Sleeping Beauty

She is so cute and gorgeous, my Princess!

Went to check on her last night and she had fallen asleep reading!


Yesterday
had my hair cut, it looks good!

Today
have wicked head cold,
stuffed up an assignment due on Monday!
my Mummy cleaned my house,
my Mummy brought me over some delicious mussel fritter thingies she had made,
Wasband helped me put my new electric blanket on my bed, will be toasty warm tonight!

there you go, an update of the days in the life of the rich and famous,

oh that's right I'm not rich, or famous.....

yet! lol

take care
Rachaelxo

The Dating Game

here's a funny story!

I went on a date,

he wore cream pointy toed snakeskin boots (fake and not pretty!),

he out drunk me four to one,

he finished his fourth drink and invited me back to his place for more wine and whatever might happen...

I declined his invitation,

he up and left,

he left me with a full glass of wine!!!

I laughed all the way home!!!

next!!!

take care
Rachaelxo

p.s. at least I wasn't left 'high and dry'!!!

Grandad

Grandad passed away one year ago today.

Grandad you are badly missed and there is no one to fix my dining room chairs!


Rachaelxo

Fat Cherubs and Pearls

I'm thinking of selling what's left of my fat cherub collection. They are not particularly valuable but I do love them.

However you know, I have to par back my stuff and I really want to go for a simple uncluttered look in my new home.

Oh I don't know, sell/keep, sell/keep....

there's my Libran indecision kicking in!


I'm mucking about with my hair. Now that I don't go to Suzy the Korean hairdresser, who was lovely but did love her thinning scissors and a good Bob hair do, regardless of if you wanted a thinned out Bob hair do or not, my hair has finally grown past my ears!

(sorry for that long sentence, hope you caught my drift!)


My hair is now past my shoulders but the bottom half of it is very thin, due to a few years of Suzy and also some moulting thing I have had going on.... (and hair dye)

So anyway, as I said I have been mucking around, having it up, down, plaited etc.

Today I did an up do, like a fountain of hair sprouting from the top of my head, the Princess told me I looked like a flower pot! haha!

I embellished my fountain by wrapping her toy pearl necklace around and around it and added to the pearl theme further with earrings, and wrists loaded with pearl bracelets! I felt very, well pearly all day!

I took the photo at the end of the day so my fountain had slipped a bit!

Today
University all day

the Princess's water bottle leaked right through my bed, I slept in the wet patch!

the toaster jammed, it looked like there was a heavy fog throughout the house and a very nasty charred smell remains

the cat was sick on the carpet

but otherwise a fabulous day

hope you enjoyed my riveting meaningful post! lol

take care
Rachael

the Princess...

has turned into a book worm. Noticeably so in the last month, she reads non stop and has churned through a huge amount of chapter books.

She has just finished reading one of my childhood Enid Blyton's and is about to start Nana's set of Heidi books.

They were printed in 1953, read avidly by my Mum and then by me when I was a little girl. We now think the Princess is ready for them.

I am going to read her the first chapter in bed tonight. I can't wait to reacquaint with Heidi!!


She is doing so well this year, a bit of a rocky start, but she has a wonderful, inspiring and caring teacher who has pushed and coaxed her along and now the Princess is achieving great results.

She got this certificate on Friday. She had written 6 pages of a story about fairies!


Her Daddy (the wasband) and I are so very proud of her!

Today
was quiet, had an open home so we visited with Nana and grabbed the Heidi's at the same time,

caught up on laundry,

about to shower the Princess and get her ready for bed,

and me ready for a full night of study,



take care
Rachaelxo

I've been bad!

very, very bad!

Yesterday I walked over to my local, op shop (thrift shop) that is, to donate a bag of not required items. A small-ish bag of not required items. This is all part of my quest to offload my material belongings so that when I move to a teeny tiny apartment it will not be a BIG undertaking!



Sadly I left the op shop with the above bag, the photo does not give a true indication of it's size. Let's just say it is considerably bigger than the bag I donated to them!

Will show and tell tomorrow, and it's not even that exciting! lol

Today...
the Princess and I did not get up until 11am, we read, we snoozed, we read some more, bliss!

then we had to get up and madly scramble about as the real estate agent rang to say she wanted to show our home to someone at 1pm,

while I was in the shower the Princess had covered the kitchen bench with plastic puzzle pieces and was spraying ants with a water pistol, not sure how the two related... but it gave me cause for concern! Dead ants and lots of water just before people are due to arrive!

we high tailed it out of here and went to a Speed show, yep a Speed show where the Princess's daddy (wasband) was doing a big promo event, it was kind of fun, we got to eat a lot of jelly beans from the wasbands stand!

and tonight we snuggled and watched The Robinson movie.

A great Saturday!

take care
Rachaelxo

p.s. hope you are all noticing the regularity of my blogging at the moment! lol

Snap...

dragons blooming prolifically in my winter garden, strange!



End of the week treat, a good Merlot to drink and my rose scented candle burning.


lovely my friends, just lovely!

take care
Rachaelxo

2 hours later...
now I know why the candle was cheap, it keeps going out! grrrrrh!!!

Hair today!

my little fashionista let me borrow her felted flower hair ties for my plaited hair do today, or my braids as you American girls would say!!!

tried to take the photo myself, had the camera setting all wrong but hey it was morning, before 8am morning!


I have noticed that something happens to me when I have stuff in my hair, it makes more behave more ridiculously than I normally do...!

Or maybe its just because life is so good, as my Granny would say "one door closes, another door opens"

and it certainly has for me, many new doors have opened, life is busy, life is exciting, life is full of new things and new people. The Princess and I are happy and content!

Before I sign off, quick house update,

still have a contract on our house so once that goes through I will start looking for a new home for us... that cute little apartment didn't happen so obviously that was not the right one!

Take Care
Rachaelxo

My own personal stylist

I'm like the rich and famous!

I have my own personal stylist, her name in case you want to hire her is the Princess. She does not come cheap!

Quite the little fashionista is she!

This morning I went to university styled by her:
Floral dress
Black tights
Black boots
Black Velvet jacket
Rose patterned ring
Red drop earrings (thanks Louise)
Rose bracelet


and the piece de resistance, a rose and feather brooch pinned to my hair,



which had the affect of making me silly and giddy all day long!

take care
Rachaelxo

I'm feeling crafty...

Brand new baby singlets all washed up and pressed,

a pile of pink dyed and natural coloured vintage doilies...


my fingers are so itchy twitchy to stitch!

nice rhymes going on there, must be because one of my papers this semester is Language and Literacy!

haha!

take care
Rachaelxo

Evidence...

that I am back at university.... my dining room table already trashed! lol



Thought you would like a letter D update, its not quite the letter D it used to be, I have to press down hard on it to have a letter D typed.

Remember letter D is for don't!

Oh well I am now off to read my new book "The Introduction to the History of New Zealand Education" which I am sure is totally riveting and I will want to read until the wee small hours of the morning!!! lol

Take Care
Rachaelxo

this post is brought to you by the LETTER D

that would be D for don't!!!

don't vacuum the keyboard of your laptop with the vacuum cleaner on full suction!

in fact don't vacuum the top of your keyboard at all!



because as you can see ... WHOOSH went letter D, all the way up the hoses and round the bendy things and into the vacuum cleaner bag...

which I had to sift through until I found letter D,

and that was all good until I realised I had also sucked up the little black thingies that held letter D in place,

so back out to the rubbish to sift through the emptied out vacuum cleaner bag again,

thank you Universe, I found the little black thingies and now have letter D in place...

a little askew but in place none the less!!!

so don't, I repeat don't vacuum your keyboard or you too could be letter-less!!!

take care
Rachaelxo

I don't have a problem!!!

so you know when my house sale goes through I am going to end up in an apartment a smidgen of the size of this house, which is cool, looking forward to it!

however, I need to reduce the contents of my current house by about 95%! Ha!!!

so what do I do... I go op shopping (thrifting)! Naturally! But because I am culling back I am way more discerning and only buying absolute special things...... you like my justification? lol

so last week, one fabulously shabby chic milk glass candle holder,



the week before, one huge tapestry panel of roses,



last week, one shabby chic sewing basket,



but in my defense I did paint and recover this stool ( that I have had for about 3 yrs!!!)



and all of which are for sale here on Trade Me.

All I need to do now is list the 95% of my house content.....

Moving on from my habit... good day today, went north and visited with my gorgeous youngest brother and sister in law and my 3 scrummy nephews! One of the 11 year old twins is now so close to being as tall as me, which as you can imagine is sooooooooo tall!!!!

Princess back to school Monday and me back to uni! Semester 2, bring it on!!!

take care
Rachaelxo

Shabby Chic Green Eggs and Black n White Sheep

We are back from Mary Thistle's farm where I did eat, drink and be merry with Mary!

I started coming to this farm over 20 years ago when Mary Thistle's mum and dad were still alive. I love this farm, looking out from the house at the green rolling hills always makes feel so calm and peaceful,



and when not eating, drinking champagne and chatting with Mary, there is so much else to do. Like collecting eggs that have pastel green Shabby Chic coloured shells...



from chickens who have names like Mandy, Bubbles etc


Or taking long farm walks in the afternoon, Mary and I still in our PJ's and the Princess and I wearing our city girl gumboots!


to look at the lambs and marvel at the piebald coloured ones (click on photo to enlarge). And to have Mary and her brother The Farmer laugh at me when I coo and talk to the sheep and tell them what clever Mummy's they are!!!


and to let the children disappear outside all day, to tease Mr Thistle about plastering his photo all over my blog and just to relax and laugh with friends who are so dear to my heart!

Thanks Thistle's for taking such good care of us, as always!!!

Rachaelxo

Champagne Friends

One more sleep and the Princess and I are off for a visit my best friend Mary Thistle (not her real name!). She is my partner in crime, my champagne drinking buddy and the Princess's godmother!

Looking forward to relaxing in front of the fire in her farmhouse, looking out to the beautiful hills, letting our kids run riot, drinking champagne and catching up on the last few months!

Bliss!

Or as she would say "Heaven on a Stick" !!!!

take care
Rachaelxo

Justin the Beaver!

I have been op-shopping (thrift shopping), op shopping with the Princess means I have to buy her something.... today at an op-shop in St Heliers she fell in love with this beaver...

"Mummy, I haven't got a beaver, please can I have this beaver, this beaver is so cute..."

so I bought the beaver, $2.50... to add to the other 250 soft toys we have in this house I am trying to reduce the contents of...


a few hours later we are still in the car, toodling around Auckland when she announces she has named the beaver...

"Justin the Beaver"... "you know Mummy... after Justin Bieber"!!!

I laughed till I cried!!!

take care
Rachaelxo

Living the high life!

Its windy, icy cold and I am exhausted. Tucked into bed with my electric blanket on, a cup of tea, blogging and chatting on MSN... the high life!

Well it was the high life yesterday. I have friends staying with me because it is school holidays here in NZ. Yesterday we visited Sky Tower which is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere...people bungy jump from it... I did not - lol


I tried to take a photo from the bottom looking to the top but couldn't get a decent shot, still gives you an idea of how high it is....


here is the Princess and her friend at the bottom of the tower, which is now my favourite part of the tower!


The Princess is standing on a see through section of the floor, you can look down to the ground, all the way down to the ground, I made the mistake of doing that and also looking straight down from where the Princess is standing, it was not a good idea!

The top platform of the tower had NZ's highest sweet shop, it was great, they gave the children a bag of sweets and candy floss spun into the shape of the tower - free! We were 220 metres/780 ft off the ground at the point. It was not a point I enjoyed!!!


and back down to the bottom, couldn't have happened fast enough for me!!!


and finished the day out with a quick stop at the supermarket, a much needed bottle of wine for me and a carousal ride for the girls!!!

House Update - both contracts appear to be falling over, not concerned, whats meant to be will happen and if not something better around the corner!


Take Care
Rachaelxo

Blogged to soon!

well Crap!

my house deals are falling over every which way!

contract people on my house are having trouble getting finance and I won't even go into what is going on with that cute little apartment I want... just to say that banks and government departments are giving me major headaches!!! Would seem that the recession has made the banks super cautious...

Some fun stuff though, went to Auckland Museum yesterday... was a fantastic way to spend a rainy afternoon...

Loved this chandelier, knives, forks and spoons!!! It was stunning!!!


and for some reason took many photos of the signage...


I guess because it took my fancy, tickled my fancy - whatever the saying is!!!


haha!!!

take care
Rachaelxo

Coming up for air....

its been a while!!!

First semester down, I ended up with A+'s for my assignments and just one A without the +, which really annoyed me!!!

I have since had exams, 5 exams in all which was rather harrowing.

So as you do when you have exams, you decide to sell your house and try to buy another!!!

My house, this one here has a contract on it.....


and I have a contract on this little apartment here....



funny the things that excite you about a home, I love the green front door and the idea of my mail being posted through it every day which is what happens in this little apartment complex


and I love the long narrow garage, which of course will not be seeing a car, I have plans for this space, big plans!!!!


and I love this balcony which I am really excited about decorating with pots and my statues, and outdoor furniture


Both contracts depend on finance so its all rather nail biting stuff or in my case drinking wine stuff!!!

If I get this little apartment I need to sell 95% of the contents of my current biggish home....

which is what I should be doing now, but really don't know where to start!!!

major procrastinating going on here....

will keep you posted!!! lol

take care
Rachaelxo