I love the few days after Christmas, when everything has settled down and no ones in a panic about what to buy for whom. When the days are filled with naps and the eating of glorious glorious food, and oh! The Boxing Day Sales!! I got some fabulously cute heels, and a swish pair of sunnies and didn’t feel guilty for buying either. :)

I’ve also spent some time with a few friends up at Snells Beach where we drank deliciously cheap and sweet asti, gin and tonics, and generally had a fantastic time! It was pretty fantastic to get out of the city and wake to blue skies and gorgeous beach views.

And without a doubt there will be more of it. Tomorrow I’m headed down to Waihi Beach where I shall lounge about on the beach, drink some more fabulously sweet drinks and be in the best company possible.

I shan’t be back till after the New Year, so I wish you all a very happy New Year and hope your celebrations are filled with much laughter, fantastic company and good times :)

Till Next Year!

So the cookies have been made, and placed in jars and sealed with ribbons (just in case you doubted I’d get past the eating of the dough).

Quinn helped.

And now I’m all dressed up in my Christmas best, as is The Boy, and Sibling and her boy. And I can honestly say, internets, Christmas is looking better than it did this morning. There shall be feasting, and merry drinking, and fantastic company.

It appears this Christmas will not be as cheerless as I thought! :)

I am covered in flour and have spent the last hour or so happily eating the cookie dough that was meant to be cooked into emergency ‘whoops I forgot you were coming’ Christmas Presents.

Ah Christmas Eve. Other than the cookies (which just need to be transferred into jars once they assume cookie form) everything is wrapped and labelled. Home is mostly clean (I say mostly cause the kitchen is still covered in flour) and everything is pretty much ready for what will probably be the most cheerless Christmas I’ve ever been involved in.

Siigh. And for those of you that are posting about the ridiculous amounts of snow you have, and how you’ve taken your boards out of hibernation and are RIDING down your street – I hate you. It’s raining here – all cold and storm like. And it’s meant to be the height of summer, so good to know Auckland is defying convention and sticking to its much beloved rain.

It’s a ridiculous notion, but I wish it snowed in Auckland. Purely so I could do what all those others in the opposite hemisphere are doing. My street would be PERFECT for riding down. Needless to say all of you who are complaining most bitterly about your snow should shut up. I’d trade with you, quite happily I’d trade with you.

Okay, at the risk of becoming more Grinch like in this post, I’ma go eat more of that cookie dough. I wish all of you a safe, happy Christmas, and a wonderfully merry New Year.

After two weeks I can honestly say I’m loving this new job. The people are nicer, my boss isn’t calling me names behind my back and there are all kinds of perks! And the work I’m doing? Actual work!

I’ve created and successfully sent out email campaigns, designed christmas cards, and I’ve just been told that I’m going to be involved in the new web services architecture. This? This is actual work. What I was doing before? Complete rubbish in comparison.

Perhaps there’s something about loving what you do that allows you just to be better at it. I’m dyslexic, yes. In my last job that meant that I made a fair amount of mistakes – despite the triple checking, and constant reminders I was giving myself. But I hated the job, and the people I worked with hated me too so going to work every day was like being electrocuted with fake smiles and bitchiness every five minutes. I’m sure you can imagine the kind of work ethic that instigated, and I’m sure it was the catalyst of all the mistakes I made.

The new job, though? I come into work calm, and happy and glad to be there. I don’t bite my tongue or wish to bitch incessantly. I’m glad to be given things to do, and surprisingly I do them well – no mistakes as yet! Perhaps its the type of work I’m being asked to do – creative fun stuff – today I am creating .Net Web Apps! Actual Development! With actual programming! It’s just so SATISFYING! Admittedly, I haven’t used any of the .Net languages since uni, so I’m flexing muscles I haven’t used in four years. But for serious – I can’t believe let myself suffer in an admin role (something I was hideous at) when I could have been doing this.

If any of you reading this dislike what you are doing – STOP DOING IT! If you know there are better things out there, go find it. I didn’t realise how miserable and pathetic my old job was until I left, and I can honestly say that leaving was the best possible thing I could have done for myself. Don’t suffer if you don’t have to, hey. If you can move on to greener pastures, then do so. For Serious!

Quinn has his last day at Barkley Manor this week, and not only did they send him home with his ‘class’ photos (super cute!) but they also sent his report card for the year!

It was super cute, it has grades (for things like ’sit’ and ‘wait’), and the names of friends he’d made. It has things he’s gotten better at (‘interacting with other dogs’) and things he still has to master (‘being more adventurous’). And then you get to the bottom, and it had this:

‘Best Known For: Sticking his head through the fence.’

And I was all, oh yeah, that’s my dog – and I couldn’t be more proud! :)

Since my parents have seperated, I (alas) don’t see my Mum as much as I would like to, and I think as a consequence this year for Christmas she asked for photos of Sibling and I. I went digging through my (rather large) photo collection, and realised that most of the photos I had of me and sibling were ones where we were being silly cam whores. Not overly appropriate for giving to ones mother.

So I asked a friend to take a bunch of ‘nice’ photos of us, and he very kindly did. What we got back were lovely photos of us looking (and feeling) rather awkward.

Sitting still and having photos taken of you feels very odd if you’re not posing in odd positions or pulling faces. You worry about the weird shapes your face is making, and whether all the little natural movements you make without thinking are going to be caught mid movement and make you look like a retard.

In the end we gave up on the serious, sitting still and smiling photos, and took a bunch of fun, ‘more us’ shots.

We probably look more like retards in these photos than the awkward ones, but the difference is that we straight up don’t care. :)

One of the perks at work is that the company picks up the coffee tab from the cafe across the way. It’s a very very nice perk and much appreciated but everyone here.

Every morning someone will ring the cafe and put in the coffee order, and the coffee man will walk over a little while later with a towering tray of the requested coffees. They come with names on them too, so not to mix up the trim with the soy or the coffee with the hot chocolates, and everyone happily gets what they ordered.

It appears, though, that ‘Elly’ sounds a bit different to how it’s spelt. This morning I am ‘Elli’. Yesterday I was ‘Elley’. I’ve also been Ally, Alley, Ali, Eli, and Ellee.

But I don’t get too down about it – being dyslexic sucks, so I totally empathise with the coffee maker across the way. And I really don’t have the heart to correct them – the coffee guy is really sweet to walk over several times a day, and he always stays to chat a bit.

Besides, it’s getting to the point where every time I order a hot chocolate I’ll sit and wait in anticipation of the quiet giggle that will come when I discover another absurd spelling of my name. :)

Last week I hand signed 150 cards that were being sent from work. I’ve only just started, I’m barely two weeks in. So at first I declined signing the cards – it seemed a little bit odd considering how new I was. But my boss stopped in passing one day last week, to say that he really really appreciated my being there.

In the last role being appreciated was somewhat rare, and that he took the time to stop and tell me so was completely unexpected! Was this some kind of a trick? This warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you’re in a good place with good people? Blasphemy! I couldn’t possibly be reading this situation right! And then I realised that no, he was genuinely happy that I was there.

I think my old job has made me overly paranoid. So, I signed all 150 cards. I was going to spread the Christmas Cheer, and fully embrace the new role and all that came with it.

And to see my name along side my new colleagues, knowing that these were good people, and that I’m appreciated and wanted? It was a whole day of warm fuzzies and christmas cheer!

So hell yes, I hand signed all 150 cards, and didn’t mind doing a single one.

… stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store?

What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?“

- Dr Suess

So, with a week and bit a left to go – Christmas is decidedly here, whether we like it or not.

Earlier in the year my parents decided they were going to separate. It’s been a fairly bumpy conclusion to come to, and everyone is still all sensitive about things. And deciding what Sibling and I are doing come Christmas day hasn’t been easy. Christmas has taken a less than cheerful turn this year.

And I’d had enough. I hung up a Christmas Wreath on the front door, and set up Christmas Tree, complete with lights and colour co-ordinated decorations. I wrapped all the presents I had and placed them under the tree. Because dammit, Christmas CHEER was needed!

And since then all sorts of festive cheer has blindsided me – the boy is this very moment wearing a Santa hat while he games. I’ve received two Christmas cards in the post, wishing me a Merry Christmas. I even dutifully attended Christmas in the Park to watch The Third Quarter sing in the choir.

Christmas, it appears, DOES mean something more than fighting it out alongside strangers in crowded malls. Perhaps I just needed to be reminded.

The Boy and I have been watching the first couple episodes of JJ Abram’s new show Fringe. It’s a fairly decent scifi/thriller with an interesting (although possibly far-fetched) premise. It’s got a few sequences which are a bit gory for me (which is why I haven’t watched the entire first season yet) but I’m slowly getting into it – a bit like slowly wading into cold beach water at the start of summer.

Anyway, as usual JJ Abrams’ has sucked me in – not with his characters or his plot (although both are fairly nice. Quirky, but you have to expect that from a JJA show) – what I’m loving is the typography used in his cut scenes (which I think is Helvetica Bold?) and how they were merged with the action shots.

It’s clean, well integrated and just looks damn cool! And the attention to detail – hurrah! They didn’t just put the text graphics in – they interact with their environment! There are shadows, the puddles and buildings have reflections, and clever directional light returns clever directional reflections. It’s all very clever, fantastically well designed.

They do remind me a bit of the intro shots to Panic Room, but with the characters offering witty one liners and the plot throwing unexpected twists I’ll appreciate the well designed and well executed typography without a fuss. :)