Simple Saturday

[blessedw2]

hello to all!!!
dd younger and I are having a bit of butting heads over being late for guitar. She is such a great kid but I see her having IGAD's about laundry, papers, and things in the house and it is driving me a little goofy. So for her there are tears; for me there is frustration and I have to breath in. I gave her what I want done and asked her to come up with solutions and consequences (first approach). She is such a great kid but I am getting overwhelmed by stuff.

So:
dishes in washer are done x
next clean cat litters

[lucylee]

VERY IMPORTANT CORRECTION!!!
No no no!!! OKAY, you did NOT miss anything!!!
OH MY GOODNESS!!! NO!!! That should have said,
AND I'm thankful ds & ddil are NOT presenting me with a second gchild this week, LOL.
How did I miss that??? OOOHHH... Proofread, proofread...
My cousin w/cancer is getting HER second grandchild next week. NOT ME!!! NO NO NO!!!

[OKay]

(((Blessedw2))))

Our food does go further since I started learning what a portion is of each item on the menu and only cooking/serving correct portion size.

cook for other family members bc we made things that they wouldn't like

That's hard when others won't eat what you've cooked. I have an advantage in that I'm cooking for easily pleased DH and a child that has been raised to eat what is in front of him. ***shhhhh*** Don't tell LO others don't have to do that! He only knows my rule.......This is what we are eating this meal. If you don't want to eat it then that's fine. The next meal will be served in 4 hours (or in the morning). I do try and serve his "This isn't my favorite" foods when he isn't eating with us and at least have 2 items on his plate that I know he likes.

Buying food (meat) without knowing the price would be extremely hard for me. I would be horrible trying to visualize and calculate in my head. I am used to having the meat in front of me with the final price clearly marked.

[OKay]

LucyLee - LOL!!

[Nancy]

Back from an errand dgd forgot her book bag that had her school stuff in it I had to go to the store the one that was in that Target Store chain snafu so I have to go there with cash in hand.

I was dissappointed bc the pizzas were individual ones that h. I can share. I DID find olives that the other store was out of. So that was good. Got some rhodes bread so dgd and I can do some stuff with that this month.

[lucylee]

Oh my goodness, what a difference three little letters can make.
Oh my... I would be completely totally ready for the asylum if ds & ddil were expecting again. Doctor telling them they need to "talk to" this one more -- to get him to talk more... (so I worry that they aren't DOING something...) their house is shrinking into more and more clutter by the day... their income is probably stretched past its breaking point... no no no, please, Lord... let's get them to a little better situation before baby #2 comes along.
OTOH, ddil would love to have another soon. Everytime I hear about one of their peers expecting again, I fear she's going to get "baby fever."

Now...

I am s2s and hair is nicely colored...
and I've been to Wmart...

(((blessed))) I should give myself consequences (like you and dd). How would that work? I could tell myself no computer time if I don't do x minutes of housework, etc. I'm afraid I spoil myself too much. I am creating a lazy brat and have no one to blame but myself.

We are eating not-so healthy a lot of the time, I'm afraid. DH just has this real aversion to PLANNING meals. He does not want to know on Monday what he will eat on Tuesday; he doesn't even want to decide Tuesday morning what he will eat Tuesday night. This makes things extremely difficult re: menu planning AND budgeting. And of course, since I am not especially inclined to cook, we just go along as we are. $56 dollars for ONE lobster tail? Oh my goodness. No, we do not eat a lot of lobster around here, LOL...
I sure did spend a lot on Thanksgiving meal, not even counting the turkey. * whew * Dmil paid for the turkey and most everything else, but good gracious, that was quite a bill.

Still can't get over misunderstanding with that slight omitted word in earlier post. Going to edit NOW.

[Twins' Mom]

LOL, Lucy! Talk about causing a stir in the village today. I reread the sentence as OKay did and then decided that you must have meant the cousin, because we sure hadn't heard anything about this baby! Yes, IKWYM about your ds and dil and another baby - my dsis' son and dil are expecting although they swear it was an accident and they weren't supposed to have any more children after the second. I think she is getting tubes tied this time to be sure, I hope so anyway. She hasn't worked since her second pregnancy, which was high risk and this is again a high risk pregnancy.

I must be doing anything and everything to keep from buckling down today...I napped, then went out for errand run - drugstore, then Lowes and Staples, got car washed, went to Petsmart and then a walk through Tarjay. While at Petsmart I made an appt for Moe to get a bath tomorrow; at the car wash I cleaned out my car and vacuumed, although their vacuum didn't have much suction.

I need to walk the ddogs, perhaps an extra lap for Moe since he didn't walk this morning. I need to post in Health and Fitness, I am not getting in 10,000 steps daily but I am increasing my average each week.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Sunday here. Finally a day at sea so I can try and catch up on my writing.

Here's the description of Wednesday (I'm soooooo far behind!)

***********
January 27th We had a rough night. I had expected my cold to keep me up and Ken's hives to disturb him but then a rough sea added to the excitement. We were quite tired the next day, but had another day of touring to do on Wednesday.

Napier is the Art Deco architectural capital of the world. It may have fewer Art Deco buildings than other cities but as a percentage of the buildings, it would be the most. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1920s and they decided to rebuild using Art Deco due to the strength of the building materials and the lack of ornate design (since many of the Victorian-style building adornments had fallen and injured people during the previous quake.)

Unfortunately, we saw little of Napier as we had chosen a Maori cultural experience for our tour.

We arrived late into Napier. We were to be docked by 12:00 and our tour to leave at 12:30 but everything was pushed back as the Dawn Princess' arrival delayed ours. Our tour left even later than others due to a miscount of passengers on the bus, so we sat for ages waiting for 2 more people who didn't exist.

Once we were under way things went fairly well. The views of the countryside were amazing including the obligatory fields of sheep.

We were headed to a family run Maori cultural centre called Arch of the Ancestors. Our guide talked to us about the countryside along the way and about the Maori history and culture. Traditionally, newcomers are challenged by a warrior and so we were to put forward a champion to meet the challenge. Ken volunteered. Once we passed the challenge, we would be greeted with a musical welcome and expected to respond with the same so we practiced a short Maori response on the bus.

Arch of the Ancestors was located well up a hillside, away from roads and completely quiet. It was such a relief to be away from the rumble of the ship's engines, the rumble of the bus or the sound of traffic. I miss 'silence' (I use the term loosely since even at home there is the sound of the traffic on the highway a few km away.)

Ken did fine as our champion and didn't get killed.

The warrior came up threateningly, tossed down a flower fashioned from leaves which Ken carefully picked it up.

After the welcome song and speech, Ken responded by rubbing noses with the warrior. We did fine singing our response.

The centre offers a Maori culture summer program for children and they had not yet gone back to school so there were many children as part of our experience there.

After the welcoming we were shown two aspects of Maori life, their musical instruments and eels.

They demonstrated the sound from conch shells and from a ostrich leg bone fashioned into a flute.

Eels were a staple in their diet, the main source of protein. The eels (called "tuna" in Maori) swim far upstream so as the people moved farther and farther inland, they were able to keep their food source.

We were quite late getting back to the ship, past the 'all aboard' time, so we didn't have time for a leisurely driving tour around Napier to see the buildings. We did catch sight of a few but didn't bother to take shots from the moving bus.

My cold was quite a bit worse and so I opted to stay in for the night, having a light room service meal and watching old episodes of Downton Abbey from bed. Gabrielle, our butler, also brought me hot water, lemon and honey for my sore throat and developing cough. I went to bed well dosed up.

Ken in the meantime had a wonderful evening. He wanted to be socializing with others so headed off the bar and found two of the performers and asked them to hook him up with a date. He ended up at a birthday party with a group of world cruisers, including one of my favourites from trivia, and they made sure he brought me home a piece of birthday cake.

We slept fairly well, the seas having calmed down from the night before.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

We traveled between the North and South Islands overnight Wednesday to Thursday. Expected rough weather in the Queen Charlotte Sound. Had more smooth sailing. The weather continues to be charmed too.

Our waitlist on the dolphin tour didn't clear so we decided to explore on our own. On the way in to Picton, we saw a large school of dolphins so didn't regret missing the tour.

We arrived just after noon and after having lunch we headed off into town. We arrived just as the ferries from the North Island arrived so the shuttle was late starting but we walked along the well marked path and were in town in no time flat. The path leads pedestrians safely through the port area especially when the passenger and freight ferries are unloading. It was great to be able to follow it, knowing we were where we were supposed to be.

Found milk to drink and some stamps. Our errands run, we headed off to hike Victoria Domain, the large conservation area beside the harbour.

On the walk over, we spotted a huge sea ray in the marina. Not a SeaRay (brand of boat that was sold at the marina where my Dad kept his boat) but a sea ray. It is the first I've ever seen in the wild.

The hike up the hill was lovely. It was a cool day according to Fernando the cruise director and while the mercury didn't indicate a lot of warmth, the sun here is very hot so my vest came off within a few blocks of the ship. And I sweated profusely along the way once hiking.

The views were of the harbour, the sounds were of birds and insects (a steady of hum of those) and the trail was scary for me (not very wide and a long drop down) but I managed it and we did about 5K along the trails.

We had started on the lower trail, the switched to the upper trail, got back to almost the start before heading up to the peak.

Our maps were poor and the guide-posts confusing so we always thought we had gone farther along a trail than we had. After making it to the top, we headed back down by a road that came up the rear of the hill and walked along a green space valley back into town. Along the back we saw horses and, of course, sheep (even though we never left the town.)

We showered when back at the ship and I attended trivia. By then it was time for sail away.

There was a before-dinner concert by Michel Bell. I haven't mentioned his concerts before but enjoyed them. His wife accompanies him on piano and is a dynamo. He sang for the Fifth Dimension but also sang a lot on Broadway, including playing Porgy in Porgy and Bess and Joe in Show Boat. This was his third show but second on this segment of the cruise. He repeated about half the material from his first show and I was slightly annoyed but his version of Ole Man River was so awesome, I was glad I had a chance to hear it a second time and feel the chills come over me one more time.

We had dinner out on the pool deck with friends. It was very windy and a bit cold but the hot, volcanic, rocks we cook our meals on also kept us warm, and the staff wrapped us in blankets as well. So, while our nacho chips and salad leaves would blow away, the main course warmed us nicely. After dinner we went up and played Name that Tune. Still came in second (or last if you consider there were only 2 teams!) but had a wonderful time.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Just finished cuoping and am laughing at Lucylee's correction! (I've omitted those three letters a number of times so can identify with the error.)

I've written two of the four travelogs I need to get done. But it is almost time for trivia, then tea and by then we'll be in Milford Sound which is a highlight of the trip and will take our time until dinner. Oh, and I have to dress for dinner again tonight.