1. Baracks Smile 2. Red Martini

• Barack Obama – I am so in love with America right now, for the first time in my life. I said “I’m so excited” so many times last night. I also likened it to Christmas. And I believe the words “screw the NZ elections we’ve got a black president now” came out of my mouth! (If you’ve just joined us, the reason that is funny is because I am in fact a New Zealander and therefore I do not have an American president at all.)
• Midweek cocktails at Chow – At Chow you get two cocktails for the price of one on Wednesdays. They are delicious. We got a bit drunk celebrating Obama because we hadn’t eaten yet. :S
• Nasal Spray – I have a stupid cold at the moment which is blocking my nose and marking it hard/impossible to breathe through my nose. I couldn’t even breathe well enough to inhale to nasal spray last night but it still cleared it up within one minute. I am so glad I discovered this in the last couple of years, it makes it easier to do everything while you have a cold. No more choosing between blowing your nose or dribbling everywhere while you’re at the movies!
• Handwritten letters and printed photographs – I received a letter in the post from my littlest sister yesterday. She’s been very sick with adrenal gland failure for the past three months and has missed school all that time. She decided to write to keep up her vocabulary and such. She’s 13 but has acted like a 30 year old since she was a baby. :D Enclosed with the letter was a photo of her, almost all of my photos are digital these days so it’s special to have a few printed ones.
• Non religious Prime Ministers – I’m an atheist so while I support the religious Obama I prefer secularism. I was happy to hear both John Key’s and Helen Clark’s responses to questioning on their religious views were that neither of them are deeply religious. John Key does not believe in life after death and doesn’t know if there is anything up “there”, Helen is already well known as an agnostic. I’ve had less luck finding out the religious views of Jeanette Fitzsimons and Russel Norman, leaders of the Green Party, who I am probably going to vote for (I can’t believe I’m still um-ing and ah-ing about it!).

Pink tank love graffiti

• My shoes – They are still getting compliments everywhere I go. On the weekend someone asked me if I where them with everything and said they totally would if they had those shoes!
• Summer keeps peaking its head out – My 3 day weekend was really busy for once. I went to 2 parties, yum cha, a barbecue, and a picnic at the botanical gardens. The boy got burnt but I remembered the sunblock :D
• Cute babies – There were so many cute baby girls at the botanical gardens in their little sunhats. One mum and baby that sat near us wear particularly adorable; mum pulled out a little container with buttered pikelets and started sprinkling them with hundreds and thousands, bubs looked so excited!
• Chav chicks in Wellington – Well, not so much a love, just something I wanted to mention. It was such a hilarious sight. I said to the boy I would’ve taken a photo if I didn’t think they’d beat me up. Hopefully it’s a oncer and the “culture” doesn’t arrive in force.
• Lollies and Singstar – They’re the best thing about Halloween this year. We’ve organised a Singstar night for social club at work for tomorrow!
• My big shiny new laptop – Specs coming soon :D
• Stand up comedy – I went to my first lice (thanks Benhi) live stand up comedy gig at Katipo Cafe last night. The headliner act was acquaintance Benjamin Crellin and he made us laugh our asses off. Sarah Harpur did a hilarious song about being a racist against vegans, and Fergus Aitken is a definite must see. If you get the chance to see any of these comedians I recommend you do.

What are you loving this Thursday?

• Platters – I had a massive craving for lounging at a bar or restaurant with a delicious platter for dinner. So I did!
• My new bag!
• My best friend is back – She arrived back in the country today after a 6 week trip in Europe, woo.
• Short work days – Everyone’s desks are being moved around at work tomorrow and over the weekend so we get to finish at 12 for a ‘team business activity’ and then ‘pizza and beverages’ at 3.30pm.
• Knowing geeks – I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but man am I appreciative I know so many. My best friends husband is an uber geek and I’ll be roping him into helping me choose a new laptop now that he’s back in NZ.
• New laptops – The boy must be getting sick of me saying ‘I can’t wait to get a new computer, then I can do ‘this’ and ‘this’ and ‘this”. Soon my precious.
• Pineapple lumps – The bag next to me is quickly being devoured.
• You guys :D – I’m starting to see a few regular readers and I’m enjoying reading your blogs too.

What are you loving this week?

I thought it would be appropriate to start my brand new website with an ode to Gala Darling. The person who made me want to quit my job and become a blogger!

• Having my own website. It does mean that I have to figure everything out by myself, and a job that would have taken 5 minutes by someone familiar with php and css instead took me approximately 15 hours.
  But I finally figured it out and I’ve got lots more php knowledge and a great sense of achievement.



• Babycham shoes. The desperate search for pretty sneakers started a number of months back. Even before my trip to Melbourne, because my beloved chucks were starting to fall apart. Eventually I found some Babycham shoes in Wellington store and proclaimed they were my ideal sneaker “if only they came in adults sizes”.
  The next time I went into that shoe store the I noticed the sizes were actually in UK sizing so they were bigger than I first thought. I asked one of the staff if they came in adults sizes and she told me they were, in fact, adults shoes!!!!!!!
  I snapped up my favourite pair right then. At only $70 they were much cheaper (and brighter and more comfortable AND velcro) than anything else I’d seen. Even the packaging was totally cute.♥

• Daylight savings. Because it got moved forward daylight savings now starts on the last Sunday in September…this Sunday the 28th. We lose an hour this time around (your clocks go forward) but it means the start of the great kiwi summer and days which last forever.
• V from a can. General consensus is that drinks from cans taste tainted and therefore less good. Well, I actually love the tainted taste. It gives it an edge, like sucking on lemons.
• TV’s getting good. Or more accurately, American TV, and therefore downloads (for those of us in the antipodes). Gossip Girl, Heroes, Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice!
• The Veronicas. When my sister came to stay recently we had MTV on quite a lot and in between all the ‘Nexts’ and other assorted reality TV gems I realised I actually quite enjoy listening to The Veronicas. Turns out my sister is a big fan so I bought their latest CD and have been listening to it constantly. My favourite songs are Popular, Untouched, I Can’t Stay Away, I Don’t Wanna Wait.

xoxo Ms Constantine

♥ Live bands Yay for Coheed & Cambria and their opening act Slipping Tongue

♥ Having loud music in the car Sol doesn’t like loud music (or music at all sometimes) so it was cool to drive with my sister and have the music up loud!

♥ Gossip Girl Favourite TV show! Those clothes, the money, and Penn Badgley

♥ Seeing my family It was nice to see all the family again. I even got to see my sisters new flat. She’s so grown up :]

♥ My boyfriend being a cutie and moving around the furniture in our lounge to make more space and make it easier to use

♥ Wondering if I’ll spot Gala out and about in Wellington

♥ Lots of new friends from the connection post and people reading my blog :]