Living it up

Today I kept thinking - wow I love this life, I don't want a different one, I want this one. This is my home.

The day started off well - a long distant race to Somes Island and back.
For you non-wellingtonians, Somes is the biggest island in the middle of the harbour. We raced there and back 2x. My boat was last, but we were following different rules about which bouys to go around. Ah well, I loved every minute and coming in to the familiar faces looking down from the balcony was extra special: two new friends from Forest Grove, our neighbors, a cool guy from Switzerland, and best of all my parenter of 12 years today - go TRAVELER.



It was a pretty simple race. Hand on club door - run to boat, get sculls in, row to Somes 2x, first to run back to door wins. Uh... yeah we were last but we still went for it and we had our own personal (but oh so challenging) set of rules that no one else was following.

Then I went for a bike ride through the Beloment Regional Park with a bit of hiking thrown in. Hard to beat door-to-door mountain biking after a day rowing on salt water. Really, where in the world can you do that - oh yeah, Italy. Hmmm more on that later. As I said, I am really loving my life here.

Sunday moments

A few sundays ago I brought great joy to a couple boys by delivering a garden cart:

And I learned that not only is a garden cart kind of like a sled in non-snow settings, the wheels can be used instead of braids to pretend to be princess Leah... a stretch I know, but the boys suggested it not me:)
Today I spent my Sunday morning bringing myself joy rowing a quad from Petone across the harbour to Oriental Bay. I finally am starting to get the hang of sculling and find it easier to attempt to do what the coach is asking than I did when I first learned to sweep row. Water like this in the middle of winter doesn't hurt matters!
In other non-Sunday moments I went for a fog walk thinking how much it made the city feel like Oregon at Christmas time,

spotted some striking flatmate searching art

and was struck by how amazing the harbour looks when filled with frothy fog. Trav said 'inversion' and I said 'harbour capaccino' when we saw it on our drive down to the rowing club. I think is is safe to say that he and I sometimes see the world differently!

Rain walk

Today I spent 2 hours wandering the beach with our friends' dog. My brain was pretty still today, but I did have a few recurring thoughts: I love living here. I love being around dogs. I Dogs can be more responsive than people sometimes. I still don't mind the rain. Fetch the stick can provide hours of entertainment for grown ups so long as the other participant shows proper enthusiasm.Playing on the beach with a dog is nearly as much fun as rowing - and completely cleared my mind. I now have two bliss activities - yay me!

Don't worry, I did take advantage of that rowable water and got out in a single for a bit before my walk.

Recent random moments

We had a pretty decent frost earlier this week.  I forget that this was common during winter when I was a kid in Oregon.  One difference is that we had ice scrappers to scrap off our windshields.. here we use hot water to melt the ice off our windscreens.

Then one day en route to work I found myself following another walking commuter who was carrying tons of stuff just like me.  I found myself wishing that I had long hair and could braid it up into a ring of colour around my head like her.  One day I want to be able to dress like this for work...

I did get to make pizza Friday night with girls who are likely to have no problem dressing in colours and layers when they grow up.  My pizza helpers decided to make one pizza 'half omnivore and half carnivore'  both sides were delicious.  

Today there was no work.. it was a very very quiet day.  Not exactly what I wanted, but there were some great moments of gardening.  I know that it all might be for naught between the birds, frosts, and potential moves, but it feels good to be laying down roots and hopes, even if very short terms ones.

"Wishing and hoping..

.. thinking and praying,  planning and dreaming..."  

But in my case these Dusky Springfield lyrics remind me of how I am thinking about the water this winter.. its  all about the water and the harbour and the weather and trying to sneak down to the club when the water is rowable.

You have nearly rowable..

And then a southerly blows in with hail...

And then you have nights like tonight where the water could have gone any which way, but by the time I was making my way down to the club it already was looking promising


And then it was


Better still I got to got out with 4 really lovely people who focus when rowing  and I was able to leave everything I fret about behind.  Earlier this week I nearly started crying down at the club.  It is hard to explain how this angered me. The rowing club is the one place I can always go to get away from everything.  Some days are more exciting than others. Some days the excercise hurts more than others.  But this weekend was the first time the worries of my everyday life snuck in with me.  Tonight that didn't happen, so hopefully it was only a one time thing.  


Ah.. what a great row tonight!

cooking versus baking

First off.. you know it is winter when you are baking chocolate cake with a hat on to keep you warm.  Good luck with 'room temperature' butter in NZ in winter.  The winters are mild, until you go inside.  

Tonight I noticed that I am much more of a baker than a cook, and both of those I prefer over cleaning.  Funny thing is that I almost always clean up when I bake.. which tonight I realized probably has to do with how baking has a built in clean up time when you are waiting for the oven to finish its job.  When I cook, I almost always am making something that is ready when it is ready, no time to clean up before eating.  And once I start eating, well cleaning is much less important than another drink, more conversation, etc..

...unless I decide to make a dessert.  I am always willing to clean before I bake.  You clean, you make a reward, you eat the reward looking at a kitchen that has been cleaned twice in an hour thanks to the magic of the baking time forcing me to do something while I wait - and why not clean.  

Too bad I have forgotten how to make a cake and ended up with tasty battered things 
not really worth frosting at this point, but at least the kitchen is clean.