The Weeklies Number 4 (Technically Fortnightly)

This Week - 14/04/12 till 28/04/12
Well I don't know about you but I'm a tad tired. It's been a full on 2 weeks of fun with the V8's and moving house plus having work and Miss Midget.
My highlight of the week was - Definitely the V8's and INXS, as you saw from my previous post about my petrol head weekend we had lots of fun.
My low point of the week was - Packing boxes :( and Miss Midget getting a tad out of whack due to all the changes. Getting better though. having a quiet weekend to get a routine going now.


My favourite time wasting device or application was - Haven't really had a chance to time waste lately with everything thats been happening :(


My favourite website this week was - No stand out favourites this fortnight. Haven't had time to go exploring :(.
My favouritte article this fortnight goes to this beauty - Nanny Pam you'll love this one :)


My favourite song this week - Ok so I'm admitting to it I liked Carly Rae Jepsen's song "Call Me Baby", I got it stuck in my head and can't get it out :(


My favourite photo - This one was taken back March by our lovely childcare lady Nanny Pam. I stuck it on Instagram the other day and had a play with the filters and this is what I came up with. Pretty cool I thought :)

My favourite saying -
 

Things to look forward to in the week to come - Being able to get settled again properly. Yay to having space again :).

Well thats that. Done and dusted for another week :)


Feel free to tell me what you think, Anything you would recommend and stuff like that.

My Petrol Head Weekend

Well my weekend just been was awesome.
Some of you may of seen my posts and others may of wondered where I was as I'd gone quiet again.
For those of you that don't know I went down to the Hamilton ITM 400 - V8's Supercar racing.

We couldn't of wished for better weather. Both days were goregous.

The V8's as always were highly entertaining as well as the other races (NZ V8's, Touring cars etc).

Saturday night as we'd brought tickets to the V8's this entitled us to go along to INXS for free. The concert was brilliant. They did a awesome job and by the end of the night I had sore feet from bopping around dancing, haven't done that in ages.

So heres a few photos from the weekends events :)

Me with Russell Ingall

The view from my seat of the 3rd corner

One of the cars (Touring Car I think) ended up in a wall after the corner threw him out. He had to get towed away

My view of the stage for the INXS concert

My view of the stage - I stayed where I was after the concert to wait for everyone to leave. Didn't realise how close I'd gotten to the stage till I took this photo :)

So now I wait till Bathurst in October - I normally only do the V8 Petrol head thing 2x a year, Hamilton and Bathurst.
This years Hamilton street race was the last though. Be interesting to see where they take it next. Fingers crossed they sort it out soon so they can get ready for next year. Would hate think they're going to miss us out next year.

Miss Midget also had a brilliant weekend being spoilt rotten by her Nanny J. She's still recovering having put herself to bed last night and tonight at 5:30pm.

Well thats it from me, I have boxes that won't pack themselves (I should know, I've waited long enough them to start but it appears they are not co-operating tonight).
Big day tomorrow - Moving Day.

Wish me luck and good weather

D

The Gnome Experiment

So read this article in Stuff.co.nz today.
Thought it was a good educational twist on the Roaming Gnome and a very clever marketing ploy by the people who have made the scales.


Basically it boils down to the company are wanting to prove the gravity is not the same in different place in the world so they got the gnome and a set of their scales and they are sending them around the world to have him weighed. Same scales showing different weights all over the world. 


So me being me (and probably thousands of other Kiwi's who have read the article and seen the website) have signed up to have the Gnome sent here to New Zealand.)


Will keep you posted if I hear anything back. I doubt I will but you never know. He could come here and do a little tiki tour roadshow around lol.
Haha yes I'm admitting to doing this freely. Thought it would be cool if it came to me to sort out something with one of the schools and get them to help me with it. Be cool for the kids I think :)

Miss Midget Birthday surprise

So had a bit of inspiration today at my friends daughter's 4th birthday.
We'd been through all the games for the midgets and just before lunch my friend and her father in-law brought in this big thing under a tarp. It stood about 1mtr something tall. The birthday girl pulled the tarp off and the look on her face said it all. Every little girls dream.

Looked a like this

So seeing this and the way every little girl there made a bee line for got me curious so asked a few questions and my friends had picked it up off trademe. They got a bargin with that they paid for it as a wooden one like this is going for anything over $150. So this got me thinking...........

Miss Midget's birthday is coming up in August that gives me and her father 4mths to get our bums into gear and figure out what we need to make one. Not sure if he realises I'm serious about this (We've been texting as he's on night shift tonight) but I plan on turning this into a little project. I figure if it's not ready for her birthday then we'll make it Christmas :).

Wish me luck people as I've not tackled a project like this in quite sometime but I am determined :).

Don't worry I promise I'll keep you all posted as to the progress :).

I just hope she likes the finished product (If it gets there lol)

D

The Weeklies Number 3

This Week - 07/04/12 till 13/04/12

Well it's that time again.

My highlight of the week was - Playing with the Bubble Snake Maker with Miss Midget over the long weekend. Lots of fun seeing the different ways we could squish the bubbles. She seemed to enjoy when both myself and her would jump on one end of the bubbles each and squish them in our toes :).
Also car passing a warrant on Wednesday was pretty good

My low point of the week was - Trying to figure out when I'm moving and when I can give me car up and doing a over all juggling act.

My favourite time wasting device or application was - Still stuck on DragonVale. In saying that i have found it interesting to go back and check my guide on Snapguide and see how many likes and views I've had - 405 views and 57 people like the guide :).


My favourite website this week was - I actually haven't spent that much time on the internet this week. I haven't been home trawling the web like I normally would :).
This week I decided to pick Twitter. I have lots of fun on this site. Especially on Wednesday nights when watching Almighty Johnsons on TV3. This is fun for a few reason - 1) because if you use twitter right you can end up in a conversation with lots of people watching the same thing. It's like being with your mates, everyone quoting one liners from the show and just generally enjoying the show.
2) I follow some of the stars and the Producer/Director of the show as well as a few behind the scenes info which is really cool. You can end up in a conversation with them as well which is always funny to. My little buzz from a couple of weeks ago was when Simon Bennett (The Producer) started following me back :).

Ok I can hear you all now thinking "God your a geek" - Well yes I am and anyone who has spent anytime with me will know that I'm good with useless information and even more so  with useless information about TV and Movies so to have Simon following me is rather cool and to be able to repeat some of the info from the Almighty Johnson Twitter Sessions is pretty cool to lol.

My favourite song this week (New) - Babysittesr Circus - Everythings gonna be alright :) Click here to watch the video. It's such a awesome song and I really like the way they have done the video :) - The making of it is pretty cool to (click here to watch that)

My favourite photo -

I think this photo speaks for itsef :)

Saying of the week -

 Things to look forward to in the week to come (New) - So next weekend I'm heading down to Hamilton to the V8 Super Cars. Should be a good weekend. It's also a Miss Midget free weekend as she will be with her Nanny J so watch out Waikato :).
Oh and also INXS are playing as part of the weekends festivities so fully looking forward that as well :). Awesome cars, Good Music and fingers crossed for fine weather. Which brings me to Next Weeks "Weeklies" may either be early as in on Thursday or extremely late and on the Monday. We'll see how we go. We also having moving day in there somewhere. So if you don't hear from me don't worry I promise I'll be back at the very latest by the 27th (Could make the next "Weeklies" a one off "Fortnight-lies"

Well thats that. Done and dusted for another week :)

Feel free to tell me what you think, Anything you would recommend and stuff like that.

So will post something later on but till then have a good weekend :)

My poor little car

Well yesterday was a nervous day.
My car went for a warrant and a quote to get a ding fixed (I didn't do it by the way. My little car had a accident without me even being in it).
Now most of you wouldn't be worried about your cars going through this safety check but I always get nervous.
I have done since I started driving. Probably because all 3 of the cars I have ever have been old and there has been some reason to worry.


Cars are just so expensive to fix so if something is wrong it immediately sends my poor little budget off into a tail spin.
This particular car is a little black Mazda Familia. It's a 1993 and I've had it since for almost 8yrs. It has been a awesome little car and really I have spent stuff all on it. As with all things now it's getting old and things are starting to get a bit warn due to age or use. Hence the worry about going for the warrant. Money is tight at the best of times so chucking in a $200+ repairs is really not in the budget.


I can here you all now going "Buy a new car" - Yeah thats not really a option at the moment either and if I was to buy a new car given my budget I would probably be worse off. At least with this car I know whats been done and what is probably going to need doing. As the saying goes its better the devil you know than the devil you don't.


So I sat at work and pondered what was going to be wrong with it. I knew the front tires were ok due to having them replaced last warrant but mind was going through what else.


I had to wait until I finished work to find out.
I'd been bugging Miss Midgets dad all afternoon trying to get an answer out of him (Yes I'm impatient and don't like not knowing). He kept telling me I'd have to wait to see the list of things when I got home.


At about 3pm I finally got to see the list. The meany had made me stew for nothing. My car got a clean bill of health and is now legal again. Yay. I should know by now not to to play the "What if" game.


Now to the quote. Thats going to be a fun one as it looks like I could be without my car for maybe a week.  So I'll now need to think of a new juggling act as to how I'm going to get places. Hitchhiking would maybe work if I didn't have Miss Midget in tow. She might be the added bonus though as she's still in the cute stage lol.
Her Daddy is most likely going to need to play taxi for a little while.


So now on top of the moving we'll be juggling that as well. At this rate I'll be a expert juggler ready to join the circus as one of the clowns :).


Have Fun


D

Moving House - Argh

So Miss Midget and I are on the move. Don't worry we're not going far. Just back to where we started from originally (Long story. Sorry not going into it on here :)).


So now I have to sort out our stuff and get ready for moving. Still debating on which day. We can move whenever we like, its just a space issue at the moment.
So now the list making starts and the whole having to find all my boxes and things to make sure I have everything. Oh the joys of it all. I'm lucky my parents are able to collect boxes for me etc but it's the whole packing up Miss Midgets toys while she's not around (Trying to pack Miss Midgets stuff up would be a nightmare if she's watching because she'd want everything I'm trying to pack).

We also have to find someone to look after Miss Midget for the morning or whatever so I can move boxes and furniture without having to worry about where she has escaped to.


So next is to find the man power. That on it's own is fun. The other half works shift work and will be working weekends so some of the weekends are out, then there is my father who said he would help only can on weekends.


There is also the factor of I can move this weekend and be in a mess for a week until old flatmate move out or I'll have to wait till the 25th  as we're away the weekend starting the 20th in Hamilton for the V8 Super Cars.

So in all reality there is no winning here. It's going to be a huge mess regardless of what I plan. Oh the joys of it all. Don't worry I'll keep you posted on my progress. It's either going to be a long drawn out process or a quick completely unorganized mess.

Wish me luck :)

D

Follow on from Weeklies Number 2

Ok so I wasn't very descriptive the other day when I posted My weeklies and told you about my time wasting apps. For those who care here they are again :)

Favourite Games are DragonVale and Slotomania. will post links to them at some stage soon :).

DragonVale is a game that asks you to breed Dragons and try and get the rare ones. You can feed them (you don't have to) and they will go up levels.  You can also send them to the Colosseum for 24hrs where they earn you trophy's I'm a big fan of these types of games. Yes I don't stick with one game generally for very long as they get a bit boring after awhile and you get to high up in levels and it takes a eternity for you to be able to do anything. This one might last awhile though due to my small Dragon fascination. We'll see how it goes.

 
Slotomania. This game is pretty much your run of the mill slots game. The only reason I have been playing it is because I have a few friends and we're in a little bit of a competition with it. The bonus games do require a little bit of brain power occasionally but mainly this game is all about being lucky :). The thing I like about this game is you don't need a iPhone to play it either you can play it via your Facebook if you wanted to.


                                         

Enough of me rambling. Time for a chill out before Miss Midget wakes up :)

Easter, chocolate, birthdays and snapguide

Well this long weekend has been awesome. It's a shame it isn't longer.

Friday was just a day to chill out and relax. We didn't do a lot. Just hung out which was nice :).

Saturday - the morning was spent playing with Miss Midget and her little friend while their daddy's lined our garage. In the afternoon we went to the park and met up with Miss Midget's extra set of grandparents as it was Popa's Birthday. Miss and Popa fed the ducks. We stayed at the park till the rain came. Then back to Nanny's for more fun and toys. We had a great night and enjoyed all the fun that was had.

Sunday - the morning was spent paying for some of the fun from the night before lol then it was chocolate time. Miss got more chocolate than she knew what to do with. She spent majority of the day on a chocolate high :). We went visiting nanny and Popa again and then went to grandma and granddads so they could do their thing to. Sunday night was a early to bed for everyone night :).

Today we have been drawing with chalk on the footpath, well actually it was just me as I made Tayla a "carpark" for her bike.

Then we had a go at making a bubble snake maker. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to test out how easy it is to make a guide on snapguide to so took photos as I went. Miss midget loved the bubbles which was good. She had more fun jumping on them though as she'd accidentally took a breath in and got some bubble for her trouble.

We've been for a walk to the dairy, was pleased Miss didn't want carrying all the way and was good when we were in the shop :).

So while Missy was playing I started on my first guide for Snap Guide. Was a simple process and I'm glad I took all the pictures I did. To see the finished product click here.

The guide has been up for a few hours now and it's been looked at 160 times so I'm pretty stoked. I definitely don't claim to have invented this idea (I got it off a good friend who found it on pinterest) but 

 figured I'd be able to put it on snapguide first lol.

Anyway while Miss Midget is sleeping I'm going to have a chill out.

I hope your Easter has been as awesome as mine.

Till next time :)

D

The Weeklies - Number 2

This Week - 31/03/12 till 06/04/12

Well it's that time again.

My highlight of the week was - Doing puzzles on my bed with Miss Midget. She's rather cleaver at doing them to and continuously surprises me when it comes to completing them :).

Also a added bonus this week of Friday being cleverly disguised as Saturday.

My low point of the week was - Waking up at 5:30am on Monday thinking it was close to get up time - Stupid daylights savings stuffing up my body clock and Miss Midgets

My favourite time wasting device or application was - Ok so I have been playing games this week, Favourite Games are DragonVale and Slotomania. will post links to them at some stage soon :).
My favourite website this week was - Ok so not so much the whole website (As I haven't had a chance to go through it properly yet but this section - Bad Baby Products is hilarious. I especially like the ChocoHead Edible Baby Helmet.
I have also stumbled upon this link which I think is rather hilarious I found these links through this blog

My favourite photo -

This photo is gorgeous. Another pinterest find.

This also leads me to wonder whether Blue Roses actually exist or whether people are just really good at photoshopping them :)

Saying of the week -

Well thats that. Done and dusted for another week :)

Feel free to tell me what you think, Anything you would recommend and stuff like that.

So will post something later on but till then have a good weekend :)

Happy Easter Everyone

Ok so here we are at Easter Weekend, The year is flying now, before we know it it'll be Christmas again.
But for now lets make the most of this chocolate and have a awesome weekend guys :)

Heres some Easter Cuteness as my present to you (Sorry Chocolate Easter Eggs doesn't upload/download very well lol)

Beware of imposters :)

Surviving the Rest Home visit

I'm sure like many others out there you too have loved ones in a rest home, whether it be Grandparents, Parents or loved family friends.


If your like me visiting these loved ones can turn into a major mission, not only because 9x out of 10 I have a Miss Midget in tow but there are all these things you have to take into account.


A) Is it near Morning Tea, Lunch, Afternoon Tea or the very early Dinner? If answer is yes, are your loved ones liable to parade you around the rest home and show you off to all their friends turning your 1/2 hour / hour visit into a few hours affair where you become the side show? If yes my suggestion is unless you have the time and enegry to cope with such an adventure avoid these times or at least have a exit strategy just in case.

B) Do you need to warn them that you are coming? Are they likely to be in their room? - The answer for my grandparents is yes I do need to warn them that I am coming otherwise I could spend a eternity trying to find my way around the rabbit warren and am liable to get lost trying to find them. You can also run the risk of it turning into a A) problem where you turn into the side show. Also if you don't warn them there is the chance that they could be napping etc.

C) Have you rung them in the last few days, this is counting the warning you give them for your visit? - If yours are anything like mine be prepared to hear the same stories again that you heard via the phone. Actually just be prepared to hear the stories again anyway. My grandmother is especially good at telling the same story about 3x in a 30min - 1 hour visit. While this is really no fault of hers. She really just wants to make conversation and due to the fact she's 87 almost 88 I count 3x times a story as not so bad.

D) - Is there a possibility that you may not make the date you told them about? - If there is a slight possibility that you may not be able to make the date that you have told them about then you need to tell them. This will help if you need to make the dreaded "I can't make it" phone call. Also do take into account that your visit is most probably going to be the highlight of their day/week so do not cancel lightly.


Once I have taken all of the above into account then I add the Miss Midget factor -


E) - Is Miss Midget in a good mood? - No She's not? Try and put her in better mood before visit or warn Grandparents that she's not in the happiest of moods and that it will be a short visit. If there is a meltdown prior to leaving, gauge how bad and continue at own risk.

F) What do I need to keep her happy for the time we are at the rest home? - Apart from all the mandatory kids things you take when you are out (bag of nappies and spare clothes just in case) what else does Miss Midget need to make it through this visit? Toys and whatever else you can think of. Food like biscuits is always good as long as she's not going to spread mess around their room etc. I of course am taking into account that she is a sideshow all on her own being 2 and half and learning so many new things so some time will be wasted while she shows Nana Lil and Popa Ken all her new tricks. 

G) The latest stumbling block we've had to face is - Is anyone sick? Me? Miss Midget? Nana or Popa? - If the answer is yes unfortunately all of the above goes out the window and it's best to not visit. If your the one sick then it's best not to spread the bugs to the home. Things spread like wild fire there and due to the people they have in these places best not to tempt fate. If you are taking little kids with you and the people your visiting are sick then again best not to go cause the bugs can get nasty (the bugs not the loved ones lol).

So these are most of the things I take into account when I visit my grandparents.
I might just add I do love them dearly and do go visit where I can just as you can see taking most of these things into a account you almost have to prepare for war before you get there but it nice to make their day and show off my Miss Midget :).

Miss Midget and time wasting tactics

Before I became a mother if you'd asked me when a child started to learn time wasting tactics I wouldn't of known. Maybe I would of guessed about 4 or 5 as they like to think they know everything but yeah turns out I was wrong and it's a lot earlier than I thought.
Miss Midget has been trying to use time wasting tactics a lot lately to get her out of things. She will try and use things like going to the potty, drink of water, wash hands to get her out of doing things liked tidying up or going to bed.

Lately it has been mainly before bed. We go through it almost every night that she needs to use the potty (Put her on there and she wants to sit there and chat to me and not actually use the thing - Yes it's cute but high on the time wasting scale of things), brush teeth again, Wash her hands. Wants me to read her another story. When most of these fail she gets a hug, kiss and a good night - More time wasting with "more kisses Mummy", "More hugs Mummy".

I have since found out today after discussing this post with Tayla's Nanny that she is also trying to utilise time wasting tactics when it comes to tidy up time. "I'm tired nanny, to tired tidy up"

So it's made me wonder where she's learnt these?
From what I can see it's not a learnt thing that she's picked up from anyone as such. It's just a "I'll see how far this gets me" thing.

We have been on to Missy's stragedy for awhile but it still never ceases to amaze me thats she's 2 almost 3 and has been doing it for months now.

So you people out there who don't have kids yet or have just had them take it from me be on your toes, these children learn quickly the fastest way to get what they want and have you wrapped their little finger. I'm still trying to figure out how to untangle myself :).
In saying all of this I really shouldn't be surprised as my child has had the nickname "The Tiny Terrorist" pretty much since the day she was born.
Lol.

On that note I'll you to it till next post :)

D

Ok so I'm getting carried away tonight

I know I've already posted a website tonight and I know I'll probably need to find another one by Friday but this site is pretty cool and appears to be my find of the weekend.
www.snapguide.com - This site I discovered on Saturday which I thought was handy as it'd give me the whole week to play with it, that is until I decided to post about it tonight :)

I was flicking through the Apple App Store featured apps yesterday on my phone and came across this, downloaded the app and then figured out it had a website from there.

It's pretty cool. Basically it's a place to find how to guides. So if you arts and crafts etc this could end up being the reference site for you. It works like this - You get your idea. Take photos step by step and then put the pictures and the steps in the website. Another simple yet pretty cool concept.

It to begin with reminded me a little of Pinterest but this doesn't take you through to the source website as all the instructions are right there. You can however link your "Guide" back to Pinterest and Twitter and Facebook which is pretty cool.

I was picking that its a pretty new site and read on just before that it only went live just over 24hrs ago so yeah as I said theres not a lot on there but this site in my opinion is going to be one to keep an eye on :).

So far I have found what looks like a really yummy recipe for cookies and cream cookies , Will keep you posted on any other gems I find :)

Dear Photograph

Ok so I know I have done my favourite website of the week and it's really to early to do it again for next week but oh what does it matter huh :).
I'm not sure if any of you remember this but I think I may of mentioned it last year or something.

This website Dear Photograph is awesome!!!.
Basically the concept goes like this. You pick a old photo from when you were little or an old photo of someone special and go to the same place that photo was taken and hold it up and take a photo of the photo, They then submit this photo to the website with a caption to go with it. Make sense?

I did it with a photo of Miss Midget a little while ago. I haven't gotten around to submitting it. I am hoping to print out a better photo of the one I used (My ink in my printer was going a bit funny as you can see).

Any way check it out. The guy who came up with this brilliant idea has a book of all of these coming out in May. It's a very cool concept and if they sell it in NZ I'll definitely be buying one :).

A7G3N692HWRF