So, most of you know that I’m one of those annoying ‘do gooders’ in regards to charity postings. I feed kittens and maintain websites for Forgotten Felines. I sponsor a World Vision kid. I donate the coinage in my purse to those ‘for charity’ containers in supermarkets. And in McDonalds drive throughs. And to any person standing on street corners with a bucket. Once I even brought a sausage (despite not eating red meat) to support out a good cause. And then I gave the said sausage to a homeless person.

I am a do gooder that falls for pretty much any heartbreaking cause that I hear.

So I’m pimping Knickers for Africa.

Frances (McInnes, who runs breastmates.co.nz, and is heading the NZ chapter of Knickers for Africa) is collecting bras for women in the villages in and around Harare in Zimbabwe, because these women don’t have underwear, or they might just have only one bra.

Now, I love underwear. I have a million pretty bra sets, and always end up spending too much money in Bendon stores on what was meant to be just a ‘quick look’. I have them a million different colours and styles. With a million different little details. Seriously. Can you imagine only having one bra? Washing it, caring for it so it stays in good condition? Can you imagine treating your bra like it was a luxury instead of a necessity?

Okay, so there are worse things to go without, but it bothers me that something so small, that I take for granted EVERYDAY (because who really thinks about their underwear that much) isn’t enjoyed by the women of Harare.

Frances is asking women to donate their old bras that they don’t often wear anymore to the cause (as long as they don’t have have holes or missing hooks) to provide “more confidence and prestige” to these Zimbabwean women. I’ve never though of my bra providing me confidence and prestige, but I’m sure that if I went braless I’d be pretty aware of my braless boobs too.

You can donate your preloved, in good condition bras in stores all across New Zealand, Australia, and in the UK. Please do, if you are in a position to be able to. I’m dropping off a bunch of my bras this week. It feels good to help out where I can.

Friendly reminder – if you haven’t already entered the 200th post giveaway, you’ve still got a couple days to do so. Be into win some fancy fantastic-smelling things!

I love the way everythings going on at Twitter . . . by following the twists and turns of the RT and hash codes you can come across some great stuff.

For example – “Blogging takes love. If you don’t love your blog don’t start the relationship in the first place”

I forget who said it first (I think @dannybrown?) but whoever did, they were so totally right. It does take love, and effort, and there should be a certain element of pride in it, too.

I, rather unexpectedly, have reached 200 posts. Perfectly ordinary posts about what I’ve been up to, thought about and been amused by. Perfectly ordinary, and probably insignificant to anyone other than me. And I loved every post!

And because I AM proud about my blog, and have made the effort to post every few days (or, as the case seems to be lately, every weekday), and I have loved it, I’m doin a giveaway to celebrate this 200th post! Woo!

The lucky winner will be treated to some of my favourite scents and sweet things:

A 200ml bottle of Gucci Envy Me Body Lotion (which I love – it’s the scent I’m rocking most right now), small versions of the fabulous Body Shop Body Butter, Soap, and Lip Balm in Rich Plum (which smells absolutely DIVINE!), and a cute Perfume bottle, which I found and loved!

To enter, subscribe to my RSS feed if you haven’t already done so and leave a comment letting me know! If you wish to enter a second/third time, mention this giveaway in your blog or on twitter, and leave a comment so I can go check it out.

The winner will selected randomly, and will be announced this time next week (NZ time!)

I’m sure I do this pre-season every year, but when you get a snow forecast like this, how can you NOT be excited?!

Check out all those little snowflakes!!! I can’t WAIT for the season to start – woo!

Before we drove the 5 hour drive back to Auckland The Boy and I took Quinn for a walk to tire him out (there’s nothing worse than a hyperactive little dog on a long car trip. Last time he wiggled under the drivers chair and kept popping out by the pedals).

The easiest way to tire him out is to have him run back and forth between The Boy and I, standing maybe 50 metres apart.

Worked like a charm :)

While in New Plymouth we went to visit one of The Boy’s very good friends. It was brilliant to see him again. Anyway, he keeps llamas! I’d never seen a llama up close before, so I walked out to the field to admire them.

First thing you notice is that llamas SMELL. Something I hadn’t really considered before because all I was really thinking about was how fuzzy they looked from far away, and how cool llamas were in Disney’s “The Emperors New Groove”. And I can tell you, straight up, they don’t have humour that Kuzco did.

They weren’t very happy with Quinn being around. He wasn’t even interested in them, really. He’s a bit of a wuss when it comes to things bigger than him (which is mostly everything). So after exhibiting some ‘not cool’ mannerisms I picked up Quinn and stuffed him in my jacket. The llamas were fine after that.

And then I realised that there was a baby llama! Which obviously was why they were a bit uptight and all. Anyway, once they calmed down they responded to my talking to them, which was amusing. They’d look up and waggle their ears and pretend not to notice me talking to them some more.

Which was fine really, because about 5 minutes in I realised that some of them had 70′s haircuts and couldn’t stop giggling.

After a while they all moved away and I lost interest in giggling at their haircuts. So I entertained myself with cam-whore photos. Because what else am I going to do with a dog down my jacket, really?

So, in conclusion: Wet llamas SMELL, are not sociable, are without humour, and have amusing haircuts. :) Not a bad bunch of things to learn on a grey afternoon!

The Boys folks used to live in New Plymouth for years and years and years. I’m grateful that they live closer now, it’s reassuring I think to have them in the same city as us. It also means more home cooked meals and puppy love for Quinn.

While we were in New Plymouth we collected up a bunch of driftwood for them. Apparently they used to have a bunch on their porch in NP. So we got some for their porch in Auckland too.

It was a pretty nice way to spend such a grey afternoon, in wind clambering over rocks and things. Selecting the dry, white branches bleached white by the salt and sun.

Last weekend The Boy and I left the city to attend a Nautical Party.

It was QUITE nautical. I was pretty impressed with the effort – walking in was a little intimidating. Everyone was dressed up, and woo! The decorations!! There was black lights, smoke machines, drunken sea creatures, a ship,lilos and blow up sharks . . . it was pretty damn impressive:

And then there was The People! The Crazy Crazy People from New Plymouth. They went hard out too – there was lobsters, and mermaids, and fishermen and jellyfish and octopi (with multiple moving legs that lift up suggestively when strings are pulled). And that was just the people who MADE their costumes! There were also sailors and pirates and beach girls and oh! There was a dead chick. Well, a chick that had grey ‘concrete’ boxes on her feet, in a suit, with white make up and blue lips. A drowned dead chick. I was impressed with her morbid creativity.

My attempt at “imaginary fisherman” (ie, chick with a newspaper sailor hat and toy fishing rod) didn’t quite cut it. But the fishing rod was a hit, and honestly? The drunker people got the less it mattered what everyone was wearing.

And then, as the night wore on and people got more and more drunk, there were many ‘I’m on a boat‘ moments, too. And a few reenactments of Titanic. It was imperative that many photos were taken.

I don’t often go down to New Plymouth when The Boy goes, and I’m 100% completely deaf to his occasional suggestions that we move there, but I have to say that his NP friends are actually pretty cool and that I definitely enjoyed this trip more than I have others. In saying that, I think that’s mostly because right now I’m pretty much drunk in love with The Boy who drinks beer through his snorkel.

It was a good party. :P