Sadly, due to a sudden viral attack which involved a trip to an emergency doctor and the ensuing fatigue and sleep, I’m out of the running having missed both Saturday’s and Sunday’s posts.
Nevertheless, I’m going to press on and keep posting - later.

Sooo … exciting stuff here. It’s Friday night and I’m watching an episode of Bones while chipping away at an overflowing Intray.

Got up early this morning and had a productive few hours. The weekend is looking rather busy to someone with limited energy at the moment, and I know I’m unlikely to get some of the things I was looking forward to do this past week done. I’ve been clearing my schedule to work on some personal stuff and my darling husband has been busy filling it up again.

You’ll have to excuse my being brief, the cold/’flu thing that I’m over - it’s unleashed a new phase involving my throat and that makes me grumpy.

Okay I’m going back to transcribing a huge stack of my enthralling notes for the past two months.

Quite grumpy at the diary-ness these blogposts are getting. I’m aiming for a content filled Saturday post - so chastise me if I lapse back into a diary one please ;)

Edit: Bones has finished and my intray is empty - I wish the same could be said of my desk!

Been out all afternoon/evening in Palmy doing errands and had a big sleep in beforehand so don’t have much to say really. The out of the blue heavy bursts of rain continue to occur - I think most people are thoroughly sick of the rain, wind and cold weather (snow in November!) and can we have some Spring/Summer weather please! Missing Hamilton - we had the pool ready to roll in October so definitely able to swim in November, not so here. Plans for the garden are falling behind simply because it’s too cold for the seeds to germinate.
Spent the evening tidying up in my office as things have gotten a tad overwhelming. Everything’s ready for the morning though - It’ll be a new day :)

Just realised I forgot to publish yesterday’s blogpost - I was that tired!

The internet is abuzz with chatter over the US Election and Obama winning. I thoroughly enjoyed both presidential candidates post-election speeches, and think supporters of both parties should be proud of their respective candidates. Many people said they were in tears over Obama winning or over his speech, but for me the tear-jerking moment was the talk of how people congregated in the streets to celebrate, and the joyous feel that surrounded that happening. It’ll be interesting to see what Obama does in his new role - and ditto for his wife.
I guess I need to learn a bit about the way elections are run in the United States as it took me a while to get how Obama had won by a landslide when the popular vote looked so close.
I clearly didn’t find a decent TV feed to watch as they all seemed rather dry and boring, so I followed the election via Twitter and a couple of sites that had interactive maps. I listened/watched the Bryan Park video feed and I don’t know whether it was the feed itself but the quality and stop/start of the video (despite sound being find) rather frustrating. I also couldn’t work out what the hell weird dress Michelle Obama was wearing - due to the quality, the dress really chopped her body in half - and rather strangely at that. Anyhow - I got to hear everything which is the main bit and I liked what I heard (well, wasn’t overly keen on all the what I guess were campaign associated songs?
Best of Luck to the US - hope the new guy does a better job. :)

Definitely need to start these blogposts earlier in the day!

The good news is I’m on the mend! :)

Today has flown past for the most part - I suspect this has a lot to do with the ‘flu. I don’t remember being so hungry when I’ve had the ‘flu before! I’ve resolved not to go look this “symptom” up on the web as that leads one down the slippery slope of hypochondriacism and I really don’t need to take that role on as well :P

Looking forward to the US Elections being over - and the NZ ones for that matter. I’ve made my decision and I want to vote and see the results already damnit.
We drove past a polling booth today and I almost pulled in. I’m picking up voting paper bits tomorrow though, so I guess it would have made things a little more complicated without them.

• I haven’t enjoyed the trash-others campaigning, and I have my fingers crossed that those tactics will be shelved next time.
• I would like to see more referendums in the future (preferably near) with the proviso they are straightforward yes or no questions - that doesn’t seem like too much to ask really.
• I personally can see the wisdom in moving to 4 years between elections, and I expect it will be raised in the coming term effective for the next term.
• I’m a little alarmed at the number of people I’ve spoken to who have mentioned they’d like to go back to FPP - what is up with that? You liked the idea of only two parties?
• I wonder what would happen if people stopped trying to analyse how their vote would work and just simply voted for who they want. Oh, and stopped thinking of it as two parties with some little ones - irregardless of how I’m voting, why do we have to have two main parties? I wonder, based on what I’m reading regarding potential outcomes, whether this has anything to do with the way the rules for MMP are written - perhaps with a bias towards having two main parties?
• I get that MMP has flaws and is annoying, but FPP was simply too simple and I dunno, do we all want to vote electorally anymore? I mean, I feel like I’m more part of the global community so I’m happy to vote on a national level - but on an electorate level, it just feels too small. It’s not like the local candidates have been advertising what they’ll do for the electorate anyhow. Maybe this is what happened in the days of FPP - which was incidentally before the internet became mainstream and I think that has had an impact on the way we look at the world, nation and local arenas. On the otherhand, I see reports talking about how a particular town votes one way, and this little town over here votes another so maybe people like myself *steams up fingernails and buffs them on sleeve* are still in a minority (or the reporting is at fault - yay, let’s all blame the media :)
• I also wonder what would happen if we removed the electoral vote component altogether, were given say 20 votes each and could then use those vote for any potential MPs of any party irregardless of where they’re affiliated. You’d be able to put many votes against one potential MP up to your total. There are flaws of course - as with any harebrained scheme.
  • How would you deal with voting papers with more than 20 votes on them?
  • You’d probably have to vote by mail as the paperwork would be too arduous for a polling booth.
  • How would new potential MPs get a leg in the door so to speak?
  • Another flaw with this idea is that it would likely turn into a bit of a popularity competition with individuals - though do we not have that problem already?

I like the idea of a wide range of opinions being in parliament, that have all been specifically voted in by the people, and who aren’t going to resort to the kindergarten antics which make me cringe whenever I get the bizarre urge to watch the House of Representatives at work! Have you noticed the media shy away from using the term that we learned in school, preferring to call it simply Parliament or the House, thereby avoiding inferring those people bickering in there - we voted for them! In fact, comparing the House of Representatives to an Early Childhood Education facility has become cliche - what does that say?

As a kid my mum took me to sit in the public gallery, and whilst the highlight may have been Muldoon having a tanty and stomping out, it was nothing like what you see today. I got to see stuff happen. I remember being in awe of seeing part of a future law being discussed. I’m not sure I’d be as proud as my mum was to take my daughter into the gallery. I may applaud the diversity we’re seeing in the seats below the gallery now, but I certainly don’t applaud the behaviour and I hope this election brings in a bit more decorum amongst the new representatives - though I have to admit I’m not holding my breath. :)
On the other hand, maybe I do need to delve back and compare hansard reports from yipes, 20 years ago now, to today’s and maybe I’ll find things haven’t changed a bit. I don’t know, I classify the creation and refinement of laws as being something that should be taken very seriously. The same seriousness of Citizenship Ceremonies, Marriages and Court Proceedings. Sure a bit of levity doesn’t hurt, but not to the detriment of getting the job done.
Remember these people we’re voting in are supposed to be representing us! What does their behaviour and our acceptance of it, say about us?

I have the ‘flu. Fun! Especially when you spend most of the day not realising you have stuff you can take to ease the symptoms! Double Fun!

Speaking of fun, check this out - Speeding Ticket

Hi all,

Due to the late hour, the up and down day I’ve had, grumpy daughter, charming bout of hayfever (my nose feels like it could explode) and the distinct possibility I’m getting whatever illness my daughter has, welcome to the cliffnotes for today:

• I’ve lost my pen 3 times today - which is really dreadful considering I *always* have one on hand.
• Been playing with the 2009 planner supplies which arrived last week and most of yesterday involved perving at what other’s have done with their planners and looking at what’s been updated/changed in the DIY Planner world. Also checking out all the expensive planners to see what they have (or more accurately, haven’t) added to their repertoire.
• My attempts to find a short-term replacement for my office chair (on which I sit for a substantial portion of my day given a change) have been fun but unsuccessful. Yesterday I pushed, bumped and banged one of the lounge suite seats in front of my desk. It was great in that I could snuggle with my ill daughter all day comfortably, Tigger (the cat) loved the added comfort in inarguably the best room in the house when the fire is off, and I could mouse of the arm of the sofa with a keyboard on my lap (child and/or cat willing of course). The downsides were that I was sitting quite a lot lower than normal and as a result my lovely large desk became something you stored things on rather than a workspace, climbing over the back of the chair to get in and out of it was cumbersome (and as a result found myself going to do something and then thinking “Meh! I’ll do it later”), cumbersome also = charming bruises in my realm, and well, at the risk of getting all Goldilocks on you, it was simply too soft and comfy. I’ve returned to the previous option of the dining table chair for the meantime.
• We went with some friends on a drive today to check out the River Access in the area and the Rangitikei River has changed a lot since last year. The road we normally take has disappeared rather dramatically into the river and really drove home how alive and changeable rivers, like other parts of nature, can be. I also discovered that while I didn’t do too badly, I need to brush up on my weed identification skills. Thankfully, we have a couple of books that will come in handy for that.

See you tomorrow!

This is a post that has been on the To Do List since 2003 - not long after we got married in fact. So here we are 5 years later and I’ve finally got around to taking some photos.

Going sequentially through the wedding process is probably the best way to tackle this so firstly:

The Invitations

The invite is A6 in size made from a stiff dark blue card with a glittery effect. The decoration on the front was a rubber stamp of a wedding cake that we embossed using clear ink and gold embossing powder. The embossing powder was melted by holding the card over the toaster - two shots would do a card :P
The inside is a creamy pearlised paper with a shimmer cut down in size so the cover acts as a border. The inner sheet was affixed to the outer card by running a glue stick down the spine of the inner only on the back. The ribbon acted as a bit of reinforcing so it was tied quite tightly. That bow wasn’t actually tied by me - I can tell cause my bows were quite compact and were neater - my inner perfectionist coming through.

We included with the invitation an A6 RSVP card, pre-stamped which was a godsend. It was made from a heavier weight card in the same style as the creamy paper mentioned earlier.

The envelope, as you can see is made from the same creamy paper mentioned earlier and I designed it using a deconstructed envelope. It’s a nice design as it only required a small amount of cutting from A4 size. No trimming down to size required and it didn’t take long to do. The envelopes were constructed around the Invite and RSVP using stick glue and reinforcing using the seal shown. The invites stood up well in the mail.

The next step was sending out Information Packs to people who’d requested them on their RSVPs. I don’t have a photo of the insides unfortunately, as the last paper copy is sealed in the envelope shown below! We included a Welcome page expressing our delight that they were coming and also mentioning tidbits of info relating to the wedding, an overview of Palmerston North with ideas for things to do if they arrived a day or so early or stayed later, a hand-drawn Map showing the way to get from the centre of Palmerston North to the Church and the reception, and also showed where the Motel most out of towners stayed at was. And finally a page on the Motel and it’s amenities. So not much, but the feedback was great. These were made in the ubitquitous creamy paper again and were A6 in size.

We opted for sending them out in some premade envelopes in Metallic Blue (not quite the same as the Blue card used elsewhere but close enough to not be obvious.

Ceremony Booklet

We provided each of the guests with a Ceremony Booklet when they arrived at the church. It was A5 in size made from the blue card with creamy pages and tied with the ribbon as an anchor. I can’t remember doing this but looking at them we must have used the glue trick as well. The cream pages weren’t cut down to size to save time but each page had a border on it which helped hide that. I guess making sure every page was straight also helped a bit :P.

The first page reminded you why you were there, the other side was blank, then the facing page had the details of the ceremony (ie How long you would be sitting on a wooden pew for :P ), the other side of that page had the scripture reading (so you could see it was quite short), then the words to the hymn, and then on the back of the hymn page was the names of the wedding party etc. Followed by a blank page.

The Reception

Coming into the marquee there was a set of mini easels on a table each with a printed seating table list. And on each table we had a matching number. These were quite fun to make. We used a embossing ink pen and a stencil for the table numbers and embossed it using the gold embossing powder and the toaster :P. The cream card they were done on was then mounted onto three-sided … things. Well you can see for yourself in the photos. Then at each place we had placecards which were handwritten by my sister using the embossing ink pen, gold embossing powder and the poor abused toaster. We also put a stack of blue and cream cards with a set of glitter gel pens at each table, which though I’m not sure it ever got explained by someone in charge everyone caught on and we have some great mementos from the day. This was what we settled on instead of a guestbook and it also served the purpose of filling in time (if there was time that required filling). The napkins were a really quick thing to do to turn basic blue paper napkins into something special. All I did was use a cheap rubber stamp and some gold stamping ink - no toaster involved! I should mention that these were in addition to the white linen napkins provided to the guests, and the catering staff placed them inside the champagne flutes which worked quite well.

Thank Yous

These happened quite a while after the wedding, but I at least had them all planned out in advance. I made an odd shaped card for these and to be honest, I don’t know what I was thinking! The toaster was put back to use as the blue card cover is a Thankyou stamped using invisible embossing ink and gold embossing powder. Once again a slightly trimmed creamy paper was the innards held together using the glue trick and ribbon. The envelopes were custom made in the same style as the invite envelope and using the cream paper held together using glue and a seal. I know that one of these fell apart in transit but the staff who looked after it managed to keep it together and have it arrive at the destination which was wonderful! Not shown is a small square of paper we included with details of how to visit a gallery of all the photos available of the wedding. We left the inside blank and I suspect the size of the card had a lot to do with not having to write as much!

We got the printing onto card done at the local printshop where we purchased the paper, card, envelopes and seals, and the rest was done on our b&w laser. The total for everything mentioned above starting from scratch was around $450 (and I ended up with some stamping stuff out of that total). I should probably mention this was for a wedding where 70 people were invited (I think this was about 50 invites all up?).

Only a couple of things left to mention I think. I made some New Zealand Beeswax Pillar candles in Natural colour for the centerpieces for each table at the reception. They were put into blue glass bowls my mum came across and she added flowers and foliage to the bowls on the day to make everything come together better. They looked great but I don’t have any decent photos of them.
These are the bouquets the Maid of Honor and myself had:

They’re made of rubber and if they’re looking a bit tatty, a mouse has had a jolly good nibble at them (care of storing our wedding stuff in an outside shed that wasn’t vermin secure). The “handles” are made from left over material from my wedding dress and ribbon used in the stationery. They were put together the night before the wedding so if the seams are crooked, blame it on lastminuteitis!

And finally - the wedding book. This was put together once we started planning the wedding and most of the bulk is the process taken to get to the final stationery and not pretty pictures of hairdo’s and frocks! There’s also stuff like the menus we got quotes for, checklists, reception and wedding venues, checklists, addresses, checklists, suit hire stuff etc etc

Something else I’ve forgotten to mention mainly because I don’t have any photos with them in, is the favours. I got my slaves to help me make 5 chocolates per person invited which were wrapped in blue netting and tied with the ribbon seen everywhere throughout this post. They went like hotcakes and I’m not sure everyone realised they were handmade. One had a white chocolate stripe on the top, One was dark chocolate and quite boxy shaped, there were two hearts, one had a strawberry center and the other didn’t and I think they might have been done with one in dark chocolate and the other in milk but I can’t remember :). I know my sister and maid of honor were delighted when they were finally finished and I think it’s put them both of chocolate making for life!

Second night doing the cooking thing and tonight I tried another Food in a Minute recipe - Creamy Mushroom Risotto. Though it says “serves 4-6″ - I was surprised at how much there actually was. Judging by the portion size shown in the recipe’s photo, I spent the first half hour cooking trying to think up something to cook to bulk out the meal. Then the saucepan/wok became fuller and I realised how much there was going to be. I substituted long grain rice for the short grain in the recipe, medium white wine for dry white wine, and edam cheese for the parmesan. I also forgot to season with salt and pepper again!
I took an hour and a quarter to prep and cook it - however I think I should have taken longer to cook it since the rice was still a bit undercooked in places. Still it was yummy and it’s been requested to cook again. I’d have to say it’s very economical as well, especially if you don’t mind not having it accompanied with flat brown mushrooms and bacon.