Things I'm Loving....

As Paisley Jade says every Friday.....

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.


Today I am loving the weather.
It was one of those days where when you wake it is a little cool and foggy but once the sun comes up the fog disperses and suddenly you are left with this glorious day.
The sky is blue and the sun is shinning.
Now I remember why I love living in New Zealand. This is one of those beautiful left over summer days that pop up at the beginning of autumn.

I am loving surprises too.
Well surprises for the children are even more fun. This morning when we dropped the boys at school there were 2 hot air balloons launching from the school grounds. I have never seen the boys run into school that fast before, they were so eager to see the balloons.
Once I got to work I nipped back to school to find out what was happening.
Turns out one of the parent's father's owns one of the balloons and decided to go flying today. So they cleared it with the Principle to be able to launch from the school. Well we had the sun and the glorious skies but sadly no wind once the balloon was blown up.
1 of the balloons did just manage to lift off, with one of the teachers inside, and then headed out over Hamilton, unfortunately when the bell went to start school we actually had no idea as to when that teacher was going to be back as we could all see the balloon gently floating over Hamilton heading north!
The children thought this was wonderful that their teacher had floated away and was coming back anytime soon.
The balloons totally disrupted school though because when the bell went at 9, no one wanted to move, they were giving up and down rides to the kids if they had parents there at the time, so many of the classes stood around and watched the balloons and then about 9.20 the balloon finally ran out of gas so they had to fold it down, the kids loved watching how fast they grounded the balloon and folded the canvas up, it was fascinating to watch.
think there will be many stories written today at school about how the balloons came to the school.
Such fun, thanks to Rebecca's dad for giving the school such joy on a glorious Friday morning.

I am also loving my weight lose.
Yes I lost another 500g (1.1lb) this week taking my total to 2kg (4.4lb).
Slow and steady still working and that is all I wanted.

Why don't you pop over to Paisley Jade where she is hosting this weeks Things I'm Loving for us to all join in with. Always great to get a boost of good feelings from others.

Flexi Time

In my new position at work I am suddenly sat at a desk with flexi time.
It is easy to get carried away with this but oh how life has just got easier and not so stressed.
I know in my line of work that you do sometimes have to be the person who is told what to do, when to do it and how, that is life as a nurse.
However to suddenly be at a desk and told that generally you give and we will take and we are flexible about when you give and when we take is exciting to get use to. Especially as the boss doesn't really want to know every detail of what you are doing and when, he wants you to use your initiative and show him the result at the end, which usually means he wants to see the job finished!

I have finished (well as long as my result comes through good this weekend coming!) my study for the year, so therefore Wednesday are back to being my days to me and to get things sorted.
However being in a new position there are occassions when a meeting comes up on a Wednesday and I know it is important to be there, so I have planned it with my manager that 'if and I mean if' I have to come to work on a Wednesday then I will take the time back on another day during the week. Saves changing payroll and everything just for an hour or 2.

He is happy with this and in fact it is working to my advantage, even though it is nice to have one day a week to get things done it is also nice to know that I can finish an hour early for something when needed.

For some reason, I seem to have succumbed to 3 hours of work this Wednesday (don't worry I won't make a habit of it but job is so new) but on the other hand I am finishing early tomorrow and getting my hair cut and finishing early on Thursday before weekend away, so in fact all works out very nicely.

Could get very use to this line of work, might have to look at getting contract extended next year!

Deals of The Week

Everyone I know loves a good deal, and I am definitely one of them.
Now you don't always get good deals, not ones that you really feel are worth it.
Maybe after the surprise I had on Friday then my luck is just carrying on over into the weekend as well.

On Sunday I went to the mall with a friend, not often I get the time to wander round a mall with a girl friend. Anyway, we passed the kids store and they had 30 - 60% of most things.
I noticed some undies for the boys that were 60% off.
It worked out that a packet of 3 for the boys turned out to be $2.39. Less than $1 per pair!
There were only sizes 8-10 suitable for the boys, but I know they will definitely grow into them and definitely need them. And we have brought this brand before and they are good and wash well.
There were other sizes available in the store but they only had 30% off, due, as I found out from the lady, because the ones in the store were this seasons design and the ones outside the store were last seasons!
Now I know my boys are not bothered whether they wear blue, red and green ones from last years season over yellow, green and black ones for this next seasons.
So I walked away with 6 packets ($13 for 18 pairs) that will sit in the draw ready for when they need them.
Definitely a good deal.

Next we went into the Homeware store and I discovered that they had a 'buy one get one free' on their cutlery sets. Now Steve and I have been looking for new cutlery for a while. The ones we are currently using are cheap ones one of us brought into the relationship 11 yrs ago, and we have felt for a while that it was about time we had a decent set of cutlery. The set I found and liked was a 24 piece stainless steel set (6 of each item) for $100.
To add to this deal I also had $70 in gift vouchers for this store as well.
So with the set costing $100, all in all we walked away with a 48 piece cutlery set costing us the grand total of $30.
(set = $100, -$70 of vouchers = $30 + 1 free set)
Oh and by the way Mum, we spent our Christmas voucher on cutlery, thanks very much x x x

The last deal of the week is more a deal of convenience than anything else.
Our school has a pool and during the summer they usually lend out keys to parents who ask for them. They charge you $30 for the key whilst the pool season is on, usually until about Mid March early April time.
Last year we didn't get one but I could so see the pleasure of having one, so this year we got one.
We have used the pool 3 times in the 5 days since having the key.
We have not had the chance to spend a long time there, maybe about 20 mins each time but the convenience of being able to go when it suits us, for how ever long it suits us is awesome.
If we paid to go to the public pool each time we would have spent over $30 by now and we also would have had to share with other people.
So this has definitely been the deal of the summer, no pool care to worry about, just drive the 5 nins down the road and splash to our hearts content in a nice clean safe private pool.

Happy Summer everyone.

A Medal is Needed

I have just heard on the radio about the pilot in New York who just successfully landed an Airbus 320 on the Hudson River this morning, miraculously all 155 people on board survived!

WOW, is all I can think to say, I think he went above and beyond his job description and did an amazing thing.

He should feel pretty chuffed with himself just now.

I know there are going to be a lot of very grateful people to him for a very long while.

Well done that pilot.

Blog of Note

Occassionally I surf the blogs and see what everyone else is doing. I have found one or two blogs of real interest by doing this.
One I have recently found is Overwhelmedwithjoy. The lady who keeps the blog is married with 1 son, who they adopted when he was born. She is just so good at keeping her blog. It is interesting and entertaining and she also has lots of connections to other blogs that are also fun to read.
A recent posting was about appearances and it so hit home, I am sure all mums out there can relate to this.
So come on girls, read the post and then lets make the effort.
We might all feel good after this.