Lani Says

Stuff and The Press have put together a really great page to remember the day. This page, in particular, where they got readers to send in the first text messages they received following the Quake, is compelling reading.

TVNZ journalist Joy Reid shares her memories of the quake.

Radio NZ coverage here. NZ Herald coverage here.

Getting my organisation on: 

Being organised is not one of my strong points. I am by nature pretty relaxed and easy going. It’s great for avoiding conflicts, but bad for certain times of your life where you have mental blocks and desperately need to set goals and figure out what it is you want to achieve. Also, I’ve never had much of a routine, which is something I’m sure most highly successful people have. So, I bought myself some cute coloured post-it notes, heart shaped pins and set about trying to organise my life. This is a work in progress – as you can see all I really have down is ‘blog’, ‘gym’, ‘video-edit’, and one of my ‘Life Goals’ is to get up no later than 7 am, HA HA! (I laugh, but I’m serious, I actually need this in my life). But I figure if I can at least get myself into some kind of basic routine, I’m sure I’ll have a better idea of what else I need to do. Also, I just wanted something cute to look at in my room.

Yuna – Live Your Life

My boy Jordache sent me this song the other day, not knowing how much I needed to hear something nice and pretty and uplifting, it was so perfect. Listen to it, it’s lovely.

A Beautiful Mess 

This blog rules - it has everything, DIY projects, fashion, recipes, decor and all presented in a way that is so, so pretty, and so, so, cute.

Katherine & Isaac’s ‘Thugged Out Since Cub Scouts’ tees:

Image: Katherine Lowe

These tees are dope, and I reckon youse should get some for your bad selves! Check out more detailed pics of em, more people wearing em, and how to buy em on Katherine and Isaac’s sites. BRRRATTTT!!!! I know the BF will be getting one as soon as they print bigger sizes haha.

Rose Tint Number 1 again:

Ha, David and The Daylight Robbery boys must have smashed it at Homegrown and Kura Hard last week, cos the TintSquad went out and made him top of the iTunes Hip Hop charts again. Niiiiiiiiice!!!

This one is for all my fellow people of good health, but really, it’s just me giving myself a kick up the ass. I’ve been kinda MIA from the blog as of late, if you hadn’t already noticed. I can’t really explain it – I was feeling great about the year, really motivated and positive…and then I wasn’t. Nothing in particular happened, one day I was up, the next I was down. I had a brain block, and I moped around for a bit, complained a lot and generally had a bit of a quarter life crisis. “WHAT AM I DOIIIING WITH MY LIIIIIIFE??” etc, etc. After one particular melt down, the boyfriend, after indulging my tantrum for awhile, ended it along the lines of, ‘look, you’re healthy, you’re not dying, so what do you have to complain about?’ How’s that for putting things in perspective? Essentially, he was saying there’s no reason why I can’t do everything or anything I set my mind to. And, really, the only answer to that question is, nothing. I have nothing to complain about. So, here’s to not being a whiny dick anymore. Better living everyone!

Not even exaggerating. Actual Super Woman status. We had a pretty special family dinner last night, which my sister Talia had offered to completely organise/cater. I had no idea it was going to be as amazing as it was though!  It was French Cafe level, but SHE made everything, and I mean everything – from the lil bread sticks, to the ice cream – entirely herself. I’m still buzzing out about it. Take a look at the menu, the pictures, and think of the fact she has five children, and then buzz yourselves out too. I have no idea how to do all of this, but feel free to ask her yourself if you want.

And here I was thinking I was all cool and stuff cos I could make Strawberry Sangria. Ha!

The Amuse Bouche

Summer fruit sangria

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I mentioned to my girl Shirl the other day that this summer seems to be the summer of partying. It perhaps has something to do with summer not actually having arrived yet, so instead of packing up our picnic baskets and bikinis and heading to the beach, we just stay in the city and get on it… Whatever the reason, it’s been fun, too much fun maybe – hence the late/lack of posts lately. I’m sorry. But, Can I Live? Jokes. I’ll be better, promise.

The Lantern Festival : Every year I hear via Shirl about how amazing the Lantern Festival is, and every year I’ve missed out. I made it this year and… THE LANTERN FESTIVAL IS AMAZING. We spent most of our time walking along the food stalls and sampling anything and everything that took our fancy, word to the Lychee Frappé, the okonomiyaki, the karaage chicken and custard and coconut filled pancakes. The lanterns pretty much blew my mind and the fireworks display was probably the best I’ve seen in NZ. (LANTIN!)

The Lloyd Concert:

- I was so excited when I heard Lloyd would be performing at the Civic. I’d been there a couple of times before for movie showings and Chris Rock, but the the atmosphere at the Lloyd show was really different. Everyone was getting ON one, and it was funny to see, essentially, a really rowdy party at a really swank venue. It may have been the most fun I’ve had at a concert, dancing pretty much the entire way through as Lloyd played all his hits, starting his set off with Get It Shawty’!!! (sidenote: NEW LLOYD HERE)

The return of D-Form – My boy PNC performed at Rakinos over the weekend, and part of the highlight was seeing D-Form back DJing. I think it was his first time in about 3 years, and everyone was so stoked to see him behind the decks again. (another sidenote: NEW PNC SONG HERE)

David’s Oz tour promo vid:

 - I believe this to be my best work ever. (sidenote: JUST KIDDING, THERE IS NO SIDENOTE).

Washing the car (!?!) :

- So, David was all, ‘let’s wash the car’ the other day, and I was all, ‘nah, I’m too laaaaazy, I don’t waaaana’, and he was all, ‘nah bo, we’re doing it!’ And then he started washing the car, and I was all, ‘MY TURN, MY TURN.’ And I had heaps of fun, and pretended we were in some kind of time trial car washing competition, and that the wash gun was a machine gun, you know, as you do.

Hello! Islandher did an interview with me to talk about style and fashion. Their site is really cool, and I love that it’s all about highlighting island beauty and connecting Pacific women online. PI’s represent! Ch, ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out

I’ve had a few nights out with the girls getting on one(s) at the Zoo karaoke bar in Newmarket and I think we’ve cracked the codes for the best karaoke songs to sing. The best songs are not necessarily your favourite songs, or the best songs ever written. Often you can fall into the trap of picking a song that’s great to listen to, but is an absoloute bitch to sing. Or, you might pick a song that you can sing really well, but is a real drag for everyone else in the room to listen to. Karaoke isn’t about showing off how great you are at singing, it’s about laughter and fun and maximum crowd participation. For a karaoke song to really be great, it’s gotta have that immediate, ‘I know this!!’ reaction. Perhaps the song will have a bit of nostalgia thrown in, the pattern won’t be too complicated, the lyrics simple, fun and giggle inducing, and most importantly, it will get even the shy-guys joining in. So, keeping that formula in mind, here are the 10 best songs to sing at karaoke:

Backstreet Boys – I Want It That Way - Song climax - Nick @ 2:30 : “DON’T WANNA HEAR YOUUU (SAYYYYY YAYAYA AHAYEAH)…Ain’t nothing but a heartache, ain’t nothing but a mistake…”

Boyz II Men – End of The Road - Song climax @ well, actually, this song is pretty much at a climax the entire way through, but karaoke makes this song even better cos you get to do Michael’s ‘baby I knew about it, I just didn’t care…you just won’t come back to me, will you? just come back to me!’ word for word.

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great friends, great food & karaoke – This week has been lots of fun catching up with great friends for dinner and karaoke and then partying it up at the Do-Over on Waiheke Island on Saturday. There’s always so much laughter when uninhibited karaoke is involved, so too when the night ends at Dennys, as it did on Saturday night. There’s not much that beats the company of people you love.

Baby-G  – I remember Baby G’s reaching their height of popularity when I was in Intermediate. Remember those clear pastel coloured ones? I really, really wanted the baby pink watch. All the cool girls/rich girls had them, but it never happened for me. The boyfriend helped fulfill that tween yearning by gifting me a Baby-G recently. It’s pretty cute, especially with the lil love heart in the clock face, and I’m rather enjoying it.

YOU GUYS!! Do you know how stoked I get when you guys come up to me and say you read and like the blog? I get heaps stoked. I’ve been even more super duper stoked with you guys getting amongst the strawberry sangria, and using the jars too!! Also, thanks for commenting on this too – I was worried no one would, and then I’d looked like a lame reject blogger. You guys are awesome!

Hey guys, do me a favour would ya, and check the interview I did with the lovely folk over at NZ Fashion Festival. I’m pretty stoked to be featured on their site and I’m really looking forward to the festival. As an added incentive, comment on the post here and be in to win a double pass to one of the shows or seminars! Get amongst it guys!! <3

FIVE MINUTES WITH LANI SAYS XX