ahhhh...a sale.

Today was just the kind of day I needed. Jared calls them 'chicken without a head' days. Its the kind of day where you run around but the catch is that you get to do whatever you want! I mentioned previously that we got a late start. Bliss. Today is a regional holiday so no one is working except for retailers.

I got to see the dental bus where Jared works on his day 'off'. It is super neat and they do a really good service to the community of Foxton which is without a dentist. After dropping the boss off, we headed into town for some lunch. Cafe Cuba and 30 minutes later, we were ready to seize the day. We walked around the square looking into shops and trying to find some interesting art or furniture. We spent a little time in Harvey Norman where we saw our lounge suite (living room furniture) at full price and gasped that we got such a good deal.

Jared and I have figured out how to give our honest opinion on things without having to worry about foot in mouth syndrome. I hold something up and he tells me what percent out of 100 he thinks it deserves. As we went through the furniture section of the store, he pointed out several duvets that he liked. They weren't overly masculine or even feminine for that matter. He has very good taste. We realized that we both liked a gray color for our bedroom. I pulled out some swatches from the design center to show Jared what colors I had in mind for the lounge. He was in agreement on them so needless to say, I was pumped. The salesman came up and asked if there was anything he could help with. I said 'We're just looking.' and he looked at me strangely. More than likely it was because Jared and I were making a design presentation in the middle of the store. :)

After purchasing a correctly plugged hair straightener at a killer price, Jared wanted to show me something cool.

We walked across the street to Te Manawa. Its the art gallery in town. They had a very cool exhibition on Lynley Dodd who is the kiwi born creator of 'Hairy MacClary from Donaldson's Dairy'. They had most of her original art down to the first shopping pad sketch of an unkempt dog that would later be known as Hairy. They also had a video exhibit of ballerinas with paint on their pointe shoes and showed what type of patterns wold evolve. One of the most interesting exhibits that I saw was one based on the Greek Hero Heracles. He was portrayed in the Ancient Greek black vase style painting but he was posed as a settler in New Zealand. There was one portrait of Heracles fights at Gallipolli where he is pictured with Maori and Pakeha (white) soldiers. This one was moving because the battle of Gallipolli is where Jared's grandfather died in battle during World War 1.

Realizing that we had been parked in our spot for over the allotted hour, we walked back over to Briscoe's Homeware which is where our adventure actually started in the first place. When we walked in, we found that they had previously expensive duvet covers (in our chosen gray) on sale for $24. We spent about 2 hours going through the store and raking over the sales. It was awesome.

When we left Briscoe's, we went to the house to unload our treasures and put some things in their places. The man who used to live in our house was a potter.There are several vases left in the garden that I washed off to bring inside. They are really neat with a fabulous patina. I also found 3 eggs next to house but I don't know what type of eggs they are.

After all of our adventuring, it was time for dinner. We decided to grab some fish and chips and eat it while walking down by the river. As we drove home. we passed an Aston Marten!!!! This is a car that I have wanted ever since seeing the Italian Job. I didn't see it at first because I was doing a sudoku puzzle. haha. Jared pulled a U turn and tried to follow it. You can imagine that a Nissan Bluebird can't really keep up with an Aston Marten. As we had given up the chase down Centennial, we turned onto a side street and...there it was. Jared and I were laughing because we were giddy like little kids! (Okay, it was me...I was like a little kid).

My life really is grand, my husband really is my best friend and my God is really amazing to say the least.