Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Welcome To The Hundy Club!

This is my 100th post - so I had better make it a goodie!  What better way to mark this special occasion than by welcoming my third wee niece to the family.  Gavin and Catkin had another successful home birth on the morning of May 2nd.  Poppy Mae weighed in at 7lb 11oz and is gorgeous, so relaxed, and is happy chilling out with her older sisters around. 


I am lucky enough to be in Queenstown for two weeks helping out where I can with the two older girls who are fun and funny.  Annabelle is now 4 years old and is very good at writing and counting.  Hazel is 2 years old and is very determined and hilarious! Her favourite song is 'Row Row Row Your Boat' but the way she sings it makes her sound like a football hooligan! They are quite different but compliment each other nicely.  Hazel is starting to look a lot more like Annabelle now.  When we were in The Warehouse on Friday a nice couple commented on how beautiful 'my daughters' were. Yes, I did correct them.
We've been doing all sorts of fun things - colouring in, reading stories, and drawing on ourselves (the girls, not me).  Annabelle and Hazel go to Montessouri Preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I have been trying to use my down time productively.  Last week I cleaned the kitchen and the fridge.  Today I cleaned the inside of the windows. 






Mum was down in Christchurch for a week during April which lovely.  She spent a week at Claire and Scott's before heading down to Queenstown for a week and happened to be on location for the birth of Poppy, much to everyone's delight.
While she was in Christchurch I turned another year older - it is the big round number before another big BIG number.  I find it hard to say it out loud.  It was a lovely day and we had a nice lunch out at the Raspberry Cafe in Tai Tapu.  I was very spoilt and felt the love. 
Mum loved spending time with her wee grandson, Quinn, who is such a happy little felly.  I have been missing him since being in Queenstown so Claire has been sending me through photo updates daily, which I LOVE.


I managed to get up North for the weekend just gone.  My bestie Kristine was having her 40th birthday party in Warkworth and, as we all know, there's no party without Punch!!  It was good to get up there after what feels like AGES (November was the last time I was in Warkworth).  Mum and Dad swapped with me and spent the weekend in Queenstown so I was on hand to feed Mum's fur babies.  The party had a 70's theme and was fantastic.  Lots of fun and catching up. 




I also managed to get to see Aunty Mary, Uncle Fraser, and Heather, as well as Uncle Bryan and Aunty Bev which was lovely.  Unfortunately I ran out of time to see Uncle David and Helen but hope to catch up with them next time I'm up. 
Now I'm back in Queenstown for the rest of this week and will be driving back to Christchurch on Saturday, back to reality.  I have really enjoyed my time away from the office and realise how EASY my day job is! I will miss the knocks on the bathroom door and little voices calling out 'Aunty D!' and my little wriggly alarm clocks coming into my bed in the morning.  But mostly I will miss the cuddles and the 'I love you' that I've been getting lots of so I'm going to get my yearly quota over the next few days to get me through til I see them again which may not be until Christmas.  Sob sob.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Tricky Dicky

We've had a new visitors system put in at work.  It's all electronic and takes your photo, then prints out a visitors sticker for the visitor to wear while they are on the premises. 
Once the visitor has signed in an email is automatically sent to the email address of whoever they are here to visit.  Very flash for us.
Yesterday I got this email.

Visitor: Richie Mc Caw
From:
Has arrived and is waiting at reception - 10/04/2013 3:36:00 p.m.

I sprinted down to reception - knowing full well that Richard Hampton (my work bestie) would be standing there, almost doubled over, laughing at his own joke.  I was right.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog

The title has absolutely nothing to do with anything I have been doing lately except I feel like the Quick Brown Fox AND the Lazy Dog at the moment.  How does that work?  Well, it doesn't really.  My mind is quick and foxlike but my body is generally the lazy dog.  I need to get in sync!
I realise I have been very, very slack with updating.  Thanks for all your emails and requests for an update (thanks Mum).  Now.... let me think...... cast my mind back....

Intimo has been going well.  I've had 1-2 parties a week lately and last month had an open home after 3 parties fell over.  I employed Averil for the day to help with greeting guests, making teas and coffees, and generally helping out.  I sent out over 170 invites to all past customers and opened up my home for 4 hours for ladies to pop in for a cuppa and a look at the new boutique releases.  About 20 ladies made it along and sales were $2689.00 + $390 in cash sales from ex-boutique items no longer available.  A brilliant day.  Averil got the hostess credits and was able to choose $377 worth of product for her precious time.  I think she was happy with that.  It was really worthwhile and I plan to do it again in December.
March turned out to be my best personal volume month to date with just under $7000 in sales for the month.  Result!

Quinn is doing so well and growing big.... and strong.  His little legs are SO strong.  He always has lots of smiles and chatter for his adoring Aunties, which we love.  Scott and Claire took Quinn on his first plane trip up to Nana & Grandad's in Warkworth for Easter.  Mum said he was all smiles and such a happy little fella.  And was really good on the flights to and from also - which was worrying Claire slightly (understandably).  There's been a lot of talk on Stuff Nation where readers can 'have their say' about children's behaviour in public and on aeroplanes.  Some people are so unsympathetic towards babies making any sort of noise on plane journeys.  I, for one, am VERY sympathetic.  I remember how much my ears used to hurt during flights and feel sorry for the parents who do the best they can in the cramped spaces they have.
I digress.  Quinn got introduced to all the Aunties and Uncles up North and they all had a great time.


Averil and I set off on Good Friday for a roadie to Queenstown to stay with the Southern Barts.  Such fun!  Catkin was a wonderful hostess (as always) and Gavin was a great host.  Only 5 weeks to go until the newest Southern Bart arrives. Exciting!!  Any guesses on sex/weight/date of delivery? 
Aunty Apes and Aunty D has lots of fun playing, reading, and generally spending time with the mini Southern Barts.  They are GORGEOUS!  Lots of huggles, which I love. 
Easter Bunny left an Easter Egg hunt in the garden and right down the driveway to the letterbox.  That was fun!  It was really lovely to be able to spend two full days with them before driving back to Christchurch on Easter Monday.










Cousin Alex has started salmon fishing over the past few months and invited me around for a fresh salmon dinner with him and his flatmates a wee while ago.  It was delicious!  Cooked to perfection.  A really great night with good company and fantastic food.

I had my Bi-Annual Templeton housesitting stint for 10 days in February which was nice and relaxing.  We had the World-Famous-In-Templeton Rent-A-Crowd Pub Crawl which, as always, was a blast.  All girls this time - so more like a fun Hens night!  Really glad it was on a Friday night so I had two days to recover.  Actually, everyone suprisingly seemed to be feeling fine the next day.

Daylight savings ended this morning which means Winter is fast approaching.  Some of us have been up for hours.  Averil & Eru picked me up at 6.45am this morning to go to a live taping of What Now? - a children's show which has been going for 32 years.  They have a segment called Target Your Teacher and Averil was invited to go on it.  Once strapped to a massive wheel she was asked 5 questions - two of which she got right which meant her students got foamed and three she got wrong which got her spun on the wheel and foamed.  Eru and I weren't actually allowed in the audience - children only - so we sat in the green room and got free breakfast and cups of tea.  A great start to a Sunday morning.





Thursday, January 24, 2013

Twenty Thirteen

Welcome to the new year!  Already over half way through the first month and there have been highs and lows. 

The worst low being that a guy from our despatch department at work collapsed yesteday at work.  Our first aid officers did CPR on him until the ambulance arrived and he was taken to hospital -  not breathing.  He spent the night in Trauma and suffered a few heart attacks which the hospital staff could not help with much except to make him as comfortable as possible.  He was moved to ICU and was on life support today while waiting for all of his family to arrive to say their good byes before the life support machine was switched off.  Sadly Terry passed away tonight.  A very big shock as he was only 55.

RIP Terry Anderson.

The high being that I went to Melbourne for the Intimo January conference. It was a very quick trip - flew over on Thursday morning and back on Friday night - but it was brilliant!  The key note speakers were very inspirational.  I have come home with goals and plans for the year ahead.  My first goal is to make it to July conference on the Gold Coast, Australia.  It's no small task as I have to make just over $38,000 in sales before the last day of June to qualify.  But I am putting little steps in place now and have broken it down into months (which isn't quite so overwhelming) so will at least give it a good go.  Fingers crossed that everyone wants new bras for the new year!