Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | March 7, 2009

global warming

Hi – this lady has kids the same age as me (although perhaps more partial to a cup of tea than me) and commented recently on my kids on drugs blog.

Thought I would add this link to her blog about global warming.  They’re not her thoughts but interesting links included.

http://jenniepowell.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/global-warming-and-why-im-not-moving-south-anytime-soon/

New Zealand comes out of it pretty good – hurray for farming.

The sea isn’t likely to rise as far inland as Takapau, although a change in view would be nice.

At home alone today while Miss Eight celebrates her best friend Kate’s 8th birthday and Mr Hubby and Master Six do the shopping thing. We’ve been doing a lot of buying on Trade Me in the past few weeks, hence last week’s trip to Wellington and this week’s trip to Napier and Hastings.

Master Six’s bedroom is still trashed but Miss Eight’s room is now empty and devoid of personality so they can both move into it together for a couple of months. Then he goes into our room and we get a brand spanking new one!

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | March 5, 2009

Basin, shower, bath and loo (x2)

Why on earth would anyone want to buy a bathroom vanity with two basins. For goodness sake.

A. Can’t we share?

B. Why make yourself clean two basins for nothing?!

Ah, the choices. Never, never, never renovate your house. Stick with the original basin with its marks and bangs and wonky doors. Stick with the shower case that came straight out of a 70s horror movie. Stick with the toilet with its evidence (and nasal reminders) of little boy’s aiming difficulties.

And that’s just the bathroom. We haven’t even decided on the layout of the kitchen.

Does the main bathroom have a bath with a lip or a flat edge? So do we tile? What colour? What flooring? What colour? What window? What window covering?

Does the main bathroom shower have a curved door, a big flat door or two little doors? Does it have a sliding shower head with a good brand name worth $300 or a megastore munta for $79?

Of course the ensuite shower will have the Methven Satinjet with the little jet button for massaging the shoulders. But again, do we tile? Do we encase? And that ever eternal question – what bloody colour?!!!!!

I need those little emoticons for !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trade Me has been great. Mr Hubby did a quick round trip with Master Six down to Wellington last weekend (still with time for McDonalds I see on the bank statement) to pick up a bathroom window from Upper Hutt and an internal sliding cavity door from central Wellington (ever tried finding a park when there are a couple of cruise ships in port?)

But it’s amazing how many people want the same price for a cruddy gathering of aluminium as a brand new one! Crazy. Worth a try though I guess.

We’re off to Napier on Saturday to look at some Trade Me stacking sliding doors for the master bedroom. Mitre10 Mega will be next on the list  for the showers and toilets. Sigh.

Builder starts on Monday. Sigh.

Hosting a tupperware party for a friend on Wednesday. Gazillion-mega-quadruple sigh.

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | March 3, 2009

my kids don’t smoke dope

Kiwi children as young as four are trying alcohol and nine-year-olds are using cannabis, a new study reveals.

 WHAT??????????!!!!!!!!

According to this story on a news website this morning, a study of 12,000 young people found the onset of drinking “goes up very steeply from age 12”, while many were smoking cannabis by 15.

Well yes, the old man might have been missing one big bottle of beer one new year’s eve in the mid 80s. When I was 12.  But age four, six, eight… I was still turning up my nose at the one sip my parents would offer from their glass.

And my kids get the same treatment. Like a sip of my wine? Yuck no.  Go on. Okay.  Yuck!

If four year olds are drinking and nine year olds are smoking dope there are only two people to blame for each case and their names are Mum and Dad.

One of the things that annoys me most about “today’s society” is that I’m doing my bit.  My kids go to school with breakfast in their tummies and their homework done. They like their teachers. Gosh, they’re even polite to them.

They come home after school, eat their afternoon tea, do their homework, do their chores (pigs for Sarah, chooks for Lachlan) and have free play time until tea time. I know where they are and what they are doing.  How the hell does a four year old get to smoke dope? I don’t even know where to find the s**t so how would they? You guessed it, their parents. Learned behaviour. They see their parents doing it. There’s nothing wrong with it. 

So Miss Eight is going to enjoy a glass of wine before dinner every night  when she grows up, just like her Mum.

So Master Six is going to have two cans of beer and go to sleep on the sofa when he grows up, just like his Dad.

 They’ll be at the opposite end of the “study” that says kids as young as four smoke dope and drink alcohol.  Thank goodness for that.

(Please don’t show me this blog when they’re teenagers. I might have to get off my high horse.)

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | March 1, 2009

Procrastination

If you look back far enough through my blogs, you’ll find one moaning about procrastination. And my strength and skill in this particular personality trait.

Well here we go again.

Save me from myself!

One thousand things to do and only 999 minutes in the day to do them.

And here I am blogging.

Bugger.

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 24, 2009

who needs vodka

Who needs vodka when you can buy fizzy water at a third of the price?

We had a drink after our tennis meeting last night – the first was one of those lemon and lime vodka ready to drink bottles. It was okay, but nothing fancy.  The next drink, a can of Aqa (flavoured fizzy water), was divine.

Vodka hasn’t been my friend since an occasion about 20 years ago – don’t we all have that one drink that we will never stomach again?! (add Drambuie to my list – yuk!)

So I’m converted. I can be completely mad all by myself without the help of alcohol.  Aqa it is. But not the orange flavour, it’s like a bad pinto. Last night’s  pineapple took some getting used to but lime is first choice.  

We had a discussion about wine too. What varieties are preferred and when.  Daylight savings for me – white in summer and red in winter.  Easy.

Not sure if an entire blog should be written about alcohol so it must be time to continue by research on the Waipawa Municipal Theatre and it’s wonderful redevelopment.

Coffee is the drink of choice today.

Cheers.

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 23, 2009

well that’s good news

The Government is providing more funding for Plunketline.

According to the Radio NZ website, the extended service (to 24/7)  is being funded through a grant of $3.75 million over 15 months to the end of March next year (although the story also said parentline, I think it’s Plunketline).

John Key and his band of merry men (and the awesome Paula and others) have made some good decisions in the past few months. Going back to basics for things like this is perfect.  Now double the number of Plunket Nurses out there in the big wide world and children will hopefully start to get a little safer because their parents will be taught how to care for their new ones.  Some mothers don’t automatically know, obviously, if you look at the stats.

We have to start with the babies and work our way up through the system. 

That’s all from me this morning. I was supposed to be getting a hair cut and colour but when I turned up and apologised for being a bit late they laughed and told me I was early – a week early! It doesn’t matter who got it wrong (them of course) but it certainly frees up today’s work plan!

 

 

 

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 22, 2009

Cooking with fire

We’re still cooking meat over fire like the cavemen.

This comment from my brother-in-law tonight made me laugh. It’s so true! Thank you barbecue for taking me back a few thousand years (sorry I liked history but not science – is that back far enough?! If Jesus was born 2008 years ago then one must assume I’m way off base but this is not the time or place for a theology evolution debate!)

We’re doing an extension on the house to replace a bedroom with a bathroom and build on a new master bedroom. The budget should extent to a new kitchen as well if there are no hidden issues once work starts.

So here we are sitting in the current kitchen trying to dream up options for the new one (phoning local Mitre 10 kitchen consultant in the morning) when we get sidetracked into appliances, gas versus electric etc. Using an electric oven but gas hobbs is a distinct possibility when you think we could hook up the barbie to the same cylinder.

This is where the caveman comment came in. It made me laugh. It’s so true!

We have made huge gains over the past hundred years or so when it comes to communication, travel, entertainment… but not really the fact we still have to put food in our mouths and …. the other end. The fact that most food now comes out of boxes and packets is perhaps considered an advance, although the planet wouldn’t think so.

The kids got a couple of global issue-type books out of the library at the last visit (well okay they were my choices and I’ve spent more time looking at them than they have). They make sobering reading. Amazonian rain forest, mining tailings in South Africa, rubbish in Greece etc etc.

They’re only case studies but they show that we should be doing more every day in little ways to go back to the cavemen ways. Hunter gatherer ways. Growing our food. Only eating with the means of the environment around us.

Hey, I’m no saint. But we’re growing our own tomatoes and veges, our chooks give us eggs every day, we’re planting trees, we try to buy recycled packaging, I take my own cartons to the supermarket and say no to plastic bags in shops. We use eco-light bulbs and turn off appliances at the wall. We have a solar panel for our hot water. We turn sunshine and grass into mutton, beef and pork. My children don’t have a play station. And yet here I am, sitting on a sofa manufactured probably in some Asian sweatshop using vital energy sources to watch Grey’s Anatomy.

Not a battle I’m going to fight tonight.

Guess what we had for tea. Home grown lamb chops cooked with fire.

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 19, 2009

Another Contest underway

District Finals have been taking place since the start of the year, but The National Bank Young Farmer Contest gets the attention today because it was the official launch in Palmerston North.

Attended by sponsors, Young Farmers and Manawatu important people, as well as Jim Hopkins (not sure which category he falls into) and media, which is my forte as I am media liaison person. Or Media Kit if you look at today’s name tag.

A test drive of a new Hyundai might be on the cards cos they’re the new sponsor – I told one of them my mode of transport is a 10-year-old Honda Accord that’s waiting to die and he offered to help it along!  (Good lesson for the day – pronunciation ha-yune-dee not high-yunn-day – don’t go to the phonetics police though.)

And Lincoln University came in for a bit of stick too – given Palmy is home to rival Massey University.

Then there’s Ravensdown, Mr Hubby’s company, Echo, AGMARDT, Swanndri, Honda… there you go, got most of them in here now.  I can’t be bought.. but I am proud of my association with Young Farmers and with the Contest.

So .. busy busy writing a little story for the launch press release. Then bed! Here’s hoping my windows are shut or the lights turned off or it’s not going to be very pleasant sleeping with thousands of other little bodies. Well, little bodies. Saying other  little bodies would assume I had one!

Another deadline looms tomorrow but good headway has been made on that one.

Then there’s housekeeping. Did I tell you already that Mr Hubby, alias Board of Trustees chairman, invited the board, teachers and other staff for a gathering here tomorrow night and then told me he was away all week?  Doesn’t he know some of us are lazy around here at the best of times. I mean busy. Busy around here…..

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 17, 2009

Farewell to Pete

We’re off to the funeral of Peter Barry, who died after a stock car crash last weekend.  A very successful dairy farm business owner, employer of many, former Young Farmer of the Year and very sociable 44 year old leaving behind wife Andrea and three teenage children. He will be missed by the CHB farming community and his friends. This only weeks after farewelling murder victim Mark McCutcheon, also a well-known person in this area.  Thoughts and best wishes remain with both their families.

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 16, 2009

Oh no, visitors are coming!

Great. Shattered from watching Grey’s Anatomy until 10.30pm last night and I have a soon-to-be-bride coming to visit me at 10am. House is a mess. Office hasn’t been cleaned since well before Christmas deadlines.

But what the hell – that’s me every day!

Unlike every other day though, I rushed like blue-arsed-fly (don’t ask me where I got that saying from, or, in fact, I probably have it completely wrong which wouldn’t be unlike me either) and cleaned up the kitchen mess by 9am, the bathroom by 9.15am (no hygiene tests please – this was just in case she needed to go to the toilet while she was visiting) and luxed the office (that’s hoovering or vacuuming for those non Southlanders reading this blog).

By 10am the coffee was brewing (and she asked for a cup of tea) and I was casually wiping months of moth bits off the window ledge.

No problems.

I must admit it’s nice having a tidy office. Actually no it’s not. Now I can see the folders of work I’m supposed to be doing.

And the good news is, Mrs Cleaner comes tomorrow and she’ll put my hygiene issues right.

Mr Hubby organised for the Board of Trustees and staff of our school to come here for the annual function  on Friday night and he’s away Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! Grr. At least I don’t have to cook anything – it’s shared. I might be first to open a wine anyway though.

Totally off conversation, the new addition to the family is trying to make friends or otherwise with a toy kangaroo in the corner which is slightly distracting. At least he’s not attacking my toes today (learnt that lesson – wearing shoes today).

Shadow is his name. Sheer smooth black. Shadow when he’s sleeping. Psycho Shadow the rest of the time.  He goes mental when the kids get off the bus. And when we’ve been away at something after school he saves the psycho personality transplant for when the kids go to bed – the slightest movement of any body part is enough to make him pounce.

But you’re not getting a photo. Not yet anyway. I have enough photos of the two kittens we’ve buried in the shrubbery after getting run over on the road. This one doesn’t look like a possum (the last two were fluffy) so let’s see if we can get it to reach puberty.

It will have another bunch of brothers and sisters soon. A friend agreed to take the cat of another friend who was moving to Aussie. Several weeks later they discovered it was pregnant (with PS and siblings).

And now….. “oh, you should be safe waiting until after she’s finished feeding to get her spayed,” says the vet.

Yeah right.  Here we go again.

Anyone want a kitten?

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