Just a couple of pics to start with...

Our Garden Makeover!

8 months and 2 days ago Tahu and I started on a bit of a major revamp of our gardens. Every few weekends we'd work on it a bit more, including rebuilding the fence and painting it, clearing all the ground, building the gardens and filling them with soil, planting, maintaining and weeding and then we had a guy come and lay the bark for us cos we ran out of time before Christmas. Next year we will lay grass there but for now it's Christmas, we're about to get married and we have gorgeous gardens.

Here's the before and after photos:

This is our front yard which for some reason I didn't take a before photo of.

Click on the images to see them bigger.

Neither of us had any experience in the gardening thing but I knew what I wanted and with a bit of help from our Dads and my mum we have finished! I've had a lot of fun finding the plants we wanted including mini calli lillies, asiatic lillies, normal and mini gladioli, ferns, manuka flowers and then our vege garden that has carrots, brocolli, leaks, spinach, lettuce, tomatos and potatos.

Was a big job but I am so glad we did it!

There’s a story in the bible that I remember from when I was little. It’s about a widow and her son who were down to the last of their food. All they had left was enough oil and flour to make one more meal and after that they didn’t know what they would do. Then a prophet came along and asked her to feed him. She knew it meant that they wouldn’t be able to eat but she did it anyway. The prophet knew what she had done for him and so made it so that the jars that held her oil and flour never got empty. I always think of them as really big clay jars that you dip your bowl or cup into and you can’t see the contents of the jar but there’s always more in there.

I often think of this story when I’m folding my washing. It doesn’t matter how much I pull out of the basket and fold, there’s always more in there.

Today I feel....

Beautiful.

Not long to go!!

We're off to Rarotonga this weekend for a wedding. So exciting! Neither of us have been to a tropical island before.

Last week we got our invites out! 8 weeks to go tomorrow. Just realised we can go and get our marriage license when we get back. Now that will be exciting!!

56 days to go!!

Cashel Mall is re-opening

But I'm really not ready to go back there yet. It's over 8 months but sometimes I remember like it was just today. I remember so much and then at the same time there's blank spots too. I remember the unrealness of it. Of trying to make my way through Cashel Mall and the buildings were all down and the alarms and sirens were going and everyone was yelling and covered in dust and blood and scanning every face looking for Chrissy and James. I so clearly remember getting to the CTV building and standing there for what felt like ages going "what am I looking at". I remember thinking that there couldn't have been a building there. I thought there must have been a carpark or something. There was such a big fire. There were people standing on the rubble and I just didn't understand what I was looking at. It felt like ages that I stood there looking at it trying to work out what I was looking at. I took a photo on my phone (even though I'd felt angry seeing others taking photos in Cashel Mall) because I wanted to show Tahu and Mum and Dad what I'd seen cos I didn't think they'd see it. I will be forever grateful that I didn't know I was looking at literally over 100 people dying. Being crushed and burnt and dying.

I remember searching and asking and looking and praying for Chrissy and James. And so clearly that moment of turning around and there was Chrissy. It was a moment like in the movies when there's that light shining down on the person and the place goes silent or something. There was Chrissy. I think about that moment often. That day was just pain. Pain and Blur except for that moment.

I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to protect her from everything we were seeing and feeling. The smoke was terrible. I talked to her about what we were doing to keep safe, I tried to make her not look at anything. I wanted to be the grown up and stop her seeing and feeling everything we were going through but I couldn't. I think back and wonder why I picked that route to get to James. I took the longer route. I just had no idea.

I know I've written about all this before. And you're probably sick of reading this but it's my way of dealing with it. Writing it down. Hoping someone will read it and might understand what I felt. Or what I feel.

Sometimes it feels like everyone is healing and I am still just remembering everything.

I saw footage of the Turkey quake and I recognised and felt just what was on those people's faces. I know I talk about it a lot. I know I think about it a lot, but how can I not? Everywhere you go there are more and more buildings coming down. Over 1000 buildings. Drive around your neighbourhood and think about what it woud look like if that many buildings came down? Look at your skyline and think about what it would look like if most of it was gone? Tonight I'm exhausted by it. I'm so tired of waiting for, wondering about, knowing there will be another one.

I read the stories of survivors 2, 3, 4 days later being found in Turkey and I'm jealous. We didn't have that. I really thought we would and I watched the news waiting for those miracles but there weren't any. Nothing after 24 hours or something. There are many stories of miracles of people who should have been somewhere and they were. I have my own miracle in finding Chrissy. But there were no miracle survivor stories for us.

Rokocoko loves me I think

This morning I was too asleep to give Roko his usual morning cuddle and then had to rush to get ready. He did however come hang out with me in the bathroom while I was in the shower (a little creepy) and then cleaning my teeth. I picked him up and he purred so hard and cuddled into me and put his head on my shoulder and I'm pretty sure I could hear him singing Snow Patrols Chasing Cars:

"If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lay with me

And just forget the world"

He was so cute I decided I didn't care if I was late to work!