Friday 18 July 2014

During the school holidays…

Forgive me… it’s been a LONG time since my last post.  2014 is turning out very differently to how I imagined it to be…  not necessarily better… not necessarily worse… just different.

There have been a few events lately that feel like they’re worth sharing so here’s what’s been happening during the school holidays. 

During the first week I was in Rotorua catching up with Krystal and a couple of friends.  Toby came with me and he loved seeing everyone again. 

My friend Chris had literally moved a couple of days before we arrived so we spent a few days with her catching up and checking out the house.  Toby loved ‘most’ of it… but he wasn’t too keen on being put outside while we were cleaning the carpets:

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Toby did like napping in front of the fire though!  And he loved that we took his bed with us… such a good idea because it helped him stay in his routines.

Krystal invited Chris and myself out to Valentines for lunch.  We had a pretty nice time eating, chatting and just spending time together.  Krystal and I also made some time for a bit of mother-daughter pampering when we went and got our eyebrows done after lunch!

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Even though I ‘know’ that Krystal is an adult it still seemed weird when she brought a bottle of wine with her to have with our dinner that night.  Her wine of choice was this little number from a wine maker in the Nukuhou Valley.

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True to it’s label… it REALLY does taste (and smell) like a bunch of grapes on a sunny day.  I’m not much of a wine drinker but this one was quite delicious!  Here’s a link if you want to check out Celestial Wines products.

By the end of the week it was time to head back to Gisborne which was just as well because on Saturday I had a ‘date’ with my niece.  We went to the Farmers Market and drank freshly squeezed orange juice which my niece said was “deee..licious!”  We also treated ourselves to some dutch doughnuts called Oliebollen.

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Then we went to the library followed by a quick visit to another local market.  As we were leaving my niece wanted to get some photos of her ‘like the ones we did at school Auntie’.  This made no sense to me until she started running around like a mad thing trying to explain.  She was calling it ‘alliteration’ which is definitely the wrong word… but we got there in the end.  Here’s the photo she was most pleased with:

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This past week has gone by in a bit of a blur and to be honest I don’t feel like I’ve achieved much at all.  One thing I did finally do though was to get busy labeling all my Distress Paints.

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I printed off all the labels and then got busy punching them out with my new 3/4 inch circle punch.  Then I put them through the sticker maker and finally onto the lids of the paints.

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It’s going to be so much easier to find the colours I want now that they’re labeled.  Since this worked so well I figured I might as well do my Distress Stains as well:

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I don’t have a full set of stains yet but I’m loving the colours I do have.  I also re-discovered a very cool way of keeping track of my Tim Holtz supplies.  A couple of years ago Tim designed an app for I-phones and Androids which you can programme your own inventory into.  Then at the end of last year he did a big update:

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After moving to Gisborne I bought myself a ‘fancy’ phone which does lots of cool things… but until this week I’d completely forgotten about Tim’s phone app.  Sooo… I downloaded the FREE app onto my phone and got started building my inventory (this is not my phone but you get the idea).

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Meanwhile, Mikayla is all the way down in Invercargill getting started on her new life.  She posted a couple of photos to her Facebook page and there was one that I really liked. I know I’m biased but I think she looks really lovely in this photo:

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Now it’s time for last night… and what a fun night it was too!  July is a ‘big deal’ in Gisborne because it’s ‘Gizzy Food Month’.

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There have been lots of events on during the month and you’ve probably already guessed that I’m a bit of a ‘foodie’.  Luckily for me, my sister is also a bit of a foodie! 

There were lots of free events during the month but there’s also demos and things you can go to which you need to get tickets for.  My sister and I worked out a few events we really wanted to go to and were lucky enough to get tickets to two of the things we wanted… the tickets sell out FAST!!!

Last night we went to a cooking demonstration by Nici Wickes (she presents the World Kitchen cooking show).

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Funnily enough ‘World Kitchen’ was on TV yesterday afternoon and my sister and I watched it together while we were on the phone with each other… strange but true! 

The demonstration was due to begin at 6.30pm so we headed down early so we could get some good seats.  As it turned out we had Nici all to ourselves for nearly 15 minutes before anyone else arrived! 

Nici was really friendly and within a couple of minutes my sister and I felt like we’d known her for ages.  She’s got a great sense of humour and has some interesting tales to tell about her travels and experiences. 

Neither me or my sister are into the ‘selfie’ photo thing but I did take this photo of Nici’s demo kitchen while we were waiting for everyone else to arrive.

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We came away from the evening with a couple of recipes to try… some helpful hints… and we also got to taste samples of what Nici made right in front of us… as my niece would say: deee..licious!

We weren’t quite ready to head home at the end of the demo so we decided to go out for dessert.  There’s a new restaurant in town (Sato) so we thought we’d check it out.  As soon as we walked in the door I liked this place… great atmosphere!

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Sato’s serves mostly Turkish and Mediterranean food although there’s lots of other things on the menu too!  My sister had the Baklava which she said was divine… meanwhile I had the profiteroles and they were wonderful.  Huge servings!!!  Don’t know if you could finish a dessert after having a main!  Next time I go there I want to try the Seafood Tortellini.

So that’s been my holidays.  I’m off to light the fire because it’s freezing here this morning. 

I hope life is treating you all well xx