A few randoms for ya...

There's nothing like a few headings plonked together to fill out a blog post that is really nothing more than some random and maybe related streams of thought. So here goes:

A little help
With the busyness of our lives, which is likely to be even busier soon with my change in job, and also juggling 3 lots of sports and church on the weekend,  trying to find time just to get the basic housework done around the house was going to be an increasing challenge. So.....we finally went and got ourselves a cleaner.

A sweet little Colombian lady who was recommended by a friend across the road. The lovely Rosalina has been in NZ for 9 years and has grandkiddies that are our kids ages, but even so her English is still pretty marginal. Which made for some entertaining misinterpreted text messages while we were trying to sort out meeting up and she ended up standing outside the wrong house for a while. One text said to me 'I am in your house'. To which I wanted to respond (but didn't of couse) 'You can't be because I am in my house and you're definitely not here with me!' And even more entertaining that she'd also lost her voice so were were trying to communicate sans-English, sans-voice when she did arrive.

Once we'd sorted out all the finer details of how it might all work, we arranged that she would come for 2 hours on a Wednesday at 8.30am. Or so I thought. So Mark got a bit of a surprise when she arrived at 7.45am! As he said on a text to me 'lucky I wasn't running around the house in my undies', which he could have easily been doing at that time of the morning getting himself and the boys ready for work, school and daycare. But she didn't seem to mind them being around, and got stuck straight into it and the house looked awesome and clean when we got home that night. I'm hoping it will be worth every penny!

Pimp Swap my ride

I cannot get over how dinky my new Suzuki Swift ride is. Like it only takes up half a carpark. The first time I parked it in a car park space I got out and LAUGHED at how much room there was still behind me in the space. With our old Camry, I was forever worrying about being too far forward or too far back with the towbar hanging over the edge of the space behind me.  With the extra driving I'll be doing every day to the new job, and the Camry now 20 years old...and being a huge gas guzzler...and the recent discovery it has a bit an oil leak and...and....and..., it was time to upgrade to a newer, more economical option.

We'd been looking on TradeMe for a few weeks, but Swifts are apparently hard to come by in Wellington as we hadn't seen a single one come up for sale. So when we saw one last week with low kms (30,000) and one lady owner, we jumped at the opportunity to take it for a test drive and bid on it. The bidding process was blooming nerve-racking though and it went down to the wire, with our last (and winning) auto-bid being the maximum we'd both agreed that we wanted to pay for the car. So we really felt it was meant to be!

The old

The new

When I look at these pics, it makes me laugh. The cars are a similar colour so it almost looks as if we just took our old Camry and squished up both ends to make the new Swift. Ha ha!

Oh and don't get me started on the fact the Swift has rear parking sensors. Amazeballs! They start beeping when you're getting close to whatever is behind you, and gradually the beeps get closer together until they are one long continuous tone and that is the point at which you really should STOP! The funny thing is I am so used to having a much longer car that so far I've stopped after I've heard the beeps when reversing, then I've got out of the car only to find I still have at least half a metre up my sleeve!

Oh I'm rubbing my hands with glee to think how handy Suzy (could I call her anything else!) will be getting into tight parking spaces at school pick-up time. No more driving past all these cute little spots thinking 'I'll never fit in there'. Because oh yes I will baby - those little beeps will make all things possible!

When the stars don't align

So sometimes the stars don't align - with comic consequences. Last week I'd given my front door key to Rosalina so she could come and clean the house this week. Last night we picked up the new car which we parked in the driveway and not in the garage (since the Camry is still in there till we get rid of it). This meant I didn't have a garage door opener with me like I usually would. So no great surprise that I got home this afternoon and discovered I had no way to get in the house. Hmmmm not my finest hour, especially as I had thought to myself as I was leaving the house this morning and spied the spare front door key on its hook that I really must go and get a new key cut for myself!

Luckily Noah had been at a playdate this afternoon and the boy's mum happened to text right then to say we could come over and pick him up. It ended up being pretty great timing as I was getting more and more desperate for the loo and had even considered dropping my trou and weeing in the garden if I'd had to wait another half an hour for Mark to get home. Thankfully the flowers and weeds were spared that pretty sight for another day!

Monday-ising
Does anyone else have a view on Monday-ising these midweek holidays of ours? Personally, I'm all for it because it's bloomin annoying to lose one or both of these holiday days when they happen to fall on the weekend. And I NEVER can get my head around having one day off in the middle of a week and then having to go back to work again for a day or two. I went to make my lunch and breakfast twice last night before hubby reminded me that 'Meg, tomorrow is a holiday, you don't need to'. The second time, I was seriously tempted to slap my own forehead for not remembering!

So I will enjoy this day off - because it is a VERY special day in our history that I am incredibly grateful for, don't get me wrong, I have a Pa - that's my dad's dad - who fought bravely in North Africa and brought home the Military Cross for his efforts - but I will be even happier when it's Monday-ised (since it's likely to become law soon!) and we all get the added benefit of a longer weekend with it!

So, that's about all the randomness I have for now, I hope you are enjoying your day off too. Contemplating the amazing sacrifices of those who have gone before, leaving us an incredible inheritance of this peaceful, free country.


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