A Show!

Guess what.... I hung my paintings at a little cafe today. I brought in about six. Now for the first time they are on display in a public place. wow! its very exciting. Thanks Carol for being so inspiring and encouraging. Thanks Morgan for being so supportive and loving. Thanks Grandma for taking up painting and just going for it. Also thanks for setting up your table and chairs and staying up late with me to paint. Thanks Momma for telling me I could do it. And thanks Daddy for making me an easel and buying me some paints when I was in third grade! Thanks God for putting it inside of me to so badly want to create. Yay! This is a cheesy post. But I love you guys.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

We had a great little anniversary. Two years today, or yesterday depending if you are in the United States or New Zealand. We celebrated both days since we weren't sure which one counted. Yesterday we walked to town and had a nice breakfast. Then we walked all the way home along the beach with our dog Miles. Tobi couldn't make such a long walk. It was supposed to rain. But it was sunny all weekend. Then we saw a movie. I had to do a performance that night. So the celebration continued next day. We took Miles to obedience school. That was fun. Miles was one of the most well behaved dogs to my surprise. Then we drove around the bay to a place called Muritai. You can see this long beach with cliffs and two light houses across the Channel from us. I have always wanted to go check it out. So we hiked out to the light houses. One of them was the oldest permanent light house in New Zealand. It was built in 1859 on top of this rugged cliff all exposed to the crazy Wellington weather. The first guy to man the lighthouse brought his family. He drowned shortly after arriving and his wife took over. She was the first and only female lighthouse keeper in New Zealand. We saw where their house once was. And they had lost one of their babies. We saw the grave sight. They had a little commune up there with cows, chickens, and eventually a school house. Then we made a little loop down to a lake and around a cliff, back to the beach. We saw wild sheep and goats. Well, I'm sure the sheep had owners. But they still looked pretty wild. The whole thing was so beautiful. Every day we look out the window and see this place across the bay. I'm so glad we finally explored it. It was about a four hour hike. Then we came home and got takeaway Thai food, and made banana splits. Woo Hoo for marriage!

Sleepy Mermaid

Animals

I know I haven't written in a really long time. A lot has happened since. The biggest news was that Emilia came for a week to visit. I was so happy to see her. Sometimes this place feels so far away. And even though I have been making lots of great friends, and keeping busy, I still long for family and the familiar. So it was great having her. We didn't make it very far. But we did explore all the trails and beaches nearby. Morgan and I have only done a little bit of that because he works until dark. So we don't have too much time for it, except on the weekends. We walked every day, finding new little beaches and collecting shells and dried out seaweed to make things out of. It was so peaceful. We just got a puppy a few weeks before she came. He is a Whippet named Miles. I have had my hands full with him. And it rained for about two weeks straight before she came. So I was a little down from the weather and cleaning up puppy messes. It hailed when she was here, a few times. I had no idea it did that here. But we still made it out every day. Then we would come back and sift through our little treasures and make little sculptures out of them. Emilia set out to learn how to bind a book while she was here. It turned out beautifully. So it was a lot of fun, and very relaxing. We had a little burrito party. Cat and I decided not to make burritos anymore. It was so unpredictable. We would sell out one day, and then come home with 20 burritos the next. Because we are not a big company that can take losses, it wasn't worth it to us. So we called it quits. I'm happy about it. When we were making burritos, our house would smell like Mexican all the time. I like Mexican, but not that much. After a week we put Emilia back on the plane, and just like that she was gone. It was short but sweet.
Other than that, not too much has happened. The weather has been cold and very windy. It isn't a California cold, or even an Oregon Cold. It's Antartica cold, literally. Sometimes I will walk out the front door and a gust will hit me. For just a second I won't be able to breath because of it. It takes some getting used to.
Right now I am not working. I was teaching swim lessons. But for two months I worked 3 hours a week and my boss promised me more hours. They never came so I got a job at a Cafe. There I worked 10 hour days, 50 hours a week without a break and had a really intimidating boss. So I left. I decided I needed to be a little pickier about the jobs a I choose. But now I have come to find that all the good jobs go to Kiwis first. I always get asked when my work permit expires. After that I don't hear back. But I know the right job will come along. In the mean time I am painting every day. My paintings have become a little silly. I'm painting mermaids. Why not? And I got a little gig. I am going to be playing the flute in the musical Little Shop of Horrors for the Hutt City Musical Theatre. I am really excited about this because I love to play the flute, but haven't had a reason to play. It is boring to just practice and never have the chance to perform. So I am working hard because the show is only in about two and a half weeks.
Morgan and I are doing great. We are going to do a 10K run tomorrow, which we hardly trained for since the weather went bad, and I am a bit lazy. We've been doing lots of projects together. Morgan is making a dress form with my measurements so that I can make clothes that actually fit me.
Thats about all. I hope everything is going good for everybody.

Serepta

I have these old family photos on a disk that my grandma gave me. There was this one of a young woman during the Victorian era. She looked so pretty, young, and innocent. I was really drawn to the photo and wanted to paint her. I asked my grandma what she knew about young the woman. This is what my grandma wrote: I think it is Viola's sister, Serepta. Where did you get the picture? My Grandmother, Pearl Henney, was the youngest child of Lucy Clay and John Rickel Henney. She had several brothers and two sisters, Viola, the elder, and Serepta. Serepta was born June 30, 1858. When she was about 32, she promised to marry W. I. Lafler. But, later, she told her family that she changed her mind and did not want to marry him. She was told that she had made a promise and she was expected to keep it. She married him in August, 1890. She died on June 20, 1891, in childbirth.
I gave her angel wings because she had such a sad, short little life. While looking for reference, I found that if you google "Victorian Wings," you will get all these pretty pictures of embroidered wings from Germany. As it turns out, Serepta's family is from Germany. I gave her a lace halo because she has a real feel of purity, and because lace became popular as an industry during her lifetime. So, that is poor Serepta.

Happy

What can I say, dolphins make me happy!