In Auckland

Hi Doctor Nick! Hi Everybody!

Hello all. I'm in Auckland now. It was a beautiful day and Lara and I spent almost the entire day shopping. It was really fun and we ate lots of yummy food. And I tried about 50 pairs of jeans and finallly bought some. I hate buying jeans. I decided I'm going to try and find a person in the world who is exactly the same size as me and then rob them and steal all their clothes. Then I wouldn't have to go through all the hassle of trying on clothes and getting fed up and everything. Although, don't get me wrong I do really love my new jeans, I'm very happy with them.

Ok well I'm going to go and make the most of the time I have here with Lara and Lisa now.

Bye bye,
Mindy

Snow Again!

Well that's the second time this year I have driven to work in the snow! That is pretty out of the ordinary... normally we get our one day of snow per year, and we've already had two! Unfortunately I'm not too excited about it as it means its going to be another mare of a day for Darren who only has outside work to do on the building site... and while snow is fun to play in I can imagine that it isn't so fun to work in on a hill site, or any site at all for that matter. :(

I hope everyone is warm and happy wherever you are.

:)
Mindy

Surprise!!!

I think it's an extremely talented person who is able to surprise themselves. And I'm not talking a "I did really well in that test/race/game I totally surprised myself" I'm talking proper surprise like "Surprise! I've got a paid for holiday in Auckland for you this weekend!" I think if you can surprise yourself in that way that's really special. And guess what... that's what I did! I opened my diary yesterday and flipped to Friday to write something in... and lo and behold it said "going to Auckland". And so I got a huge surprise. This was because months and months ago I booked a trip to Auckland when the fares were cheap and then totally forgot about it. So now I'm all excited because I've got a totally unexpected trip to Auckland, plus I paid for it ages ago! Luckily my wonderful friend Lara who I am going to visit is much more on the ball than me and she didn't forget so she is actually going to be in town this weekend!



This is a picture of a plane. Because that's how I'm going to get to Auckland, and I like to include wee pictures that are vaguely related to my story. Oh and a big sorry to Claire who I was going to go on a picnic with this weekend and now I have to cancel.

Very briefly my other news is I am now at 48 words per minute on Dvorak. I've started running again. And my car is quite sick... sometimes it just randomly won't start and it's unrelated to time of the day or weather conditions.

Ok have a great day!

Bye!
Mindy

Hello!

Hi to Auntie Anne if you're reading this :)

Busy Day

Well busy week really. We have a release going out of two systems on Monday and there's been a lot to get organised. What sucks is Darren has been having an incredibly busy time at work this week too, so we're both a bit washed out at the end of the day. Well should calm down soon. I actually don't mind it as the day goes by so much quicker.

So not much else going on at the moment. I tidied my room on Monday and it's stayed tidy all week. Darren is much tidier than me normally but I'm really showing him up this week. I think I'll try and keep my stuff tidy from now on... I think it's helping my mood which sounds silly but it's not.

Oh I had a really horrible dream last night!!! It was awful. Luckily Claire was there to look after me (in the dream that is) sometimes I feel more like Claire is my big sister (I'm 7 years older than her) and I guess that came through in the dream. Anyway the dream was about a snake. I was cleaning out my fish tank to get rid of the snails and I'd emptied almost all the water (which is something you never do in real life) and I found that there was this horrible snake in there. It was really gross - it's head looked like a cross between a cobra and the alien from Alien... the way it's mouth came out of it's head.

Anyway the point was there was this awful snake. And the dream went along the lines of me freaking out, then catching it in a bag, then it escaped then I caught it etc. Once I finally caught it I think I decided to sell it on trademe for $40. Which I think would be a bargain.

Don't have much planned for the weekend. The weather is supposed to be cold and wet so I think I'll spend a lot of time on the couch by the fire :)

Also if anyone out there likes reading blogs you should go and check out my friend Lindsey's: http://lindseyjojohnson.blogspot.com/ I love reading blogs even of people I don't know, coz after a while you get to know them!

Oh and Charmain has emailed me a couple of times and she made it to Italy safely :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

:)
Mindy

Just trying a thing

Hi! Just ignore this please :)

The Weather

Ok well now I don't need to train anymore the weather in Christchurch is beautiful. So everyone can thank me for that. It was my pleasure.


Anyway so sometime in May I finished watching Rome. But I can't talk about that too much as it's too sad. I was the saddest I've ever been watching anything... I was really deeply involved in the characters... perhaps because I'd watched each episode about 4 times before watching the final one. Needless to say I would definitely recommend it. But anyway after a significant and difficult mourning period Darren and I are back into Surface. And I'm really enjoying it... we're really at the nail-biter stage. For those of you who don't know Surface is basically about sea monsters... which sounds lame but it's not!


In other news it would be totally wrong of me not to say anything about the new Chili Peppers album. But there is too much to say so I'll just say it is a really awesome album... their best yet. They have just grown and developed so much and have so much talent... it's awesome.

Oh and in other other news I cooked my first corned beef on Monday and it was delicious. (I know I know, it's really not that hard). We had broccoli with it, carrots and roast potatoes, and of course white sauce. And today I haved corned beef sandwiches! Yum! Maybe I should become a chef. Or maybe not but it's funny how much I'm getting into cooking and baking now that I've left home, and I just had absolutely no interest when I was living at home and Mum would have loved me to help. Oh well.

:)
Mindy

Response

To be honest I was hoping for a more over whelming response to the re-birth of my blog... but then again I realise it may take awhile for me to earn the readers trust again after disappointing them so bitterly in the month of May.

So I now have bats in my ceiling! Not the cool black flying kind, but the warm pink insulating kind. I put them there. Darren helped. Ok so it was more like I helped Darren, but it still involved me climbing up a ladder and walking around in the dustiness that is our roof. It was fun, I felt like a builder. Although I realise nothing was actually built.

In other news I am still sick. But that's not very interesting.

Also in the uninteresting category is the fact that we got out a movie called the Void from the highly recommended section of our video shop and it was not very good at all. So now I don't trust United Video fendalton in their recommendations, but I will continue to shop there due to their excellent deals.

:)
Mindy

I did it!!!

I'm so proud of myself and I don't care if I shouldn't be because I think I should. I finished the half marathon and I ran the whole way (except for the drink stations as it's really hard to drink while you're still running). Up to last night I still wasn't sure if I was going to attempt it as my sinuses still were causing me grief... I couldn't even bike for 5 mins without my inhaler. But I didn't want to let Lara down and I'm so glad I did try. I ran with Lara up to 7km and we were going awesomely right on target for under 2 hours but then I had to do a reality check and I realised there was no way I would finish if I didn't slow down as my chest was really starting to hurt... so I said goodbye to Lara and slowed my pace and got my breathe back. Then it was just a case of convincing myself for the next 14km that I shouldn't just stop and go home and watch tv.

Anyway to cut a long story short I didn't stop and my parents surprised me by coming to cheer me on. So I ran the whole 21km!!! And now my feet really hurt. And also my hips. And my... actually that's about all that hurts.

So yay for me. I hope everyone else is having a good Queens birthday weekend!

Love from
Mindy

Oh ps I finished in 2 hours and about 15 minutes. Also Lara did brilliantly and did it in just over 2 hours!! I think 2 hours 2 minutes!!

Back!!!!!

Hey dudes,

I'm back!!!! With a vengence and a hunger for blood. Not really. But if I was an action star hero I would be.

So there's a reason I haven't posted in awhile. It's because I've been working so incredibly hard. Ha! Actually that is a little true, I have been working quite hard.

I've got so much to tell you all my little minions. But I might not get through all of it as I am working hard today too just having a short break. Incidentally the reason I'm writing right now is because Adam pointed out on his site that I hadn't updated for the entire month of May. This is a shocking effort as May is the most important month of the year (being both New Zealand music month and also my birthday). Now I'm not as big a New Zealand music supporter as I probably should be but I just realised I did actually buy some New Zealand music in May... Shihad - Love is the new hate. So good on me.

My birthday was fantastic thanks. I ran a 15km race to start the day off. I won. Just kidding... the person who won probably ran it in half the time I did. But I still did ok 1 hour 27 minutes. And in other running news the SBS marathon and half marathon is on this Sunday and I am running it - the half that is! That is 21km. Now this would be very difficult even in normal circumstances... but even worse for me as about three weeks ago I developed a cold which severely interrupted my training. So I did try and go for a few runs.... one every 3 days or so but they were terrible and hurt my chest. And I still hadn't recovered and also I have conjunctivitis and so went to the doctor yesterday and I actually have sinititus (apparently colds aren't supposed to last three weeks). The good news is I now have medicine and should be ok for Sunday but just a tiny bit undertrained.

My other piece of May news is that inspired by Kon I have learnt the dvorak keyboard (pictured above). I have had many tearing hair out moments, frustrated by my new inability to type, it almost felt like a piece of my brain was missing as I was a pretty fast typist before and to suddenly be slowed to 10 or less words per minute was horrible. The good news is I am now fluent and up to 40 words per minute which is still a little slow for my liking but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. For the record I don't have a new physical keyboard I still have the same old one... so when I press the key that says d I actually get an e on the screen and when I press j I actually get a h and so on... so when I get frustrated with the touch typing I can't even look at the keyboard for help!

I hope everyone is happy and well.

:)
Mindy

Continuation

This might be a little more brief than the first half of the story. But I'm so busy today!!!

On Saturday Bridget and I headed into town and did a little shopping. Number 1 on the agenda was a birthday present for Claire as her birthday was Sunday. I decided to get her a nice photo album for her to put her photography photos in as she's studying photography at school this year. We met up with Sarah and did more shopping. Sarah bought these gorgeous boots and I was very jealous, but managed to stick to my budget and refrain. My budget did allow me to buy one gift for myself however, I chose a book on human physiology and anatomy. It was reducing for $140 to
$35! It also proved to be the stupidest thing to buy as it was so heavy and I then had to lug it around for the rest of that day. Bridget bought one too so she's just as stupid as me ;)

We then went for a walk past Te Papa to the beach and got gelato. Yum! We also almost got blown away at this point, so I guess it was lucky I had the book to weigh me down. Then Sarah went home and Bridget and had a flying visit to Te Papa. Then home, to take off our shoes and curse the huge books we'd bought. We had a delicious Hell's pizza for dinner before braving the cold and heading to Sarah's for a party. The party was great... I spoke to some lovely people. We didn't end up staying too late as wanted to save ourselves $40 and get the train back rather than a taxi.

And then Sunday we slept in. Yay! And there was a massive storm, and then blue skies after that so back to town for some kfc and then a coffee with Sarah. Then I popped on the bus and headed back to the airport and flew back to Christchurch.

The end.

Wellington!

Hello Loyal Readers!

Well I had a great weekend in Wellington. It is such a lovely city... I love visiting there. I don't know that I'd ever move there as I love having it on option as a place to visit ;) And also I love Christchurch so much and if I'm going to move away from my family then it would be further away like in another country. Maybe. Who knows. Anyway the point is I really like Wellington.

On Friday night Sarah and Bridget met me at the bus stop which I so intellligently managed to get off despite being on a bus route in a town I'd only visited once before and had really no idea where I was. Actually that's not true I had my little map and was following it counting the stops till I had to push the button. Turns out the airport bus driver was pretty clued up anyway (as you'd expect) and kindly told me when I should get off - even though I already knew thanks to my excellent navigational skills. But I thought it was kind of him anyway.

We then dropped my bags at a locker and proceeded to walk about a million miles to the other side of town where we had a lovely Indian meal at a restaurant that's name escapes me. Of particular note was the restaurant had these little devices with buttons at each table, and the buttons had labels like "ready to order", "need service", "ready to order drinks". We thought these were a brilliant idea, so we got right into the swing of things and they worked excellently... as soon as we pushed it the waiter was over! He was a cheerful fellow and Sarah was quite concerned that if we'd been too shy to push the button we would have been sitting there all night, but the waiter assured us that they still come and check your ready in the old fashioned way too.

We were all keen on a quiet early night in preparation for Sarah's flatmate's party on Saturday night, however it didn't turn out that quiet. We decided to gate-crash Bridget's work dinner/drinks that was being held at a nearby bar. Although it wasn't so much a gate-crashing as a "come come you have to join us, here have a drink, here have my seat" as Bridget turns out to work with lovely lovely people some of whom were quite drunk by the time we got there. Sarah did manage to head home at a respectable hour Bridget and I however got caught up in some interesting games with her two bosses husbands. Namely "think of a sexy person and we'll vote whether they are or not" which warped to "think of an Irish name and we'll vote whether it sucks or not" which warped to "think of an Arab name and we'll vote on it" etc. For quite sober me these games seemed a tiny bit pointless but hugely funny all the same!

Bridget and I then headed off to catch the train to her place and met this interesting bloke who wanted to discuss child raising and philosophy with Bridget. I was a bit tired to join in, and I thought he was a bit of an egg. Then we walked up Bridget's 210 steps to get to her house and went to bed!

I had better get going on some work now, so more of this story later.

The last thing I'll say for now it bloody steps!!@?>@#$#%&

:)
Mindy

Favourites

Hi,

Just thought I'd keep you up to date with what my favourite things are at the moment. Unfortunately because of the medium I'm choosing to communicate with you all I can't break out into sound of music style song, but that might just be for the best.

- Licourice
- The TV series Rome
- My fire
- Mashed potatoes
- Dani California
- Going to bed early
- Getting letters
- Just Juice Bubbles
- Marshmellow easter eggs
- Rainy days

That is all.

Went to the movies last night with Fenia, and also Klava and Gary but they saw a different movie. Klava has gotten so much more pregnant than she was when i last saw her three weeks ago, it's incredible, but she looks so good!

Don't have any other news.

Bye!

Mindy

Time for an Update

Hello!

I thought it was about time for an update. Although it will be a short one as I really want to start work.

My life has been average to good at the moment. I've got back into my running training this week... ie I've been for a run the past two days. So I feel pretty good about that, running was actually starting to be really uncomfortable prior to this I think a few weeks with only one run per week didn't do me any good. But I'm back on the wagon now.

Oh important news is I'm selling a fish tank for Darren's Mum. So if you want to buy it or check it out at least go to the convenient link on the right that says something like "buy my stuff". On a personal note I can highly recommend keeping tropical fish. They are almost as exciting as the TV to watch and a lot more rewarding. Plus after the initial expense up they are incredibly cheap to keep, must cheaper than most other pets I'd warrant.

Other news. Um. i'm heading to Wellington this weekend to visit with my good friends Sarah and Bridget. I'm so looking forward to that!

Also there are some exciting diggers and dirt shifting vehicles building a new carpark at work so they are quite exciting to watch.

That is all.

Love
Little Miss M

Quick Update

Hi All,

Well just quickly my life has been busy lately. Grandad's funeral things went from Wednesday through to Saturday morning with a lot of organising happening before that. The funeral was really nice, well actually I found it horribly sad but that's to be expected. Claire and Mum both spoke and they were so wonderful I was so proud of them and I'm sure Grandad would have been too. We had the funeral at St Andrews, the church at Rangi Ruru and if any of you have ever been there you'll know it's not a small church. It was completely full. They had to seat people in the choir seats... so I think that's about 600-700 people!

After the funeral we had a dinner at my parents house with people close to Grandad... and it was a good chance for everyone to get into his booze ;) Which we hardly made a dent on... but that might be because Uncle Jim spent another $600 on drinks for the night anyway! You'll be glad to know that Darren and I walked away with a bottle of ouzo, a bottle of Southern Comfort and some kid of tropical liqueur. I'm sure Grandad would have wanted us to have it. It was a nice night anyway not too sad after the sad funeral... one of those nights where you spend a great deal of time being introduced. I've never heard the words "this is my eldest" so many times in one event I don't think! Mum usually adds my name to the introduction, Dad sometimes doesn't... but mostly because if he told the other person my name, he'd have to tell me theirs and most of the time he has no idea what their name is!

The weekend was spent by my family going through Grandad's house. I spent a bit of time there but not too much. Darren and I did the city to surf on Sunday and that was really fun, but also tougher than I'd thought it would be so I've got lots of work to do before the half marathon! Sunday afternoon I had a nap. I was so rudely awoken by Darren to tell me the power had gone off! I know that's kind of exciting... but I don't think I really needed to get woken for it ;) It came on again in about half an hour.

Right well back at work now so I'd better get to it.

:)
Mindy

Hello

Sorry, this is a boring title for a post.

Oh and sorry you guys haven't had any news words for awhile. I hope you've been practising your other ones.

Well the reason I didn't write yesterday is because my Grandad passed away on Monday morning.

I don't really want to write much about it just at the moment. Maybe after his funeral I will. Anyway so I haven't been at work and I've been trying to help Mum out and stuff.

Thankyou to everyone I've told for your kind messages.

:)
M

ps I'm spending the morning scanning in photos of him for his funeral tomorrow and I found this lovely one of him so I've added it to the post.

Sore Arm!

Asphyxia

Pronunciation: as-'fik-sE-&, &s-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, stopping of the pulse, from a- + sphyzein to throb
: a lack of oxygen or excess of carbon dioxide in the body that is usually caused by interruption of breathing and that causes unconsciousness

Well there you go. There's your new word for today. Try and use it in a sentence and "Today I learnt a new word asphyxia." Doesn't count as a sentence.

So I had a good weekend. I spent all Friday in preparation of going home, pouring a bath, snuggling up and having an early night in bed and watching Rome. But then Darren gets home and tells me he's invited Fenia and Dan etc round. So I ended up going out... yes going into town! For the first time in AGES! It was tons of fun. Didn't see anyone I know which was strange but still an awesome time.

On Saturday I awoke too early and cleaned the whole house. Our house is SO lovely and clean now. I am so excited about living in this nice clean house. I even vacuumed. I also did the garden.

And now I can't even remember what else I did. Hmmm. This is bugging me. Oh well. I'm sure I went somewhere or something. Maybe I just watched Rome. It is getting upsetting and tense, but I think I'll stick it out and find out what happens.

Sunday I went and saw Kim. We got lunch and I had a souvlaki and it was way too big and then I felt really really full. I also did even more gardening and planted my bulbs. And that's about it.

Grandad is back in hospital again which is a bit sad. They think maybe this will be the last time he goes in. I miss not having him next door to go and say hello to each afternoon. And just seeing that he's still around, you know.

Oh and the reason I have a sore arm is because I banged it really hard on the edge of the sink. And now there's a big purple bruise.

:)
Mindy

Happy St Patrick's Day!

As an afterthought I realised it's St Patrick's Day!

Aspartame

Aspartame

Pronunciation: 'as-p&r-"tAm, &-'spär-"tAm
Function: noun
Etymology: aspartic acid + phenylalanine + methyl + ester
: a crystalline compound C₁₄H₁₈N₂O₅ that is a diamide synthesized from phenylalanine and aspartic acid and that is used as a low-calorie sweetener

Well even though I already knew the word aspartame I thought it would be on topic to put an official definition since today's topic isin factt aspartame.

I don't want to write too much on the topic as there are numerous resources available on the web. But anyway I watched the documentary Sweet Misery, A Poisoned World about aspartame. It tells the stories of some people who have had severe medical conditions that have been caused by or contributed to by their excess intake of artificial sweeteners. Even more interesting is the story around how it became legalised and the politics around this. It is obvious that there was something suspicious going on.

Basically aspartame has effects on the brain. It has caused brain tumours in animals, and the documentary purports that it can be linked to other mental disorders. Relevant to me is that is has been linked to seratonin production. It hasformaldehydee as a by product which as I understand it is a poison that just hangs around and can't be processed by the body.

Here is a really good page opposing aspartame:

Dorway

It states that a recently released study conclusively links aspartame to cancer. You can read the press release here or the entire study here. Both links were taken from the dorway site.

And here is the official aspartame page supporting it:

Aspartame Information Service

So anyway I encourage everyone to have a look and make up their own mind. Like I said yesterday if there's this much controversy and people working very hard to prove this is a harmful chemical to humans then I have decided not to risk it, as I know I'm not getting any health benefits from diet coke anyway and so my health can only improve.

On a completely unrelated topic I was watching Rome again last night (the next episode) and it was GREAT! I am so loving this series. Anyway I remembered one particularly lovely quotation. Lucius is a Roman soldier who has been in Gaul for 8 years away from his wife, he just about to be reunited with her and a fellow soldier Titus Pullo is explaining why Lucius is so scared about going back to his wife: "What if she's lost her teeth? What is she's gone skinny? What if she's let some other man..." well the rest of the sentence isn't appropriate for my blog. But I thought it was so wonderful a man being worried about his wife getting skinny! I was so expecting him to say what if she's got fat? But no he was worried about her getting skinny. How times have changed.

Diet Coke

Cloister

Pronunciation: 'kloi-st&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English cloistre, from Old French, from Medieval Latin claustrum, from Latin, bar, bolt, from claudere to close -- more at CLOSE
1 a : a monastic establishment b : an area within a monastery or convent to which the religious are normally restricted c : monastic life d : a place or state of seclusion
2 : a covered passage on the side of a court usually having one side walled and the other an open arcade or colonnade
[cloister illustration]

Don't get me wrong cloister was obviously a very familar word to me, and I had some idea that it was referring to some kind of feature of old buildings but this is about me pinning words down. There are a huge number of words that I may understand when I'm reading or hearing them in context but if I was asked to define them I wouldn't be able to give a very accurate description. Thus I need to admit that I didn't know exactly what a cloister was, and now I do so I'm very happy. It's only 8.30 and I've already learnt something.

About diet coke. Now some of you may know that after hearing a documentary on the sweetener aspartame I decided to give up diet coke. I know there is a lot of hype about artificial sweeteners and not all of it may be true but my logic was this: even if aspartame isn't all that bad giving up diet coke is not going to hurt me. Even if I don't benefit from reducing my aspartame intake I probably will benefit from reducing my diet coke intake anyway. So yeah I gave up diet coke completely. And I used to drink quite a lot of it. Sometimes I'd have a can of it at work - maybe three times a week - and normally a couple of glasses of it after work.

So I gave it up and that was all fine, I didn't go through any withdrawal which I was quite surprised about as coke is my only source of caffine and I thought totally cutting caffine out of my diet might affect me, but I guess coke doesn't really have that much in it, and well, it didn't affect me so yay!

Now what happened though was after a while I got into the habit of occasionally having a can of real coke while at work. Because I've got no quarrel with sugar... but this became more and more frequent and so I decided I needed to stop having coke at work. Yesterday though I really wanted a cold drink, and while tap water is lovely, it's not all that cold. So I decided I have a diet coke. As most of the negative effects of aspartame only really apply for people who consume it in excess, so I thought one can once a week would be ok. But the thing was I didn't even enjoy it. And now I have no desire for a diet coke again! Isn't that great.

I encourage everyone to follow my example!

:)
Mindy