staycation is an awful, awful word

I have booked some holiday, thank goodness.  It's not that I've been consistently under the pump, but I am starting to feel like I need something to look forward to, other than just the end of winter.  So, P and I have agreed to take a week off in August.  We'll probably just potter around the house, because I cannot bring myself to spend money other than on the mortgage at this point in time. 

Case in point: the work dress I am wearing today has had a hole in the bum patched.  You can't see it and it's such a pretty dress...but basically my entire work wardrobe is shabby.  I don't think I have bought a single new piece in 2014 and I didn't really bother in 2013 either. So profeshunal. The bum on my work pants looks a little saggy, my cardigans are a bit frayed at the cuffs, my lint roller has been getting a work out, I won't lift my arms wearing my one white collared court shirt...you get the picture.

Mind you, I'm still spending through the nose on cat food.  And me-food.  I'm not as spending averse as I'd probably like you to think.  We're going to Wellington for a weekend to visit friends in July.  And we're being organised about summer this year - a friend is hooking up a bach in Omaha.  So, really, I'm just lazy when it comes to professional attire and appearance it seems (OH MY GOD MY ROOTS.  Do they still qualify as roots at coming up 2 inches?).

Anyway, August.  A week off at home.  Here's hoping it will be delightful.  Things I could do with that week:

• Properly clean the house.  As in actually dust things, up high for example.
• Paint.  Lots of things.
• Sand.  Lots of things.
• Sit my bum on the couch.
• Prepare the spring garden.
• Go to a west coast beach for the day.
• Read. 
• Buy some new work clothes, for crying out loud.
• Cook. 

That all sounds so....mundane.  Even so, it's pretty appealing. 

status quo

I am sitting at my desk, feeling queasy as the building sways in the winds presently buffeting Auckland.  I've eaten three Fizzy Pig's Tails (a Marks & Sparks treat kindly brought back from the Motherland by a colleague which isn't porcine but sugary and delicious) but they aren't having a great effect on my equilibrium either.  I'm sure the building is meant to move like this in the event of a storm, but the creaking is unnerving, from where I'm sitting on the 21st floor.

I have a cat picture, now with bonus husband:

I CALL THIS 'CAT ON CAT ON HUSBAND'.  COCOA BLENDS WELL WITH P'S JEANS, BUT IS IN FACT ATTEMPTING TO SMOTHER TABITHA WITH LOVE WHILE RECEIVING PLEASURABLE UNDER CHIN SCRATCHES.

If that ain't love on a cold night, I don't know what is. 

A Whinge and a Cat Picture.  New tagline for the blog?

lawyering is so glam

I will be discovering documents all. weekend. long.  It is 9.32am on Saturday, and all weekend feels like a very long time to me right now.

I am very much looking forward to the day in my career when I can hand any and all discovery to a junior solicitor and say 'make it happen'.  I am getting there, but the big ones are the bane of my existence.

Wow, that's interesting, hey?!  ME SO FUN.

Um, go the All Blacks?

queen's birthday 2014

Me? Oh I've been working like a slave, and then rushing off to Waiheke for a day wine-tasting with friends, getting way too sauced on the good stuff, wasting all of Sunday curled up in a ball of vino and regret fumes, and spending most of the Monday off at work.

But, I made a new friend! This is Bobby:

BOBBY IS THREE.  LIKES: SHOELACES, COAT BUTTONS.  DISLIKES: DOUBLE KNOTS

And we saw the sun!

SWIPED FROM P'S FACEBOOK.  STONYRIDGE VINEYARD, WAIHEKE, LAST DAY OF AUTUMN 2014

I swear, the only way to tell it was the beginning of winter was by examining the vines:

TE MOTU VINEYARD, WAIHEKE, HOME OF BOBBY

Before I wrote off my tastebuds (and the rest), we had a swig of the LaRose from Stonyridge.  Heaven in a glass, if you're into that sort of thing.   Visitors to Auckland, a day trip to Waiheke cannot come highly rated enough.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled blawgity blawging about Not Much. 

autumn farm

I had a short weekend on the farm with my parents.  I took my big camera and photographed the bejesus out of the bonfire, Mum's cat and dog, the lambs, the fields (not yet downloaded, I'm afraid if you're jonesing for a look at pictures of wee sooty-faced little lambs this blog is a real tease).  We ate and drank and were merry.  I slept over 10 hours.  I cuddled the cat who swiped me amiably when he'd had enough.  P shot at rabbits.  We swigged whiskey fireside and watched the stars come out. 

I noticed Bert's overt absence on the hilltop, with his lower lip drooping and socked back hoof resting.  Couldn't bring myself to visit his grave (Christ, I can't hang up the washing at home without darting glances at Timothy's resting place and hurting inside my ribs).  Mum sympathised; she can't visit Bert and ten years on, she still thinks of Pip (the family Jack Russell terrier) every time she walks to the apricot tree on the hill.  We talked about Sam, Mum's labrador cross, who disappeared by the mailbox one day, never to be seen again.  It's worse about Sam - she doesn't have a spot, only an empty kennel.  The graveyard inside my heart is getting terribly big.  Perhaps that's what happens with age - only you notice it first with the pets.  May it be years before any other people join.  Decades.  Please.

Wow, that makes me ache and it wasn't at all where I intended to go with this post.

The sun was out - over 20 degrees, shining sky and green hills.  I love this land, this country.  I really do. 

winner winner

I am absolutely owning life, recently. 

Evidence:

• I have at least one fingernail that isn't bitten to the quick.
• The scab on my foot from a tumble in leaf mould on my walk home two weeks ago is nearly healed, leaving me approx. 50% less scabrous.
• I have thought about replacing my seriously old razor blade before I develop tetanus and gone so far as to make a mental note to buy a new one.
• I found my access card for work after a short week of looking.
• My regrowth lends my hair a really 'lived in' feel.
• The ants have moved on to only eating the cats' biscuits off the kitchen floor, after I eradicated every ant found on the kitchen bench.
• Now that my glasses are completely scratched up, I don't notice a difference in quality of vision when I take them off.
• Finding my way to the bottom of the chip packet on the regular has made me extra specially nice to hug.
• The fact that the kitten is sleeping on my face on cold nights demonstrates her trust and love, right?

Actually, there's only one piece of evidence that counts.  That shows I'm a real winner, despite all of the above:

• Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of the day I first kissed P.  P, who loves me anyway.  He's the best.

i love me some potatoes

Last night, I had a flashback to the claggy boiled potatoes of my childhood.  No offense intended to my Mum or Dad, those spuds were great, I loved them.  We'd cut them open and add salt and pepper, mashing them slightly with a fork.  As I ate my lightly mashed potatoes yesterday, I thought 'self, you don't actually have to add half a pound of butter to mashed potatoes to make them taste fine. Yes, a lump of butter the size of a fist and whipping them with a fork post mashing would make them taste amazing.  But it's not necessary every damn time you eat them.  Your arteries and ass will thank you later.'

The issue is, you see, my husband is a doodie.

(I'll give you a minute - read that link.)

(With me now?)

Every time I suggest to P he might like to scale it back a bit and that every meal doesn't have to be a production, he responds with some variation on "why are you against deliciousness?"

He's got a valid point, I suppose - why not strive to make everything taste as good as possible?  However, he wants to eat steak and thrice cooked chips more often than I want to consume the level of canola oil used in the cooking. 

(Also - how privileged are we, for goodness' sake?  It was a full-fledged crisis in our house last week when the caterpillars had eaten all the parsley, the creepy little fuckers.)

He's not averse to healthy eating. The only qualification is that it must be tasty and it seems to me that there is a direct correllation between the quantity of organic extra virgin olive oil (pressed by uncle and aunt from their grove, no less, at a community press) and tastiness. 

Even better, he loves a recipe that involves copious amounts of chopping, as slicing things is his favourite activity (*ahem*, marital relations excluded) (I hope) since he bought the Japanese handbeaten knife as a promotion present for himself in 2011.  The chopping, sorry, precision dicing/slicing/brunoising or whatever, is OK with me.  Or at least, it is now after we threw away the mandolin following the great thumb slicing of 2013).

He hasn't bought a sous vide, though.  Yet.