Three weeks! I can do it

I am NOT loving this month. I'm finding it really hard to focus on all of the things that are so lucky and so amazing in my life right now for the reality of the things that I don't love. There are a bunch of things right now that I'm really not enjoying and they're taking O-VAH my brain. LOL. I'm feeling like the future is a big black hole of 'this' which it absolutely isn't. I'm over thinking and being a worst case scenario person and honestly just a brat so I thought I would follow the lead of one of my fave blogs and do a 'Happy List. So here's a bunch of stuff that is in my life right now that makes me happy and some things that I'm super grateful for..

Sunshine and lots of it

My very generous and supportive mother

My beautiful nephew

Fab new maxi skirt that I cant wait to wear

It's Breaker nation time again (even if it's been a tough start with the new team this season. I don't care they rock!)

Jason Derulo on the radio 

Heart of Dixie on Television

14 more days of practicum

Remedy Coffee on Wellesly street

Auckland Libraries

The city campus of Auckland Uni

Friends who are drama free

My minke blanket

Nutrigrain for breakfast on the bus

Sunrise

Long days

Paramore on the radio

Bloglovin

Planning a Christmas in the snow for 2014

Living in the most beautiful little suburb by the beach

My head cold is starting to fade

'LALALA' by naughty boy on the radio

YouTube vids

I'm sure that there are more things ... there must be right? however I have a bit of work to finish. I was supposed to get all the planning done for the week by yesterday so I could have a whole day off on this long day but it just didn't happen. I'm just so damn tired! ... also I had a weekend I guess so it's not too bad :)

Ef you A.T Transport

In Auckland we have ONE public transport provider. There is, for those of us with no car, ONE option to get where we want to go. This post will be a VERY negative ode to that one option. A.T Transport oh how I hate you.

Just to set the scene this #firstworlddrama (LOL) all revolves around how ridiculously hard it is to use the fare card that we have. The company that we have no choice but to use have policies and procedures and ... it has to be said people who are all set up to make EVERYTHING as hard and insulting and frustrating as possible.

On Tuesday last week I got on my bus at 6.18 am. Said 'Good morning' to the bus driver and he greeted me with "Where's your ID"? ... I was so confused and just said "excuse me?" ... and that's when it got ugly. I understand that technically he is entitled to ask for ID given that I am using a tertiary discount but I have used the card 4 times a day for up to 7 days a week for a year and never once been asked for ID. He said I came up as a child the day before but he waited to ask me about it till then. ...

Then later that delightful morning I was on my second bus but the tag machine on the bus wasn't working and I was unable to tag off which meant an automatic $5.00 penalty. Obviously this is not my fault so I tweeted about it and asked how I was to go about getting a refund. WELL.... apparently it takes 48-72 hours for the records to update so they can see IF there is an unwarranted charge. If there is they will then send the claim to their disputes department to be looked at and then I might get my money back...  It took about 4 phone calls to get that information and as I have mentioned 168 hours later I still have no refund.

To add to that the frustration hit boil over this morning. I managed to drop my hop card between bus one and bus two. I've recently put money on the card so I was really upset! SO two more calls and apparently the money is secure and the penalty has been noted but not sent on to the disputes department. 

THEN this afternoon I went to replace the card as.. you know.. I wanted to get home and then I get informed that I cant use the balance for 24hours. At the transit centre there are a number of offices. The HOP "customer service" centre wont sell hop cards or put money on them. Apparently , despite the presence of eftpos terminals and posters regarding payment "they are not a retailer"...  ASSHOLES. So I stood in several lines and spent more money and ARGH I JUST WANT TO PUNCH SOMETHING.

apparently if you're AT Transport and you're the only player in the game you don't have to provide anyway for your customers to let you know about your huge gaping failures. So I cant use my hop card till tomorrow morning well after I will arrive at my destination. I cant have my tertiary discount till probably Monday and I've been charged a fee because their machines don't work. There's only one thing to say really isn't there...

FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING HOP CARD AT TRANSPORT 

Remedy Coffee

I went into Remedy Coffee this morning and it's just so cute that I had to do a quick post. The cafe is on Wellesly st, just off Queen.  It's such a friendly and relaxed place and not only do they have some of the best if not THE best coffee in the city but also a wall of books in the book exchange. There are novels and graphics and even board games to play while you dine. The best compliment I can give them is they remind me so much of The Library bar sans the booze ;)

Sorry random stranger. I was going for a shot of the walls I promise :)

Best looking coffee nook. Would be great to sit with a book 

X

My fave thing in my bedroom :)

This is a frame that my sister gave me for christmas last year. These are my grandparents outside one of their first homes ♥

David Levithan

I read this today. I love the way this man puts words on paper :)

x

Kiss

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/224687468882140209/

It's voting time.. and I'm not talking x factor

I've had my say on who I want to represent me. I didn't vote in the last general election and I regretted it because I believe that it's important to exercise the rights you've been given. After all history is full of people who fought for you to have them... 

Though I have to say it was a bit weird voting for the health board. I know nothing about what makes a good health board or who should be on it but I do know that our current board is broke so perhaps some financial experts???

It was interesting picking through the little booklet of candidates. When you cross out the people who don't live in the area and those with extreme platforms ('Christians against abortion' party I'm looking at you) the pickings were pretty slim. In the last local elections I voted for the current mayor but this time I was going to vote for anybody but him. I've come to love my city but there are so many day to day things that need to be fixed before he worries about all of his grand plans. We already have a kick ass city Mr Brown just fix the frayed edges and quit it with the crappy plans to spend millions and millions of dollars on stupid things like new cultural museums. I mean really??? Our current museum is awesome... give them half the $$ and let them have at creating a cultural space!

hmmm this post was supposed to be a simple 'yay voting' post not a political rant! hahaha 

VOTE people

:)

My day started with dolphins....

Yesterday my day started EARRRRLY. We were up and at em to go through some job application stuff and then head to my sisters town to go shopping. As we were driving along the coast I noticed something large jumping around out in the water and turns out it was a huge pod of dolphins having breakfast!!! We pulled over and watched them jumping around for a few minutes. It was just SO COOL :)

When we had our fill of jumping dolphins we made our way to my sisters and proceeded to do some major damage to my mum's bank balance. It's amazing how stressful spending other peoples money can be. Wheeew. Still I managed to get a few cool things ... including some kick ass shoes and an awesome dress and I also managed to steal a few snuggles with my 9 month old nephew.

After a long day of this I ended up heading out for some drinks wearing that awesome dress. We hit up Brew bar where it was Octoberfest. The poor bar staff all dressed up as German stereotypes. I have to say that the lederhosen boys really beat the beer wenches in the hotness stakes ;) After that we ended up in the Northern Steamship. It was pretty quiet but I love it there. One of my fave dates ever took place in that bar and I've also taken my lap top there in the afternoon and set up with a beer to get assignments done. They were playing some mid nineties RnB so I was in heaven!!! 

So my Saturday started with dolphins and ended with 90s RnB. It was a beautiful day, I managed some Taiga kisses and a new dress. I got to drink some tequila AND the buses were running exactly to time...

Some kind of twilight zone! After an awesome day like that I can hardly imagine what the rest of my holiday has in store for me but at this rate I reckon I'm bound to win Lotto, find a first edition Anne in a garage sale and get swept off my feet by a tall, dark and tattooed man! 

ROCK ON October

:)