Gorgeous Snail Mail

A surprise package in the mail yesterday.  I am totally, totally spoilt! The bag is just divine and will be perfect for my many packages I post (although I'm having a bit of  a break with "intensive" mail at the moment having spent $300 or so in a couple of months at the post office!).

And me oh my, look at all those amazing stunning fabulous writing sets and gorgeous notecards!

I write letters which are usually 5-8 pages long, so I will get through them!

Thank you so much Tracy - you are such a dear!

(man I so wish I could sew like that too!)

Happy Easter

A lovely relaxed Easter Sunday. Parents over for a roast lamb lunch and then my sweet mother helped me weed the garden alongside the house. Then afterwards we knitted for a long time!

I don't really like chocolate, so received zero - instead the husband gifted me these cute slippers. Awh.

The chocolate on the table was for another 6 people (not all from us!) - everyone was pleased and I note that two kids have not eaten any of it yet!

The husband makes a fab hot cross bun from scratch too, along with one of my new bunny mugs.

I hope everyone had a relaxing day - the poor teenager is doing an 8 hour shift at work and working Monday and Tuesday - last week he worked more hours than he was at school! (basically a part time high school student anyway with only having to be at school for 17 hours a week!)

London Cross Stitch Finally Finished!

One of my Easter goals was to finish my London cross stitch. I've done it! I can not even remember when I started this, but it was months and months ago!
The design is by Jody Rice and you can find all her patterns here. I really want the Sweet Spring Easter Bunny pattern. I also want to complete the rest of her cities which I have visited - Hong Kong, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Sydney, New York, Paris and Italy. I already have two patterns and threads ready to go.
I have started this Nelson Mandela quote too back in January but did not get very far, s will carry on with it.


Today I ordered this from England as well - it had been on my wish list for a very long time. I love how it is even cheaper because it is being exported. Postage is a good deal down under too. I also bought some 10 inch circular frames to frame the city series in. They are so much cheaper even with postage from England.


The photos are with and without flash - I could not decide which one I liked better!


Now to do some university work. Sigh. Can't be all play, all 5 day long weekend!

Woohoo - 5 day Easter Break

Well I've just done this -

Submitted my first assignment! That was rather crazy - the university semester only started 3 weeks ago and I've had to research and write my first essay in that time! That is a VERY fast turnaround for ME! And the students are already on a 2 week holiday now - what?! After only 3 weeks at university!


Me - I'm on a 5 day holiday (with about 2 weeks of university notes to catch up on. I tell you, working virtually fulltime in a crazy mad job, and having 3 children and hours of interviews this past week and then parent evening meetings around the stupid NCEA (NZ high school assessment programme most NZ high schools follow) has done my head IN. I've a backlog of housework etc.


I really do plan on staying home a lot (there will be day excursions here and there too) and cleaning and sorting out my stuff!! I already hung 3 loads of laundry outside after school today. We had a massive storm overnight too.


I found a surprise Easter gift outside my front door too - the photo I took is on the internal hard drive of the camera and until I find the cord... sweet friends! And the mother-in-law dropped these off as I'm not much of a fan of chocolate for Easter... I'll take flowers any day over chocolate!

And then my sweet cousin Jackie sent me a surprise package in the mail too -

I need to master beading with a beadle! 


This weekend I'm hoping for lots of clean laundry, letter writing, knitting various things, time with family, cleaning/clearing out of bedrooms (and possibly the attic!) and generally enjoying myself and getting rid of a wee bit of essay stress!
Happy Good Friday everyone - we always make our own hotcross buns!


And hey - check out our weather! it was a CRAZY 100% humidity today - hideous! It is supposedly autumn - still too hot for that!


http://metservice.com/towns-cities/auckland/auckland-central#!/ten-day

A Stationery Swap (oooh goodie!)

Hooray for another swap (I'm at the end of finally completing all my current swaps. I've been living at the post office spending a tidy wee sum on parcels around the world.)
This swap was a stationery swap hosted by Tracy of Mad About Bags. Stationery is one of my big loves. A HUGE love really. I have an obscene amount of it really, even if I do think New Zealand is particularly poor at in especially writing paper/notecards for my many penfriends.


I was partnered with another kiwi Glenda (blogless Glenda) who is lovely. We've been partnered before. These are the items I sent to her - a bit from my favourite shop Kikki K (yay for their sales lately too - lots of fab stuff! I'm sorted for Christmas bits and bobs). The Hema paperclips are from The Netherlands back in 2011? I found a few packs in my cupboard!

And these are the very lovely items that Glenda sent to me. It is always exciting opening a package at school along with book packages... Lots of writing packs, loose writing paper (some vintage goodies in there with the Pink Panther and Anne Geddes and I adore Winnie the Pooh stuff!), washi, sticky notes (I go through a ton with uni stuff /school etc) and a fab planner kit. (probably will use this in my scrapbooking). The handmade items were some very cool cards and a sweet tissue holder.
Thank you so much Glenda for a glorious pack of goodies and to Tracy for a fab swap theme! One can never have enough stationery... (the husband would disagree...!!!!!!)

 

A book thing...

I've been buying books - surprise! Ha! NO surprise when I've an enormous budget for school.

Wellington has the BEST book shops (although I recommend The Children's Bookshop in Ponsonby and Time Out in Mt Eden here in Auckland. I have been super frustrated walking into Whitcoulls lately as there seems to be little that I do not have at school! I am a frequent book buyer!).

The Wellington Whitcoulls on Lambton Quay had lots I had never seen but with a 7kg limit on the plane I only bought a few. And Unity Books - now that is a bookshop to die for!!

These were for me...The Joy Cowley one is autographed which excited me!

These were for school -

And then today, while parent-teacher interviews were happening, I took myself off to the mighty little super CHEAP Scholastic bookshop in East Tamaki and bought these - (now i do want to know why there are so many crappy school libraries around when you can honestly get these books for 50 cents to $12.00 each - take off the gst tax and that is cheap! And why many schools spend ZERO money on new library books?????!!!). This lot is $242 which is an incredible bargain - (The Goosebumps were 50 cents each - these are so popular at the moment!!)

Then i got this lovely pile for me for $65 - problem is I have really run out of bookcase space now!

I l-o-v-e buying books! the other problem is I buy them, but never read them... university reading always gets in the way! Even better when you are buying for 600 students and trying to install a love of reading into them. We have over 200 new books in the library already this year - few schools would match that!

Any favourite new books anyone has bought lately?

24 hours in Wellington

The husband and I have just spent a fabulous 24 hours in Wellington, our capital city. It's only a 47 minute flight away (or 9 hours driving!). Back in January I booked tickets to see "The ACB with Honora Lee" at the Circa Theatre based on the book by an amazing NZ author Kate de Goldi.
It was fabulous and we were front row. Makes us think we need to get out more and see more theatre etc.


Wellington is cool. VERY very cool. It was hopping, busy, vibrant, full on with the NZ Festival happening there. Roads were closed in the city; street markets, food stalls and stages were all over the place with things happening all day and night long. It was incredible - the city just has something that the big smoke of Auckland just does not have. We were amazed to see all ages out at night whether families with small children or teens and older people - crikey there is no way my parents would venture into the city at night here! None of the "let's be seen" garbage, drunk 20 year olds trying to impress each other stuff that goes on up here - just down to earth, not judged by what you wear etc stuff! Funky places. Friendly. Every time I go to Wellington it impresses me!


We stayed at a divine (but earthquake prone) hotel. Lots of the older buildings are earthquake prone.
We just walked and walked and walked and walked all weekend long. Book shops. Wool shops. Great food. Great conversation with each other. A fab weekend. And Jetstar were on time! I'll show you my wee purchases another time.


(ps - will be getting in contact with those who are keen to write)