A Sleepover & Singapore

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Posted on January 6, 2015

We have a guest who is having a sleepover tonight.

Psycho Dog is on the left and Cousin P on the right. Cousin P belongs to my sister who lives about 20 minutes drive away. It is great that we can share the dog-sitting when either of us go on holidays or simply will be away overnight. The dogs get on well together and seem to enjoy the company, although they are usually both exhausted once the other goes home.

The other news of the moment is that we have booked our flights to Singapore for a holiday later in the year. No other details have been arranged although I will look for some suitable accommodation before too long. Unlike our other overseas trips we will not be touring. We will spend a week in Singapore, hopefully close to the centre of town. There will be no changes of accommodation and we will simply use public transport to make our way around.

2014 – A Year in Review

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Posted on December 31, 2014

Bizarre, tragic and downright evil are some of the adjectives which come to mind when looking to describe the events which shaped 2014.

Invariably, the most recent events are those which are clearest in our minds – the Sydney siege, the stabbing murders of 8 children in Cairns and the loss of the Air Asia flight. Unfortunately, the horrors seem to have been almost never-ending. Two Malaysia Airlines flights lost in very different circumstances, the untimely death of Phillip Hughes and the tragic death of Luke Batty at his father’s hand.

Two other matters were resolved with trial and sentencing of the perpetrators of crimes against Daniel Morcombe and Alison Baden-Clay.

On a different note the G20 roadshow came to town and despite Mr Abbott’s threats, Mr Putin appeared to depart with his shirtfront intact.

Ferries sank, volcanoes erupted, the Ebola virus rampaged through parts of Africa, we became aware of the appalling agenda of Islamic State and the fighting continued in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Gaza.

It is not exactly a good news story. I am sure there were some highlights but I am struggling to find them.

Meanwhile, I tried to keep my focus on blogging but there were times when I just felt too overwhelmed by events in the world around me to write about simplifying our life. There was also a 6 week hiatus while we jetted off to the UK and Ireland for an amazing holiday. That adventure is documented here.

One of my goals for 2015 is to re-capture the enthusiasm for my simple,organised life and share it with you all on a much more regular basis.

Thank you for sticking with me and may 2015 be all that you wish for.

Happy New Year!

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 33,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 12 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Done and Dusted

Holiday Hangover

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Posted on November 30, 2014

It is now 10 weeks since we arrived back from our overseas holiday and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to get properly back into the swing of blogging. With less than 4 weeks until Christmas, I suspect that it is going to be next year before I get things really back on track.

Apart from trying to get things done at home, I am finding that I am particularly busy at work. I constantly feel as though I am trying to catch my tail as there has been quite a backlog from while I was away. I have almost got that under control and now am trying to fit in a couple of additional projects which I will be working on next year.

Yesterday we attended our Christmas drinks celebration with all of our neighbours. The road we live in is about 3km in length with only about 26 houses scattered along its length. Some of the residents are permanent and others homes are weekenders so we see some of our neighbours very infrequently. The annual get-together is a fun evening and everyone brings theirs drinks and a plate of food to share. I took a bowl of Pumpkin & Feta Balls and some homemade tomato sauce for dipping. The recipe I used is here. I adapted it slightly as I used standard feta, chilli powder (1 teaspoon) and 1 teaspoon of powdered coriander. I rolled them into small balls rather than as fritters.

Today I picked 2 large bowls of cherry tomatoes. These grown wild in our garden – sometimes in rather inconvenient places. Here are some of them. I remove the stalks, discard any with blemishes, rinse them and then freeze them whole in recycled bread bags. I now have about 6 kgs in the freezer.

I am off to Sydney this week for 3 days for work but more about that next time.

Christmas is Coming

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Posted on November 7, 2014

I know that the year is rolling by and before we know it Christmas will be upon us. In fact I read this comment on a discussion forum a couple of days ago,

“Everyone is so busy and it will get even busier as it gets closer to Xmas… which I haven’t planned anything….”

This got me thinking as to why everything has to be busy in the lead-up to Christmas. I love Christmas for the joy of being able to share the day with my family, especially the grandchildren. I do not enjoy the commercialism of it nor the endless round of parties, celebrations and gift-giving. The associated stress and pressure is simply not worth it.

I try to switch off to most advertising at any time but I find it particularly insidious at this time of the year. Every conceivable type of business is exhorting us to buy their goods so that they can be delivered by Christmas. Worse still, are the offers of no repayments until the New Year etc, etc. Just remember that everything has to be paid for at sometime and do you really want to be paying for Christmas at this time next year?

Like many other aspects of our life, we have managed to eliminate a lot of unnecessary Christmas festivities and focus on what is important to us.

This year we will be keeping it simple.

Neither The Duke nor I attend any work functions.
The Duke and I will go to a local festive gathering. It is an opportunity to socialise with our neighbours and is hosted by a different family each year. Everybody brings their own drinks and a plate of food to share.
We will take our grand-daughters to see the Christmas lights in our area. I want to take them to a carol service at the local church.
We will spend 5 days at the beach with family.
Christmas lunch will be at my sister’s place with extended family.
Gift giving for the family will focus on experiences and/or consumable gifts.

Over the next 6 weeks I will share some of the things you can do and make in the lead-up to Christmas which are memorable but relatively easy on the budget. Please share any special ideas from your family.

In the meantime, here is a photo I took yesterday when I went to Caloundra to meet some friends for lunch. I am hoping for some similarly spectacular weather when we spend some time there at Christmas.

Sorting the Photos & Myself

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Posted on September 26, 2014

Some of you will remember this blog post from last year when I shared the awful realisation that I had deleted all the photos from my blog posts. While I have put that experience behind me and moved on, I am aware that many of the older blog posts really do not make a lot of sense without the photos.

I am forever trying to sort out all of my digital photos and naturally my recent focus has been on getting all of the ones we took during our holiday into order. However, I have been looking at many of the others and have found that most (if not all) of the ones that I deleted are still in various folders. It will be a huge job but I am going to attempt to reinstate them in the relevant blog posts.

As with any big project it is best to do a little bit at a time so I have set myself the goal of fixing at least one blog post every day. There will be no particular sequence but one day it will all be fixed, I hope.

It is now almost a week since we arrived home from overseas and I have worked 4 full days and am exhausted. I am definitely looking forward to the weekend and the family coming to visit tomorrow. We are looking forward to showing them the photos and giving them the small gifts we bought.

Carpet Cleaning

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Posted on July 28, 2014

We have carpet in the three bedrooms and I generally keep it clean by vacuuming regularly and a sprinkle of bicarb soda on any grubby marks. However, I get it cleaned every 2 – 3 years and today was the day.

We removed everything from the 3 rooms apart from the cast-iron bed frame in the main bedroom. The other rooms are completely bare.

Moving everything out of 3 rooms makes you realise how much stuff you have. Here is some of it stacked in the study.

The two chests of drawers fitted in the hallway just past the bedroom.

The mattress and base were in the bathroom and more stuff in the living room as well. Smaller items found temporary homes in the wardrobes.

It was a sunny day and I took the opportunity to wash and air all of the bedding.

The carpet is still a bit damp underfoot so we have re-assembled and made our bed and plugged in the alarm clock but other than that the rest of the furniture and effects will not be returned to their rightful homes until tomorrow evening.

I have cleaned all of the louvres in the living room (79 of them) and The Duke washed down the outside of the house and cleaned all of the outdoor furniture.

Blog posts may be a bit hit and miss for the next couple of weeks as we are really busy. In between full-time work, preparations for our overseas trip in 11 days ( who’s counting?), a milestone birthday celebration for The Duke, guests arriving on Thursday and preparing the house for the housesitters who will be here while we are away there is not a lot of time for blogging.

What’s happening at your place?

Another First

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Posted on July 6, 2014

Following on from my first attempt at patchwork, I decided to try my hand at some bunting. My thoughts on making this is exactly the same as patchwork – it should be about using up the scraps that you have – not buying a bundle of mix’n’match fabrics for a ‘perfect’ look.

Miss O and Izz are here tonight and they were keen to help. They both gave their opinions on the fabrics we chose to use and Miss O was able to turn the triangles after 2 sides had been stitched. I completed the turning with the aid of a knitting needle to fashion the point of the triangle. She also helped to arrange the sequence so that there was a good combination of patterns.

This is what we ended up with – a couple of metres of decorative bunting in a selection of pink tonings. There are large and small florals, checks, stripes and abstract prints. Some of the fabric is very lightweight and other is quite heavy. All of it has been salvaged from the offcuts of other projects – some new and some used.

It is a quick and fun project which uses a relatively small amount of fabric and produces an almost immediate result. A perfect school holiday activity if you have small helpers!

Planning – A Haircut

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Posted on April 24, 2014

I had my hair cut yesterday. Now that does not sound terribly exciting but I planned it carefully. You see, it is 15 weeks tomorrow evening until we fly to the UK for 6 weeks and since I regularly have my hair cut about every 7 weeks it was important for me to have it done just before we go.

We also have a milestone birthday celebration for The Duke 6 days before we leave so I want my hair to be freshly cut for that event.

When I went to the hairdresser I discussed all of this and with the aid of a calendar we worked out the appropriate dates. I will have 2 more haircuts before we leave – 12th June and again on 31st July. I will look a bit like a shaggy dog when we arrive back in the third week of September so another haircut will be on the agenda as soon as possible after we return.

The other thing we did this week was more directly related to our upcoming trip. We had new passport photos taken and sent off the forms for the renewal of our passports.

Enjoy the Experience

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Posted on March 24, 2014

I have written before about the benefits of experiences versus stuff, particularly in relation to children’s gifts.

On the weekend I bought tickets to a show. It is a musical called ‘Pete the Sheep’ and is based on a book of the same name by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley.

It is being staged at a local venue at the end of April and is suitable for 4 – 9 year olds so I decided that this would be a perfect Easter ‘gift’ for our 2 granddaughters. I do not think an overdose of chocolate is necessary nor over-the-top presents so this seemed like a perfect opportunity. I am sure they will remember an evening of musical theatre long after the chocolate wrappers are in the rubbish.

It was not all about the grandchildren, though. On Saturday afternoon, The Duke and I had an opportunity to see a screening of ‘Philomena’ by the Maleny Film Society. Enjoyable is not a word I would use, however, it was challenging and thought-provoking. It was perhaps not Judi Dench’s greatest role but I am glad I saw the film. We took the opportunity to become members of the society and look forward to seeing many more of the really interesting films that they bring to our community.

I have saved the best, or most exciting, till last. We have booked our tickets to see ‘Les Miserables’ at Queen’s Theatre in London when we are there in August. For years, The Duke has always said that he wanted to see Agatha Christie’s play, ‘The Moustrap’ if we ever went to London. A couple of years ago it was staged here in Brisbane and naturally we went to see it. So, he is now feeling a bit like ‘been there, done that’ about it. We trawled the internet to see what else was going to be on while we were in London and the standout for us was ‘Les Miserables’. We saw the Australian production back in the early 1990’s in Adelaide and of course, the recent movie with Russell Crowe’s cringeworthy performance. I love the story and the music and am really excited to be seeing it again.