Heart of the Tapu Stone

If one person reads this I am so happy :)

May 27, 2021

My achy breaky heart

I’ve been getting heart pains lately, and I don’t know what they are. I’ve had the ‘tests’, and been told I’m old, and I should expect this, because things are falling apart. I’ve also been told that they are probably anxiety.

Whether they are all of the above or not, it doesn’t matter, I have things I need to get off my chest, and now is as good a time as ever.

A house a haven a home

I love my house. It is the first real home that is mine. My brother Johnny (the golden one) bought it for my mum who lived in it before he bought her the mansion across the road, with the giant Totara in the front yard, because she fancied the tree.
My husband (the Scotty too hotty) bought the house off my brother and gave it to me for Christmas five years ago.

That is not a joke.
He knows I have fucked up weird feelings about not belonging anywhere and he wanted to give me something I’ve never really had before, which is a place I will always truly belong in because it is really and truly belongs to me.

My house is my home; my home is my haven, and my haven is everything. It is safety and comfort and I never want to leave it.
Never.
Ever.
Never ever.

Inside

The interior of my house looks like the background of a Klimt painting, rich reds, cobalt blues, and lots of gold. Not real gold, but gold leaf and gold paint. I possess few things that are truly valuable, but I love being surrounded by beauty. Beauty doesn’t have to be expensive, in fact shabby old beauty makes me happy. Money is never a barrier if you have imagination and I have plenty of that.

Our Secret sauce to my Happiness

My Scotty too Hotty and I made a pact we signed in blood and love before we got married, and it is that “Splitting up” is never, ever on the table, and we tell each other the truth at all times no matter how shit it is. It is amazing how having to tell the truth really does cut down on the shit things you do.

Posted by Olivia Giles.

A head full of La la la

May 13, 2021

I have written stories, short, long, middling all my life. I have written a ton of short stories over the past 10 years, mostly because of the Huia short story competition which is now called Pikihuia. I've been a finalist three times, yay, with 4 stories yay yay.
When I say I have written "tons” I have started "tons" and finished about 30% of them. I have to be honest here, I am a bit of a digital hoarder and I hardly ever okay I never delete word docs so, consequently I have a bajill...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

Hey there....

April 25, 2021

I watch a lot of YouTube blogs and many many of them start with the blogger apologising for not posting for long periods of time as if people are waiting for them with bated breath. I know that no one is waiting for me to blog and that is just fine. I talk to myself a lot anyway so this won't be any different.

Te Papa Tupu

For the past six months I have been locked in a dark room hunched over my laptop rewriting and polishing the crap (hopefully) out of my manuscript with notes from my Mentor,...
Continue reading...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

The bird that sounds like a car alarm

November 25, 2020

Is there such a thing as car alarm bird, and what does it look like so I can get a gun and....no, that's a bit mean, that stupid feathered article has no clue it wakes me up every morning and keeps me from going to sleep at night until it stops tooting its stupid head off. Then I saw it, a Tui. Dang it.

Continue reading...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

No Hugs

November 23, 2020

The ‘Covid’ did a very weird thing to my writing process. When things of such historical significance should be written about, especially at the “grass roots” (code for poor people) level, I couldn’t write about it at all.

The Lockdown

My life was whittled down to the barest version of itself. It was just me and the husband, “Scotty too Hotty”, together, alone as our kids are grown and gone. The rest of the fam were zoomed in every week for designated making sure everyone was...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

The promise of equity versus the bullshitness of equality

November 19, 2020

I can't move furniture because all my muscle strength is in the lower half of my body where it pushed out my munchkins at various points during my more youthful years. I also can't because I am old and more to the point I can't be arsed,
As far as I am concerned that is what MEN are for. Go on, you may bleat on about equality, I don't care, Ive seen equality and.- as far as I am concerned - yes I love that phrase and I will be using it a lot - it is a lie to get women to do even more work t...
Continue reading...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

Having people in on your "Process"

November 11, 2020

My new writers chair which made the couch redundant.

I want to be a better writer. I want to be open to new ideas, new concepts, things that will help me. So I am reading books recommended to me by my mentor.

On writing by Stephen King

I have read this book so many times, I am like Buffalo Bill (from Silence of the Lambs not the old west guy) wearing Stephen Kings skin and hoping like hell that just a smidge of his "amazingness" will soak into me. 

 Yes I would kill to have his talent a...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

Te Papa Tupu and what it means to me

October 28, 2020

Libra/Tiger, mother/stepmother, grandmother, owner of cat and wife of Scotty.

I am trying to figure out how to condense 58 years of life into a blog.

So, let’s start from Te Papa Tupu and why I applied?

I’d followed ‘Te Papa Tupu’ covetously for years. I wanted to apply but did not feel good enough. But, then again, I never feel good enough about anything. Well, that’s not strictly true. I vacillate between “I am amazing” and “every single thing I do is crap” or, as Nick H...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

Katie...beautiful Katie

January 21, 2019

My sister in law Kate Dalton and her husband Mike, with their son Timothy 1995

1995, Me with Tamati and Kate with Timothy, dancing
at a family do at the Pines...those babies are now strapping 23 year olds.

If I am going to write about the small things in my life then I am going to write about the huge overwhelming events.

A few weeks ago I put up a blog - it had been months since I wrote one not since September, Usually the first person to 'like' my blogs on the facebooks was my sister in law...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

2019, here I come, ready or not

January 9, 2019

It is New Years eve…

I am in the midst of spring cleaning. My mother had a theory, that if your house was spotless on New Year’s Eve then it will be spotless for the rest of the year and I have always followed this advice. So I am decluttering, tidying and throwing a lot of crap out.

And “Oh My God” I have a lot of crap.

I have clothes I never wear…(according to the KonMari method, this is the place you start purging especially the “One day I will fit into that” items from...

Posted by Olivia Giles.

The writer's blog

The Selfie collection

Click pics for fun facts about me.

I just realised from the pics I have like three outfits.

If one person reads this I am so happy :)

A head full of La la la

Hey there....

The bird that sounds like a car alarm

No Hugs

The promise of equity versus the bullshitness of equality

Having people in on your "Process"

Te Papa Tupu and what it means to me

Katie...beautiful Katie

2019, here I come, ready or not

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