Mine, all mine!

This is the space just outside Adam's and my bedroom that used to have the gym equipment in it.

We moved the somewhat dog-trashed lounge downstairs, and it's now flanked by my beading supplies on one side and, on the other, my Grandmother's old side-table on which sits my laptop and a clock radio. My amp is tucked in in front of the side table and the chesky is doing duty as a coffee table come jewellery making work space. I have a reading lamp and a little shelf for my oil diffuser (to combat the all-pervasive smell of dog :P)

There are two huge bookshelves on the right hands edge of this picture into which I plan to put all my favourite books. The lounge faces our old entertainment unit which houses our old tv and dvd player. It also houses a large amount of clutter at the moment but once it's cleaned up this is going to be a very pleasant space indeed. In fact I may never leave it!

Put them in a safe place...

When we were packing to go to Beorgwic back in October we found ourselves short one bag of Viking clothing. Caitlin's dresses and Tom's tunic and pants were nowhere to be found. We searched the house from top to bottom at least 3 times over and we racked our brains to try and remember what had happened to them when we'd come back from the previous trip. I knew they were all in one bag together, as I remembered packing the stuff that needed washing all together. I knew they'd gone in the car when we left our friends' place in Canberra. But after that I had no clue.

Eventually, the night before we were due to leave for the 4 day dark ages reenactment camp, we gave up and broke out the sewing machine. Adam and I together sewed 6 garments in about as many hours.

It was just a little traumatic.

Tonight, when Adam went to the filing cabinet to look for the family's birth certificates, he pulled open the drawer and found...the bag full of the missing Viking kit. But no birth certificates, except his, which we don't need right now.

I wonder what I need to go looking for in order to find the birth certificates?

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

It's been a while since I did a Friday Fragments post and I've missed them! So here I am back again with the bits and pieces that have been rattling around in my head just waiting to be thrown together in a tossed thought salad and shared with all you lovely bloggy people out there.

I was pulled up at lights behind a cement mixer one morning and found myself reading a sign on the back of the truck that began like this:

"Attention Please!

Our drivers are instructed to leave the site immediately if they are subjected to verbal abuse or physically threatened in any way."

It makes me really sad that people have to work in environments that make a company feel it necessary to adopt something like that as an official policy.

On Wednesday I went out for dinner with friends I met when I joined a local mothers group after Tom was born. It was quite a large group to begin with but over time it settled down into a group of four of us who still occasionally get together. Very occasionally now as one of us went and moved to Italy! Anyway, Cathy was here in Sydney for a holiday and we seized the moment. I went to pick Cathy and Malyn up from Malyn's house. I was wearing a red t-shirt, Cathy came to the door wearing a red top too (identical shade even), I laughed and said "We match!" Then Malyn came to the door wearing, go on, guess...a red t-shirt. When we met up with Romaine at the restaurant she protested "Why didn't anyone tell me we were wearing red?"

We had a scrumptious Thai meal and talked till we got chucked out of the restaurant. I do not see these people nearly often enough and I completely failed to get a photo :-(

I blame the photo forgetfulness on the ear infection. I blame the ear infection on the weather but I'm counting my lucky stars because for once I did not get the ear infection whilst on a dark ages camping trip. No, this time it waited till we came home from the trip.

The trip in question being Beorgwic, which was wet and awesome as usual. Deb and I taught a glass bead making workshop, Adam helped out with the blacksmithing workshops, the kids played with fire all weekend and we ate and drank and talked and had a fabulous time.

Clara came too this year and had an absolute ball bolting all over the camp with her new bestest friend ever, a cattle dog named Ohana. When she wasn't bolting all over the camp and stealing people's breakfasts she was hiding in the tent from all that horrible wet stuff that kept falling from the sky.

"I'm not moving till you make the rain go away."

There's currently a very large huntsman spider living in my bedroom, probably behind the bookshelves. I know this because when my ear woke me in excruciating agony at 3am a few nights ago I saw it crawling across the ceiling towards me. I poked Adam and pointed at the spider. He rolled over and mumbled "kill it?" Now, I do not condone the killing of innocent arachnids and this one had not yet trespassed beyond the point of no return (ie, it wasn't actually in bed with us) so I considered the disruption to sleep that would be involved in trying to catch it and put it outside and decided that if I hadn't been woken by my ear I'd never have known it was there and that therefore the logical thing to do was turn off the light, close my eyes and pretend it wasn't happening. So I did. Well, I turned off the light and watched in the glow of the clock radio as it continued across the ceiling. I held my breath for a while then breathed again as it veered off to the left and went behind the bookshelf. THEN I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. I presume it's still in there somewhere.

In the morning I described the spider on Facebook as being a little smaller than my hand, Adam commented to assure me that it had in fact been somewhat larger than that. He's so helpful.

Caitlin's bedroom is all done aside from getting the new built-in wardrobe installed.

I actually got a bit dressed up to go out for Caitlin's 12th birthday party, we took 5 of her friends to teppanyaki for dinner. Then brought them back for pinata bashing, ice-cream cake eating and general running around like a bunch of 12 year olds hyped up on sugar before they settled down to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog. Which they seemed to rather like. My work here is done, mwhahahahahahahahahaaaaa *ahem*

Outfit of the DayWeekMonth?

Dress and cardi - Sara

Tights - We Love Colors

Shoes - Colorado

Necklace - Made by Mim :-) 

And last but not least, the Fuckh8 campaign video (NSFW!)


FCKH8.com Straight Talk About Gay Marriage from FCKH8.com on Vimeo.

Now, off you go to visit Mrs 4444 at Half-Past Kissin' Time to check out all the other Friday Fragments posts!

Kitchen cupboards of DOOOOOM!

You know that cupboard that you just throw things in that don't really have a home elsewhere? The one where nothing stacks neatly and you can never find anything in it? No, not the Tupperware cupboard...what? You mean there's not supposed to be two cupboards like that? Oh. Never mind then.

I started out to clean out the cupboard under the sink but discovered that the randomness at the back of it had spread into the cupboard next door so I ended up doing both.

Under the sink (before)

The corner cupboard (half-way through)

Under the sink (after)

The corner cupboard (after)

I'm throwing out a lot of stuff from under here (or, in the case of the disposable plates, cups etc, finding a new home for it) so as an added bonus I got to put some of the less often used appliances and the box of bottles for homemade ginger beer that have been cluttering up my benches, away away in the cupboards.

Monday miscellany and menu plan

Today was Wacky Hair Day at the school. A gold coin donation is collected for something or other, I forget what and the kids couldn't remember either, I guess the excitement of silly hairdo competitions and not having to wear school uniforms wipes all other considerations from mind.

We did lots of decluttering on the Sunday but somehow most of the house looks worse than when we started. I sorted through all the stationery and arts and crafts supplies and found enough lead pencils and coloured pencils to last us several years. Caitlin tested all the textas and there's enough of them to last till kingdom come too.

The top shelf of the cupboard that I'd tackled on Friday turned out to contain mostly craft stuff so I was able to clear that out completely and we're using it to store the basket of reenactment tableware.

We've made significant inroads to the mess that was left in the room destined to be Caitlin's bedroom.

I might even be able to get the vacuum cleaner in here soon!

Unfortunately some of what came out of that room ended up in my newly cleaned up lounge room but we'll get it all sorted out eventually.

My menu plan for the week is as follows:
Monday  - teriyaki pork ribs, corn on the cob and garlic brussels sprouts (and very nice they were too)
Tuesday - coq au vin with rice and green beans
Wednesday - corned beef with mashed potatoes and steamed veg
Thursday - sausages, jacket potatoes and salad
Friday - pizza (homemade if I have the energy!)
Saturday - Brendan's birthday dinner so no cooking for me. Yay!
Sunday - minestrone soup and bread

Election Day bits and bobs

I had a fabulous time on Friday night, eating, drinking and talking into the wee small hours with good friends. Thanks to Toni for having us at her house, to Ariane for yummy pumpkin and potato and leek soups and to Cate for scrumptious apple dessert and a boyfriend who drove me home at 3:00am.

We started our day with breakfast in the sun on the front deck and then went to the kids' school to sell sausage sandwiches for 1.5 hrs to those lined up to vote and then came back to the polling place up the street from our place to do our democratic duty. I did my little bit to contribute to the 5.3% swing to the Greens in the House of Representatives in our electorate (we're in one of the safest Liberal seats in the country, it's look for the bright side or despair) and to the election of NSW's first Greens senator. We seem to be in limbo at the moment with a hung parliament the most probable result. We are therefore opening another bottle of red.

In cheerier news Adam and Tom made soft pretzels today using this recipe and they were awesome.

I found myself obliged to tackle lounge room corner the third this afternoon because I needed to move the cabinet in that corner in order to reach the TV aerial and plug it in to the wall socket behind the cabinet. We've been without broadcast TV since I accidentally unplugged the aerial when plugging in the Christmas tree lights at the beginning of December last year.

Impressive isn't it?

Now, that looks better...but wait, what's that behind the coffee table?

Ah, that'll be tomorrow's project!

Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have red wine to drink, vintage cheddar to nibble and inconclusive election results to obsess over.

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Time for the end of week mental declutter that is Friday Fragments. Let's see what's floating about in here shall we?

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I did my 6th Kiva loan this week, which apparently makes me an average Kiva lender. Must do better. I'm going to stop buying Macca's coffee on work mornings and instead do a Kiva loan each month. There's a perfectly good coffee machine at work anyway.

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The church notice board that I was venting about on Thursday last week has gone from offensive to merely bemusing. It now reads "Without God the world is like a door off its hinges." I invite speculation as to meaning in the comments, my first thought was "can now be used as an improvised table-top?"

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There's a new Terry Pratchett book on the way, I've pre-ordered my copy of I Shall Wear Midnight and can't wait for more of Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle.

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This week there have been only two days on which I posted Creating order from chaos pics. What a slacker! Here are today's feeble efforts.

The notice board, which wasn't really that bad (oh yes, it's been worse in the past) but things kept falling off it because there were too many sheets of paper stuck on with the one pin.

Before and After

The cupboard behind the notice board. I do not like the way the shelves in this cupboard sag. It's freaky. I keep having visions of one of the shelves giving way and all the glassware and stoneware coming crashing down through the floor into the stairwell below. Probably on top of my head.

Too many breakable things piled on top of other breakable things.

I worked my way up from the bottom shelf to the top. When I got to the top shelf I looked at it, pulled out one bag of stuff, stood there holding it for a while. Then put it back and left it for another day.

Looking much less precarious.

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My Dad

Dad took me out to lunch today. We went to a Japanese restaurant at Hornsby called Kibou which I had heard good things about and which Dad has been to often enough that he didn't have to specify which beer he wanted. It was goooooood. I'm a terrible food blogger though, I kept starting to eat before taking a photo!

Seaweed salad

Gyoza

Teriyaki chicken with salad, rice and miso

Sashimi

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I arrived home just as the kids were coming in from the bus stop and was greeted with much laughter and by this sight.

Guess we'll be needing new track pants then.

It seems they got a little over-stressed during sport. I'm so glad they have fully lined track pants and that he was able to find this highly amusing instead of totally traumatising!

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That's it from me today, I'm off to post a package containing Vegemite and Tim Tams to an unsuspecting blogger somewhere (hint, it's our lovely Friday Fragments host). Well, she knows the package is coming, but Vegemite is guaranteed to be surprising, forewarned or not! Don't forget to go visit other Fragmented Folks, head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time to see what everyone's been up to this week.

Bog plost

This post title brought to you by half a bottle of St Hallett GST (Grenache-Shiraz-Touriga) and far too little sleep.

Lounge room corner the second. This one I get to blame the kids for. Mostly.

*waves magic wand* (Also known as getting the husband to do most of the work because he's the one that poured that last glass of wine for me.)

G'night all!

Declutter of the day

The other half of the cupboards under the stove top, mostly Tupperware and Corning Ware, and the Christmas dinner service tucked away in the corner cupboard down beside the dishwasher. I pulled pretty much everything out, matched lids with containers and put it all back again. What I really should do is cull, there are things in there, and in the other Tupperware cupboard, that I haven't used in years

Before

After

Also, my kitchen is even cleaner and tidier now than it was at the end of Saturday's effort. So much so that when my Dad arrived for dinner tonight he walked into my kitchen and exclaimed "Goodness me! There's been a fair bit of tidying being done!" I should probably be embarrassed by that, but I gave up guilt and shame for Lent years ago and never took them up again so I'm going to go with being moderately smug instead.

Saturday should be for slumber

The only downside to having moved the computers behind a locked door is that the kids can no longer get up on a weekend morning, go online, and leave us undisturbed till mid to late morning. Both the boys visited us in our bedroom before 8am. Haven't had to deal with that other than on birthdays for many years.

And here we have another exciting adventure in the battle against the clutter monster. Actually, I'm not sure this counts as a clutter problem so much as an OMG! My kitchen has exploded! problem. Adam has been working on the clutter left over in what was the study while I got to grips with this:

I was only sick for one day...

This space suffers from flat surface syndrome.

Despite the passage of time indicated by the clock in the photos I didn't really spend almost 5 hours on this, we did have lunch and I took a break for coffee, but otherwise my Saturday afternoon has been spent mostly in this room. Blah. But it is nice to have it done. Well, mostly done, some of the clutter from the old study seems to be ending up on the table. It'd better not end up on my benches though, or there'll be consequences. *glares narrow-eyed at anyone who might dare encroach on newly cleared surfaces*

Look! I found the bench-tops!

And unearthed the coffee machine!

I also cleaned out the science experiments in the fridge, but I decided against taking any photos of that because ewwwww!

I am now going to eat fish and chips for dinner, if I can succeed in persuading Adam to go buy it, and then run off to a friends place for a girls night in which promises to feature booze and Singstar. (Apparently I only covet sleep in the mornings.)