I went to Bath from Bristol

#44 Go without Alcohol for a month and check results
I'm back drinking and it's brilliant.
Quite an eye-opening experience this. I thought it would be all positive - no hangovers or seediness; save money; better skin (no toxins to get rid of); ability to converse without slurring or rambling; no "OMG- I can't believe I said that" moments. However, there's a real social price to pay if you're a non-drinker. Perhaps if I was a regular abstainer I wouldn't have noticed it as no-one else really commented upon my non-drinking. For e.g. I was the only woman at a casual work meeting and the only one without a drink. Usually I'd have had a beer so it felt like my otherness was accentuated because I wasn't drinking. There were a couple of other dinner/social occasions were I would normally have had a drink that felt very weird without one or even offering one to others who were there. What will this mean for the future? Well, I'll be taking a page out of a colleagues book and drinking lower alcohol beverages (beer instead of spirits, watered wine) and recognising that a drink or two of a night isn't a huge health hazard. I'm glad I did it and to be honest, this was probably the best month as I had a lot of responsibilities at work so had to find other ways of relaxing.

#49 Read Montana fiction winners of the last 10 years
LoM has noticed that there aren't any reviews on these. That's because a) they aren't the types of books I'd usually read and b) I don't want to bag them out of ignorance. What I've noticed so far - authors surnames usually start with J or G; they like multiple narratives and multiple narrators; recurring themes are drugs, sex, murder, homosexuality, illness, detachment from regular society (not quite the 'man alone' but almost).

Did I mention I'm back drinking?

Strangely appealing

#49 Read Montana fiction winners of the last 10 years
oof. can you feel the reluctance to tackle more of these?

#80 Have a p.j. party
It's tomorrow! Now, I must confess that I'm not entirely sure how far to go. It's just me, my sister, my nieces and my friend. (and maybe my boyfriend although he is threatening to bail). do I go the whole bash and have party food, streamers and themed stuff or not?

#44 Go without Alcohol for a month and check results
This month cannot be over soon enough.

don't tell me it's fuckin not blahdeblahdeblah

#44 Go without Alcohol for a month and check results
Right. Almost gave up on the first night. Managed to make it through a nice dinner out (spanish tapas without red wine *gasp*). Hopefully will make it through tomorrow night (another work thing) without a drink. I suspect I will be too tired to even lift a glass. Yay for not enough sleep.

#80 Have a p.j. party
So, like, High school musical 2 is released on NZ in a couple weeks and I thought that I'd like, have a pj party to celebrate.


I might be the only one there.

sweating like a pig

oh dear. last week was so busy that I didn't even have time to get on the computer let alone do some blogging. missed it.

#30 Have a weekend with the whanau
Spent this weekend with the family. Saturday we raced off to the Lily Pad cafe in Cambridge for Dad's birthday luncheon. Delicious - although I wished I'd picked the pancakes instead of the vege stack because all I could smell was the maple syrup from my sisters pancakes! Spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the emergency dentist while the other sister got her tooth checked out. Poor thing. She ended up full of anesthetic and foul tasting mouthwash. Watched the game (damn Canterbury for nicking the shield in the first 10 mins) then went to bed early. Had a rolling breakfast in the morning. It's nice to hang out at Mum and Dad's place. All we seem to do is read the paper, drink cups of tea and watch telly but it's a very companionable individualistic time.
And yay! Dad has a stack of bottling jars to lend me. Superb.

#44 Go without Alcohol for a month and check results
This is the month! It nearly fell over last night but luckily we forgot to buy a bottle along with dinner. And no. It isn't anything special that I have chosen a month with only 30 days in it. :) From the previous month food diary I have concluded that alcohol makes me (variously and at the time/the next day) tired, nauseous, lethargic, sneezy, give me itchy/bloodshot eyes, makes me go red in the face and saps my get up and go. Will I be a bit more energetic this month? Let's find out!

#49 Read Montana fiction winners of the last 10 years
It's NZ Book Month. Montana winners, here I come. Here's the list...
2000 Harlequin rex / Owen Marshall.
2001 The book of fame / Lloyd Jones.
2002 Stonedogs / Craig Marriner.
2003 The Shag incident / Stephanie Johnson.
2004 Slow water / Annamarie Jagose.
2005 Tu / Patricia Grace.
2006 Blindsight : a novel / Maurice Gee.
2007 Mister Pip / Lloyd Jones
2008 ?
2009 ?

All the world's a stage

Planning lots of drinking this month so I can see the difference when I #44 Go without Alcohol for a month and check results. Am just the tiniest bit disappointed that I have slowed down consumption recently (not that I was ever a HUGE drinker (OMG DENIAL *heehee*)) so this now seems fairly redundant. Keeping a food (and drink) diary for the next month as a base.

Sooo looking forward to #84 Walk Auckland mountain this weekend. Went out for lunch today and had a small conversation about tramping and the necessity of buying quality gear upfront. Here's hoping the weather stays nice.

Big ups ma brother

Yay! Big step towards completing #35 Cook through the Edmonds cookbook. We have a new oven which means we can bakce and grill./

No progress on #44 Go without Alcohol for a month and check results although #22 Do a wine tasting course is goig well - minuse the formality and course bit.

Planning to do a few things over the weekend - hopefully they cmoe off. We've also got our main vehicle back which will heklp in quite a few of the things I'm planning oto do over the weekend.

Maybe one of those things should be speel chekc?