Dreaming Kiwi

The dress I had ordered for St Patty’s day has arrived!! I was a little worried it was going to be a bit short for me but I neglected to read that the Model was way taller than me (story of my life), so it is the perfect length!

I can’t for the life of me work out how to capture the colour of the dress properly, it is St Patrick’s day green anyway!

Are you going to be wearing green for St Patrick’s day?

This past weekend all the weather forecaster’s were predicting a large storm or Weather Bomb across a number of places in the North Island, Wanganui was one of them.

The forecaster’s also got it seriously right! Although Sunday was for the most part a beautiful day I imagine many people were cleaning up the damage from the storm.

We were lucky enough to not have any damage at all but others were not so fortunate; This unlucky soul now has a completely flattened fence!

Was this weather bomb predicted to hit in your area? Did it hit? If not did you have a nice weekend?

It has begun…. The beginning of the end of all this ridiculous study, I received my study plans for Professional Accounting School (PAS) which runs until the 26 October 2011 when I will sit my Professional Competency Exam (PCE), pass and then be a Chartered Accountant (I’m getting on board with visualising the future).

I spent this weekend at the race track skim reading some study plans, watching some racing and generally relaxing. One of our friends we picked up on the way picked me a flower (the b/f should take some tips from him…).

This is the result of not wanting to study and it being too cold at the race track in the morning to leave the car – queue me listening to my iPod and taking photo’s with my phone.

I’ve decided I’m going to try blogging three times a week until the end of this study even though I’ve barely been able to do that so far. I have so many posts sitting there waiting to be written and I intended to get onto writing about five a week. That obviously did not happen!

Now I’m trying my luck with the thought that if I only need to write three a week it seems a lot more doable, I’ll fit it on my planner on the nights the b/f is supposed to cook. Now to stick with the plan…

What did you get up to this weekend?

Monday is not agreeing with me today I think it’s something to do with the fact that I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night – or any day of the weekend or most of the week before come to think of it.

I needed a bit of a quick pick me up/kick in the butt and also needed to do a blog post so combined the two.

Enjoy some of these sayings!

Without dragging this into a long-winded post I have been thinking the past week about how little I know who I truly am; working full-time and studying full-time while travelling for racing every other weekend you tend to get stuck in trying to get through each step of the process and forget about the things you really enjoy.

Time to rediscover (create) me again! (And get through this 8 months of study that start next week, Ick).

Which quote do you like the most?

Sometimes I should not look at online stores, unfortunately it it hard when you import and sell heels and dresses.

I do not own anything that these would go with but they are incredible.

Ohhh I die, look at them!!

Do you try and avoid temptation when you know you will get little to no use out of an item or do you purchase and find something to wear them to?

I’m having a bit of a mental block for the blog lately even though I have a tonne of posts I want to write I just can’t be bothered getting around to doing it.

I was looking through my recent photo’s today and realised I hadn’t posted a picture of the dress I wore to the wedding yet. You lucky things!

I wouldn’t usually go for a dress with so many colours but I’ve been trying to pickup things I wouldn’t usually in stores and try them on.

I actually quiet liked this dress once it was on and like that it has a bit of a ruffle thing that moves when you walk and doesn’t feel really clingy around the tummy.

I also used to love the bubble hem style but am trying to move away from it as it does look quiet bulky.

I’m getting used to using my tripod and cut my head off in all the photo’s or was pulling a retarded face, I’m pretty sure our neighbours could see me since it was dark and I was in the kitchen with the light on. That just means you get a nice big close up with very average colours. Oh how I wish I was a good photographer – something that is on my bucket list.

Dress is from Dotti – was $29 on Sale down from $89 or $99, purchased in Queenstown.

Do you only pick up ’safe’ colours from the rack or get a bit adventurous and try on things you usually wouldn’t?

- Planning for an extended holiday (Even if it can be frustrating partly relying on others)
- Getting back into a routine after a month off work.
- Weekends to myself with nothing planned.
- Freaking people out when I tell them their drink has the equivalent of 9 teaspoons of sugar in it (I have evil tendencies).
- Attending Weddings, especially when it includes catching up with family members.
- Summer fruits!

What are you loving at the moment?

This past weekend our family headed up to Auckland to celebrate our cousin’s wedding. We had never met the bride before the big day but had a lot to do with the cousin when we were growing up.

We stayed at our aunty and uncles and played with their dogs until it was time to get ready and head to the Wedding.

The reception was at a church – and a relatively new one at that. And the car’s were near new white rental cars, a lot cheaper than a limo and they looked perfectly fine with a different colour ribbon for each car.

It was so cute seeing my cousin get married and see how his nerves calmed a bit once his partner began to talk down the aisle.

The reception was at Butterfly Creek which was pretty nice. I have terrible photo’s of the night and the good ones I don’t want to load as they may not appreciate having their face all over the interwebs.

I wish them the best of luck and hope they enjoy their nice long (5 weeks!) honeymoon.

Have you been to a wedding recently? For those of you planning a wedding how is the planning coming along?

The Tiki Trail is the name for the trail that runs from the base of the Gondola to the summit, and to those who enjoy walking or are on a budget is a good way of saving the $25ea cost of the return Gondola Trip.

The trail is relatively steep in places and isn’t the easiest walk I’ve ever done. The trail zig zags up the hill to the summit and for the most part is throughout the forest. The trail is well sign posted from the base to the summit just keep an eye out for the signs at any forks in the track.

At the summit you can undertake a few different activities, luging, bungy, mountain biking or short walks depending on your mood, wallet and sense of adventure.

To return down to the base of the Gondola you can return back via the Tiki Trail or take the Gondola down, the Gondola is $14 for a one way return ticket. Although I did hear of people just walking straight out on to the Gondola by passing the ticket counter as apparently they pretty much never check tickets on the ride down – go with your gut on this one.
Your gut may however cause you to have a mini freak out when you board the Gondola and you start your descent – that shit is steep (the steepest in NZ I believe). For the sake of the public I’m glad I was in the Gondola by myself as I was freaking the hell out!

Once the Gondola had moved off the edge of the hill and started going down it wasn’t so bad since I’m short and couldn’t see over the top of the windows and down the hill unless I actively tried to look, being short for the win!

There are some seriously stunning views from the top of the summit, no matter how you get up there it will be worth it.

I would recommend doing this trail unless you are short on time and only want to get to the summit to do one of the activities then leave.

Where have you been on Gondola’s before? I’ve been on the Rotorua & Queenstown ones only (that I can remember).

On the weekend after the SSS I spent quiet a bit of time lying around on the couch and blog hopping.

I’ve noticed more and more bloggers are using Instagram to get some awesome effects on their photo’s, since I don’t have an iPhone I tried searching for Instagram in the Android market place and the first App that came up was Picplz, it’s free and seems to work pretty well.

I spent a bit of time going through some of my phone photo’s, putting them through the app and uploading them to Flickr (you can auto send them to Twitter and Facebook and a host of other social media sites as well) to see how the app worked.

I’m pretty stoked with it, given how easy it is to use. You simply click the photo you want to alter then it has about 7-8 different filters you just scroll down and click the one you want then click post and decide where you want to post the photo to (in my case Flickr), you can also save a copy to your phone as well.

Here are some of the pictures I was playing around with…

Do you use photo altering apps or programmes like picplz and instagram?