Category Archives: Homemaking

My Life in Boxes

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I think the title says it all.

I started packing boxes about 6 weeks ago – a little bit at a time but the effort has really ramped up in the last week as the removalist deadline approaches – Friday is the big day.

Today we loaded the final few things onto the ute and took it to a friend’s place to store it until we are ready to leave Queensland in about 6 weeks.

Meanwhile, back to the boxes. We had packed boxes stacked up in no fewer than 4 different rooms so this afternoon GMan decided that it would be a good idea to put them all together downstairs in the garage.

This is the result!

And another view.

In other news, I received a notification from WordPress overnight to let me know that this is the 12th anniversary of Organised Castle. I must admit that I never imagined I would still be writing this 12 years later. My sincere thanks to all of my readers over the years. I have made some really special friends through the blog, too. Don’t forget to join the Facebook group of the same name if you would like to interact more and meet other like-minded readers.

My blog has been with me through some interesting times and probably none more so than our impending relocation. So, strap yourself in and come along for the ride.

Seen Better Days

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There are days when even I must admit defeat and today is one of them.

I have written before about a pair of shorts which I have modified and mended over a period of close to 30 years. You can read a bit more detail here.

Yesterday was the death knell for this much-loved garment. GMan and I went to the dump with a load of garden waste for a friend and I managed one final rip to my gardening shorts and I have to confess that they are now simply beyond any type of further repair.

If you are in any doubt here are some final photos before they go in the bin.

Front view.

Back view, including the final rip.

The inside showing multiple patches.

There is one more thing to do though. There is a perfectly good zip and button which can be salvaged.

Countdown – Cooking

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Removalist day (17th March) is fast approaching and it is time I gave some serious consideration to the kitchen and food.

It will be almost 8 weeks between the date that everything is moved and when we actually move into our new home in Victoria. In that time we will be housesitting near our existing home, spending a few days with family and then house-sitting for a week in Brisbane before spending 5 days driving to Victoria and another 10 days in an Air BnB before our final relocation. All of this means that although I will have the capacity to cook meals, my access to a full range of ingredients and implements will be somewhat limited.

So, this morning a made a list of some of the major ingredients I have. The next step is to create as many meals as possible that can be frozen and fairly easily reheated or finished off with the minimum of ingredients.

The first cab off the rank was a batch of chilli con carne using up diced onion, mince, kidney beans and refried beans from the freezer. It made 5 serves.

Ingredients

1 large onion, diced
250g mince
500g kidney beans
1 cup refried beans
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup water
2 teaspoons beef stock powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons smoky paprika
1 teaspoon powdered chilli
Tabasco sauce – to taste

Method

Gently saute the onion in a little olive oil, add the mince and stir until fully browned. Add the remining ingredients, combine and simmer gently for about 30 minutes. This will allow the flavours to combine and thicken slightly to a spicy, rich sauce.

NOTE: Adjust seasonings to suit your taste.

Building a Box

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Just when you thought that all of our attention would be focused on decluttering and packing for our impending move, you discover that we actually spent some of our time making, or at least repairing something.

Even though my father died over 20 years ago, his legacy lives on. We have 3 boxes which came from his workshop which we have used to store various items. 2 of them had been in our woodshed for several years and we discovered that the base of one of them had completely rotted.

We are planning to use these boxes to pack things from the workshop in and transport them to their new home on the tray of the ute.

The boxes had originally been made by my father from various scraps of masonite and the reinforced with metal angle.

GMan removed the rotted base of the box and metal angle surrounding the base by drilling out all of the existing rivets. He then cut some offcuts of pine to make a frame to fit inside the base and screwed the metal angle back in place.

The final step was to cut a new base. This was cut from a piece of scrap plywood which we sourced from a neighbour. It had been one of the signs for our combined garage sale a week earlier.

The view of the completed base.

A final view of the inside with a reminder of the source of the plywood.

With the plywood in place and secured with nails, the box is as good as ever and I expect it will last for many more years.

Countdown – 4 Weeks

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It is now exactly 4 weeks until the removalists collect our worldly possessions and pack them into a container to be freighted interstate.

This is both exciting and scary as I look around and see what still remains to be done. On the up side there are now 31 cartons packed and sealed. One of today’s projects was packing up the bottles of wine. I collected several cartons from our local bottleshop which made the job fairly easy.

I have also begun to tackle the kitchen. Most of what I have in the kitchen is used fairly regularly so I am loathe to pack too much just yet. However, I di manage to almost fill a carton with plastic storage containers, some platters and random things like icecube trays.

The pile is definitely growing and I even have a couple of completely empty cupboards.

Meanwhile, I am making baked potatoes for dinner. This is fairly unremarkable apart from the fact that I am doing them in the airfryer for the first time whereas I have previously used the slow-cooker. I will let you know how they turn out in a future post.

Feeding Us

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We are home again after our short trip away. It was not so much a holiday as a reconnaissance mission to our preferred relocation destination. After about 6 months of searching we may have found the ideal property. More about that in the next week or so.

In the meantime, I have packed a few more boxes – I think the count is up to about 22. I have a description and number on each box and a small notebook where I have recorded the number of each box with a more detailed description of exactly what is in it. I am hoping that this will make it easy when we come to unpack at our destination.

There is also the everyday jobs to ensure that we remain fed and clothed. Yesterday I caught up on the washing and ironing after having been away and this morning I am cooking.

We are by no means self-sufficient but we do grow some food and also prepare most of our meals from scratch.

In the interest of energy efficiency we try to cook multiple dishes in the oven when it is turned on. GMan was ready to bake sourdough bread this morning so I made a Zucchini Quiche and some baked meatballs. The bread at the rear of the photo is fruit loaf made in the breadmaker.

I picked the last of the eggplant before I pull the bushes out and clear out that garden bed. So, I am making a big batch of Eggplant and Green Bean Curry which will make at least 4 – 5 meals for us so most will go in the freezer. These will be handy for days when I don’t have the time or inclination to cook.

I had some nectarines which were not great for eating fresh so I stewed them and will use this fruit on my breakfast cereal in coming days.

I have also made a batch of coleslaw and hard-boiled 6 eggs ready for lunches, prepared the mashed potato and cut up green beans to go with the meatballs for dinner tonight. My final project for this morning is to make some more hummus.

Let’s Talk Packing

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I guess you thought from the title that I meant packing up an entire house.

No, just planning for a 4 night trip away. However, it will be to an area of distinctly inconsistent weather but it seems to be bordering on the cooler side (for summer) at the moment.

Two pairs of shoes.

A dress which can be worn with or without a cardigan.

Two pairs of trousers – emerald green linen pants and a pair of white slim-fit pants.

Two 3/4 sleeve tops.

Lightweight black pullover and cardigan.

White cotton shirt.

Short sleeve top.

Two scarves that will add both warmth and interest.

This is to cover predicted temperatures from 9C to 29C but mostly between about 15C and 22C.

It is interesting to note that the majority of the items were opshopped. The leather shoes were new last summer and one scarf and one top were bought new several years ago. The other scarf and cardigan were inherited from my mother. I made the white shirt from fabric that was given to me.

Use It Up

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Food is one of the less obvious things you need to consider when planning to move house. This is not a major issue if you are moving down the road or even across town but it is definitely a consideration when moving further afield.

We are moving to a different state and while jars of dry goods can be packed in boxes as with other household items the contents of the refrigerator and freezer are a different story.

It is still about 7 weeks until we depart but it is never too soon to consider how best to use the contents of the refrigerator and freezer. I am fairly aware of what I have available and will be working towards using this up. Of course, I will still be buying fresh fruit and vegetables.

Yesterday I made a big batch of Eggplant & Bean Curry. This vegan and gluten-free dish is definitely one of our favourites.

EGGPLANT & BEAN CURRY

Ingredients

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 large onion, cut into wedges
1 tablespoon Massaman curry paste
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
500ml water
1 can light coconut cream
2 large potatoes, diced into 1cm pieces and cooked until tender
600g eggplant, diced into 1cm pieces
300g green beans, prepared and cut into 2cm lengths

METHOD

Prepare the vegetables as per the ingredient list. Heat the oil, add onion wedges, curry paste and spices, toss until well combined and the onion is softened. Add the diced eggplant, combine and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the water and stock powder. Simmer until volume is reduced slightly. Add the potatoes, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add more water if required. Stir in the coconut cream and simmer to reduce slightly if required. Finally, add the beans and cook for about 5 minutes.

I serve this with a small quantity of brown rice. You do not need to add too many carbs as there is already potato in the curry.

NOTE: The quantities are based on what I had available and the desired level of spiciness. You can adjust according to your own tastes. I use this basic curry sauce for of curry dishes. It is particularly good with a dish based on cauliflower, too.

This made a total of 8 serves (4 meals) for GMan and I. We had one for dinner and the remainder was portioned up and went into the freezer. That is 3 more meals I will not have to prepare in the next 7 weeks.

Packing Priorities

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We now have a contract for the sale of our home. While the contract is still conditional for a couple more weeks, it is time to really start moving forward with preparations for our move.

I have been sourcing previously used packing boxes and today I packed up 9 boxes of books from the bookshelves in our office/library area.

With a little over 7 weeks until moving day most of my focus is going to be on preparing for the big day and blog posts will mostly reflect that over the coming weeks. I will cover various aspects of how we handle the preparation.

It is 17 years since our last move. We have spent much longer in our current home than anywhere we had lived previously. However, we have decluttered and simplified during that time and it will be interesting to see how that impacts the moving process.

When we came here both of our daughters had left the family home but only relatively recently so we still had quite a lot of possessions that related to them but that is no longer the case.

More information on our future plans will unfold over the next few weeks.

Packing Up

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It is a little over 2 months since I first mentioned that we had listed our home for sale. After almost 3 months on the market (including the Christmas and New Year period), we are close to finalising the sale.

Although we will have professional removalists who will pack all of the breakable items, there is no good reason why I cannot pack up things like linen, clothes, sewing fabrics and books. However, packing up an entire house in a few days is not my idea of fun, even if our possessions are relatively minimal.

So, I have begun to pack some non-essential and rarely used items. I have sourced various boxes as well as some plastic crates.

At the moment the packed boxes are stacked in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom.

I also used suitcases to pack some of our out-of-season clothes. This made sense since the suitcases need to be relocated so they might as well be filled with clothes.

I intend to do something towards packing each day or two so that I can spread it over a few weeks and it is not too onerous.

In the next couple of days I will be emptying all of the good crockery, glasses and serving platters out of the sideboard. This has been sold and will be picked up at the end of the week.