Is it really okay if S. Meyer quotes Robert Frost?

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

I love Natalie Dee.

Just some good comics from one of my favourites.

Second sock syndrome (when you knit a beautiful sock and don't really feel like making the exact same thing over again):



This just caught my attention too. You know, after being called Cheese by a five year old for a day. It's entitled "i dont think things with mustard are going to work out either".

Happy Bonfire Day!

Tonight is the night that New Zealanders celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes was caught and did not successfully blowup the British parliment buildings as he was planning to several centuries ago. Generally everyone here has a BBQ and fireworks on the weekend. Since this isn't considered a national holiday, we'll be celebrating tomorrow night. I sort of wish I was already in Wellington because we just saw a news clip and this Guy Fawkes celebration will be the biggest one they've ever had.

I think it's all very interesting that they name the day after the bad guy and then set off fireworks to recognize that he couldn't blow anything up. I am looking forward to the festivities tomorrow.

Right now I'm in a tiny town called Ngaruawahia. You saw it like 'narrowahere'. There are two other wwoofers at this farm, an Austrian guy named Simon and a German named Tim. They are both very nice. When I arrived this afternoon they were painting the porch. It's been quite rainy here so the farm work is a bit on hold, but I could see all the sheep and lambs from the porch. The family here is Davina, Don, and three kids, Martin, Dallas, and Chance. Martin has decided that my name is Cheese and I spent the afternoon building him a school bus out of lego. Of course, I made it with all the yellow blocks and this was hardly acceptable because there aren't any yellow school busses here. Dallas has a broken baby toe because she is completely wild. Chance is the smartest three year old I have ever seen. He can use the internet even though he isn't allowed to. He actually managed to locate the Bob the Builder game site and start playing the games in the two minutes his mother left him with me. I was amazed (and had no idea he wasn't actually allowed to use the computer. Makes sense, I suppose).

There is all sorts of hiking and canoeing and wonderful things to do here. I'll be back with more later!

Someone was a serious little bunny this past Halloween.

Oliver Thomas, October 31, 2009, about 6 and a half weeks old. And no one came to his door for a Trick or Treat.

Tonight for dinner I had lamb, kiwis, and meringue.

Just kidding. I had spaghetti. There were two kiwi people there though. And a Texan. The one little kiwi didn't get any spaghetti because he doesn't have any teeth yet. I have a really cute picture of him on one of Liz's cameras, but I can't seem to extract it at this moment. I will definitely put some up in the next few days.

Today I went down to Auckland to see the city centre. Of course, there was a beautiful harbour because this is a port town stretching from one coast to the other. I walked around and saw all of the little shops. Even the ugly mall wool store had very beautiful things in stock. When I went to have lunch at a cafe I pulled out my knitting and ended up chatting with a complete stranger for about an hour. I made my way over to the Domain and watched a cricket game will clicking away. I didn't even make it all the way to the museum and gardens before Jonathan called me to meet me and head home. I will be back for those two because the Domain is very beautiful. It's the top of an old volcano and has sports fields, beautiful trees, the huge museum and all sorts of interesting gardens and wild places to walk through.

I also spent some time wandering through a neat store called Real Groovy. They had all sort sof interesting books and music and I have two more for my reading list.

The latest from Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favourite authors, is called What the Dog Saw. It's a set of essays about the "hidden extraordinary".
I also really need to catch up on Gregory Maquire's books. He wrote Wicked and I really would like to read A Lion Among Men and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.

The fun theory.

I just liked this. I also joined NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) where you challenge yourself to post every day during November. This might be a little tricky, but I've always wanted to join and I'll try my best. Other variations on this include the original NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where members attempt to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November and NaSweKniMo (National Sweater Knitting Month) where members attempt to knit a 50,000 stitch sweater in a month. I like this one because you don't have to count anything, just try to post.

And I've done well so far.

Today was an overcast, slightly rainy day, but Liz, Ollie, Liz's brother Shannon, and I had a really great afternoon. They took me down to Mission Bay to have lunch on the waterfront and we all ate greenshelled mussels with garlic, onions, and celery and Shannon and I drank Belgish Beer. I bounced around with Oliver so Liz could finish her lunch. He's such a funny little fellow and I'm so glad he doesn't cry when I hold him. He's just starting to recognize people and he has the sweetest little crooked smile. I will definitely post some pictures in the next few days.

Tomorrow I'm going to go explore Auckland City and visit the Auckland Museum near the hospital Jonathan works at. I'm really interested to learn more about the history and geography of this place. Auckland sits on about 50 volcanoes and the traditional Maori culture is really celebrated here. Then of course I'll stop in at a couple of the local wool stores too!

November Day.

This morning I left Bondi Junction bright and early at 6:30 am. I caught my train to the International Airport. Sydney has fantastic public transport. It only took me about half an hour ot travel all the way from the eastern suburbs on the coast to the airport in the west. Plenty of time to go through customs, immigration, biosecurity, regular security (where I had nothing confiscated, for once), duty free, a million miles of airport, and spend my last ten Aussie dollars on tea and a muffin at Gloria Jeans (Australia's equivalent to Second Cup, I'd say. I used to always think there were just a lot of women's clothing stores around when people would mention it, but I've got it all figured out now, just in time to leave). Once I got through all of that, I boarded my Air NZ flight and headed across the ditch to New Zealand!

On the plane I watched 500 days of Summer. It was okay, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Maybe if you have a long flight and nothing better to do, try it out, but I ended up reading my travel guide for most of the flight (which was only three hours long, anyway). To eat, I was served a mini shepherd's pie with tomato sauce (pseudo-ketchup), a little salad of sweet potato, feta, sundried tomato, and orzo. That was nice. There was also a really tasty apricot cake for dessert. I wanted that lemon pop that they have everywhere (it's called Lift, but I couldn't remember the name) so I requested pop and the stewardess asked me what that was. The landing in Auckland was the worst flying experience I have had so far. It seemed to take so long for them to descend. And it was windy and rough. I distracted myself by looking out the window. As you land, you can see both coasts of NZ because it's so narrow at this part of the country. I thought that was really cool. I also felt so excited to be here because dry, red Australia was sort of making me miss Canada a bit and NZ looks so much like home.

At the Auckland airport I had to go through immigration, duty-free twice (I hate that because they just constantly squirt perfumes and it's so hard to breathe), customs, security, baggage claim, biohazard control (my boots needed to be cleaned properly and I saw a little sniffer beagle carrying a bag of brussel sprouts back to his security officer. That was so cute.), baggage x-ray, and finally out into the airport where my cousin, Jonathan, had been waiting for an hour. He said he'd never seen Auckland International so busy. It was absolutely packed for some reason.

We drove back to his townhouse and I met Liz and Oliver. Oliver is the cutest little thing. He has a sore tummy right now because he has reflux (his was born on September 14, so he can't really deal with these things). But, I rocked him for about an hour and he was so smiley and happy. Such a sweet little guy.

Once he was all ready to go and we had chatted for awhile, we all went out to a nearby village and had thai food. It was great. I was stuffed because Liz and Jonathan had also bought a bunch of Halloween treats, but nobody had come to their door. Trick or Treating isn't really a tradition over here, but it's starting to become more popular so they were hoping to get at least a few kids.

Tomorrow I'm going to hang out with Liz and Oliver and plan the rest of my trip. I'm not tired tonight because of the time difference, so I'm sure I'll sleep in a bit tomorrow. I'll let you know what I've planned once I figure it all out!