...oh and this is a BIG positive too!

Only 136 days till Breaking Dawn Part One is released!!!!!!!!!!!

(okay so if you're not a Twi-hard you won't be so excited - give me a break - a girl has to have obsessions to get by!)

Oh Edward - it should have been me!

Wow - I've impressed myself!

So I've been doing my Positivity Challenge for 20 days now!  Not much for some people but I'm fairly impressed with myself (if I do say so myself!).  Its not often I stick with something so well....other than bad stuff really.


I'm quite enjoying it - and today is the first day I've been a bit stuck and thats just cos I've got a couple of 'bigger' things I want to spend time on writing and don't have the time and mind space today.

So how bout my positive being that I am happy that I have stuck to my positive challenge to myself.  I'm struggling with setting myself goals and not achieving them - so this one is a bigger achievement than I'm giving myself credit for actually.

My next goal is to sort my house out.  My therapist has been trying to get a Community Support Worker assigned to help me with this.  Someone not so much to do the cleaning etc but to SUPPORT, MOTIVATE, COME ALONGSIDE me and be a friend while I do it.  A peer support person maybe - someone who has battled mental health issues and is on the other side.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up about that one - it scares me in a way.  If I can achieve that goal.  IF I can make the external, my home, look the way I want, that means I can make the internal, my heart/brain etc, look the way I want too.

At the moment my life and mind etc are in turmoil and confusion and that is being expressed in the way my house looks and the way I treat it.  The hope is, if I can clean up the house, and learn to treat it with respect again that I will then be able to do that to myself as well.

If nothing else it will give me the confidence to ask my Dad to come and fix all the little bits and bigger bits around the place that need doing and that are actually preventing me from moving on.

I've discovered that because Dad hasn't followed through with some of the promised 'improvements' to my house since I moved in - 5 years ago - that I believe that I am NOT worth it and therefore am NOT worth anything.  And now I have let the place fall apart I'm too ashamed to ask him to come in. 

So positive - I'm well on my way to achieving a 28 day goal I have set.  Positive two - I'm on my way to receiving support to step forward in my goal to straighten up my house and therefore straighten up my life.  Yay me!

Four in one day

So I've been missing for four days - sorry.  The first two were due to silly computer having a hissy fit and not working and then suddenly deciding to work again - WTF!?!!? 

The last two days have been kind of laziness and kind of because I was meant to be on a non-tech holiday away at the beach which fell through (which is very sad, but we are trying to be positive and will be going on the 'holiday' at the end of the month instead), so I have been trying to have a 'holiday' at home.

So here are four good things in one day:

1.  Crowded House - Four Seasons in One Day (cos you can't beat Kiwi boys done good, plus Neil likes Piha and so do me and Ollie! and without doubt this is the Auckland anthem - especially in the last week!)

2. These guys.  Wish there was somewhere like this for me when I was a teen.  But then again would I have found them or they me?

Youth Inserach on Sunday video

Youth Insearch Website

3.  I am watching this programme as I type and it is just making me smile with its feel-good-ness and the non-icky way it is doing it.  Good old BBC done it again.  I'm loving its sense of fun and dry British humour.  Much like I love my Pommie friends (yes Jean that means you!).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mk50r

4.  And last but by no means at all least.......

This is where we were meant to be this weekend and can't wait to be there to stay at the end of the month instead, Piha.

Playing at Piha with Aunty Kelly and her girls Winter 2009



A wordless smile

You're welcome!

Its a funny old country

The Happy Feet story.....http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/happy-feet-offered-ride-back-antarctica-4262327

This poor wee bloke (or bloke-ess we're still waiting on the DNA test as we don't have any penguin 'sexers' in NZ - which is the technical term for people who tell you what sex a penguin is - an you thought you had a weird job!) is being called Happy Feet - but he doesn't have a very happy tummy.

He is an Emperor Penguin all the way from Antarctica who somehow ended up on a beach near NZ's capital Wellington. 

Unfortunately he had never seen sand and twigs etc before and decided that they looked tasty so he might try and eat it the way he does with ice when he's at home.

Poor guy had a tummy full of sand that turned into concrete and twigs and dirt and rubbish.

So what do you do for a sick visitor from WAY down south???  Well if you are a wonderful wee nation called New Zealand, you all band together and get him to a zoo ASAP.  Then you organise for the top gastric surgeon at Wellington Hospital to come and operate on him and get most of the gunk out of his tum.

Then you all collectively hold your breath, say a prayer and keep an eye on the news, waiting to find out how the patient is doing.

Good news!  He's doing much better thank you, especially when you consider he's had 3 ops in just a few days.

He seems to be handling the fame reasonably well and handling the 'being around humans' thing too - especially when you realise he's never met one until he got here!

What I love about NZ is that we come together as a nation and pull out all the stops to save this funny wee fellow.  Penguins I think intrigue us as humans cos lets be honest they do just look like little fat people in suits!!

Its so lovely to be part of a nation that holds its breath waiting to see if a penguin is okay......we don't know how lucky we are!

AND YET we let this happen to our babies and defenceless children


Click on the picture for link.

Come NZ lets do for our kids what we do for visiting penguins.  Pay attention and go above and beyond to save a life.

Lucky 13 Positive

The sun shone today and it was beautiful - even more than that was the fact that I was able to put three loads of washing through the machine and hang it all out AND get it pretty much dry on the line (only 2 tshirt needed extra love in the hot water cupboard). 

The above statement makes me sound like a sad on lady - but I was down to the granny pant bottom of the undie barrel SO call me what you want!

It was shining and beautiful yesterday and we had a lovely time running around the beach with my special friends Jean and Glenn and their kids.

My fantastic Pommie friends the Bewick's

So the 13th inspirational thing I want to tell you about is the wonderfulness that is a walk along North Piha beach, with good friends, jumpy doggies and an ice cream to top it all off.

Oliver the Wonder Dog and his girlfriend Lucy surfing

It is one of mine and Ollie's favourite hangout spots (have I mentioned that we'll be out there for the WHOLE weekend in just four more sleeps?????).  We go out there as much as we can.  In the summer we go to walk and swim and lie in the sun and read. 

Ollie even has his own boogie board and life jacket for the summer swims!

In the winter we rug up warm and go for lovely treks up to the very end of North Beach and get blown about in the wind, race away from the waves and chase the gulls.

It's all about blowing the cobwebs out of your head, getting a lung full of great air, wearing out my four legged wonder boy and just having fun chasing the kids, dogs and talking with friends and doggies.  Who could ask for more from a Sunday afternoon.

How To Know God Wants You At Church Today....

God is very funny some days, today especially.

I have been hiding from my church family of late.  Feeling so low I find it hard to put on the 'game face' and be in public.  Actually to tell you the truth, its hard just to be around people, I find it draining of me physically and mentally, plus I have to make the decision of whether I'm going to be 'real' or not.

SO yesterday after I'd spent the day at the retreat on the book of Job, I told God that I didn't need to go to church today.  I also had babysat last night for my friends (who had babysat Ollie while I was at the retreat - so it was a good swap) and so was out late and figured I would be tired and sleep in.

I woke up at 7.30am, rolled over and told God that I didn't want to go to church today.

I woke up again at 8.15am, rolled the other way and said I really didn't want to go to church today.

I woke up again at 9.15am and said I wasn't going to go to church.  Rolled over to be greeted by a jumpy dog needing to go outside!  Then as I was snuggling down into bed I got a text from my friend saying another mutual friend was going to come to church today; a friend who has never been before and who we'd been inviting along for years.

Still I said I didn't want to go.

I looked at the clock and said well its 9,30am and I still will have to have a shower and wash my hair etc.

I got up, looked in the mirror and my hair was fine....not flat and sticking out in weird places, in fact it was good to go!

So I said OKAY I'll go to church, but only if I can get my hair to look right and get some decent clothes on.

For the first time EVER my hair paid attention to the style in my brain and decided to work with the new straightener!

I was of course 20 mins late leaving and told God well I was going, so He better make sure I could get a decent park cos no doubt my usual park right outside the front door would be gone.....I get to church - 25 minutes late - and my park is free!

I laughed - I had to - He obviously wanted me there for some reason.

Worship ran later than usual and there was an amazing sense of the Holy Spirit's presence in the room.  So even though I was so late I got a great worship time with God.

Then the pastor got up to preach, about how God loves us - JUST THE WAY WE ARE!  In fact he preached all about not having to compere ourselves to others because we are made in God's image and He doesn't make mistakes.  It was a VERY timely message and one that I KNOW He wanted me to hear - even if it was just to remind me He loves me.

So there you go - God is funny, He likes to laugh at us and He likes to give us things to laugh at - He even holds your parking spot for you when you are late!