Country Snoskred

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A Kmart Trip

9 Comments Posted on October 2, 2015September 26, 2015 by Snoskred

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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 September 18, 2015September 17, 2015 by Snoskred

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 September 11, 2015September 8, 2015 by Snoskred

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 36

15 Comments Posted on September 6, 2015September 6, 2015 by Snoskred

I had zero plans to garden this year. Three Sydney Funnelwebs have been found on this property since Autumn. For those of you not familiar with this creature, it is extremely venomous and quite aggressive. Never fear, there are no spider images here. I would not do that to you! Arachnophobes know better than to post certain pics as a surprise to other people.

But then, I saw these gorgeous gloves at Aldi, and I re-thought my zero gardening plan. Maybe I would feel more comfortable wearing a pair of substantial gloves. We tried them on – The Other Half got large ones, my hands fit perfectly into medium.

My zero plans were quadrupled into “no *#@!&*%$ way am I gardening this year” when two absolute nitwits posted images on a local community group of Sydney Funnelwebs they had found out and about after the floods. UNSUBSCRIBE ME URGENTLY! I left both groups. Life is way too short for spider images on my Facebook feed. The damage was done, though. My skin crawled for an entire week. Not cool at all!

These people had put these creatures into plastic containers with sawdust, which implies keeping the creature long term. That freaks me out. Plus I feel like it is a bit cruel to the spiders. Not quite as cruel as what my chickens do to them which is dead them and eat them. But if they are found on my property, I’m backing the chickens 100% – dead them and eat them, girls!

Gardening this year was back on my agenda despite the images, because the chooks have been getting plenty of free range time and they have been spending a lot of it in the garden bed. I’ve compromised with a – sort of – gardening plan.

I decided to put some baby spinach, silverbeet, and brussel sprouts into the large planter box. I’m not sure how it will go because last year the kale was a massive failure in there – many moths laid eggs on it and they never grew the way they should have. I might end up screening this planter box in, if that happens again this year.

Into the large garden bed, I planted two Nasturtium plants. There is already one Nasturtium down the back and when the chooks are in the garden bed they mostly leave it alone. There are bugs to dig for, ain’t no chook got time to be eating plants! If I pull some out and throw it into the chook pen they gobble it up with great glee, because they have usually already eaten all the bugs in there before midday. I will buy any new varieties that I see of this plant because I love the flowers *and* humans and the chooks can eat it.

The chooks are on the lay again – on average I am getting 3-4 eggs a day. When I make my snacks, I sometimes mix a Manning Valley egg in with the girls small eggs, which are the largest ones they sell.

If I were *not* an Arachnophobe, I would post a picture of this little orb weaver which I see every single day when I check the chook coop for eggs. It has found a tiny home in a small screw hole on the chook pen and every day when the sun rises, it folds itself into this teeny spot.

I’m ok with certain kinds of spider making a home around the chook pen – they help with catching mosquitos and flies. Once I know where the web is, I am not likely to walk into it by mistake. The only thing that spider has to worry about is the chooks, who will eat any spider they see. Luckily they cannot reach where it is, nor could they see it unless he moved. It is well camouflaged. My little friend will find many tasty treats this spring and summer.

If I see one of those scary aggressive venomous creatures, I’m probably going to want to be on the next flight to Antarctica. I’m certainly not going to be putting it into a plastic container, nor will I be trying to kill it myself, and there will be a lot of screaming.. You’ll hear it, wherever you are.. :)

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections? 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.

Weekly Wrap Up –

Loads of goings on here at home, but nothing especially exciting that has not already been turned into a future blog post. My readers who have zero interest in Mr Robot can skip this next bit because it is a Mr Robot Finale Festival! ;)

The Mr Robot finale was awesome in some ways, but also slightly disappointing in some ways. I think the extra week of waiting meant that my expectations were very high..

Alan Sepinwall said “What a fascinating, off-kilter, 100% “Mr. Robot” way to end this season” and on reflection I have to agree with that concept. I have not re-watched it yet purely because I did not feel ready to – I’m letting it sink in first. One thing I do know, that scene in Times Square was an enormous explosion of colour in a usually quite muted show colour palette.

I’ve collected up a roundup of interviews and linkage for you. SPOILER ALERT – there are spoilers in these interviews. You do not want to click unless you have seen the entire 10 episodes of Mr Robot.

Interviews with Rami Malek

‘Mr. Robot’ Star Rami Malek on the ‘Emotional’ Season Finale (SPOILERS)
Rami Malek of USA’s ‘Mr. Robot’ | ‘The Andy Greenwald Podcast’ – This interview is older but was deeply excellent. Grantland has a lot of Mr Robot content – Grantland – Mr Robot
Rami & Twin Sami on Jimmy Kimmel – Having a twin is a great way to figure out what you would look like with a beard and a different hairstyle.

Interviews with Christian Slater –

Christian Slater weighs in on Mr. Robot twist and season finale
Mr. Robot Speaks: Christian Slater on ‘Mr. Robot’s’ Shocking, Roanoke-Delayed Finale and Season 2

Interview with BD Wong –

BD Wong on Why Mr. Robot’s Portrayal of a Transgender Character Is Radical

Interviews with Sam Esmail –

Sam Esmail Joins Andy Greenwald To Discuss ‘Mr. Robot’ First Season This is an hour long video interview – it was brilliant
Mr. Robot’s creator ‘did everything in my power’ to telegraph the big twist
Mr. Robot finale: Creator Sam Esmail answers burning questions
‘Mr. Robot’ Boss Talks Finale and Season 2: Elliot “Is Past the Point of No Return”
Mr. Robot Creator Sam Esmail on His Plans for Season Two and What the Show Is Really All About
‘Mr. Robot’ Finale: Series Creator On White Rose, The Wellicks & Elliot’s Memory Dump In Season 2
So… what did you think? – Sam Esmail asked what people thought over on Reddit and he also replied to a few of the comments.

Opinion re the finale –

How the Mr. Robot Finale Tumbled Backward into Its Most Piercing Social Message Yet
How Mr. Robot Killed the Centerpiece of Prestige Television: Capitalism
How Mr. Robot Became One of TV’s Most Visually Striking Shows
Mr. Robot had a perfect season on Rotten Tomatoes

About the mail program Elliot uses –

‘Mr. Robot’: How A New Product Feature Was Incorporated By ProtonMail After Discussions With The Producers

Over To You –

Anything interesting happening in your world? :)

Chickens, garden, Happy Snoskred, Mr Robot, Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up

Woolworths, We’re Breaking Up.

18 Comments Posted on August 28, 2015August 30, 2015 by Snoskred

Its not me, Woolworths, it’s you. It has been you for a while now. It began with stock I wanted to buy not being on the shelves even though there was a space and a price ticket for those items. It continued with mouldy fresh food – from the “fresh food people” that is especially disturbing.

Then, you never had enough staff on the checkouts, and after waiting more than 20 minutes to check out on several occasions even though I had less than 12 items each time, I was deeply annoyed.

You kept sending me offers which clearly your marketing boffins are behind which were nowhere near as good as the offers that Coles were sending me – I was offered $50 credit at Coles in return for spending $70 a week for 4 weeks.. which = $280 -50 = $230 @Coles VS $300 -30 = $270 for 3 weeks @ Woolworths. A big splooshy raspberry to that!

At this point I was more than ready to break up with you. The one reason I went back – Coles only stock small Twisties packets and I wanted the larger packet.

But then, the final two straws.

Did you know your catalog now sucks?

Each fortnight, when I shop, I look at the catalog for Coles, then the catalog for Woolworths. I do the main shop at Aldi and then visit Coles and Woolworths for items on special which cannot be purchased from Aldi. Woolworths decided to change the catalog.

With this new catalog, to view *all* of each page, you have to use the scroll bar on the side.

This is extremely annoying, especially when so often the bit you scroll down to see is boring advertising junk that has NOTHING to do with shopping! And then, they fill double page spreads with this junk!

Well, Woolworths, I DECLINE THIS CONCEPT. Even so, I thought I would still give you a chance to earn some of my $$, by using the *paper* catalog which arrives in my letterbox. But no.

You don’t want me reading your catalogs, online, or paper. You had to send me the clearest possible message.

Message received. Content noted. We’re broken up, for good. KTHXBAI.

Annoyed Snoskred, bitches, country life

Sunday Selections Week 34

11 Comments Posted on August 23, 2015August 22, 2015 by Snoskred

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.

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.

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

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..

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.

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

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 –

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

Snoskred Holidays

12 Comments Posted on August 17, 2015August 15, 2015 by Snoskred

So, will you like to know what Snoskred got up to on her holidays? I can tell you more about this now!

We got a new oven installed. We turned the old one on once when we first moved in here, and the amount of stinky smoke which bellowed forth stopped us ever wanting to use it again. We were not bothered, because we had our LG solardom convection oven, grill and microwave. But recently that unit has begun to misbehave, and it was time to replace the oven.

There was quite a bit of writing blog posts – taking a break inspired some new posts.

There was some fun with ice spheres but that is a post in itself.

There was some colouring in.

There was some shopping and eating of baked goods. There was some purchasing of chicken in bulk – 11 chicken roasters, plus a bunch of filos and kievs. Lenards have some new items available none of which we purchased this time but I wouldn’t mind trying the Chicken Cobs.

There was plenty of cooking, and some recipe posts will be coming to you as a surprise soonest!

The Villains were seen and greatly enjoyed. There was dancing, singing, and much fun had by all.

I did not take very many photos, preferring to live in the moment and enjoy each moment when it was happening rather than try to capture moments to share here later.

The concreting was completed and sealed and the cars were finally put away safely. We deeply appreciate the vast vista of concrete we now have to enjoy. :)

What have you been up to?

Anything interesting? Let me know in the comments!

country life, Happy Snoskred, shopping

Planning A Caper

6 Comments Posted on July 27, 2015July 26, 2015 by Snoskred

Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman celebrating the awesomeness of magnets.

One of the reasons I am such a fan of Breaking Bad is the fact that so much of the show is what I like to call “Planning a caper”. As in, making crime plans.

While 99% of the capers shown on the show are things I would never, ever, not in a million years attempt, there are two local capers I would consider planning, if I were at all inclined towards being a criminal.

Of course, the fact that I am sharing them here tells you everything you need to know about whether I would actually do any of these things. I’d need a personality transplant, plus, installation of a more criminal bent of mind, plus, for one of the capers, I would need to be more physically fit.

If I could commit a caper, these are the ones I would attempt.

Caper One

Within 2km of where I live, there is a field where they do athletics. They have a speaker system there. It is very, very loud. Starting around 8am on weekend mornings, an announcer starts making announcements. This goes on all day. One of the two regular announcers has taken to calling the races, like you’d hear if you were watching a horse race. It is disturbing to everyone who lives within earshot. That is a lot of people!

To fix this, I would need to plan a caper. It would likely involve “casing the joint” first – then some climbing of fences in the middle of the night – never going to happen! – and then, if possible, the cutting and removal of speaker wires. Sadly, my feeling is this would not disrupt the noise for very long.

Caper Two

They installed a new roundabout here recently. It is the only roundabout in town where you can turn right from two lanes. The amount of times I have seen someone nearly get themselves killed turning right from the left lane..

One day someone will get killed there, and then I’m gonna kick myself for not actually going ahead with this caper – which would involve going out in the dead of night and painting the turn right arrow out with black paint. Like this –

I’m thinking summer would be the better time to do this particular caper so that the paint would dry faster, however, there are some major problems with this – most problematic would be the fact that the roundabout is on a high traffic road, even in the middle of the night. I’d need some witches hats, and maybe a yellow flashing light, a high vis vest, and a ute type vehicle.

The Breaking Bad Caper

So what is the 1% of caper from Breaking Bad that I would attempt? Magnets. In the first episode of the 5th season, a laptop has been impounded by the police as evidence. That laptop happens to contain some incriminating evidence, so Walt, Jesse and Mike plan a caper. And thanks to Sony posting two videos on youtube, you don’t have to watch the whole show to see it. Here is a discussion of the possible caper –

Here is a test of the caper, which features one of the most epic Mike Ehrmantraut lines of all time, including Miller time.

And here is the actual caper itself. The music makes this all the better.

bitches, country life, television shows

WW – Sparkly Kitty

8 Comments Posted on July 22, 2015July 21, 2015 by Snoskred

From my keepsakes cabinet seen here and here

Happy Snoskred, Home, sparkly, Wordless Wednesday

Happenings In Snoskredland

18 Comments Posted on July 17, 2015July 15, 2015 by Snoskred

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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. :)

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!

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