Send us Christmas Blog Swap partners

Gosh things seem to be getting worse for the multiple earthquake affected areas - multiple buildings are being shut down in Wellington due to danger of collapsing (one especially is in high danger from aftershocks - there have been over 1500 of them!). The US Navy now have a ship off Kaikoura and they are evacuating hundreds of people a day. There is now a back road opened to get much needed supplies into townships cut off. The state highway looks like it might not be able to be repaired; tourism operations have no services to offer in the busiest time of the year; floods are affecting areas now and houses have been red-stickered (you can not go back into them) - it is such a mess.
Even the boys' scout jamboree is up in the air due to the location (in the area where quakes have hit).


Anyway here are the swap partners on a bit of a happier note... please contact your partner and swap addresses/likes/dislikes etc!


Kimberley (Kimberley@atkinson.org.nz) and Stephanie


Sandra and Linny  (lyn.robyn.smith@gmail.com)


Tracy and Jackie (jackieah60@gmail.com)


Melanie and Glenda (geemchung@gmail.com )


Enjoy! Any questions etc please just e-mail me.

shake, rattle, roll and flood

New Zealand has been pummelled in the last 36 hours or so. North Canterbury (in the South Island) and the bottom of the North Island (Wellington)  have been hit by multiple earthquakes (the largest one being 7.5 !! ) since just after midnight on Sunday. The earthquakes were felt as far north as here (Auckland).  North Canterbury has just declared a state of emergency. Wellington has since been lashed by huge amounts of rain (today alone, a month's worth of rain has fallen) and at one stage the city was isolated due to major flooding. There are now worries that a building might collapse in the city. The city was basically out of bounds yesterday and then today you could not enter or leave.
Further south, in the South Island, major highways and the one train line are wrecked. The massive inter-island ferries are stuck out at sea as both ports on both islands are unable to be docked at due to damage.  Kaikoura is isolated, with people and many tourists from the town being helicoptered out.
Other towns are also isolated. There is little water, no phones and sanitation is becoming a problem.
Two people have been killed; many places are damaged. People are sleeping in their cars. I even think the first USA nuclear ship to visit New Zealand in decades is being roped in to help. There are still multiple after shocks and some are pretty sizeable. The aftershocks are over a massive area - areas hours and hours drives apart.


Thank you to the dear blog readers who got in touch worried about me. SO sweet and very much appreciated! We have heavy crazy rain today too, but are way north and safe. I highly suggest everyone have an emergency kit ready to go!


Thinking of the rest of the country! Kia kaha.


New Zealand Herald

freedom

My 55 hour weeks are over. I am exhausted. While my university exam wasn't w-o-w (3 hours sitting! Such a l-o-n-g time!!!), "C"'s get degrees!! That is my aspiration for this paper! Oh well.
Two university papers in one semester is full on around a crazy busy life.


One stress over with. The other I'm working on and mostly out of my control. Roll on the 6-7 week holidays I say!


My bedroom (I've great tower building skills!)-


 I'm now in my happy space sorting and organising and throwing stuff out. So much freedom is weird - so many books to read, letters to write, stitching to be done, socks to knit... :) and the family somewhere in there too. So hard studying and working and family-ing too! Four of us have had exams this week!

I let my child wag today

I've a 13 year old (Last weekend! Last teenager! Husband went to church to pray for patience and strength- hee hee) who I let wag school today. I'm not bothered. He is so distraught and upset at the world at the moment. Can't say I'm happy either. How do you try and talk to children this age and say it will be okay? I can't promise that. I can't promise them a future where everything will be rosy. Where another country can basically screw the entire world due to their beliefs? I guess I can hope that he does grow up with respect and morals and thinks of everyone around him with kindness and care; that decisions can and will affect others.


Exam tomorrow. I'm not at. all. happy. about that either!


Here's some of my divine sweetpeas - flowers kinda make us happy in crappy times.

Signs around the house

I woke up this morning and cracked up at this sign on the little freezer (I've no idea which kid came into the bedroom past midnight to retrieve it from the printer!). Capital letters for extra shouting I guess!

So I made a couple more and put one on the fridge and one in the boys' bathroom...

Let's see how far we get with these!

spooky readings

I told all my students that this wasn't a Halloween display, but a "promoting all the spooky books in the library display". We've many. It was simple displays (with the bunting sewed by me a year ago) and the "Suicide Squad" bunting from the teenage cinema worker (except I covered up the "suicide squad" words to say "read a spookingly good book today" instead. (Is spookingly even a word?!?!)


The number of children who seem to have seen that movie is scary in itself, being that most would be underage too - they did have it open to all for the first 3 weeks, until they changed the rating to an R-13. I wouldn't even dream of seeing any movie like it!

9th teacup and mug exchange reveal

 I took part in The Enchanting Rose's 9th Teacup and Mug Exchange. I joined up with both the mug and the teacup exchange this year!
The mug which I received was from the lovely Kaye in Australia. This is the divine package which she sent me. I love the bright funky mug! And my favourite tea too. Lovely bits of fabric Kaye suggested making needle booklets with (a great idea - might add that to the summer fun list), chocolates and sweet notecards - all perfect for me!

 These items below are what I sent to Lyn in Australia (blog-less) I laughed my head off when I found out Lyn was my partner, as we have been swap partners for a few things now. Many, many people took part in this huge swap, so it really is a small world to get a partner of someone you kinda "know".

The tea cup I received was from another kiwi woman - Bonnie. (actually I think I am r-e-a-l-l-y bad and forgot to even e-mail Bonnie to say it had even arrived! I'm so sorry Bonnie - my brain has been university for weeks and everything else in my life is on the backburner!). What a sweet package to receive -

 Lots of my favourite things - sweet teacup (it''ll be on display in our museum at school soon to show pupils older style cups and saucers :) ) , chai tea (having a cup right now), lotion, a notebook and lots of items I can scrapbook with over the summer.


I sent to Lillie (how funny that she sent to Bonnie!) -

 And there we go! Lots of gorgeous packages flying all around the world! What fab swaps to be involved with - I drink a lot of tea while studying and it is so wonderful to have a new sweet mug and tea cup to enjoy my tea in! Thanks to Kaye and Bonnie for lovely packages - mail like this makes my day!  And to Stephanie for another wonderful hosting.