I'm back?

I miss blogging - so I'm might try and start again.
Yes I know that no one reads this but one or two people... but maybe I just wanna go this for our own record... I miss looking back and lets face it.... I'm pants at writing a real life journal :)

I think the reason I've not blogged is because every time I'm back to it I think I have to backtrack and start from where I stopped... but I have had a brainwave... maybe I don't HAVE to do anything... maybe I can just start from NOW.

So let do it.... starting, later :)

Cannonball Run 11

You might remember - sort of from the last real post I did that we entered a car run last year called the Snowball Run... well that was the winter edition of the Cannonball Run which was held last weekend, and we had a blast. It was a dramatic weekend filled with everything from crontic illness to cars on fire.

Heres our little photo montage of our adventure... we had to have a movie theme for the car - we went with Ron Burgandy and Veronica Corninstone from the movie "Anchorman".

10 Tuesday

Well it turns out I didn't do anything exciting enough to blog about since last week... so here we go again:

1. A new song
We saw The Drums when they opened for Florence + The Machine this year... and I still love this song.

2. Wanted: A reading list
...I need suggestions.... and yes I DO work in a bookstore - but do you think I can find anything I actually wanna read... I love a good real story... esp a good bio... last one I loved...

Yip - they are complex people but man are they fascinating.

3. David Ghetti - Pencil Sculptor
Click HERE to see the rest... amazing stuff

4. Super Cute Vintage Digital Tapes
Makes me wanna play with my blog template again... but no - it's not time to open THAT can of worms again just yet. Get them from HERE.

5. Awesome Mixed Media Art
Dolan Geiman - loving that guitar
6. Lolly Chops
Yeah I know I know, it's way too early to even want to think about THAT date coming in December... so let just call them September Trees.... so dang cute...

Lolly did a tutorial on the Crate Paper blog HERE.... and she is one of my fav bloggers. Visit her HERE.

7. Super Cute Wedding Tree
Found this on etsy - such a cool idea. You get the tree and green ink pads... and your guests fingerprint a 'leaf' on the tree and sign it...

photo: YourKeepsakeCo

8. SO Good!
New, Chocolate, Hazelnuts, Cashews... all good things!

photo: jeroxie

9. Great lyrics
I've always always been a sucker for a great lyric... it doesn't even have to be a whole song or even a whole verse... I can pick out certain lines in a song that make me think or feel or the music on that line just rocks it home to you... I hope you know what I mean... for me it's like poetry.

"Cause we all have wings, but some of us don't know why"

"All of us get lost in the darkness, dreamers learn to steer by the stars."

"Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away"

"Do you want the truth or something beautiful? I am happy to decieve you. Secrets, lies and telling tales. I can be who you want me to be, but do you want me"

"So if this melody should stop or fade away, the oceans will drain out and the stars disintegrate. It's like voodoo I've lost all my control. I look into you you make me rock and roll"

"In my head I replay our conversations, over and over til they feel like hallucinations. You know me, I love to lose my mine. And every time anybody speaks your name I still feel the same - I ache, I ache, I ache inside"

"This is the way you left me, I'm not pretending. No hope, no love, no glory, no Happy Ending."

And this week I've been loving this...
CLICK TO LISTEN and yes I do like the covers better than the original - that's just me ;)

And this is an all time fav.... "I won't be your winter, I won't be anyone's excuse to cry"
CLICK TO LISTEN

10. Thinking of here

image: scott28w

Our plans to travel off shore this year came to a screeching holt when teeth and cars broke down. Seriously I can't believe it's already almost the end of the end... wasn't it yesterday that I was planning this for my 30th...

10 Tuesday

So... I've been struggling to think of things to blog about... then I found a little inspiration from one of my all time favourite people... Elsie Flannigan. On a sunday she blogs a list of 10 things she loves...
I thought "Hey, I love things too!". So in a blantantly ripping off fashion I thought I'd share on a tuesday. 10 things I have going on, have found, have brought, have created, have experienced... why not.

So may I present "10 Tuesday":

1. Photo5
I've registered for this competition for 2010 and am SO excited for my box of 5 to turn up.

2. Real Groovy
I went to this amazing place for the very first time last weekend. So much music in one place... CDs, vinyl... everything your ears could ever need (apart from Kate - but, see below)

photo cred: webwin

3. Kate
I FINALLY got Kate Miller-Heidkes new album! YAY! Bout time consider how much you guys here me rabbit on and on about her. All it took was my lil sis going to Australia. Still amazes me you can't get artists from as close as Australia in stores here. Weird.

4. My new lensI was very spoilt recently when Mike brought me this puppy... it's the Canon 50mm f/1.4. I am still getting used to using a prime lens rather than a zoom - but I love the results... and it's SO good in low light too. Joy.

5. Heavenly Fudge
...drool.... honestly, best fudge EVER!

6. Visiting my birth parents
Always blows my mind... they are so like me, it's weird, but awesome. We talk music and art and craft and generally just ramble on about all sorts of nothing.
7. Scrappy inspiration
Like I was saying I haven't scrapbooked in what feels like an age. But I've been seeing things around that have tugged on my craft strings like crazy. Most of my spare time right now I spent sitting on this laptop editing photos... but soon... real soon - I'm gonna play with glue!

My peep Louise Williams shared a couple of tutorials on her blog - I love these - I love seeing people scrap especially those whose style is so different from mine... I love seeing different techniques and Louise is just amazing....

photo: Lousie

As usual the amazingly cute Elise is up to something - just this photo makes my scissor hand itch...

photo: Elsie

And I saw these and had that crafters sense of "I could make that"... cute.

photo: LemonTreeStudio

8. Presents from photography clients
I love when people are stoked with their photos... and Emma decided to thank me with these super cute measuring cups I had seen on our holiday up North. 9. A new song

10. Ginas161 Symonds St, Auckland.
Love it - the people, the food, the personality.
They've move into a bigger shiner premises which does take a little away from the cosy little hidden secret feel it used to have but you can still rest assured that the food and most importantly the tiramisu has not changed.

Mini break

We hadn't planned on going away. We set a week off and then this opportunity to have a week in the Northland came up and it was too good to turn down.

It was about a 5 hour trip in the car and the weather was not exactly 'holiday-y" but it was a break. Heaven knows we needed it. The apartment we stayed in was MASSIVE and so cosy... a spa pool and all - joy... I love a spa. Well to be honest I love a spa for like ten minutes - then I get bored and start trying to make a whirlpool or spray Mike with the jets. I'm really about 10 ;)
We hit the ferry to Russell... tried to find somewhere for lunch - walked around the old church. Very very old graves, sad really... so many children. And of course the bullet holes from the battles the Bay of Islands hosted in our young country's birth years.

...then we climbed the hill to where Hone Heke's mates chopped down the flag pole (for my international buddys - Hone Heke was a Maori Chef who ordered the cutting down of the flagpole at Russell. This was intended to show disapproval of the British government. Over the following months, it was re-erected and cut down another three more times. LINK to historically accurate video)...
...visited Waitangi - FYI if you are a kiwi and flash them your drivers licence they wave the $50! entrance fee - honestly if I was international I'd feel a tad ripped off by that, just saying...
...spent a day in Kerikeri and brought some genuine actual oranges...
...and then drove ALLLLLL the way to the tippy top of the country (well as far as you can get) to Cape Reinga. Now a days it's sealed all the way and they've got this fancy archway you walk under and it is goes ''whooooooooo-woooooo". That's all very nice but I really miss the old post office they used to have up there. It was always the biggest joy to get a jellytip icecream and post a postcard from the shop... and it'd get a fancy Cape Reinga postmark on it.The weirdest thing is that I came home and cleaned out the kitchen draws... I got this urge to declutter - turns out I could live in an apartment, a simple, basic essentials only exisitance. Yeah right, I'd fill it with crafty, kitschy, vintage random "character" (read that junk) in a month straight haha.

Life Captured by.... me

So I haven't been scrappin...
I've been taking photos instead....


If you're on facebook - look me up: Life Captured by Neen

Did I tell you I love Florence + the Machine?

Yes I know, I'm annoying. But I went to her Auckland gig!
& Mike is maxed out on brownie points for coming with me.

She was SO DAMN GOOD! You know when you see someone live who sounds just as good as the album... she twirled around the stage barefoot, her super cute black dress streaming behind her, lit up in floods of light. She has such a strong voice and can carry a range... and I love the power of her lyrics.
...she came, she sang and she conquered my heart.



PS: No no, seriously, my album of the year... Lungs - Florence + the Machine