Heather & Rod's Amazing (& Not So Amazing) New Zealand Adventures

Am I stressed? You be the judge! In one evening, I had the following nightmares.... Dream #1: I'm sitting down to take a test on something like the History of Ancient Indian Religious Ceremonies (yes, if you aren't familiar with my dreams, this is normal content). Some guy in a turban hands me a test and I sit down and realise . . . I KNOW NOTHING! Nothing! I have this papyrus with outlines of ancient drawings on them. I'm supposed to take some coloured power and, using a brush, brush the powder over the drawings. This is going to reveal some answers.... But, it doesn't work. I realise that I have been studying all semester for this final exam but I know nothing and I am pissed! I signal for the test monitor to come over and I begin yelling that I know nothing . . .this isn 't fair. . . . I've studied, but nothing I've studied is on this test! I get so frustrated I begin just uncontrollably crying and crying. I leave my desk and walk outside and the

For the first time in my life I have had slight inklings that I just may be getting a bit (JUST A BIT) older. For all you readers over 35, do you remember the first time you actually felt you were getting older? Unfortunately, I've had a raft of incidences lately, which have all converged to give me a general feeling of 'oldness.' Firstly, I am sorry if I'm the first to tell you this, but I've recently come to the realisation that we are actually older than we tell ourselves that we are? Yes, hope you're sitting down for this one.... On 'paper' I'm only 38, but I'm actually IN my 39th year. I'm in my 39th year. Perhaps that's why I'm feeling old lately. Incident #1: I've got this fungus growing on my face that just won't go away (okay, it's a bad rash, but it's not pleasant!). I've always had the good fortune of having good skin. While all my friends had teenage acne, I always skirted by relatively pimple-

Many of you have seen this, but I realise there are new 'readers' out there who could have missed this one. Or, if you've seen it before, it's worth watching again! My husband, the novice fisherman, attempting to fillet a fish while I read him instructions I found on the Internet . . . . Click here for the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUnZ_lpPq2w Heather

Rod just got around to reading my previous posting: "Division of Labour." When he read the part about not ironing for him and sharing 'tidy toilet' duties, he nodded and remarked very matter of factly, "Right - -- that's when I started sitting down to pee." It's a significant milestone in our married history, really. You know . . . the first time you leave the bathroom door open while peeing . . . the first time you have to flap the bedcover . . . the first time your husband scratches his itches without apology. And, for Rod - - - sitting down to pee. After hysterically laughing until I was crying, I did remember this fact. To Rod's dismay this is just too good not to become 'blog fodder!' I remember the first time he actually took the toilet brush in hand. . . . Rod has a thing about germs, so wouldn't be surprised if he also donned gloves and a safety mask on his first foray. Okay, if not that extreme, there was at least som

Before Rod and I got married, we had the traditional 'marriage counselling' precided over by the pastor who would marry us, Pastor Mel Stephen. During one of our sessions, Mel gave us each the same 100 question quiz. We were to take it away and answer it separately, not sharing answers, and bring it back for him to have a look. The quiz asked such questions as . . . "who do you expect to change the oil in the car? who will do the banking in your family? who will do the grocery shopping?" It also went into hard core issues as well, "if your kid is caught smoking dope, what's the punishment?" (okay, so that wasn't one of the questions, but you get the idea). Amazingly - Rod and I still pride ourselves on this one - we answered 99 out of 100 questions the same! We were so meant for each other! One of the compromises we made at this early stage in the relationship was that I was happy to do the laundry in exchange for Rod taking care of the finances

Rod comes home from work on Thursday, we get in the spa ('hot tub,' Americans) as we normally do at the end of the day and the first words out of Rod's mouth are: "The grossest thing happened to me today!" "Oh yes, blog material!" I say. With wine in hand and sweat on brow, I begin taking my mental taking notes... unfortunately . . . . or, actually, fortunately, no pics . . . but here it goes... Rod is standing on the footpath (sidewalk, you people) outside a local cafe waiting to meet a friend for coffee. Up the path, half a block along is a bench at the bus stop. All of a sudden he hears a loud grunt coming from that direction and looks to see what is happening. This shoddy looking, unkempt man is sitting on the bench and reaching with both hands into his mouth and pulling out what looks like a large pink object from his throat. Rod thinks, "is he choking ," and waits a moment to see what is happening. All of a sudden, the man's thr