Yarnivorous

G'day all! I had my car serviced today and got the nasty petrol smell checked out. One of the fuel lines had perished. And the fuel filter clamps were tied down too tight and were strangling the fuel filter. Hmmm... So I drove off and filled up the car cos it is cheap petrol Friday (at some point soon the fuel prices will jack up about 10c a litre). Car felt a less nippy than usual but I thought that was just me being odd. We drove up to the PiLs' place and had a lovely BBQ there and hung out with Nathan and his brother playing Sky pieces. Then we managed to get 100m down the road and most of the way through a right hand turn (remember we drive on the left side of the road, not the right, so it is the equivalent of a left hand drive car's left turn) when I realised we had no power. No fuel. Nada. I couldn't even roll to a stop in the most out of the way position as there was a car waiting to pull onto the road there plus we were going uphill... So we had 10 minute...

G'day all! Remember that old Confucian "blessing" - "may you live in interesting times?" Well I am living them. LOL Gotta laugh, cos otherwise you'd do something stupid. Thanks for all your good wishes. I reckon we are working things out. Distance has certainly not helped. We'll be back in Melbourne tomorrow, earlier in the day than planned. I am sure the cats will be happy to see us, though they've been in good hands. I thought I'd give you a montage of some of the sights I've seen in the last week. Next time I am up here with some free time, I'll be hopping on the ferry - had a lovely, if too short, trip yesterday. I'll be happy to be home, though if Sydney is to be my home for a while well there are compensations to that too! anon!

G'day all! I have to go to Sydney for a while. I will be online there but I might not be posting much, it all depends. Things are not working for DH and I, being in different cities. I feel lousy about leaving the cats for the second time in less than a week, but they have a nice cat sitter who will look after them (they both said hello to her, which I saw as a good sign!). All my hard work in the garden, getting things under control in a few areas will also be destroyed, but if I don't go then I won't have a marriage.... If it looks like we can get things back together, I'll be moving there but coming home every few weeks to get more house stuff fixed up. I have no idea what I'll be doing about the cats. I will be back home next week, but after that I have no idea. It is really quite difficult living in uncertainty. I've been living with it for years. I find it very stressful. Taking things one day at a time is helpful but there are some things you absol...

G'day all! It seems like I've been on a dress-buying spree recently. I only had two dresses in the States cos mostly I rode my bike and bike plus dress do not go. On Friday I had to go out to Knox City (shopping centre or mall as Americans would call it) to meet up with someone. I went to one of my favourite shops (when they are not burning incense at least). I bought this dress there (and a skirt). When I walked out of the shop, the alarm went off but the girl waved me on. OK. When I got home and took the labels off the dress to wash it, I discovered a little problem. Ahem. (I do have a receipt for it) Ah we have fun times at the moment. I had hoped that 2011 would be a better year but already it is bollocks. Sigh. Something that matters to me a very great deal looks like it is not working, so.... But we have to wait and see if it gets better again. anon!

G'day all! Well the chickens live on. Boldie was looking really sick on Saturday (it was hot, which didn't help) but she has perked up a lot. Her comb is red again, not a weird grey pink, she is vocalising instead of wheezing, though she certainly has what sounds like laryngitis (hooray! She can't make loud whinings like she normally does). No eggs but with two moulting and one broody, what can I expect? They are pretty useless chickens. So I went to the quilting guild meeting on Saturday and managed to baste two quilts all ready for quilting. (Pics don't show them with the safety pins basting them but I assure you they are done!) Haven't had time to quilt them yet, mind you, and won't have much chance since I'll be busy all weekend. I am trying to get the house cleaned up after the bombshell of the happenings over Christmas/New Year. It is a slow and painful business, this cleaning bizzo, even when you have a nice new mop and broom. I took a car lo...

G'day all! You would think I had gone hog wild spending waaay too much or something over the last few days. I am having an attack of the guilts. I bought too many calendars (two for home, one for work, one as a gift and two wee baby ones that called to me, Lynne, Lynne, take us home! My goodness I am a sucker for a calendar at 40 or 50% off! I mostly do landscape calendars but quirky ones take my eye too. I bought two dresses and one skirt (cost me less than $100). I insured the car for third party property, fire and theft (umm $350 or $450? More than what the car is probably worth but if I run into a ferarri or a light pole, well we have to pay for it if we don't have car insurance). (In Victoria, every car has to have third party personal insurance - it is part of the registration fee. Our rego fee is over $500pa but for that we get no fault insurance for damage we do to other people or they do to us. We do not have to have property/car insurance - that is up to us t...

G'day all! I am sitting at the emergency vet with Nutmeg, who has a bad eye. She was fine half an hour before tea, then after I talked to my sister for half an hour, she was hunched up on the bed and obviously in pain. So here I am with my knitting and the cat carrier (and a busting bladder...) Waiting waiting waiting... Ah, that is better - I couldn't figure out how to put the picture in the right spot using the phone but now it is fixed. Nutmeg has a grungy eye of unknown origin, likely trauma. I have to put ointment on it for a couple of days then take her to our vet to get it checked again to see if it is ulcerating. She has a plastic collar on and is walking around in a very very funny way, trying to scrape it off with every step. anon!

I mean it! Do not read this post. Honestly. That means YOU, 2paw! OK. That should be enough spidey-space. On Saturday night, we didn't sleep as well as we could. DH in particular had a bad night's sleep. On Sunday night, DH called me into the bedroom. He thought I should see something. This something. (Scuse the blurry shot, taken with only one 15W fluorescent light.) No worries, it is just a golden orb weaver spider. Inside. It must've come off DH's clothes which he left on the line overnight. I had wondered where the spider had gone - she is a lovely big beauty and had been making her web on the line for a few weeks (quite annoying when it comes to hanging out the washing as I don't want to bust the web. She had even remembered her dinner she had left hanging in it when I had to break it one day - I vibrated the web to warn her and she rushed down and cut her dinner (a nice big fly) out of the web and raced back to her hidey hole. No kidding!). I had hop...

G'day all! (Dang, no wonder noone has commented on this post - I forgot to publish it!) Things proceed here at the Modest Manor. I am doing a series of pics of the progress on our house, though they really belong on the house blog, where they will duly show up! I have to share this pic with you. It was my Project 365 in 2011 pic* for yesterday. DH's dad has been coming around a LOT and helping with the renos. Here they are working on the deadlock on the new door. I think it gives them both a great deal of pleasure to work together. Today I helped out a bit and did some dyeing (and went to Bunnings and bought Even More Stuff for the house renos. We've spent at least $100 a day for the last week there...). I dyed up a couple of bathsheets for DH - I've tried tie dyeing them. I won't know if it has worked until tomorrow but it was sure fun making a mess (though I did manage to spot orange fibre-reactive dye down the front of my lovely NEW purple tshirt.... Arg...

G'day all! It is now 2011 and has been for nearly 24 hours! Amazing. So far, so good. It was a bit icky today - we are getting more weird humid weather, this time from the north-west (not the north east, like before Christmas). A few showers and one cracking thunderstorm. My goodness, one lightning bolt was right overhead - from cloud to cloud but only a kilometre or so up so the thunder was almost instantaneous. It cracked and rattled and shook us within a second of me noticing a very small, innocuous looking flash in the sky. Holy cow, did it give us (MiL, FiL, DH and I) one helluva shock! MiL ducked so hard she hurt her neck! I was sorting through a pile of building junk and had a long piece of aluminium (aluminum for Americans) in my hand. Rather glad it was cloud to cloud not cloud to earth/return stroke! Someone's car alarm went off several times - it obviously doesn't like thunder. Nutmeg voted for running under the house - under the house must be safer than...