Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Becoming Mum

I just said this to Lyla as she swung on her chair while eating - "Stop swinging on your chair. If you fall down and hurt yourself, I'm going to give you a big smack!"
Eek...

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

May Monday meh-ness

Husband is away for a week. Daughter has come down with a bad cold. Mother-in-law (here to visit) also down with a cold. Falling behind at work, which will lead to a drop of hours to invoice, which will ultimately mean less ch-ching come next month. Just makes me want to go eat the rest of the date loaf from tonight's dessert. No wait, can't do that, because I'm too fat. What's worse than all of that, is the bad grammar resulting from the woe-is-me-ness (looks at previous sentences in disgust).

To cheer myself up, I thought I would look at pretty things. No, this is not THAT kind of blog. I went through some photos of TAV at Janet's. Scrolling through the albums...oh cute... meh ... hot! ... hmm, wonder how much that one is. Looking on the photo comments I saw someone had already asked the question, oh goodie. Wait hold on... was $575, now on special for $460?? *Rubs eyes and checks* oh my life. Four. Six. Zero. Close tab!

If I want to buy myself one of those one day, I will have to work through a few more months of weeknights, stop eating altogether (that would be a small fortune in savings itself) and there's always the option of selling my toddler. *Look down at her sleeping adorably next me* Nah, not the toddler. I do have a few sisters though...

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Full credit

Saturday night, guess what's on our TV? Rugby, of course. I don't mind. I'm a Crusader (what they call "one-eyed") fan, and it's always entertaining to see Stephen Donald doing "Stephen Donaldy" (i.e. dumb) things.

So I'm putting away my groceries and the pre-match build up thing is on. Then I hear some guy (one of the Chiefs or Crusaders playing, I wasn't paying attention, I'm very particular about the layout of my pantry) answering the interviewer's question about how he was playing really well. Answer - "I'm just really enjoying what I'm doing". Really? Was that the real reason behind his obviously vast improvement this season, or was he just quoting from the Rugby Player's Almanac of Cliche Interview Answers?

Here's are a few favourites *

"I'm just enjoying / having fun with what I'm doing"
Usually a response to "You've been playing really well this season. What's your secret?". I tell you what's NOT a secret. What his answer is going to be!

"Full credit to the opposition"
Usually said by the winning captain

"Proud of the boys"
Usually said by a brown guy

"We knew they would come out hard"
Teehee...

"Beaten by the better team on the day"
This should only ever be used to answer the question - "The losing team has been what...?"

* By 'favourites' I mean - if I hear this being said by a rugby player again, I think I'll scream

Go the Crusaders! If you front up, play to the conditions and play the percentages then we'll come away with the win. Full credit.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Of course it's wrong

I just saw something on Facebook that has given me a very bad twitch. Worse than those Osama spam videos, or the text language that youngsters use while typing (don't even get me started on that). The crime? The misuse of the word 'of' in Kiwi lingo, like for example - "I should of known" or "I could of brought some more". What. The. Fridge.

I don't know the history of this obscenity, and pardon me for seeming like a grammar Nazi, it just gets on my nerves. It makes my eye literally twitch...which is why it's taking so long to type this. Earlier this week I found out that I wasn't suffering alone with this, and it seemed to be my fellow Samoan-born-and-raised-and-now-living-in-NZ Facebookers that firstly noticed this was happening, and secondly found it extremely...for lack of a better word - weird. Oh wait, here's a better word - gross.

Ok, now I sound mean. Which was not my intention. Let's go back to the beginning. I just saw an FB "friend" post a status about some Californian man making some silly prediction about the world ending tomorrow. It had turned into a nice little discussion and some interesting points were brought forward, then this post happened - "how would he of ever known this?". Now I have completely lost interest in the rest of the content, and every time I check out my FB News Feed it is all I can see. Would of. Would of. Would Of. WOULD OF. Argh!!!

It took all of my (little) self control to not comment saying "Did you mean 'would have' instead of 'would of''?".
I don't want the be the cow that killed the buzz. Besides, it's likely no one would know what the hell I was talking about. And when people are having serious Bible discussions about the return of Jesus and all that, in perspective this really doesn't matter, right? Well...it matters to me. And now I've had my little vent, I will go back to FB and click 'x'->'Hide this post' and put this behind me. Until I see the next 'of' offence...

Thanks for listening. This is so much cheaper than getting a shrink, right?

Shuffling along

When we decided to move from Auckland to Wellington earlier this year, I was quite excited. I had big ideas of how my lifestyle would change, how I would become "artsy", how I would work less and take things slow, how when asked about the weather in Welly I would chirpily reply "You can't beat Wellington on a good day!"

Four months down the line, and I realise that I haven't progressed much down the planned route. In fact, I can't really remember all that I thought I would be doing by now. I mean, I'm awake working/blogging/Facebooking at 12:30am. That's still very much the Aucklander me.

So after a quick memory job (really quick, like half a minute) here are my unfulfilled Wellington goals:

1. Buy clothes - How I am still squeezing into my pre-childbearing work clothes I do not know. Actually, I do. I can only do that for a couple of tops which were really loose fitting and are now tank top looking. I'm getting grossed out just thinking about it as well, don't worry, I'm not offended that you are.

2. Go to the museum - I mean, isn't that what artsy Wellingtonians do? I have no idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

3. Spend more time at the park with Lyla - My excuse is the cold wind, which is quite a legitimate reason, except for the really warm sunny days when quality family time still consists of me on my laptop, husband on his laptop, toddler watching TV.

4. Sleep at least 7 hours a day - Ha! Funny, how did this make it onto my list.

5. Save money - How do you go from a single income family to being a double income family and still not have money? It boggles the mind. One day when I decide to look through our bank statements I might be able to find some answers.

6. Join a life group - This is due to 100% slackness and a multitude of excuses (which I can't remember now, so don't ask). But I guess I will have to get a life first, then I can share it with others.

7. Shave my legs regularly - I reconsidered this goal, and then realised that since I never show my legs/tree trunks anyway AND it's freezing cold here, why should I?

8. Buy a Smart phone - So it's got nothing to do with Wellington, but I want one, and I don't have any other lists at the moment so here it is. I guess it's related to goal #5 which was supposed to feed into my shopping account.

9. Stop having road rage - Is there special road rage counselling? I drive like I'm in a mad rush to get somewhere really quickly that I'm late for. The majority of the time if I stop to think about it, I'm just driving to work. Why on earth am I nearly killing myself to get there? Then I'm driving home, where washing, cooking, cleaning and more work is waiting. Again, why the rush? Still working on it. So if you're late to go when the light turns green, when you give way to more than one person while you're in front of me, if you switch lanes unexpectedly without indicating, if you don't merge like a zip, or if you keep going through the intersection and then stop midway because the other side is all queued up and you block me going the other way and I miss my green light - if you do any of those things and you get beeps and glares and hands waving in the air and fingers pointing to the head (translated as "use your brain") from a brown female someone in a black Mazda wagon...there's a good chance that would be me. I'm a work in progress.

Those are only a few that I can remember and have the energy to list. Maybe I'll think of some more later. Or maybe not.

Sincerely,
Same old me

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Balls

I need to grow a pair. Not literally, of course. But too often I have seen family members and friends heading down a path to despair, destruction, discouragement etc...and I haven't had the gall to say or do anything about it.

Excuses
Who am I to say something to them? What if they get offended? What if they never talk to me again? What if I've got it all wrong? What if this and what if that?

But what about these ones - What if I'm the last one that can help them? What if they need to hear this from someone who cares? What if the one thing that I can bring actually helps them?

What I need to do is:
- get over myself
- be bold
- act out my love

Before it's too late...again.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Life

I'm sitting in my little office crying. Yesterday, one of my husband's classmates, also a good friend's cousin, passed away suddenly from some illness.

I don't know much of the details surrounding his death, but I have been given an insight into his life by his Facebook wall, which has been flooded with hundreds of deeply personal messages.

Shock. Sorrow. Disbelief.


I owed you lunch and now you're gone. I was going to buy you duty free on my way back home. Tell me it isn't true. Why did you leave so soon? Words can't describe the pain that this news has brought. What you said, and how you said it, inspired me. Life will never be the same without you. No words but sorrow.

So many friends, classmates, work colleagues and family members that were touched by someone who has been described simply as a "genuinely good guy". As one message put it, "if your family can read it, they will know how loved you were". And the messages continue to pour in.

I never personally knew this guy, yet I am touched at the impact his life had on other people that I know, and I feel and mourn his loss. Or not really his loss, for he is now at peace, but the loss of a little bit of goodness from this world.