Friday, June 29, 2007

a biscuit is a cookie

In NZ a biscuit is a cookie. They often stick the 'ee' sound on the end (as they do with many words) and call it a bickie, but either way it's not the flaky breakfast goodness this ex Virginia girl is used to. I hadn't seen them for over a year, until I whipped some up and commemorated the moment with the digital camera, of course, as is my way.

We were going to wait for Darryl's birthday but went ahead and saw Transformers on Thursday. (One of the few US flicks to come out here first). Had a trailer for JJ Abrams secret "Cloverfield" beforehand. I thought Transformers was alright in an Independence Day kind of way... What do I know though?... I was 14 when the old Transformers cartoons hit TV, but never saw it or owned a toy... Darryl on the other hand could probably tell you a thing or two...

Darryl's started sitting daily meditation with me. Between that and the workout, we end up planning days around a chunk of time set aside, but since we both work earlier than even the birds wake up - which is frankly just wrong - we have more worms than we ever needed and plenty of time in the later half of the day.

It's a rainy stay in Saturday with the woodstove cooking away, although it's supposedly 16 celsius out, which is about 60 degrees F. Feels a bit cooler with wind and wet. Had some blustery cold days last week, but it doesn't snow where we are, and you get these odd warm days in the middle of winter. The cold seems to be a gripe for people who move here, but it's not so much the fault of the fairly temperate climate as it is single glazed windows and often little insulation in older homes. We need to add to our sad low R-value pink stuff, but have put off crawling under the house with the spiders and such...

Speaking of houses - note the window in our pic from the livingroom here where Kapiti Island has disappeared into the haze today. No window screen. Houses almost never have them. Don't know why - perhaps it doesn't feel like home without some flies and a mosquito. We found screen material for sale at the DIY store, but since the windows open out instead of up, it's a trick to come up with a screen that won't keep your window permanently shut- thus removing your need for a screen in the first place.

(Not that there aren't things I prefer here. From politics to prolific laundry lines, there are many spots where NZ wins hands down.)

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Posted by Jessica at 8:00 AM

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Friday, June 22, 2007

Taxes Sorted / Dalai Lama visits Welly

The tax forms for both countries are all sorted finally. I put a long post about it on the ExpatWomen site. If you would like to get a brain cloud, you can read it here.


We saw the Dalai Lama in Wellington on Tuesday. He was giving a talk called Human Value and World Peace. It was both entertaining and insightful, though sometimes his English was alittle hard to follow. But his interpreter would usually step in to explain. Somehow we ended up just 10 rows back in the middle. I was so glad we went. We didn't get to see him when he came to DC just before we left the states, because of the press to get everything packed and done, so I thought I'd lost my chance.


I'm actually getting some muscle tone after 10 weeks of using our home gym 6 days a week. It's cooold outside now (nice and toasty in here with the woodstove) but I am hoping by the time spring rolls around in October, I will be toned enough to do a better job of taking the hills with my bicycle.

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Posted by Jessica at 10:26 AM

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Thursday, June 07, 2007

The TIme Traveler's Wife

Just ripped through The Time Traveler's Wife in 3 days after coming across it in the library. Riveting and romantic and thought provoking. The author must have had a hell of a time keeping the plot straight since time travel's involved. But it didn't read like sci fi at all. Now I see they are making it into a movie with Eric Bana to be released next year. I am almost afraid to see what they do with it. But I'm sure I'll go to see it, because I'm already sorry to be done reading it.

Heading into winter now though not as frigid as last year's record breaking June. The woodstove is keeping us toasty for a reasonable price. After the afternoon workout it feels too warm inside. Still hitting the weight machine 6 days a week - a first for me, except for a brief stint of using the gym at Hollins years ago. Can already tell the difference.

The tax specialist has just said he's finished with our taxes, so we'll be heading into Welly to collect them soon, and I'll post about how it all went. (We had an automatic 2 month extension on our US taxes because of living overseas.)

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Posted by Jessica at 12:01 PM

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