Snowflake, or other intriguing felines.

The light within you shines like a diamond mine, like an unarmed walrus. Steer on to freedom… Open all the boxes. Open all the boxes.

Pictures speak louder than words, so this post is purely dedicated to a compilation of 50 photos that my mother, sister and I have taken over the past three days.

We took a trip up north to Paihia in the Bay of Islands with some friends, and had an absolute blast, staying at a house right on the waterfront which had spectacular views. I can’t believe that I personally didn’t take any more photos (thus compiling mum and Liv’s photos too, because we all lounged around and did some things together, but some things apart), but it just goes to show how much fun in the sun and relaxing downtime I’ve been having! We swam (out to a post, twice), sunbathed, played poker, had Boston Legal marathons, sang along to songs in the car, drank beer, took bubble baths and ate far, far too much:

There was a huge cruise ship not too far offshore.

Reflected view from my bedroom window, with Liv in the corner.

View from the house.

Interior.

Lottie on our bed with the ranch slider wide open, basking in the view and breeze.

From the outside.

Super Liquor was right across the road! But we didn’t need it, haha.

Mum took this from across the road in the house, when we were heading out to the beach.

Me and my new American flag towel.

Beach!

I didn’t know my sister had taken this until I scoured through her memory card. What a pervert.

Lo and I. I know, I keep calling her a variation of things, but in my head she is a mix between Charlotte, Char, Lottie, and ultimately Lo from “Charlo” (which is what I type into “recipients” when I txt her).

My feeet.

Second floor view from the house.

Massive kitchen!

Japanese noodles.

Lottie wanting to nick off with my blanket and replacing our cat as the ginger tucked in my blanket whilst on holiday. Adorabubbly-cute, haha.

My risotto in progress.

Final product = risotto with mushroom, onions and chicken. My dinner and everyone else’s late night supper… I accidentally took a reeeaaally long nap, you see.

Meal complete with a CC & Dry, of course.

Mum and her Japanese friends all gave my risotto rave reviews, yay!

Lounge.

The house.

These sunset photos were taken by my mum – when I look at her photos, I can really see where she has inadvertently influenced me in style and composition over the years, without really ever properly “teaching” me anything specifically. She never told me how to compose my photos or how to take them in the first place because she didn’t want to restrict my view… but I guess some things just rub off over time, haha. But I’m glad it did.

In a way, I’m relieved I missed out on taking a drive out with mum and her friends to see the sunset, otherwise I would’ve had an internal struggle with my obsession to photograph everything, versus just taking life in through my eyes, not lens.

The spa that we had for a bath.

Lo blowing some bubble love my way.

Once we turned the jets on, the bubbles boiled over like crazy!

View from the house.

We stopped over at Matakana on the way home so that I could quench my cravings for the delicious ice cream and sorbet there. That, and we needed the girls’ room.

Blueberry sorbet and Chocolate ice cream. I LOVE CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM. It’s my top flavour of choice, I get it 99% of the time – but I knew the sorbet there was amazing so I couldn’t miss out… The girl at the store accidentally gave me blueberry ice cream instead of sorbet at first, so that’s what that glob of purple is, in between the two scoops.

I recommend their ice cream and sorbet, but I fucking hate their stupid queuing/ordering system and their customer service isn’t too hot either. That, and I was super glad the girl with short hair who kept touching her hair whilst scooping ice creams didn’t scoop my ice cream.

KILLER EELS?!?!!!!

The odd tree and the car parked in front of us.

Liv took these as we were crossing the harbour bridge, heading home.

There’s me driving with my left hand and red nails.

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Oh what are the chances – you think you wont sink, oh what are the chances – I think what you think?

Who would ever notice how much they used their right thumb? I never did – until earlier to night when I gave myself a burn blister from the misuse of a lighter. At the time, I said that the pain it caused me was more than that of when I got my industrial piercing last month (and trust me, that hurt like a bitch); but in hindsight, I think the only reason it felt like it hurt more was the fact that it was such prolonged pain, emitting from such a small area. Why was I playing with a lighter indoors to begin with? Well, I had received a wax seal stamp for Christmas and was just dying to try it out. It might sound like a completely random present to a lot of people, but I actually write a number of handwritten letters and have been wanting one for ages so despite the fact that my sister had rather ruined the surprise for me last week, I was still delighted today.

I had to resort to using a candle to help melt the wax in the end, but I also left a bit of a mess on the envelope from where the candle’s wax wanted to interfere. Here is the final product, sealing a letter to a very good friend who is now living/studying overseas:

For some reason here, you can’t see the line of the flap of the envelope, but I swear this wax seal isn’t just sitting on a blank piece of paper!

Pavlova and strawberries for dessert was scrumptious. I really ought to stop pigging out, but Christmas makes for such an easy excuse.

How bad do I sound, admitting that I am over the moon about how overcast and almost (if not? I don’t remember) rainy the weather was today, on Christmas Day. It just gave me a really guilt-free excuse to snooze on and off all day, lounge around with my favourite people and unfortunately also over-eat. I’m just proud I haven’t been doing any drinking, haha.

I’m not sure why, when nor how the tradition began, but for some reason, at our household we have our “Christmas feast” on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. Whenever friends enquire and comment about the absurdity of it, I just say that it means the kitchen is calmer on Christmas Day and we just spend the day indulging in the plentiful leftovers from the previous night. My mum is an excellent cook and Christmas is no exception. We had turkey that was covered in bacon strips, which came out superbly crispy – my favourite texture for bacon. Being so good at roasting things, mum made sure that the turkey was perfectly well done, but retained all of its juiciness. She even made me take pictures as I was cutting it up for proof of its moisture! The vegetables were roasted along with the turkey, giving everything that delicious taste and smell. I’m not a fan of oysters but I did try one, thinking that perhaps I’d prefer them cooked rather than the raw ones I’ve tried, although it didn’t change my mind about them at all. However, what I did thoroughly enjoy was the melted cheese and sauce that mum had topped it with – there was even some leftover sauce in the pan that I ended up using as a sort of gravy on the turkey.

Snowflake had been well fed with Whiskas tin food, which mum especially picked out a turkey flavoured tin of, so for once he was looking rather dozy and disinterested rather than attempting to hijack our dinner table. There have been a couple of incidents in the past where he has actually caught us off guard, with our backs turned, and stolen meat off the table!

Being such a night owl, a personal downside of mine towards having Christmas during summer time is how late the sun sets – tonight it set well past nine o’clock, and we have to wait until it’s well late to turn the Christmas lights on. I know it’s energy conserving and all, but I just love fairy lights so much that they’re a permanent fixture in my bedroom, even. Maybe I’ll take pictures of this at some point.

Dinner was then followed by a dessert of blueberry cheesecake. My hasty photos don’t really do the cake much justice because I was more preoccupied with the notion of getting to eat it, but Lottie can attest to how amazing it was. I told her today when she had a slice that she never should have turned it down last time, and I don’t think she ever will again!

Anyway, I’m just rambling and rambling about food in an uncohesive manner, I’ll just let your visual imaginations take over and get into bed to do some more reading.

Hope everyone had a lovely and safe Christmas.

There’s a thunder in our hearts

Sometimes I just want to post a picture with no words. And sometimes I want to post just a single, striking line with no explanation. But I always think far too much to be able to do that.

The second half of semester 2 starts tomorrow – actually, by now it’s today – and I don’t feel ready at all. I haven’t done a fraction of the things I had wanted to do during this 2-week break – sure unforeseeable circumstances struck up, but I was also lazy. At the moment I also have a sinus and throat infection and dealing with it is just a pain. Not to mention last night we had a scare with the cat being ill and had to take him to the afterhours vet clinic and pay a hefty sum for him to be anesthetised   so they could look down his throat to see whether there’s something stuck or if it’s infected or both. Turns out it’s just infected, and apparently it IS possible the same bacteria plaguing me could have done it to him. Yikes. I only managed to get him home at 3.30am which didn’t help my sleeping pattern at all.

Irrelevantly though, I’ve been wanting to post these two moments of joy:

Left: A photo my mum took of my sister and I jumping on a bridge in Sydney. Looking at it really makes me miss school athletics days where I got to do high jump. I always made the “qualifying” jump but then bunged out and there was always a certain height that my foot didn’t want to get over.
Right: The present that I spent a lot of time thinking about and wrapping for W.’s (sic) 21st, and I put the card in there at the bottom too. I’ve even abbreviated his initials to the bare minimum, so unknowing people can always wonder who my long-time adored is.

My friend Lottie is crazy for the Arctic Monkeys and Alexa Chung, and I just can’t resist posting this, a love note from Alex Turner to Alexa: “My mouth hasn’t shut up about you since you kissed it. The idea that you may kiss it again stuck in my brain, which hasn’t stopped thinking about you since well before any kiss. And now the prospect of those kisses seems to wind me like when you slip on the stairs and one of the steps hits you in the middle of the back. The notion of them continuing for what is traditionally terrifying forever excites me to an unfamiliar degree.” This is the precise reason that I think great lyricists are underrated. I can’t think of a less pretentious and more realistic way of being so romantic in words. He hasn’t used any flamboyant adjectives, simply described and put it in such a way that is so heart-melting. This is also the exact reason why I love men who are good with words. I don’t think I could ever date anyone who tells me every other sentence that he doesn’t understand a word I used.

Something I wrote the other night, simply because I just had to use the word “bilocation”, although it might be a little… misused – I hear that’s called artistic license, haha:

You are
A rare occurance
When you talk
I want to turn you up.

You are
A bilocation
When you’re here
I never have you to myself.

You are
Inside, outside
Everywhere to me.
The places I go
And the people I see
The art I adore
And the songs that I sing:
You are
Too fucking much to me.

Perhaps fuck off might be too kind

I quit my job.

After a year and a half of weekendly hard work being enslaved to the picky customers of a busy cafe for 8 hours at a time, today was my second to last shift. Complying with the whole 2 weeks’ notice thing, I still have to somehow survive one last shift next Saturday – and I’m afraid it will probably be the longest, ever.

I’ve noticed over the past couple of years that I’ve sometimes got a problem with authority figures. No. Let me rephrase that. I’ve got a big problem with people who are in a ‘position of authority’, but are either unqualified, hypocritical, disrespectful, unprofessional, or all of the above, and much worse. And the people I work with are exactly that.

Earlier, I was tempted to go into a full, blow-by-blow account of all the reasons and awful situations I’ve been put in at work, but I’m just not in the mood right now.

In a vain attempt to cheer up and humour myself, I aimed my webcam and its effect at my cat. I don’t think he was particularly amused…

Cheap Monday

So our beach day didn’t quite go according to plan when the weather soured with cold windy gusts and rain. So when the weather finally cleared up the other day, Charlotte and I took a quick drive down to a beach that I used to visit a lot as a kid, and spent the afternoon laxing in the sun and chatting. It was just a good day, but we didn’t do anything exciting really, and I only took two pictures (one of which is below). I think the funniest thing that happened on our excursion was when we decided to go to Momo’s (an asian bubble tea place) in our beach gear on our way home – upon entry the waitress gave us the most inquisitive, rude look, as if we weren’t allowed to be in there or something… very strange. The same thing happened when we tried to order and pay our check. A friend of mine said, “well, you know, asians don’t go to the beach!” (but he’s asian, so that’s not really racist… hahaa).

I was surprised to find a wayward branch full of the prettiest, yellowy-pink roses that had swayed out onto the footpath in our front garden when I got home as well. Ah, pleasant surprises.

I’m actually in a bit of a crisis at the moment: our family’s decided that our huge yard (along with 2 side hedges) just costs far too much time/money to maintain – think mowing lawns, weeding, trimming hedges, and the regular garden bag service to take it all away – so we want to sell our house and move into a bigger one with a smaller, more tameable garden. This, and with my quickly-approaching departure date of January 26th as mum’s deadline for me to clear my rubbish out, has led me to pour the entire contents of my desk drawers and shelves out. A lot has already gone into the paper recycling and rubbish, but I honestly cannot move around my room, let alone try and sleep (my bed is worse than when this picture was taken). I even slept on the couch after getting home at 3am from Sumadayze. Anyway, the point of this picture was to show how luxurious my cat is, even in moments of chaos – he’s managed to snuggle up and sleep on two (apparently quite pricey, as I’m pillow-picky and can’t sleep otherwise) pillows! What a cutie.

As if my room wasn’t enough to deal with, I procrastinated in my sleeplessness, and sharpie’d myself a Cheap Monday tee shirt:

I must say, although it’s severe cheating, I was quite happy with how my free-hand skull drawing went. And I’d screwed up one sleeve whilst tearing it, but I’ve split the sleeves on both sides (the idea courtesy of Charlotte) and it’s nice and loose, and rather beachy. Maybe I’ll go and confuse the waitress at Momo’s again with my bikini underneath, tehe.

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