Reconstructed / Deconstructed

The reason I haven't posted for so long is that life has been a bit unrelentingly grim and crappy and I didn't want to bum out my readers by going on about it. Nothing dramatic or tragic, just hard going. Its pretty much all summed up in this post here. And in case anyone was wondering but was too shy to ask, it has now been three cycles since the miscarriage and I'm not pregnant yet. This is not really surprising because there is only a 20% chance of conceiving each cycle (and that's assuming the egg and sperm get to meet up.) But still every time I get convinced that I'm preggo and it turns out I'm not - not a happy-making experience.

But now, I have something new and exciting to talk about - (at least I was all excited about it this morning as I did my usual 30 minute internet surf in a desperate attempt to avoid leaving for work). Anyway, I went away on holiday last week and bought this book.

And now I'm intensely interested in reconstructed clothing , that is, when you take a piece of fuggly secondhand clothing or fabric and make it into something that you like and want to wear.
The first challenge I am setting myself is to make this jersey (note highly unflattering shape)

that I bought at SaveMart, Upper Hutt about six months ago for about $5, into something I would want to wear.

I have found some really cool blogs about people who have pledged only to wear reconstructed clothing (as a way of saving money, conserving the environment, being creative and generally giving the fingers to consumer culture) like this woman. And this woman really rocks - she wore the same brown dress every day for a year (she washed it) as an anti-consumer, anti-fashion statement.

Late summer At the Bay: a photo essay

Giant dragonflies & llamas

Are what I saw today.

We went off in search of Cross Creek. The spot of the old town at the foot of the Rimutaka incline where the fell engines used to cross the ranges before the tunnel was built in the 1950s. There wasn't much left of it. An overgrown tennis court - broken asphalt and encroaching bush. Twined amongst the native bush there were small signs - a growth of ivy, blackberry brambles, a single old fashioned rose bush, heavy with scarlet rosehips. Pieces of old clay brick lined some of the walk ways and across the path of the former railway tracks were the occasional chips of coal - dropped from the steam engines over 50 years ago.

None of the houses remained along the site of the old main street. They had all been transported to Featherston long ago. We found the end of the train line where a giant turntable used to turn the train engines around to go back up the incline and several large trenches that were used to replace the brake blocks after every trip.

On the long walkway from the carpark to cross creek we saw a giant dragonfly, a kingfisher and a herd of four llamas.

Over active

Everything is feeling a bit like drudgery at the moment. Work is a blur of emails, phone calls, meetings and deadlines. We are very short-staffed. I am becoming terminally snappy. Plus there is an underlying hum of stress as we wait to here about the outcome of our restructure.

Home should be a haven from such things. But at the moment mine is not. This is because I am trying to organise some major construction work on the property where I live. It is an apartment complex which means that all the owners have to agree to the details. This is a challenge. I come home to emails, papers, relationship management and generally making my poor worn-out brain think some more. Did I mention I am becoming terminally snappy?

One might think if I am so bowled over by drudgery that I might have second thoughts about reproduction. Ha, ha. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

On a final positive note - I am, inchworm step by inchworm step, decluttering the apartment. Halleluyah!

Feeling negative

My period is due tomorrow. I took a pregnancy test today. It was negative.

I really thought that I might just get pregnant again straight away. The interweb is full of stories of such things happening. Its probably a myth but they say you are more fertile right after miscarriage. I almost felt excited this cycle.

Now I'm sad, sad, sad.

Maybe I'm allergic

I alway remembered Diana Galbaldon's heroine who was tragically parted from her husband for 20 years (mistakenly thinking he was dead). She finds evidence that perhaps he isn't dead after all and is telling a friend about how she is thinking of trying to find him. The friend asks to see her wedding ring and she takes it off and hands it over to him whereby he finds a line from a love poem written in latin inscribed on the inside. Now the hook in this story is the heroin didn't know about the inscription because from the moment the ring went on her finger she never took it off for 20 years.

I kind of wanted to be someone who took the ring off so seldom that it would get stuck on my finger. But such is not my life.

First of all I took the ring off when I had a shower because I didn't want it to get damaged by the soapy water. And I took it off when washing dishes and cleaning. Then I took it off when chopping onions because the acid could damage it. But then my finger started to look like this.

So now I take it off every night when I go to sleep. Its hard to be a romantic in the real world.

Dodgy old friends

I am after my old friend by the last name H----- ,and you probabaly match the description. Update me on my present findings.Its been a while and I am quite eager to catch up on lost times Can you please contact me and ascertain my findings, wishing You HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Thank Terry Morris.

Okay, so the bad grammar and the fact they didn't mention my first name should probably have tipped me off. But hey, I was sent this through the Old Friends website. I figured the person had mistaken me for someone else and I politely emailed them back to tell them so. Whoops.

Turns out Terry wanted to contact me about, My Late Client Mr.Randolf H ... an oil merchant. Seems Unky Randolf put US$10.5 million into a European finance company and then died without any immediate family surviving. Terry searched high and low to find someone with the same last as his client and finally found me. Now he wants me to make a claim to the finance company to get the dough.

I feel and know that you will be able to make this claim successfully and as a result of this I do not want the Finance Company to be aware that I contacted you first in order to prevent them from going into much investigations on whom you actually are and that can put the success of this transaction on the line.
I want you to be rest assured that this is legal with no risk involved, since all the legal documents that gives you the right to make the claim is available. This is a deal I am offering you and I want you to know that it requires only a mature mind to understand all I am saying and I believe you are mature enough which is the reason I am going further.

I'm so flattered that Terry thinks I'm mature and so reassured that he isn't going to put me at risk. Can't wait to get my share of the 10 mil.