Sweet baby cheeses! *

Well, I've only got myself to blame. I've done most of the easy ones and am now onto the longer term tasks which take a lot of time and effort to do. Or maybe it's just me?

I've continued to cook/bake through #35, the Edmonds cookbook. Trouble is that I'm now repeating recipes because they are 1. easy. 2. tasty. I need to get onto something different!

I need to buy two new tyres for #13 and #85.

This all conflicts with #41 and #52. *sigh*

Never mind. At least I'm still ticking along with this...

* nicked from Moata

Collision of human relationships in a totalitarian society

#56 Go vegetarian for a month
Completed. I had a steak and cheese pie for breakfast. 'nuff said.

I want them to suffer the same marrow-level dread of the oceanic

#56 Go vegetarian for a month How's it been so far? The first week I was anxious and HUNGRY all the time. The second week I started to feel great. I've got heaps of energy now - not that I'm doing anything with it and the adrenaline rush may have more to do with the action movies I've overdosed on than anything else. My skin has cleared up too which I'm really really surprised about. I haven't stopped drinking (estimate 1/10 intake is alcohol) or eating dairy (at the beginning this was probably 3/5 intake but now 4/10) and I've taken up with chocolate. I was at an event yesterday where someone asked one of the authors "You said that you should only eat food that is recognisable as food - what about lentils?" Haha! That's how I feel about them although as it turns out the author meant things like Twinkies and processed foods not beans and pulses. A lot of my diet consists of pasta and cheese. I've made lasagne and soup and eaten a packet of those plant-protein fake-sausages. I've eaten chips and chocolate but I feel great. Go figure.
It's not always easy I've found. Lunch was included in the event yesterday. Salmon for the entree - I ate the sprig of watercress garnish and the bread roll. Then I had the mashed kumara and spinach for the main leaving the lamb on the plate. Thank the gods for a pinot noir and dessert - nothing like a sugar rush rounded off by a good hit of caffeine.

Which of you is the least important? WHICH OF YOU IS THE LEAST IMPORTANT? *

#56 Go vegetarian for a month
September is the month! So far so good (1 day in and I'm not desperate yet.) (Funnily enough it's also NZ Book Month which is all about 'taste sensations' in books.) Why September? Well, I was running out of meat in the freezer and it occured to me that instead of buying more I could just eat what I had and then look to veges. Someone asked me "why?" The easy answer of course is that it's on the list. The slightly longer answer is that I have friends who are vegetarian and I thought it might be interesting to eat like that for a while. It's really more of an intellectual experiment rather than a moral or ethical one. Lucky it's a damn tasty one ay? :)

* dalek from Dr Who

Mahe Drysdale you're an inspiration

#53 Make homemade soup
Made soup - bacon bones, soup mix (pearl barley, lentils, peas etc) celery, onion, grated kumara, grated potato, water. Throw it all in a pot, boil, then simmer for a couple hours. Was a success - my lunch guest had two platefuls. Easy peasy. The closest to baking in cooking that I've found (where you combine ingredients then leave them alone for a while. )

#13 Cycle 'around' New Zealand
Bike has a flat tye and I have misplaced my cycle kit. Excuses excuses. Silly!

I have misgivings about this mission but deep down I know we're doing the right thing

#2 Make alphabet cubes
Finished! Finally. I've taken a long time to get to this point with the alphabet cubes. It seemed both too easy and too hard. The weather didn't help - it's been so cold that I've been wrapped up in blankets and haven't been able to do any crafty things. However, after a concentrated effort last weekend they were mostly finished. Then on Saturday night I finished stitching the last one up. It was very exciting. Pictures to come.

#29 Learn basic Spanish
In honour of this year TDF winner, Carlos Sastre, I have purchased a Basic Spanish audio kit ready to start learning. I've also bought a book for Latin American Spanish speakers becasue it has some good advice - listen as much as you can before trying to speal. Spanish DVDs, here I come.

#76 Attend films I want to see - by myself if necessary
Ongoing task. I went to see 9 Film Festival movies, taking a couple of days off. All very interesting although the one I think I enjoyed the least was the one I was really looking foward to. Dead parents seemed to be the theme of the day. Not by choice. V. strange.
Barefoot Cinema - NZ Documentary. Alun Bollinger and his wife Helen (Albol + Helbol) talk about their lives and his career. Fascinating insight into someone who is able to live the way he wants and work the way he wants. Well, the way they want really. (The kind of people that I wish I could be if only there wasn't so much work and so little luxury involved.)
Encounters at the End of the World - Discovery Channel documentary with German director/narrator. V. funny documentary about workers in Antarctica. nice study of just how strange the environment (and people) are.
Garbage Warrior - Discovery Channel documentary. About an eco-architect and his crew. All the best and the worst of the eco-sustainable movement and the best and the worst of modern society and governance. Happily it looks as though eco-architect and clients are legally able to build their houses now.

Jinx Sister - NZ drama. Languid, powerful, amazing acting. Excellent script, good characters - can hardly tell it was made on a shoestring budget. (About two sisters who have coped with the death of their father (then mother) in different ways. One has been in LA and has now come back to NZ.)

O'Horten - um, Norwegian (?) drama/comedy. Random events that individually are hilarious and poignant but together add up to a very Odd film. Mother is dying.

The Savages - USA drama. Excellent performances by the two leads. About a brother and sister dealing with their father's slide into senility and his eventual death. (Their lives seem to start after he is dead and they no longer have to deal with their feelings about him.)

A Song for Good - NZ drama. A couple of unnecessary scenes which make the story about characters other than the main. Strange ending but appropriate to the movie. (Main character's mum is dead.)
Trouble is My Business - NZ documentary. Assistant Principal with responsibility for student wellbeing at Aorere College in South Auckland deals with truancy, fighting, racism, self-esteem etc. Powerful documentary which shows the struggle that schools have to keep students at school let alone teach them something. Very emotionally intelligent teacher. (Unfortunately will never be on TV; it deserves a wide NZ audience. )
Welcome to the Sticks - French comedy. Cute little film but I don't understand this thing about v. attractive women with averagely attractive men. v. funny in parts that weren't focused on the language difference. (no dead parents!)

Alas poor Bill, I knew him not at all

#2 Make alphabet cubes
Letters stuck onto the fabric. Stitching around the edges with black thread to keep them on. I suspect they may fray. Never mind.

#20 Learn 10 poems by heart
Does Hairy MacLary count as a poem? It does now baby! "Out of the gate and off for a walk went Hairy MacLary and his mates."

#35 Cook through the Edmonds cookbook
I'm enjoying the baking side of this. Not so much the cooking. Mostly a matter of scale but also baking is easy - measure right, mix it well (ot not) shove it in the oven, pull it out, add icing (or not) slice and eat. Cooking = chop chop chop measure add add add add add add add sizzle watch baste watch stir watch eat.

Bees on a plane

#66 Attend some festival events - arts, literature, movies etc
Lunch with Michael Pollan on Thursday and then a Greens Party hosted Michael Pollan talk. (I was quite ticked off about this - no mention of the Greens on the promotional material and the signs all said "Greens Conference this way" NOT "Michael Pollan this way". Pity cause I had to get over that to hear what they had to say.) Quite different atmospheres (and fashion) at each event. The Lunch was very much pretty people...well, I was lucky enough to get on a front table with looked across at the slebs table. Nicely dressed people in fashionable clothes. Oh and delicious food. (In the goodie bag was a copy of the restaurant's recipe book. yum yum!) The focus was very much on food and the importance of good food and how chefs are really leading the appreciation for good food. The evening session was more about the environmental implications of the way we produce our food. Different information came out of each one so I'm glad I got to see both. Unfortunately that's all I could afford to go to out of the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival. Maybe next year?

#3 Volunteer for Project K
Putting this off. After discussion with jojomojo I decided it woldn't be fair on anyone if I did the training and then went off to Australia in the middle of my year. It was a hard decision to make. I'm really keen but I do also have to be reaslistic about it. jjmj says that I'd probably get quite keen and then be disappointed if I had to pull out. probably for the best...

#67 Figure out carbon footprint and reduce where I can
Found a good website to do this. Am going to plan out steps that I can take to do this. Will probably include...
Carless days
Growing salad in containers
Using less water - shorter showers, shorter wash cycles
Reducing use of electricity - turning things off at the wall so they're not on standby
Reducing packaging - buying things that aren't prepackaged or reusing bags
Reuseable shopping bags
Bokashi (Sometimes you've got to spend money to reduce.)

Off the grid

I'm off to #66 Attend some festival events - arts, literature, movies etc . Lunch with Michael Pollan (and lots of other peoples) and then another event tomorrow.

Only a theatre event to go for completion of this task.

Less talky, more...smashy

#7 Visit all Auckland Regional parks

I went to the opening of the latest ARC park yesterday - Atiu Creek. We are so fortunate to have it AND it was gifted. The ARC team have worked hard to develop it into a park as the previous owners handed it over only three years ago. That might sound like a long time but I imagine there is a lot of work that goes into organising the walks, creating paths, laying roads, changing the land from a farm into a park etc. We were lucky yesterday in that we could drive much further into the park than would normally be allowed. That meant the starting points for the walks were different to the sheet of paper. Unfortunately I was on the other side of the park having lunch during the opening ceremony...I'd been walking for about an hour and I was hungry! It was great to just laze about on the grass and read my book. The park is huge! I'm really really looking forward to going back and having another look.

Pic - Entrance to the park, 69.5km from the Orewa BP.

#60 Take part in an event for charity

Did this today. A lovely walk along the beach along with a number of other people - 100+ I'd say. A few dogs and a few pushchairs. Kudos to those mums, I found it hard enough to get myself going! (Well, not really.) It was hot work but I think I was clippin' along at a good pace.

Pix - at the start; along the beach; "Did you really walk 4km?"

what we have here is a failure to masticate *

#37 See a film at the Matakana theatre
I went to see "Once" in Matakana last night. Bit of a trek to get up there (80mins return) but the theatre was lovely and the film was great. I had a chocolate ice-cream waffle cone and a flat white. I could have had a glass of wine but it was dark and scary out there on the roads so coffee seemed like the best option. I was in the Roxy theatre - styled in blue fabrics woven across the ceiling with flocked wallpaper on the walls. Very comfy seats and a good sized side table. There are lazy boys at the front of the theatre but I think you'd have to crane your neck up to see the screen. Guess that's why the seats recline!

COMPLETE/ONGOING
I've adjusted a few of the completed/in progress tasks to "COMPLETE/ONGOING" to better describe their nature. After all, #9 Meditate should be an ongoing process and having listed as complete does not really say what I'm aiming for.
Here's a list...
#9 Meditate
#25 Live eco-smart - recycling etc
#68 Replace lightblubs with eco-friendly ones
#76 Attend films I want to see - by myself if necessary

* David Hewlett on the messy eating habits of his son

large following among the tech demographic

#49 Read Montana fiction winners of the last 10 years
1999 The vintner's luck / Elizabeth Knox.
1998 Live bodies / Maurice Gee.

And thus concludes my romp through the Montana Fiction winners of the last 10 years.

Checking these two against my previously list of Montana characteristics...

• authors surnames usually start with J or G (close:check)
• they like multiple narratives and multiple narrators (close:close)
• recurring themes are drugs (nope:nope); sex (check:check - but not the good kind); murder (check:nope); homosexuality (check check - with an angel no less!:nope); illness (check:check - bonus points for mental illness); detachment from regular society (close-ish (for a bit of the story): mmm, not so much)

there is nothing to bicker about

#60 Take part in an event for charity
I think my participation in this is dead in the water. After finding a team and training seriously for it, two team members pulled out or rather, defected to another team. Then the other person (LoM who has been frustratingly silent about the whole thing) pulled out too. I foolishly said that I'd refund their money which means I'm stuck with the $500 registration fee unless OXFAM take pity on me and refund it. It's so close now though that I'm not sure they will.

The closeness to the event is the main reason I think it won't be a goer. I haven't managed to find either 3 people to join me or a team to join so although I was staying positive about it 3 days ago now I'm all "Fuck it. I'll watch TV instead."

so there is something good to come out of the whole ugly debacle.

buck up carson *

#9 Meditate
Doing before I go to sleep each night. Mostly it's a white light/aura expansion thing but every so often I throw in a little chakra imaging as well. I'm not sure if I'm doing it correctly, or rather most effectively. It's fun though and really interesting to see/feel how long it takes to get centered each night.

* Col. Sheppard to Dr Beckett in Stargate Atlantis

Riding, riding

#20 Learn 10 poems by heart
Recited "The Highwayman" in the dark by the campfire. Not perfect but I think it counts.

Last published

#7 Visit all Auckland Regional parks
Camping at Waharau on the weekend. Nice area to camp in with great flat areas, concrete fire pads, trees and a creek running around the edge. Amenities not that great (1-2 longdrop toilets by the campground; no showers.) Information on website, on map and at the park all different. We thought the Waharau ridge walk was 3 hours, 14km. (Well , that's what it says on the website.) Actually it's 3.5 hours, 12 km and includes 40mins uphill. (That's what they mean when they describe the track as "difficult".) Quite a nice trek in the end. Well established path in most places and interesting views out across the Firth. Also did the bush walk through pretty bush. Park established in 1979 and it shows (in a good way! Beautiful driveway between native trees on the way to the campsite. Good marker posts and well established trails.)

Drove past the entrance to Whakatiwai Regional Park about 3 times. It's hidden away off the side of a private driveway. (in the photo, the park is alongside the line of trees on the left.) Not much to see in the tiny bit we walked around. Contrary to the information on the website (18km, 180 mins) the sign on the park says it's a 6 hour tramp to Waharau. We shall see.

Popped into Mutukaroa/Hamlins Hill park on the way home. It's under development and is currently not much more tha dry, parched, yellow paddocks with pukeko and their offspring. I couldn't find the entrance either. Ended up in a neighbouring carpark and jumping the fence.

doo doo doodoo

#49 Read Montana fiction winners of the last 10 years
rather than wait for the next couple of years to read my "Last 10 years" titles, I'm going to go 10 years from now.

1999 The vintner's luck / Elizabeth Knox.
1998 Live bodies / Maurice Gee.

Oh, hang on...I've just noticed there's also a Book of the Year ...nah, I wanted to read the fiction ones.

Violent pandemonium

#97 'Run' from home to my home town
Completed! I'm amazed at how quickly the numbers started to add up once I'd started proper training. Yes, I'm a bit tired now. Please to tick another one off the list though.

And really that's it.

in the name of all that is sweet and buttery

7. Visit all Auckland Regional parks
Waitakere Ranges. The Oxfam team did the Montana Heritage trail on Saturday. Major hills up and some quite dodgy footing. Very interesting bush to look at, lots of mature kauri. We whipped through it so fast I didn't even have time to take any pictures.

Awhitu on Sunday. An older, more established park than some we've been to, it has lovely paths between the manuka and other plants. Lots of wetland planting which has even spilled over to the rest of the peninsula. A very hot day which made the dry dry dry paddocks look even drier. Very safe beach for swimming as it stays a fairly regular depth quite a way out. Advice - swim when the tide is in.

The ARCpark count is getting quite good. There are a few parks in development which I'm not sure that we can get to. Another one is a stadium and the only way to visit is to go to something that's on. That leaves about 6 to go. They are mostly south of Auckland and will mean a bit more travelling time for me. (Although hopefully not as much as when we visited Tapapakanga. Too much talking. Not enough navigating.)

#97 'Run' from home to my home town
With all the training for #60 Take part in an event for charity (Yay! we have a team! Sponsor us!) the numbers are steadily ticking up.