Entries from November 2009 ↓

Just got a pic of the twins Dylan and Kyra in their pink and blue (with orange!) speed-knitted cardies!

So I survived my first ever presentation at NZX to the Australian Investor Relations Association conference on 12 November. The presentation was ‘Xero & Social Media’. I was totally petrified and worried that what I had to share wasn’t rocket science or anything particularly educational for a group of CEOs, CFOs, CIOs and comms/marketing people but it seemed to go down well. In the end it was a small case study (only had to survive at the podium for 10 mins!) on how we use a blog and Twitter at Xero to communicate with our customers.

I featured on the NZX blog pretty much straight away! And eventually got a recording of the presentation to go with a write-up on Xero’s blog.

Here’s the presentation below (click the big ‘play’ arrow to watch it now directly on your computer) or if you have an iPod or dodgey internet connection or speed you can download this version of it (17.7MB)*.

*Right click on that link, save to your computer; then find where you saved it and double click to open. Please note if watching this version on your computer (if you have the right software (if you don’t it won’t play)) that it is designed for a small iPod screen so it will be quite small to look at.

Made the pea, parmesan & parsley risotto tonight while the peas we got yesterday were still fresh. It was even more delicious than last time with bigger, greener peas than the frozen ones.

Here’s my arty pea shot after we’d had a nice chat about our days while shelling peas (just like the olden days, except there had to be a pea shelling lesson for someone first).

When I was coming home from yoga the other night there were fire trucks outside The Garage (People’s Coffee, Garret St), firemen inside swooshing out water and evacuees hovering in the neighbouring car park. I forgot about it until today so we went over for a coffee and to get the goss.

Their glass front door was boarded up and it there was a kind of nice (if you didn’t think about how it got there) smokey coffee smell. Apparently a cigarette butt in their rubbish bin (tsk tsk) caught alight and smoked out the people in apartments above who called the fire brigade who smashed the glass front door open to get in there and hose the place down.

They are so lucky that all they lost was the bin.

Had trek around town today to see if purple cabbage is in season. We’ve got Thanksgiving Dinner coming up and remembered last year it was difficult to find purple cabbage for the coleslaw, although the Mister did find some at the Victoria Street Sunday market – thankfully dinner was on a Sunday last year. Not so this year and Moore Wilson’s haven’t had any in store yet and tell us not until February, New World doesn’t have any but the markets do. Seasons must be changing. The first couple of dinners we never had trouble getting it which is why it was featured on the menu, then the last minute panic last year and now this year looks to be a similar challenge.

However, we did come across peas in pods at New World so it might finally be pea season – will definitely try out the pea, parsely and paresan risotto again this week with fresh peas – yaaay!

Last night at Capitol we sat next to a couple of women. Using my bat hearing at one stage I heard one say to the other “Gosh I love that necklace, is it new?” The other said “No, Jane gave this to me for my 50th.” My mouth physically fell open. I could’ve sworn the women were in their 40’s. No WAY was one of them 50+ No way. Perhaps a really good hair job – no greys that I could spot from 2 metres (or probably less) away in the great flowing brown locks, crows feet around her eyes sure, but smooth plump skin and not too much makeup and still young-looking skin on her hands. The woman looked fabulous. I don’t remember Mother at 50; neither of my parents look like they’re in their mid-60’s so they probably didn’t look 50 when they were 50 so there’s hope for me!

10.20am today was a weekend for the first time since doing the 10.20 wedding anniversary meet-up so we were still at Gotham having our breakfast. So at least the coffee tradition continued.

Later in the day, we’re up at the bar enjoying a Nikau lunch as usual although Paul thought the occasion meant I should have some bubbles (at lunch time?!?) – thanks!

Here’s Benjamin modelling his new Xero vest! Fits right now before the weather gets too warm which is great.

Finally got up to Minerva (the textile book store) on Cuba Street at the weekend to see a copy of a friend’s book of knitting patterns that she’s had published. I test-knitted a few things for her along her journey to create the patterns.

It was very cool to see a real book at the end of all her hard work and my quote in the introduction!

I was about to put the book on my list for Santa to bring but have just had word from her that she’s sending me one! It’s called Vintage Knits for Modern Babies.

We didn’t really mean to watch the Santa parade today but as we were wandering around enjoying a day away from work we didn’t have anything else to do but stop and watch it for a while. I got a kiddy’s flag to wave around and we found a spot on Willis St. There was a pretty good turn out and we realised just how much smaller it was to our visits to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

I didn’t realise there would be a Shrek balloon

Like the one in New York

And Santa was the favourite of the day as expected

Although the view of him here was easier without 3 million people waving and screaming at him like there were in New York!