To recap what went down yesterday after the quake in my little world, the shakeup was not so bad out here as in town. I knew it was big and would damage afterwards, but being in a single story house is alot less worrying than Kylie in a six story building! After frantically checking in on people, I got word quickly from Dad and Kylie that they were well and on their way home. So I went around the house collecting water storage vessels and tidying up the glass that broke all over the place. Once I had what water I could store stored I paced and worried and kept in touch with people via text and email on my iphone (loving the iphone right now).

Thankfully I can do something and we now have people staying whose houses are now questionable if they should sleep in them or not. We have a few more people un accounted for, but the texts are flowing in thick and fast about everyone being ok! I am getting more optimistic by the minute! We have lots of work to do now and and I am sure the news will not all be good. But we have power, next essential thats pretty critical if we stay in christchurch or not is water. We will see what the day brings… NZ is getting loads of help and assistance from all over the world. Its very overwhelming!

To everyone including all my clients stay safe, dry and warm. Look after you and yours. Right now I am on hold work wise, but in emergency call me on the cell phone 021 610 706.

Not only have I been sick but before succumbing to the nasty virus I attended a wedding in Marlborough Sounds (see photo above). It was beautiful and so much fun. Had a bit of a mountain bike and got a little relaxing in.

Aaaand before all that I have been super busy and have a few new designs to share! They each deserve their own blog post. So these will follow in the next few weeks. Lots more work is thankfully in the pipeline, so all in all a busy few months are ahead of me.

Just wanted to checkin and let all you all know life is ticking along…. about to amp up for Christmas, so this forced break was probably for the best. Next CHRISTMAS… how fast did that creep up?

Here is one of the closeup shots i always go for:

Here is some yarn i am thinking of knitting into a lacy scarfy shawl.

I have been knitting, sewing even embroidering! But have yet to take pictures. I went on a bit a craft bender after I unravelled some socks that didn’t fit. So before starting those again i wanted to do some other things that have been looming and boy have i been loving the light relief!

As for light relief, those on facebook saw this little face I couldn’t resist taking a picture of.

Well Christmas has been and gone….. so we decided to do it again. This time in the middle of our winter. Some Christmas fare just tastes better when its cold. Its also so much more fun to have the decorations out twice a year rather than once!

Great times were had by many (i hope… at least they said so). I grew worried that there was so much food not being touched when people first started to arrive. But there came a moment the hunger must have started because all of a sudden the food was gone and we were being showered with praises over the gingerbread men!

I had fears we made too much gingerbread men and we would end up eating them all week and growing little bellies as a result. But alas there was none left at the end of the evening. They make great party food. There was almost a society formed to teach the most humane way to eat them and shocked glances and were seen as a person ate the little men from the feet up, rather than head down (apparently its a quicker less painful death from the head down).

Today you will get the gingerbread men recipe. I will post the Christmas mince pies and egg nog later in the week.

Gingerbread Men
(from joy of baking recipe)

3 cups of Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Ground Ginger
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
113g Unsalted Butter at room temp (we still use salted if thats all we have)
1/2 cup White Sugar
1 Large Egg
2/3 Cups of Molasses (we used Red Seal Blackstrap Molasses this time)

First sift and mix the dry ingredients together. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, add egg and molasses until well combined. Then slowly add the dry mixture. Divide the dough into two and wrap each with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 2 hours minimum. (This time we made our dough 3 days in advance and just kept refrigerated until we were ready to roll out and bake.)

When ready to roll out, lightly flour a surface and roll out dough until about 1/4 inch thick. Use a ginger bread cutter to cut out the cookies, using a spatula transfer from bench to a tray covered in baking paper.

Bake for around 8-12 minutes (they seems to cook really quick – so be vigilant!) Leave on tray for a short amount of time then once holding together well enough transfer to a cooling rack until they are room temperature.

I am no decorating wizz yet, but I did find the frosting from the original recipe too soft. Mine was not right either, would not stick to the little man as I was piping it. You can press decorations into the men when they are hot. But wait for them to cool completely before icing.

The weather on Saturday looked like it was going to be a nice one. So the ladies and I went for a little stroll up a mountain called “Mt Somers” to a big warm hut. We planned to walk the full loop, which meant two eight hour days. When we left with the weather forcasted it could potentially turn nasty on Sunday, so we decided to leave one car at the base of a different car park, which would mean one eight hour day on the first nice day and one three hour day on the icky day. There was still the option to do the full loop back if the keenest of us wanted to.

It started out well, while the car shuffle was taking place, myself and couple of others who wanted to take our time walking up the first big huff puff of a slope started out first. The asthma of course kicked in, which I should of thought would happen – no exercise due to injured foot and weird stomach upset in the last month meant I was not in the best condition. I managed to keep it under control, by taking it slow and having quick rests. However as many asthmatics would know that can be pretty tiring all by itself! But it did get a little better as I warmed up.

We had a great day, the sun was shining and the walk not too bad. We hit snow before the first hut (pinnacles). Beautiful, lumpy, iced over and all crunchy. We walked through a bit of it then had a brief rest at the hut before carrying on to the next one. We were about half way through the day at this point. I, to be honest, was wondering what the hell I had been thinking… but i carried on, luckily getting a bit of a second wind after some chocolate consumption. The last half was incredibly beautiful, cold and tiring.

We got over the worst of the snow before dark, there was some miscalculation in times due to the last minute car shuffle and unexpected amount of snow, but, thankfully, we pushed out what could of been the trickiest part in the dark and had only to follow a wide obvious track when the sun went down. Since it was such careful slow walking I managed to mostly keep up with the rest of the group. Hoo-rah, not entirely humiliated.

There was another guy walking the track by himself that passed us and he arrived at the hut just before dark, we worried him a bit with the need to take our time and maybe a few photos! But we made it, with an impressive entry as a trail of seven headlamps made their way down the snow covered valley and across a small stream to get to the hut. I was so happy we had made it that I broke out into a bit of a song. After a night of frivolity, eating and spilling my hot chocolate everywhere I happily lay on the mattress in the hut thinking about how warm and cozy I was. Its a weird euphoric feeling one gets when you have been cold and tired all day and get to drink hot chocolates with Baileys and Kahlua and eat yummy thai noodle soup and tim tams in good company. Perhaps its something to do with the contrasts. That and in my imaginings as we walked along in fading light I thought we might have missed the hut (not that there was a turn off in the track description or anything) and all seven of us were going to have to squeeze into our two, two man emergency tents. Lying in the warm hut was pretty bloody good.

The walk out the following day went without hitch. Due to too many unknowns and possible large uncomfortable consequences the keen people in the group decided to go out the shorter route as well. So we all came skipping/stumbling down the mountain and piled into cars, dozed and quietly chatted as we made our way home.

I came home to pumpkin soup, scones and a warm and cozy dinning room with my man on his kitchen missions. Quite wonderful really. I might also add, we finally got around to putting the electric blanket on the bed. Although a fire risk, its sooo cozy!

Crazy long line! Beside three sides of the building and down the street. Next year i am getting in really early! For fire regulations they can only let in so many at one time. Needless to say I am glad I have friends. Due to the sheer amount of people gagging to get in AND I was a bit out of my comfort zone surrounded by so many people, I literally ran to the cheapest stand, grabbed the first likely looking fabrics and notions then had a quick browse and left, filled two bags full in 15 minutes!

I got a few more fabrics, but once I got home, I wondered what I was thinking!? No doubt something will pop up.. these ones are the pick of the bunch and will be used to refresh the winter wardrobe.

Me? I like to bake, cookies, cakes, chocolate things… I also like to make dinner (so does Kylie) I have made a few things in the last week I think need sharing with you all. First it was this yummo sauce. We had it with steak, fresh bread and potatoes, but it would be pretty yum with chicken or just roast vege. I choked and spluttered when the chillies went in (need stronger extrator fan). But man was it a treat! Speaking of treats last night I went to a birthday dinner, that I made the cake for. BOY did I come out a popular one, this upside down banana cake recipe was so good. REALLY good with whipped cream. Other sins I committed this week was to bake a batch of these cookies AGAIN. This time I only managed to pass off a only a few before I ate the bulk of them. SIGH. I feel I must add another confession; I made this yummy lemon slice, which successfully lured a visitor. What else was for dinner this week? Indian foooood. Another bliss place for me.

I have a stratagem:  to do my baking just before the weekend, so others eat it before the week starts, so I am not alone in the house with the yummy food…

And finally; I am bringing in the bacon! Yes I have work again, a bunch of very cool projects have lined themselves up and I am no longer watching the clock tick by waiting for something to fill my day besides adding to the pantry with baked goods and knitting or crocheting until my hands ache. Speaking of knitting and crochet… nah lets wait til next time.

We climbed about 1087 metres in about 2 hours (don’t really know the time) I took my little handbag camera up. One day I will be so strong I will be able to carry my big heavy camera.

Up and up.

At the top we ridge line walked Avalanche peak then dropped down to another less high ridge line to walk to the correct scree slope to descend to the Crow Hut. That took maybe another hour and a bit. The ridge line was amazing. Never done anything like it! So devoid of any plant life with sharp crumbly grey rock I imagined I would turn the corner and see dragons. We had to scramble, climb and walk our way there.

This is Kylie trying to smile for the camera after coming down the scree behind him. Scree is crumbly mountain side, usually lots of small loose rock you can slip down a bit like a sand dune, but with sharpish fist and pebble sized rocks instead of sand. That was the freakest and hardest part of the day. All the muscles in my legs were screaming by half way down and I was so aware that loosening bigger rocks could land on the people below me (I was at the back until half way down) so I would frequently stop, when I started really slipping and loosing lots of rocks, until everything stopped moving around me.

There was also another group descending the scree at the same time as us and one poor girl lost her footing and panicked a little bit. So she sat for a while just getting her head together again. In the end she recovered but went very slowly down after that. So it really was scary and not just me.

When I got to the bottom and met up with the rest of my party who were sitting around waiting (I thought for me) I drank more water  and ate a bit of food, but I was eager to keep going because the hut was only ten or so minutes away. But before we left Patrick and Maaike started chanting “we know a secret, we know a secret” which I am afraid was lost on the tired me who smiled and didn’t try to guess – brain was focusing on staying upright. So I made my darling Kylie get up to show me the rest of the way to the hut which meant dry clothes and a mattress! Ahhh mattress… So the last person showing up on the slope above us was noticed by me, I just wanted to get the walk done and so I carried on… Not caring! About two thirds of the way to the hut the others caught up with an extra person. My tired brain didn’t even look twice, I just assumed someone from the other group had joined them. But low and behold up walks Mike. Who had to leave Chch later than us, but still wanted to come, so drove himself up into the mountains and caught up to us, despite being an hour behind in starting! Apparently I looked sufficiently surprised. To tired to speak for ten seconds I just stared at him.

Lucky for us Mike was late because he had to gone out to choose a wedding cake for his upcoming nuptials. As a result of the cake choosing activity he decided to attempt hiking in a cake for the evening. Which he did! A yummy yummy banana cake… It arrived intact and extremely edible. For dinner and breakfast.

The cake yummy and intact and Mike eating his lunch the next day.

We followed a river out…

This is me with my pack… strong like. Sorry if this post is a little muddled sounding, my brain is still focusing on focusing….

I went to the documentary Handmade Nation last night. Organised by Miss Millie and sponsored by Felt. Credits over heres what i thought…

SO lovely to see many wonderful women and a few brave men in the theatre. The theatre seemed quite full. Quite the success! I caught up with a few delightful ladies I have not seen in ages, which was awesome. The doco itself is very inspiring and left me feeling capable of anything! I also really liked and appreciated the honest portrayal of crafters. Some make things to sell because they like it, not because it makes them lots of money. Infact alot of them sounded like they held down familes, jobs and their crafting lives, including making enough to sell their work at craft fairs. Its funny I always got this idea we are all supposed to strive to craft and make money crafting full time. For some, they make a product that works and it becomes a sort of fad and takes over, all of a sudden they are making enough money to live off. But for others it doesn’t, no reflection on the quality or coolness of the product, almost luck. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is friends and creative outlets and sometimes funding your craft. One resounded clang I got was a guilt lifted, the guilt I felt for not making it ‘big’ in my hobbies or having my hobbies make me enough money to live off. So what right? I like my hobbies, just because i dont make money off them doesn’t mean I stop doing them. I get to share it with a few, my photos get used on walls and in designs, thats enough right?

OK so about the money thing. My actual JOB is web design. Life in freelance has been slooow. Since Christmas I have been only just making ends meet and thats thanks to the support of my amazing loyal customers and fabulous partner. Due to slowness I have been REALLY looking into what I am doing and how I can re-think it, re-market them and get this show on the road again. I have made no secret of it though, the talking it out really helps me get perspective and removes the stress of it all somewhat. I also have had many great ideas come my way thanks to my business-y techy friends, esp Ben from Diversity.

The changes are inspired by the new ways of communicating to customers via the internet, things I can do to really help business’s in their online marketing strategies. The need to start pushing my passion for usability and logical layout has also become apparent. I really don’t make a big enough deal of that side of my web design experience. I am still working on the best way to explain these new services and how best to reflect it on my online presence and then follow that up with real life stuff. So many ways to do this these days, its so easy to get bogged down by them all! Along with it, will be a new website design AGAIN. Yeah what can i say, its what i do… So watch out soon to be a new website, new marketing approach and new bunch of services. Any colour requests?