Month: September 2012

Hawaii 2012

I’ve just gotten back from my visit home to see my parents on the family farm in Hawaii. I had the most amazing trip – got to see so many fabulous things, meet so many fantastic people, just spend time with my parents and the farm, and most of all, do something amazing that I’ve been waiting my whole life to do. I’m going to tell you all about the trip (or at least the bits I think you might be interested in) in future posts, but for now, here are some highlights of the trip: The Honolulu Museum of Art: Iolani Palace (and they started allowing photography a week before I visited!): The state capitol: Bananas (obviously): Hanging out with my sister: Hanging out at the beach: Hanging out in the mountains: Hanging out in the gardens: Doing some cooking: And some sewing: And finally, I took a really amazing walk:

Five for Friday: Television shows that I love (that may surprise you)

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I shared five TV shows that people often assume I will love, but where I really don’t. This week, here are 5 TV shows that I love, some of which may really surprise you (and the rest totally won’t, but there are only 5 TV shows I really wanted to talk about). They are arranged in order of how unexpected my love of them is. 1. Hunting Aotearoa Yes, really. It’s a reality TV show about hunting, and I love it. And it isn’t even in English (well, it slides in and out of English & Te Reo Maori all the time), and Mr D loves it (Mr D hates foreign language films). We sit there every week, tuned to Maori TV, watching people shoot animals and carry carcasses around, and we coo about how sweet it is. Because it is sweet. It’s not really about the shooting, and it certainly isn’t about being macho and killing things. It’s about local communities, and families, and really down-to-earth, ordinary people who are supplementing their …

Rate the Dress: Green tartan in 1801

Published by The Dreamstress

UPDATE: Last week’s Worth of 1875 rated a (drumroll here because it is 5 months late and better be worth it!) 8.5 out of 10. Many of you were madly in love with it, but a few of you thought the colours and trim a bit disjointed, and it lost points for that. This is my last week of ‘away’ Rate the Dresses where I haven’t had time to look at all your comments from last week. Hopefully I’ve picked a good one! I’ve been very good and have resisted the urge to show you this as a St Patricks themed post in March, with some dreadful comment about mixing Scotland and Ireland. Instead I’m showing you this now because…ummm…green is good….plaid is good…Hawai’i is very green…also, it’s interesting (the Rate the Dress, not Hawai’i, though Hawai’i is interesting too). While tartan is one of the ‘universal’ patterns (like the Meander, or Greek Key) that turns up in almost every culture, rather than the exclusively Scottish design it is sometimes thought of as, this dress, …