Easter Outing

This four day weekend came along just in time.  I had a big work meeting on Thursday and flew home to Capital City with a song in my heart. Friday was a quiet home day but on Saturday I headed out early to visit with the Ladywife.

After a short stop in Levin to scope out SaveMart (borderline unsuccessfully - boo) I collected Ladywife and we headed out with the Designer to Foxton to hit the secondhand shops.  After a more successful (and fascinating) day of rummaging around, we headed into the festival at Waitarere Beach for some tasty ice-creams and a ride on the swings.

It was the perfect day.

Vintage toys, including a doll I nearly bought for my Mum

Pretty sure the Doctor would love a juke box...right?

Beautiful packaging on the donut maker

Someone took a lot of time and effort over this set of tins

For Amusement Only. No Prizes. No Wagering.

Old buses from Capital City, in a car yard in Foxton

I actually regret not buying this. A polar bear playing an accordian?!

You get the radio on Tuesdays and Sundays, and that's quite enough

The wags at Radio Foxton - a toilet that's labelled conference room? Classic.

Blue sky, sand, and a lifesaving caravan

Productive

We are having a ridiculous summer and autumn here, complete with a terrible drought over the North Island.  It is difficult to enjoy the warmer days when you know that farmers and growers are struggling.  I'm capturing the extra water from our showers to keep our little garden going, and it's just enough water.

In fact, due to the warmer weather, our garden has been a bit of a bonanza.  This has been my first attempt at "real" gardening, and it's a rousing success so far.  We've eaten lettuce, spinach and zucchini as well as basil, mint and parsley from the garden over the past couple of months.

Go little zucchini!

Baby brocolli are starting to peek through

Baby spinach, rapidly outgrowing its box

These flowers died in the height of the drought, but magically regenerated during a short period of rain.

Buttercrunch lettuce, mint and parsley

More lettuce, basil and the dreaded oxalis

Out of the garden and into my tum!

This is the downside of a bumper summer - these bulbs were supposed to hide away and come up in the spring time.  With the warm weather they've come up right as winter kicks off.  Or maybe this is supposed to happen?

This is the laundry door - this time last week it was possible to walk through it without your face getting clawed open by the climbing roses.  Seriously, out of control, so I spent some quality time with the old hammer and got them back against the wall.

Decorate

After two months in our new house, we have done a lot of decorating (I want to say we're 97% done and we're down to details, but that's only true if I ignore the spare room).

In the rest of the house I'm running out of bits and pieces to finish off.  There's just a few more "spots" to tidy up and then we'll live in it for a bit (until I score some vintage treasure and rearrange the house to accommodate it).

www.houzz.com

 I'm hunting down new knobs for our reclaimed rimu dresser - the existing knobs are plastic, with some kind of coating to make them look like chrome (?!).  I would love something in blue and white glass to match our overall blue and white bedroom theme, but failing that I will track down some mid-century metal knobs to finish it off.

Sadly, not my wardrobe: blog.freepeople.com

 There's no room in our teensy wardrobe for all my clothes, so the majority of my things live on a garment rack in our bedroom.  I hate it. There's just way too much stuff crammed on there!  My goal is to whittle it down by 30% so that it all fits neatly onto the rack with room to look for things.  I love the idea of just having key pieces on there that I truly love so I'll be working away on the cull while I also transition to my winter clothes (currently in the storage closet downstairs).

Etsy - saving the day

We have a small white dining table in the sunporch that the Doctor bought at Ikea and shipped back to New Zealand.  It isn't the best but it's the only table we have for now.  We need something to jazz it up (and hide its previous bad treatment) and so I am trawling through vintage tablecloths, trying to find something that isn't too girly or expensive!

via www.homebunch.com

Finally (for this post at least!), I want to utilise our sunporch over the winter and keep my fingers green.  I like this collection of greenery and I have the perfect table/sunny spot to work with too. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for some nice pots (since the ones at the garden centre are frequently terrible) - I sense a spot of thrifting in my future.

New and Old

The past few weeks has seen a few new additions to the Capital Lass/Doctor household.  Let's be real - the additions are all down to me!  Here's what I've been splashing the cash on (and a couple of kind gifts).

A nice lady in Farmers randomly recommended this brand. SO GOOD (and cheap!)

My sis-in-law to be brought me candles from Canada. Already started on the delicious peach scent.

I was out with LadyWife this morning and we stumbled onto a new sweetshop.  Mint flavour got our vote.

New beauty treats to update my routine, on a pretty plate I found for $5.

Left to right: MAC Contrast, Revlon Nude Slip, MAC Club (a beauty of a duochrome)

Left to right: Nation Rosewood blush, Lollipops Jungle Art

Left to right: Kate Moss for Rimmel in 03, Revlon Colorburst in 050 Hazelnut

A new-to-me book left by a departing friend.  Loved the Natural History Museum so this should be good.

Do I ever decant things? No - but this does match my vintage water jug so I picked it up anyway.

And finally, vintage postcards of Capital City.  These date back to the early 20th century and I plan to frame all 6.

CCC [2]

It's a motley collection of the things I'm Considering, Coveting and Committing to this time around.

From top left: can't say I'm a huge fan of the Kardashian machine but you have to admit that Kim K knows how to bring a good smokey eye look; I had been planning my own feather art project but having found this beauty on Etsy I think I might just beg the artist to post it to New Zealand; I love this Revlon ColorStay lippie in Mauve, and since the Doctor is headed to the States on Friday I've asked him to have a casual gander at Target to see if I can score it cheap; donuts - I can always commit to a donut and after the great Donut Emergency of 2013 I think it's high time I learnt to make my own; my running shoes are dying a slow death so it's time to consider a replacement pair, and these Nike Free Runs look pretty good; but on the other hand, I could buy these gold ballet slippers instead and walk to work in them like a pretty princess every day.

Decisions, decisions!

Weekender

The last two weekends have been spent in Wellington, which makes me a happy Capital Lass.  Although I'm still racing about when we're home, I tend to feel much less disorganised going into the new work week.  Plus I get to work on fun things like my garden and host friends for dinner!

 

I started last weekend with a healthy breakfast! Lady Wife and I cruised to the Hill Street markets on our bikes and I finally got the donut I'd been craving since the previous night.

 

And we grabbed some other goodies, including cheese and fudge treats for the Doctor.  I planted the brocolli that day.

I scored a few other cool things over the last two weekends, including (finally) a crochet blanket courtesy of the Salvation Army (as well as a candle holder that on further investigation turned out to be really expensive new...).

 

The house was full of tarts on Saturday afternoon as I went off the deep end and made both lemon and chocolate tarts for our dinner party with the Lady Wife and the Designer.  Turns out 8 tarts for 4 people is ludicrous - but it was fun!  And they turned out great so that's a handy one to have in the back pocket...

 

As well as seeing a friend's play, and generally getting up to mischief, I finished the weekend at D's house watching The Princess Bride.  Wellington puts on a beautiful sunset for us on the regular, and this particular Sunday was no different.

 

This weekend kicked off with date night on Friday night.  I scored this beauty for an amazing $20 on further reduction and wore it with a patent belt and a winning smile.

 On the way home from the restaurant I spied this little gallery that I will have to check out.  I love the floral print and the nearest vase on the table there.

Yesterday was a chance to check out a new (to me) store called Vintage Heaven.  While I wasn't blown away, I did love their collection of vintage-inspired swimsuits, including a blue velvet one piece!

 

Plus I've done ALL the eating, including a delicious BLT at Gotham this morning, and a lovely solo breakfast at Mojo yesterday.  The Doctor's parents dropped off a whole lot of produce from their garden this afternoon, which is excellent since I am trying to gobble up as much fresh, summery stuff as I can before this unusually warm weather ends.  Starting and ending with watermelon - my favourite summer treat.

All in all, two delightful weekends and exactly what I needed to charge my batteries before my family's arrival this week - house guests every day until Sunday! Woah!  I can't wait to show them some outdoor circus, take in a rugby game, visit Martinborough for some wine and delicious local food, and take the ferry over to Days Bay for a family brunch - as well as barbecues and laughs at our house!