Can you help me?

In a moment I am going to list a few items I want/need for my move to India (in just 8 sleeps!!!), that you might be able to help me with etc... but first I want to share just a few photos from the past day seeing as I didn't post anything yesterday!

Melissa suggested I freeze grapes to eat and oh my goodness they are amazing. Do it.

Mum and I went out for lunch today, and it was SO yum! For dessert we ordered a chocolate truffle (it was huge), and this cute lime tartlet. Yummy!

And mum and I both ordered these chicken/apricot/cheese + turkish bread meals. So. Good.

We took a chance to work out how things are going financially. Because there are so many of you that have offered support in this area, I want to keep it quite transparent, to show where things are going to! We worked out that it is actually up to about $10,000 which is just under what I will need (between 12-13 grand), so not too bad!! Thank you to everyone who has helped out - I am so grateful! A couple of items are blurred out because I didn't know if the people who donated the money would like to be known etc.

Today I also had the absolute pleasure of catching up with Christine at the tea shop on Devonport Road - we ordered sweet cinnamon tea = heaven in a cup. I am so guttered that I am not going to be in NZ for when she gets married! Ugh. These small sacrifices that I have to take can sometimes make it harder to leave.

MAIL! I received a few letters today, one from Cat with a 'Life survival kit', one from Germany, and one from the Netherlands! I love mail and I was so excited to get these! Also another important letter I received was from IRD saying that they have granted me 12-24 month intrest-free student loan (usually if you are overseas longer than 6-months you have to pay interest).

My 100th post is coming up soon... I am thinking I will do a giveaway to celebrate this milestone! Leave a comment if you think yay or nay on this idea. If people aren't keen I wont bother haha.

Okay, so returning to the original purpose of this post, can you help me out?

If you have any of these things below, and you are willing to part with them for a year or permanently (I can pay a bit of money in some situations if needed), please let me know! It will just be one other way of reducing costs:

- a plain, white mosquito net without holes

- any unused 35mm film canisters for my old Minolta camera

- an old/spare external hardrive

- an old ipod that has decent battery life but in any condition! The battery life on mine lasts about 1hr if I am lucky!

- anything else you might think could be of use!

So yeah, it would be amazing if anyone has any of these handy, that they aren't planning on using in the near future, or you know is just going to sit around gathering dust!

My anxiety levels are creeping up as each day passes, I just cannot believe that I am leaving in a short 8 sleeps... time is flying by so quickly! But I cannot wait to experience this country that I have been dreaming of since I was about 13.

x

It is so lovely to be home.

I have just spent part of the afternoon relaxing in the garden with Smokey (the cat), who has been a psycho and chasing his own tail and my feet. But now the sun is out, these flowers are just such bright colours and so pretty to look at - naturally I had to whip the camera out:

This is my amazing film camera that I scored for $2 on TradeMe. It is a Minolta Uniomat, and I am in love with it's saturated photographs it produces. You can see examples of these in my Flickr account.

Mum and I started a fitness bootcamp this week that starts at 5.45am (!) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I didn't go to the next session, nor will I go to any further sessions... I was ill in my first and only trial after eating something bad the night before. Just became a bad experience overall. Dancing, walking and going to the gym suit me much better as forms of exercise.

Back to Auckland tomorrow to do a couple of shifts!

x