Favorite Books of 2009

I love reading and cannot imagine my life without books. So I've added up all the books I've read for the year (40) and made a list of my top picks. Can't wait to see what makes next year's list.

Best Memoir:
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Best Fiction:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Best Nonfiction:
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Best NZ Nonfiction:
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett

Best NZ Fiction:
Containment by Vanda Symon
and Magpie Hall by Rachael King

Best Historical Fiction:
Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky

Happy Birthday Josh

Celebrating Josh's 2nd birthday. It was a simple family day, with all the necessary ingredients: waffles, presents, a nap, fairy bread, pass the parcel and of course, birthday cake.

Kiwi Christmas

We decided to embrace the Kiwi spirit this year and do up a typical New Zealand Christmas. First order of business, rent a bach, check. Second, order up some sunshine, check. Third, spend a low key day hanging outside and playing at the beach, check. Fourth, bbq some dinner and drink some local wine, check. I'm not sure we'll ever have another Christmas that low key. We missed our families, but thoroughly enjoyed the relaxed week we had outside of Nelson. I'm starting to think a summer Christmas isn't such a bad idea after all.

Tonight's hidden ingredient

Ben is not known for being the best eater, so I have become very good at hiding ingredients into foods. Smoothies are a big hit in our house, and I am constantly adding different healthy additions.

Tonight's smoothie included: banana, yogurt, berry fruit smoothie mix, fresh strawberries, frozen blueberries, tomato juice and... drum roll please.... steamed broccoli.

A case of the Mondays

After having a delightful month off from most my domestic duties, reality came crashing down this morning in the form of a to do list the length of the piece of paper. It was a genuine treat to have my mother here to help and we certainly took full advantage of her on a daily and hourly basis. Now she's gone and I realized that I alone was going to have to deal with the daily mess, the dinner and entertaining of the children. But, I'm proud to say that not only did I manage to get most of my to do's done, I even managed to get dinner on the table at 4:55 without going to the grocery store. My supermom skills have returned, I might be a bit rusty, but at the end of the day things got done, the house looked okay and there weren't too many meltdowns. We'll see if we manage to put away the 3 loads of laundry I folded today.... that might be asking too much.

Erin & Dan, Routeburn Track

Dan and I spent two nights at the Kinloch Lodge enjoying a rare getaway without the children. Our trip had all the right ingredients; plenty of fresh air, a beautiful hike up one of New Zealand's Great Walks (the Routeburn Track), dinner in a nice restaurant, a soak in a hot tub with a view and the joy of no schedule. I know it's hard to make these little get aways happen, but I hope we don't have to wait another 3 years for the next one!

Pesky Pirates

I've never been one of those people who wins things, but after a recent visit from friends from Dunedin I decided that I was going to take maters into my hands and enter as many competitions as I could find. With the help of a lovely website that lists the links to all the NZ online book competitions I've been busy entering contests. Last week I got the pleasant surprise in my mailbox when the NZ author Witi Ihimaera's latest book arrived. Today Ben was overjoyed when the game, Pesky Pirates arrived. I think I'll keep on entering contests, who knows what will turn up on our doorstep next?