A few old photos...

A few nifty pictures from when we lived in Canada in 2004, for no reason other than they make me smile!

Happiness is my ancient soda stream machine...

I love my soda stream machine. It came from a the A1 Mart, where it cost me $10 - two glass bottles with lids included. Bargain.

I remember the day I bought it. We'd not lived in Gisborne long, Shane had the car and I had walked into town (we didn't live in the countryside back then!). I put it in a shopping bag & walked home with it on a 30 degree day in the summertime, looking like a complete lunatic with this orange plastic antique poking out of my bag.

It's getting harder & harder to get refills for my old friend, the only place in town that does them now is Farmlands of all places. But my addiction to fizzy water means that I'll do what I have to in order to keep my soda stream alive! And you just never know what you may discover in Farmlands, found a well priced bucket of phosphate free washing powder yesterday which I may just have to go back & buy another day.


My little friend has just woken up, bubbles are firing up to the surface of my fizzy water, and I really should go & play in the sunshine with my gorgeous little man :)

He's just so gorgeous....

For no reason other than he's super cute - more photos of Jarvis :)

Spring Cleaning

Jarvis & I have been spring cleaning today. I know it's not actually spring yet, but the magical pink tree (which I like to call the Spring Oracle) has exploded into flower, so it's not far away.

I've developed quite an aversion to Stuff. Last week I managed to get rid of lots of Stuff in the form of clothes which don't fit or don't suit me, replacing them with a few gems from a clothes swap party. Very successful!

Todays Stuff banishing mission has been gathering up miscellaneous junk which really doesn't need to be here & either chucking it, or putting it in a nice big box (or three) to take to the Salvation Army.

I also bought a couple of those magical vacuum storage bags & squished up the spare duvets & blankets into nice little vacuum sealed bricks, I did the same with the bits of material I have floating around in case I ever find time to do any sewing. I really must get some more of those things, they're quite fantastic! (and I'm easily amused!).

I've also been trying to get rid of the Stuff which doesn't actually serve a purpose, and decided that I don't actually need to watch crappy television during the day! Don't get me wrong, there's no way I'm going to stop watching Home & Away, or Coro, but Doctor Phil & that ridiculous programme about the Australian police force are not necessary viewing. I try to tell myself that I'm tired & staring at crappy tv shows is relaxing, but in reality I think it just makes me more tired! Out with programmes I don't actually like watching!!!

Jim Mora is way better company than Dr Phil & Oprah anyway.

Wanderings on a sunny day

We decided to take advantage of the sunshine & go walking in town yesterday for the first time in ages! The secret plan was to go walking cross country until Jarvis fell asleep, then go out for some lunch. We wandered down the path by the river around to the beach, saw the statues, saw the huge ship being loaded with logs, saw the mountains of driftwood & other assorted ocean stuff piled up on the beach. Looking forward to the summer & taking Jarvis adventuring!

Unfortunately the camera battery went flat after a couple of pictures, so we'll have to try again next week :)

Latching On

This week's great adventure was to the latch on in town - around 30 mums & babies all having a feeding fest. Followed by the mums all having a feeding fest, including the most fantastical cake - a gigantic sponge cake shaped like a pair of boobs. Even had marshmallows for nipples. Excellent!

At home there were other adventures to be had, involving Kumara. Jarvis's appetite had become insatiable, far too much for one milk factory mummy to deal with alone. I looked at all sorts of things, feeding him more formula (which I wasn't terribly keen on), getting some horribly expensive organic cereal stuff that is only available out of town, and eventually decided that baking up some organic veges was going to be a much better idea. A big fat orange kumara was chosen, cooked up & pureed.

Friday morning - kai time. Shane got to do the spoon wielding, I watched apprehensively to see if the extrusion reflex thing had gone away, silly of me to worry really - Jarvis opened his mouth wide & gobbled the whole lot down. Then opened his mouth again - more please. Great success. This morning he woke up ready & waiting for his kumara fix. Gorgeous!

After a year...

I made an interesting discovery yesterday - all kinds of magical functions on the camera! Hence the interesting black & white with coloured bits photos...

The Weekend's Pictures

Such a fast photo upload! I'll have to throw out the voodoo dolls in the image of my internet provider. (Joking. I only thought about making them...). He is now awesome.

Witi Ihimaera, a pro breastfeeding rally & a lunatic car invader...what a weekend!

So much news, so many photos, an internet connection which FINALLY works, and...a flat camera battery. Almost perfect!

Part One: Witi Ihimaera.
As many of you will know I have an incurable addiction to Witi Ihimaera. Not him exactly, as I haven't been lucky enough to meet him, but to every word he writes. An addiction which once led to an escapade involving a map from the late 1800's, two crazy women and a small dog crusading around Poverty Bay retracing the steps of Te Kooti...Anyhow, that's another tale.

This Ihimaera hit was a fantastic play, which is touring NZ right now, called Whero's New Net.
Just superb. My friend & I went on our first baby-less adventure, leaving the little boys at home with the big boys. Go and see this play, even if you're not a crazed Ihimaera devotee you will love it. Great review on Scoop, I just can't find the words but the reviewer here has picked them perfectly.

Part Two: A Pro Breastfeeding Rally
A current scandal in Gisborne is the disgusting attitude of some local retailers & restauranteurs to breastfeeding women. One mother was sitting on a park bench in town, a retailer came out of a shop & told her she was breaking the law by indecently exposing herself in such a way, and she really should go home where nobody had to see her! Other mothers have been 'asked' to leave local cafes for the same reason.

These ladies didn't go home & feed their babies in rooms with closed doors , they went to the Human Rights Commission. Which led to yesterday's march - 100 or so Mums, Dads, Kids, Midwives & other supporters waving placards took on the retailers, walking down both sides of Gladstone road (the main shopping street). Fantastic! Not everyone was a supporter, namely the guy who hung out his car window & shouted "Perverts!". Hmmm. Lucky for us most people seemed to be supportive of our quest. Even our mayor, Meng Foon, was on board, right at the front of the march.

As one of the signs said, 'Do you eat your lunch in the toilet? Why should babies have to?'.

Jarvis even got to meet the mayor, which I think was the highlight of his day ;). Not many four month old babies get the chance to have a chat with Meng!

PS - We were on the TV3 news! Most exciting! My sister is the only one who managed to see the 1/100th of a second shot of me, but I know I made it onto the telly...

Part Three: A Lunatic Car Invader.
Most uncool event of the weekend. On our way out on Friday night (this is not a terribly chronological post!), we stopped at the traffic lights on Gladstone Road. A crazy man ran up to the car, opened the back seat, and tried to climb in! A tirade of F words started spilling out of my mouth at top volume, I was trying to reach back & slam the door on him before he got anywhere near Jarvis (who fortunately sits in the middle), and all the time he was looking at me with his scary crossed eyes and rambling something about this being the wrong car. Oh yes, it really was the wrong car. He is quite lucky I couldn't reach the back door properly & was too shocked to think of unbuckling my seatbelt & getting out of the car! (or maybe I'm lucky, I think one would be in trouble for breaking a guys arm in a car door, even if he was trying to invade?)

He eventually ran away & I locked all the doors, as I will every time I'm driving through town at night from now on. He was probably completely harmless, but when my little boy's sleeping in the back I'm not willing to take any chances!

In Conclusion...
Thanks for reading my mammoth post! Hopefully later on the camera batteries will be charged & I'll put up some gorgeous photos of this week's adventures.