Goodbye darling Jenny

Jenny, aka the Editter, was one of the first bloggers I met. She was a hilarious, wonderful woman. She would leave lovely comments on my blog, and subtly correct my horrendous grammar. Actually, I'm finding it a bit difficult to spell anything with her in my mind! I'd find little links she'd left all over the internet to Babylicious, in many different forums, and I was always grateful for her support.

Jenny died today, after a battle with cancer that stole her away far too quickly. Having followed her pregnancy and before that her efforts to get pregnant, things seemed to be so great. She loved being a mum, and adored her baby and family.

I'm so sad. I know my loss is the teeniest fraction of what her family must be feeling, they must be absolutely wrecked.

Bloody hell. Too sad.

Project Jamie Oliver is go

Jamie Oliver can thank me, I have purchased his app for the iphone. All the recipes look very simple, so it is a long stretch from being the Julie/Julia project. I have in a past incarnation actually been a caterer, not that this means much, but I should be able to come up with some dinner ideas without the aid of a phone app. However, it is very cute and a fun way to not think about what to make for tea. So far I've made the pea soup with ciabatta and feta croutons (delicious), papadelle with bacon and asparagus (also delicious) and last night we had crispy fried chicken (extremely delicious).

I would like to acknowledge that I know I've spelled the above Italian words wrong. I would like to acknowledge that they will remain that way.

Tonight I'm going to make cauliflower cheese risotto, because that sounds like it will be delicious, and I'm a bit over all the bread and pasta stuff.

And for the 3 people who may not have seen this clip, some dining advice from the NZ Police:



In slightly police related news, we've watched the first season of The Wire. It was brilliant, and now we roll with a slight gansta swagger and try and slip a "mos def", "Balmor" and "aiiright" into our conversation. Middle-aged, white people from Petone should probably avoid this sort of behaviour.

Hmm

Guess what, that was a month of silence, which conveniently coincided with new shop, school holidays and so on. YAWN.

Life turned into a complete freaking blur for a while there, but now I'm happily ensconced at home with the lovely Lucinda, and today with the lovely (vomiting) Finn, who remains lovely despite the lurgy.

It turns out it is much, much harder setting up a new business than running it. I have brilliant, capable people working in the shops, and all I need to do is look anxiously at the teetering pile of paperwork at home, do a bit of printing for Babylicious, package up Dishy orders and do the website stuff. Occasionally I get a turn in the Petone shop, which I enjoy a truckload. I've only "manned" the Mt Vic store for a couple of hours, which is a bit surreal. I think over the next months/years I'll get to spend plenty more time, but as long as I'm still feeding the babe, I'll be in and out like, um, something not-rude that goes in and out.

Such is my feeling of liberation, after what was frankly some pretty shit school holidays (weather and healthwise), that yesterday I read Julie and Julia (or whatever it is called, I can't be bothered leaning over to look). I really liked it, and suggested to Glen he could do the Ladies a Plate challenge, and cook something from it every day. Except really what we need is someone to cook dinner, so if you can recommend a decent dinner type cookbook, perhaps he could do that. Maybe Jamie Oliver? Anyway, ramble ramble, I really loved Julie, the author, and now I'm going to be a very good and regular blogger, and think of things to say other than "business is good, baby is cute".

Watch this space.

Update from the land of crazy

We all trotted off to the big gift fair in Auckland at the beginning of September, hauling all 5 of us and about 7 billion pieces of luggage (portacot, carseats, buggy la la la). We had a stand at the gift fair, so we all spent 4 days doing "relay parenting" and "relay selling shizz". It was a fantastic fair, we gained many awesome new stockists for Dishy and Babylicious, and I also ran around buying up large for both shops.

We spent a fairly hectic couple of days after Auckland in Whangarei on family duty. For some reason, after being pretty good in Auckland, the baby decided she couldn't sleep unless I was in permanent physical contact with her. I was veeeeeeeery tired by the end of it. Fortunately (dare I say it?) she has slept through since we got home. Dammit. I shouldn't have said it, it is bound to screw things up, but 8 months without a decent night's sleep, I feel I deserve a break.

When we got back we were delighted to find that my mother has painted the bulk of the new shop, and since then has pretty much finished the job. It looks amazing, and we feel very lucky to have her do it, especially as we hadn't figured on being so busy with the wholesale orders. Each night has seen one of us in the workshop packing orders, and one of us in the house writing up invoices and emailing customers. Our ritzy new offices and storage behind the new shop is going to make the business of being in business so much easier. The working from home thing is somewhat overrated.

And now we're on a crazy countdown to opening on Saturday the 19th. We hope to have a bit of a shindig in there on the 18th, so the deadline is tick tocking ever nearer. I've been spending a lot of time hoofing around feeling frazzled and then repeating my personal mantra for the moment "chill out, we're doing this because it is fun", and lo, it is so.

New shop new shop!

On Friday we signed a lease for a shop in Mt Victoria. It is a very beautiful space, and has loads of storage space and an office out the back. I also have visions of a bit of a gallery, but baby steps Martha, baby steps.

The whole process was as crazy as these things invariably are. Turns out I don't muck around much these days, just cut to the chase. I'm being tactful, because there was some crazy shizz going down with the negotiations, but I'll tell you that in person ;-)

We take over on the 1st of September, which happens to be the week we're at the Trade Fair in Auckland. Hopefully we'll be open by the 18th. I'm in the midst of ordering shelving, trying to suss out a counter, getting a phone, power, eftpos...

I love it!

You see junk, I see an exquisite art gallery (delusion is a necessity)


It has mountains of windows, these present a slight challenge when trying to put up lots of shelving.


It has lots of hand basins, I've toyed with having a brothel component, will maybe opt for coffee instead.

I love blogs and bloggers and real friends and new friends and online friends. I am thrilled to follow so many charming and interesting people. Just like in real life, people online face some serious challenges. Earlier this year I read with great sadness as Gorillabuns lost her beautiful boy, Thalon.

One of my first blog reads and real life encounters with a blogger was the Editter, and now she is facing her own challenge with cancer. She is a brilliant writer and a terrific person, and I want to send her all the love and support I can, via wifi and the voodoo of the internet.

Glen had a car crash last night, from which he walked away unscathed. The car is written off. Of course I got right onto Twitter, and people were so kind. Honestly, I didn't feel in the slightest bit hard done by. Just very lucky that my lovely husband is fine, and nobody was in the car with him. I know I sound a bit moony and trippy, compared to my usual hardarse self, but really, we do need to be grateful for all the good shizz. Especially gin.

Pleasantville

Yesterday morning soccer was cancelled, because it started raining, and then the rain stopped. It was like a gift, a damn fine gift of not having to herd the cats that are my children to a misty field. I enjoy soccer, chatting to other parents, but the particular brand that Finn plays (Little Dribblers) goes ALL YEAR NO HOLIDAYS EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND.

In the afternoon we walked down to the shop to meet Glen, it was a spooky, still, warm day and felt like we were in the tropics. We decided to take the 3 children to the pub and have a Guinness. CLASS ACT. Not only that, I actually fed the baby, in said pub, drinking said beer (very good for our iron levels dontcha know). I'm reminded of that movie, where Reese Witherspoon acts completely unlikeable, and the gorgeous bloke still gets her, and she squawks at Melanie Lynsky "you have a baby, a baby in a bar". I sent out an urgent missive to our pals from Espresso Rescue to join us, and we all had a lovely time plotting world domination.

We mooched home for a dinner of toast and pesto and apple schnapps (not the children, silly). I have this thing, whereby of a Saturday night, at 6pm, I feel the need to watch Ready to Roll, and then at 7pm I feel the need to watch the Muppets. Talk about bloody hardwiring of my brain, how long ago did RTR finish? So I usually hit up YouTube and give the kids a show. Last night I found this piece of brilliance.



Then Top Gun, cups of tea and ginger kisses. All up, a great day, which was followed by today, an even betterer one. I nipped out this morning, sans enfants, and bought a couple of pretty frocks for wearing at Gift Fair in Auckers in a couple of weeks, tidied, and now the baby is asleep without having cried when put down and the boys are out shooting at each other at Laser Strike (giving up good parenting/no guns was remarkably easy).

7 months

The baby is 7 months. Malo was 7 months when I started this blog. This means I fully expect to have a brain freeing experience and begin writing daily this very minute.

Well, later than this very minute, because I have important chandelier cleaning (seriously!) work to do. Then I'm going to paint it. What colour chandelier do we feel like today? I imagine this is how the Queen has to go about her days.

My boys on telly!

Chairs!

Sometime ago I committed, via blog, to doing up a hideous chair I got on Trade Me. As these things go, it hasn't happened, in fact we grew sort of fond of the mint leather and the mahogany wood.

Then we slapped ourselves around our faces and said NO. We are not going to slide into middle age with mint coloured leather and mahogany wood. We are going to try and do something like this:
from the very talented Jimmie Martin. Just need to learn about upholstery, leather painting, gilding... this project may be some time.

Random shit

• Oldest child is 7 now. Middle child is starting school soon. Baby is gorgeous.
• I feel like this is a confessional. I read all the Twilight books. They were shit, but I don't regret reading them, I don't watch rubbish telly, so clearly I read rubbish books to fill that bit of my brain.
• I now suspect quite a few people of being vampires.
• There are fireworks in Petone on Saturday, they're really worth coming to see.
• I finally got an iphone. My descent into rampant consumerism is complete.
• I need to be really productive now, to justify aforementioned phone. I feel a new business brewing, after all, it has been over a year since the last one. Someone stop me now.

Better late than never... presenting da da! The apples and pears

'sup dawgs?

Yeah, so it has been a coupla weeks, and I've gone completely gangsta. It is awesome, now I walk with a swagger and I have lots of hos and dogs and I wear bling. What is that? 1999? Oh.

Well, fact is I haven't actually gone gangsta, I've more gone work/couch/work. And on Saturday mornings the riverside market in Lower Hutt owns me. I hate to be bossy, but y'all must go there. The fruit and veges are good, great really, however, the best thing is the bread. Holy crap. There is a stall that has the most amazing array of delicious bread I have ever had the pleasure to taste. This week we got focaccia, 6 grain loaf, raisin and caraway loaf (my favourite), turkish bread, apple danishes and some gorgeous italian bap things. I will never deign to touch a loaf of bread from the supermarket again (that was an outright lie, I am the market's fair weather friend). Grab a coffee while you're there from Espresso Rescue, it is to die for (I say things like this, since rather than be gangsta perhaps I'll go for being drama queen).


My baby is splendid. She is 6 months soon, and possibly the most delectable little piece of gorgeousness in the world. I'm feeling great, and would like another 10 babies now, but I think I'll have to get one of those Indian surrogates, because I can't really be fagged with all the pregnancy shizz again.


Business is booming. I'm touching wood as I write that though, 'cos I'm sure the recession will make it out to Petone at some stage and I'll be eating my words, or perhaps it won't and Petone will be a lovely little bubble of recession-denial.


Right, I appear to still have the ability to write more than 140 characters together, but I don't seem to have the power to make it cohesive or meaningful. Welcome to my world.

48 Hours

My clever friend Tinks entered the 48 hour film thingymajig, here is his film. I think it is very, very funny. Very dry.

It is 7 minutes long.

Puddle Finishing School, Part IV Church Protocol from Momentum Studios on Vimeo.

Total Eclipse - literally

My project of bringing back "literally" just got some strong support, from Bonnie Tyler.

I know most of the world has seen this, but it still makes me giggle, a lot. A lot. Please leave a note with your favourite line. Mine is near the end.

Time for some random lovin'

• I am an apple and pear printing machine. The shop will shortly be full of items bearing apple and pear images. Sorry owls, I still likes ya, but my heart now belongs with the fruits. I will post photos tomorrow (setting myself a deadline).
• We have rearranged the menu at Babylicious. I still want to move the scroll bar and banner, but sometimes Glen takes 10 years to convince. I think it is much better, and it will make adding extra products much easier (we've decided to add 5 products a day before we can watch and Green Wing).
• The chiddlers and I went to a splendid birthday party in the land that time forgot, today. Well, Whiteman's Valley is the official name. It was all misty and felt about 7000 miles from home. I felt very slightly claustrophobic driving there, because of all the mysticalness. Mind you, I felt quite claustrophobic after we got the underfloor insulation this week, so I'm not to be trusted.
• Thanks to everyone who voted for my frock in the challenge. We won! I'm expecting a knock on the door any minute from Vogue for assistance in their layouts.