12th March, 2011

Dave and I slept in the house on last night cause he started feeling really sick, the same way I did, with a sore throat. It seems like it all hit him at once though, as he is coughing and blowing his nose like a madman.

We woke up, took ibuprofen, ate some yogurt with fruit and tea with honey and felt much better after an hour. We decided to hop in the car to go look at Dave’s guitar at the Kauri Kingdom. This place is a major tourist destination and they were really excited to have Dave’s guitar for sale in there. We drove up there and the place is really amazing. They have a staircase that is built from a massive Kauri log, trinkets for sale, as well as beautiful turned bowls worth hundreds of dollars and a gallery upstairs. The gallery is where Dave’s guitar was, inside of a case with a mirror back for viewers to see all sides of the guitar; listed for $3250 with a beautifully written statement next to the guitar. Very proud of him. ☺
(Swamp Kauri trees were massive trees that at one point covered the Northern part of the North Island 45,000 years ago. The base of the trees sometimes reaches 35 feet across, they’re massive. Anyhow, an enormous tidal wave knocked these trees over 45,000 years ago and blew all of them over in the same direction. They were preserved because the soil is sandy up here and over the course of farmers running them over, they started being dug up and have become quite an expensive commodity. One cubic meter of this wood is worth $16,000. Anyhow, this is the wood that Dave has got his hands on and been able to build an instrument that is perfect out of. It sounds beautiful. :)

Here is Dave's guitar at the Kauri Kingdom

We picked up a coffee on our way out of the Kauri Kingdom and headed up to Cape Reinga, which is the Northern most point of the island. It turned out to be almost a 2 hour drive each way, but it was worth it. The scenery was really beautiful and reminded me of Ireland with rolling green hills full of sheep and cows. We arrived at the cape and it was an amazing site. The sea looked turquoise and green in parts and although we were up quite high, you could see to the bottom. Lovely.

On the way back, we had to stop at the only gas station along the way for some gas and hoping to get a meat pie, since we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Dave had 15 dollars in his wallet, so we punched in 10 on the old school gas pump and started pumping. We stopped the pump after what seemed like 30 seconds cause it wasn’t stopping or telling us how much gas we had put in. I went into the shop and spoke with the deranged toothless man behind the counter who told me we had put $63. 53 into our car. We found out that if you press the ‘fill’ button, which we did that the pump does not stop. Great. Dave tried his debit card, which didn’t work and I ran mine as credit, which finally worked. Thank god. I felt like I was on the Kiwi set for Deliverance and wanted to get the hell out of there.
Dave used the cash in his pocket to get a steak pie. The pies are delicious little snacks that are covered in pastry, slightly bigger than your palm and filled with a variety of goodness, this one in particular had beef, peas and gravy inside and it was a perfect sharing snack.

We got home and after a short while, I called my family, who were all getting back from my Grandpa’s wake. Although it was a sad time, it was nice catching up with all of them. I was able to briefly talk to my cousins, Ken, Frank, Roxanne, D.J., Scott, Tyler, and my Aunt Lisa, Uncle Dave, Uncle Pat and both my parents. It was good to talk with all of them. My cold decided to be extra annoying while I was on the phone and kept my nose completely plugged up the whole time. After my Uncle Pat had told me that I should know that I should be drinking whiskey when I’m sick instead of beer, Dave and I headed back to town to the ‘Liquor King’ shop. I guess all I needed was a little encouragement. ;)

When we got back, Dave, Kathy and I had a little Bush Mills in a glass and sipped it in honor of my Grandpa Howard. Although, his drink was gin, I couldn’t handle gin at the moment and whatever we don’t touch now, will be drank a little of next weekend when it is St. Patrick’s Day. ☺ Sidenote- I couldn’t taste the whiskey. That’s how plugged up my nose was. All I could feel was the warm sensation in my mouth and going down into my stomach.

Dave and I made breakfast for dinner cause it sounded good. We whipped up some salsa, guacamole, potatoes, and eggs with chorizo. It looked good, and Dave said it tasted good, but I couldn’t taste a damn thing.

We slept in the house again and were in bed by 9pm.

Cape Reinga.....

11th March 2011

I haven’t written anything for over a week again. Eeek. Dave finished his guitar last Friday and we celebrated at the workshop by having a few beers and eating some sausages from the grill. Delicious! The following morning, I went with Steve and Dave to Greg and Terry’s property to finish milling a Kauri tree they had worked on a week or two prior. It was nice, (once the rain stopped), and Terry cooked up a delicious breakfast for us with sausage, eggs, mushrooms and toast. Sausage 2 days in a row!!! Yum.

We came home that night, made dinner and hung out at the house with Dave’s family. They were quite amazed with the guitar he made and Matt, Bryan and Dave all played guitar together. By the end of the night, I had to make an exit cause my throat was starting to hurt so bad, I needed to get in bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up cause my throat felt so swollen and painful.

During the week, I couldn’t really take it easy cause I had to work Monday- Wednesday. Oh well. The days were rough, but at least I was getting paid, or will on the 23rd. Tuesday I lost my voice by the end of the day, so Wednesday I tried to take it a bit easier, but each day I have had the worst headache, it takes 4 ibuprofen to make it go away.

Thursday, I did laundry and went back to sleep around 11am and did not wake up until 2pm. When I woke up, my head was bangin. Dave’s mom, Kathy gave me 2 15mg codeine and 2 ibuprofen and I felt much better. I went into town to pick up some groceries, then picked up Dave and made hummus and falafel for dinner with some veggies.

Today is Friday and I’m frustrated cause I got a phone call at 7am asking if I could work today. The most frustrating part is that it was Kaingaroa School that called. This is the school I applied for a teaching position for terms 2-4 because that teacher will be on maternity leave…. And this was the classroom I would have been filling in for today. So basically, the Principal called me to see if he could try me out for a day in the room I would be teaching in, and I had to turn it down cause I’m too sick. SHIT SHIT SHIT!!! I started 2nd guessing myself and crying after I got off the phone, but as I am typing this and coughing up nasty shit, with my head pounding, I should have confidence and know I made the right decision. I am to call him next week on Tuesday or Wednesday to see when I can come in to work in the classrooms that week. So, its not over.

Meg, (Bryan’s GF), apparently has been really sick too. Bry said she’s had wicked headaches, so much so that she didn’t go to work on Wednesday. She went to the doctor and he thinks she has a Strep infection, but in her blood, because all her mosquito bites are getting infected. There was a kid at the school we were teaching at last week, who had such a bad infection in his throat, there was puss and that’s probably what I have. Sweet.

I’m off to drink OJ, eat garlic and garden. Gotta get rid of this cold!!!

1st March, 2011

Wow, I haven’t done any writing for a week. Originally I started this blog to be a journal of my experiences because it can become easy to forget all the things you do over the course of time. This past week was busy; stressful, emotional and fun during other times. Earlier in the week I found out my Grandpa was really sick and was in a hospice home, stress. It is hard to be away from family when someone is ill. I wish I could be around to help my Mother and support her. Wednesday, I taught at Ahipara, Thursday and Friday I was at Te Kura O Hata Maria, (which is a Catholic Maori School in Pawarenga). Thursday, I also found out my Grandpa passed away, while I was at school. Needless to say, that by the end of the week I was ready for some R&R. Saturday, we went into town in search of beer brewing supplies, and found SUCCESS!!! YAY!!! We then headed home and helped paint the house for a few hours, while sipping some vodka cocktails. I spoke with my family on Sunday, which was nice. Later on Sunday, Dave and I did some canning of salsa and pickles and then packed a tent, some food and pillows and went camping for the night. It was good to get away and we had a nice time, sipping some Coopers beers, watching the sunset and eating some random veggies.

21 February 2011

Super tired this morning. I wonder if I have a bug, or need to exercise more…. Probably both. I had the house to myself today, so I hopped on the computer to get some teaching materials together. I found starting activities for a persuasive writing activity and gathered some info on an art project.

Went over to the school and met up with Jodi, who I am supposed to be working for the next couple days. We discussed what I would be teaching and I found out that I will only be working for her on Wednesdays, rather than Tuesdays and Wednesdays, (totally a misunderstanding by me, bummer). Oh well. This did stress me out though, so I rode my bike home and got the number for the school Meg works at to see if they still needed me to work the following day… which turned out they didn’t. After that, I wound up searching for jobs on the computer. There were a couple leads, so that is what I will be doing in the morning; dropping off CVs and giving my cell phone number to the schools in the area that already have me on their relief teaching list.

I went down to the caravan after I had finished my research and was ready to have some wine. Dave was already down there, so we poured some wine, caught up on our days, checked on seedlings, Dave played guitar and we started making soup and salad for dinner.

Sleepy monkies.

20 February 2011

Super sleepy this morning. It has been cold the evening, so he cicadas have not given their usual 630Am wake up call, they’ve been waiting until 730 or 8 when it starts to warm up a bit. After a slow wake up session, and typing for a bit, I went up to the house to call my family and check in. I didn’t have access to a phone yesterday while we were out, so I missed our usual time to talk.

Called my Mom first to see how my Grandpa was doing. Mom had already started drinking margaritas, and was in great spirits, literally. ☺ She said that Grandpa is doing good and that he has been much happier since they arrived. Either way, his overall health is not doing well and they do not expect him to leave the hospice home. I did get a chance to talk briefly with the fam and with Grandpa again and it was very nice to hear his voice when he’s more coherent, rather than waking him up. He was happy to hear from me and I think I got a laugh outta him.

Called Dad next and we had a nice time catching up. We both caught up on what eachother have been doing at work. I talked about cars, beer, making beer, driving on the wrong side of the road, etc, and we had a nice conversation.

After cleaning the caravan for a while, Dave and I headed out to Mangonui in the afternoon to explore again and meet up with Steve at some point.