Category Archives: New Zealand

post cruise & post covid! – Owl Hare & Hollow

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We had a great time in New Zealand and it was so nice to be back on board a cruise ship again. The weather was perfect, it’s a beautiful country and we enjoyed having a balcony cabin so we could just watch the views from our room. Sydney Harbour put on a good show  for our sunset sail-away.

We had a few days scenic cruising starting in Milford Sound – it really is a beautiful place, reminded me of Alaska. It wasn’t as cold as last time we were here but there was still snow on top of the mountains.

Here’s me in the pink.

 

Of course everywhere you go in New Zealand its just filled with picturesque scenes of old lovely old buildings like this church perched on the side of the hill and its just green everywhere!

The highlight for us was visiting the Whakarewarewa  Village. The steam pools were so hot the geyser was spraying quite high and the ground is hot under your feet. It’s not a tourist village but a real home to the people who live there. Unfortunately I can’t upload the videos I took but I have a couple of pics.

Overall we had a great time, but near the end of the cruise we had a bit of a cough and a sniffle and tested positive for Covid. Fortunately we were not too sick at all but as we did not want to bring it home to DD we decided to stay away until we both tested negative. So our holiday was extended another week or so while we lay around at a house at the  beach just resting and recuperating.  We’ve been home a few days now, still not 100% but pretty good.

I took my Owl Hare & Hollow embroidery panels with me on the cruise and I really enjoyed doing them – it’s so relaxing – and I was glad to have them with me when we extended our time away.  I just love this quilt pattern. I think its going to be a long term project though as I’m not so good at English Paper Piecing which I’ve been putting off but I was able to complete five more panels while away.

and I’ve started on some of the easy blocks:

On the home renovating front we’ve been ‘ghosted’ by the tradie who gave us a quote for some work so we have had to start again – finding a new person to come and quote. It’s so frustrating, this is the second tradie who has done this, given a quote then ghosted us when we ask for details to make the deposit. I wish they would just tell us if they don’t want the job and with Christmas coming up that will probably slow them down as well.

Bonnie Hunters Mystery Quilt starts today so I am planning to do that over the coming weeks. I need to pick our my colours so I can get to work on the first clue and finish up a donation quilt thats almost done.

Linking up with:

Another Mortgage Milestone!

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Last week we got our finally got our tax refund paid into our account. After paying a few bills I’ve just made a nice big extra payment off the mortgage to bring it down to $112,558 – the end of year 18 balance on the Amoratisation table.

It feels so good to cross out another line!

So with 15 weeks left until the end of 2019 I need to pay $837.20/week to reach our goal of $100,000 mortgage balance by end of the year. I also have to replace our heater/air conditioner which will be $5000 at the end of October so we need to keep our spending down.

The last few months I’ve been really tired and I am looking forward to next year when I am just doing my day job. I have also been reading ‘How to Retire Happy, Wild & Free’ which was recommended on the MMM forums. Its been really helpful to me, as someone who has really invested a lot of my identity in my career. I will write more on this a bit later, but overall I have really come to accept its time to slow down and smell the roses.

I have only a few weeks until holidays – New Zealand here we come! – can’t wait!

New Zealand

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So sad this morning about the terrorist attack in New Zealand.  People at prayer,  families at worship together, executed by a white nationalist filled with hate.

Over the last ten years in Australia, as in other countries we’ve seen the rise of ‘nationalism’ in our society. And just like in the US we now have people in our government who are racist and seek to divide us against our muslim community.

How fearful and shortsighted they are.

I think of my clients that are Muslim and from other countries and how sad and afraid they must be feeling right now. I only hope they know that many people do care, do welcome them and do not condone the increasing rhetoric we are hearing downunder.

We have to do better than this.