how long has it been?

Yeah - I've neglected this blog for ages.... you know what.. I'm not even gonna go there. Lots has happened since my last post in April (?!) and I couldn't begin to cover it all.

In 1o points:

1. We lost many of our furkids. We are now down to three permanent residents. However, that said, we've just taken on a foster - pregnant female (was) ... so we currently have Shi (mummy) and her ten darling 5 week old babies. They are separated now (rats become sexually mature at 5-6 weeks, so we separate a bit before 5 weeks to be safe). We're trying to adopt out as many as we can - but I think we'll keep a couple + mum.

2. D and I went for a trip (in Sept!) to visit my brother in Perth. We had an awesome time, and also saw the Phoenix play (read: horribly lose) while we were there.

spooky pic of my bro @ Freemantle prison on a night tour!

the beautiful Combo

It certainly gave D and I inspiration to do a whole lot more "real" travel when work and finances allow!

I promise I didn't make him carry the bags alll the time!!

3. I got a new job... or perhaps two new jobs since I last posted. I'm still within the same company, but I've now moved to IT. Which is amusing for some, as I'm not exactly an IT guru. I'm doing ok - and really enjoying the change. There are some big changes afoot in my company - so its an exciting time to be involved.

4. I'm still Guiding.. its been a full on year and I'm really proud of our girls. We've been on two camps this year and have achieved so much! We awarded four senior Guide awards and our unit has grown from 20 at the start of the year to 35! This is awesome - go Girl Guides! Its especially cool because this year we celebrated 100 years of Guiding!

5. D and I have the camping bug I think! We've been slowly acquiring gear so that we can go away camping on our own! Our car getting broken into and all my camping gear getting stolen didn't help matters - but we're getting there. We've got leave in Feb next year, so hope to go away and "rough it" for a week.

6. The whole weight-loss thing isn't going so well right now... I was really good, but I rolled right off the wagon! Back on I jump - I'm back at the gym and trying to eat well - December is the worst (yet best) month!!

7. I've still been baking up a storm and have had some great success with new cupcake variations. I'd like to get into the habit of baking a new thing once a week... so I can take pretty pictures and feed my work-mates!

chilli-choc cupcakes with chocolate ganache icing


birthday cake I made for a colleague's daughter

8. I've bought D a couple of cook books (I know, I know, gifts for him that are really for me!) and we're trying to cook two new things a week. Its been fantastic and we feel all chef-y! I definitely need to make/find us some funky aprons to style us right.

borscht (beetroot soup)

sweet potato frittata

9. I removed my 101 list... it was big! and long! I think I need a shorter list - both in term and number of items. I haven't deleted the list - I still want to work on it - but it was daunting and made me not visit my blog. So watch this space for my new short term goals!

10. I finally gave in to Facebook - so if you know me in real life - look me up! I hear its cool to have lots of friends. I've even uploaded some photos.....

That my dears, is it for tonight!

x x xM

freeezing

We woke up freeezing this morning and when we got out to the car it was obvious why! Today we had our worst frost this winter! (It took a wee while to get the car warmed up).

I've crossed a couple more things off my 101 list!

62 - Improve the design of the furkids blog
95 - Learn heaps more about html and blogging and use skills to make my blogs pretty

Both involve a bit of html fiddling. You can check out the furkids new page here. The background image is a banksy rat stencil. I LOVE Banksy rats. I wish I could make amazing stencils and street art like Banksy. The furkids blog is a simple layout/design and a separate blog to avoid millymiss becoming overrun with stories about the rats! :P So for those of you that care, you can always access the furkids blog by clicking on the pic of Aiko in the sidebar. And for those of you that don't, you can happily ignore that blog :D

As for the html and design of millymiss, I've made quite a few changes and finally feel like i'm at the point where I don't need to play with the layout every weekend!

Things I've completed:

• Added a second sidebar


• Adjusted the width of the middle and sidebar columns to the perfect width


• Added a funky wee pink "M" icon to my url address


• Added a Tag cloud (see right sidebar)


• Put my 101 list in the sidebar in html, including pop out lists for my 101 books and movies


• Made a funky progress bar for my 101 list


• Played around with the colour scheme and background a million times


• Removed the header (and then added it back again)


• Learnt how to make a picture lead to another page (clicking the Aiko pic loads the Furkids blog)

I'm sure I've done/learnt more, this blog has been in construction for quite some time. Anyway, I feel I've done enough to cross this off the list.!! So that brings the total completed to 5!!

And.... in more exciting news, D and I set a "getting married" date. 7 September 2007. That is right - in 3 weeks!! I love how low maintenance and stress free we are doing this. Its fantastic!! Its going to be a quiet ceremony at the Registry office with minimum witnesses and then we are going to go out for dinner with close friends and family that evening.

Its been a busy week again, I can't believe its already Thursday!! Guides was fun this week - we made maracas by paper mache - ing bottles. Then we had an induction ceremony for three new girls that have joined our unit. I hoped to take some pics but forgot!!!

It feels like we spend soo much time on the bus these days. I miss being able to jump in the car and park close to work. However I do feel happy that we are being greener and doing our bit to reduce carbon emissions. We also often walk home which is very good for us!!

Anyway, this has been a longish post and I'm very tired..

M

fantastic service

I just had to take another pic of the gorgeous flowers given to me by my dear friends Kate & Sconey. The lilies in the bunch have now opened up and they look beautiful! I love the bright colours.

Today I received the most fantastic service EVER! After feeling quite annoyed at my recent attempt to get my service machine serviced (see yesterdays post) I took it to Wellington Sewing Services who have a fancy new store in the Kilbirnie Plaza.

The very helpful team tested my machine and told me there was nothing wrong with it and even took the time to show me how to clean it properly. The BEST news is that they are planning to run 'learn to sew' evenings! I told them that Sconey and I would be VERY keen. So if you are in the Wellington area I HIGHLY recommend Wellington Sewing Services for all your sewing/repair needs. They've definitely got my business!! (One day when I can justify buying a new machine.....)

This means I can finally cross Item 53 off my 101 list. Sewing machine has been serviced! Yay!

AND.. you'll also notice by looking at my header that I have also completed Item 88 - make cupcakes and decorate them. D and I had great fun decorating these today today to make my new header:

They didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped - we had to rush a bit to make sure we still had sunlight hours to photograph them. :) But I'm sure we'll give them another go. Sconey gave us a fantastic cupcake recipe that D has pronounced delicious.


M

blog construction...

As you can probably tell, my blog is a little bit under construction. All this 101 things in 1001 days business got me looking at so many people's blogs and I wanted to make mine prettier!

I am nearly done with my list, I have about 80-odd things on it. I'm still really excited and want to start NOW.

I've spent faaar to much time blog browsing tonight for a real post, but here is a pic I took off the frost last weekend:

We haven't had any real good frosts as yet (too much rain!!) and I've been wanting to take pics of frosted plants for so long.

Anyway back to the 101 list - I should really go to bed....