So what exactly is Ashlyn doing?

Some of you may have wondered, if Kevin is at work and the kids are at school, what is Ashlyn doing?”  In this blog I will tell you!

It’s hard to believe that we have been here for almost 2 months and the kids have been in school for one month.  After everyone got settled, the first thing I did was go back and visit places that we had already been – at my own pace.  Luke can make his way through a museum in Olympic record-breaking time.  Kevin wants to take photos of EVERYTHING.  And Sedona, well, she just wants to get to the café for a cuppa.

So, I returned to the Auckland Museum and enjoyed “Selling Dreams – One Hundred Years of Fashion Photography.”  I went to the Auckland Art Gallery for a wonderful guided tour.  And I rambled through the Sculpture in the Gardens exhibit at the Auckland Botanic Gardens.

View of the Skytower from the Auckland Museum

Melvin Sokolsky for Harper's Bazaar, March 1963

I’ve also had the pleasure of doing some professional work.  I’m conducting a small market research study for Academic Impressions (AI) on the potential for their work in New Zealand.  I’ve also been doing some writing and have a piece on what I’ve learned from campaign volunteers coming up next week in their on-line newsletter.  I’ve met some great colleagues at the University of Auckland and the University of Waikato.  I’ve even been asked to speak five times in various cities by Educate Plus, a nonprofit group that focuses on development work in education.  That will be exciting to travel and see other schools across the country.

Jamie Pickernell, "O Crabby, I Do Believe We're Rather Lost"

I’ve also discovered a lovely group called the American Women’s Club.  A very elderly but high energy woman named Ruth invited me to their book group and as a result, I read “The Luminaries,” the 2013 Man Booker Prize winner by NZ author Eleanor Catton.  It’s over 800 pages, so that alone took up 2 weeks of my time!  I’ve also gone to this group’s regular meeting and joined a local walking/coffee club on Fridays.

Not as exciting, but I do try to keep up with the house.  Wednesday is my cleaning day!  More interesting are the finances of this.  For example, I can get 10 avocadoes for $3, and I can rent movies for $1 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  But it takes over $100 to fill up our gas tank and when I took a dress to the dry cleaners, it was going to be $39!  That will now get cleaned another way.

I’m enjoying some time to explore Auckland on my own, make some wonderful international contacts, and some days, just go to the beach!

St. Helier's Beach with a view of Rangitoto