Yarnivorous

G'day all! Well we are starting to settle in, hooray! I haven't managed to tidy all the Stuff away yet because umm there is nowhere to tidy it to. The cupboards are a bit musty and I don't want to put my Stuff in there cos it will get musty too! I've vacuumed and sprayed (tea tree oil) and sprinkled (bicarb) to try to reduce the musty load in the flat. It is better than it was but if I shut the place up for a day, the mustiness increases, so I guess I will have to continue vacuuming, spraying and sprinkling! This morning I was woken up by a) a baby have a very good, loud, long whinge and b) these. Currawongs (plus a few rainbow lorikeets) (Scuse the boring view out the kitchen window! That video was shot on the phone so you can imagine how loud the currawongs really were!) I left behind blue skies and sunshine (Jerusalem artichokes flowering at last - I waited six months for those flowers and they finally started a week before we left, better than a week after!...

G'day all! We are in Sydney. The flat is still here and is not as musty as I feared. We have done some food shopping and also bought me a clothes storage thingo so I don't have to live out of a plastic storage tub whilst we are here (was $120, now $86!). The attached pic is from the phone, as is this post.  I shall fire up the laptop soon enough but am busy organising and cooking tea.  Doh, rice is boiling over. Anon!

G'day all! Well with all slaving we've done this week, I am pleased to say that we are nearly there! No the house isn't finished by any means but the cornices are on, the toilet (room, yes we have separate rooms for toilets here) is painted a most startling couple of colours (not finished yet), most of the plasterwork is done (not sanded = not primed or painted) and things are looking much better than they did. Hooray! One more load of washing has to be done. Some stuff is coming to Sydney with us dirty - we don't have a drier. We have to clean up the loungeroom and get all the tools out of it and the kitchen, and then we are done! The car is half loaded up with Stuff - we have a hybrid! I am not so keen on its boot (trunk) arrangement - yes the back seats fold down but ?because it is a hybrid? only one area actually opens to the cabin. Not much point having fold down seats in my book if they don't open to the boot! Plus the side that opens is right behind t...

argh I am trying to hire a car for us to drive to Sydney. hertz had a REALLY good rate. Too Good To Be True Rate. Yep. It was. I can get that rate as long as I don't rent one way, even though I clearly stated I did not want to return the car to the place I hired it from. Talk about bait and switch! They should not let me think I can book a car for a certain rate if I can't. Grump. I never liked renting from Hertz and now I like it even less!

G'day all! Well some good news at last. Hooray, the doc says there is nothing unusual with my innards. However, after getting my new sleeve for my slightly puffy arm, I now appear to need a gauntlet (or as knitters and crocheters would call it, a fingerless mitten) for my hand. Either that or the sleeve is a leetle tight for me. My hand puffs up when I put the sleeve on and things get a little tingly in my fingers. Thank you to those of you putting up with my whining, and offering support (Dr Bones in particular!). It has been an interesting week so far. On Sunday, we obtained house sitters for a month or two. On Monday night, DH had to do a sleep study. He did it at home. Wiring him up was quite a different thing to do - there were LOTS of wires. Then this morning we think he forgot to take his meds cos gosh, bear with sore head! (But oddly enough I found a copy of the Tao of Pooh this arvo and gave it to him to read and he lapped it up!) Today I said goodbye to my workma...

G'day all! I have heaps of yarn in small amounts - stuff I've hand-dyed, stuff I've spun, all sorts of bits and bobs. It would be great for scumbling or crocheting free-form granny squares or any purpose that does not require gauge (heh, my spinning isn't always perfect). It tends to be bright and happy yarn of random gauges (mostly about 8 ply/DK/light worsted but it can vary from 4 ply/fingering up to chunky). Very little of it would be machine washable. Pretty much all of it is wool, some has some silk blended into it, a little has nylon. If you are into magic balls, it would be great for that though some lengths might be a little long! Is there anyone out there who would like some for the cost of postage? Within Oz, I can send a satchel with up to 500g of yarn for $6, or express post for $8.40. (Note that I might not be able to get that much yarn into the satchel.) 3kg bags are $10.30 but I quite frankly doubt I can get that much yarn in. I might be able to...

G'day all! Why is it the closer we get to the deadline, the further away the finish seems to be? I have been jointing plasterboard (drywall) for two weeks now. You would not think we have so many joints to be done but they keep on appearing. It takes three days for each joint - two of undercoat, one of top coat then they have to be sanded. I can't find a mask that fits me well so I will end up with silicosis at this rate... The house renovations are consuming pretty much every spare minute I have. Once in a while I get to knit or sew, like tonight when I decided that I needed to sew whilst DH and his friend tried to play The Swan (slightly beyond the friend's ability to play sweetly at this stage but practice will improve things). I have almost finished a new cardigan, short sleeved of course, just in time for the weather cooling down. Then again, we are moving to Sydney soon and it will probably be warmer there. Tomorrow I have to go back to the lymphodema clinic cos...

G'day all! I've just downloaded a new blogger app for my android phone.  So far so good- it is a bit easier to use on the small screen than the usual interface.  Wonder if pics load into the right place? Well that little experiment didn't me, so if a random pic of a pic on my laptop's screen loads in a weird spot, you can be sure I didn't intend it to go there... Many pics to share but no energy to share them with! We got home after 10 last night, and I drove for nearly 11 hours on and off, mostly on....  But soon, soon now! anon!

G'day all! Beautiful day here in Adelaide. Peoples are snoozing or reading books and YIKES,I am standing outside getting bitten by ants so I'll make this short... Wanna see the blue sky? Can you believe this tiny little post took 15 minutes to write on my phone because of blogger's insistence that pictures always go at the start of the post and there is no obvious way to cut and paste on the phone? Methinks blogger needs a bug fix and the phone needs a better way to move text around. anon!

Gday all! After quite some driving and sight seeing, like ten or more hours, we finally reached South Australia. We've seen amazing stuff, places we haven't been in years. No pics yet cos I didn't use the phone for pics, just the camera. I was completely freaked out about an hour after dark. The car's high beam headlights picked up some brightly glowing green eyes on the road. Whatever the critter was, it started running AT the car. YIKES! it was not a cat or a dog or a possum (oz version not an opossum). It ran in a weird bowlegged fashion and had a really wide stance. WTF? What sort of hellspawn was coming straight at the car? Like this thing was seriously weird with its funny gait and glowing green eyes. Just as I slammed on the brakes, cos I was going to hit it, I realised it was a koala! Walking, well running straight at the car as if it was greeting a long lost love! I stopped in such a hurry the everything in the back slid to the front.... No pics as the came...

G'day all! Things are better now. Good, eh? We are away for a few days, but this time we have a house sitter! Pray for his cat - he wants to bring him around. I doubt Cheshire will like it, Cheshire being the bully and Nut the scared wussy puss. Our house is starting to look less like a bombsite, though we still have a long way to go. However with some sanding of walls, a little more plasterboard in a couple of places, and some paint and tiles, things should look almost finished! (Except for the issue of the new kitchen cupboards, sink, etc.) Must go get ready to take off. I've paid the bills that need to be paid, I've cleaned up a fair whack of the Stuff on the couch... dishes are yet to be done but we are getting there. Oh, gotta change the sheets on the bed and deal with my dirty washing (hahahaha). Must hide my good cast iron pan too - don't want him cooking any gluten in it. Ah the paranoia of food issues. anon!

G'day all! Anyone got any suggestions for some good escapist stuff? I've found I am spending a lot of time online trying to escape from a half renovated house that has stuff everywhere. Yes I should be working on getting more of it done but y'know what? I'm knackered (aka very tired). I'm sick of it. I've had enough. I've been living with a kitchen that has a chopping board of bench space for 8 months now. My husband has the idea that I will magically make him yummy and nutritious meals in a kitchen that he "can't stand working in." I have no idea why he thinks it is ok for me to struggle but not him! (When I ask him, he says "Because you are good at that." "Because you cope with things better than I do.") Plus I feel totally ripped off by our lousy summer. Feb is usually one of our sunniest months, and we got almost 1.5 hours less direct sunshine each day than average. We've just had two whole days of no sun at a...