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Sunday Selections Week 40

19 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

weewillem

I think for the foreseeable future, we will make the first Sunday of the month Garden Check In day. The Dianthus in our older planter pot from 2014 are flowering again.

About four weeks ago we did some new planting and two weeks ago I posted this update post.

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The flyscreen wrapped garden box is doing very well. We’ve had a praying mantis which has been hanging out on top of it.

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The sunflower seeds have turned into tiny plants.

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The Nasturtiums are having a wonderful time in their new home. The chooks quite often stand on the hardware wire but they do not eat the plants. In a couple of weeks I will feel secure enough to take this ex-kitty door off.

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As you can see, the jasmine has climbed high up the arch. It is smelling awesome!

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Next time I will show you the progress of some new plants we have purchased, including my first ever succulent – Portulaca. Here they are as I was buying them in the garden centre.

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And a close up of the Portulaca. There were 6 seedlings in here.

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The chooks have been getting plenty of free ranging time, and Kitty Supervisor is on the job. I’ve kept that pot on the table for a couple of weeks to make sure the sunflowers get a decent start without a chook eating them incident, but that meant the cats could not eat the cat grass. It was good for the cat grass because they had been chowing down on it, and it needed a break from kitty teeth! ;)

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Kitty Supervisor can watch them down here from a side window which is good, because they like to venture down here to some very old lawn clippings and leaves which were left here for a couple of years to turn into bug filled mulch – AKA happy meal time for chooks! There is a gate which shuts this area off if and when new clippings are left here – however that has not happened in some time, the bag catcher is broken.

Weekly Wrap Up –

Daylight Savings starts today here in Australia. Normally this is my favourite time of year because in previous years I have suffered from SAD – that is Seasonal Affective Disorder – however this past winter I did a lot better than usual. I’m crediting the evening candle show, an LED light changing shower head, and LED lights throughout the house for that improvement.

So today I am a little bit sad to be saying goodbye to 5-6 hours of candle time a day. I’ll still be burning candles of an evening and I think that is a long term change for the better for me, it will just be candles for a shorter amount of time each day, and more time outside in the evening for plant watering and chooky chores.

In scheduling news, I already have two posts scheduled for 2016. All my Wednesday posts are written for the rest of the year, and I am scheduled out to November for the other blog days. I like to write ahead, and sometimes posts come up that are time sensitive and the other not so time sensitive posts get pushed out further.

There Was An Incident –

Grumpy is extra grumpy this week. She did something to her eye – we are not sure what happened to start it off, but she was squinting a lot and somehow her bottom eyelid was turning in as a result. After making a vet appointment for Monday we were trying to get some photos to show the vet because we could fix the eyelid – turn it out the right way – and sometimes it would stay fixed for a decent length of time, so we could not guarantee it would happen when we were at the vets with Grumpy. Happy did a little photobomb.

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I did manage to get a decent in focus shot which showed the vet everything she needed to see, plus after I showed her the photo the eyelid started to turn in while we were there. That was the last time it turned in and I hope it never happens again!

Ever since Grumpy had that terrible Kidney Shutdown of 2014, she has not been a fan of vets at all. The only person that can hold her when we are there now is The Other Half, and he is the only person who can hold her when she needs to be medicated – which she has needed twice a day this past week for a tablet and ointment in her eye.

We went back to the vet on Friday for another eye dye and blacklight look. It seems like progress has been made, not just on the eye front but also a trip where the only thing that happens is dye in her eye might help her a lot with her vet fears.

We’ll keep up the ointment for another 7 days then take her back again next Friday. This time Happy will go along for a check up as well. I fully anticipate that once the vet finds her melty spot, she will lie down on the table, purr a lot, and ask for belly rubs. :)

The Martian –

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The Martian Official Website

We went to see The Martian this weekend. I’d started reading the book a few months ago. The book was something I knew The Other Half would deeply love, so I made him start reading it – and he finished it before I did! That is the fastest he has ever read a book in his lifetime.

I read the book again this week in preparation for seeing the movie and loved it just as much the second time. I was curious about a few things – would the movie begin with the same line as the book, which contains a pretty serious swear word? That would be fine in Australia but I really cannot see the US audience enjoying that. And how would they handle the night soil stuff?

The truth is, I suspect this might be the best space movie ever created, or at least a tie for first place with Apollo 13. Yes, there was some swearing. Yes, there was vacuum sealed poop. Yes, I did cringe at the whole poop thing being a germophobe, but I actually cringed more at Mark performing surgery on himself. There was nothing in the movie that I did not deeply enjoy. Matt Damon was brilliant as expected, so was everyone in it.

So if you have not read the book and you like science, space, Matt Damon, NASA and/or movies set in space, go and see the movie. If you like the movie, read the book. The movie runs for 2h20m, and it felt to me like it went for 30 minutes maximum. Sephyroth wrote about The Martian too. Beware though his post contains some spoilers if you have not seen it.

garden, Home, kitties, movies, Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up

A Kmart Trip

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

kmart90

Let us go for a quick virtual wander around Kmart together. Here we have some pet brushes for $6, a pet toy set for $3.50 – Happy loves the mouse on a stick in this packet so I have bought a few of them and keep them aside for later – at the bottom we have two different solar globes. I love the copper ones at $4 and the crackle glass ones are only $2.. Sadly these seem to be white only and we prefer the LED colour changing kind.

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Things got a little scientifical in the home decor section. There is a $4 beaker vase, some test tube vases @ $7, a gorgeous marble tealight candle holder for $9, and a coral pink cactus for $7. Do you see that little ceramic sausage dog? $5. I love that!

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This $12 copper vase we went back that night and bought, to fit in with my reflectatory candle shelf. Not that I will ever have flowers to put in it because The Other Half believes that is murder. *boggle* Yeah all those florists are secretly Dexter!

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I really love this mini shopping trolley. For $5! They call it a pen cup. I’m not sure how that would work but I can see it in my collectible cabinet.

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I already have the silver version of this but I am loving that light pink which is supposed to be a big colour this year fashion wise. At $2.50 this is a glittery awesome kind of contact paper.

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These coloured pencils are great value at $5 – especially the watercolour ones. The bear is super plush, and that is a pig moneybox which makes a noise when you put in a coin.

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The Other Half prefers his fashion chaotic and with skulls. At $10 these seem decent value. The second one with flaming skulls is a bit awesome!

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These jumpers with sequinned arms seemed a little bit odd to me. I really love the concept, do not get me wrong. There should be more sequins in the world. But the jumper part seemed a little cheap looking. Still, at $17 I might have bought it, but the sizes were all teeny tiny. Oh well. :) They made for a great photo!

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Hello Kitty pyjamas marked down to $8 from $15, these seem reasonable. And I love anything Hello Kitty.

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These jars with blackboard paint on them were reasonably priced given the amount of hassle it would be to paint them yourself. $4 for the smaller jar, and $5 for the larger one.

There, I took you to Kmart. Happy moments for all!

Home, shopping

Ice Spheres

15 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

sphere

When I was little, my Grandma had this wonderful ice block which would create round ice cubes. I loved that thing. There is something about an ice sphere that is so pleasing to me. So when we saw some wacky sphere ice cube moulds at Kmart for $2.00 we thought we would pick them up and give them a try. It was a trip down memory lane for me, somewhat.

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To begin with they were quite successful, though, over-filling them did create an Icicle Incident in the freezer.

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However as time went on, they developed leaks where you open the spheres to let the ice out, and generally caused a mess and became a bit of an epic fail. Instead of spheres, you got half a sphere and then a space with no ice because that water had leaked out onto the plate I kept them on. I could probably have filled them a second time once they had frozen enough to seal, but it was a little too much hassle and annoyance rather than fun.

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We’ve stopped using them now because of this epic failure. I’ll keep looking for something more like this and hopefully one day I might find one that makes the mini ice balls like my Grandma used to make.

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Grandmas was more like this but it had 3 lines of ice spheres. I already have an ice cube tray which makes those large square ice cubes and for the time being I will enjoy those.

Late Breaking Ice Sphere Update

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At the end of August, during our fortnightly Aldi shop, we spotted these ice sphere moulds.

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This mould makes large ice spheres very successfully. If they have some more of these on our next visit, I intend to pick up a couple more.

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They are not wrong when they say it creates a slow melting ice sphere. I made a drink at 6pm and by 8pm there was still a sizeable sphere in the glass. I suspect these will be fantastic in summer. Now, if only I can find a triangle ice mould, things could get really mathematical! :)

Over to you

Do you like a wacky ice cube? :) Do you have any ice cube memories?

family, growing up, Home

Pineapple Collection

18 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

pineapples
Gold and Silver pineapples at Pillowtalk

A while back, Kirsten over at Kirsten & Co wrote this post – My DIY Bar Cart Project – and in the comments I mentioned I would check out Target to see if I could get me one of the gold pineapples. When visiting Shellharbour to see Take That live back in July, I did drop into Kmart and they did not have any gold pineapples left. They did have metallic pink ones, but every single one was slightly damaged.

With my Kmart pineapples I bought as gifts for family, I regularly visited until I found a non-damaged pineapple. We have a Kmart nearby so regular visits was not a problem. With Target being a two hour round trip, regular visits were not going to happen.

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My friend who I went to see Take That live with suggested that I visit Pillowtalk to see if they had any pineapples. And it turned out, they did. The gold one was a little pricey for me at $49.95, but they are local and I can keep checking back until they go on special or on clearance which they eventually will.

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So, I bought the silver pineapple for $29.95 from Pillowtalk, and added it to my candle shelf in the entry way. I can see it from where I presently sit, reflecting the late afternoon sun rays from the sliding door. When it is night time, lighting the candles creates a lovely reflection from the silver pineapple, and also from the gold foil sleigh I have sitting on that shelf.

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The yellow one was originally a gift to my sister, but apparently it did not suit her partner and his design ethics and standards (alternatively it could be because he is an a**hole), and thus it was left behind when they went home after their visit.

After all those visits to Kmart to get a perfect one, I figured it would fit in well at my house, though yellow might not have been my personal first choice of colour. They had white and jade ones too, once upon a time. I never saw a perfect jade one, I did find a perfect white one which I gave to my parents, and it now sits on their stairwell shelf.

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So now that I have two pineapples, I guess I am starting a pineapple collection. I’ve seen a couple of others I would like to add eventually, as well. Kmart no longer stocks the pineapples, at least, not that I could find on my recent visits, otherwise I would still be trying for a jade one because that was gorgeous.

I will like to mention, Happy Actual Birthday to Sephyroth today. You may recall I changed his birthday to February, for reasons I explained in this post.

Sadly though, the movie Triple 9 which was meant to be released today has been delayed until March 2016.

Happy Snoskred, Home, Sephyroth

Sunday Selections Week 34

11 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

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Today I will like to share with you our lovely new vast vista of concrete. It will probably look a bit boring to you. I have to tell you, it is most definitely NOT boring to us. This has greatly improved our life. The area we got concreted was formerly gravel and potholes and one heck of a mess in wet weather.

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The concrete was done in 3 separate pours because there is a large rectangular area with a side triangle out the back which needed quite a bit of shaping and a drain put in. In the above photo you can see the triangle, and you can see the area which has some of our old gravel there. I am thinking this might be a great area for a cactus garden – inspired by River.

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This is the drain side and you can see my Polo is happily chilling out in her new and much improved home.

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There were also two pours for the driveway itself – one for the back half, and one for the front half. This photo shows where the first pour and second pour meet, taken from the laundry door facing the back of the property.

The laundry was a room where gravel regularly got tracked in. This meant doing the laundry 99% of the time you would step on a piece of gravel. I can tell you that stepping on one piece of gravel as a surprise to yourself is akin to stepping on a lego with bare feet, which I am sure has been declared a form of torture by multiple governments *and* is almost certainly used in some cultures as a replacement ritual for the ritual of stepping on hot coals..

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This view is taken from the laundry door and shows where the second and third pour meet. Our gates had to have some work done as one of the concrete trucks got bogged out there and ended up hitting the fence, sending everything out of square and the gates no longer met in the middle.

The laundry which opens onto this area is the entrance to the house which we use the most. This is the best place to bring in groceries without worrying about a cat escaping, plus, you can pull the car boot (trunk for our US friends) right up next to the door.

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Here you can see the concrete sealer shining in the sun. The driveway sparkles like a *Twilight vampire! YAY!

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This final shot shows where the new concrete and the old driveway at the front of the house meet. The old driveway is white concrete with one of those colour spray ons over the top. For the new driveway, the concretor suggested adding some grey colour into the concrete itself to match the spray on – it would last a lot longer and work better for everyone. I think it turned out much better than the original driveway.

Every day this week I have gone out to open the gate for the other half when it is his home time, and every single day, I have found myself trying to step *up* to the old concrete because I am so used to stepping up right there. When I go out the laundry door, I find myself hitting the concrete much earlier than my body expects the ground to be there. It is a massive change and it is taking some getting used to.

Would you like to join in? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

* No Twilight vampires were harmed in the making of our concrete driveway. :)

Weekly Wrap Up –

This week I was quite determined to stay at home and go absolutely nowhere, after two weeks of “Toodling” and “Gallivanting” with holidays and my Aunt and Uncle visiting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having them visit – it is just lovely to sit still in one place after so much travelling about.

Last Sunday we did the fortnightly shop, and I settled back in at home intending to write quite a few posts for the blog(s) and chill out with the kitties, some colouring in, NYPD Blue, a little Lumosity game I have become quite addicted to, and catching up on my reading.

The LCN Jig, It May Be Up.

I spotted this in my feedjit earlier today –

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I guess we’ll have to wait and see if they keep using the same name. That particular post continues to get a lot of views and comments here on the blog

Did you miss a post this week?

Monday – I told you about my holidays.

Wednesday – Sipowicz Says #1 – quotes from NYPD Blue will be a monthly feature here on the blog for the foreseeable future.

Thursday – I mentioned that 7 would be airing the first episode of Mr Robot. You might want to circle back and read my angry comments that I left on Friday while waiting for the show to actually air, for your own amusement. :) Can you guess how many minutes it was delayed by? Did you catch the show? If yes, leave a comment over there, I would love to know what you thought of it.

Friday – we revisited the Six Feet Under finale.

Over to you –

Did you get up to anything interesting this past week? :)

Aussie Culture, Happy Snoskred, Home

Happenings In Snoskredland

18 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

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Burning: These little candles from Aldi which cost $2.99 each. They smell delicious and provide a lovely warming glow. In general I am burning them for 1-2 hours each day and they last a week or so.

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Microwaving: These yummy Aldi puddings for 40 seconds and then serving with ice cream. The sticky date one is probably my current favourite.

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Moisturizing: Both feet and hands with this orange scented shea butter body cream that I brought back from Hawaii in 2013. It smells like you just peeled an orange and juiced it, in a good way.

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Sleeping: Two kitties have been sleeping in front of the gas heater with this artic blast.

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Enjoying: Some dark chocolate. We went to Coles and I said I wanted to be allowed to look at 3 things for as long as I wanted to look at them, because normally The Other Half rushes me in and out of there. All 3 things were in the chocolate area, and we stopped and discussed the various chocolate bars available. The Lindor Dark is an old reliable that we always enjoy.

Wondering: The Willies Cacao blocks are new buys for us, and oddly they are one solid piece of chocolate without any place to break them. It makes me wonder what people do with these – eat them in one sitting? Chop them up with a knife? Melt them down and use them for fondue?

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Snacking: I bought the Butterscotch and Vanilla Bean and I tried that first, it was awesome. This is a lovely version of Greek Yoghurt, just slightly sweet and plenty tart. So on the same night I asked to look at 3 things, I took a moment to grab the other versions of this from the shelf. The Boysenberry & Vanilla flavour is super tart, slightly too tart for me.

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Opining: I will always buy salted caramel flavours once to try them.. however, if you are going to get me to buy it again, you have to BRING it. On this occasion, they did not bring the salt. The caramel was ok, but the lack of salt means this will not be bought again by me. The butterscotch and vanilla is the winner and I highly recommend it. :)

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Standing: And driving, under the tail of the 747 at HARS. The place they have put it, you actually have to drive under the tail. And I got to have that moment I have waited all my lifetime for – to stand under a 747. Incredible!

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Washing: We thought we would give the new antibacterial scented liquid hand wash from Aldi a try, and the grapefruit flavour is a huge winner. I love it so much! We’ll keep buying it. The other flavour we tried – Lime Splice – is not very optimal, it is a bit sickly for me.

Home, shopping

Anxiety Level: High

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

ditchdig

I have just taken my first Valium in nearly a year.

I think the last time was around the 16th of July 2014, for work related reasons. Since I left work I really have not had much to stress me, until today.

When it comes to medication for anxiety, I feel much the same as Abbey Bartlet from The West Wing –

Do you know what this lifestyle does to the body? The minute your system senses stress it releases a hormone that constricts the blood vessels, contracts the heart muscles, stimulates the adrenal gland.

You stay in this state for not a hundredth of the time that you and I have existed like this and the vessels begin to shred. The heart permanently constricts. The intestines, the immune system, shut down. Relieving those conditions is the one responsible course of action I can take.

One of my biggest fears in life is The Other Half using power tools. Some of them I’m good with, like cordless drills. But anything that involves the potential for terrible injury, I am very fearful of those things.

There are good reasons to be fearful of these powerful items. The immediate story that comes to my mind is that of Gayle Shann which was on Australian Story – they just did an update on it in the last few weeks.. She survived but was terribly injured, losing one arm and the arm that was left has not regained any movement at all.

We’re going to have some concrete laid in weeks ahead, between the house and the “man cave” and to cover the gravel driveway. But before that can be done, The Other Half needs to dig a few trenches, one for the power to the shed, and a couple of drainage trenches.

So, until the ditch digger is returned, I will be under some stress. Fortunately for me, the Valium is starting to kick in, and rather than sit here curled in a stressed ball all day, I think I can get up and do the vacuuming and some other indoor jobs I have planned.

And that is a good thing – both for my mind, and my body. :)

A small technical note – the blog might go down for an hour or so later today, hopefully not, but the servers are in the man cave and the power will need to be turned off and reconnected.

fears, Home

There Was An Incident..

12 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

pflower1

There was an incident is a phrase heard regularly in our household. In fact it is somewhat of a normal occurance for The Other Half to arrive home from work and say “How was your day” to be met with.. “well, there was an incident..”

An incident in our household could be anything, from spilling sugar or dripping tea onto the counter from a non-cooperative tea bag.. right up to me walking into something and leaving a massive bruise, or somehow damaging myself in some way. Whatever the incident, when this phrase is spoken, the listener knows that the full story of the incident will be coming to them as a surprise.

The term originates from my being an aviation nerd and the FAA and NTSB have this thing about definitions of accidents VS incidents.

I mention this because our past weekend contained a number of incidents, some of which were quite scary. There was the Wine Bottle Incident, when I got out of my awesome Volkswagen Polo holding two birthday presents in those cute little bags you can buy in stores, only the wine bottle bag broke and somehow the wine bottle dropped onto brick pavers and still it managed to survive! Had it broken, that would have been considered an accident. :)

There was the mildly terrifying incident of The Spider In The Shower which I kept to myself because thankfully it was only a Daddy Long Legs which decided the ceiling was getting too hot and steamy and now would be a good time to drop on a web through my shower space. The Other Half was in the Man Cave at the time, thus he did not hear my spider scream. I know this to be a fact because anytime he hears that spider scream he arrives ready to dead the creature.

There was also the incident of burned fruit toast, which cost me two slices of gorgeous cafe raisin toast which I got on special at Coles last week. I tried my best, really and truly I did, but I was not born with the Toastmaster gene.

I usually consider myself banned from making toast due to That Terrifying Incident With A Fruit Muffin Where I Took Out All Phones And Computers In The Call Centre, For Two Hours In The Middle Of A Work Day, Thus Rendering The Call Centre Completely Inoperable.

That incident did scare me away from toasting for a long time, because the toaster made sparks and jumped into the air when I tried to use the high lift. It might have involved me using the toaster but I was NOT the one who bought a cheap $15 toaster from Kmart, nor was I the person who wired the kitchen safety switch into all the other safety switches thus any kitchen incident would have deaded the entire switchboard.

But that fruit toast was plump, gorgeous, and it smelled exactly like hot cross buns. It tempted me into toasting, and as usual, I failed quite spectacularly. I suppose we were lucky that nothing caught fire.

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Then there was the incident of my lolly bag breaking in an unexpected place, spilling these cute little white dusted toffee apple almonds out of their safe little home – they kept landing on my lap rug.

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To begin with, I could not work out how they were escaping the packet! When more of the chocolate coated nuts were eaten, I finally figured out that there was a hole in the side of the packet..

Those little nut friends originated from Coles where there is a range of items from Naked Truth and every one I have tried has been very tasty indeed. These little nuts are my favourite because of the crunchy coating on the nuts. I am very well behaved and only eat two of these every few days, so one packet lasts quite a long time with me.

About Snoskred, Home, The Other Half