I just got my girlfriend pregnant

This was written on the crude, handwritten sign as I walked into church this morning. It took me a second to realise what it was about and then I read a further sign proclaiming “I drink to get rid of the sadness” and then I knew our service was going to be a bit different this morning. It was our Vision Sunday and I have to say I wasn’t feeling overly enthusiastic about it, maybe because of me or maybe because I have some frustrations with our church model at the moment. I go t0what is the largest church in New Zealand and while it is a good place with great people and excellent teaching things can feel rather disconnected at times. I’ve been there for two years and the reason why I chose it was because my senior pastor was on the board of my previous church so it seemed like the natural place to be. I have to say though, that I’ve never really felt settled there. It has been an incredibly hard place to find your feet in and due to various health issues in my life I haven’t been able to always put in the necessary effort to get know people. Pockets of the church function extremely well, the Asian lifegroup network is amazing, for example but that is possibly because they don’t do things the Pakeha (European) way, but as a whole I get a sense of disconnection most weeks and wonder how many people slip out the backdoor and no one notices….

Anyway… so that’s the background to our service this morning where quite a new direction has been revealed and I have to say that I’m very pleased. Especially because my Senior Pastor is very influential in our country and internationally and I hope it will maybe change some thinking….

So this year the theme for the year is connection, which is a word that can make you want to cringe. But I think they have a genuine intention to actually get it happening and we’ve been having great messages about stepping out, opening our homes and lives etc lately. All stuff most of the world probably doesn’t need to be told to do, but somehow Western culture forgets. So how are we going to do this better? Well instead of the multiple services with different messages, we’re going down to one message but at different times only due to the space constraints at the venue I attend. So basically you only have to go to church once on a Sunday! Wow! And then you have a lot of extra time to have lunch/coffee/meet with people. How about that for an idea? I also think it will allow people to actually have a Sabbath and relax too? All great stuff and I’m excited to see how things change.

I know in the past when I’ve gone to churches with multiple services the emphasis somehow very quickly goes on not missing out on a service and making sure you’re part of it and if you have a personality like me you just want to be part of things. But I think this is too much maybe and it means that your time with people suffers – you’re racing into the next service instead of lingering over a coffee, cutting short a lunch visit to get back to church or not going out at all as you want to have energy for the night service. The New Testament church is pretty clear that we were to be meeting in each others homes as well as going attending services so I think we start to miss the point. And church becomes more about entertainment and receiving and me.

And those cardboard signs? Well, they were just another reminder that there are people all around us with needs and we are called to be salt and light. I’m excited to see what happens this year and determined to get involved in the ways that are right for me.

Frugal Friday and a trip down memory lane

Yesterday I went for a drive down to my home town which is about 40 mins south from where I live. I called in for lunch with my old neighbour who is also my godmother and was treated to lovely fresh caught snapper and home grown veges which was quite a treat! I then called into an old school friend who still lives in the town and has four children (!), chickens, an organic garden and a great self-sufficiency vibe going on. It was great to catch up with her as we’re not super-close but we share a lot of strong opinions about things and probably lean towards the alternative. I think I’ve always seen myself living her life in a few years time, possibly without the four kids though!

We all went down to this great spot she knew about to go blackberry picking as it’s a really good year for them this year. I used to do this almost every day when I was a kid so it was so much fun to do it again after all this time – well until I got stung by wasps… twice! I was reaching my had right into where there were two nests it turns out. And it also turns out that I’m not allergic to that type which was a great experiment as my mother almost died a few years ago from a wasp sting and I’d always been curious to know if I was allergic too.

My friend also loaded me up with veges from her garden – cucumbers, bok choi and yummy cos lettuce so I will be feasting on those over the weekend. I then called into my godmothers again and did some more blackberry picking as they had bushes on their farm as well (might just have to make pie!) and raided their lemon and peach tree as well. So my frugal tip for the week is find yourself some free food! It’s probably better for you anyway. Well, I know this tip doesn’t work for everyone, but it does make me glad I moved back up here as I have access to friends with farms and gardens again. I then had dinner with my dad last night (more free food) and he gave me a great big bag of peppers as well and I forgot to raid his garden before I left, but I think I might have enough veges for a while.

Oh and here are some photos of where I grew up…

This is my family church that I grew up in – isn’t it cute?

 

This is the road I grew up on – and the winery

 

 

The view to my old house – all of those other houses weren’t there though! Just as well as my mum was a bit of a yeller and they probably wouldn’t have enjoyed being our neighbour.

After I couldn’t wait to escape as a teenager it surprises me that I miss it so much there!

New development in my health…

Well, it’s been an interesting week for me where I’ve really felt like I made some progress. I ended up going to a Chiropractor, even though I wasn’t a huge fan and actually I have so much more energy it’s amazing. And my neck feels so much better! So I’m gonna keep going I think. The interesting development is that she told me today that my thyroid feels enlarged and I need to go and get it checked out, which is really interesting because I actually had been wondering myself if I had thyroid issues as I just don’t seem to be losing weight at all and I’m exercising every morning, watching my diet etc – I should not weigh over 80kgs I think! So I’m going to go get blood tests on Monday.

Even more interesting is that I googled syptoms of thyroid disorder and whiplash to see if there is any connection (just a hunch I had today as I wondered why I would suddenly start having issues) and I found on numerous sites that there is a link as the whiplash can damage the gland. And  lot of the sypmtoms are very similar to brain injury symptoms too so maybe if I get this sorted then I’ll be feeling a whole lot better fullstop. I feel pretty excited to have discovered this and hope I’ll get some answers soon!

Oh and I finally have a neuro psyche assessment booked – but it’s on the 18th of March which is when I’m meant to be in the States! And once I get that assessment and get cleared for work I’m not allowed to leave the country. Not really sure what’s going to happen but I’m a bit peeved at J that he refused to listen to me for the last 2 months when I told him that I needed to come sooner rather than later….

Flights and people pleasing

I was on the phone for about an hour today with Air NZ checking out their fares to Miami as they have a sale to LA at the moment and I figured it would be worth it to see if I could get those prices. The poor guy was trying so hard and entered almost every imaginable combination into the system from LA to get a connecting flight with either American or United and then he finally tried through San Francisco (which would be my preference actually if there were more connecting flights as I’d love to go there and I have friends there too)… wellafter about half an hour of trying  every possible combination, he finally came up with a “fantastic” option of a flight from Auckland, stopping over in San Francisco for a night and then going through DC to Miami…. all for exactly the same price as the AA flight was online (the one that was direct through LA and is the easiest). I knew when he started to tell me about it that it wasn’t going to be an option as I simply don’t want to have two stopovers each way in the States and I know I don’t have enough time to actually visit either of those two places, as much as I’d like to.

So did I tell him to stop? No. I let him keep going and even gave him my email address so he could send the details through, let him give me the website for the crappy new security thing that we foreigners have to register on before we go now (MUSTN”T FORGET!) and even quoted me travel insurance (well, I was curious to know the cost of that). I just felt so bad. And he was so enthusiastic and saying “You’d better tell your boyfriend the trouble I went to” etc. Um, yeah I will when we’re booking with another airline that I actually have airpoints with.

What is wrong with me that I couldn’t say no to nice Paul from the Air NZ call centre and wasted so much of his time? I don’t know – but does anyone else have these sorts of issues?

Flights and long distance relationships

My new years resolution (one of them) was to talk less about my relationship and worry less about what others think about it so it’s been a while since I posted much about what is going on in my love life and this blog sorta started out quite  focused on this, so I thought it might be about time to bore you all with some details. I’m also in the position of not being a 100% sure if a certain boy has discovered my blog, I’m sure I’m usually complimentary but spewing my guts out (sorry, is this an antipodean phrase?) is probably not the wisest when I’m not sure who is reading! But I figure, it’s time for a bit of an update.

Things have really improved between us since I started feeling a lot better in January. I felt like some of my spark came back and I know I was back to some of my old ways. J just had to wait it out and I feel so grateful in a way that we were not in the same city, I think it may have made surviving the whole MBTIthing a lot easier even though I wished I had him here. He sent me a lovely bunch of roses for Valentines day (remember all I sent was a card and apparently didn’t turn up) and I feel like he is falling for me all over again, which is so lovely.

We definitely have our issues though – last week we ended up having a bit of an argument via email while he was away travelling. Though it was okay actually – quite a concise way to argue. Both of us would speak our mind and obviously regret it and then send a sweet little one liner about 15 minutes later as a bit of an apology. Not a bad way to argue. But one of my points was that because it’s a lot cheaper for me to call him, than him to call me it feels like I’m the one bugging him if he’s busy all the time (and in long distance relationships with time differences it happens) and how if he called me more then he’d experience the reverse. Well this is where I think he played the ninja mind trick on me (or am I just giving him way too much credit?) as I was woken from a deep sleep at 5.30am this morning with a phone call which I just assumed was one of my flatmates family members overseas, but turned out to be my boy and he aapparently didn’t know the time here and was calling to say he missed me. Sweet, or a really, really clever way to prove a point and wake me up? Hmm. Well, I think I’ll chose to believe it was sweet and also get excited that we’re trying to pick dates for me to go out there, hopefully in March. Yay!

So, what did I do today after that call? I checked the American Airlines site for prices next month ($1500 return US – not too bad), wrote tons of lists about what I need to do before I go (involving waxing and that stupid new security clearance, etc) lists about what to pack in each item of baggage (to avoid putting the wrong things in a suitcase that could go missing again) and what I want to buy in the States while I’m there (I’m holding out on a few things that I know are cheaper – like running shoes).

I’m trying to be super-organised so I don’t get in a stew at the last minute. I’m lucky that I don’t have to work either side of the trip at least at the moment but it’s still going to be a huge thing for me to travel that far and I maybe a bit of a mess at the other end. I’m praying right now for very good seats or an upgrade! I’m going to ask for special assistance too in case my brain is fried at LAX when I get there – I’m not sure what this is like for brain injury people so any advice from anyone reading would be appreciated. I’m sure if my life depended on it I could find my way around, but as I know I get a bit confused still if I’m somewhere I haven’t been to before I just don’t want to risk having a meltdown after a long, overnight flight. Hopefully the residual fatigue will help me sleep too and the special assistance will mean I get to skip a few lines here and there – Tom Bradley is an absolute nightmare to come into if you are not American – I had to wait an hour last time and then go queue again for another hour in security which just seemed pointless considering I had just gotten off another flight.

I also am desperately trying to figure out if I can get food for the flight to Miami in Tom Bradley and I think I figured out there is a sushi place. I can’t eat dairy and try not to eat gluten and given the effects they have on my body it is not good for me to relax too much and eat it anyway when travelling. Last time I flew through LA it was very rushed (due to standing in lines for so long) and I only managed to grab a granola bar for the 4 1/2 hour flight so this time I want to be a bit more prepared as my brain doesn’t cope too well if I go a long time without food.

So, it’s all a big exciting step for me as I travel overseas again, see my lovely boy and figure out if I can make a home in Florida. I’m really looking forward to hopefully a bit of normal time together  to just be a couple though and figure out if that is a good thing or not though.

Falling out of bed is bad

Last week I fell out of bed and banged my head pretty hard on the bedside table. No, I wasn’t in throws of passion with a hot man (in case you were at all delusion about the excitement level in my life) as I was alone in a single bed at the time. And very sound asleep so good knows what I was dreaming about. I’ve been feeling pretty average ever since – headaches, tiredness some of the back and neck tension issues again so I think maybe the knock wasn’t so good for me. It’s also extremely muggy and sticky at the moment which just isn’t helping things. My routine has gone out the window and up til last week I was really enjoying exercising at 6 am and having some good workouts so I’m finding this really frustrating. I’ve been sleeping more too and my appetite has been strange, all of which is leading to my mood going downhill as well. I think I’ve also been missing my boy as he’s been off travelling a bit so we haven’t had our usual little chats online and phone calls and I  guess I notice the gap more than he does.

I really need to get back in a good routine and hope I start feeling better. And losing weight, I haven’t been eating all that great lately as my appetite has been strange so I know I’ve put some on this week. I still haven’t been cleared for work yet, waiting, waiting waiting on the neuropsyche assessment apparently. Which is great, but they get booked up so you have to be patient to get an appointment. I also have been putting out feelers in my own networks about jobs and some great ones got emailed through today – but they are in Wellington and at a level I’m just not at yet. In a years time they’d be perfect. I don’t want to move back to Wellington so I’m not too upset, but it’s making this whole job hunting thing that much harder that the people I know have a lot more faith in me than they should. And I don’t know how to say that I’m not the person I used to be, when hopefully I will be that person again oneday before too long.

Oh and I really want to go back to Florida soon too and I’m hoping details fall into place before too long.

On a positive note, I got invited to coffee with some lovely ladies from church yesterday and we’re going to be doing it regularly.  Totally great timing and two of the girls there had first hand experience of head injuries, which is pretty unusual, so I think I’ll be in good hands. It is slowly starting to feel like my life is rebuilding.

Frugal Friday

I’m having to be pretty frugal at the moment as I’m not sure if I’m going to get paid until Monday as I forgot to get my med cert updated so I’m in a bit of a bad mood. I have to go to the doctors every six weeks at the moment to get the GP to sign that I’m still not fit to work, though I tell them what the situation is and they pretty much just listen to me with a brief check in the system at any correspondence they might have about me. I just forgot until Wednesday to go back and get it renewed so it’s going to be a very quiet weekend I think.

It’s absolutey pouring down with monsoonal like weather at the moment as well – it’s sticky and very, very wet so I don’t really want to drive too far on the roads either. That’s going to be my money saving tip I think – stay home and clean the house when it’s wet! I’m also trying to use up a lot of the food in my pantry, which is frugal but not necessarily good for my waistline as the food I make myself isn’t always the best for losing weight. Especially not the gluten free flat bread I made this morning that tasted so good I ate waaaaayyyy too much. Oops. It was cheap though, does that count?

He’s just not that into you

So who else has been to see this movie in an effort to get more educated about the strange and alien ways men behave? My Tuesday afternoon ritual seems to involve getting cheap tickets to the movies and sitting in the dark air-conditioned escape zone (it’s really humid here at the moment) and yesterday I braved “He’s just not that into you” and enjoyed it, but I have to admit I didn’t walk out of the theatre totally uplifted or anything – is that because it didn’t have smaltzy, formula romantic comedy? Hmm. I think it and the book do a great job at highlighting to women that men don’t think the way we do, which is really helpful. I have a guy flatmate at the moment and we have many conversations at night asking each other’s opinion on romantic affairs – it’s amazing how different guys think. He asked us last night for example how long a woman could go without sex and both my girl flatmate and I were like “years” and were in total agreement, which he just couldn’t believe. We warned him to treat his future wife right so that didn’t happen!

Anyway… the film gives a great insight into how guys work, but also had a few wonderful moments – my favourite being the scene where one character figures out that a guy likes her and then suddenly her work colleague pulls up a website about destination weddings! I laughed very loudly at that point because it was so, so true – you barely announce that you’re dating and all your friends and family start planning the wedding. The film also made me realise how differently marriage is viewed in NZ by most people (non-Christians which are the majority of the country) as it’s really not a big deal to live together for seven or eight years before getting married and the girls seem pretty happy with this. They really only (sometimes) seem to want to walk up the aisle before they have children, whereas one of the main storylines in the film seemed to try to say that if a guy lives with you for seven years without popping the question he’s just not that into you.

Maybe the best thing about the whole concept is to brush aside some of the feelings on equality in dating that have permeated our thinking in this post-feminist era. We are different in the way we approach things and us girls need to remember there is a bit more of a game involved and that men actually like that game, but also that there are exceptions to the rules as well.

Frugal Friday

It used to be that I would spend a LOT of money on my hair. It was short and I had to get it cut every six weeks to keep it looking good. I don’t naturally have very nice hair – it’s pretty fine and I have a large head with a big forehead so I don’t look that great unless I put a bit of effort in. When I first moved to Wellington in 2003 and was earning pretty ok money I remember shopping around a bit to find a good hairdresser that wasn’t too expensive and after paying Sydney and London rates I settled on a great girl called Karen at a funky salon who charged about $60 a cut from what I remember, which was fine. Well, she was a good hairdresser, so good that she then closed her books to new clients and gradually they snuck their prices up so I was then paying around $100 a cut plus colour. And then there were the hair treatments. And the salon products (GHD make great shampoo, but it’s expensive) and the highlights… it soon added up but I was caught in a cycle that I couldn’t get out of. I didn’t want to have rubbish hair but I was too scared to go anywhere else.

One of my hair dos in Wellington.

So how am I being more frugal? Well, I decided to grow my hair out, which has really cut back on  the number of times that I need to go to the salon. It was great timing with my accident as I just didn’t care that much what my hair looked like for a while there. I haven’t really gotten “committed” to a stylist in Auckland yet either so I just don’t want to have short hair and risk having a horrible butch haircut (it has definitely happened before).

I only get my highlights done about twice a year, though when I’m working again I’ll probably try to do it a little more often and I keep my colour fairly natural now so I don’t get bad roots anyway as I’m pretty much blonde. I’ve found a lovely lady who is just around the corner from my house to style my hair and her prices are very reasonable and I liked my last cut and colour a lot – this was it:

I have to admit I still use salon products on my hair – I’ve been doing so since I was about 18 and I think that they are worth the extra money as they are concentrate so you lose less and therefore use less packaging and a container can last me up to a year, even when I used to wash my hair every day. I don’t buy products from hairdressers when I’m getting a cut now though, I tend to buy from those hair product shops in the malls and try to get a special. Trade Secret was great when I was in the US and I’m hanging out for another trip there to stock up. I also just bought some good quality straightening irons – not GHDs though (gasp) as my hairdresser friend recommended an alternative brand that is also a third cheaper than GHD. And I think they work absolutely fine, much better than the el cheapo ones I bought years ago and didn’t work. Don’t get sucked in by the GHD marketing, there are other brands now that are just as good if you’re careful.

Now, I know a lot of working women probably have the money for doing their hair and this all might be a bit redundant but I remember when I was working in professional jobs and knowing I couldn’t afford what I was spending on my hair, but I was too scared to try to find alternatives (everyone who gave me cheap hair tips seemed to have ugly hair). I also remember wondering what I would do if I took a pay cut or stopped working to have kids as I knew i was spending way too much.  But there is a way out! Growing my hair has been great as I only need a cut about every three months now and I’ve just had to be less of a snob about my hair. But actually looking back I think I don’t think it looks too bad and I seem to get a lot of compliments from my Wellington friends when they haven’t seen me for a while so it must be okay.

I suck at Valentines

I have a little confession to make… I suck at the whole Valentines thing it turns out. Since I haven’t had a boyfriend actually on February 14th for a long, long time (grunge may have still been in the last time) I am so used to curling up in a foetal position and humming “la la la” on the day to try to ignore it that I sorta forgot that it was this weekend. Well, I forgot until a certain boy asked me again what my address was as he wanted to send me something for next week. And I was like why…. and then I realised. Oops. And I was at the beach with no internet and not really anywhere to go shopping. And probably a week was too short to get anything sent from NZ to the States anyway.

So after some frantic emailing and advice from Nichole and Andrea (thanks guys) I browsed around a few US based websites but really didn’t come up with any inspiration as the cheap candy idea turned out to be not so cheap with the sucky NZ dollar at the moment (everything is double pretty much) so I decided to send a card with a nice message inside and I’ll probably try to take some photos with a silly message or something on the day and email them. Luckily, it turns out that he mentioned he’s got to go to St Louis this weekend for work so it’s probably really good I didn’t get cupcakes delivered like I was considering. 

I think we’re both sad that we can’t spend time together anyway, me because I’m a quality time love language person and he because apparently he was planning to fly me out this week for a visit but unforseen circumstances have prevented that (long story, hopefully will be resolved soon). I think I might just settle for a nice chat on the phone or over the webcam anyway – though which day…. it’s the 15th here by the time it’s the 14th there. We can celebrate twice?

And I almost forgot the most important thing – I get to recieve something on Valentines Day! So even though I’ll be alone, I won’t feel the searing rejection quite so bad this year for once.