Editors note

Apologies to Smyly for misspelling his name. Please note all that it is Smyly not how I had it previously

4 tramps in 2 hours

Doffy and I went for a wander yesterday morning with Missie, Smiley and Sarg.  It was Sarg's first tramp, he wanted to come along as he was donating his savings to the Park (Sarg is a money box for those who haven't met him).  It was rather windy but we managed to stay nice and warm and not get blown away :) And yes we did 4 tramps in 2 hours cos we are so super fit hehe.  We did Connett Loop, Ngatoro Loop, Nature Walk and Veronica Loop hehe :)

We have been for a few tramps recently just not really taken photos, well dad has for his I think.  He goes more than me.

Otherwise life with me is same old same old, work - procrastinate - study, that about sums it up lol :)

Pretty sunset on Saturday night

Pics from Sunday's tramp (Missie is purple one, Smiley the yellow/orangey one, and Sarg the camo one)

Just a lil update

So I thought it was about time I said hi again, its been a while.


Study is going well, I am losing enthusiasm a bit but still managing to work my way through the required papers.  I have just submitted my last assignment for the paper I was working on so have a couple weeks off now before the next paper starts.  The next paper will be my last one required for a Level 5 diploma so woot woot to that :)


I have also clocked over my 5 years of being Gluten Free, still not sure I am a fan of it but seems its here to stay.  I am slowly getting better at not 'cheating' which is progress I guess :)


I am currently house sitting for someone at Council while him and his partner are in the States, it is going well and the two cats that are my housemates are very cute, most of the time.  Lucy isn't when she randomly attacks me, and Hank sure aint when he brings me 'gifts' which he is getting far to good at.  I have now had 3 in the past week, thankfully all dead but last nights one I had to wait for him to kill before I was willing to remove it so the day might come when a living gift appears.  That I am not looking forward too.


Other than the normal stuff (dentist taking my hard earned money, stupid cold that wont leave etc) I am doing pretty good and am just trucking along like normal.  So yeah, that's about it, ciao for now xxx

Just the friend, no bear this time

So I went away for the wknd, and not with Missie (she stayed home and went for a tramp instead - thanks Doffy), I went with Bridie and Laura to the Fleming bach for Friday night then off to Turangi for massages on Saturday followed by Taupo for shopping and hot pools.  Then we headed to Ohakune for Saturday night and stayed at Laura and Teds.  First time for me seeing their place so was real glad got to stay there.

The wknd started on Friday morning with Bridie and I going to Stratford for brunch then heading to New Plymouth for me to get a pedicure and her a manicure.  Bridie got a pretty pink with one sparkly silver nail on each hand and I got sparkly toes with a silver and blue glitter :)
We then headed to National Park to pick up Laura and had a play and explore while we waited for her to finish work.  Although it was rather chilly we still managed to have a blast.

Saturday we had amazing massages in Turangi and wandered along the Tongariro River for a bit before heading to Taupo for lunch and shopping.  Lunch was at Dixie Browns (obviously (lol)) and then off to browse the shops we went.  None of us went overboard with shopping and were all actually very well behaved and sensible.  The hot pools were definitely a good end to the day, well the end before the drive back to Ohakune and dinner at The Cyprus Tree which, as always, was amazing.

Today we had a much needed sleep-in and then headed into Ohakune to play in the park and take photos and then off to brunch and to check out the new season snow gear, cos thats what you do :) Luckily for my bank balance I didn't see anything that was more awesome than what I already have so everything stayed in the shops.

On the way home Spartz achieved his mega milestone of 200,000 kms :) yes I got very excited :) :) :)
We also called in on the Flemings and the puppies in Wanganui as we went past, and always it was a catch up that was worth the stop.

Back to work and reality tomorrow, but suppose thats life aint it.

Mount Taranaki showing its splendor as we left

Playing around in National Park

Still having fun playing

Spartz felt left out so he got a photo too

Beautiful sunset

Morning coffee view from Fleming bach

Chilling along the Tongariro River

 Having fun in the park in Ohakune

Roadtrip fun :) 

32nd trip around the sun

I have had a pretty sweet 32nd trip around the sun. The trip started off in Scotland, then after a couple months moved through Ireland, Wales, England and on to New Zealand for the last 8ish months of the trip. It's seen me hanging with my new friends in Edinburgh then making a bunch of new ones along my travels and finally home to my old friends and amazing family, all of who I've been lucky enough to catch up with since arriving home. It's seen me go back to study and get back into crochet and sewing, even betting mum at sewing a child's garment in the arts show :) that was very cool. This past year I have also discovered there is kid out there I am happy to tolerate, so not sure how that happened but it did. 

And I just wanna say a big thanks everyone who helped make the trip such an amazing one and bring on the next one :) 

Awesome last wknd as a 31 year old :)

So this wknd is my last weekend as a 31 year old and it has been a very good wknd.  Ystdy just called and worked on my assignment (due this coming week), went for a walk with Mum and watched some motor racing.

Today Dad, Glenny, Sis, Missie and I went for a wander up the hill to find some snow, and get some cool pics.  It was a good walk and the snow was fun and yes we got some cool as pics :) This afternoon we went for a short wander in Pukekura Park, I went and checked out the place I am going to be housesitting in Sept/Oct for 5 weeks and met the two cats I will be looking after.  Now am sitting watching some more motor racing :) definitely a great wknd :)

Selection of pics from this morning

Snow in Inglewood

Ok so it obviously didn't snow in Inglewood in the middle of the day - BUT there is snow in our backyard, how weird...

Hehe Dof brought me some snow from the mountain after his walk this morning :) so obviously me and Glenny and Missie had to play with it and make a snowman :)

Vegas Long Weekend

I managed to get Friday off work so I could have a long weekend, seeing as I missed getting one last weekend, so I headed off to Vegas to see bro on Thursday after work.  It was a lovely afternoon for a drive and like good people we made sure we appreciated the scenery and views we were offered :)

On Friday I went over to Morrinsville to see Hayley (my roommate from Uni) who happened to be there visiting her parents.  Was ages since our last face to face catch up so was really good to see her again, and again Friday was a good day for a drive and discovered there are some hills behind Matamata with the biggest hill having a big as trig or tower of some kind on it which taunted me for quite a large chunk of the trip lol one day maybe I will take it up on its suggestion to go find it.

Saturday bro and I headed down to Mind Junction where we spent a decent chunk of time getting lost in the maze and giggling and laughing for a fair amount of the time.  We had to find our way to the 4 corners and also find 5 questions, 5 answers and 5 animals.  We managed to easily find the 4 corners and 4 questions, 3 answers and 3 animals.  After a bit more hunting we found the last question, the last two answers and one more animal, but no matter how hard we hunted we couldn't find the last animal - a fish.  Eventually we decided it had swum away so wandered out of the maze, then the lady behind the counter told us to go back in and find the fish and she gave us a hint, it was between '5' and the elephant question.  Well we re-found those two easy enough but could not find the fish, eventually we split up and bro stayed at the elephant and I went to the 5, then I spotted the fish by looking over the walls, then bro found it by going under the walls :) success :) hehe.  Yes I did find it the proper way after a couple more attempts.
After the maze we went into the lego part and spent a while admiring the city they had built while trying to find the most wanted characters.  We found some of them but not all and not the most most wanted dude, but we were ok with that.

On the way back to Vegas we stopped at Rainbow Mountain (I think its called that) for lunch and also for a wander.  We only went to The Crater Lake partly cos we had other plans for the afternoon and also partly cos my body hates me and I doubt I could have comfortably made it to the summit.  Plus we weren't really sure how long it would take or how hard it would be.  But we will be going back :)

Rest of the weekend was chilled, some shopping then DVD watching on Saturday and on Sunday just chilled and chatted some, cut bros hair (yes I don't love him and took all his head warmth as its coming into the colder weather hehe), then I headed home and again it was a nice day for a drive.

Nice view of the moon and sunset on Thursday

Yellow aka corner one

Blue aka corner two

Green aka corner three

Red aka corner four

Rainbow Mountain, Crater Lake

Bro at Crater Lake

Me at Crater Lake

One of my fav views on the drive to/from Vegas, taken Sunday (Thursday the sun was inconveniently setting in the background)

Update from lil old me

So its been awhile, yes I know, but in my defence I have been very busy procrastinating writing my final assignments for the semester and then actually writing them when I realised no one else was going to help me, I know I am so unloved right.  And in with all this non-existent stress (as if I would let something as little as three assignments stress me out) Glenny and I have been going through what I spose could be called a rough patch, this was much more stressful than those pesky assignments.  But don't worry, after a couple of discussions, ok so after I yelled at him a couple times and called him useless, we have come to an agreement, kinda.  We/I were discussing how useless he is, he wants me to move into my own place, mostly so that he can just create havoc and mess and won't have to worry about anyone telling him off, yes he seems to think I will let him get away with anything, haha dream on buddy, but anyway our discussions were around how although he wants this he in no way is helping, and ok maybe having paws limits what jobs you can get but he doesn't even do the small things that I ask him to do like making my bed and pulling the curtains, but whatever, we have come to a compromise and he has taken responsibility of guarding the things that are important to me so that I know when I do get my own place it will be well guarded when I am not there, and probably also when I am there.  And since my assignments are all done and submitted my self-imposed sewing ban has been lifted, yay.  So yeah things are all good in the world of Jilly :)

Guarding my bed, or is it my bedroom, I am not sure and they never explained

Guarding the fire, not sure how long it will take them to realise that if they don't let me past it is going to get cold....

Glenn found the cupcakes, and apparently cos he's been so good at guarding and bears eat fish and they match his nose they are all his... I do not agree with this logic, for some reason

Since I haven't been able to sew I have been creating fairies :) so cute but they do seem to be growing in number