Every family has morning rituals. This is ours. The alarm goes off and Steve leaps immediately from the bed, whereupon he has his shower, gets dressed, makes coffee and turns on the news, likely as not whistling a happy tune. I stay in bed like a submerged log, and it’s understood that he’ll forget his tie and have to turn on the light, he’ll tell ( Read more... )

We had atomsmith and his lovely wife over for dinner last night, and she was saying how a friend of hers religiously read a certain blog, and was devastated when the woman’s husband posted a note saying she’d died.

“Actually,” I said, “I was thinking the other day that I’d better give Steve my password, so he can post something if I die!”

“Yeah,” said atomsmith“ ( Read more... )

I had an atomsmith-like moment of junkfood Zen yesterday. Twelve years ago you could buy in Auckland supermarkets what had to be the best breakfast food on the market, the truly sublime Apple Cinnamon Pop-Tart. One of them comprised your entire fat intake for a day and it was REAL easy to eat three at a sitting. Then about nine years ago, some wanna-make- ( Read more... )

Ok, some people just need to GET A GRIP. From the Herald yesterday. “A Chinese couple tried to name their baby "@", claiming the character used in email addresses echoed their love for the child, an official said ( Read more... )

Nearly killed myself laughing when I took a good look at my $4 Season Three West Wing DVD set yesterday ( Read more... )

I have a serious fashion problem. Not my own, thankfully, but something I’m observing daily all around me. It is the travesty of… the skinny jean. It’s bad enough on girls. If I have to see one more skinny-jean-tucked-into-boot-with-floaty-tunic combo I’m going to go nuts. But it’s when it comes to the lads ( Read more... )

I've been having a bit of a set-to with a photographer lately because he hasn't been giving us what we're after and I had to send him back to redo a couple of things. Anyway, I just wrote to tell him that his re-shoot was just what we wanted and he replied ( Read more... )

The other day Hannah (my new fun colleague) and I were getting thoroughly brassed off at the stupid things people call their children. After a day of plowing through proofs filled with Barnabys, Texases and Cocos, and energised further by a newspaper article about someone calling their child 4Real (with 4Eva and 4Sure to follow) we started to think ( Read more... )

Steve and I were sitting reading last night and he looked over and said, “You’re pretty.”

“Are you sure about that?” I sighed somewhat melodramatically. “You don’t ever wake in the night and turn over and see my nose in profile and recoil in horror?”

“Of course not,” he smiled. “It’s dark.”

!!!!

I can't believe I didn't list this step yesterday. When you're an invalid, it's incredibly important to keep your spirits up. The Seventh Step (and I can't stress this strongly enough) is to buy things off the internet. I am now the proud owner of an early edition of The Magician's Nephew which puts me one step closer to my goal of assembling the ( Read more... )