Chitter chatter

Well, today I had decided I wasn’t going to the mothers prechoolers day next door because I had the gst to do. Then that changed overnight, but discovered my car is over at Jesika’s and had flat batteries. So wasn’t going anywhere. However the decision this morning was that everyone comes here to me – so that’s great. So it has been a great occasion to get everyone moving in a clean up.
Got Nathan to clean toilets and hand basins. Shoshannah cleaned up her room and then swept out the wash house and outside concrete. Nuana vacuumed all through the house. Mahalia cleaned her room and tidied up all the random gumboots and footwear scattered all about. Azzan helped as he could.

While I was making soup and muffins he was chattering away to me about finding all his Winnie the Pooh books and how because he had found them all I could now give him the 2nd set like I had promised months ago – (Man! has that boy got a good memory!!).

He then went on to say that little children like Winnie the Pooh and Clifford books and I said to him “Are you a children?”. He laughed and said “Of course not, I’m a child”. I said “How do you know that?” He replied “Lots of little boys and girls are children but only one is a child.”

I was pretty impressed at his reasoning here – he is only 3 years old. In fact I am very impressed at some of the vocabulary I am hearing from him these days. The words he uses are so grown up. Yesterday he was talking about conquerors. And he will say in converstation “I suppose that she could do this or that” or “That is particularly good”

Mahalia went up to help clean out the playhouse with Nuana and Shoshannah and 2 minutes later I heard her crying very loudly. She is a bit of a drama queen so I usually wait until she appears to assess the damage, she had slipped and grazed her ankle. So after Tim got off the phone I heard him go see to her needs – (My treatment is usually a cold face cloth on the wound unless it requires anything more serious). He plays the fool with the children and jollys them out of their miseries so I could hear him sky larking around and then Azzan came out and commented with a big sigh, “I am tired of Dad being silly”!!

*********

Well it is now nearly dinner time and my house has been full and extra busy with 6 extra women and 4 extra wee folk. One wee man was a real dynamite and created havoc every which way he went. He was like a non-stop tornedo. Being an active 19monther it was pretty predictable. However after the first 10mins of him arriving Azzan said to me, shaking his head “He really shouldn’t make all that mess should he?” I thought wow! I am out of touch with wee people. Azzan is growing up so fast. It is not really that long ago that I had all my art stuff behind a play pen fence but by the time the play pen fell to peices he as old enough to know better than to touch my things.
We fed the children lunch on the verandah – I think the cats did pretty well out of it cause there was a fair bit of food scattered about by two busy wee boys!!

It was really cool to have everyone here because we don’t get to see each other very often. Distances to travel and busy lives curtail too much socialising which is really sad. We used to rely on each other so much more but now everyone is too busy just coping with life.

Now everyone is tired and ready for an early dinner and bed.

Well, the day started off well. Tim wanted to make an early start on mussel work so he was out the door by 7:30am to go pick up Jesika and get into it. So I got the boys up early than they would normally be up – it actually wasn’t that early but they like to sleep in if they can. Got cleaned up and Seb attacked his school work. I am trying to get his maths up to speed because he is really going to need it if he wants to get into engineering or mechanics. The younger children were playing games. I got Nuana to give the linen cupbaord a spring clean. We have a phantom rat at the moment – we find where he has been and we hear him/her but we have failed to trap him – he is really elusive and driving us totally insane. He has eaten his way through walls and under doors. He has munched thick plastic container lids and silicon cooking trays but the only food we can entice him with is pumpkin seeds – and even those get turned down if there any slight bit of poison anywhere.

I pleaded with Shoshanah to think where abouts the ellusive library books could be and in 5 minutes flat she had found them hiding in a box in her room!!!

I attacked my study with a vengance. Managed to clear the piles of paper work and file everything in hopefully the right places. By lunch time I had had enough of crazy kids and noise so got Nuana to take the two little folk for a walk. I settled in to start coding the accounts, then I realised I had been sent an updated list of codes so thought I would be good and change them myself to save paying the accountants staff to do it. I still had to make several calls to his secretary and then I was chugging along doing really well and all of a sudden the maintainence chart went haywire. I am not sure what happen but it went berserk and thengs were zipping all over the place and when it finally stopped all my codes were a mess.

I sat a cried my heart out for quite a while. Then I took a few big breaths, tried to calm down and phoned her again for help. She knew straight away that things were not right. So I emailed it all to her and said you do it!! So much for trying to save money. Anyway, we will see how much time and money it takes for her to do the two monthly gst and then I will decide whether I will hand it over. Tim is very keen for me to as he sees how stressful it makes my life. I know I have to do it and I get so frustrated because the little people want and need me.

Mahalia was asking me this morning when we would be doing school again cause she missed school. So I sat her down with me while I ate my breakfast and read through one of her early Clifford readers and got her to point out 2 words that I taught her and then read along with me. She was very happy with that and tonight before dinner she was sitting practising some letters and was very delighted because she had done a ‘perfect m’.

I spent some time before dinner copying CD’s of Jesika’s pictures from her trip last yer with Seb and Cat so Seb can get on with his project. Hopefully tomorrow he can make some progress on it.

I am being interviewed for a stamping website that I am part of – as Artist of the Week in November – so I made a start on writing up the interview tonight and sent through some photos.
Once again it is late and I am not in bed.
It really is crazy, when I am doing well and my energy levels are good I tend to burn the candle at both ends. Then after a while I need catch up sleep!!

Sleepy Sunday

I was up just after 6am this morning to get things together. Cat wanted to leave at 7am. By the time she had watered her new lawn and garden and given me strict instructions to make sure it gets watered morning and night and then tried to give her old and ailing cat worm tablets it was 7:15am before she left.

I decided to get dinner ready early this morning. Cooked up a huge pot of veges – carrots, pumpkin, kumara, leeks and parsnip then poured a cheese sauce over top. Then spent the day roaming about looking for lost library books and getting my study sorted. Managed to get rid of a heap of paper work into the trash and have got the accounts sorted and am 1/2 way through filing them into folders. The library books still haven’t turned up – goodness knows where they are. Four of them are to go back to Azzan’s Correspondence pre school. Most frustrating, as we have turned the house upside down and still they are missing.

We waited for Jesika to come over for church but she ended up sleeping most of the day – her 30hours of scrubcutting in 2 1/2 days was too much for her, she was really tired so never ended up coming. Tim also curled up in bed for a nana nap before lunch. I got Seb to make lunch today so we had spirals. Very quick and easy and tasty too. Cook macaroni spirals and drain. Then cook chopped onions and herbs in butter, add the spirals, lots of grated cheese and beaten eggs. Very yummy treat.

This afternoon I also made a couple of batches of buns to go with dinner and Nuana made salad. Found the guys ratting in the freezer desperately looking for meat but I kaiboshed that and said I had dinner totally under control – they were not happy chappies!!

However, when I served dinner tonight it went down a treat and everyone commented on how delicious and filling it was. Even Tim admitted he wasn’t looking forward to going hungry tonight and was feeling pleasantly full. Seb wouldn’t admit vegetarian was good if it killed him

Poor wee Azzan was so happy as he hopped up to the table and he was sitting on his seat singing a song and then all of a sudden slipped off his chair and nose dived onto the floor. Thankfully just a bit of a bump on the forehead, a cuddle with Mum and he was fine. He just loves to sing grace and thankfully has learnt a few new ones. It was getting rather tedious singing ‘Thank you Lord for giving us food’ every meal time. A couple of months ago if we sang a different grace or Tim just prayed he would cry broken heartedly. Now, he sings along with great gusto even the more complicated ones.

Talked to Mum tonight, she said they had a good drive down to Christchurch and Cat spent a couple of hours with the guy she is buying the boat from and came away with Mum’s car boot full of sails, table top and battery, etc. She said Cat was a very happy girl looking forward to a big project ahead of her.

Heard yesterday that my best friend is closing her stamping shop due to family issues. So I am off to Nelson on Wednesday to help celebrate at a VIP evening with a few others before the doors open on her closing sale on Thursday. So it is all go here – gotta seriously get into the gst tomorrow as I will have to have it done before I leave or the IRD will be on my tail. Please pray the library books turn up or I am in big trouble

Cleaning and sorting

Today, being the first day of the official state school holidays was
designated on my calendar as THE day to clean up the school room.

While I was overseas my darling 18yr old Brianna had done some
alterations to the house. By removing cupboards etc she had made more
room in the living area but had junked up my school room. I have been
home now nearly 3 weeks and my wee darlings have been asking and asking
when we are going to do school again. So Nuana and I got in there this
morning and we had a great time. Sorted out all the boxed up books. We
got over the problem of the little ones spreading books everywhere a
while back by boxing up most of the books and only allowing them to
have a few out at a time. So every now and then they have a change over
and get out some ‘new’ books. Today I wanted to sort through boxes that
Brianna had piled in there to find stray libray books – I found quite a
few!! So they had a change over of books and I was able to consolidate
at the same time. Biffed out a few and lots of clothes that had been
stashed in there too. My school room is also the dumping and storage
area!! The trouble with a large old house is that there is no built in
cupboards so very little storage space. I have to get quite creative as
to where to put things and I also have to be on top of the continual
mess build up otherwise it gets totally out of control.

After a few hours and a full rubbish bin we completed the job and now
am ready to start something serious in there – like reading and maths
etc. But, unfortunately I have to get busy and do the accounts and gst
in the next two days and then go to town and then there will be
visitors, so can’t see anything major going on for a few weeks more.

Nuana took the 3 little folk for a walk and picnic around to her
parents camp site at lunch time. So they had a great walk and got lots
of fresh air. I managed to construct my prototype card for the swap I
joined. Jesika and Cat arrived back from work. Jesika immediately
hopped on a neighbours fizz boat and went fishing for a few hours. He
had come to borrow Cat’s diving tanks. Nathan cooked a delicious dinner
tonight. Roast stuffed chicken and roast veges. He made the stuffing
himself and it was delicious.

Jesika stayed for dinner, decided it sounded better than going home to
cold cereal!! While we were having dinner I realised that I could hear
someone snoring. I hadn’t even noticed Azzan had disappeared. He had
put his head down and was bottom up on his chair beside me and was
sound asleep. All that fresh air and a good long walk was too much for
him. Mahalia was pretty tired too. Shannie was still perculating well –
not a lot tires her out. 

The phone was supposed to be fixed on Friday, the fixit guy found a
faulty card in the radio hut. But today it has begun playing up again
so goodness knows what the problem is now. Most frustrating.
Cat is leaving early in the morning to drive my Mum down to
Christchurch so I am off to bed a bit earlier tonight so I can be up
bright and early to see her off.

Cooking and Art

I have actually managed to get creative over the past couple of days.
It’s been great, the children have been playing outside – they have
devised some game under a pohutakawa tree at the end of the house. They
are spending hours out there – popping in briefly to find food. After
Nathan made the chocolate cake for Azzan yesterday – it actually turned
into 4 large teddy bear shaped muffins – it got eaten so fast that
Shoshannah decided she needed to make some more. It is quite
interesting how two children can use the same recipe and come up with
such totally different results. Maybe one follows the instructions and
the other gets creative!! Azzan wnted to help her but she insisted he
go wash his hands because he had been catching flies (he’s a boy, don’t
ask!) Anyway, he went and washed up and came back showing off his clean
hands telling us they were now all squeaky clean!

Today
Shoshannah decided to make pizza for lunch. She did a brilliant job.
However I came upon her trying to slide an uncooked pizza from the
bench onto the oven tray complete with all the topping. She hadn’t
thought that maybe it would’ve been better to actually construct it on
the tray to begin with!! It was most appreciated by the troops at
lunchtime. Considering she is only 8 years old she does amazingly well.
I don’t have to supervise her at all – I do suggest along the way that
she cleans up her mess, as she usually creates quite a large one

Because
the children have been so busy I have had time to actually find my
creative spirit again and have gotten some journals done and have begun
some cards for a swap I thought would be fun to join. I completed 
a spread in this journal which is part of a round robin I have joined –
it had a ‘white’ theme. It is actually quite tricky but very
interesting to think and work mono-chromatically when you are used to
using lots of colour.

Also did a page in this A2Z journal which I was given to work in while
in California. The pages ahve already been constructed with letters of
the alphabet so we choose which pages we want to add to, embellish and
alter. I chose J. I may do more later as the inspiration hits.
 

Then I made a really good start on my own journal for the round robin. My theme is Impressions of Mexico.
I
was really pleased with it. I have chosen a calendar style journal so
it free stands. The title words are a bit hard to read in the photo as
they are on the bottom layer.  I finsihed up my day gluing
serviettes onto card in preparation for making cards tomorrow. But
before I did that I got side tracked into labeling all my unmounted
stamp containers. I was getting frustrated because I wanted to find 2
stamps today and had to check through all the containers as the labels
are now on the wrong ends after moving them into my new cupboards that
Cat built for my craft gear. Now, they are all labelled so I can see
them. So all in all it has been quite a satisfying day.

Had fun
with my boys today – Man!! give me girls any day over adolecent boys.
Had to get stroppy and tell them what I was going to do to them both if
they didn’t stop baiting each other. They are all of 15 and 10 – well
nearly 16 & 11 – and should know better. They are both as bad as
each other. Lovely boys apart but together they just can’t control
their tongues – each one trying to get one up on the other and neither
of them prepared to back down or be the first to stop. It would be
better if they were the same size and age and then at least they could
get rid of it all physically!! I know I have been through this before
and I know it won’t last – but give me a break!!

Spoke with
Cat tonight and she and Jesika have worked a 12 hour day today pulling
weeds on the hillside, planning on doing the same tomorrow – she was
tallying up the $$ they’d earnt today. I have spent a lot of time today
on the phone with insurance agents, boat yard guys etc, helping to
organise things for her boat. She is hoping to get it in the water in a
few weeks and bring it home so there are a lot of loose ends to tie up.
I think with this and all her other projects she is going to be one
busy lady for a while.

I am trying to get the invitations to
Anson’s 21st party finished so I can print tham off and post them
tomorrow. I know I will be pushing it but I guess I can send them out
with Cat on Sunday if I don’t get them all finished. She is driving my
Mum to Christchurch and will be taking the opportunity to pick up stuff
for her boat from the previous owner and also get a few days work with
friends down there.

Life is never still around here

Cat’s new baby :-)

Well, it has been rather frustrating these past few days because our
phone line has been causing hassles and internet connection has been
extremely intermittant and difficult to maintain.
Hopefully the Telecom team are on to it today.

Sunday was Tim’s birthday – it turned out to be a little busy as my bro
was here to load up the old Toyota Landcruiser and take it to his
retirement home. So we had a late fellowship meeting and then a
birthday dinner. Birthday’s seem to get more low key as we get older
don’t they?

The next two days flew past. Cat found an advert for a yacht. Phoned up
about it and decided to go look at it on Monday. Tim was planning on
travelling to Nelson that day so they diverted eastwards and spent the
afternoon checking out the yacht. They then had the next day in Nelson,
busy with appointments and shopping. Arrived home with Seb & Nuana
in time for dinner last night.

I had managed to spend a bit of time in my art corner and had completed
a spread in a round robin journal and began to formulate my own
journal. I had ideas running in my head for themes but just couldn’t
get the process into gear. Last night I began painting and gathering
collage stuff together. Today hopefully, I will begin the process.

Anyway, getting back to this yacht.  After a late night call to
her bro in WA to hit him up for a loan (aren’t wealthy hardworking
brother’s great in times like this?!) and a good look at it and many
long phone calls to the owner – Cat is now the proud owner of a 28′
sloop called ‘Alibi’. It is a moored keeler built in 1972. Glass over
(possibly) Kauri double diagonal ply. Very strong and beautiful classic
lines.
It is on the hard at present as theprevious owners have been working on
it for several years. It has had the back ofthework broken and the
majority of work completed – now it is just a matter of putting pieces
together and getting it in the water as quickly as possible.

Here she is –

Cat is pretty excited, a bit daunted by the fact she now has a
responsibility and a debt, but a very happy camper! Needless to say
Jesika is pretty pleased too – Cat says she can be the cabin boy

So, Cat is head down tail up working now – any paying jobs out there
and she’s there! In fact she and Jesika are heading over the water to a
neighbouring island to pulls weeds for the next two days. Jesika has
her new flute arriving any day (her’s was stolen back in Feb) so both
girls are busy saving hard to maintain their passions.

Nuana is being an absolute doll and is helping the wee girls clean and
sort their rooms, lets me off the hook to actually find time to 
get some art work done. Tim and Seb are out doing mussel work in the
boat and nathan has been baking a chocolate cake with Azzan. I think
Azzan is more interested in the organising and eating process than the
actual making of it though as he has gotten side tracked and is playing
games on the computer at the moment.

So all in all – it is a beautiful day

Farewells

Well, we had to say goodbye to Keigo this week. It was so sad. After
being here since last November he has become part of the family. (He
did go away to see the rest of NZ from Feb – May). He has been so much
fun and eveyone has loved him to bits. We all hope he does well and
achieves his dreams back in Japan as a sheep shearer in farm parks.

Brianna had to return to Christchurch too so she took him with her. On
the way she sat her final driving test and passed – yippee! Well done
Brianna

There was the normal sisterly craziness going on during the last night together.
Mahalia giving Bri a big bear squeeze
and Jesika getting very kissy kissy!!

The other great news is that Seb passed his restricted drivers licence
too.  So we now have 7 fully licenced drivers in the family and 1
nearly there. Thankfully it will be another 4 years before Nathan will
be able to get his.

Talked to Anson the other night. He is loving the shearing in WA. He is
extending his time by 2 weeks, so I had to change his flight home, he
now gets back just before his 21st party. He is already planning to go
back again in the New Year. The way he is going he will have his truck
paid off in no time – and with it parked up back here, he is saving on
fuel too!

Well, I gotta get myself moving in the creative field – I have several
art journals to work in and another arrived yesterday. I began working
in one, but I really have to get mine started. I know what topic I want
to do, it is just the getting started that I find hard. Once I am away
there will be no stopping me.

My verse for today is Acts 17:28
For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.

So Lord let me see my creative being in the light of You – and let others see You shine from my work.

Life goes on….

The campers returned with heaps of unpacking and washing to do. They
had had lots of fun and Seb has shot his first deer, so was pretty
chuffed with himself. When they got to Greville Harbour Tim dropped
them all off. Last time theywere camping there they had slept in an old
boat shed so had planned to do the same thing this time, so they left
all the tents in the boat hold and Tim & Graham steamed off up the
harbour to find a mooring. Unfortunately they found the boat shed had
been removed so they had to get ingenious. They found a heap of black
building paper and driftwood and constructed a bivvy. There are no
trees there and it is fairly exposed so they need something to keep
them a bit warmer than sleeping bags. They ended up sleeping two nights
there and were very cozy.

Why do they go?
Well this is some of the reasons – for the fun and adventure!! they go
fishing, hunting, diving, rock climbing, swimming, and just general
roughing it.

Here is Cat with some of her catch and Seb hard at it!!

I had to take Azzan to town to see the hospital dentist the next day so
Seb & I were up at 5am. Left at 6am and had a good drive out. No
traffic to speak of – I think we passed only 2 cars and that was about
20mins before we got to the main road. Got to Nelson around 9am. Spent
the day doing the necessary jobs. Azzan was brilliant at the hospital –
turned on his charms and was so good, he is going to have to go back in
soon and have the remants of the tooth and nerve removed from his gum
because there is too high a risk of it getting infected as the nerve is
still exposed. (He fell on the boat about two months ago when they were
all out camping and broke two of his front teeth.) We left Seb in town
as he was sitting his restricted drivers licence on Friday.

Azzan and I went to Starbucks to get some food etc for the trip home
and as we were walkingout he was chattering away and he mentioned
something about Jason. I asked who Jason was – he replied ‘Mary’s
brother’ in a tone as if to say – don’t you know anything!! For those
of you who do not know about Mary – she is Azzan’s special ‘friend’. He
is always telling us what Mary is doing and what she has done. She
lives in Marjorca and often visits Africa and England. Up until this
Mary has always just been Mary – no mention of family etc, so this was
all new to me

The trip home was uneventful, Azzan chattered away until he went to
sleep. In amongst his talk he told me that Mary’s parents were dead. I
asked him how they died and he said ‘they had a pet lion and it jumped
on them. But it doesn’t matter because Mary is big enough now that she
doesn’t need them any more’!!!!

We got home in time for Shoshannah’s 9th birthday party. Everyone was
here, and they had cooked the big moki Cat had caught. Jesika and I
gave Shannie the musical singing bear we had bought in San Francisco.
She loves it. I also got her a pink CD player – he would’ve prefer the
blue I was told but Seb chose it so she is stuck with it!! Seb bought
her a torch and a big block of chocolate so she was pretty thrilled
with that. We are still working on getting the chickens she really
wants – just haven’t found any available ones yet.

     

Since coming home Nathan has learnt to ride the farm bike. He is very
proud of that and is always off blatting about the farm on it. Tim said
he is a bit cocky and is riding to the max so will be sure to get his
come uppance one day soon! He has just told me that it is a Yamaha
AG175 2 stroke.

Death and Life

When we arrived back in NZ the headline news was the death of Steve
Irwin – our famous Crocodile Hunter from the Land of Oz. Rather a shock
for everyone as he was only 44. Then I slowly came to the realisation
that while we were away something had happened to our Maori Queen – so
I got on the internet and did a search and sure enough she has died.
Not so much of a shock as she was 75 and had been on dialysis for quite
a while. Then yesterday the king of Tonga also died. He had been in
hosp here in NZ on dialysis so also not so surprising. Then a friend
reeled off a number of names of locals who had died.

Could start getting depressing couldn’t it?

But the other thing I have noticed since my return home is that it is
Spring here in NZ!!! I left in winter, a jolly yuck one at that and in
just  a few weeks the sun is shining and the blossoms are blooming
– life and renewal.
What a blessing. I went walking with Fly and the fruit trees are all in
various stages of emerging blossom and the daffodils are a glorious
yellow. It makes the soul glad to be alive. I was finding it so hard to
come home a week ago but I now am more settled and happy. I feel like I
am getting my feeling of normality back.

I have had several calls with Childfund today – I am really wanting to
try and get some fund raising off the ground to raise money for the
Project in Oaxaca. Childfund is being really supportive and are going
to suss out what I can do and what we can work towards.

I phoned my girlfriend this arvo – she delivered twin daughters while I
was away – she now has 5 children and is very busy but still wants to
have more – what a glorious thing to hear

I have enjoyed getting started back into my Bible reading and quiet
time. I just hope I can keep time for myself to continue my climb up
onto the Lord’s knee. I think if Susanna Wesley could do it with allof
her children surely I can. She was truely blessed though because she
didn’t have to contend with phones and computers and videos etc!!! I
realised this morning that what Nathan said to me when we were climbing
in Zion NP and also the Pyramids in Mexico – going up and up and up – I
said to Nate ‘how on earth am I going to get up there?’ In his 10yr old
wisdom he replied ‘Just one step at a time Mum’.
So with just one step today and another tomorrow I am climbing Lord………

The crew will be home soon – my time of quiet will be over. But I am
glad it is only for a season. I love the hussle and bustle of the
family – it is just good to have space in the midst of it all.

Peace

Well, Tim decided to take the crew out camping for a couple of nights.
So they spent most of Sunday packing up – Tim had some serious farm
stuff to attend to so he and Nathan headed up the hill to find a sheep
in lambing difficulties – had to kill the ewe as she had two dead lambs
stuck inside her – man! I am so glad I am not a sheep!!! Anyway, while
they were doing that Cat and Seb decided to dye their hair blonde. So
once Cat had done Seb’s and put a few feathery streaks in Nathan’s hair
to keep him happy I did Cat’s. She wasn’t sure if I would know what to
do!!! I did respond with something like – are you trying to teach your
grandmother how to suck eggs? – Of course she doesn’t know her mother
from the past when she used to do all the same sort of crazy things.
 

The boat finally left the wharf in the afternoon. By the time they had
left I was so tired that I decided to have a ‘me’ time. I got some
chicken out to thaw for dinner, cranked up the fires, and moved my
computer out into the sitting room so I could watch movies. I watched
‘Wedding Crashers’ first. That was rather funny although a bit ribald.
Then I made a really delicious dinner of chicken pieces and capsicum,
baked kumara & salad. I put my feet up andwatched a few series of
Black Books. I had to find out what Brianna keeps quoting from. It is a
British TV series and the humour is definitely British and extremely
funny. I actually got to bed reasonably early and had a great sleep.

Woke up Monday morning rearing to go so got the fires going – it is
chilly here still – put the birds out and began working my way through
my list of things I have to do.
My major thing was to begin working through a book I had bought a while
back called ‘Six Secrets to a Powerful Ouiet Time’. I have been feeling
really dry and spiritually in a desert for ages now and decided I have
to actually take the step to rediscover that First Love and
relationship I had with God. It is so easy for life to just get in the
way and drag you down a slow slide away from Him. I have had this empty
bereft feeling for quite a while. I guess, coming out of establishment
and getting very cynical along the way hasn’t helped. My prayer for
today is – Lord, help me to come back to you in a far deeper and more
meaningful way than I have ever experienced before. Help me cling to
You always, no matter what. Please teach me and hold me firm so I don’t
slide away again. Amen.

I did all the phone calls, all the computer work and then unfortunately
I disconnected from the internet just in time for a telemarketing woman
to phone me back. I had already put her off twice. They do insist on
phoning at meal times   Anyway, as per normal the questions
were irritating and she could hardly speak understandable English so I
got very irritated. It was a survey about finance and banking and I
eventually told her that the questions were too personal and I refused
to answer any more. Had a headache after 1/2 hour of that so as it was
a lovely sunny day I decided to take Fly for a walk. We had a great
time. I took my camera and we walked around towards Te Kopi. I hadn’t
been around there for several years. Shame, shame – that shows how
inactive I have become. It is only a mile walk and very pleasant. I
found heaps of wonderful natural textures to photograph. I plan to use
them in my collages sometime. I figure I have such wonderful resources
right here – why buy other peoples – be original, eh?

ponga fronds – our native tree fern, so beautiful and I loved the wee
fronds that were peaking through the large one just waiting to unfold.

The stratas in the rock banks were so beautiful – I loved the stripes and colours in this rock face.

The shapes and shadows here are gorgeous, plus that wee clump of grass just clinging into the crevice

On the way home Fly began investigating something amongst the ferns,
maybe a weka or a possum was hiding, she never found it but she sure
was curious.

Then the view of home through the trees. It is so lovely to have the
sun back on the house again – the 2months of sunless winter can get a
bit tiresome. There is something so theraputic about the sun.

Anyway, I came home and with renewed energy got into the rest of the
accounts. Paid the bills and organised the filing to be done another
day! It got really cold in the late afternoon so I got both fires going
and then over cooked myself!! Managed to fold the 3 baskets of washing,
cook dinner,make a series of necessary phone calls and then by the time
8:30pm came I was ready to sit down and eat and watch a movie. This
time I watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico. It was really good. A bit of
a slap stick crazy movie with Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp. A
friend phoned from Christchurch for a catch up chat so I ended up
finishing the movie around 11pm. Very ready for bed by then.