New Year's Resolutions

I should probably check whether or not I managed to achieve last year's resolutions. I have a vague idea they may have included a triathlon (check!), society pages (dungdong (that is one of those "your computer is crashing dungdongs")), and probably being more jazzy (dungdong).

And for 2007:

I will pay off the new car through the sale of 46 million small shirts.

I will send more cards (hot tip: people love cards) - IN THE MAIL.

I will not make any major purchases. Well, maybe one art work, but that can be regarded as an investment in our future.

I will not be so good at justifying every extravagant purchase.

I will start cooking real food again. This means vegetables. Not til tomorrow though, thank god.

I will go to the movies at least once in the next year.

I will turn of Playhouse Disney by 9am.

Harrowing

I'm a little shell-shocked. I've just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. My parents warned me it was a harrowing read, but by gum, HARROWING.

Like my mother, I had to read it in one sitting. It is a very bleak view of a post-some-terrible-disaster-hopefully-unrelated-to-carbon-credits-world. Anything with suffering children is deeply uncool, but a barbequed baby?

It was extremely beautifully written, and has made me pretty confident that if everything goes to custard, I'd rather have some cyanide pills than a pistol and food.

How much do I love thee?

I love the new car SO MUCH that I spent $25 on a chamois today.

I got Santa to kill it.

Sun!

Crikey, yesterday was warm. Virtually unheard of in these parts this year.

We enjoyed a fabulous day in the Wairarapa. My turkey was pretty darned good, as long as you could forget what turkeys look like when they're alive. People wonder why anyone ever ate oysters, I'm more mystified by the fact we eat something that looks like a turkey.

Merry Christmas gang

I dropped the laptop a few days ago. Initially we found that if you touched the right side of it, it would shut down. Then we found the cd drive wasn't showing up on the putey. Today Glen took the back off the machine, and now it doesn't want to start, and it makes a kind of 'tinkle gurgle tinkle' sound.

I'm not optimistic about its future. Well, I'm sure it is fixable, but at this time of year I have no idea when. This means I'll be a bit quiet on the bloggage front.

By some kind of crazy witchery, my cellphone connects to the internet! I haven't worked out what this means. I suspect it means I'll get a bill for about 48 thousand euros or something, but in the meantime it is jolly good fun.

I hope you all eat too much, get a bit sunburned and enjoy the silly season.

American Apparel

Eric Watson wants to buy American Apparel, which is where I source my t-shirts. How bizarre.

Le phone, c'est magnifique.

The lovely Ms Hubris helped me buy a bargain cellphone yesterday. It has so many bells and whistles that I'm a little frightened of it. It also seems to be really keen to sell me soft-core porn. I don't actually understand what format it would be - a screensaver, or a little movie? And frankly, I'm kind of shocked. I trust they know I'm 22 years old, and I'm hoping they don't offer all this 'Tatiana strips' to every client they have.

I am looking forward to eventually being phone savvy enough to use it for receiving emails and making mini Fellini films.

In the meantime I'm trying to resist paying $5 to hear Cyndi Lauper sing Rock Around the Christmas Tree. Hard!

Thursday

Yuck, I hate the look of this blog. I'll get onto it soon.

I can't really write anything, because I'm utterly pre-occupied with wanting to go for a drive in the new car.

And all I can talk about is how lovely it is.

I took the car out to the shops tonight. The car couldn't come in (evil Westfield bastards), so I left it on the street.

People are funny, there was an absolute frenzy of people trying to buy as much loot as they could hold onto. I tells ya, having a workshop full of pressies is very good. Of course I can't say specifically what at this stage.

I am really enjoying getting the kids presents. It is the first Christmas they're really anticipating. And Malo is old enough that they can enjoy it together. Mind you, I could never generate enough enthusiasm in my sister to make her get out of bed at 3am with me when I was young.

After my shopping mission the car and I enjoyed a meander around the leafier suburbs of Hutt City. I think the car likes a little bit of nature.

Best car eva

The blog may look like crap on a stick, but the new Mini is magnificent.

Glen arrived home with it at 3am, and at 6.30am the boys and I were cruising around waiting for people to wake up for us to show it off to.

At 7.15 we spotted signs of life at my parent's house, so we took my father into work, then went to the bakery for some tasty new Mini breakfast treats.

Unfortunately the weather is shit (whodda guessed it? Wellington?), so we can't spend the day hooning with the sunroof open. I suspect we will anyway.

Aw crap

Sometimes one is so eager to embrace technology that one forgets all the work one had put into ones previous template.

One is unimpressed with oneself, and hence referring to oneself as 'one'.

On having mush for brains

So, on my birthday we had a Christmas party for the kids. It was ace. However, it meant I completely forgot to be all excited about being in the Dom Post ON MY BIRTHDAY.

Almost like the day I was born.

Except that isn't right, because nobody's parents are organised enough to place the birth notice for the day the child is born. Except people having elective caesars, and I very much doubt anyone would bother.

Probably best if I just shut the f up and go nigh nighs.

Could you tell that was a post to see if I really do?

Hmm

Blogger is telling me I have the new version, but I really don't.

A series of fortunate events

Perhaps I'm stoned, or blitzed a little on Archers Peach Schnapps (a most awesome present if ever there was one), but I'm feeling fine.

The day started difficult. We had a car to get to the garage, a child to get to kindy, another to get to childcare, a husband to get to work... it was pissing down with rain, blah.

But then I had a very cool meeting at the Dowse with Ms Sue, and then Glen kind of took the afternoon off work, and the sun came out. I cleaned out my studio, since all the stock ordering madness seems to have finally abated and I can breathe again.

We all tootled into town to take Glen to the airport to pick the Mini up in Auckland. The trip back had potential to be a complete disaster, traffic wasn't moving at all. I cannot for the life of me understand how people do it everyday. And all the people travelling solo! I'd die of boredom. So we pulled into the Reading Cinema place in town (Courtney Central?) for some evil American devil food for the kids, and had the good fortune of running into Ms Sue again! She kept us well entertained until the streets became safe again.

Home again, and Glen called. The car is a year newer than advertised. WTF??? Awesome. The newest car we will ever own is, in fact, newer.

So I'm having a fabulous schnapps in my other score of the day from the beautiful and talented Ms Oy Vey (who also sent chocolatey goodness, and if you're in the Philadelphia area, let me know and I'll tell you where to buy them.

Oh, and because this is such a moony post, here is proof I sprung a superchild and a sidekick from my loins.

i can see

I got my contact lenses today. I can't believe them, they're amazing. I walked around the mall (for that is whence they came), and was all moony and extreme makeoverish in my own mind's eyeball.

Strange thing though, when the optometrist was fitting them, she found that I have hairs growing on my eyeballs.

Ha! Got ya. Imagine that, ewwww.

So, I'm in love with my contact lenses, and it only took 14 hours to put them back in when I got home.

Hot chilli!

Mama mia, what a weekend.

I am older, blessedly I'm wiser too, why else would I have bought this most beautiful creation in the whole universe?

Is it not truly babyliciousness itself?

I'm very very very excited. It has a sunroof! And other things, like something that stops it spinning around on the motorway, and something that beeps when you're parking too close to something else (because minis are very big and hard to park), and 7 speakers.

Hot tamale.

Thanks all you lovely people for all your lovely birthday wishes, you're lovely.

Birthday

So, you've only got a few (or dozen) hours til I hit the big TWO ONE.

I'm so psyched! I've got 3 kegs, and can't wait to do my yardie.

Peow peow

Why don't you go here and vote for Public Address Word of the Year.

And vote for Peow Peow. All the others are very earnest.

Radio Rhema

I get very anxious when I travel to other parts of the country, and I tune the car radio, and find some music and it turns out to be christian rock. So much so that I do that thing where you incline your head for about 4 minutes just to be certain you're not being converted subliminally.

We had a brigade of Jehovahs Witnesses in the 'hood yesterday. At first I thought it was a party of historians here to check out the famous Workingman's Cottages. Their dress sense gave them away though, only people that go door knocking have that particular men-in-purple-shirts and ladies-in-long-floral-skirts style.

Stolen moment

I have a brief quiet spell while the kids are at a Christmas party, and this lot of screenprinting dries. I vaguely remember having time to clean and email and do stuff like that, but now I'm using my stolen few minutes to scoff toast and update Wanda.

My day may have been a little more chill if I hadn't got an order from my new stockist. I sent their first order to them 5 days ago, and they've sold out, so I'm pretty darn chuffed with that. They've ordered double the last order. Yay!

Last night I read an article about the woman who own Egg Maternity (a clothes company for preggies). They were saying that they loved their jobs, and didn't really regard it as work, and I thought "yeah right". Actually though, it affected me quite a lot, and I've made a real effort today to remember that this business is actually my hobby on a larger scale, and I'm terribly lucky.

So, an Oprah/Pollyanna moment for you all today. It is all about attitude, people.

Mini me

I've solved the problem of what car to get. A Mini!

It is perfect, and very economical. Unfortunately I'd have to sell a kidney to buy one, and then the other kidney and my heart.

Exactly how much money would the tax man give me back if I got one for the business?

Back to the drawing board.

Birthday

In case you had forgotten, it is my birthday in 5 days. I'll be 24, I expect 24 is even awesomer than 23.

Blogger beta

Yay! I've finally been offered the option of shifting.

Boo! It won't allow me to, because my blog is too big apparently. How rude.

Christmas letter

Darling all,

We've all had an awesome year, full of being awesome and doing many awesome things for others, making us even more awesome.

I hope you have been awesome too, but not as awesome as us.

Love,
The Wanda Harland Whanau

Auckland ahoy

We're in Auckland. It is very lovely. I am very hungover. I was spoiled rotton by a very generous host, and enjoyed exceptional company. We ate scallops and drank lots of wine and a delicious ginger thing that cleverly disguised vodka as a refreshing health drink.

After a bit of a slow start today, and a fair whack of junk food, we found ourself some culture, and bought ourselves a longggggggg coveted Reuben Paterson print. It is so nice, and while we were at the gallery Reuben himself came in. I GUSHED. I love him. I was looking quite mental actually, respendent in pink jandals, Petone t shirt, no makeup whatsover (which is worse than it sounds when you're almost 34 and very hungover) and bright pink raincoat. I imagine Reuben may need some therapy after the Martha-onslaught.

And now I'm using someone else's bandwidth - naughty! We're right next to a police station too. I laugh in the face of the law.

Big big big big weekend

Hola peeps.



That is a picture of me I shamelessly snaffled from Hadyn's photostream, even though it had a little copyright thingy under it. If someone is going to steal my soul, I'm damn well gonna steal it back.

The photo was taken at the inaugural Wellingtonista Fabuloso Awards For Fabulosity. It was very wonderful, and full of Wellington celebrity (cough) bloggers and website writers and suchlike. There was also an old scientist trying to give me the glad eye.

I'll add lots of links later. I'm weary, and have a bit to say, and a 2 year old, so no links now.

On Satdee we started the day with a birthday party next door. The best way to start the weekend is with party food, and basically that is how it continued over the next 2 days.

On Sunday I had a stall at the Thorndon Fair. It was lovely, and all my griping about having to do it was completely ridiculous. I had a great time, sold lots, bought crackers and dip for lunch, and then took off to another birthday party in the afternoon. I almost made myself sick with winegums and homemade icecream (aren't people classy?).

Last night I got an order ready for a new stockist, and also watched Top Chef, which I received from some friends in America. The next series is great.

And today I was up at sparrow's fart to race down to the big yellow store and pick up the Woman's Weekly. I actually raced down there last Monday too, and was disappointed not to find myself in it, but I'm such a eejit, because it was today, and I'll bet you're pleased I saved that fascinating story for y'all.


Many thanks to Ms Samways for getting me there.

Yoda speak Friday

Bored of updating other website I am.

No need of writing this one, 30 days of writing over it is.

Yoda talk I not do well.

So Yoda me mo fos. Go on. You know you can.