The bedroom reveal

The final touches on the teenager's bedroom were only just finished last week, with the arrival of the new roman blinds.

Head on back to this entry to see what the before shots looked like.... wow - I had forgotten that we started this project way back then!

He is delighted with his new room - he has our old bed, plus a new desk, which he lives at. We can really notice the difference with insulation, and the original floorboards, hidden under the hideous carpet for years, really are my favourite.

New walls,insulation, electrical stuff,  floorboards, paint, a new bed for us, more bed linen and new roman blinds really do add up, but we all love the end result. Now we need to make plans for the next bedroom... (we've had really poor weather here for days - lighting is bad for photos!)

city escape

It is our 19th wedding anniversary in 2 days, so we escaped early to the city after work last night. The city is going from strength to strength with more and more to do/look at/buy :) every time we go in there. My boys are always in there running around with mates but it is a bit more relaxing with just the two of us when we can really look at things and walk around for hours. There was dinner at Ostro; a night at The Sebel; breakfast at L'Assiette; stationery buying at Kikki K; wool buying at Mascos and clothing buying at AS Colour. The best thing I ever did was meet my husband around 23 years ago at Whakapapa skifield!

best job in the world - book buying

I've got the best job in the world when i can go impulse shopping for school on a Friday afternoon and come home with all of this! The little Scholastic bookshop on Lady Ruby Drive has incredible amounts of books at the moment, at a fraction of the price "real" bookshops sell them for. Even better when schools take off the gst. Hard cover gorgeous divine picture books for $5-9; (stunning books - lots of brand new titles too); chapter books for $5; Geronimo Stilton for $7-9 (we have 188 of these and they are never on the shelves!) etc etc. I'll be mobbed on Monday, but the students will have to wait a while, as I bought books last week and then a few more arrived from The Book Depository... luckily we got some donated shelves from another school.

Around these parts

Winter soccer. Local-ish and I've been going to games watching a new team trying to gel.
Double bass practicing happening.
Breast cancer breakfast at school - all baked by me and 8 students on Monday afternoon - these kids rock. Watching 4 stoves at a time is a mission though! Good teachers in the pic though!
Another television advertisement has been filmed with Tammy Davis back in the house again. (funny coming home from work to see the guy lounging on my bed!).
Birthdays have happened - so low key with, ah, two people outside the 5 of us remembering........... (poor kid!)
Apple and peach pie making. So fab to have stewed apple and peaches bottled and ready to use instantly.
And discussions with unions (nope NZEI you really do NOTHING for me) and school library politics around NZ and huge changes happening at school and essay writing - sigh.
And knitting, Lots of knitting. The only thing that currently keeps me sane!

Givaway winner finally

Remember this giveaway? I keep on falling over the things on my floor (along with everything else that seems to living on the floor at the moment!).

Another television commercial is being filmed here on Tuesday - a crazy day already as I have to be at school by 6.30am and it is one of the kid's birthdays too and at this stage I think I may see him for 3 or so hours in the day, which I feel very mean about, but you can't help the date that things at school are scheduled for etc! I have folded up laundry from 10 days ago today - we are in the summer to winter swap over, which is why lots has sat and sat and sat there in the 4 baskets....

Anyway - *** Claire Hubbard *** - lucky you! Please send me your details and I'll flick this off in the post asap (bit slack about getting to the post office lately too, but hopefully I can find a prepaid satchel here too!).

a bit of brightness

Another busy week here. I've been so good at not spending money as am trying to save, but a few things have fallen through my letterbox this week. Vintage Purls do gorgeous clubs and i signed up for my first ever one - a sock club of course. I adore the little bits and pieces which came with the wool like the cookie cutter, sweet wooden buttons etc. A divine shade of green too.
I bought myself some new slippers and socks both due to the colours of them :). And some incredible 8ply curry shade wool from Meraki Studio of which I am planning to use for yet another cardigan identical to the nearly finished one pictured here. This one is for a friend who has no idea I am knitting it, but admired another one I had done over summer.
I think I may end up with 4-5 of these cardigans for myself in a few of my favourite wool shades - great for layering and also the fact that they only use 350 grams of wool or so.
And yay to a fab friend who bought "Snail Mail" back from Australia for me - it is divine! I did see it in Whitcoulls too. (boy that bookshop has gone down hill fast lately - struggling to find titles for school I do not have now!!). A great week.
Lots of washing done today; a soccer game and a pretty clean house. And lots of knitting. Must write the next essay , hence the "do your work" screen saver on my laptop....