Yesterday I got to achieve one of my long held dreams – I got to model a toilet paper wedding dress at my friends hen’s party. For the uninitiated, a hen’s night is the equivalent of a bachelorette party, it’s just not as cool sounding. But that’s what we call it. The guy version is a Stag night, doesn’t that sound more fun?

Anyway, so we had the wonderful toilet paper wedding dress design competition and I got to be the model for it. Our design inspiration was big, puffy, 80s style dresses:

I think maybe I look like I’m enjoying being in a wedding dress too much here.

The lovely back view.

I was also a bit naughty and gave the bride a few useful things for her honeymoon, like cranberry juice and some other things that might help them with their goal of only having two children (the groom follows replacement theory, it was in quiz she had to answer about him).

But there were also a few treats for the night as well…. as shown above. And someone baked some really special cookies that I couldn’t quite bring myself to eat.

For any guys who are reading this… the group also hit the town for dinner and dancing (I was too tired and poor to do this) so there was some actual fun in the day as well. Though actually making toilet paper wedding dresses is surprisingly enjoyable as well.

Ok, I was wondering aimlessly around the mall yesterday and I found that there were tons of fascinators and hats on sale, post Melboure Cup (somehow in NZ we seem to get the Melbourne Cup-esque stock as well). After seeing them in about three stores, I finally plucked up the courage to try one on, thinking it might be something I can wear to the wedding next week and also solve some of the hair do dramas (but maybe create whole new ones?).

So I need your help, what do you think of this? I am planning to wear a pattern dress that has black in it (if my boobies continue to shrink and I can get it done up)

Please ignore my almost make up less and rather sick looking face and imagine hair that is probably straight ironed.  I’m not sure – I have it on hold for a few days so I can think about it.

What do you think? Any tips from anyone who has worn one before?

PS. I’m wearing the Smashbox O lipgloss, it’s amazing as it adjusts to be the perfect shade of lipgloss for you – it’s on my wish list!

My tip for the week is to sign up as a mystery shopper, I have done this and I did my first assignment yesterday. I wouldn’t say you will get rich from it, but it is fun to inspect customer service and actually have a part in improving it. Though, I’m pretty sure I looked really, really obvious as I offered to drive to a store that ended up being quite a hike (and the traffic was horrendous yesterday) and then I couldn’t find the products I was mean to check while waiting for my prescription, so I was glancing in my handbag to see try to match them up with the list I had. Smooth moves.

I did get my prescription for free, all $3 of it and I got recommended some nose spray as well which will also be covered by the allowance and I get $10 for my efforts. If I’d chosen a better time of day when it wasn’t raining and actually remembered driving directions it would have been a far more fruitful exercise.

that I weigh under 80kgs for the first time since… um… I think since I went to Florida in March 2008.

This is thanks to more exercise, eating less and better, cutting out sugar and most recently getting sick and losing my appetite.

If I can do another 5kgs by the end of the year I will be one happy girl. A happy girl who fits into the majority of her wardrobe.

I’m lying in bed right now as I have succumbed to the fact that I have a head cold, if head colds also make you cough and I am feeling rather miserable. I actually have quite a lot to do this week, but I’m hoping a day in bed will help me achieve all that so much more efficiently as I’ll hopefully be feeling better after the rest.

I’m also still laughing about a friend who came to Auckland this weekend to run the marathon. He stopped in at my place on Saturday before he checked into his hotel and I asked polite questions about his training regime etc, all the while thinking “hasn’t he put weight on since I last saw him, never seen that before when someone is crazy and training for a marathon?”

Turns out, he had in fact not actually trained for the marathon. Unless you count signing up for it in April and booking a hotel room for a night so you can’t woos out as training. I don’t consider that preparation and I don’t think many would. Oh I forgot, he had run on a treadmill for a bit at the gym two weeks earlier. Cos treadmill running is just like running outside, everyone knows that.

I think, with the two runs I did last week, that I may have actually done more marathon training than him. And there is no way I would want to run 10kms, let alone 40!

Well, I’m impressed by my friend as what he lacks in preparation, organisation and a spirit of excellence, he makes up for with sheer confidence and determination! He did indeed finish the marathon in just over six hours (seriously, that sounds like six hours of hell to me) and though he wasn’t sure if he could actually get his legs to make it back to the hotel afterwards, he did make it to the finish line.

I’m not sure if there is a moral to this story, but all I can think is that if I entered an event like that I would want to make the most of the actual training period and reap the rewards of extra fitness, not just crawl over the finish line after six hours of hell.  Still, you gotta admire the dude – he must have been the only one still running by that time!

In other random news, I found out again last week how small NZ is when my flatmate was telling me about her ex-brother in law who was involved in a really famous fraud case – turns out I knew exactly who it was as he is my mother’s cousin! Or should I say second cousin, just to distance us from the scandal a bit more.

Oh and I was at the gym with a girl I went through primary school with last week, we met up for coffee and it was quite the blast from the past. Who needs Facebook to meet up with random school mates in this country! I hadn’t seen her since I was 13 as she went to boarding school in Auckland and for some reason we’d never crossed paths again, it was a little weird talking to her as things changed a lot at school after she and a few of the other kids went off to boarding school – for the better too. Though, it was amazingly lovely to meet someone else pursuing a career (she’s training to be a naturopath around the corner from where I live) and single with no children.

On Thursday, I finally went to ‘Julie and Julia’ last week (not sure why it took so long to open here, release dates are always a mystery to me) and thouroghly enjoyed it, even if I wished I’d taken some snacks in to the theatre – that film makes one rather hungry. Julia Child was an inspiring woman and I’m glad they found such a lovely way to tell a bit of her story.

I’m still waiting on my Stampin Up! kit to arrive so I can get started with my business properly – got people very keen and demos booked pretty much already though so I’m really hoping I can make some good money in November and the start of December to cover me til the end of January, when everyone is back from their holidays. I’m still loving that it’s a party plan type business that so far I’m getting a really enthusiastic response about, people are more than keen to come along and learn about it because it’s so fun.

Ok, I need to go rest my stuffed up head right now. Being sick makes me so grumpy.

Halloween has been and gone and I as a New Zealander I still sort of don’t like being part of a tradition that is firstly, not part of our heritage and to most of us adults seems like a way for kids to be incredibly greedy and overindulge in sweets and secondly, because of it’s roots in stuff that is not so great.

Many of us seem to have strategies for avoiding the marauding children and I thought I would share a few of the techniques. My dad had his neighbourhood kids coming around from about 4.30pm onwards so he stuck up some of that brightly coloured ‘danger’ tape that they use on building sites to keep people out of unsafe areas. He apparently strung it up across the entrance to his driveway and he also has a big German Shepherd to bark and scare them away.

My neighbours padlocked their front gate and also utilised the dog tactic – they have one who is a pretty persistent barker at anyone and anything  in the near vicinity and the pre-schoolers who tried to get in there were scared. Little did they know that the dogs are Bichons and tiny little puff balls that don’t do any damage.

My flatmate and I completely forgot it was Halloween, it just doesn’t really register on your radar when you didn’t do it as a kid yourself, and we had some little children come so we had to scramble for some chocolates to give them. I then raced down to the shops to buy lollipops and wait for the hordes of kids I was expecting.

Well, it turns out that was the best deterrent of all as NO one came after that.

While, I’m definitely not a fan of Halloween at all and see it is an imported tradition that has nothing to do with us here in NZ, I also saw that it is a way to get to know your neighbours. One of the little girls had her mum with her and I know she lives in the group of flats across the road from my place. I’m pretty sure her mum is a solo parent and I’ve often wanted an excuse to go say hi to her. In future I think I’ll approach the 31st of October with a different spirit and look at it as an excuse to get to know people who live around me.

Either that or borrow some ‘danger’ tape from my dad!

My tip for the week is to check out for discounts on movies and the like. In NZ Tuesday are cheap and it is $10 to go to a film, which is not much more than the price of renting a dvd and you get the fun of the movies. But this week I found out that a more art house type cinema – my favourite type – has a discount for beneficiaries (which is what I now am) as well as Students and you can get in for $8 Mon-Thurs! Yay. I’m off to Julie and Julia today – finally! Oh and my ticket is paid for as I’m taking my neighbour with the serious brain issues, so I think it’s sort of babysitting money.

The last week has been pretty busy as I start my new business – it’s nothing too exciting but I just signed up as a Demonstrator with Stampin Up! and I’m busy setting up all the business and admin type things while I wait for my starter kit to arrive. I’m really excited about this as it is so much fun to create cards (I’m getting back in touch with a side of me I forgot) and it is almost even better to have something to focus on that hopefully might earn me a bit of money in the future.

I’m completely and utterly broke this week though – I got paid last night but when I checked my bank balance I thought I hadn’t been! Eek, I hate those days. Luckily I still have a fairly well stocked pantry so I’m managing to live pretty cheaply on food, but I just don’t know how people on low incomes do it all the time. I’m lucky I can cook from scratch and have lots of time saving gadgets.

The only problem is I’m completely in withdrawal over my laptop at the moment, something is not working and it has stopped charging. I am praying that they cover it under warranty so it gets repaired for free! Luckily, the drama factor is missing this time round compared to last year as the repair centre is about five minutes from my place and I could take it directly there myself to speed things up. Phew. And they text regularly with updates. It was so worth it to spend slightly more on a Sony. Take that crappy Acer.

Which brings me onto the other thing I am really grateful for – that I have such a great flatmate and my house is such a fantastic place to live now. She is even letting me borrow her laptop when I need it, which is fabulous as I live half of my life online anyway and I’m trying to start a business. The flattie had her daughter stay this last week as well and she was such a lovely 19 year old doing some great stuff with youth in a small city in my country.

The other thing I’m grateful for is the free food offers that come my way at the moment. Seriously, you have no idea how great it is to get a free meal when you’re counting your pennies like I am at the moment. Last night I met up with my little cooking group and we had all this wonderful bbq food that filled my meat quota for the week and then some. And I picked up a great idea for chorizo sausage kebabs with red peppers – very tasty and cheap.

So even though I feel really broke, life feels good and like things are on the up.

I think I was probably really grumpy last night when I posted,  I was totally over tired as I had been up since 3.30am and then was out all day which is unusual for me. The good news is that I was just a teeny bit hyperactive – dad had to ask me to slow down when I was talking a couple of times – so i think I might be feeling closer to my old self! I have been looking into a way to get a little bit of income and do a bit of work and am quite excited about it – more details to come later. But I hope it will be a fun and rewarding endeavour.

I’m at the end of the 21 days of the Daniel fast now and it’s almost 5am (what is with the early morning wake ups?) and I’m really, really hungry! I think I’m going to make waffles for breakfast, because I can, but I don’t want to wake up the rest of my house just yet. What time is a decent time to whip up a batch of waffles do you think?

Last night I think I also realised my age, my flatmate has a teenage daughter who is staying this week and she wanted to bring some friends over to hang out at our place last night at 8.30pm. I was totally exhausted and had to make an on the spot decision to say no, but I felt so old and boring for turning down a hang out on a week night! Also I was worried about the other flatmate who has him room downstairs and I didn’t want to have the noise affect him too badly. Other than that the new flatmate (and daughter) are very, very lovely. Both Luis and I really enjoying living with her and it’s so nice having someone a bit more mature around the house.

Back to the fast though, as my budget is pretty tight I unfortunately can’t just run out and buy a whole bunch of food to break it – though I am looking forward to a little bit of dark chocolate that I have stashed away and the waffles of course. I am actually playing with the idea of following a vegan, no sugar etc diet for at least one week a month in the future – I wouldn’t want to do it all the time as I think I would have to be awkward at too many social gatherings – but I felt so healthy and good and saved a bit of money as well in the last three weeks. I also wonder if it is more responsible of me to eat like this – for example I probably save at least $10 a week by not eating meat etc so that is money I can use to sponsor a World Vision child. I am still trying to figure out just how to afford my little girl in Niger, but something in me can’t quite get my head around cancelling sponsorship because I am too ‘poor’ when she is living in the poorest country in the world and hardly has anything.

It’s funny too, I thought I would want to have a complete pig out today and break the fast, but I really don’t feel like it. My dad kindly made this recipe I forwarded him last week for a slow cooked pomegranate molasses chicken recipe, so I’m looking forward to that for lunch today, but other than that I could actually continue eating the way I am. I’m glad that food seems a bit less important now to me – being a foodie there is always the danger that you can get a bit obsessed.

Right well it’s 5am now, I think I’m going to try to get some more sleep.

Now, it might just be that I’m feeling overly sensitive right now about my financial situation, or are weddings and the hype surrounding them getting worse and worse by the year? NZ seems to have survived the ‘recession’ without too much hardship and unfortunately recessionista chic is not really all that popular here, as much as we might pretend.  Weddings in the last few years seem to have gotten more and more crazy and expensive and the cost of just being a friend of the lucky person getting married also seems to be escalating.

I just got the finalised details for a Hens (horrible Anglo word for a Bachelorette party), um day (it’s definitely more than a night) today and as I read through the full itinerary I realised that I would not be able to participate in anything other than the afternoon tea at a bridemaid’s house. The day will include a belly dancing lesson, then afternoon tea with presents for the bride stressed on the invite, then dinner and a show that will cost $65 minimum  and then dancing. So I’m figuring the whole day will be at least $100 if you count buying a present, parking and the other little costs.

I just don’t have $100 to spend on one day right now, especially when I have to try to scrape together enough money to go to the wedding two weeks later, which is out of town.  And I’m hoping to be able to have enough money to pay for petrol and a decent gift for the couple as well at the wedding.

I would really, really love to spend time with the Bride and spoil her, but I don’t really understand why they had to choose so expensive things to do. I know I’m lucky that they didn’t plan a weekend away or a cruise or something, which is not uncommon nowadays. But it would have been nice to have the option of going to a restaurant that I could have just ordered a salad in or something.

Is anyone else noticing that weddings are becoming increasingly crazy? If you’re at an age, like I am, that you go to at least a couple of weddings a year every year it can be a huge extra cost and I have to admit that I’m not even enjoying attending them that much alone anymore either. People talk about getting seated at the ’singles’ table, but I find that usually I’m seated at tables with all couples as there aren’t even other singles to seat me next to. There is nothing worse than being the only single person on your table at the wedding reception.

Ok, maybe the dance of shame is worse – when you stand around with a bunch of other girls and dance because there aren’t any guys to ask you all. And then you have to do the fight (or in my case stand with arms behind your back) for the bouquet and pretend you’re gagging to get married.

Don’t get me wrong, I really love wishing the couple well and love a celebration. But surely there are more sensible ways to do this?  Oh and the dancing lessons are for Belly Dancing. Yes, dancing around with your big wobbly belly out for all to see. Now I do have a shrinking, but still impressive belly, but I don’t think I want to subject myself to the indignity.

Sorry for sounding such a grump, but I like to be part of celebrations for my friends and being excluded is hard. And I would sort of like enough money for food and petrol that week too.