Photos & trip thoughts
First, some photos. You are getting 2 photos of me in one of those things that you stick your face in from our trip. I thought they were really cool! They are of Department Of Conservation rangers holding native birds. They had these up at one of the Mt Taranaki ranger stations. The one holding the kiwi came out the best. The 2nd one with the 'whio' or blue duck didn't turn out very well so I am not putting that up at Facebook (it's a DW/LJ exclusive just for those of you privileged enough to be on my journals.
Here is a pict of the desert I had one night at the lodge. I was pretty hungry, had my seafood dinner & finished off C's seafood dinner. This was really nice, not too expensive given how much it came with ($18.00 NZ). It was the only desert we had there, other 2 nights we were still pretty full after dinner & one night I'd bought 2 pieces of boysenberry fudge when we had been out so we each had a piece of fudge.
Here are a couple photos of an invitation I've made for a special date night for C. I have some stir-in Moroccan honey lamb sauce I'll make, I'll get some saffron & pistachios & make saffron rice & broccoli with pistachios. I'll make some salad & make a yoghurt-mint-lemon dressing. We have some apple tea & some Turkish Delight. I'll pick up some baklava from a Middle Eastern restaurant a friend has recommended (she & I are going to lunch the day before the dinner I have planned for C so I can get some). I've borrowed some saris from her & another Indian friend, and 2 cool painted tin plates I'll use either for eating on or for serving. I have given C her invitation so she knows about it now, but it was a surprise until the other day when I gave it to her.
And lastly, this is a picture of something really simple that makes me really happy. A couple weeks ago a coworker brought these cool flower pens back from the Philippines, where she had been to do some training. They were from the Filipino colleagues as a thank you for our support. I picked the purple & yellow pen. Today she brought around some that she had picked up to bring back for coworkers. I picked the orange and yellow one. It was timely, the purple one had started running out of ink! The yellow & orange one is going into my letter writing satchel.
In non-photo, non-me news, there is a bit of a small controversy going on over here. One of NZ's writers Eleanor Catton who won the 2013 Booker Prize has criticized the country & the current government (which is kind of Republican-like if that gives you an idea of their leanings). She is being defended by some writers & artists, criticized by some politicians & talk radio jockeys.
I won't get started on yesterday's State of the Nation in which our current Prime Minister seems to think that selling off some state housing in our high-priced housing economy & buying others will magically fix the broken houses & still provide houses for people, as well as promising that some people who are in state houses who 'shouldn't be' will be turfed out and turning some portion of said state houses over to the semi-private sector like community groups (yeah, like they have any resources or current infrastructure to be able to do this--where are the start-up costs coming from?????).
Nah, won't get started there.
I did something decent yesterday, I finished sorting 2 of my smaller drawers. These had letters I'd received as well as my paper, cards, post cards & envelopes. I split some of my letters out into different baggies & put my paper, cards, post cards & envelopes into their own large zip-locks. I got rid of some random papers, still have a lot of stuff I should have looked through but will leave other drawers for other days.
I hope you are all well.
More comment(s) at Red_trillium's Dreamwidth journal. Come join the conversation! You can comment there using OpenID or ask me for an invite to create your own account.
Here is a pict of the desert I had one night at the lodge. I was pretty hungry, had my seafood dinner & finished off C's seafood dinner. This was really nice, not too expensive given how much it came with ($18.00 NZ). It was the only desert we had there, other 2 nights we were still pretty full after dinner & one night I'd bought 2 pieces of boysenberry fudge when we had been out so we each had a piece of fudge.
Here are a couple photos of an invitation I've made for a special date night for C. I have some stir-in Moroccan honey lamb sauce I'll make, I'll get some saffron & pistachios & make saffron rice & broccoli with pistachios. I'll make some salad & make a yoghurt-mint-lemon dressing. We have some apple tea & some Turkish Delight. I'll pick up some baklava from a Middle Eastern restaurant a friend has recommended (she & I are going to lunch the day before the dinner I have planned for C so I can get some). I've borrowed some saris from her & another Indian friend, and 2 cool painted tin plates I'll use either for eating on or for serving. I have given C her invitation so she knows about it now, but it was a surprise until the other day when I gave it to her.
And lastly, this is a picture of something really simple that makes me really happy. A couple weeks ago a coworker brought these cool flower pens back from the Philippines, where she had been to do some training. They were from the Filipino colleagues as a thank you for our support. I picked the purple & yellow pen. Today she brought around some that she had picked up to bring back for coworkers. I picked the orange and yellow one. It was timely, the purple one had started running out of ink! The yellow & orange one is going into my letter writing satchel.
In non-photo, non-me news, there is a bit of a small controversy going on over here. One of NZ's writers Eleanor Catton who won the 2013 Booker Prize has criticized the country & the current government (which is kind of Republican-like if that gives you an idea of their leanings). She is being defended by some writers & artists, criticized by some politicians & talk radio jockeys.
I won't get started on yesterday's State of the Nation in which our current Prime Minister seems to think that selling off some state housing in our high-priced housing economy & buying others will magically fix the broken houses & still provide houses for people, as well as promising that some people who are in state houses who 'shouldn't be' will be turfed out and turning some portion of said state houses over to the semi-private sector like community groups (yeah, like they have any resources or current infrastructure to be able to do this--where are the start-up costs coming from?????).
Nah, won't get started there.
I did something decent yesterday, I finished sorting 2 of my smaller drawers. These had letters I'd received as well as my paper, cards, post cards & envelopes. I split some of my letters out into different baggies & put my paper, cards, post cards & envelopes into their own large zip-locks. I got rid of some random papers, still have a lot of stuff I should have looked through but will leave other drawers for other days.
I hope you are all well.
More comment(s) at Red_trillium's Dreamwidth journal. Come join the conversation! You can comment there using OpenID or ask me for an invite to create your own account.