why hello little one, fancy seeing you here...

It strikes me I have not done a general-what-have-we-been-up-to post in quite some time. I have been feeling a little uninspired lately, it must be said, and I think the winter is to blame. I'm going to blame it, anyway.

Adrian is busy writing his PhD thesis. He spends most days at home now like a hermit; he even has homey hermit clothes. When he does have to go to uni inevitably he will uncover some annoying detail which has to be sorted before he can continue on with the important writing-a-book writing. He has a nice colourful chart (made by moi at his request) stuck to the wall beside him outlining due dates for drafts 1 and 2 of each of the chapters of his thesis. And I think so far he is making very good progress. He is rather hard to distract, also, which is a) not unusual and b) I suppose a good thing. In less than a couple of months he will be an unofficial Doctor, and then in a few months time when his thesis gets marked (I'm not sure how long it takes), my husband will be Dr Adrian Jongenelen (I doubt he will call introduce himself as such, for he is a bit too modest). For those who are wondering, the research project is on a 3D imaging system using lasers [POP CULTURE REFERENCE * sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads] and special kinds of pulsing modulation to see how far away stuff in a room is. That is my layperson's explanation, needless to say...

The Picanto is going well. It's a bit cheesy because Kia's slogan is "The Power to Surprise"... and um, yeah, it's surprising us. Drag racing at the traffic lights, if one feels so inclined, is not such a successful activity these days, albeit almost as much fun. OK, maybe not. But, those four cylinders are pretty good really. We recently had 5 people in it for the first time and the rear wheels were scraping against the arches over every little bump... alas it is not such a family car. But we don't need it to be. Another advantage of it being so small is that the heater heats it up pretty quickly!

The other day I finished my first proper scrapbook - unofficially titled Claire and Adrian's Awesome Adventures. It has all of our trips we've done together so far - Europe 2006, Hawaii 2008, Germany 2008, Taiwan/Australia 2008 (2008 was a big year), South Island road trip 2009, North Island road trip 2009 (2009 not so much), and finally USA 2010. I'm quite proud of it, and it has some awesome memories in a bit more of a fun form than an ordinary photo album. I'd like to take pictures of each page so I have a digital record but I'm not sure my camera will be up to the task... if you see the pics on Facebook, then the mission was successful!

Mum came down to visit a few weekends ago, on the same weekend Adrian saw his sister Josje and her family who were over from the Netherlands for a visit, which was the same weekend as the football world cup final. Mum and I had a great 'girl's weekend' (cringe at the term) which included lots of shopping and spoiling Claire, going to Swan Lake on Ice, a scrumptious dinner at Hummingbird, and getting Mum up to date with the Twilight saga by watching New Moon on DVD.


I have joined Jenkins Gym in the Hutt and have been a member for a few weeks now. Everything there is pretty cool, and it's not as obnoxious and posey as a Les Mills or something like that. I have a really nice trainer who seems to have a policy of not getting me to do anything I dislike... though I feel a bit sorry for him because personally it's kind of hard for me to like anything in a gym. But he tries to get me doing exercises which are not quite so mentally tiresome as others. I am focussing on treating my various old lady injuries (ankle, knee, hip, shoulders, wrist, back). It's actually quite refreshing, and allows me to *almost* even enjoy it, without the pressure of trying to 'lose weight' (which clearly did not work for me last time, for various reasons).

I'm also playing indoor football for a second season now. Last season we each got trophies!! Haha, it's the first sports trophy I've ever landed, that's for sure. Adrian made fun of them, because the plaque says "Runner Up: Minor League" which he suggested is like a trophy for, ahem, the not-so-adept at sports. But STILL! It's a trophy. This time Adrian is not playing as much but I play every week and am quite enjoying it... although I get quite nervous that I'm going to hurt or injure something else a lot of the time. Ho hum, I guess I can't just sit and do nothing forever.

The moppets (otherwise known as kittehs, kittens, cats, muppets, stinkies, fuzzies, babycats, babies) are good at the moment. Armi has odd cuddly moments which is nice. You just have to take them as they come, since they don't come very often. Mostly when you're trying to get ready in the morning, or having breakfast, or leaning forward on the couch mulling over your last scrapbook page. But she is soft, and I can't resist. Bean is really good - some people have been asking about him after his accident, is he fine etc. He's better than we could have imagined, and you wouldn't be able to tell if you didn't know. He still hurtles around being crazy and chases his laser and stuff. He sleeps on our bed with us every night. Nano and Pico are still going strong - they're pretty old little nuggets now. But they are quite funny sometimes and don't mind a cuddle every now and then.

Also, we have quiz regularly on Tuesday nights with a group of friends. Last night, we came SECOND! We have never got that far, in fact the best we've done is about average compared to the other teams. And no, there wasn't three, or even four teams playing. There were twelve! It was great. So we have $60 of vouchers to spend next week - $50 for coming second, and $10 for getting 10/10 for one of our rounds. Anyway even though we hardly ever do very well it's still very fun and a chance to see our friends.

Hope this has entertained you for a few minutes.

"Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again."

[Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet]