Good evening,

And first may I just point out to my lovely new readers (ha ha that’s so weird – that people I don’t even know are reading this – hi there and haere mai!) who are here thanks to the lovely Fee’s recommendation on her page Shineon – that I have a wee bit of a potty mouth. You may have figured that out by now but I just thought I’d acknowledge it. I’m not sorry – I like swear words – I think they punctuate and accentuate my otherwise fairly bland drivel – but I am aware that some people find them a bit much. Rest assured that my mother brought me up right ok? Although it IS a really good reason not to accidentally share my posts to my Deaning facebook page ha ha that wouldn’t be good.

Today! Three days in a row! Oh my goodness. I told some of my girls today that we could build a (good, studious) habit in them if we could sustain one thing for seven days. For them it was the fairly mundane goal of attending all of their classes for the whole day. They just weren’t ‘feeling it’. The yoof of today! I ask you.

Anyhoo I read somewhere that you start with seven days, turn that in to three weeks and there you have it – a habit. And it takes another 3 months to break said habit. But your heart has to be in it. I feel like I’ve been slacking on this here blog thing recently – and I value the reflection and processing that it gives me of an evening so am back on it. 3 days now. Winning.

Today was up and down. I think I glutened myself. I grabbed a roasted vege salad from up the road for lunch and I didn’t think to ask them if they had dusted the veges in flour before they roasted them – that is the best way to do roasted potatoes after all so I wouldn’t blame them – and I really and truly suffered. The annoying thing is that it also had roasted red onion in it – and I thought I was okaaaay with COOKED onion (I know raw onion cripples me with awful pain) but there is a chance it could have been that too. No way to know. Ugh.

What I do know is that by 20 minutes after I ate I had the tummy of an eight month pregnant woman (3 – really 3 girls asked me in my afternoon classes if I was pregnant!). I was doubled over and had sharp stabbing pains and felt really bad. Horrible bad,Horrible bad as the wee lad would say.

Nevertheless, I had boxing this evening and decided to do the class anyway – I suspected and I was right – that movement and a bit of twisting and stretching might make me feel better. It was slow going but by the end of the class I felt heaps better. Boot-camp this morning and boxing this evening – the grrls a fucking machine! Actually I’m fucking shattered but it’s that good whole-body exhaustion.

Enough of the complaining – I wanted to show you my current obsession;

It’s a bag. Yes. A gorgeous, truly unique GIANT bag. It’s mine and I love it for a special reason. See the weaving on the front, with all the woolly bits hanging off it? Well my Nana, my favourite old grrl, made that piece. Years ago, and my Mum pulled it out recently when she was going through Nana’s stuff to move them to Auckland this year. She offered it to me and I knew that I didn’t want it to moulder away in a cupboard somewhere.

So I asked around and was put on to a woman named Helen Miller who makes leather bags for a living, and I asked her to make it in to a bag for me. I am SO pleased with the result. I fucking LOVE the tassels. I love that you can see the ‘working’ of it and it’s not all slick and perfect. I took it to show it to Nana on the weekend and she was tickled too. She didn’t definitely remember making it but thought it was def ‘her style’ and entirely possible that she did ha ha. In her defence and dementia aside – it was probably 30 years ago and I can’t even remember last week! But she loved it too and that makes me happy.

So, I probably should go rest this weary body and mentally prepare myself for Parent teacher interviews tomorrow night. I can barely contain my joy.