You and me in the photobooth, waiting for the flash, close the curtain urgently

I’d totally forgotten about my plight with these shortbread cookies until I was cleaning out the memory card and found photos which my mum took of them. These were the nicest batch, and dare I say, my batch that I’d mixed from scratched and made myself. I know, I know, shortbread is freaking easy to make, but it was more the fact that I actually went to the effort of making them that’s really worth something – I’m really lazy and generally don’t enjoy much baking/cooking, etc…

Anyway, the story behind these Christmas shortbread cookies was that I’d made them to give to friends who I simply couldn’t afford to buy Christmas presents for. The problem was, at some point, mum took over mixing the ingredients, and she’d doubled all the ingredients except the flour! But being the amazing cook she is (and me the shitty one), she didn’t like the idea of me entertaining the idea that perhaps she’d done something wrong in the process, as the mix was just faaar too soft to even cut up! Thus began the tedious task of refrigerating them back and forth until I had finally shaped them all and baked them. It wasn’t until much later that she suddenly had a lightbulb moment and went “OH…” haha.

Those who managed to eat some in the end said they were good anyway; but I felt a little bad that there were many friends I’d failed to deliver to, just because we were never home when I was free or had the shortbread with me!

In other matters, tomorrow I’m driving down with a friend, my sister and her friend to Raglan for a couple of nights. We’ll be camping at the local holiday park, and who knows, I might even brave it out and attempt to surf. Maybe. I’ve always wished I could surf… although unfortunately the weather at the moment isn’t looking too fantastic, I’m just hoping it clears up soon, but it’s a guaranteed good trip in general! In fact, this is shaping up to be an exciting week overall: Tues-Thurs is Raglan, Thursday night I will be photographing the Peaches gig (I’m actually quite gutted that I’m missing out on The Mint Chicks because it’s on the same night), and Friday will entail about 14hours of photographing Auckland’s Big Day Out. Not to mention I can’t get out of shifts at work for both Saturday and Sunday…

To be honest, I just can’t wait to see what whacky shots we come up with on the trip and how good proper stage lighting will make my gig photos; so please, please, please all have your fingers and toes crossed for me that my sore throat gets better ASAP!

Frozen sweets and pains

Anyone unfortunate enough to have been within my vicinity for the past week will have undoubtedly heard of the endless pain on the right side of my mouth caused by two wisdom teeth growing simultaneously.

I’m sure majority thought I was just being a hypochondriac with all my bitching about it – but no longer! I finally managed to get a dentist’s appointment for about an hour ago, and immediately the dentist said I had to have the top one pulled out – right then and there. Needless to say I was mortified – I hadn’t had a tooth pulled out in over a decade and the last time I was sitting in the same seat a couple of months ago I’d had some fillings put in. My memory immediately flicked back to the pain and discomfort… if fillings hurt so much, how bad is getting a tooth pulled out going to be?! It turns out that getting numbing injections took a lot longer and hurt a lot more than getting the tooth itself taken out. I asked to keep it – but they didn’t even rinse it for me! At the moment, I’m just afraid of the numbness wearing off, since I could see some fleshy bits attached to the tooth, urgh. Sorry if the photo’s a bit gruesome, couldn’t help it!

The upside of it all is that Mum and I drove straight to the ice cream factory store and bought 4x frozen yoghurts and 2x mango sorbet tubs all for the cheap price of $10! The looney downside is that I can’t have hot food for a week; have to keep biting on this fucking gauze that’s really pissing me off right now to stop the bleeding; have to keep taking antibiotics; aaaaaand… I can’t drink my pains away either, bugger! Mind you, that’s proably better for my health and eftpos card in the long-run, but I’m going to see Handsome Furs tonight and was hoping to have a beer or too, grrr.

On the strand of music, I photographed the Popstrangers gig on Saturday night, so eveeentuuually the pics will be up. Also, the Stage Band has a gig at the Howick Club tonight; I’m not sure what the occasion is but I guess I’ll find out in about an hour. And the best news? Concert Band won KBB!

The smell of comfort

I’ve been sick at home all week, only tallying up a day and a half at school. It’s barely the end of summer, not even autumn yet, and already I have this awful sinus infection that makes me nauseous, my head heavy and dizzy, and has given me the most disgusting gunk at the back of my nose and throat – I just want to spit it out, but oh it’s just there… I’ll spare the gory details.

So sitting around at home hasn’t been really productive. I’d tried to read my American history and economic tetbooks – the pages that my friends have tried to get me to catch up on, but to no avail. When I’m sick like this, nothing works. I couldn’t even handle skim-reading the newspaper – somehow I read the same line 5 times without it registering, and completely gave up. My sole comfort so far has been watching old episodes of ER and Sex and the City online; and today I vamped this place up with a new theme. The header features a photoshopped image of layers of photos from over the summer, it’s not very exciting, but I was just so sick of seeing the old theme. In addition to all this crap, I can’t seem to stop stirring up problems with the boy. I have a short temper, an inability to express how I feel other than the negative, and me being completely burnt out just does not help, especially when he goes to a different school and I’m always preoccupied. But oh, I don’t know, it’s all a mess in my head, I just want it all to be okay. He came around for a while earlier today. Then for about two minutes after dinner. And despite all the shit that I put the both of us through, when I hug him, the smell of him is like the smell of comfort to me. It’s nice. And in those moments I feel safe.