Author: Snoskred

Vale Queen

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Last Saturday I noticed Queen was sitting down. This was unusual for her, she is normally a high energy girl. She also is Not A Fan Of Humans, so when I approached her and she was unable to take off like she normally would, fleeing like I am a demon chasing her, I knew she was a sick girl. In fact my first thought was we should take her to the vet right away to be euthanased, because she must be very sick if she would not flee me.

The Other Half was a bit more optimistic than I was, so he suggested we isolate her, examine her to see if we can find anything wrong, dose her with Ivomec which kills worms and any nasties, and keep an eye on her. Sometimes a chook just needs a bit of time away from the flock if they are not feeling the best.

After 24 hours we had seen some signs of improvement but we really had no idea what might be the problem, so I called the vet on Sunday to see if our exotic vet might be available that week. Unfortunately she was on holiday, but the vet on call convinced me to bring her in for an exam as she did have some experience with chickens and wanted to feel her abdomen etc.

We’d already done all of that ourselves but I wanted to at least get an antibiotic for her. If we’d put BeeGee on an antibiotic right away we may have had a better chance of fighting her ear infection. Queen had a high temperature. We took an x-ray – the only thing being seen was slightly larger kidneys, which pointed to a possible kidney infection.

She was still eating and her poops were fine, so those are good signs. She was able to stand and move about. We decided we wanted to give her a chance to fight the infection, so the vet gave Queen a long lasting painkiller shot, an antibiotic shot, a vitamin shot, and some medication for the next few days.

We set her up with our chook cam, so we could watch her 24/7 without disturbing her, and gave her some time. We only disturbed her twice a day for medication, adding more food and changing the paper towel in her enclosure, and at night we settled her in our special towel setup. Healthy chickens are able to tuck their head under their wing to sleep – unwell chickens are sometimes unable to do that, so you want to give them somewhere for their head to rest.

After our experience with BeeGee, I struggled quite a bit because I had done a lot of work with her, trying to bring her back to health. I really missed her. I was very determined not to get my hopes up and not to get too attached to this gorgeous chicken who suddenly was not fleeing away from me. But I knew that was her personality, so she must not be feeling well to be compliant and allow us to handle her.

We did see some encouraging signs – usually at night right after we gave her the painkiller she was able to tuck her head under her wing for a while. By Wednesday all of the signs were bad, so we made the difficult decision to let her go. It was the right decision for her. By the time a chicken shows you that she is unwell, she is usually *very* unwell.

Queen was one of our new girls, so we really did not have as much time with her as we hoped to have. She was not a fan of humans at all, which made her difficult to get to know. She was very flighty and able to fly. Her greatest joy was to fly up onto the fence next to the man cave and consider escaping to the other side, but the one time she managed to do it she did not enjoy being returned to the yard by the humans, so she would just stand there and look around.

She loved all treats but her most favourite was yoghurt and mealworms. When we first got her it took a while for her to work out how to get into the coop at night, and she would often end up on the roof of it rather than inside it. Eventually she got the hang of how to go to bed.

As I always post when this happens – there are 6 other chickens in the yard for whom life continues. They live minute by minute, sucking the most joy out of each and every moment, whether it is a dirt bath, finding a bug, eating a treat from the humans.. all we can do is love them while they’re here, protect them the best we can from predators, know when it is time to let them go, and remember them when they are gone.

One night at chook pen lockup time, The Other Half startled our Queen as she was returning to the enclosure. She took off like a crazy thing, flying over the fence. The Other Half called me and we had to run around to the other side of the fence to retrieve her, but she’d gone to ground in some blackberry bushes. I was to guard one end of the escape route, and the other half tried to capture her, but she’d seen enough, so she flew up into the sky and did a complete circle over the top of our house.

She flew right over the top of me like a majestic 747. It was a sight to see, and if I close my eyes I can still see it now.

Fly high, my Queen. Until we meet again, but next time please do not be quite so scared of me. :)

Vale Pets

Year Of Buying Nothing Update #7

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Another successful no-buy month. Keeping the tally – Our record thus far – January, February, April, May, July = nothing bought. March, June = something bought. Out of 7 months, two = a buy month.

I did have to buy some clothes for work but I was reimbursed for those. I want to give a shout out to W.Lane and their comfort jeans which don’t really look like jeans at all but are super comfortable for work.

July No Spend Days

Almost made the goal of 7 days. Unfortunately the total was 8.

So on the list of spending, not counted this month will be my dentistry, the dentistry for Happy who broke a tooth, and other cat related vet bills, plus one chook related vet bill. These are things that were necessary and not something I could arrange to pay on specific days.

No Spend Goals For August

I would like to try for 4 spend days in August. We don’t have anything special planned, other than a possible night out in late August. But we do have family visiting and it is my favourite Aunt who loves to shop, so.. crossing my fingers on this one.

July Grocery Spending

Coles sent us a 10,000 points offer and this time we decided to see if we could do it. Three of the weeks were in July.

So how did we do at spending $50? It seems like a small amount but I found it was really difficult to get to that amount. I could usually make $30 in a shop but after that I began to struggle, and I don’t like to pad it out buying extra chicken roasters especially if they are not on special.

Week 1 $55.90 (bulk potatoes & eggs)
Week 2 $56.03 (bulk bread mix & paper towel)
Week 3 $54.52 (bulk a2 milk here instead of Aldi, eggs)

There was also a small shop in the first fortnight before I got the offer which was $15.50.

With Aldi I have been keeping a decent stock of the things we regularly use so we could do a smaller shop for the second fortnight (just $34) and use up all our stocks, buying any extras we needed from Coles. I ran out of pineapple, feta cheese and olives. The last was a good run out because I am now using up stuffed and marinated green olives which are not pizza olives but needed to be eaten.

Grocery Budget for July – $620

Coles – 181.95
Aldi – 327.20
Woolworths – 30.97 total
Total grocery spend – $540.12
Grocery cost of $17.42/day.

Bulk Items Budget = $100
Bath & Body Works bulk toiletries $92

Grocery Spending Goals For August

August has 31 days = $620

July Thoughts

I ran out of freezer mushrooms for the first time in a while. I can’t tell you how awesome it has been to not even have to think about it, to just have them there and available on Pizza day each week.

July was a difficult month teeth wise. I mentioned that I broke off part of my long ago fixed by a root canal but waiting for the restoration tooth and had to finally suck it up and do the restoration.

I did not mention that when we arrived home from our Sydney trip we discovered that Happy had broken off quite a bit of her large canine tooth. You know the ones right at the front that look a bit like vampire teeth? So The Other Half went to google and returned quite upset at some of the horror cat teeth tales he’d seen. It didn’t seem to be bothering her and she certainly was eating well enough but we knew a vet visit was called for.

We learned that root canals for cats are not a done thing for the most part. It is mainly extraction, so that tooth had to come out. She also needed a cleaning – we knew that from our last vet visit – and we found out about Prozym which is something you can put in the water to help keep the teeth cleaner and that will be good for her because she gets tartar building up very easily unlike any of our other cats.

While they were doing the extraction they checked all the other teeth and found another broken one, on the other side of the mouth. She likes to do “crazy run around cat” at super high speeds and we think she’s run into something and that is how this happened. But we weren’t here, so we don’t know for sure.

Let us hope for a less tooth eventful August. :)

2018yobn

One Night In Parramatta, Part 2

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

A quick stop at L’Occitane in The Rocks to replace my two handbag hand creams. I’ve been out of my handbag Verbena for a few months now, and it was good to replenish this. The scent is unbelievable. As I am a member, and it was Bastille Day, you got an extra little bonus gift for saying a French word. Croissant was my choice. All those primary school french lessons paying off at last? Well no, because everyone knows Croissant. :)

We also visited the Rocks Markets which were so incredibly packed. I have never seen so many people try to navigate a small area like that before. It was essentially several single file queues moving slowly in between some market stalls. No photos, because it was insanity of the highest order. We were very glad to get out of there alive.

Back to Circular Quay then on the train to Central, then on the train to Parramatta. I was surprised at how easy Central was to navigate, considering it is a massive train station with lines going everywhere. 25 platforms is a bit more than I grew up with in Adelaide – where I think from memory we had 11 or 12, but really only the 4 lines and you couldn’t mess it up because they went in very different directions. Here, some of the lines cross over and a train might stop at the station you want to go to, or it might not.

The water fountain for kids to play in lights up at night. How pretty! Nobody was playing in it, because it was very very cold. The next morning it was a hangout birdbath for the local pigeons.

Back to our hotel and it was a lovely view of after-sunset from the windows.

We headed up to the club room for late afternoon coffee, canapes, cheese and crackers, and various other treats which were very filling. Not pictured are the butter chicken filo pastries, the arancini, the beetroot tartlets, and several other small treats. We were too busy enjoying the food to take many photos and these were an afterthought. One reason why it can sometimes be good value to pick a club room stay is because you can save money on eating out and drinks. By the time we’d spent an hour here we did not need dinner.

You can also save on drinks – alcoholic drinks were available if you wanted them, mostly wine and beer, but there was also a range of soft drinks available and you can take what you need back to your room. You can visit the room as often as you like during your stay, and the room itself is a lovely sanctuary to spend some time on very comfortable furniture.

There is always room in my stomach for Gelato Messina, though. Was it too cold for gelato? Is it ever too cold for gelato? My usual salted caramel and white chocolate teamed with chocolate sorbet. I’m faithful to that order, if they have those flavours I do not even have to take a moment to think.

The next morning we were up super early for breakfast. 7am start. There was a large conference of young religious people from America staying in the hotel. Apparently we need evangelism here in Australia, or something, but they team it up with lots of tourism and that is a win for these young folks, I think.

The reason I am mentioning this is because, the last time I was here, people were in their pyjamas getting breakfast. These people were some of the best dressed breakfast eaters I have ever seen. The men were mostly in suits, mainly floral dresses for the ladies. It was Sunday morning so these may have been going to church outfits. I enjoyed my breakfast, and the outfits, even the gingham little house on the prairie 3 layer ruffle skirt looks. Yes, I wish I had got a photo but I did not even take my phone with me, preferring the Pillow Safe.

The next stop for us was Westfield Parramatta. Mainly for a wander and explore. I wanted to check out Daiso because I knew that was there, but the rest of the stores were mostly a surprise. We spent time in Zara to see if they had a new jacket for The Other Half (no but we will find it one day) – Uniqlo and Kathmandu to find new warmer work clothing for me – in my Year Of Buying Nothing, I am not counting work clothing FYI, as it is a non-optional spend and some of it I do get reimbursed for.

We could have spent hours in Daiso just wandering about. Some useful items were found – mainly bulldog clips and lanyards. We probably could have spent hours in front of this particular section – the oil and water flip over thingies.

I had never seen a two colour one of these before. Perhaps we do not get this kind of thing on the South Coast of NSW, or maybe I just don’t spend enough time looking around. We must have stood there flipping these things over for 20 minutes or more. Yes we are easily amused.

One final stop at Bath and Body Works, where all this goodness cost me the not-very-huge sum of $92. They were having a sale, and these were bargains. The four orange bottles alone should have cost me $100 by themselves, but they were buy 3 get one free. I normally have to get Sephyroth to ship these in from the USA for me, as they used to be even more up money here and I love the scent. Orange and Ginger is my favourite, it is a real wake up smell.

The black cherry merlot hand cream and hand wash were a last minute grab as they had all the flavours at the cash register without lids on and one sniff of this told me it was that fake cherry kool aid smell that I deeply love. The hand cream has joined the L’Occitane in my handbag, and my hands will be sufficiently moisturised and scenty for many future months.

One final stop on the way home – to Leichhardt for The Peanut Butter Bar! Maybe you heard of this on Facebook, the place with the peanut butter tap? We had a protein shake each and shared the protein peanut butter pancakes for lunch. They were amazing. The gelato has protein in it!

I am a big believer in what they are doing, which is essentially this “From gelato and pudding to slices and cookies, we’ve re-designed your favourite desserts by adding the power of natural protein and avoiding refined sugars and preservatives.” This has great worldwide franchise written all over it.

Parramatta, Sydney

Third Pillow

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

Something dangerous has been taking place in our bedroom lately. With the colder weather, we have two cats on the bed each night. We have a king bed and the pillows we like from IKEA are not very wide, so we have a gap in between the pillows. At least, we used to. Now that gap is filled with Third Pillow.

This third pillow purrs, it is fluffy and furry, and you have to be very careful not to accidentally touch it on the hind quarters as third pillow might choose to give you the claw.

Happy is what we like to call a sandbag, but that is a story for another post.

kitties

Have You Lost Your Mind, Coles?

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Do I want to know more, about this?

Are you kidding me, Coles?

So you are offering me free collectible branded mini things, if I spend money in your store.

Oh, and now you want people to buy stuff to go with your “free” things? SRSLY?

I have some more questions for you, Coles. Just how much money did you waste on this? Is this stuff plastic? Of course it is. Didn’t you just go to all that effort to get rid of single use plastic bags from your stores?

I “recycle” more than enough of the real sized packaging. I certainly do not need any mini sized branded items. I am sure this is lovely and nice and fun for the kids, but you know what I would prefer instead? Australian grown products on the shelves. I do not want Chinese grown champignons. How about you spend some time, effort and money on getting back to giving us decent products to buy.

Or even, I don’t know, fix the floors in our local store which have had yellow and black duct tape on them for some months now so that people don’t trip over broken lino.

Or clean – or replace – the egg shelves, which are truly disgusting. Yes I took a photo but I am not going to inflict it on my poor unsuspecting blog readers, it is *that* bad. Eew. If my egg cartons actually were placed on those shelves there is no way I could buy them – thankfully they are protected by a cardboard box instead, which makes me feel a bit bad that I am thankful for more cardboard, but that is the uncomfortable situation your lack of cleanliness places me in.

You should know, Coles, that I am spending less and less money with you. Why not spend some time and money figuring out why that is the case, instead of wasting time on this junk.

Even worse, it is made in China junk, and designed by a company from the Netherlands. You don’t think you could have found someone here in Australia who could create and manufacture this junk?

Did you really need to line this packaging with plastic, too?

shopping

One Night In Parramatta, Part 1

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

When my friend and I went to see Take That in concert last November, we stayed at the Parkroyal Parramatta. As we walked to the train station and back again, I had the feeling this is an area I would like to explore some more, and secretly in my mind I was already planning to bring The Other Half back here for a stay sometime.

There are so many food options nearby, there is Westfield Parramatta, there is a quick train ride into Sydney if we want to travel there but the carparking is far cheaper in Parramatta (eg $20 overnight VS $50-60 overnight) and most importantly they have a Gelato Messina very close by.

I signed up for the Discovery rewards program when I made the booking at the Parkroyal, and when we last stayed overnight in Canberra I chose one of their partner hotels. Just by signing up you get some basic benefits but the best one in my opinion is the emails they send you with special offers. First they told us they would upgrade us to the Club level, which includes access to their club room where you have all day treats, canapes and drinks in the evening, and executive breakfast in the morning. This is normally around $250-280.

Then they told us we could have breakfast in Table 30 for free – which we paid for on our first visit and it was a really great breakfast, one of the best I’ve had in a while. The price was just $155 for everything, which we felt was super reasonable. So the booking was made a couple of months ago, and finally it was time to go.

I’ve been trying to visit the Sydney Harbour Pylon and the “new” food court at Gateway since.. well. 2016. My plans have never worked out thanks to other people putting the kibosh on them. Not this time, blog friends. This time I will go! The photo above is at Parramatta train station waiting for our train into Sydney. The Other Half finally got an Opal card on the way here, so now we can both navigate Sydney Transport easily.

On arrival at Circular Quay, we discovered that the Bastille Festival and school holidays had the place absolutely packed. I have never seen so many people here before. You can’t see it very well in my photo sadly, but this post from Sydney Shop Girl who was also here on the same day might give you a better idea of the crowds.

We headed straight to Gateway to check out the food offerings. There are a lot of things to choose here including Gelato Messina but I had that planned for dessert this evening, so we opted for The Burger Project – a Neil Perry creation which serves delicious burgers, shakes, fries, and you can even get your burger in a bowl and avoid the carbs of a bun if you so desire.

Neil Perry is a food genius and quite involved with in flight catering for Qantas. The best salad dressing I ever ate was served on a flight with his name on it. The food at the Burger Project is excellent but my heart belongs to the Salted Caramel shake which really brings the salt. We did not make it here until just after 2pm and we had places to be, so we ate quickly and headed off into the Circular Quay crowds towards the Bridge.

The Rocks is an area I am very unfamiliar with but it somehow feels burned into my DNA. While The Other Half had no idea where we were going, my inner compass led us to the right places while passing some of the most interesting places. There is a sense of enormous history here, teamed with an impression of just how small we are in the company of giants like the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

There are also many levels – here we are standing on a bridge looking at a lower level of road with a bridge above it and then a bridge above that too.

Our destination was the Pylon Lookout which is a MUCH cheaper option than Bridge Climb – $30 for the two of us vs $636!!! You can see the engraved ceremonial scissors used to open the bridge, which are set with opals. You can click on this photo for a larger view. This is a momentary stop in the 200 stairs one will climb to get to the top of the pylon. Sadly there is no lift option, it is stairs or nothing here. But there is a good reason to climb them all..

This amazing view. What a gorgeous day in the middle of winter. Sure, I was wearing many many layers plus a beanie, but it was worth it.

Here are some folks completing their expensive BridgeClimb, wearing the special outfits, without their cameras. That is another advantage to the Pylon – you can wear what you like and take your camera with you, and stay there for as long as you like taking as many photos as you like.

We discovered that cats used to live up here. This photo was quite terrifying but a google shows me even more scary cats on the bridge photos.

Next Monday – a quick stop in The Rocks, back to the hotel, Gelato Messina, and a day at Westfield Parramatta.

Parramatta, Sydney

No thanks, Dyson.

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I can’t even, with this new hand dryer thing.

Let me first say I was never a Dyson vacuum cleaner fan because I find bagless = mess when you have to empty it, especially if you are emptying it into a dumpster out the back of the shop that you just vacuumed and it is a windy day. I prefer my Miele where the bag closes up nice when I remove it, no dust, no fluff, everything I vacuumed up is all trapped nicely inside.

The airblade hand dryer is probably one of the best inventions of our generation. It is speedy, your hands dry very quickly, you do not get water all over the floor and over yourself, and it saves people having to use paper towel.

There are two downsides – they are not very hygienic so work hard not to touch them and sometimes drunk men mistake them for a urinal. Eew.

There is another Dyson hand dryer which is nowhere near as good, and to be honest until recently I thought it was the most stupid invention ever, but Dyson figured that invention had not been quite stupid enough, why not take another crack at inventing the most stupid thing ever. Stores, restaurants, malls, pretty please spend the extra $100 and get a much better product.

What happens with this one is, you get water all over yourself because the air is blowing towards you, which blows the water towards you. If it is a choice between using this and wet hands, I pick wet hands every time.

So, meet the new contender for most stupid hand dryer..

What happens with this one is, the air blows into the sink where you just finished washing your hands, blowing water and in some cases soap you just washed off your hands all over the place including over yourself.. Do not waste money on this, people in charge of bathroom upgrades at various places in the world.

Worst of all, the place that installed the idiotic tap version of the airblade got rid of the decent airblades to do it! Wollongong Central, I am sure you installed this to be trendy and hip and have the most expensive new best thing, but this hand dryer is useless.

electrical appliances

Be Present Now

8 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Oh my goodness. People and their mobile phones. I am about ready to shove these things in the place the sun does not shine.

In the past few weeks, I have avoided drivers on their phones, cyclists riding while texting and looking at their Facebook feed, people actually running while looking at their phones and not at where they are going, and people walking while doing that.

I have seen parents sitting at the playground with no eyes on their kids and all eyes on their phone.

I have been to concerts where people filmed the entire thing on their mobile phone.

We sat recently at a restaurant where two parents completely immersed themselves in their phones and ignored their kids for quite a significant amount of time.

My phone NEVER comes out of my handbag when I am driving in the car. NEVER. If I am driving, and it beeps, I wait until I get to my destination, or I pull over to the side of the road. I did not need a video of people using their phones while driving to tell me never to do that. But if you do need such a video, here it is.

My phone rarely makes it out of my handbag out in the world. It is there in case I need to call someone in an emergency. If I need to use it while walking, I do something SO CRAZY, apparently. I find a place out of the way of other people, stop, and do the thing I need to do, which is usually reply to a message quickly.

I do not have Facebook on my mobile phone. There is no Twitter, no Instagram, no social media at all on my mobile phone. If I am going to use those things, I do that safely on my laptop in the comfortable embrace of my recliner, which does not have wheels or a steering wheel. As far as I am aware, my recliner at this present time is not capable of murdering other people as a surprise while I am trying to type a message. Unless perhaps it was dropped from a crane.

I do have one free messaging app, mainly used to send photos to The Other Half or to Sephyroth. Otherwise my phone is for taking photos while out and about, and for making actual calls. I might play a game while waiting for an appointment, and for a few minutes to wind down before bedtime, but not while walking, running, cycling or driving, because THAT IS INSANE.

I don’t see dead people, but I see plenty of soon to be dead people if they don’t wake up and smell the coffee. I see people leave their lane and drive into the lane of oncoming traffic all the time on our roads. Are they trying to win a Darwin award? Are they going to take out other people who were doing nothing wrong in the process?

Now there is a video of a guy who deliberately bumped into people who were so immersed in their mobile phones while walking that they could not avoid walking into him. Watch that video and then make the decision never to use your phone while driving again, because look at how those people cannot walk while using their phone let alone operate a vehicle that can MURDER people.

Are we already in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse where people have lost their minds, just without the brain eating?

Please do not put your valuable life and the valuable lives of those around you by using your mobile phone while walking, running, riding a bike, driving a car, riding a horse, rollerblading, kayaking, driving a boat.. :)

But my even better advice to everyone is this –

PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN AND BE PRESENT IN THE NOW.

It’ll be fun. Snoskred said so. :)

Angry Snoskred

The Things I Don’t Share

8 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

For every post you get from me, there are at least 1200 unwritten, unsaid things that happen which I do not share with you. I cannot share my every thought with you, ain’t nobody got time for that. :) Sometimes they might be things I mean to share but never get around to writing a post about. This photo above was from Eat Street the first time we went and I could have sworn I wrote a post about it but when I searched for it, I could not find it.

I tried Kombucha and I liked it. I meant to tell you, but alas I thought I had and somehow I forgot.

Last Wednesdays True Story Time was written in January but I put off posting it. I wasn’t sure I ever would post it. It was a very long post and still I did not mention how that particular kind of car stalked me for months afterwards, and it still does now. I can’t help but notice them with that identifiable rear tail light stack.

I was seeing them everywhere. I could not go for a short drive without 5 passing me. They even showed up in my Facebook feed, either involved in accidents and pictured via the local police or for sale, and then the kicker was spotting one in a movie I was watching.

For some reason my Aspie skills decided I needed to be aware of all Holden Captivas in the Shoalhaven and I had no idea there were so many, but like the Volkswagen Polo I can now tell you where many of them regularly park, where those I see nearby actually live, and my Aspie radar lets me know if I have seen that particular one before or not.

Then there are the things I don’t share because they are private, like work related stuff. I was at work recently and I took a photo. The Other Half saw it and said you’re not going to post that, are you? Of course not. I have carefully drawn a line between my work life and this blog. It is partly for my own safety, and partly because while I find my own work fascinating and enjoyable, I sincerely doubt anyone else would. As much as I might like to share these things, I simply will not.

There are things I don’t share, like local art classes, because they end up on Facebook via another means and that could make me somewhat identifiable. As much as I want to tell you, I won’t.

I do have many stories of past work life I could share, and a couple written as drafts but not posted. Maybe one day. I would like to talk about how my Aspergers has affected my work life. I have been unpacking that very carefully with my Qualified Adult for some time now.

I don’t talk about my Qualified Adult here. She is a psychologist, and wonderful. I have been seeing her for some years now, sometimes we take a break when things are going well, sometimes I need to go back and check in when things start to Go Not Well.

I don’t talk about my political or religious views here. They are my views and I keep them to myself. Sometimes I might mention things in a comment on someone else’s post, but the reality is my general view of politicians is they aren’t much use. We do have a local guy here who gets shiznit done, and I have a lot of time for him. But the rest of them I don’t have a lot of time for.

I don’t talk about my friends or family very much. I don’t recall if I have mentioned here that my nephew is now training to be a pilot at University. I don’t remember if I mentioned my parents will soon retire.

I don’t often talk about visiting my doctor or – as happened last week – the dentist. 12 years ago I had a root canal done after an amalgam filling put in by the School Dentist in my teenage years cracked the tooth around it like an eggshell. It is a common thing to happen apparently. This past week I have finally got around to organising the restoration.

Well, a blackcurrant fruit pastille made it necessary, as it chose to take a chunk of my broken tooth with it as a surprise. As I sit here I have a temporary crown and I was told to be careful with it. I am wondering if a diet of protein gelato might not be my best course of action, for the next two weeks.

He did tell me that my teeth are doing very well. I was shocked and quite pleased not to receive the usual telling off, for not brushing correctly or long enough or in circles, or whatever. I will have to go back in two weeks for a permanent crown and some cleaning.

It does make me wonder though, who decided that the Blackcurrant fruit pastille should be available in packets on their own. What about the other flavours? Are they not worthy of their own packet? Was the red one not quite awesome enough? That flavour would have been my pick for a separate packet. These are the kind of thoughts I would normally keep firmly inside my own mind, or remark to The Other Half about, instead of write here. Thank my interior editor, folks! ;)

Sometimes I might not tell you about something because I don’t have photos to go with it. Several recipes sit and wait for a time when I remember to take photos as I make that thing, including my INCREDIBLE chocolate, peanut butter and coconut crunch slice which is almost like a chocolate crackle only I like to pretend it is more healthy thanks to coconut oil.

Maybe you will have to just settle for photos of the completed item, if you can do that I will post it. But also with a lot of recipes I fly by the seat of my pants and don’t have set amounts of ingredients. I don’t share every photo that I take because 95% of them are of the cats and cute as they might be, they get an occasional Friday post.

I have not told you about the current chicken kerfuffle at bedtimes because I don’t want to take flash photos of the girls at night and I have been hoping The Other Half would set up the motion camera and I could take images from that, and maybe even show you a video, but he has been busy installing new perches in an attempt to make everyone go inside the coop of their own accord at dark time, and we have had to employ The Scary Stick to force the uncooperative inside and shut the door until they settle.

I don’t tell you about every occasion of eating out or traveling, though you do get a fair bit of our day trips and this past weekend we went up to Sydney for an overnight which will come to you likely next week.

I have 60+ posts still in drafts which may or may not make it to being posted. I have a number of possible drafts floating around in my skull brain. Will they ever make it to your eyes? I don’t know.

This post was partly inspired by some posts by Sooze at Her Indoors, Him Outdoors.

Thank You.

I would like to take a moment to thank those of you who read here regularly. I don’t know how many of you there are and how many of my posts you read, so if you want to take a moment to delurk on this post and say hi, I would appreciate it, especially if you have a blog I can read.

Making Choices, stuff