I usually tend to do a survey meme about the year, just to, you know, review it all, lay it all out, whatever. This year I’m skimming. Yes, skimming, as in, not much detail, because I’m lazy and don’t want to fill out a meme for the next hour. Also, my present hunger pains are distracting me. Which mean macaroni and Not Actually Cheese for dinner.

Right, so, off we go…

The first three months of the year were ok, then bad, then worse. That’s what happens when your godfather dies, and when you go out with a Serial Dater (someone who goes from one relationship to the next with barely a space between them), so I don’t recommend you do that. You’ll never be enough for a Serial Dater, so don’t bother in the first place. Also, don’t go out with anyone who always brings up their ex-partners. So not fun.

The second trimester was made up of a break-up, my 20th birthday (which ruled), but sadly another death. My dad’s cousin died of cancer. Obviously very sad for the family and those who were close to her.

The third trimester was quite good, with the birth of my niece in August and family-by-marriage, from overseas, coming to stay. I started my course in July. In September I became a vegan (and still am).

The final trimester involved a lot of time in Gisborne and thus a mental health upset for me. I wasn’t feeling too brilliant for a little while, but that soon picked up when I finally moved back to Auckland in December. I also received 88% for my overall course mark, so I was very pleased with that. During this time I finally decided on a study and career path in clinical psychology and started the enrolment process at the University of Auckland.

Much of the last three months have been about moving forward at a faster pace and putting many of my desires into action. 2009 will me more of that.

I just want to make a quick post about the The Quilting Bee’s Christmas events, which is really only relevant to other Quilting Bee members.

I am seriously behind in adding everyone’s cards to my page, and I still have three cards to make for people. I will have some down time in the coming week which I will use to get all that done, so don’t worry, I’m not ignoring you all! I’m just a slow snail, right now.

A day late, I know, but yesterday and the 24th were so hectic I didn’t have time to post. I hope you all had a wonderful festive time, whatever holiday(s) you celebrate!

I had a great day yesterday with all my family, and though it was very busy it was one of the best Christmases I’ve had in a long time. This break in the traditions of who’s houses we eat at has been a nice one, indeed. It was also nice to see all my grandparents sit back and relax this year, as they were not hosting any of the meals. A well deserved retirement from Xmas lunch and dinner, I think! Though, of course, we will always miss having it at their places, at least these new traditions do and will continue to mean just as much.

As much as I dislike to to admit this, part of Christmas is about the presents. They don’t have to be in huge numbers or at all expensive, but a little token from one person to the next is perfectly fine. None at all is fine, too, but I think even if I was absolutely dirt poor, I would still find a way to give to those that I am closest to, even if it’s just one tiny cupcake or a heartfelt letter, because it gives me such pleasure. I hope all of my gifts convey how much I love that person and how happy I am that they are in my life.

So, for Christmas I received a few books, including Tatiana’s Table by Paullina Simons; two DVDs (a crafting one and Emma); a dress; a top; a bath bomb; a stoneware oven dish; a ticket to see Kings of Leon in March; knitting needles (they’re pink!); some money from various people; a couple of gift certificates and…let me think…I think that’s all. No, wait, some chocolates! I love everything!

Now, the food, it was really good. My vegetable loaf turned out great and was perfect for lunch, and the stuffed mushrooms were great as well, though I want to work on the recipe more. I am actually thankful there was so many dishes I don’t eat, otherwise I would have overeaten very badly! One of the good things about veganism are family gatherings with a lot of non-vegan food, so when you don’t want to overeat, you only take/make as much as you want to eat! After that you just stop. Haha.

Once again, I hope you all had a lovely day.

I finally upgraded my WordPress and so far I’m loving it. The new dashboard design is very useful as most things are but one click away. I really hate having to go to two other pages to find what it is I want! Aside from this brief examination I have not explored much else, yet.

Christmas is only four days away! How insane is that? This year has gone so fast for me and I keep thinking about how it seems like only six months ago we celebrated Christmas. I have been wishing for that childhood state where time just goes on and on and nothing seems to fly by you.

Anyway, this year is my first Christmas being properly vegan, so I am having to plan a bit better what I will actually be eating. Side dishes are usually fine as there are plenty of salads, vegetables (the joys of a Summer Christmas are easy BBQs and lots of salad), breads, etc. made without animal ingredients. However, main dishes are a little different, obviously, because I wont be stuffing myself with any meat.

My family have done a lunch with my mother’s family and dinner with my father’s for years. Since the grandparents are getting older, this year it’s lunch at our place and dinner at my eldest sister’s. So I have two mains to think about and have decided on a nut loaf for lunch (I’ve never had one, but they look easy to make and good for a lunch meal) and cous cous stuffed field mushrooms for dinner. I want to re-create that gorgeous stuffed mushroom I had at a restaurant awhile back — it was just that good! I hope there wasn’t some secret ingredient that the dish can’t be without, or I’ll be, well, screwed.

For dessert I’m making two apple pies, with The Worlds Most Awesome Pastry Recipe, that can be found in Tatiana’s Table by Paullina Simons (Pie Crust 1). No, seriously, it’s the best.

If you celebrate Christmas, or another holiday at this time of year, what are the traditions your family has? What foods do you eat? I would love to know!

Today I opened up a new bank account to start saving for my overseas trip. I have nice, though little, chunk of money in there, now, and it’s such a good feeling.

I am beginning to allow myself to go beyond daydreaming about this and start planning where I want to go, what I want to do, and everything else. At this point I am going to focus on Europe, since I’ve wanted to go for so long, though I have no idea what kind of turns I will make as time goes by.

I love being close to my grandparents. I have three that are still living and I am fortunate enough to be able to spend significant time with all of them. Two grandmothers that impart knowledge on many subjects from cooking to values to life lessons and more, and one grandfather that imparts knowledge on pretty much everything except cooking!

I’m so thankful for the conversations I have with all three of them, but I frequently get to sit down and listen to my poppa talk about his life and his family. Through his stories I feel like I know my great-grandparents in a way. My great-grandfather was in WWI and spent his life farming; my great-grandmother, well I see her as kind of ballsy, really. She drove a car, something which my great-grandfather only tried about once and decided it wasn’t for him.

She was the third-eldest, and eldest daughter, of thirteen children and helped raise them all. I recently mentioned to Poppa that I would like to know more about his mother, the sort of woman she was and what she spent her life doing, aside from raising children and farming. He’s writing much of it all down and said he would focus on her a bit more. I love learning about all the woman in my family, past and present. As a young woman I think it’s important to know the other woman around you and to listen to them — what they say now might not make much sense, but as one grows older, some of that advice, or seemingly random things they’ve said, begins to make sense in a way you would not have expected.

These talks with Poppa are times that I treasure so much, and always will. I hope my own children have the sort of relationship with their grandparents that allow them to learn about the past and their family history. I think, though, that I have an abnormally large interest in that sort of thing, probably because I am so interested in history in general and find any little tid-bits I can gather to be fascinating.

This week I’m going to have to visit The Howick Historical Village and get a history fix. And now I know what my third Bachelor of Arts subject is going to be.

On Wednesday nights C4 has been playing some decent movies. Last week was Sixteen Candles and last night was The Breakfast Club. So bloody good! I find it really interesting what a typical, I guess somewhat “edgy”, teen movie from the 80s is like compared to one now. I don’t know just how edgy they were considered when they came out, but now they seem fairly G-rated except for the odd mention of sex and shy pecks for kisses. These days we have really classy gems like Not Another Teen Movie… Oh well, at least there is Highschool Musical to appease the Concerned Parent.

But yes, we’re all having sordid affairs, doing drugs, drinking, smoking and dealing with Really Grown-up Problems by the age of sixteen, if shows like Gossip Girl are taken seriously. What I would love to see is the mention of a condom. Just show a normal freakin’ sex scene between teens who are actually using a condom. All they have to show is the opening of a damn packet! Come on! In real life, sex can still be as lovely and romantic, or whatever they want, even when you take 20 seconds to put a condom on.

Is it really that difficult to show?

I have the weekend alone, pretty much. Might be catching up with my cousin on Sunday but otherwise I have no plans. It’s times like these I regret not having gotten my license when I was 15, like everyone else, so I could have my own car and be off doing whatever I like, gas costs permitting, of course. It would be nice to just go off on my own instead of relying on other people. :/ But that’s ok, not for much longer!

I’m making quite a few gifts this year for people, one of which is a teddy bear for my two-and-a-half-year-old nephew. I hope he likes it. It’s a very fluffy bear!

I’m also doing quite a bit of embroidery which I haven’t done a lot of before. I can do back-stitch very well, but don’t ask about anything fancy… Hehe.

I will post photos of the finish products after Christmas — I don’t want anyone who’s actually receiving one of these gifts to see.

One of the pitfalls I find with blogging is frequent writer’s block. Sure, there are things in my day-to-day life I could write about, but they’re not really interesting to read — or write, for that matter.

So now I sit in my sister’s living room with not but a clue what to write about! Although, I must say, my nephews (not brothers), 2.5 and 11, are having a lovely interaction. They are both very humorous and enjoy making others laugh, so they make a good team. Now the youngest is off with grandma and the eldest is frustrated with his Playstation game.

I may not be able to compile of post of great reading, but at least it’s a lovely day outside and the option of a swim in the neighbour’s pool is sounding better and better!

Today my mum and I bought a tree and I decorated it using our new decorations. We had to buy new ones because we can’t find our usual ones (they’re packed away somewhere).

Continue reading »

This weekend was a fairly busy one, actually. On Saturday I met a friend I’d known online for about six years for the first time. She’s in New Zealand for an internship until mid-2009 and lives in the city, so hopefully we’ll get to hang out again soon. I had a lovely time. That night I had a small family BBQ which was a cruisey way to spend the night. I had been invited to a 21st in the city but unfortunately I was stuck for transportation and very, very poor!

Sunday I went Christmas shopping with my bestie/cousin, which was more like window shopping because we’d ran out of money before Sunday, for the most part. I hadn’t seen her in ages as she lives out of town, so it was really good to do what she and I do best: talk and goof around!

Today involved more Christmas shopping with my mum and one of my sisters, which was somewhat tiring but enjoyable nonetheless. There is a new shop at the nearby mall called T2 (tea too) and it’s a tea shop that sells tea blends and tea accessories. It’s really neat and smells yummy! They had these cute little tea infusers with a cupcake on the end of the chain. I need one of those.

All my overseas-bound Christmas cards are done and will be mailed tomorrow. I’m sending several to Australia, a couple to the U.S., one to Canada, one to Iceland, one to Italy, one to Latvia and one to Slovakia! I should find someone in Africa to send a card to.