nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Pancakes!)
The food show was at the Westpac Stadium this weekend and I decided that the best time to go was after church today. [livejournal.com profile] tamarillow was in Tawa for lunch and [livejournal.com profile] maudlinrose had to write an assignment, so I went by myself. It was quite a different experience compared to going with someone and I missed being able to share the experience. I think it meant I moved faster—I tended to get impatient with the crowds at some of the stalls more easily and I was done in about two and a half hours.

The only thing I wish I'd gone back for was the smoked garlic carmelised balsamic vinegar. I did taste an even better caramelised balsamic vinegar, but it was about twice the price, even at food show prices.

I resisted pretty much everything we already had in the house. The only thing I didn't resist was some of the Cow Collective yoghurt, because they were doing 3 for $10 and it tastes amazing. I got the black plum (probably my favourite flavour), the mango, and plain.

In no particular order, I also bought sheep's milk parmesan; basil pesto, sun dried tomato pesto, tomato and olive pesto (3 for $10 again); 3 flavours of harvarti in one block; a very sharp cheddar for [livejournal.com profile] maudlinrose; 2 packets of feta-stuffed pepperdews and one of olives in balsamic vinegar (another 3 for $10); and a bottle of scrumpy. I also took away a card for the Doctors rieslings (since they'd sold out), and a free Sunday Star Times.

And if I see Piako lemon curd frozen yoghurt in the supermarket, I want to buy some. They didn't have any containers for sale, but were doing mini-ice creams for $1. I had a cone and it was really good. I was quite disappointed that they didn't have any containers for sale. [livejournal.com profile] tamarillow will be interested to note that they also do feijoa.

[livejournal.com profile] maudlinrose made us a beef roast for dinner—I'd forgotten how good roasts are. It's been ages since we last had one. They suit the cooler weather, and after the cold snap at Easter, it just hasn't been cold enough. I don't even have flannel sheets on my bed, and I usually put them on the last couple of weeks in May! I have lit the fire tonight and the lounge is snuggly warm.

Am making progress on the meta-data. Some of them are rather annoying to find the meta data for, and I solved this by deleting the annoying ones (Buffy & Angel novelisations which I will never read) and all the Anne Rice. For some reason, a search for Anne Rice also brought up Crown of Stars by Robert Jordan...
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Calvin & Hobbes - Like I'm going to get)
It being ten to one in the morning and me having to get up in six hours for work tomorrow, I am very sensibly not starting any of the tail-pieces to the 185,000 word Vorkosigan fanfic I just finished reading. Because goodness knows how long they are, but they all have at least four parts.

Sometimes my life choices are better than others.

EDIT: And now with fic link Forward Momentum.

I should perhaps note that although the author catches some of Bujold's style, there were a few too many "dear"s that dropped me out of it and plotwise, it ties up a number of loose ends, but there's never quite that moment of character growth or triumph over despair (or a giant armada or something) that characterises Bujold's writing. Things went a bit too smoothly for the characters. On the other hand, interesting concept and good execution.

Vorkosigan fics I'd actually rec (all much shorter) are The Mutant Bridgegroom, Playground Rhymes, and Vorbarra's Terrier (a Pratchett crossover). These have all been tagged on my delicious (so had Forward Momentum for that matter), so you may well have seen them before.
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Biggles - Sopwith Camel)
because I have been forgetting since we were helping friends of ours pack to move to Stokes Valley months ago, I have a one-way, off peak, ticket between Wellington and Johnsonville that is free to a good home.

First in, first served. Also, if I don't have to mail it to you, that's even better.
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Ha ha tee hee)
What she said.

Also, today's xkcd rocks.
nishatalitha: image: girl doing a cartwheel on a bench.  ferns in foreground that look like koru (Cartwheel)
I have one more day of holiday and the weekend and then it's back to work for me. Since I finished Perdito Street Station (one of my to-read list these holidays), I clearly haven't been reading anything with a high enough level of mental challenge, as I'm actually starting to look forward to the work.

Not the getting up early, I should note.

I was asked to come into work for a bit this afternoon to do a couple of bits and pieces that could not wait (client needed it by tomorrow). Work will make this time up to me. I also went in last Sunday for a couple of hours (unpaid) to clear my desk some, since it will be crazy-busy when I get back on Monday.

Haven't done much handwork, but have watched a bit of M*A*S*H and random other tv, and read a lot of fic (been working backwards through my delicious account reading anything on it that takes my fancy and deleting some of the to-read tag).

Spent half an hour on the Terrace on the way home today, what with traffic, and got home to find the weather had turned to a light misty attempt at rain. Nonetheless, I refused to be put off my plans for dinner (barbeque) and went ahead regardless and it was good.

Dinner consisted of shrimp in a Cantonese marinade as a starter around 7.30pm for [livejournal.com profile] maudlinrose and myself, since [livejournal.com profile] tamarillow was working until 8.00pm; and for mains, once she got home, edamame with a ginger/rice wine vinegar and sugar/sesame oil dipping sauce, chicken on a stick in a thai coridander marinade, mushrooms lightly bbq'd in the remains of the shrimp mariade, plain white rice, and a green salad (well, lettuce, red capsicum and blueberries) with an asian style dressing. We have some leftovers of all except the shrimp.

The Cantonese marinade was perhaps a bit overpowering for the shrimp, but tasty nonetheless - I think it would be better if done as a stirfry and egg noodles mixed in at the end. The edamame dipping sauce is something I really like. The thai-coriander marinade tasted very strongly of the lime juice that was the base and I'm quite glad I added the extra teaspoon of sugar. The other flavours were more noticable when the outside was turning black - something to keep in mind. The aisan style salad dressing tasted a bit strongly of fish sauce (a key ingredient) and I will be interested to try it with a salt-reduced fish sauce when we've finished our current bottle of the stuff.

The various recipes came from a couple of Annabelle Langbein's cookbooks.

I have just finished a mug of hot chocolate which I adulterated with caramel flavouring, about half a teaspoon cinnamon and a quarter teaspoon each of mixed spice and powdered chilli. It was good.

Walked into town most days this week for various reasons and here are assorted pictures:

click for the pretty )
nishatalitha: slightly crumpled white sheets, small text= "sleep now" (Sleep now)
Don't quite feel like sleeping yet, but I do feel very floppy and relaxed. Had a work thing out in Kapiti tonight and when I got home, I soaked in the bath for an hour and a half or so. I took the strapping off my leg too, and the knee cap didn't automatically start hurting, which is a good sign. It does ache a little, though.
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Dozing in the sun - Garfield)
Being clean and warm and fed are some of the more awesome things in the world.

Musings

May. 21st, 2009 10:01 pm
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Happiness (Bard))
So, which way do you see the dancer turning?

So [livejournal.com profile] maudlinrose and I were talking after dinner and we decided that we're actually pretty grateful for the year or two after university working in shitty jobs.

From early 2005 - mid 2006, I worked at the Bolton Hotel as a cleaner. I'd just washed out of teacher's college and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life instead. Glancing over a few of my posts from that time I don't seem to be talking about work much; more about what I was feeling and doing the rest of the time.

I seem so young!

It's not the work I remember from those years (although the techniques in cleaning bathrooms have not been forgotten), but the gaming, the people, the putting my head straight and getting on with my life. The mental space to be someone other than a student.

And yes, money was tight and for the most part I lived in a really crappy flat. But I remember being happy. I grew into myself some more. I appreciate that time.

So, who else has had a crappy job that was actually worth it?
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Default)
This is just the intial post so that there is something here. I'm not convinced I want to abandon my livejournal yet, but will see how things go. I should work out how to crosspost to my livejournal, and do the whole export thing (I probably will at some point), but can't be bothered right now.
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Claim Innocence - swinging feet in skirt)
Managed to get some things done this weekend that I planned to, but not all. Made the decision on Friday night that I would be better off sleeping in on Saturday morning and thus didn't go to the dawn service or the wreath laying ceremony at the Carillon. Felt better fror the extra sleep, but still required a nap (after a cup of coffee, even!) once [livejournal.com profile] maudlinrose and I returned from our expedition into town to the Briscoes ANZAC Day sale and bought a set of cotton sheets for my bed for $36.00 down from $89.00, which I'm quite pleased about. Also got milk, as for once ours expired before anyone drank it.

Met up with Comrademojo and got a lift out to his brother's place for the housewarming. Lovely place; caught up with a few frisbee people that I haven't seen for ages, what with the not playing frisbee at the moment, but was falling asleep by 10.30pm and [livejournal.com profile] knightclubbing and [livejournal.com profile] queneva very kindly delivered me to my door, rather than to town as I'd asked.

Finally climbed out of bed around 11.00am on this grey, wet and windy Wellington day, fed the cats and then occupied an armchair for another hour and a half with the black fuzzy one curled up on my knee for the greater proportion of that while I read a book.

Eventually, I bestirred myself enough to make experimental!brownie (online dairy-free recipe for tomorrow night), chai tea from scratch and the beginnings of leek and potato soup (have boiled and mashed the potatoes).

It's been a lovely relaxing day. I'm finally starting to feel almost well. Have failed spectacularly at getting my homework done for the school holidays, though. I should do that tonight.
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Boring being normal)
My parents, brother and sister-in-law are visiting this weekend. As such, some things need doing before I go to meet people at the airport on Saturday morning:

  • Ironing
  • Homework
  • Clean bathroom
  • Vaccum
  • Create Guest account on Annabelle
  • Tidy room
  • Call Te Papa and check the maximum size of bags they'll store in the bag-check room
  • check bus timetables for getting to the airport by 9.30am
  • Wash double sheets used last weekend on the foldout couch
  • Put money on my cellphone
  • My laundry - mostly done


I'm sure there's more, as that seems an awfully short list. The plan is to meet my brother and his wife and go from the airport to the Monet exhibition at Te Papa, buy a roast chicken from the nearby supermarket and head home for lunch. Stuff will happen.

List is courtesy of the handy-dandy link [livejournal.com profile] maudlinrose posted recently. I thought I'd experiment.

While doing the ironing tonight (this is a habit I gained when living with my parents doing the ironing while watching Star Trek during high school), I watched the anime for FAKE which is an adaptation of a manga series I own about two cops in New York and their romance. It was the most accurate adapation I've seen - there were about four noticeable changes from the plot of Volume 2. It was as though the manga was their storyboard and they stuck to it!

I suddenly have the urge to reread the series...
nishatalitha: slightly crumpled white sheets, small text= "sleep now" (Sleep now)
It's cold. Why am I still up?
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Geek in Disguise (Merlin))
Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] whatwasthatbook (for identifying it) and [livejournal.com profile] tamarillow (for interloaning it for me from the National Library) over breakfast yesterday morning I read The Gown Of Glory by Agnes Sligh Turnbull. I only hazily remembered it, but remembered enjoying it and wanted to reread it.

It lived up to my very hazy memories. Objectively I'm not sure how good it is, but I reread it in one sitting and enjoyed it. It reminded me of Essie Summers a lot in style and I came out of it with a similar sense of peace as I come out of Curse of Chalion with; the this is done and it was good and the characters will continue with their lives, but the readers time with them is done. Or something like that. I guess I'm not entirely sure why, but come out of it with that feeling, which lingers.

More mundanely, our couch in the living room is currently covered with clean laundry. I have another two loads on the line, one in the machine that just finished and two more to do yet. The weather is just perfect for washing: breezy and sunny. I'm taking advantage during this lead into autumn.

I'm looking forward to daylight savings being over. The extension of an extra three weeks on either side was a bit much and the mornings are very hard at the moment. Despite my best intentions, I failed at getting to the gym before work every morning this week. I know it will be hard again in winter, but you expect that then.

Playing Alice goes well. Nearly half the map is showing and I'm making progress towards the assult on the Red Queen's castle. I still miss having the sanity bar, though. I went and asked at a games store the other day if they happened to have a copy. Not a chance. Seems trademe is my best bet.

Tried reading Olympos by Dan Simmons last week and stalled. I keep thinking I should try again, but really can't be bothered.
nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Play Collin (Friendly Hostility))
Having previously taken books back to Wellington and removing about a dozen this time enabled me to contract my four boxes in the roof into three boxes in the roof. I also left my parents a list of childrens book I recommended that they keep, along with a similar, but not identical, list of those I'll keep if they don't want to. I hope to get one of the boxes down this year when my brother goes through on his way to Christchurch. No idea of the likelihood, though.

The Hamilton place looks emptyish. Shelves aren't crammed with books and there are pictures on the wall where there never were before. Tauranga definitely feels more lived in. Went out to Raglan and saw my Dad's parents. Everytime I see them I'm reminded of how old they are. It was good to see them. As usual, there was a family dinner last night and I chatted with my brother-in-law and tried to convince him to start roleplaying, as he was asking me a lot of questions about it. If anyone knows anything about RPGing in the 'tron, please let me know, and I'll pass the info onto him.

This morning, to my surprise, Mum took me shopping, so I now have another three tops for my summer wardrobe. We just missed having to leave Centerplace due to a fire alarm, which may have been an actual fire, as the jewellers were closed with firemen in the shop when we walked through later.

It's been muggy up here more or less since I arrived and I was expecting the same when we came back to Tauranga. Apart from finding the car too hot (no air conditioning and the front passenger window doesn't open), it was a nice trip. I went down for a swim as soon as possible. The water was nice and I managed to avoid the metres of sea lettuce by the boat ramp. Apparently we don't usually get much here. Sea lettuce, while a pretty colour, stinks and is really annoying, especially if you're like me and don't like things touching your feet when you're swimming.

When I got back from my swim, I noticed a most unusual flower in the back yard. It was a hibiscus that looks like it was coloured by a drunk painter, because it shades from yellow at the outer-most edge through to orange, a large layer of pink - all in relatively pastelly colours, with the center bright red! This is compounded by the fact that the petals look like partially scrunched tissue paper. I'll get a photo before I leave. It's neat.

Either tonight or tomorrow we leave for Matarangi on the Coromandel, this being the start of Auckland Anniversary Weekend. My brother is staying here and in Hamilton so he can go to Parachute for at least one day, so it'll be me and the folks. I have the dozen books or so (mostly McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon) I fished out of the attic, Dad has gotten out DVDs which includes PoTCII among others, I have my crossstitch, of which I have already done about a cm worth of stitching, I think, and there is, of course, the beach and (hopefully) the sun. There is not, alas, the internets. I will be missing the internets, I will.

Have still only read one of the three books I brought with me, as well as the one I purchased, but did read one of my childhood favourites when I was in the 'tron, and decided that as much as I enjoyed it then, I do not actually need a copy of Follow My Leader by James Garfield, a book about a kid blinded by a firecracker, in Wellington or indeed, at all. It wasn't that good. I am bringing four books back to Wellington to cull - the first three Robert Jordan ones and the first one in a series by Juliet Marilliner. I'd rather cull them at home than here - that way I can exchange.

Dad is mowing the lawn. Along with people, the items that are most frequently making the trip between the two locations are the vaccum cleaner and the lawnmower. People here are mostly elderly, but very friendly. Mum was saying that she's not used to having neighbours who are actually interested in who you are and what you're doing. Their section looks tiny, but I am assured that it's about the same size as the Hamilton place. Hamilton, btw, now goes to auction late February. I'm hoping that goes really well.

I am almost in holiday mode now. I've started losing track of days of the week, which is a good sign.

Um. Can someone tell me when I need to have a registration in for the Otaki Ultimate thing, and if I can get a lift up?

Profile

nishatalitha: image: lots of ladybirds crawling up fencepost.  white rope is wrapped twice around top of fencepost (Default)
nishatalitha

January 2019

S M T W T F S
  1234 5
6789101112
13 141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios