with the hardware required for its construction, they sent it to Waiuku in the North Island instead of waikuku here in Canterbury.... Not once, but twice!! Haha what can ya do! Dad and Guy are working tirelessly out there today trying to make up lost time.

 

I'm currently in the tent writing to you....

 

I did cook them up a nice big barbecue lunch, bbq'd corn on the cob, beef sausies, beef skewers and carrot salad and I made sure they were well watered. With pilsner....

 

I've got to be honest, I've also been getting all green eyed monstery while ogling everyone's holiday instasnaps.... Kinda wishing we were on a beach somewhere with nothing to do but laze around and get nice and fat. And then I realized that we were building our dream home and that the beach is less than 5minutes down the road and frequented by us regularly (see above), so I quickly slapped myself for being such a brat and then ate a toblerone....

 

Merry Christmas

Some snap shots of our day

 

We had a great day with just a little bit of family... With my two sister's living abroad and Guy's two brothers calling Brisbane home... It was just us and the parentals this year. We had such a chilled out typical Kiwi Christmas with, barbecued lamb, roast ham, new potatoes, a giant yummy salad, yummy ambrosia for dessert and plenty of beer, wine and pétanque in the sun. We topped it off by visitng my extended family at thir nearby farm and then camping out at the section. Hope you all had a wonderful day with the people you love. X

 

 

 

Get a deal

I love a bargain and I love sharing where my bargains come from. Nothing pleases me more than when someone asks if my $10 dress from The Warehouse is from Ruby....

Had to share these cute sandals from Number One Shoes, the back which you can't quite see is pastel yellow and they have a strip of metallic silver on the back of the heel, I love them and I know they are going to be worn to death this summer!

Need them? Buy them here

And, Yes...I'm sure you will be very surprised/outraged to know my foot modeling career never really took off...

I also bought a great shirt and blazer from cotton on and as always I paid the extra for a charity tote-bag. I am loving the totes they have at the moment (can I do a totes cool pun? Not ok? Moving on then...), they're made of natural hessian and you can choose a love print like mine or a neon yellow peace print. I think they are pretty darn perfect for summer market shopping.

Oh, If the shirt looks crinkled and dirty it's because it is, I pulled it out of my washing basket like the classy bird I am. And I must add that the collar is really neon orangey/pink in real life! Loooove

My red jeans, along with every pair of coloured jeans I own, are from glassons ($29.95) I love the fit of them and I know I can buy whatever colour in my size online and know they'll be just fine. That's what I'm talking about #ihatechangingrooms

So there you are, bargains shared.... Go and bag your own if you must.

 

Loving the land

Well, I made it. I wasn't dropped down a hole, instead we saved a baby bird that had flown down into one of the holes and couldn't get back out ......He hopped away unscathed, back into the dense macrocarpa hedge... Hooray!

It was a scorching 33°c the day we put the poles in..... we had to keep dunking our clothes into a drum of water and wearing them wet to stay cool-ish. But we soldiered on and got every single pole in, nice and straight! The best part about the scorching work day was that we experienced much of the goodness our soon to be new neighborhood has to offer, like a river 3mins down the road, the beach 3mins in the opposite direction, frozen berry yoghurts, fruit shacks and livestock traffic jams.

The concrete arrives tomorrow and hopefully it's all go after that! 2 more days of work then Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, 2 weeks holiday woohoooo!

 

Diggin' it

What is the perfect activity to get into when its 29°c outside? Dig really deep holes and spray 130 plants to kill the evil aphids eating them. Spraying is hard by the way.... A drum of liquid on your back is HEAVY and the pump action required to make it actually spray....turns your arm into a jelly worm.

 

The poles for the shed are going in today. Woohoo!

I'm sorry that this update is shorter than Snow White's little buddy's... But I have so much to tell you all and so little time. Off to help with these poles. I mean....what would they do without me there! (They would just do it without me there) but I'm sure they would miss my voice saying things like "I don't think that pole is straight" or "I think you need to dig that hole a little deeper". This in fact, is the real reason for my short post with promise of the many other things I need to report this week... If you don't hear from me, I have been thrown into one of those holes with some water and a bag of chips (they're not monsters) and they have left me there. Come and save me, bring a rope....and some more chips.

 

Pining for the high country

 

Meet Delrachney Station......

At this very moment Guy will be working in the hot Southern sun, tailing lambs, drenching or drafting...Probably doesn't sound like fun to some of you but I went last year and not only did I become champion sprayer of lambs bottoms I also fell deeply in love with those hills and all the people that come with them. I've been looking through my photos from last year and wishing I could of been there... Here's a taste of last year and what I'm missing.

 

 

 

 

We finished our stay off last year with some claybird shooting and a stay at their amazing top hut. And after all this bragging.... You can go there too....they have opened up their beautiful farm for others to enjoy...check out their website and to see how you can experience Delrachney for yourself.

 

Oh and by the way, don't feel too bad for me missing out on the fun....I'm chilling with the cutest nephew in the world, he proved to be one heck of a blogging buddy. Hope his little head gives you a daily cuteness fix.

 

 

 

stumped

 

 

 

It started with a stump......

As all good stories do right?

I should say that I only wrote that on the stump because it was a song that I had in my head and I thought it was quite nice. I actually did see the goodness in the stump and then I drew all over it.... I hope that's not too criminal.

 

I thought the bark made quite a nice frame and I felt like getting crafty. Arrows are so hot right now (ok, you have to say that in a zoolander voice otherwise I sound like a bit of a dick) I'm going to drill a hole in the back of each stump so that they can be hung.....on my wall/Someone else's wall after Xmas? I haven't decided. If you get these for Xmas and you read my blog, act surprised.

 

This land is our land

The entrance has begun, and my clever Dad made those gates himself....he is superman, I know you all probably think your Dad is superman too, so I hate to be the one to break it to you... He's not. My Dad is.

This weekend was the weekend boys dream of. We hired a digger and a truck and got to work digging out what will be our driveway and the pad where the shed will soon be built...I also mowed the grass on our tractor wearing a sparkly sequin top seeing as I forgot my work clothes, way to look as city as you possibly can. It looked like Saturday night fever collided with country calendar.... And let me tell you, it was a mess.

 

Guy looks beyond pleased with his mound of dirt don't you think?

 

If that's not a happy digger face, I don't know what is. Actually it's more of a 'I think I'm pretty cool' face.

 

Jordie Lane

Worth. The. Drive.

We have his album 'Bloodthinner' but we didn't know anything about him or his style of performing. Well, it turned out to be freakin awesome... The man could be a professional storyteller/comedian, oh, and it turns out he loves dogs, a lot. Tick! you Jordie Lane are one awesome dude. He was so entertaining and witty, adding that to his list of tunes, we had a seriously great night and if you ever get the chance to see this Melbourne singer/jester... Do it!

As a bonus, one of my favourite NZ singer/songwriters Marlon Williams (lead singer of The Unfaithful Ways) was supporting Jordie on this leg of his tour. Wowza, this kid ( ....turns out he's 20 or thereabouts, slightly awkward as he's also rather easy on the eye) has a set of golden pipes. His voice makes you drift away back to your grandparents record collection playing scratchily on the turntable. He must have a dusty old soul to write and sing the way he does.... 20! Seriously.

 

 

pallety project

 

Recycling pallets for furniture, you've seen it before and loved the idea but ultimately it ended up in the 'too hard basket' zone in the back of your brain buried under all those ideas for apps that could make you millions, am I right? Well, fear not dusty to-do list, for I am offering you a cheats version. Pallet wood as a surface veneer..... Pallet furniture just got real.....easy.


If you have a piece of furniture in your home that you're sick of, so sick of you have been drafting its obituary..ahem...trade me listing in your head, look again and see if it could benefit from a mini makeover. I bought two secondhand besides recently, $30 for the two, and painted them white, they were looking great, but the only thing about white painted furniture is that the tops of them get marked and stained faster than you can say "where's your coaster fool?!".

Now I can let my water glass ring it's little heart out, Reeessuuuuult!!

 

I also gave our lamps a makeover with some geometric loving. I used painters tape to mark out the triangles and a few resene testpots in different colours. Can one own too many test pots? No, one cannot. (I watched Downtown Abbey last night).

Our quilt is from bed bath and table. I'm obsessed with their quilts.... The kind of obsessed where you are walking in the mall with your Husband and then suddenly you do a weird right angle turn and a straight arms down the side of you body run into the store looking like a weirdo so that he doesn't try and claim you and just leaves you to it. Clever AND classy...win,win.

 

 

garlands for you

Hooray!!!! I have finally got around to setting up a platform to sell my garlands! Obviously I would have preferred a sweet daytime infomercial to showcase my colorful friends, free set of steak knives and not one but 4 garlands for 100 easy payments of something rather... BUT instead I just went for the big cartel shop option. Click here to know more

Waiting by my letterbox

 

I ordered these two prints above by Elizabeth Mayville this morning.... And I'm going to be like an excited kid checking my letterbox everyday until they come. The thing about these is, I think a lot of us can kind of identify with the painting.

 

Do you wear stripes? ... Ah, yes, all the time.

 

What about a topknot? Yes, indeed, what else can you do on day 5 of dirty hair...oh that's right! a messy side braid.

 

Do you have pasty white skin that is always tinged with pink?.... Slowly raise hand while flushed cheeks grow to the deepest shade of pink that a human body can create.

 

The point is, the blondey could be me, the brunette could be my sister and the red head could be my ginger cousin Olivia (hehehe, love you livvy)!

Go to her etsy store to get your own