My new garden and why laziness pays

I thought I’d share that I finally got around to actually creating a proper garden. Well, actually my dad helped me create a proper garden and I wish I could show you step by step how we did it, but truthfully he did it so fast I hardly noticed. He has been saving a few posts for me and hammered them all together in a jiffy and then we laid down newspaper over the grass to stop it growing through. I do hear there are far more time consuming techniques for building up a garden, but dad is a really good gardener and he said newspaper was fine so I believe him! 

A quick trip to the garden centre later for a few bags of compost (am I the only one who finds it strange that I throw so much down my garbage disposal but then have to go buy compost?) and I have a garden…. see -

 

I have to get a few more bags and keep building it up but it’s not looking too bad for now.

Look at how well my silverbeet and spinach is doing? It grows itself – I just got out and pick some when I need it!

I then planted the lettuce, kale and bok choi seedlings I’d been carefully cultivatning over the last couple of months. Um, actually I can’t lie. Over the summer I let the greens I planted go to seed and I discovered this week that the seeds were so kind to fall on the grass and grow and as I hadn’t mowed my lawns since before my trip to Florida, well I had a nice little lawn of lettuce and such growing! So I carefully dug up the plants and, voila – instant garden! 

Who says laziness doesn’t pay? Pfff I say to them. I even managed to give some seedlings to my dad, which was a first! 

Now I just have to figure out what else to plant for winter (yes, I know I’m getting a bit late) as I don’t have much room left I’ll have to be strategic and get some more compost mix.  I’d love carrots from the garden as they’re so sweet and brocoli as well. I also hear that one of the Asian cabbages grows like a weed here, so I’m keen for anything that will flourish without much attention from me.

This week…

I started training for a duathlon this week by going for a couple of bike rides in the country and I had great plans to go for a run today. Just as I was starting to get excited about the challenge I got the news today that it’s been CANCELLED! How rude! I don’t think there will be many other opportunities over the winter so I guess I just need to keep going  in preparation for the summer. I even tried my friend’s road bike out the other day – they sure take a bit of getting used to but I would love to get one as I’m sick of the extra work peddling on my mountain bike!

There is still no progress on the work front. Nothing, nada, zip. So racing off to Florida last month was a bit silly, as I could have gone now. Great. I am trying to focus on keeping busier as I’ve just about reached my limit of being at home all the time. I used to love it before, but now I’m going stir crazy. 

My goals for May are to read more – I’ve got a ton of books I need to get through and possibly could be starting a book club too (though not joining one with ladies at Church as I want to read serious literature not ‘Christian Fiction’, no offence to any writers of that genre, I just want to challenge myself) and I want to get back to exercising in the early morning again every week day, spend less wasteful time on the internet and get out and spend time with actual people a lot more. 

The anniversary of my accident is looming at the end of May as well, sooooo much has changed in a year it’s unbelievable sometimes but I still can’t really comprehend that it’s been almost a year since I worked full time. I know God has me right where He wants me though so I am not going to get stressed out about this. I’m sure the delays are all part of His plan as well.

Waste not want not

In these days of increasing awareness of frugality I have to say that my mother has the best job ever (yes, we’re slowly forming some kind of relationship again).

My mother works in a part time role at the company that runs the transfer station (ie. the rubbish dump) which you might imagine to be a very unglamorous and smelly job. But actually, it turns out that it’s pretty as people take a lot of really, really good stuff in there that they don’t know what to do with.  Unfortunately they don’t have any system of rescuing the good stuff so it all gets crushed if my mum doesn’t get in and save it. 

I have narrowly missed out on sofas in the last month, as they ended up getting crushed before dad could get down and pick them up. But today I managed to get a really good quality two seater and one seater sofa from there – dad just came and dropped them off and when I looked underneath I realised they are Freedom Furniture ones (Freedom is a fairly trendy and over-priced furniture store here) so they are good quality too! There are a few tears on them, so I might look into recovering them as they are definitely well constructed, otherwise a few cushions and throws might disguise it. I’m actually really happy with them as they are very much the shape of a sofa that I would buy also! 

I also got a new television for my bedroom, a gas heater and an oil filled heater in the last week, now all I need is a new bookshelf and I will be happy.  

Really, it is amazing what people throw away – all of this just ends up in landfill and it just seems such a waste when there are poor families living in the near vicinity of the dump who could use furniture etc. But I for one am happy that they are giving away such good quality furniture – just got to go wash those cushion covers now.

Auckland in Autumn

I went for a walk around Cornwalk Park and One Tree Hill recently and deliberately took a few photos so I could share them with the two people who read my blog. Did I load them? Nooooo. So here goes, some lovely shots from the top of One Tree Hill. 

The monument is now the only thing on top of the hill, the tree died a few years ago after it was attacked. They can’t get their act together to plant another one.

Limbo and amazing travel deals at moment

I’m in a sort of limbo waiting for some progress so I can go back to work soon… hopefully. I’m obviously a lot better as I am really bored – I really don’t think I have many sypmtoms left at all and I’m certainly coping reasonably well with my life as it is so it’s time for a new challenge.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but at the moment there are some GREAT travel deals around – currently it is about $1200 NZD to fly return to LA (less than $600 US) so it’s so tempting to book another ticket over! But, with the current uncertaintly about my schedule it’s too hard. I’m also tempted to book a flight to Australia as they are really cheap as well… but again I’m just not sure of my schedule (and my budget is pretty tight actually). I also am trying to get into a good routine again, and it’s not really working that well so I suspect more travel may not be a good thing. Sigh.

But if anyone wants to come visit me with all the cheap fares around – I’d be happy to play host!

I’m also trying to get out and meet some new people as I’m starting to get rather isolated at home I think. In the pat work has formed so much of my life – my socialising and my worth – so it is quite strange now not to have colleagues to hang out with and the identity that comes from what you do. I have to admit I get a bit anxious if I have to go to a social event (like the wedding over Easter weekend) to explain what I do for a living when people ask the dreaded “what do you do?” question. It’s silly, completely silly really as I found out at the wedding as there were about six people at the wedding at my table and the one next to us who were unemployed.  So the recession is definitely hitting in NZ, a year ago it would have been unheard of to have six young professional people out of work in one place. I almost felt lucky that ACC have to help me get back into work.

With regards to socialising, I think I almost need to start from scratch a bit and rebuild my life. Some people have definitely drifted out of my life in the last year, mostly I’m ok with it as I’m grateful for the quality people that are around. It’d just be nice to have a few more closer friends who live near me. I’ve also made the move of deleting a few people of facebook recently – it turns out that some girls I introduced to each other all seem to be good friends yet none of them have really bothered to stay in my life. Rather than get upset about seeing photos posted there, I just decided to delete them. Isn’t modern technology so funny? Facebook is fabulous for keeping in touch with people that you want to stay in contact with, but it really does seem all a bit high school at times too.

Ok, that’s enough navel gazing for today. I need to clean myself and the house and then get out and do some stuff!

Neuro Psyche Results

I just realised that I didn’t share the mostly good news of the testing that I did last month. I got the report through finally last week and it was pretty much all good. 

My visual memory improved significantly from July last year – I went from being in the 35% percentile to the 85% percentile. The geek in me was disappointed in some ways as I think I would have been better before the accident, but I suppose being better than 85% of the population is not something to complain about. 

The only major area that seems to be a problem is cognitive fatigue, which seems to just be a fancy term for tired brain. They are recommending a gradual and supervised return to work as this could be a problem. How it will be a problem, I’m not sure. If any other MTBI people know then please feel free to comment.

The interesting thing was at the wedding on Saturday that I went to, there was a girl there that I supposedly met in November last year as well, but I had absolutely no recollection of her. That happened a few times at work as well, I know it wouldn’t happen now and I’m so pleased as it was rather scary and embarassing for me as I was pretty spot on with faces and details, even if their names would escape me. 

I’m bored as hell at the moment and looking forward to getting back into a good routine.

Somehow I found this story very encouraging

Tonight there was a story about a Nick Chisholm who has had Locked In Syndrome for the last nine years since an accident. He met a girl on the other side of the world and after nine months of corresponding with her, she came out to meet him. And it appears that love bloomed. Nick seemed so happy with her and to have a great family that were concerned for his welfare. I really hope it does work for them and Nicola seemed a wonderful girl.

The lesson I learnt? I think I need to stop worrying about not ever finding someone who’ll want to marry me since my accident also.

My flight

I got to go up in my godfather’s plane yesterday – with the ‘excuse’ of checking the holiday weekend traffic going back into Auckland – but really I think he just wanted to make use of his newly renewed Pilots license. I hadn’t been in it for about 10 years, so it was fun to go up for a fly and enjoy the scenary, even though I did make a fews jokes about going to heaven if anything went wrong!

Here Alex is pushing the plane out of the garage where he stores it with the cars!

 

Despite being blocked up with a headcold – here I am about to brave the rather scary airstrip for take off (it’s on a hill!)

Flying over the road I grew up on.

Coming along the Waikato river – was fun to be above ground but not too above ground.

 

The Waikato River going North.

Don’t you love the type written instructions?

Good Friday

After an early, early start at the Vigil at our church this morning I am trying to take some time out to remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us on the Cross. That He suffered for us. That the victory is won. That I don’t need to be and shouldn’t be down. That there is eternity stretching before us, that this life is but a blink.

It is a beautiful day and I do feel grateful in my heart after the reminder this morning. 

I hope you all have a blessed Easter (or Passover, I sorta wish I could be part of that too) and that you too have an encounter with Christ.

I can’t cheat my diet

Stupidly I got a bit relaxed about what I ate while travelling and especially last week when I was in the jetlag hell and craving bread and now I am suffering for it. I don’t eat dairy as I’m lactose intolerant and I also try to not have gluten (I’m good about 90% of the time which is normally fine) as both can really impact on pain levels when you have endometriosis (and I suspect a lot of other medical conditions). About once a year or so I think I’m too smart for the diet and get really relaxed and then a few weeks later I really suffer. Well, I’m not happy at the moment – it’s been a rough couple of days, but luckily the headache seems to be finally subsiding, I don’t think that was diet related but I got sick of it after two days.

So, it’s back to the strict diet and believing that my normal lifestyle is good for me.