The Day NZ was rocked...

Yesterday was SB's 28th birthday. Yesterday was also the day that the landscape of Christchurch changed forever. We live in Auckland, an hour's flight and a day and half drive away from Christchurch, so the earthquake has had no major change on our day to day life... but boy, NZ is hurting and we are hurting too.

I first heard the news when I was out on the field at school, "Christchurch has had another earthquake". It's been so common that I shrugged it off. A quick stop in at my desk showed the situation to be far more serious. We knew fairly early on in the afternoon that our close family were okay (at least in a physical sense) and further investigation showed that two other of my Christchurch friends were safe. It was such a relief to wake this morning to a message from Bridey letting us know that her and her hubby were out of harm's way... the thought that they were not had weighed heavily on my mind all night. So we have been lucky... we know that others have not.

My cousins work in the medical field and have been on the ground all night, pushed to their emotional limits. B had started work yesterday at 7 am, arrived home this morning and at 4 pm was still struggling to get to sleep. Yet the TV plays the picture of the cathedral over and over again. 134 big stone steps in the tower that SB and I climbed on our first holiday together in Christchurch. The foggy view we looked out at as we hugged each other tight in the early morning, foggy ourselves from our early morning flight. A view that for now, is forever changed.

I think it probably goes without saying that posts will be fairly sparse around here while we work out how we can help. Thoughts, prayers and sparkly vibes all accepted here.

Christchurch Re-cap

Warning, this post is a little picture heavy and may take some time to load... bear with me! I think it's worth it!

Hotel So - a small yet gorgeous hotel right in the Christchurch CBD and where we stayed for our sojourn. Arrived there early in the morning and we were able to check in straight away, thanks to a hotel staff member we soon nicknamed superhappyexcitedgirl :D No one should be that perky before nine in the morning. She may have even used the phrase "lovelyjubbly".

The Christ Church Cathedral - one of the most famous landmarks in Christchurch. In the top left of the photo you can see a tower - we climbed that sucker, baby!

Just one of the beautiful examples of artwork within the cathedral - the interior design could have been a blog post in itself!

Told you we climbed it! However we weren't about to fall prey to the tourist trap of buying 2 $2 pieces of paper :D Those steps were steep and disorientating but it was still fun!

The foyer of the Christchurch Art Gallery as seen from the first floor - definitely worth a visit just for the architecture. The collections themselves were the icing on top of the cupcake!

And now the reason for PianoMan's moniker change to Stunning Buns. It is in honour of this eating establishment (which to be fair, the food was fantastic at) and our holiday that he now wishes to be known as StunningBuns or SB for short. Look at that sign, the curved line even looks like a bottom!

Punting on the Avon River - divine, romantic and historically quite interesting... even though Andrea's LOML told us that he used to make up historical facts when he was a punter!

New Regent Street - on the historical tram route, I just found the colours and the vibe of this street generally quite amazing. Christchurch is such a mixing pot of design styles!

Akaroa - the only French settlement in NZ. Having been there last summer, I was amazed at how deserted it was in winter... it did however give me the opportunity to walk around more slowly and take pictures of tiny old cottages like this one. SB and I couldn't conceive of living in something that small, yet people did (and by the look of it, still do!).

Akaroa Harbour as we were leaving - the foggy weather meant that we couldn't get some of the more spectacular landscape views from the summit but I still think that this looks gorgeous.

We drove through the Lyttleton Harbour tunnel and around the harbour heads to Sumner (the head of the harbour you can see to the left of the pic). The roads were fairly narrow with sheer drops off one side - picturesque but scary in a large Holden rental car!

View of Christchurch from the top of the Port Hills - it isn't until you get this perspective that you realise how vast the city is. As tourists you only explore a small part of the area and tend to forget about outlying suburbs. It isn't as big as Auckland of course, but the laidback feeling you get here is quite appealing!

My intrepid SB continuing to take photos while I seek refuge in the rental car!

The view of Lyttleton Harbour from the top of the gondola station - such a cute little township nestled into the hill like that!

Our last touristy thing before StunningBuns had to catch his earlier flight back (damn jobs, work and general reality!) was the New Brighton pier. I'd wanted to walk the pier back in summer but my cousin had brought her dog with her and there were no dogs allowed. SB cajoled me to walk the length of the pier with him (that is the shoreline and the local library in the distant background) and while I whined and complained, I'm glad he made me do it! Certainly blew the cobwebs out :D

Some of these ladies may be familiar to you - others maybe not so much. I had the absolute pleasure of chatting about life, the universe and everything with these three gorgeous lady bloggers. It was great to make better friends with Andrea, Bridey and Charlie - plus the food at Chinwag Eathai was divine! Definitely worth another visit.

So that's a recap of some highlights of my Christchurch stay - also love Yellow Rocket bagels for breakfast, vintage shopping with Andrea, mood lighting in our hotel shower, laughing at the huge population of emos, Coffee Culture Vanilla Chai, corgi statues, sprinting down a museum hall in a dress and boots (part of a human body exhibition - measuring how fast you run), snuggling and watching movies and having some relaxing time out of AKL. Thanks for reading!

News in brief...

Funny, when I type that I hear little news bulletin blips in my head (does anyone know what I am talking about or do you all just think I'm crazy?)...

• I had a fantastic time in Christchurch - full recap to come! I spent time with Andrea and we had dinner with Bridey and Charlie, fantastic blogger fun! I will be in Christchurch more often with my sister moving down there so it's good to make better friends with these awesome girls.
• The one downside of our Christchurch holiday was the spectacular spill I took down concrete car park stairs on Saturday. I don't even have the excuse of *ahem* impaired judgement - I was just busy talking to PianoMan and pulling the hotel key out of my handbag - which I might add was totally unnecessary at this stage - and there she goes. The bruise on my lower back is still coming through!
• Speaking of PianoMan, he has now decided to go by the moniker StunningBuns or SB for short. The reason for this name change will become apparent in the Christchurch recap. It's not just because he has an extremely handsome rear end, people. He will still play me a mean rendition of the Foo Fighters on the piano though :D
• I've been back since late Tuesday afternoon and haven't yet had the chance to blog - bad blogger I know. I stepped right back into the breach at work and covered a shift on Wednesday (and one this morning) and went on a $500 shopping spree with mum yesterday for some desperately needed teaching clothes.
• I'm feeling a little bit blue post-holiday. Real world is not so awesome sometimes - no long sleep ins with handsome boyfriends, no Yellow Rocket bagel, no awesome hotel. I'm sure I'll snap out of it shortly LOL
• Parties for the next three weekends - milestones abound! Birthdays, engagements, housewarmings; all very different ways of moving forward but proud of all my friends nonetheless.
• About to wrap up this cover shift and have lunch with a very dear friend... ChCh recap tomorrow morning Scribblettes!
  

Friday Round-Up

• As those of you who follow me on Twitter will know, I got a little spendy yesterday... to the tune of almost $200 NZ. Some of it was necessary (how I expected to get through winter with two pairs of pants is beyond me), some of it was for the endeavour of making other people smile (some leggings for an eighties party I'm going to, craft supplies for a surprise for PianoMan) and some of it was purely for my own selfish ends (those purple toenails you see in the base of the picture and the Bras and Things bag :D). It felt really good to do that as I've been keeping a tight rein on finances because I thought I was going to Sydney in July.
• Thought I was going to Sydney in July? Whatever do I mean? PianoMan's work has cracked down on annual leave, with the end result being that he won't be able to go on any extended annual leave until Feb 2010. I KNOW. I know that some of you have encouraged me to go to Sydney on my own but I feel like we've done so much of the detailed planning for this trip together that it would be weird to go on our holiday with just me. Instead, we're heading down to Christchurch for a romantic long weekend around the same time and postponing any long holiday plans until next year. Gives me a chance to upgrade my dinosaur... I mean, laptop... and cellphone, both which are pretty necessary.
• I'm finding this unit outline planning assignment a real challenge, plus the teacher seems to think we won't be spending any time on it in class before we hand it in. I think that the teacher is sorely mistaken about this... my classmates and I already have lists upon lists of questions. I'm starting to feel like I can't wait until this year is over and I can actually go teach instead of do these things in class. I learnt more in two weeks of actually being in a school than I did in the first month of training college.
• Mum's surgery went really well. She's in surprisingly little pain - more so when she gets up and moves around but that's also important for her to do and this is the reason that man invented serious pain-killers LOL. The hospital she is in is sooo plush and I think she's going to be a little devastated to come home to the non-gourmet meal provider, sky TV-less convalescent home that is the Scribbles abode. Fingers crossed for appointment next Tuesday when we get the results of the pathology report!
• I received an email yesterday from one of the authors I had reviewed! It made my day... just one of those moments that make you realise that you really aren't writing into a void.

Right, off to get this house in tip top shape and then go play dutiful daughter at the hospital and take Mama Scribbles for her amble around the gardens. Looking forward to a bliss night with PianoMan - we're making our own pizzas then relaxing with some glasses of wine and a spa. Perfect end to the week!

Christchurch Wrap - Up

My favourite thing I did in Christchurch was definitely the Antarctic Centre - it was one of the more expensive things we did ($28 compared to $12 pool entry at Hanmer Springs and $10 for the Da Vinci Machines exhibition at Canterbury Museum) but it was well worth it. As well as many other exhibitions and photo opportunities (an ice slide, sleds, snow mobiles and antarctic dress up clothes) they have an environment in which they look after disabled little blue penguins that have injuries meaning that they will never return to the wild. There's a sweet little girl penguin called Elvis(!) who is blind and feels her way around the enclosure using her beak as a cane. The Da Vinci Machines exhibit was phenomenal too - K and I were just blown away by how spectacular the intellect of just one man could be. Managed to pick up a Christmas/Birthday present (haven't decided yet) for my father also. Hanmer was also worth the cost - we rented a holiday home there for two nights which was $210 all together and broke down nicely into $70 for each of us. It was great to have a kitchen although the only meals we had there were breakfast and the fish and chips we took back the first night - a resort town has too many restaurants to just stay at home! Most embarrassing moment of the holiday would have to go the "incident in the fish and chip shop". We'd been roasting ourselves in the sulfur pools at Hanmer (the hottest ones there) and then I got dressed back into all my winter layers. Walk into the nice warm fish and chip shop, go up to make the order and all of a sudden I can't hear anything and the room starts going fuzzy - I just make it back to the group in time to thwock my head down between my legs. The poor family sitting in there waiting for their take-aways were shocked. Great customer service though, the woman came sprinting out from behind the counter with a glass of water. Biggest regret? That I didn't get to experience the Christchurch clubbing scene because of the polar snap. I wouldn't have given up the snow for anything though, and it gives me an excuse to take a summer break there soon - with K moving from Hicksville to ChCh, it's definitely worth my while.
In other news, I have another off-line date tomorrow with an online suitor... really haven't been talking to this one, who we'll call ?? long so I have arranged for S and probably J to "arrive" at the bar about an hour after I arrive there so I have an out if necessary. Better safe than sorry. Talking to another prospect also, Flyboy, who I hope to meet soon.

I'm baa-ack

A whole week since I last posted - I made an attempt to post while I was at my cousins, but the computer threw a spaz at me trying to log in to the Blogger website, so I flagged it. Had the best time, did so many things and enjoyed my time with old and new friends. Didn't manage to make it out clubbing at all, but life was serendipitous in the way it worked out. The Saturday night clubbing plans were put on hold after it started snowing - which I had so wanted for it to do while I was there - and put aside for drinking in front of the fireplace at the cousins' gorgeous villa. Pre-mixed cocktails are the devil LOL and it gives me an excuse to go down in summer and party hard with B at the clubs. Will go into further details in a later post, but the holiday itself was marvellous... and had another "Universe loves me!" moment on the way home. I was one of the last to check in for my flight and only centre seats were available. I was a bit disappointed as I'd hoped to see both Christchurch and Auckland lights (it was a night flight). Anyway, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd chosen to spend some great time with S & B rather than get to the airport early to get a seat and I was happy with that. It comes time to board and I hop on the plane and into my middle seat. The gentleman with the aisle seat comes on and sits down, and finally the last guy for our particular row comes in with his 3 friends. He apologises to us, says he got the seat placements muddled and would we mind shuffling one over so that he could sit on the aisle and talk to his friends. I got my window seat! And it was every bit as wonderful as I thought it would be. Absolutely knackered from my full on holiday and a little sad that I'm back, but more details on the fun times tomorrow.

Leaving on a jet plane...

Well, sort of. Fly out tomorrow for seven beautiful days in Christchurch (well, six and a half if I'm being pedantic). Sooooo busy today and even this post is being typed in at hyperspeed LOL. My boss forgot to submit my timesheet last week so I didn't get paid yesterday (d'oh) so I spent most of the morning rushing around getting the check from payroll (not the same site that I work on), taking the cheque to the bank of issue so that I could be paid the money in cash (rather than waiting for it to clear) and then taking the money to my bank (about a kilometer away from this bank - too short to drive, but a long way to walk when you are trying to be quick about it LOL) and depositing it in. After that I decided to splurge on getting a neck and shoulder massage from one of those little mall kiosks (I've been having some pain, so possibly the best $20 I spent in ages) and got my eyebrows waxed (a necessity, not a luxury LOL). Plugged in my digital camera and downloaded photos for the first time and I'm just about to run out the door to a personal training session... heck knows how that's going to go seeing I've been to sick to go to the gym recently... then it's home, shower, and glamming up for this work dinner in Botany Downs tonight.
In the process of organising to have high tea with a couple of girl friends at the Langham - it's $28 or $54 if you have champagne as well... one of the girls decided at short notice to have her engagement party this weekend and I'm going to miss it (LOL just can't win there) so this is sort of a make-up event. It's a bit of a splurge, but I'm going to be working full-time day shift the week I get back so it's easily covered.
Not quite sure how often I'll get to update this blog while I'm in Christchurch... still love ya anyway :D

God Damn... talk about needing to be wrapped in cotton wool

So it's my first night back at work yesterday, not including the Wednesday that I shouldn't have pushed myself to do yesterday and it all went sweet.... I was locking up the centre and there are swinging doors in between the foyer and the big heavy outer doors. When I go through to lock the outer doors one of the doors always hits me on the ass without fail. Last night I thought that I'd be really clever and grab the door behind me before it clipped me "where the Lord split me" but I underestimated the weight of the doors as they swung back and jammed my fingers. OUCH! I managed to get through the rest of lock up and the drive home without looking at my fingers - I knew if I did I would pass out - and it's just the ring finger and little finger on my right hand that are badly bruised.
Looking at my bank accounts in prep for my holiday and feeling in really good shape! Looks like being laid up ill is a really good antidote for spending! It also appears that I will be getting sick leave for the time that I missed last week and I cashed a check yesterday for a tax refund! Lots and lots of fun money. My friend K is now staying with me at the B&S maison (cousins) for two days, not just one, so will be fun fun times!

Where has my planning mojo gone?

I've always prided myself on being a pretty organised person, but the little anal-retentive in me seems to have taken a holiday over the last couple of weeks... I'm not sure whether it's the end of uni semester or the fact that this new part-time job is taking up a significant amount of time that I used to have free . What I do know is that I'm stuck at work for at least another 3/4s of an hour, and didn't bring any study materials or even a book to read "recreationally" (yeah, I know that sounds odd, but when you are studying English Lit, you sorta have to make a classification LOL). On top of that, when I leave here I'll have to stop somewhere (at 10pm at night) to pick up something that vaguely resembles dinner. I keep on telling myself that I need to make some meals that I can freeze and then reheat, and I've even gone so far as to get most of the ingredients for the meatloaf but then I look at trying to fit cooking into my schedule at the moment and it just makes me want to cry. I don't want to guilt my mum into doing it, she already does so much for me on top of charging me less than market board. Maybe I just need to breathe, accept that for the next three weeks I'm not going to be on top of my game, use iGoogle (LOVE YOU iGOOGLE!) to keep track of the things I need to do as much as possible and start afresh (and refreshed) once I come back from ChCh.
Ahhhh Christchurch holiday... now that's something I can daydream about for the next 45 mins :)

Hello Universe!

It's almost midnight and I've recently arrived home from work - to supplement my student loan "living costs" I also work as an evening receptionist at an arts centre. I had an interesting conversation with my mother... was saying that I was feeling stressed about money, especially with my upcoming holiday to Christchurch and she was telling me that it was a bit irrational. I made the decision to go to Christchurch on holiday before I even got this well-paying new job, I deserve to go on this holiday and I can afford it. Some of the larger "experiences" like the mini-break that we will be taking in Hamner Springs will probably have to be placed on the CC but I know that I'll be able to pay them off within the month. I got the flights extremely cheap and the rest of the accomodation will be free thanks to my darling cousin B. I still can't shake this nagging feeling though - I guess it's just because I've been focusing on paying down my debt for about a year now, and I'm just not used to spending ANY money on myself. As much as I want to be completely debt-free (apart from my student loans - I'm realistic here people), the fact that I am $2500 less in debt than when I started paying down my debt last year, and have continued to pay down that debt even after giving up my full-time job in February has to be celebrated, and I worry that if I didn't do something like take this holiday I would suffer from "debt repayment" burnout.