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 |  is paved with good intentions... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
| 1. Your favorite childhood vacation. We didn't really do vacations as children. We did a 'working holiday' for 18 months in England in 1986-7, but I was attending school then, so it didn't really feel like a vacation per se. The only other one I really remember was a trip to the Coromandel, where we went camping. I remember heating water on a small gas stove to make coffee for Mum and Dad, and we were using tinned 'coffee and milk'. I honestly don't really remember much else about that trip. Weird that the tinned coffee and milk stuck in my mind!  2. Write about your favorite teacher. At primary school, my favourite teacher was Mrs Bartlett. She was just lovely. I caught up with her years later at a family friend's 60th birthday, and she didn't remember me. It was weird to think that she had an impact on my life but I never had one on hers! She remembered my elder sister though, which is funny because she was quiet and shy, and I was outgoing. At high school, my favourite teacher was Mrs Davidson, who was my form teacher but never actually taught me a subject. She was fierce, but you also knew she genuinely cared about her students. I invited her to my wedding years later, and she came. Was awesome. She passed away from cancer a few years after that. I didn't get to go to the funeral. 3. Write about the first time you held someone's hand. You mean as boyfriend and girlfriend? I guess that would have been Alan. I think we didn't really like each other, but we were both sick of being single (we were 13) and we liked each other as friends. He moved in to the farm across the hill from me, so we were within walking distance of each other. We met up, and walked around the farms holding hands. We never kissed, although in hindsight I realised that he wanted to. I really didn't like him that way. Thankfully we decided we were better off as friends, and we remained friends for years after that, until after we'd both married and had children of our own. I think his kids were about 4 and 5 the last time I saw him, and they're 16 and 17 now or something similar. Been ages. But we might end up catching up for his wife's 40th in November, because I spoke to her recently on the phone. 4. Write about the last thing/person that made you smile. Most days, my sisters and my mum send messages in a group chat forum on Viber. My younger sister sent through photos today of her kids all dressed up for Halloween. They looked so cute. Then she sent through all the 'discarded' photos she'd taken trying to get that one decent shot. So funny. Mum was talking about the old photos in the family albums, and I commented that in the day of film cameras, my sister would have had to just go with the first photo she'd taken, no matter how bad it was. So it's not really that our photography skills have improved, just that we're not limited to the first photo we take anymore.  5. Write about a time you were lost. I remember once that Dad was burning the gorse on the farm. I went for a walk to find him. I don't know how old I was, but I would have been at primary school. Certainly old enough to go wandering on the farm without anyone thinking anything of it. This time, however, the smoke was so disorientating, and I got lost. On our own farm. It was so silly, but I couldn't work out how to get back to the house because the fire was in my way. When I didn't come with Dad, Mum sent Dad out to find me, and he found me and took me home. It stuck in my mind, because it was so bizarre to get lost on a farm that I lived on my entire life. 6. Write about your first job. Like most young girls, I did babysitting jobs. I babysat for the Gows, I think after my elder sister left home as she was their regular babysitter before then. They had a tiny baby. Well, in my memory it was tiny. It slept all night, and I didn't really have to do a single thing to earn my mother. But I also babysat for the Quinces, and man, I earnt my money then! They had a primary school aged boy and twin toddler boys, and they were all ratbags, especially the twins. They'd climb out the windows and run off (we were on farmland in the middle of nowhere, thank goodness) and they'd scream and laugh and never go to sleep when they were supposed to. They were little shits! 7. Write a letter to your 14-year old self. Dear Elle, I think the thing you probably most want to hear is that one day you'll find someone who will love you with all his heart, and he won't care about your weight, and he'll think you're amazing. You will have kids with him, and while life might not be what you dream about as a 14 year old, it'll be good and you'll be happy. If I could give you some advice, it'd probably be this: - Don't judge other people too harshly. I know sometimes you are (or will be) critical of the situations they get themselves into and the decisions they make in those situations, but one day you too will face temptations and situations that you struggle with, and then you'll feel ashamed that you judged others. But don't freak, everything will work out in the end. - Keep up the writing, the journalling and the photography - you'll be glad you did. Mostly, just enjoy life as much as possible. Elle 8. Write about why you write. Because I enjoy it. Because I find it just challenging enough to keep me interested without being so hard that I get frustrated. Because I enjoy looking back at my writing after time has passed. 9. Five years from now, I will be... Hmm... I'll be 44. In all likelihood, still working at the same job, since I really like my boss. I'm hoping that at least Jayden will have left home, since he'll be 23 by then. Caitie will be 19, so not sure she'll have left home yet. Hopefully Steve and I will be doing more travelling, and he won't be working so hard because he'll have more employees to do the work with him. I think we'll probably still be in the same house... I think we'll be there for a while yet... 10. Write about your dream vacation. I want to travel around New Zealand's South Island with Steve, just seeing whatever we want to see, and taking heaps of photos. I'd also love to do a fishing trip in the Islands (maybe Niue?) with Steve and catch some big fish, that'd be cool. 11. Do you like to be alone or with company? Both. I'm an introvert, so I definitely need my alone time, but I do crave social interaction. I get some of that at work, but sometimes I just want to go to someone's house and have dinner and drinks, or go dancing. I love dancing, but Steve's not really that keen, so I don't get to do it very often. 12. You have $300 and a Prius, describe the 2,800 mile road trip from NYC to LA. This is incredibly difficult for me, because I'm not from the USA. And 2,800 miles doesn't mean much to me. I do love road trips though. I'd be keen. Steve and I like to just travel in the right general direction, but stop at anything that takes our fancy along the way. It might be a shop, a photo-worthy view, something historical, a place name that amuses us, whatever. We'd have great fun. 13. Write about your biggest goal. My biggest goal. Hmmm... I guess my biggest goal is to be debt free in retirement so that I can enjoy my retirement. I know I need to stop spending money willy nilly to make that happen, but saving is something that I truly struggle with. And there's a part of me that acknowledges that Steve's health in retirement will mean that travelling will probably not be comfortable for him, so I have a need to do our travelling before then, which means spending instead of saving. But it's something I'm always aware of. Maybe we'll be able to downsize our house and pay off our mortgage and debts that way, once we don't need to work in the city anymore. 14. Write about your biggest fear. My biggest fear is losing a loved one. I've been crazy lucky in life. I've known two of my grandparents in my lifetime and one died aged 80 and the other died aged 92. Then I became close to Steve's grandparents and they died in their 70s and 80s. All seemed elderly by the time they went, and while it was sad, and I miss a number of them, it felt like they'd had a good innings, you know? But I've never lost a friend and never lost a parent, sibling, spouse or child. And it freaks me out. It really does. 15. A conversation you and a stranger have on a plane. Plane conversations are usually pretty superficial, even when you're stuck together on a flight for 14 hours. I've had a few conversations with strangers on planes, but most people are usually happy to mind their own business. When I've spoken to people, it's usually been a matter of sharing stories about the dramas the airline has put us through, maybe touching on plans for what we'll do at our destination, the reason for the trip, that sort of thing... 16. A time you or someone you love was scammed. I've never lost money to a scam, at least not that I know of. I've even been pretty lucky buying stuff over the internet. I've bought clothes that were shit, but that's the risk you take, right? But Steve has been ripped off with buying stuff over the internet, paying $40 or more for a phone charger for his car and getting something that fell apart as soon as he opened it and was worth about $2. But otherwise I think we've been very lucky. 17. Describe the life of your favorite singer. I don't even know who my favourite singer is! Wow. Um... Paul McCartney maybe? He's been a pretty consistent favourite for a long time. Okay, so without Googling I can tell you... - He has played music all his life. - He came from a poor working-class background in Liverpool, England. - He joined a band in high school and became famous in his early twenties. Maybe late teens, but I think early twenties. - He became so famous that he travelled the world and couldn't go anywhere without fans screaming and fainting at the sight of him. - He married Linda, and they were so in love that they only spent one night apart for their entire marriage. He was devastated when he lost her (to breast cancer?). - After the Beatles split up, he formed Wings. He released a song called Silly Love Songs, because John Lennon had a go at him about singing silly love songs and how no one wants to listen to them, but Paul is a romantic and he likes love songs. - He married again, but what's-her-face was a bitch, and they divorced. - He married again, and he seems to have found happiness and love again, and I'm really pleased for him. How's that? Not bad? 18. Write about a piece of furniture in the room you’re in. I'm currently in the office at work. My desk is a corner desk, so it extends to both my left and right. It has a light wood veneer. I have a set of three drawers on either side of me. It's quite big - I can't reach either end from where I'm sitting, or the back. It's also got a moveable thing for the keyboard that moves up or down depending on how much pressure/weight I put on it. Yeah, that's about it. 19. If I knew then what I know now. I wouldn't have been so judgmental of people who get themselves into stupid situations and make stupid decisions. You can't know until you've been there. You really can't. You can think to yourself 'I would never have put myself in that situation in the first place' but you don't really understand what led that person to make those calls, those decisions, and until you've been in the same situation, you shouldn't judge. I learned that the hard way. 20. If you could travel back in time, where would you go? I'd like to visit some of my ancestors and see how they lived their lives. Maybe even just Nanny, my grandmother who died before I was born. Or maybe I'd go back a few generations or ten generations... I dunno. But yeah, that's what I'd like to do, see how my ancestors lived and what they were like. 21. You have a billion dollars in your bank account. How did you make it? By winning the lottery and then carefully investing it following the advice of a trusted financial adviser. There's not really any other way I'd make a billion dollars. 22. If you could do anything for work, what would you do? Maybe photography. Genealogy research. Event planning. There's a few things I'm interested in, but the market for those things in New Zealand is very small, so only the best can make a living at it. And I've always had family commitments that have made it difficult for me to take a job without a set income. 23. You live on an abandoned island, describe your morning routine. Sleep. Swim. Read. I can imagine myself being uber lazy if I was living on a deserted island. Although, maybe I'd need to be more proactive at simple survival stuff? I don't know. But I'm picturing long lazy days.  24. You’re in a foreign country and don’t speak the native language. This is not really something that appeals to me, honestly. I feel that if you go to a foreign country, you should be speaking their language, not expecting them to speak yours. And yet, there are countries I'd like to visit and I don't speak those languages. So I guess you've just got to be polite, be mindful that they're doing YOU a favour by speaking your language, and pick up at least enough of their language to greet them and tell them you don't speak their language. 25. Describe how you think your grandparents met. My paternal parents met at a dance, during WWII. My grandfather was on shore leave. They danced, they talked, and when he walked her home, she said 'They had a bit of a cuddle on the doorstep because that was all you did in those days.' He sent her things from overseas, stuff like silk and stockings that were rationed during the war. When he came back from war, they married. I think my maternal grandparents knew each other through family. Did they live next door to each other at one point maybe?? 26. You wake up today with the superpower of your choosing. I'd love to have a super power. There's so many that would be awesome. The ability to teleport would be one of the most valuable in my opinion, because NZ is so far away from the rest of the world. I'd love to be able to teleport and save on travel costs. And time, you waste so much time in travelling! Imagine being able to teleport from work to home and vice versa! That'd be awesome! 27. None of your friends remember you, describe yourself to them. I'm short, only 5'2". I have short brown hair and really bad eyesight so I wear glasses all the time. I'm overweight and you'll pretty much never see me in a dress or a skirt. Jeans for the win! I'm a little quiet when I don't know people, although not afraid of public speaking, but I'm noisy when I'm comfortable with the people around me, especially when I laugh out loud. I love creative projects, and making gifts for people. I do photography, blogging, writing, etc., and a number of these things will end up in your gifts from me! 28. You have the power to stop time, what do you do? I definitely take advantage to have a sleep in. But maybe I just pause time at those moments when things are awesome, just to enjoy them for a bit longer. When the kids are being sweet, when we're having fun, when everyone's smiling... Those good moments, the ones you don't want to end, those are the moments I'd want to stop time. Not forever. Because no one wants to be stuck in a certain phase of their life forever. Although, once the kids have grown up and moved out of home, maybe I'd want to pause it for longer and longer so that Steve and I never grow old. I dunno.29. You have 10 days to live. How depressing! I'd want to spend as much time with my family as possible, and make sure that I'd written down or recorded everything that I'd want to be recorded so that after I'd gone, no one would ever say 'I wish I could ask Elle this' or whatever. I think spending time together is the most crucial thing though. Not travelling, not going to theme parks, not ticking off bucket lists, just spending time together with loved ones. 30. What small things have you seen and taken note of today? Hmmm... - The guitarist who is busking on the street outside the office window. - The breeze from the open window. - The sunshine. Love that the warmer weather is finally here, although I suspect we've still got some cold fronts to come before summer arrives properly. - A lady in the office offering to buy a doughnut. - My boss confiding in me about some issues he's having a client. It's good that he feels he can talk to me and trust me, and respects my opinion. |
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