Shoppity shop

The shop re-opened on Friday under a poof of plaster dust. Actually, the plaster dust was well contained behind a curtain of dust sheets, and I was amazed how little clean-up was required. The place looks great, and seems much bigger

We still have to re-install a changing room, and the playpen doesn't quite exist yet, but it feels MARVELLOUS. And we've learned lots in our 8 months or so on the job, like hanging stuff at eye-level (no flies on us sir, no siree bob, we have a smidgeon of commonsense after all).

The shop was chocka in the weekend. Perhaps we should close for a few days every week, and you know, build excitement (as well as mooch around cafes...)

Perfect day(s)

Sunshine is SO GREAT, I may have to move to California, or Sydney or somewhere. It was a beautiful day, and I met a friend at the tres awesome Aunt Daisy's Tearoom in Titahi Bay. It were grand.

Have you heard of Marryoke? Jessie has enlightened me, dangerous.



I quite often watch a few YouTube vids with the kiddies before they go to bed, and tonight I thought I'd show them the duelling banjo scene from Deliverance:



Malo really got into dancing, exactly like the hick at the pump, oy.

Oh, and to finish this totally unthemed post, our shop is looking fantastic. Glen has been working like mad, while I've been mooching around like a lady of leisure (I love not working!), and we should be all ready to re-open late morning tomorrow. Still need to do a bit, but I'm thrilled. I'll pop some pictures up tomorrow.

Hail and brimstone!

My call has been answered, and the weather is complete shit, which means - ta da! Renovate the shop time! We'll be shut for two days. I'm bloody excited, because due to my delicate condition (ie the fact that even thinking about plastering makes me want to run away and join the circus), Glen is obligingly going to do all the hard graft. I'll occasionally make appearances, and supportive noises, and then move on.

We caved and got Wii Fit in the weekend, thinking it would be great for the kiddies on these bleak winter days. Fact: it is bloody good fun, swishing down mountains, teetering across tight-ropes, and all under the guise of being good for you. Highly recommended.

The news on Sunday

It is pissing down. We were hoping for pissing down later in the week, so we could shut the shop and do our mega-expansion plans (ie. knock down a wall - MEGA). There is space at the back which we think could make a great improvement to the shop, however, it will be a dusty mess, and we want to close when nobody would be coming in anyway.

Baby is growing. Actually, baby is still 10cm, but to look at my stomach you may be forgiven for thinking baby is considerably larger. That is my aeroplane lolly baby, and as a friend kindly said, fluid and stuff. I feel good at the moment, into the second trimester where it is supposed to be FUN. In my experience, pregnancy is never fun, but you never know. Perhaps I'll have a girl, and the whole thing will be different. Every old wives tale points to it being a girl, but evidence of previous pregnancies points to a boy. I'm totally cool either way, a girl would be different and interesting, but the sound of "mother of three boys" really appeals to me.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack is playing for the second time, perhaps that accounts for a certain quietness in the Wanda Harland Shop right now. Nothing to do with the unhinged, wannabe-weilding-a-sledgehammer woman behind the counter, cuddling a bag of aeroplane lollies...

Meme!

A meme seems like a nice easy way to write something... Ms Make Tea did this one, and while I wasn't tagged, I'm not above jumping on in there.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
This is the bit that appealed about this meme, because 10 years seems like an eternity ago, and I can't really believe it was real. In 1998 I owned a little gourmet takeaway and catering business in Wadestown, called Foodworks. It was a cutie-pie business, and it kept very civilised hours (5 days p/w, 4-8.30pm). Obviously there was quite a bit of prep during the day, but MTV was new and actually played music, so I spent happy days mooching around making cakes and curries and salads, and listening to pop. We lived in a fabulous huge flat in Mt Vic, with 2 cats (Jesus and Julio) and our excellent flatmate. We drank nightly, and had lots of parties. Bodega was on Willis St, and Castros was down the road. Lovely. I sold the biz in 1998, and went travelling the next year, and started becoming a grown-up.

Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:
Alcohol
Cheese (Kikorangi, anything really, although not goat)
Lollies (esp Pineapple lumps and wine gums)
Wedges and sour cream (a la Vicky's c.1992)
Roti chenai. Mmmmm.

Five snacks I enjoy in the real world
Mostly, see above, except I'm pregnant and not a time traveller, so:
Raro. This is a perversion of this pregnancy, it is like timetravelling, because I can't recall having it since I was a child.
Celery and tsatiki.
Anything and tsatiki, even a spoon in tsatiki, I am in love with the dip.
Aeroplane lollies.
Yoghurt.

Yep, I'm totally lead by cravings at the moment.

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

I'm not going to say anything good (or philanthropic), because I would, but I can't be arsed with all the logistics of who and which mortgages I'd assist and yada yada.

The shallow list:
I'd take some days off work. It has been a good 5 months since I've had a day off, I need one. So actually my days off work would be liberating myself by paying staff.
I'd buy a house with a great outlook, especially at night, so I could sit around sipping martinis and watching the sky.
I'd build a LOT of storage. It would include bottomless pits for keeping essentials like school newsletters and insurance documents, but mainly it would be a big walk in wardrobe, with shelves for shoes and handbags, like on the telly.
I'd get a Max Gimblett picture, specifically this one.
I'd get a new dining table, so that my shitty old screenprinting table could return to its rightful home, where it is much missed.

Five jobs that I have had:
Researcher
Merchandiser (worst job)
Destructorvator
Florist runner
Chemist shop assistant

Three of my habits:
Cleaning my glasses a lot (since I recently found out how fantastic those cloths are that the optometrists give you)
Touching all my fingernails in an OCD fashion.
Checking my internet banking before I do anything else each day, to see if the buggers have paid me.

Five places I have lived:
Christchurch
London (for a blink as a baby)
Wellington
Wellington
Wellington

Five people I want to get to know better:
Several of my customers I'd love to sit and have a wine with.
And apart from that, I'd just like to spend more time with my friends, since we've all got kids now, and don't have the quality silly times we once did.

Consider yourself tagged - ha!

Oh things and whatnot

• To clarify, middle age is about late 30s to about mid 80s, so please stop feeling old.
• "Why are there so many songs about rainbows?". Um, I can think of one. Please extrapolate.
• Baby is due 26th December, based on scan today. It looks cute, but at 5 cm long, I doubt it has much of a chance at the moment. Hopefully it will avoid a really terrible birthday, and be born late like its brothers.
• Work has been frenzied, and now suddenly it is calm. I think the busy times swallow my life, because I have no recollection of the past week.
• On the domestic front, we looked at underfloor insulation today. The foil is cheap, but apparently people keep getting electrocuted installing it, and since we can't get life insurance for Glen (dude is OLD), I'm not sure I want to risk it. Advice please.
• Didn't win Big Wednesday, I guess this means we're on for Lotto Saturday. If we don't get it, I don't know how I'm gonna get me an iphone.
  

Thing I hate most in the world (apart from properly badass things like poverty and crime and Amazon rainforest destruction and pestilence)

I hate radio people who work when they have colds (Jim Mora, I'm looking at you). Sure, I'm cranky and pregnant, but ewwwwww, I hate having to listen to glugged up cold voices.

I also would rather hear someone cough on the radio than listen to them try to talk when they have a frog in their throat.

Apart from that, I love everything.

Celeb spotting Wellington Stylz

I went to a jewellery thingymajig at the Micheal Fowler Centre (I was about to write "the Fowl House", but I'm not sure anyone ever thought it as funny as I did). It was pretty cool, there was a particularly awesome brooch made of silver and tampons, which I was most taken with. It was the first equal prizewinner at the show, and hadn't sold, even though it was very reasonably priced. People clearly aren't ready for tampons on the outside of their body.

I saw Kim Hill when I was there. I love seeing Kim Hill, it is part of becoming-middle-aged. Then I saw Miranda Harcourt (maybe) and then I saw Miramar Mike (blogger superstar!) it was quite a day.

Now I'm knackered and need a kip. That is another part of becoming-middle-aged. In case you haven't noticed, having another baby has made me acutely aware of my own mortality.

Hot topics for the becoming middle aged

Insulation
Obama
The crap media
NOT dairy products

Ta da!

The reason I have been somewhat preoccupied, and a somewhat crappage blogger, is that I am utterly obsessed with the BABY THAT IS GROWING IN MY BELLY. It was a very big surprise, and the timing is appalling, but I'm very, very excited.

Mind you, it has taken rather a lot of not being very excited to get to this point, a lot of being resentful about feeling poorly, and not being able to drink, and craving the very foods that I am not allowed (which is basically my brain being a bastard to me, frankly mostly I don't feel like ham and cream cheese bagels), and other mean-spirited feelings of feeling sorry for myself.

But today I saw the wee blighter. I was meeting my specialist, and he has a scanner in his office! I think that must be what all the money is for... and there it was, all cute and foetal and 11 weeks and 2 days old of loveliness. And now I'm smitten.

It has been torture not writing about it, because I am not secretive, but I figured since I'm old (as the doctors keep telling me, little do they know I'M NOT OLD). I haven't kept it secret in real life though, because I've felt like shit, and looked like shit, it is kind of hard not to say why.

From here on in though, I'll be all glowing, glorious, motherliness.

And not thinking about the fact I have a shop, and the baby is due 4 days before Christmas, which is incidentally a very, very, very, very, very, very busy time.