Alex

So in the first couple of days here in Hamilton it has been a constant role of emptying boxes and deciding where things are going.
This in turn means there have been things left in places waiting for its new home.
On one such day Steve was at work and the boys were watching kids programmes on the tv, so I thought!
I was trying to finish off their room so they had somewhere that wasn't a disorganised mess and somewhere that wasn't confusing to them.

This was going fine until Ben appearred at the door with Alex.

"Mummy I found Alex for you" he said

I turned round and said "S*#T"

As you can see from the pictures, this is the reason the first word out of my mouth in front of my children was unusual, Alex was covered in Lipstick, my lipstick!

Yes that is his pyjama shirt he has on, but only because he wouldn't change his top that morning, so was wearing jeans and half his pyjamas!

I moved very quickly to our bedroom, scared to death that I was going to find lipstick smeared all over the carpet in our newly rented accomodation! How would I explain this to the landlady within 1 month of renting the place?

Thank my lucky stars I have a tidy messy player. Not a scrap of lipstick anywhere in the bedroom, just over Alex.

Blogs to Check

To some of you these are not new blogs, infact they are probably friends, but in my blog surfing I have discovered them while reading other blogs and have then surfed over to them.
So when you have checked out all your daily blogs and you want to know what else is going on out there then check out these:

1. Rocks in my dryer
2. Kent and Leisy
3. Big Mama
4. Boo Mama

Moving

So the days finally arrived for the men to come and spend one day packing all our stuff, the next day loading it all onto the truck and then the next day unloading it in Hamilton.

I was amazed at the way the house started to dissappear before my eyes into boxes. The boys tried to help out where possible but generally they managed to stay out of the way.

The men were very quick in some areas, as I found out when I suddenly remembered the key lock for the Real Estate Agent. I knew it was on the bookcase in the hall, but by the time I got there IT WAS PACKED! So that has come with us to Hamilton and I will get it back to The Joneses soon.

I also put my book down at one stage and then when I next turned round it had been packed, that was something I actually unpacked the box to find, there was no way I was managing a night in the house without something to read!

Overall we had no problems with the company at all. So if you are ever looking to move then check out Crown Relocations, they were great.

The truck to take our stuff away.

The study before it got packed by Crown

The study after it was packed by Crown

Ben trying to be helpful, at least it was his stuff he was packing!

Although this is what Alex thought about the move! Not affected at all, as long as his bed stayed available.

Unfortunately the truck could only get up the driveway about 2m, then it hit a tree, so a lot of carrying from the house down the driveway!

The boys had great seats for watching the loading of the truck.

The move went well, they helped us to unpack at the other end to a certain point, and yes there are still some boxes to unpack even today, probably will still be there when Mum and Dad come home next week! We have some boxes that we haven't even opened and are not going to either. We don't need the stuff whilst in rented accomodation and it is easier to store in the cupboard in boxes.
But most of the day to day stiff is sorted, we are able to live and cook and sleep. the boys have their room all sorted with their toys so everyone is happy.

Ben's Bus

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of going to work on the bus with the boys, check out here for more on that fun experience.

Anyway, that same day at daycare, Ben told them all about going on the bus and so he drew a lovely picture of a bus.

Gifts

I had the wonderful pleasure of having a small afternoon tea at Auckland Hospital before I left.

It was nice to sit and reminisce about the last 9 odd years I had been there.

I was also very lucky to receive this rather gorgeous necklace as a small leaving gift.

How did they know that pink was my colour?

Thank you so much to everyone I have worked with at the hospital, I will miss you all so much, but life does move on.

Finally Back

We finally have broadband sorted in the house and now we have internet. Steve says I am an internet junky and thinks I have been having withdraw symptoms.
I just wanted to beable to keep up with what everyone has been doing and to also keep you up to date with what we have been up to on our move.
So bare with me as I post all the different things we have been doing in the last 2 weeks.
All I can say though is it is good to be back.

No Broadband

Well, we have moved and have settled nicely into the new house. Must admit I am sick of boxes but they go with the move.
Unfortunately we are having trouble with the telephone line, so no broadband, so just a quick hello from me on my brother's computer and just to let you know that as soon as we are up and running I will post a lot more.

See you soon.

Moving

This will be my last post for a couple of days as the computer is being packed ready for the move.

Should hopefully be up and running again on Thursday night, but not sure when I will have 5 minutes to post something, so could easily be next weekend.

So don't go anywhere and I will let you know how the new house is once we are settled.

One last thing before I sign off, my cousin Kerry is getting married in 4 weeks time, she has asked Ben and Alex to be ring bearers at the wedding, so this weekend we went and got them little tuxedos.

So here is a sneeky peek at just how cute they may look at the wedding.

Catch you after the move, have a great week :)

Balloons

It is amazing what will keep children happy.

Last week my cousins came to visit to say hi and bye before we move down to Hamilton. Ben and Alex got out all their balloons and everyone proceeded to have balloon fights.

The boys had so much fun.

Last Day

Yesterday was my last day working at Auckland District Health Board.


I have worked for them for just over 9 1/2 years now.
In fact they are the only employer I have worked for in New Zealand.
I started in March 1998 as a Staff Nurse in the Operating Theatres doing General Surgery, Colorectal and Liver Transplants.
In 2002 I moved to do Gynaecology and Maternity.
I went on Maternity leave at the end of 2003 when I had Ben and when I returned to work I actually went into Sterile Supplies, this is the area that they wash, clean and process the instruments ready for the next use.
I stayed there until I went on maternity leave again in 2005 and I returned there after having Alex.
In the last 3 months I have been working on a project in Materials Management, this was a change of scenery for 3 months and I had a lot of fun and learnt a lot of new and interesting things.


When I first started at ADHB this was the main hospital



4 years ago they built a new hospital, this has been exciting as there have been many new changes in the last 4 years and Auckland now have a huge wonderful hospital.






I am very grateful to all at ADHB, I have learnt a lot, met a lot of wonderful people, including my partner Steve, who also worked in the Operating Theatres, yes it was love at first sight across a crowded theatre!


It will be weird not working for them, but hey life moves on. I will work in Hamilton eventually, but I have other priorities now, like 2 little boys, so I am aiming to start work in January.

So thank you to everyone at ADHB, it has been fun, I have loved and hated every minute and have grown and learnt so much over the past years. Thank you.

What Type of Blogger Am I?

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And make it as entertaining as possible.

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

Pavement Art

Julian Beever is a guy from the UK who has been doing pavement art for at least the last 10 years. he has done these pictures in many countries around the world.
They have a special flare to them that when viewed from a certain angle give you that amazing 3D effect.
You can check out more of his pictures here.
Go look, you will be amazed.

Blogger is experiencing some problems loading pictures at the moment, so as soon as it is back running I will add some pictures.

Monday Meme

Ok, so I know I am a little late with this this week, but I did go and check out the site for the questions on Monday and then realised that of course with the time difference I would have to wait until Monday evening my time to get Monday morning USA time.
Of course then life took over and it is now Wednesday, but hey the thought was there.
Anyway here are the questions from Manic Monday for this week:

If you could have a romance with any fictional character, who would it be?
Can't think of any names, but would end up being someone from a Jane Austin novel, but not Mr Darcy!

If you could be invisible for one hour, where would you go and what would you do?
My sons daycare to see them interacting with the other people as I know they are different when we are not around.

If you could ask God any single question, what would it be?
Does he blog??

How would you answer these? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Work

OMG I have only 2 days left at work here at Auckland District Health Board.
I can't believe that I am about to leave the only employer that I have ever had here in New Zealand.
I am so looking forward to Hamilton, but it will be very weird not working for ADHB anymore.

Marriage

Now this is a word that girls will happily sit and talk about for hours and will have guys rushing out the door faster than lightening.

It is a word that can reduce me to tears...
I am not married, I would love to be married and this is the biggest thing that can put me in a mood/sulk and drive me up the wall.
Now the reason I am not married is not that I don't want to be, it just hasn't happened yet.
The biggest reason is because Steve doesn't want to get married, he has been married before, but I don't understand why I should be punished for a past mistake of his.
To be honest nothing is going to change in our day to day living if we did get married, we have a house, a car, 2 children, joint bank accounts, it would only be a piece of official paper but I still want to get married.

The thing is I can't come up with a good enough reason to argue why I want to get married.
I am a very traditional person, oh yea I can hear you all say, why have you got 2 kids and you are not married, well the reason for that may be very selfish, but I knew I was getting to a stage in life that if I didn't have children soon then I would have been too old. So I took the biggest risk of my life and decided that if Steve was happy to have kids (took some persuasion) then I was having the boys (both our boys were planned not accidents) and I decided that if Steve and I ever broke up then at least I got 2 gorgeous children out of it that I really wanted.
I did say it was a selfish reason, but I had always wanted children and life was not exactly going my way in the dating field, but don't worry Steve and I had been together 4 years by the time we had children, so it wasn't a rushed into thing.

I have asked loads of people why they got married and I can give you every answer under the sun......

1. Religous reasons
2. Only way I could move out of home
3. We wanted to live together
4. Society
5. If we didn't get married we probably wouldn't be together
6. That is what you do

Funny thing is, everyone refers to Steve as my husband, they just presume we are married. That is what society thinks and I get the impression that this is the norm for society.

So where on earth did this 'we don't want to get married, but are going to live together like married people and do this for the rest of our life thing come in?' I don't actually understand what people have against getting married, what does it change? There would be no difference to how we live life today to how we would live if we were married.

And that is Steve's arguement.

What bugs me about not being married is that I think people and my family all presume that I am happy with my current living arrangements, that is must be what I want, how I want to live me life.

Well with tears rolling down my cheeks I can tell you in no uncertain terms....This is not what I want. I want to do what everyone else does at this stage of life, be married. Why me, what is wrong with me that I am not married? I look at other people and wonder what I have done wrong to not be married, what am I not doing? I have asked Steve why he got married the first time, his answer was "it was what you did" well I want the " it is what you do"

My baby brother is married, my cousin is getting married in 4 weeks, my parents are still married after 43 years. It is what everyone does, so why not me? I can hear you all say, well life is different now, you could always ask him? NO, even though I am a very independant stubborn person there are somethings in life that the man does, and proposing and buying an engagement ring is theirs to do and keep, ok apart from leap years when I have no problem with girls asking their guys on Feb 29, but that is not me. With how I have lived life I have always done what I want to get what I want, for once I want someone to want to do something for me rather than me having to make this happen.

Believe me Steve knows all this, he knows I want to get married, has done for several years now but because he is not that bothered by it, then it is no big deal to him. Don't get me wrong I love him and I am not going anywhere, well apart from to Hamilton to join him with his new job. Unfortunately it is now such a thing that if I bring it up again then if he did propose I won't know if he was sick of listening to me talk about it or whether it was what he wanted to do. I am not pressuring him into it, but after almost 8 years together I am beginning to wonder why not me?

So for now I will go on answering the phone to telemarketers and saying "No I am not Mrs......." and correcting people when they comment about my husband, telling them that I will let my husband know when I get one. And when Ben is a little older and comes home from school and asks if we are married? I will say "No" and if he asks "why not?" or asks "why do you have a different surname to me, Alex and daddy?" then my simple answer will be "ask you father!"

The Bus

The boys have never spent too much time on buses, just the way life goes I guess.
We do only have 1 car in the family, and since Steve has been good at cycling to work it has meant that I have always had the car.
So when the garage said to me yesterday that they needed to keep our car, more than likely over night and that they didn't have a loan car to lend me, I was like OMG I have to get to work in the morning and get 2 boys to daycare.

Now it is not that I haven't taken the bus with the boys before, infact Ben has been on buses quite a lot, ok he was very little so won't remember any of it.
When he was first born I use to walk to the local shops with the pram get the few basic items I required, bread & milk etc, and then if I didn't feel like walking home I would get the bus. Especially as they had new buses in service that I could just wheel the pram on and not have to collapse it down. So it was quite easy getting the bus.
When Alex came along I still did take the bus occassionally, but trying to manage the bus, a newborn, a toddler, a double pushchair and any shopping I had brought was a mission in it self, so it never happened very often, and again with Steve taking his bike, the car was always easier, I would just plan all our errands so we weren't going backwards and forwards around Auckland, it would have some form of flow to it and it was well exercised.

So this morning we had to get the bus and the boys had a ball.
Luckily the bus stop is just down from our house and it stops just outside the daycare (work is a 5 min walk round the corner)
The boys were running down the road to get on the bus, decided they had to sit at the back and Alex talked the whole journey, he was so excited and thought this was the greatest thing to do.
They were both such good boys whilst on the bus, sitting nicely and holding my hand to cross roads when I asked, I am so proud of my little guys.

So if you ever have the chnace to plan a day where you take the bus instead of driving, then do it. The kids will love the adventure.

Half Full or Half Empty

Half full or half empty is one of those statements that will have people argueing for hours, or at least thinking for a while.

In the post office today whilst being served there was a lady at the other counter paying her car registration. Now you can pay this for either 6 months or 12, your choice.
I heard her say to the guy that yes she was only paying for 6 months because you never know what might happen so why waste your money on the other 6 months when you don't need to pay it yet! She went on to say that if she died then she hadn't lost anything!

I was just like OMG, I had never thought of that, back to the half full half empty thought.
Then she looked around at everyone commenting and said "Didn't everyone think like that?" she knew it was morbid but hey, why not?

I can see her point, but would you really like to keep walking around life only doing things by half just in case you weren't around to see the rest.
'I am sorry I can't pay for the whole year because I might be dead before the year is through!'

I say go with life and have fun, don't worry about the small stuff. Yes if it was a lot of money, think about it, but when you are only looking at a difference of about $60, it just seemed a very morbid thought to live life by....

Breast Cancer

October is of course Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

This is one of the charities that I am proud to support.

I wear something pink for the whole month.

Check out the following site for a cool quilt (ok technology quilt, not a real sewn quilt) but still way cool.

Last Drive

For the past few Sundays I have had the pleasure of taking Steve back to Hamilton. This means that we plan the whole day around this one activity.
We pack the car in the morning, leave just before lunch, have lunch in the car, Alex sleeps on the way, then we spend the whole afternoon in Hamilton, have dinner, bath the boys, put them in pj's and then I drive back to Auckland with 2 sleeping bunnies in the back.
Today was the 3rd time I have done this and it is also my last.
Next weekend Steve will be back for the weekend but due to it being a long weekend (Labour Day) I have refused to drive him back on a Public Holiday, the traffic could be so bad!
So I am making him take the coach back, plus it is helpful to me as the packers are arriving the next morning.

The first weekend I drove back it rained all the way, yucky to drive in and took me slightly longer than normal.
The second weekend the weather was fine and it was a great drive back.
Today, I got stuck behind someone who wanted to do 80 all the way, this lead to their downfall though, because they seemed to have difficulty in reading speed limit signs on the road, when it said limit was 100 they went 80, when it said limit was 70 they still went 80?!
So whilst driving through one of the little towns on route home, I slowed for the speed limit of 70 but the car in front didn't, so as they got to be more than 100m ahead I was annoyed because it meant that I probably wouldn't be behind them when the passing lane came up and I really wanted to pass, but when I saw the flash of orange light across the road as the SPEED CAMERA got them for speeding, then I felt justice was done!
I was going just below the speed limit so was fine, but I had a great laugh as I finally passed them knowing what was coming in the post to them later this week.

So the next time I drive to Hamilton will be the last, we will go knowing we are staying and not coming back. Yea, the 3 weeks that Steve has been away have gone quickly, but have been hard work. It will be nice to be back as a family again in 1 house.

Chance Meetings

Don't you just love chance meetings, I do, especially when it is family.
Now I know a small amount of people here in Auckland, mainly work colleagues, so I don't bump into too many people I know very often, who are not connected with the Hospital. Auckland is just so big.
So I met a girlfriend for lunch today and she suggested we went to the Medical School across the road from the hospital, she said they had a good canteen.
So we sat and had lunch and it was really nice, when suddenly I looked up and there was my cousin sitting across the room.
I have 2 cousins in Auckland, the only relatives I have up here. They are both attending Auckland University and the Medical School does come under Auckland University.
Kerry is studying Chemistry but I was not aware that she had any lectures in this part of the campus. So I bundled over to her and said hi. She was quite surprised to see me and apparently this was only the 2nd time she had ever come here.
So it was a nice way to finish lunch having a gossip with my cousin before she went back to study and I continued work.