Exploring This Strange World: April 2011

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Back Home

For those of you who don't know, I am from Alabama, USA which was devastated by a tornado this past week. Luckily for me and my family no one I know was killed or seriously injured although there was some property damage. I'll take that with a smile over loss of life any day. I know not everyone was so lucky.

Funnel Cloud
Tuscaloosa, AL

Tuscaloosa, AL

Birmingham, Al

Tuscaloosa, AL

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

What's Going on

A hot cross bun!

Things got crazy here at work in the past week with everyones deadline coming up at once. We were closed Good Friday and Easter Monday so two short weeks in a row at such a tight time only made it worse. I had to spend my days off recovering from 12 hour days. It's almost 9pm now and I only just got home! Ah! But today is the last day of all that shenanigans so the next few days no matter how crazy will seem so placid compared to the last week.

Even with all the crazy my workmates are a blast. We ended up doing an ABBA sing-a-long tonight after hours which was horribly awful and tons of fun. Cinco de Mayo is coming up and now that I have a key to the office I think I'm gonna decorate it on the 4th and make enchiladas for everyone, just to make it fun. Another girl's birthday is coming up soon also and she loves Alice in Wonderland so we are collecting miss-matched tea sets for her un-birthday party which will be fun too.

Todd's Mac Mini Carrot Cake

We recently had Todd's birthday party which was also a blast. Every morning Todd gets everyone's coffee from Cafe Cuba and then comes into work around 9. I'm pretty sure most days he also gets lunch and dinner there too. Since they know him by name I called them early to let the workers know it was his birthday. They sang him songs and gave him lots of free food which was good. When he asked who tipped them off one of the girls replied "I don't know but she had an American accent". Well, he got a kick out of that too. Rachel and I made him a carrot cake from scratch icing and all in the shape of a mac mini for noms. It was amazingly delicious if I do say so myself.

Since I had a four day weekend I had hoped to take a bus down to Wellington and do some major clothes shopping, hit up every Mexican restaurant (I made a list) and Te Papa (the national museum) but it didn't happen. Apparently all the stores were closed as well as my workplace so I rescheduled my bus and hotel for this weekend. Less time but more accomplished. I was/am in desperate need of winter clothing. The cotton gear from the US is not built for this weather and I am sick of freezing to death at my desk. Still need to build up the wardrobe to stay warm here but it's coming along. I'm still used to that good 'ole Alabama weather. Even tho it's not much colder than what it gets in AL and it's not as damp it's still somehow COLDER here that there. I think it's because of the wind and the fact that it's arctic air directly from Antarctica. Remember, there is nothing between here and there for us.

Ah well , will upload pics of what I did get later. Hugs to all!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to one and all! This Easter was spent relaxing, reflecting, and remembering. I remember running around the house on Easter morning looking for my hidden basket. It was always in a new spot either in the cabinets, dryer, shower or behind the curtains ( that one took forever!!) and was of course a blast to find. New Dresses for church and uncomfortable shoes always to follow.

I also remember stuffing hundreds of Easter eggs for the great easter egg hunt behind my house. How chocolate melts and jelly beans are best. I don't remember ever getting the prize egg. I remember Jessie and Lee William but not me. Good times and memories.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

What I've been up to

This past week at work has been crazy with getting a magazine completed to go to print. Our client decided to go to print on Easter weekend which was a actually a big issue since everyone in town including us and the printer is closed for good friday and Easter monday which is also ANZAC day here as well. ANZAC Day is is observed in New Zealand as a day of commemoration for those who died in the service of their country and to honour returned servicemen and women. Below is an example of some of the process, there are 74 pages here, all of which I worked on and some designed myself. Most of them Todd helped me on but I really needed a four day holiday. My brain is fried.

Holy Cow what is it?!

Walked into work this morning very early and after turning on the lights decided to go into the kitchen and warm up my breakfast before starting the day. That is where i found this huge bugger that was about 1.5" tall and 2" long crawling his way across the carpet. I promptly screamed "WHAT IS IT?!" and ran into the other room, turning running back into the kitchen and grabbed a glass to trap it. When Jess came in about 10 min later I had completely forgotten about it but I could hear her laughing from the kitchen. She informed me that it is a Weta bug and actually quite a small one. Apparently (according to wikipedia) there is some sort of Giant Weta and 'people' like them as 'pets'. Crazies. ;)

We put the weta outside and Jess took this pic (where he looks much less scary) for a job where she needed a pic of a weta. It worked out great for her!

Giant Weta - Note: I pulled this off the web for an example. Mine was not this big nor have I seen one this big

Anyhow, we put it outside and within 5 min it had already worked it's way back under our door but became sluggish. We prodded it a bit and thought it dead after squishing itself but I put a glass on it to be sure. 5 min later the thing was trying to escape again so we took it back outside for more picks before leaving it in the rose bushes. We named him Jesús