Daylight robbery...

...that's what the cost of a printer cartridge is! It costs $54 for a colour ink cartridge for our printer - it contains only 13ml of ink. At the $/ml rate, that is the same as paying $3115 for a bottle of wine!

gym return

Well after giving some thought to how I was going to fit in exercise during the holidays, my prediction came true - I managed to only do 1 session of my pilates DVD the whole time I wasn't going to the gym. I found it hard to fit in exercise while having the Colyer's here as the kids were getting up earlier than normal and we were doing lots of holiday type activities (plus I got a tummy bug for a few days). Then I only had a few days before I had my tonsils out, and so that ruled out the exercise for the last 2 weeks of the holidays!

So with Ben back at school and my gym membership suspension ending yesterday, I was back the gym this morning (after dropping Ben off at school). I'm excited to be getting back into and looking forward to not having bouts of tonsillitis continually interrupting my exercise routine.

Bumper year!

I just picked 960g of cherry tomatoes for dinner (mix of yellow and red ones) and there is still more I could have picked (and that is even with picking some most days).

It still feels weird...

It's the middle of summer, but I wore jeans all day today (as well as a jumper for half of the morning) and didn't feel hot at all - including a walk to the shops and back...a 2km round trip!

Back to reality...

I feel like a sheep, as what I'm about to say, I have read similar words on many other blogs in the past couple of weeks... Tomorrow school starts again...which means going back to the busy morning getting ready for school; school drop off; gym; kindy drop off; school pick up; kindy pick up; bible studies; playgroup...

I have really enjoyed the school holidays, with a more relaxed routine, some extra spontaneousness in schedule/activities and having family visit/stay with us. And as regular readers would know, I've managed to also fit in a bit of holiday surgery! I am relievhat ed that I have totally recovered without any post op complications and feel I have the energy and ability to function normally again (which is very important to be able to deal with all the start of school year stuff). It has meant that I haven't been able to do as many jobs around the house that I would like to have done while not having all the busyness of the school routine, but I did manage to do a couple of things that could be done sitting at a computer (this terms kids church plan - I still have 1/2 of the worksheets to do-, and selling some more stuff on TradeMe). And today I got Ben's school books all covered and labelled, so he is all prepared for tomorrow.

Anyway, we'll see how I go with blogging this year - I still feel like I have lots I'd like to say, but finding the time to type a few words on the screen not as easy to find.

Thanks Wilma (part Two)

I had planned to go tramping with Ben this weekend as well - going to the Pinnacles Hut up above the Kauaeranga Valley on the Coromandel Peninsula. The weather was forecast to be a little rough on Friday night but clearing by Saturday morning, so I figured it should be OK to still go. As it turns out, it would have been, except that the road up the valley got badly flooded and damaged, so there was no access at all.

So, instead of that, Ben and I went for a little stroll at Mt Pirongia, and then camped out in the backyard. He

had lots of fun doing that, particularly seen as we cooked outside and ate dinner and breakfast in the tree house!

Thanks Wilma!

Tropical Cyclone Wilma came visiting the North Island over the weekend - we only really got the tip of it here in Hamilton. But it was enough to bring down a big branch of this tree in our yard. With the wind still blowing and the rest of the tree waving dangerously, we decided to chop it down in a controlled manner before it came down and clipped the corner of our house. Next job is to chop it all up so we can get rid of it!

Rainy day

Great day for staying inside...

• watching a movie (Body of Lies)
• reading a book ( a Nora Roberts thriller)
• drinking a cup of coffee (Rocket)/hot chocolate (Cadbury).

Foodie frustration...

As a lot of you would know, I enjoy food - both cooking it and eating it. And a week since getting my tonsils out...I'm frustrated. I'd like to get back in the kitchen and cook some yummy food, but don't have the energy...not to mention that a lot of food I can't eat at the moment, or can't enjoy eating because it is still quite sore to eat (both chewing and swallowing).

Procrastinating...

I've spent the last hour procrastinating - avoiding doing more kids church prep. I have read many a blog post, plus explored the blogrolls of some of the blogs that I read. I only have 1.5 weeks of kids church programs to go, plus designing 20 worksheets (I know what's going in them, just need to put it together). Mum and Dad are taking the kids to the lake park this morning, so I will have some peace and quiet. But that opens up a whole new range of possibilities for alternative activities...