Oh, Sarah-Rose

365 in 2013

Sunday
I adore our new bedspread. Craig is less than sold. It’s far far too floral for his tastes.

Monday
Queen’s birthday! A long weekend and yet it felt like no weekend at all.

Tuesday
The weather exploded and, thankfully, Craig was home from work, so he came and collected me.

Wednesday
Walking home after after work wines and I spent far too long saving this orange cloud from certain destruction.

Thursday
Fruit in our pretty new bowl from Craig’s parents
(that apple is still there. Which reminds me, must throw out apple)

Friday
It’s weird when the neighbours walk past. They are very close to our kitchen.

Saturday
Pretty lavender on The Terrace. It’s so dead in the weekends.

Sunday
Finally using my vintage pickle jar vase. I can be such a fucking hipster sometimes.

Monday
Katherine Mansfield: woman of words and terrifying face.

Tuesday
Heading home sick, I felt very much like this plant.

Wednesday
After day two in bed I was going a bit stir crazy. I would make a terrible sick person.

Thursday
I like this dead vine/wall combination, is all.

Friday
Went to an exhibition opening at the gallery like a fancy person.

Saturday
Part way down the Dixon Street steps is one of my favourite views around this part of the city.

Tags: 365 in 2013, photo a day, photography

Comments 2 Comments
Categories 365 in 2013, 365 Projects

365 in 2013

3 Jun

Sunday
Coconut jelly and custard buns. Groaning full at Yum Cha.

Monday
Such a busy fortnight. Dusk.

Tuesday
Pretty orchids from the real estate agent. I have not killed them yet!

Wednesday
Celebrating homeownership with fancy champagne and friends in our empty flat.

Thursday
Packing. I hate packing. Next time I’m selling everything.

Friday
Late autumn sun on a Friday lunchbreak.

Saturday
After a long day packing, Craig and I dropped the rental van back in the Hutt Valley.

Sunday
Coffee at the Old Bank Arcade.

Monday
Halfway home.

Tuesday
I knit now, apparently. We meet at a bar.

Wednesday
I hadn’t intended to go out. But then, out I went.

Thursday
Touring craft beer bars for my Dad, and Craig’s birthday.

Friday
Our house was a mess after a busy first week so I headed home early on Friday to clean.

Saturday
Craig’s parents visited and brought cake for his birthday.

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Categories 365 in 2013

Oh, Life

30 May

Last Wednesday Craig and I got the keys to our apartment. We spent that night in our all-but empty rooms with friends and a lot of bubbly wine.

Over the weekend we shifted everything we own from one side of Wellington city to the other. It was my Dad’s birthday and still, when we were left helpless* he and my mum and the sister who wasn’t busy dropped everything to help us.

I’m pretty sure it was Sunday around 3pm when I said to Craig “we really need to vacuum.” We still need to vacuum. Life has been extraordinarily busy this week.

Ill on Monday night, out on Tuesday, out on Wednesday, out on Thursday** … I am not sure when I’ll ever have the chance to get around to that vacuuming.

This guy turns 30 today. THIRTY. He remains one of my absolute favourites. My taller and hairier other half. The calm to my crazy. He was 17 when we started dating and I’m hoping I keep on with this pattern of loving and liking him more each year than the one before. It’s pretty damn perfect.

His parents are coming into town this weekend for his birthday party*** and, of course, to see our apartment.
We had better get onto that vacuuming.

(we have ladybirds living in our windowframes! I’m taking this as a good omen)

* friends caught out by the 48 hours film festival, Craig’s general hatred of using movers, my bufty but not THAT bufty arms … all factors leading to helplessness.

** I’m writing this in the time between finishing work and leaving for my Dad’s (and Craig’s) birthday pub crawl (rather, a craft beer tour)

***I’ve come up with the best most ridiculous birthday surprise ever and I can’t wait for him to see it. I’ll tell you all about it after the fact.

Tags: life, apartment, birthdays, busy

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Categories lovelovelove, A Moment in Time, Where we live

365 in 2013

20 May

Sunday
Soda floats and catching up with Amy – she was in town for her Masters graduation. What a smartie.

Monday
It’s often hard to tell where the mural ends and the graffiti begins.

Tuesday
Sun and haze across Wellington harbour.

Wednesday
I hate this sign. So damn hard.

Thursday
New specs arrived from BonLook. They packed the box with glitter. Opening that at my desk was … an experience.

Friday
At certain times of the day Wellington is really quite pretty.

Saturday
Craig and I drove to the bright lights of Foxton for second-hand furniture shopping. I resisted buying these old western novels and also a Nelly Furtado vinyl.

Tags: 365 in 2013

Comments 1 Comment
Categories 365 Projects, 366 in 2012

Sister Slipper’s gonna get you …

16 May

I’ve always been a fan of ghost stories and decaying buildings.

This past Saturday I ended up, along with my youngest sister and my mama, at the long-abandoned Fever Hospital in Wellington.

The heritage building has been given to the SPCA by Wellington City Council to use as a new home for its animal hospital and education centre.

Ahead of starting extensive renovations the SPCA volunteers ran tours of the building -all for the price of a small donation going to the charity.

Opened in 1919 to treat TB and influenza sufferers, it was also home to people returning from the war. Later it was used as a chest hospital. Wellington Polytechnic’s Music Dept briefly used a wing in the late 1990s before it stood, abandoned, for the 10+ years.

We even got a ghost story or two! When standing in the room where they held corpses before moving them down the ramp at dusk or under the cover of darkness (as if that wasn’t creepy enough) they told us of Sister Slipper – a nurse during the 1970s who was known for, surprisingly, slippers. She’s been spotted about the place.

Of course, I don’t really believe in ghosts.

… not really.

Tags: abandoned building, fever hospital, photography, wellington

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Wellington

365 in 2013

14 May

Sunday
Of course when having brunch within sight of a motorcycle shop we have to go and look at the motorcycles.

Monday
Beautiful sky and the Town Hall buildings.

Tuesday
Poetry near the lagoon. Wellington’s waterfront is really quite lovely.

Wednesday
Heading to Back Benches. It was a Wednesday after all.

Thursday
Meeting Craig on our way to meet with the mortgage broker. We didn’t expect to find out we’d got the house. But we did. Best meeting.

Friday
We’d gone unconditional on the house and I was changing jobs. Craig and I went out for a celebratory meal.

Saturday
Ridiculously painfully hung over (we’d celebrated the house with friends. A lot) I walked, slowly, along the waterfront to meet my mum and sisters for lunch.

Sunday
Checking out the house again. Thankfully we still liked it.

Monday
My first day at my new job and Wellington was deluged.

Tuesday
First House sitting day in the new job. It was very very dark along the waterfront on the way home.

Wednesday
Dead eyes and woollen hats.

Thursday
There’s a new Katherine Mansfield statue at Midland Park – the woman of letters. It’s brilliant.

Friday
More rain! More rain. It’s becoming winter.

Saturday
I talked my mum and sister into touring the abandoned Fever Hospital with me.
More on that anon.

Tags: 365 in 2013

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Categories 365 in 2013, 365 Projects

Grown Ups?

9 May

It was at a work party just before Christmas last year when a girl I know was telling me about how had just bought an apartment – her first home.
All of a sudden buying a house seemed a lot less terrifying. I mean, buying an apartment seemed a lot less terrifying.

It also made sense, economically, we’d pay a wee bit more in mortgage than in rent but we’d be able to pay off a debt which in turn would allow us to save more on a monthly basis than we had been. So if we do decide to go travelling again, to move overseas, there’ll be some money with which to buy flights and, you know, live on.

Just like that Craig and I spent the next few months heading from open home to open home.
Last week we went unconditional on a wee art-deco flat in Wellington. If everything goes to plan the settlement date is less than two weeks away and just a couple of days after that? Craig and I will be living in our own (gulp) home.

Don’t worry. There are still no babies on the horizon. Fingers crossed.

Tags: House

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Here is something I bought, Irrational Fear, Where we live

This is most frustrating

6 May

This is most frustrating.

I had wanted to post my regular 365 in 2013 photos and also tell you about changing my job and, you know, BUYING A HOUSE, but Flickr decided to lock me out of my account for 12 hours.

So you will have to wait. I’m sorry. Here I am surprising you with buying a house and then … nothing.

Well. Not quite nothing.
Please enjoy these instagram photos of our new apartment.

(I pretty much wandered through open homes asking myself “but is this place instagrammable enough?”)

Tags: Grown up, House

Comments 3 Comments
Categories Uncategorized, Where we live

365 in 2013

29 Apr

Sunday
Headed back to a grey Wellington and went out for dinner with my family – where we arrange the bottles on the table by height.

Monday
A wee stylised Acherontia Styx friend for Grumpy Cat.

Tuesday
This feijoa sat on my desk all day – it wasn’t mine and I felt bad just eating it. I lasted 6 hours before I gave in and ate it.

Wednesday
The night before ANZAC day so of course we treated it like a Friday night.

Thursday
Which was then followed by a no-good very-bad ANZAC day. I hid from the world and then drank a glass of wine.

Friday
Walking down the beehive on a Friday evening – they were doing work on the Saturday and had installed emergency lighting so they could turn the main lights off. I mean, I presume.

Saturday
Laura had Kim and Kate and I around to watch The Hour (yes, again) but just a few episodes this time. She made delicious Jewish honey cake.

I really really should get better at the self portrait part of this. It’s just, the light in our room is so terrible. It’s only ever too bright or too dark.

Tags: 365 in 2013, photography