Wanda Harland

2012!

2012-01-18T21:57:00.002+13:00

A new year brings the usual thoughts of resolutions and plans. Mine are pretty simple, life is lovely and I hope it will stay that way, that my children will thrive and prosper and so will we. Plus I'd like to go out more and see more old friends. Specifically I'm going to be less phone phobic!

I'd also like to go away in our caravan often. We went up to Waimarama with it (plus two tents), and it was magic. I loved it, the bunting helped.

Whee

2011-12-30T20:47:00.002+13:00

Well hello there!

Just like that I see the try the new interface button, and voila, much better.

Hippy happy hoppo hip hooray

2011-12-30T20:34:00.004+13:00

Yo my lovelies.

What a month! First it was my birthday, and I got a magnificent new bike, which I've not really used much yet. I rode it down the hill quite fast, and it was pretty awesome. Then we put it in the car to bring it home! Our hill is steep. We got a bike rack the other day though, so we'll be cycling family extraordinaire.

And we've had Christmas. It was wonderful. Santa came and brought two of the kiddies bikes, and the other a cool remote control helicopter (which is amazing). We had 22 people for lunch, and it was hot and went wonderfully smoothly.

And tomorrow our shop in Mt Vic is gonesville. We're very relieved about this! There have been some issues with parking (yawn). Ironically the movers today got lots of grief from the parking warden today about parking on the curb. Ironic because they've been pretty much absent for the last 2 years. Anyway, we're well pleased to just have one little store to look after for a while.

In a couple of days we're taking our caravan off for its first holiday (with us). We're very excited and will take lots of photos. I think I have to reluctantly concede that Blogger is shit and I'm going to have to export this blog to a better service. It is very awkward to write and upload photos on this. Hmm. Will work on it.

Christmas cake

2011-11-29T18:11:00.005+13:00

Once in a blue moon I go out, and one such occasion recently was the launch of Bees Blessing's rebrand/launch party at the Empire in Petone. We love Bees Blessing because 3 of our corker wee chooks came from their farm, not to mention the fact they make very tasty cordials and condiments. We love the Empire because they make the finest hot chips (Belgium with cheese and gravy and curry with curry sauce - don't choose, get both), so it was a lovely night (albeit brief, 3 kids in a pub?).

I met Laura there, the brain behind Hungry and Frozen, such a super blog with way more to it that food. She likes music too! And lovely little flights of fancy, read it, you'll see what I mean. So when I put the word out on Twitter that I was after a christmas cake recipe and Laura suggested hers, I went for it. Her recipe is here. I made a few changes based on what I have on hand (a lot of eggs) and what I like in christmas cakes (cherries!). My version follows, but hers is probably better.

1 1/2 cups (375ml) ginger ale

1/2 cup booze (I used Johnny Walker black and Ballentines whisky - dregs!)

1kg fruit (I used glace cherries, dried cranberries, currants, raisins, and also a premixed bag)

300g butter

150g brown sugar

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

Orange zest of one orange

1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 tablespoon cocoa 4 eggs 300g flour

Soak dried fruit in ginger ale and grog.

Melt together butter, condensed milk, spices, cocoa and zest.

Whisk up the eggs and add to melted ingredients (quickly, so you don't end up with scrambled eggs)

Add baking soda (suspect this is optional with all those eggs)

Stir in flour.

Double line a cake tin in the christmas cake fashion (I'm partial to brown paper for aethestics, with baking paper insides, but this is frankly lame, so don't worry. Just use baking paper, it won't burn).

Bake in oven at 140 celsius for about 2 1/2 hours.

Ice if you like. I love marzipan, but I have never iced a christmas cake and won't be starting now.

Full credit to Laura, this recipe is a stunner. It has been out of the oven less than 3 hours and look what we've done to it.

Things

2011-10-30T15:17:00.002+13:00

Since we've been in our new house a few things have been procured that are somewhat awesome. The latest (and favouritist at the moment) is a piano. I've wanted a piano for a long, long time. Our last house was too little though, so last week we got on Trademe and bam! Piano love. I'm blimming hopeless, but what I lack in technique/talent I make up for in gusto and enthusiasm. The neighbours may be a little tired of my extremely slow version of the Sound of Silence. I've bought lots of music books full of cheesy music, not because I actually want to perform for anyone, but so that I can sing along as I learn.

We also got chooks! We have five of them, and they bring me a great deal of joy too. They're all laying, so we get lots of beautiful eggs, but I think the best thing is they eat all our scraps. I never felt like composting wasted lunchbox food was actually the best thing to do with it, but turning it into eggs, genius. They're quite funny to watch too.

And my other favourite thing is 2 x 10 litre pails of black paint for the exterior of the house. I can't wait to get stuck into transforming our beige box into a big black box.

Photos

2011-08-29T21:37:00.009+12:00

Here are a few pics from the last few weeks. First the obligatory SNOW! Man we loved that snow. If Wellington could turn on snow for one week each year I think the place would be perfect. We took the suggestion from @nzdodo on Twitter (whose real name is Jolisa Gracewood) to add cream, vanilla and sugar to a bowl of snow. I am deadly serious when I say this may have been the most delicious thing I've ever tasted.Finn froze an icecream container of snow, we're going to try and recreate it, but I suspect a large part of the charm was sitting on our snow covered deck with gloves on eating it.

I tried to take house pictures, but to be honest we're miles of having anything vaguely done. We've made it all pretty liveable, and we love it, but it will be yonks before we can change the carpets and that sort of thing.

Here's our dull as dishwater bedroom, and this is the problem with showing progress pics, because while we've painted it, I think the colour looks awful in this house (although slightly nicer than the blue and white pinstripes). I'm of the firm opinion that white is the only colour that will look ok.

So to prove that I actually am capable of having colour, here is a picture of the shop at the moment. Geez, when did blogger turn so awful? Uploading pictures has been nightmarish. We've got new websites, all the baby clothes are still at www.babylicious.co.nz, and we're busily uploading products to the revamped www.wandaharland.co.nz, and I suspect I'm going to have to change this blog to something that can handle pictures as readily as the new websites. Anyway, I got there in the end, here is the shop. xxm

A good trip

2011-08-25T20:30:00.002+12:00

We went up to the big trade fair in Auckland on Tuesday, we being me and Glen. My parents came to look after the kiddies at 7am, bless, and we tootled off to the airport. We hired a massive Rav 4 in Auckland, curious to see if that is a car we'd want, it wasn't.

The fair was the usual, by this point I'm pretty efficient at checking it out, and I got some cool stuff for Christmas.

We cleared out of there pretty quick and headed to Ponsonby for a mooch around. Firstly we went to Design Foundry, crikey what a cool place. We had a delicious coffee there and I did some stellar shopping. I got this great frock, so delighted. Later I tried on some clothes at World too, I'm in love with World. Sadly I'm way to poor for that sort of carry on.

By this time we needed some serious sit down action, and popped into a little place called Bonita. It was really cute, yummy food, super nice wine. We kind of couldn't believe some people get to do this on a regular basis, normally our life is a whirlwind of children and work, we were totally blissed out. And after that, to make everything extra perfect, we went to a great place called Coco's Cantina on K Rd (recommended by Claire), polished off steak, and then went to the airport where our Jetstar flight departed on time! Truly, it was a crazy good day.

And today I got a new putey, which means I no longer have to worry about our old one cutting out mid writing and breaking my heart. Viva la new puter.

Next time I'll put up some house pics. We've been hard at work, and just love it. The place is splendid.

The Jonathan Adler fixation continues, with bullets!

2011-07-21T16:13:00.002+12:00

Why am I so obsessed?

He allows me to like blingy things
He allows me to have books out
He is hilarious
You can put curtains behind beds - I'm so going to try this
I have a teeny fixation with gold things, after years of going "yuck, gold". Jonathan Adler likes gold.
He has allowed me to slightly get over my fixation with yellow
He seems to be having fun when plenty of the world is being very, very serious

I'm way too lazy right now to bung in pictures, but I recommend clicking on my handy dandy google image link if you'd like to see some pics.

Things might change a bit

2011-07-20T13:03:00.002+12:00

I've decided I want to be Jonathan Adler. I'm not sure how I'll go about it, given that I'm a white, straight, non-Jewish, woman from New Zealand. However I'm going to do everything in my power to become a potting, fabulous, talented, motivated, Jewish, gay man from America.

Or some of the above.

We just got Jonathan Adler's book My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living in the shop, and it is incredibly beautiful and inspiring, and my head is swirling with possibilities and colour. Maybe he'll let me open a branch of his shop.

Now I have to go and paint my house lime and gold and pink and fabulous.

Housie

2011-06-15T22:14:00.003+12:00

We've moved! The past few months have been crazy. We found this house, sold ours, and now we've moved. It has all been a rollercoaster, but I think we've been pretty lucky. Our house sold quickly, our new house is huge and awesome. It needs some serious tlc, but I like thinking about decorating, it is relaxing. I can see that we could spend a decent lotto win on getting things right, and it will take a few years, but already it is comfortable and fits all our crap.

Exciting things

2011-04-26T20:29:00.002+12:00

Kia ora bunnies!

Actually I still exist. It has been crazy times in these parts, but pretty much awesome. In bullets:

Bought a new house! Yay. JUST CAN'T WAIT TO MOVE. It is massive. Massive and ugly. I love a project though, and I am scheming up a storm. I think I might make this page a bit of a before and after type space. Here is my dream board, I think it is going to be a cool place. The section is 2530m2, which is almost incomprehensible to me, after living on 372m2 for almost 10 years. I'm going to make it into a dream Karl Maughan type scene.
Sold our house! It was insane. We had to be so tidy for quite a long time. Having said that, not actually that long compared with what some people endure. We had 5 open homes. Jeez, it makes you realise how hard some people work to keep their homes shipshape, what a freaking nightmare. I found a new place to clean every day, somewhere obvious that I'd missed for 8 years (like the light fittings, skirtings, switches, tops of pictures etc).
And now, since I've had my evening glass de vin, time for my latest obsession, Friday Night Lights.
Mwah to you all.

Sodding earthquake

2011-02-26T13:12:00.005+13:00

Beautiful Christchurch is a mess. I can't begin to imagine how the people down there are holding it together. I'm seeing glimpses of my childhood in ruins, which is sad, but my god, the people stuck there every day dealing with mess and death and pooing in plastic bags and general misery. Oy. The thing about being human is you do endure, you don't have the option of just giving up, because you can't. I wish there was something I could do. I want some Christchurch people to come here so I can give them some alcohol and some food and a bit of a reprieve, but they can't just skip out on their lives.

The whole incident has prompted me to actually pull together an earthquake kit, because honestly, how stupid would you feel if the big one did actually hit, and you couldn't give your children a drink of water?

I'm going to list here what I did, because I know that some people will be interested. It is by no means comprehensive, and I haven't actually finished. You should feel free to chip in ideas about what to add, where to stash it, what to stash it in, that sort of thing.

From the supermarket:

Dettol (cream and liquid)
Bandaids
Soap (I got liquid bodywash, figured it would be versatile)
Bandage
Matches
Toilet paper
Panadol
Insect repellent
Hand sanitiser
Can opener
Rubbish bags

Water (we bought 40 litres. We need more, but I honestly don't know where we'd keep it, so I'm gonna keep all our water bottles and soda stream bottles filled in the fridge too)

Tinned toms
Baked beans
Tinned spag
Tinned bean salad
Rice
Muesli bars
Boiled sweets
Condensed milk
Tinned creamed rice
Tinned fruit salad

From Kathmandu
Aquatabs (water purifying tabs)
Freeze dried food (which Pauline assures me is tasty)

From home
Leatherman tool
Scissors
Pad
Pencil
Booze
Bucket

To come from Mitre 10
Dust masks
Rubber gloves

Things I should have but haven't worked out how to store
Clothing
Shoes
Blankets

I think we'll keep it all in the caravan, and hopefully it survives any major earthquake action better than the house. We have a camping stove and lantern there, plus several torches and we have a radio (but probably should get another too).

Thanks to everyone on Twitter for their great suggestions. Without them I think the list would've looked like this "water, lollies".

Please add in comments anything I've missed.

Suggestion from Cheryl Bernstein (who is a genuine earthquake survivor) - baby wipes, definitely adding them!

Suggestion from Sarah - Safety Shop on Hutt Road

Suggestion from Helen - spade for digging a loo, strong gloves for moving debris

The year that was

2011-01-04T22:12:00.002+13:00

My laptop has gone a bit spazzy and won't charge, so my planned longwinded, meandering spiel is truncated to a bullet format, which happens to be my favorite thing anyway.

So, without further ado, highlights of the year past (utterly arbitrarily, based on no logic or sensible timeframe, in fact potentially backwards so I can start at the easy recent bit):

And omg shock, there are no bullets on the iPad! It will just be a wackadoo list:

We just got back from camping. It was fantastic, even the bit where we got caught in that big gale and had to make a dash to my parents' place. We went with friends and ended up in Waimarama. Currently trying to work out how to move to Waimarama. Ooh, and we saw the family from That Way of Life TWICE. You'll have to do your own googling.

We went to Melbourne. Frankly it was kind of hard work with the kids, but I did get lots of awesome stuff for the shops.

We got a parking sign outside the shop, after months of nagging the council and writing letters and emails. My feelings towards the council are somewhat negative, but I'm a grownup, so I'll concentrate on sending bad vibes and not on whining about them. SO mature.

I went to the Pixies with friends, it was awesome, great concert, great company.

Lots of shit stuff happened; the shop got robbed several times (the bad vibes I'm sending those losers will be making their lives a misery), we had stupid car troubles, random illnesses, yawn. While it was all a bit rubbish our spirits remained pretty chipper, and there were plenty of people having much worse 2010.

What a boring list. I'm stopping now.

It's mah birthday

2010-12-16T14:58:00.002+13:00

I'm partying like it's my birthday.

Gonna have a midlife crisis and go all gangsta, cos it's my birthday awwwww yeah.

Enough.

First thing I did this morning was give Glen my iphone. I love the thing, but I'm pretty sick of checking my email every time it bings, and I'm well sick of Twitter. It is not a good start to the day to flick open Twitter and see half the world moan about the day ahead, so stuff that, I'm going to avoid it and become a blogger again. Old skool stylez.

I got some choccies and enjoyed a coffee this morning with an old (young) school friend. We are young. But also, sadly, not actually as young as we were 20 years ago when we finished school (I shit you not, I may be into gangsta rap, but I finished school 20 years ago, I'm a conundrum). I've got lots of lovely messages on Facebook, I'm not going to avoid Facebook, I like Facebook.

So here's to this year coming up, one which will be filled with excitement and fun, and will be much better than 2010. It started today with the council putting in a hole for our new P30 parking sign outside the shop in town, wonders will never cease. It is a legendary good day.

Miners

2010-11-24T19:08:00.000+13:00

We just want to send our deepest sympathies to all the families and friends of those poor men in the mine who lost their lives. My dad is from the West Coast and we know what an amazing, tight knit community it is. It must be terrible there at the moment, our thoughts are with you.

For the 2 people who haven't seen this, you've been missing out

2010-11-21T20:41:00.001+13:00

It is almost December, what gives?

2010-11-21T20:17:00.002+13:00

I've had a great day. The lovely Kim tweeted that she had some Toast Martinborough tickets, and quick as you like I snaffled 'em up. My very kind parents obligingly took the kiddies for us, and Glen and I hooned over to Martinborough. It was so pleasant, we don't do much that isn't work or child related, so hanging out together scoffing yummy food was great. I was driving, so I took delicate sips of yummy wine, and we blew our $80 worth of festival francs in very quick time (a single paua fritter, with a sprig of watercress on a little plastic plate was $25, shock). We had a nice walk around and were happy to leave to collect the kids after a couple of hours.

Bullets will have to cover the rest, because I have emails to wade through and bills to pay. I've realised this is why I fail to blog, I open the laptop and am compelled to deal with the flood of work stuff before I can venture further, and the work stuff just keeps coming...

We had a wonderful Christmas shopping night in Mt Vic on Thursday, so we've decided to do the same in Petone this coming Thursday (the 25th), there'll be wine, lollies, discounts, giveaways, it will be great fun.
My friend Katie recommended Sons of Anarchy, it is good, but my god what a raw, vicious world. I'm going to persist because Katie has great taste, but I think I'll have to steel myself with whisky, like that bloke who had his tattoo torched off. Actually whisky might be necessary each time I remember it.
We're going camping very soon after Christmas. I am very, very excited. We bought a tent years ago (it was one of those things we got before the third baby appeared), and this will be our first time using it.
I've got nothing else to say really. I'm a bit knackered from all the being a wino with all the luvvies, bogans and 18 year olds.

Relax

2010-10-25T20:26:00.003+13:00

Crikey, spent the finest long weekend ever in Paekakariki, housesitting for the very generous spirited Helen in her humungous, gorgeous home. It made me realise how crammed in we all our in our little place, and I resolved to straighten out my studio so that it would be an appealing destination to go and pay bills and whatnot. I was so good I spent several hours this afternoon hauling boxes around, and deciding whether or not to keep diaries from 1993, and old essays, and the manual for Glen's Technics stereo he got in 1982 (for the curious: I kept the diary, otherwise I might forget again that I'd studied Foreign Policy, ha! Who knew? And I had to keep those particular essays, because otherwise I may have forgotten that at one stage I was capable of writing the perfect comms plan a Work and Income New Zealand restructure at one point in my life. And of course I kept the stereo booklet. After 28 years I couldn't be held responsible for chucking out something so vital).

I put up a noticeboard, and piled all my fabric neatly, and went through some boxes of business documents from when I owned a catering/takeaways business (I kept them, because otherwise I may forget again that at one point I was capable of pulling together a pretty flash looking catering menu).

Boy, when I die, and it is decided that I am worthy of writing a biography of, the researchers will be staggered at the depth of my interestingness.

We also hung out with a couple of my friends from school. At my age you go around in a perpetual stage of being confused, because how did 20 years pass? How? What happened? Was I asleep? Drunk? On P? Because I understand that P makes 7 days feel like 1 day, and that is the only way it could possibly make sense.

Glen just came home with my gorgeous new clogs, which arrived in the post. Last time I had gorgeous new clogs was 1993. It is in my expenses list in that diary. Those researchers will probably have to do some serious analysis on what this means.

Which reminds me, time for a wine.

Music

2010-10-08T21:31:00.002+13:00

In case you were wondering, Glen and I first hooked up at a Dinosaur Jr concert. I'm pretty pleased about this every time I hear Dinosaur Jr. It is lovely.

Weekend the Great

2010-09-26T22:04:00.003+13:00

My previous drunken posts probably reveal part of the fun this weekend was. After a lovely, busy day in the shop in Petone, visited by lots of great people and chatting away to all the ace customers, I came home to a delicious bottle of wine. I love the beginning of daylight savings, I know it is a drag for some, but when you've got kids who are waking earlier and earlier, is is psychologically a blimmin godsend. And wine! A good evening of drunken scheming, twittering, singing 80s songs (C4 had a well timed 80s night), awesome.

This morning Lucy was really unwell. Now it is going to sound like I'm a monster, but I loved the cuddles and she napped in bed with me, while the boys did whatever they liked. She was heaps better after a kip, and no more spewing, so we all just hung out and watched telly and played. And the shops were again busy, which always puts me in a good mood.

We got pizza delivered from Wholly Pizza. They have those huge slices like in movies. I just love it, and their service was awesome. We got bagels delivered too, so we're sorted for a yummy lunch tomorrow.

Blah blah happy happy. Things have turned. For some months there was no wine, and no good service from anyone. Happy.

Later

2010-09-25T23:07:00.001+12:00

Even 2 minutes after I wrote that, I realised it didn't make sense, but for Mission Martha's Brain I decided to just Go For It.

Plus Madonna came on the telly, and that bitch is powerful, loves.

(I do those kisses like I'm a rapper goddess, for one day the 40 year old rapper goddess will be queen, youse have been warned).

Utter ridiculousness

2010-09-25T23:01:00.002+12:00

I figured at some point in the next decade I had to be hammered.

My god, when you're a little drunk the most awesome ideas are FLOWING. Like my bollywood/80s army, like that bit where I linked about my love of Russell Brown, and then there he was, in my shop! about um, how you can still respect spousal laughing when the headphones are in their ears and they don't realise and that entire sentence should have hyphens but they're a whole different deal when you're typing and how the earthquake gave you a suspician that you're on borrowed time and whisky time!!

Love you all.

Brain exercise

2010-09-23T21:27:00.003+12:00

I'm not feeling brainy. I used to feel pretty onto it, but now my brain is FULL of boring staff rosters, GST returns, accounts to pay. Total yawnfest. I don't know how people keep a part of their brain for themselves when there is so much to have to think about, but they do, and I'm going to too. I just don't know how yet. Any suggestions are welcome.

I think what I used to do is, erm, nothing really, maybe that was the key. I'd have some quiet time, and sha-winnnng! Total brainiac!

Perhaps just the exercise of writing on here will be enough to provoke a surge in braincells. We'll try that eh. I remember when I first opened the shop, and I fancied myself sitting there at the counter, writing away. Turns out that isn't how shops work, who knew?

Until the brain mojo returns, read this lady.

Bang!

2010-09-22T19:59:00.003+12:00

Bullet time.

I read Room today. I really liked it. I don't read much these days, and I couldn't put it down.
I went into the shop last night and tried on heaps of clothes. It is the first time I've done it, and it was amazing, like having my own personal, well, shop (which I suppose I do have). I bought myself this and one of these (not pictured).
Things are much better than they were. We got back most of our money for the crashed car in Australia, which was great. We don't tend to take out the insurance on rental cars, and even though we've been caught out the last couple of times, we only actually lost a couple of hundred of bucks, which is what we would have lost if we'd taken out insurance, and not used it. Sounds very circular, I know, but we're happy.
The shops are ace. Winter was pretty grim, the recession kicked in, but basically we just realised that last year was blimming cruisy, and the shops are still viable. Talk to any retailer, and this is the year the recession bit. Plus things are definitely on the up now, and we're really enjoying them.
I got a new camera, look! It's suddenly like I can actually take photos, even if I can't put them prettily in the blog.
Now I have to go and watch *cough* Glee. Wheeeeee!

Oh frack, seems something on my site is misbehaving, and I'm going to have to remove all the links (which were terribly out of date anyway, but still, wish I didn't have to.

Emmys

2010-09-06T09:55:00.003+12:00

Every year I manage to miss anything good on the awards shows, but I found this on YouTube, and it neatly combines my Joel McHale/Community love, 30 Rock new obsession (yes, I'm a late adopter), Glee secret fangirl ness, OMG Madmen/Jon Hamm, and Bruce Springsteen. I could watch it all day. It even has Tim Gunn!