Entries Tagged 'Random thoughts' ↓

It’s New Year’s Eve. I don’t really have anything profound to say and am not doing anything out of the ordinary although today I am wearing my singlet on the outside and have some strange idea that I will work like the wind up until midnight to get all those things done on my To Do list that have been lingering for what feels like the last year so as to not carry them forward into the next.

This year has pretty much been more of the same for us, trapped in the routine of long hours at work and feeling too tired to spend time with family and friends or try anything new. Our choice, and one that I’m sure said family and friends don’t understand but apart from often asking ‘when will it be over?’, seem to accept. Same old same old which probably strengthened our resolve to make our move to New York next year – not a permanent one – but 4 of the most looked forward to months of my life. It’s been a strange year of living part of my life even more publicly than this blog with the adoption of Twitter all the while keeping other stuff completely inside. New York will be the welcome shift in life I need as I realise I’m about half way through mine.

I just scanned back through this blog at the last year’s worth of entries, all 35 pages of them. Some classic one-liners, great food, precious family times, unexpected trip to New York and lots of date scones, coffee and orange – reading it made me smile many times and it still intrigues me that I find so much non-work stuff to drivvle about!

God, this post isn’t supposed to be depressing, just a reflection. I was just thinking about the year as I came across the Mayfly Project – where in this culture of brevity we should be conscious that our snippets give us a very full life of lots and lots of things rather than reducing it to something like the tiny bio of the mayfly that only lives for 24 hours … “born, eat, shag, die”. So as part of this project where you reduce your year to 24 words, you actually realise that there’s way more to your life than this as you think of your 24 words. Actually I didn’t think very hard at all – in manner of often hitting exactly 140 characters on Twitter I walked out of the front door of our apartment building this morning and this phrase came into my head. Strangely, right on 24 words!

2009 was long hours for Xero, no salt, New York plans, Blenheim trips, date scones; spiked with MRI, first conference speech and Webby Awards.

Right, I’m off for a walk to meet The Mister and eat our sandwiches outside in the sun somewhere.

So, it’s not all a wives tale or overprotective OSH-type warning, those messages about not breathing the air above the bag or container of potting mix you’re working with it are worth heeding.

News this morning on the radio and in the paper that Legionnaire’s disease is alive and well and is caused by breathing in potting mix. Someone has died.

So no more laughing at me when I take precautions when gardening on the kitchen bench please!

Potting mix linked to legionnaires’ disease

Gardeners are being warned to take care with potting mix after five cases of legionnaires’ disease in Canterbury in the past three months.

stuff.co.nz

Amusing moment today made The Mister and I realise how out of touch we are when it comes to kids these days (I mean small kids, not the Twilight-watching kind as we know all about that) – got some ideas for Christmas gifts for nieces and looked at each other after reading the list – we didn’t know what half the stuff on the lists was! Beados? Hmm.

Might be time (avert your eyes if not Christmas-crazy) to make some more Christmas PJs (gaaad, look how long my hair was back then) – bolts of Christmas fabric keep catching my eye on the way to get coffee most mornings.

And as The Mister said, he got to watch an entire day of cricket while I spent a Saturday keeping myself busy making the first pair!

I’m sure many of us people watch or at least meet/see people in passing and wonder what they do for a living (as I have commented re one of our neighbours in a prior post). I often wonder what the people in my yoga class do – they don’t seem particularly religious or spiritual or ‘alternative’ – for the most part they just seem like regular people like me, there for a bit of exercise (although some of them do wear those crazy baggy-bum trousers – not sure if that is yoga fashion or somehow gives you more room to stretch and bend than an old pair of Lycra track pants like I wear…)

Aaaaanyway, a guy in my class who I suspected was Italian, and had something to do with the university, turns out to be a Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Culture and has just won a grant from the Swiss Arts Council for a project he’s doing on the poetry of a Swiss-Italian poet. There was a photo and write up about him in the latest Victoria Alumni magazine. Who knew!

Last night at Capitol we sat next to a couple of women. Using my bat hearing at one stage I heard one say to the other “Gosh I love that necklace, is it new?” The other said “No, Jane gave this to me for my 50th.” My mouth physically fell open. I could’ve sworn the women were in their 40’s. No WAY was one of them 50+ No way. Perhaps a really good hair job – no greys that I could spot from 2 metres (or probably less) away in the great flowing brown locks, crows feet around her eyes sure, but smooth plump skin and not too much makeup and still young-looking skin on her hands. The woman looked fabulous. I don’t remember Mother at 50; neither of my parents look like they’re in their mid-60’s so they probably didn’t look 50 when they were 50 so there’s hope for me!

When my hands get hot (ironing, housework, walking) the veins down the back of my right hand really stick out. I was staring at the most bulgy one this morning and lamenting the time it was dented.

It was many many years ago when I had my wisdom teeth out (before I started howling on the slab):

Nurse: this is nothing to worry about, just a little prick like a blood test

Me: but I’ve never had a blood test

Nurse [to the anesthetist]: wow, we’ve got an innocent here – never had a blood test!? That’s unheard of! [To me] In that case it’ll be like a harmless mozzie bite

Me [as she jabbed the back of my hand]: WAAAAAAAAAAAAA …. [sleep]

Mozzie bite?! No way! That jab altered the course of my blood flow! That once-straight vein turns a corner on the back of my hand now. It’s damaged!

Am try to get out of the office for a walk in the afternoons, even if it’s to a Fuel Espresso bar that’s on the other side of town – probably doesn’t count as proper exercise but for me new air is just as important. On my walk yesterday I noticed silverbeet flourishing in the traffic islands outside Kirkcaldie & Stains! I wonder if people pick it for dinner? I guess it’s probably got dog pee and traffic gunge all over it but quite a good idea. I’ve seen rosemary growing rather prolifically down the side of concrete gardens in the city and botannical gardens before and thought it quite handy – usually you only need a stalk for the roast lamb or pizza, not a whole bunch, so if you could just grab that stalk out of a city vegie patch that’d be great!

I’m really not keen on the upside down poses (‘inversions’ is the proper term) that we have to do at yoga. I don’t like the blood rush to my head which eventually makes me feel quite dizzy and sometimes nauseous. We do hand stands, head stands, shoulder stands, forearm stands and sometimes hand upside down from ropes. In the advanced class we seem to do quite long headstands however the teacher noticed I haven’t really been taking part the last few weeks so said I could hang upside down instead for less strain on my neck. That’s not really the problem but I took up his offer anyway. It’s actually quite relaxing and you can feel it’s good for your back but I can only do it for a minute or so, not 5 minutes like others can.

I finally asked the other day what the point of all the upside down stuff was – what’s the benefit of all the discomfort on my part. Seems it’s an ‘opposite process’ i.e. you’re always on your feet and it’s good for the soul to take an opposite view of the world now and then. And physically, with your feet above your head it forces new blood from your heart to be pumped to your brain, which is a good thing. Flushes out toxins and exercises blood vessels by forcing your blood to flow a different way.

These are good things for me, so I’ll approach it with a different feeling now, one of ‘this is good for me’ instead of dread!

I didn’t realise The Avon Lady was still going strong! A few days ago we got home to find an Avon catalogue in our mailbox – first time since living in the building. Perhaps we’ve been saved from these type of catalogues over the last few years in the same way we’ve avoided trick-or-treating kids – apartment building glass doors with a security pad are a great deterrent!

However it seems one of our new neighbours is an Avon Lady. I perused the catalogue and it was nothing like I expected. I thought The Avon Lady sold make-up, hand cream, floral smelling body wash and such. However in this catalogue there is a range of stuff – Christmas brooches with ‘precious’ stones, ‘slide and glide’ all-in-one plastic scissor apparatus, angels and fairies book, strange African lady statue, Noisy Surprise Thomas & Friends push-button book, jandals, watches, sundresses – however, still the hand cream for $2.49, pot pouri spray and foot deodorant. What a world of discovery!

Oh, I’ve just looked at their site, http://www.avon.co.nz, perhaps it was a Christmas special catalogue because the one online seems to be more like what I expected. Just make-up and stuff.