Country Snoskred

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The Staying In Chronicles Part 1

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Who knows how many parts this will have in the end? :)

If you are going to join in and blog during this time of self isolation, comment below and I will link to your blog in future installments. It could be interesting for all of us to keep up with how we’re doing together.

9:00AM – I have developed a rather intense need to hunt and gather.

I’m doing a big kitchen stocktake today, to see what we actually need. I suspect the truth is I have already hunted and gathered and can remain calm at home instead. When we next shop we will stock up as much as we can, and then we are staying in as much as possible.

Eggs are a big thing for us, we eat a lot of them and our chooks are not laying at the moment. If I can get a few cartons I will feel better. I’m going to try the farmers market on Thursday where 12 free range eggs cost $10 instead of $6.40 but in this case I am just going to suck it up and pay the extra. Peace of mind is important too.

We have already baked our first bread loaf on Saturday and we ate the last of that yesterday. Bread is not usually a thing for us, especially for me. We’ll limit the loaves to one a week and just eat it in a clump. :)

Also on the agenda for today is washing, which I will rise from the recliner at some future moment to tackle. But right now Cuckoo Kitten is in my footspace – she is very sooky today and I’m just going to enjoy that for now.

4:00pm – Kitchen stocktake is complete. We’re looking pretty good for staples and tinned foods, though I still have one cupboard to do. Chicken Roaster is in the oven. We only have 5 potatoes left so.. that is on the to-buy list.

5:00pm – the other cupboard is complete. Happy days.

If you are looking for something to listen to, Tom Hanks was on the Clear + Vivid podcast recently, and this week Betty White is the guest. I’m about to go listen to that now. I’ll probably post again on Friday and let you know how things are going here. :)

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What To Say.. Now.

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

May you live in interesting times, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.. I’m not sure if the hunt for toilet paper is interesting but fortunately for me, we’re good in that area. We don’t use much and we’ve got enough for probably two months. BUT – and here is the problem – if I see some, I likely will buy some. And that is what everyone else is doing, which is the entire problem in a nutshell.

Said nutshell has now spread to other goods, which is troubling. But we’re set for a couple of weeks, so we’re mostly just going to hunker down and wait it out. The trouble there being, I think in a couple of weeks we will be in a very different situation which makes me want to go out and stock up, which is also the entire problem in a nutshell. If we don’t do this now, will we regret it later? I do not know. Do I want to find out? Not really.

I hate to be the voice of doom but I have a very bad feeling about leaving the schools open. Kids might not be affected very badly but they can carry it well, and if they bounce between school, a crowded bus, home where perhaps their parents have picked this up from their work, a crowded bus then back to school, what might they bring along with them to infect the other children? And what about the teachers? Not cool, Scomo. Not cool at all.

If I had a kid they would not be going to school at this time. If you have kids I’d pull them out of there if you can.

Steer clear of public toilets because nobody shuts the lid when they flush, is my second piece of unsolicited advice.

Re-reading The Stand by Stephen King is likely the worst idea of all time at this time but I’m doing it all the same. Don’t do it, is my final piece of advice to you.

Cats, chooks, humans are all well at this time. We’ve both had a bit of an inner ear thing for a while now but that is survivable. The Other Half has started his Uni course, and I am busy with the business, when I can get some stock in. That is certainly going to be Not Very Easy for a while with so few planes flying.

The cats seem to be getting along with each other reasonably well, well enough that they don’t like to be too far from each other. If they are sleeping it usually is in the same room.

Sure, Happy will still sometimes whack her on the head impatiently, but Cuckoo is persistent in her attempts to hug Happy, and more and more often now, Happy just rolls her eyes and allows her to do it. When Happy thinks we are not looking, she will play with Cuckoo. Happy does not realise we have cameras in the kitchen which is their favourite play time area, and we can watch from afar.

Anyway, that is our current mostly boring status. To be fair I do not want interesting now.

“Can you believe those chickens” says Happy?

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What To Say

7 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Hey Zazzy I am posting this especially for you, please forgive the disjointed state of this post. It has been pretty full on here. I’ve been writing this post for a week – there is a before, and an after.

I want to say a big thank you to those who have reached out whether on their blog or privately by email – it is much appreciated. ;) I am feeling the love.

BEFORE – Tuesday February 4th 2020 –

My most prized possessions (pictured in the first three photos) are not presently in this house. They may return this week, if we get the predicted rain. I vowed they would not return to the house until we got 100mls of rain. We are at just under 65mm at the moment, so still some more work to do there weather.

There was a day in January that we evacuated. Do you know how much trouble I had picking out my most treasured possessions? And once I had done it, I was just emotionally unable to pack them up. The Other Half had to do it, and still I get emotional trying to even talk about it.

The day before we evacuted – a Friday from memory – we packed up the business and much of the shed stuff including our servers (which is why the site went offline the first time) and drove it up to a friends house near Shellharbour, about an hours drive north.

That night we went to get fuel in the van after dropping all the stuff off, and the fuel station was packed full of fire trucks. I don’t know why but the tears just started falling down my face and I couldn’t make it stop. Partly because I’d been listening to them on the scanner, partly because by this point three firefighters had been killed in the process of doing their volunteer job that they were not being paid for, partly because I was happy to see these folks had made it safely through their day that day..

I can’t explain it. This happened to me more than once. How do you even begin to say thank you? How do you even try to say how ashamed you are at how they have been treated by our own Prime Minister and politicians?

The following morning we took ourselves, the cats and chickens, my parents, a suitcase of clothes and the computers. I did not realise when we left that the predicted change would be coming through about 11pm that night – which meant we would not be returning home that day. I was unprepared for this event and ended up sleeping on a couch.

The Other Half had a camping mattress on the floor, my parents got the spare bed. The cats and chickens were accommodated for free at a vet up that way who had offered to take in displaced pets in their boarding facility. I do not think they expected chickens but they took them in and looked after them.

The chickens were entirely baffled by these events. First their coop door did not open that morning – deliberately programmed not to by us. They were placed into the Red Transport Carrier as a surprise, and loaded into the car. Most of them have been in the car before for a short trip but they were quite shocked by this hour long venture.

It reminded me of a video I have seen of pigs in a bathtub. The pigs make a bit of a fuss when placed into the water, then they relax and make some gentle oinking, then one of them moves and they all kind of freak out again. I can’t find the video or I’d post it.

The next day we returned home with cats and chickens to find the house still standing, though covered in ash and burnt leaves, even burnt twigs this time. We were physically and emotionally exhausted, but once the cats and chickens were re-installed to their correct places, we made the trek back up to pick up all our belongings we’d taken up on Friday. We unpacked the shed stuff and the business stuff, and tried to get back to normal.

But normal is a different thing now. Impossible to describe. Everyone is so much more friendly. There is a real sense of community which was mostly lacking before.

This is as far as I got writing the first part of this post before we got very busy with life and the business and also a new weather event, so now..

AFTER – Tuesday 11th February.

We’ve had rain. SO MUCH RAIN. Remember we were at 65mls?

That is 308mm in the space of a week. My belongings are back in the house. Would it surprise you to learn I’ve had just as much trouble unpacking them? The suitcase is still full. But this is more a lack of time thing than a lack of want to thing. The business has taken off this past few weeks and we have just been so flat out.

I went to the local show recently and met a couple of the firefighters I’d heard on the radio a lot in person. This time the sight of fire trucks did not make me cry, but I did have a chance to try and express my thank you in person. One of them I know for a fact much of their hard work prevented the fire getting any closer to where we live.

One of the reasons I do not post here so much anymore is something I am really struggling with – online anonymity. I can’t be anonymous with the business. It is at our house, where we live. I’ve had to put myself out there and it has been very scary for someone who carefully built their online alias.

When I’ve wanted to tell you about it, I know that anything I say could lead the intelligent folks who read this blog to my own doorstep – and some of them might not be friendly types. You know, those Nigerian scammers I got arrested, or those whose fake cheques I collected which cost them money. But I want to tell you what I am doing! So I will likely write a password protected post soon and you’ll have to email me for the password.

In the meantime, we are safe, the water has mostly drained away, while it is a bit soggy underfoot still and the chooks doing well but they are a muddy mess we’ve all survived this season of fire and water.

Our Cuckoo Kitten is now a Mini-Cat. This photo does not give you an accurate concept of her lankiness. She is delightful. She adores Happy. The feeling is not at all mutual. Happy is not a big fan, but she is tolerating her, and sometimes when we are not looking, she will play and actually enjoy it! But as soon as she sees us looking.. she is back to pretending not to like the Mini-cat.

There is so much more but it is getting late and I’m going to post this and head to bed.

country life, Home

We Are Ok.. For Now.

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

But who knows, it could all change on any upcoming day.

I do not remember the last time I took a breath and did not smell smoke.

For now, I do not remember the last time the sun was a normal colour. The light is a weird orange colour for much of the day. Those are not clouds in that photo – that is smoke.

I do not remember the last morning where I woke up and did not immediately turn on the scanner to find out what the fire people are up to. I am extremely grateful we are still allowed to hear them – the police went encrypted digital some time ago.

However today the local RFS scanner frequency has been offline for a lot of the day, and I have no idea what is happening out there. It is unsettling not to know. Facebook is full of incorrect information and we can’t be sure what is real and what is not real. We certainly can’t rely on the media. I’d rather hear it from the horses mouth.

For most of us we are living in some kind of suspended limbo – many of us feel that it is not necessarily a question of if but of when.

I know here that if we get ember attack we are likely going to lose everything. We’ve prepared our property as best we can, moving all the leaf litter to the chook pen yard – the chickens will be evacuated if required, along with the cats and ourselves. But we have neighbours who are elderly and who have an overgrown block – many of the plants on their block have died in the drought and it is just a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames. If that happens, I would expect we will lose our house.

So, we wait and hope.

Our cuckoo kitten is now a lanky teenager, so incredibly long. She is an oddity. Obsessed with the sink and water, a great jumper and very much an explorer cat. She is keeping Happy busy, they chase each other around the house, normally right after we head to bed. You haven’t lived until you’ve had two cats run over you at full pelt.

The chooks are doing well and greatly enjoying their leaf litter. They’ll mulch that down in pretty quick order, providing we water it regularly which attracts bugs which they then take great delight in digging for.

country life

The New Setup Part 2

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Following on from the previous post – Above you see the Kitty Nirvana which has some of their toys and their kitty litter enclosure.

I can use this mobile screen above to block this area off, if I don’t want folks to see it. At the moment it is blocking off the drying area and my private lounge area –

The drying area is a suntrap for the kitties and they have cat towers to recline in and enjoy the sun here. Usually one or the other is in the round basking area – in the next photo you see Happy has made her way there.

My area is screened off from the bright sun area – too much light gives me a headache. I have my recliner, the other half has his Ikea chair, the treadmill is back behind me near the curtains out of the way.

My candle shelf has been moved here from the entryway. I got rid of all the DVD covers of movies, they have all been stored in special bulk dvd storage folios. I kept the DVDs that are series, at least for now. The DVD shelves moved into the studio where they hold arty things now. Looking at this photo I see I still have some cord hiding work to do here.

My much reduced books have a small bookshelf here in the corner – these are the ones I don’t have in digital format. Everything else which I do have in digital format has either been sold or donated.

And now a couple of studio pics. We did a lot of work in this room. There are four tables all of which are fabric covered and I will be getting plastic covering for those arty things we will want to do which are messy. For now the arty stuff we are doing is not messy. There are 14 chairs all of which were re-upholstered in a gorgeous teal and blue fabric.

One of the studio walls is devoted to kits I have in stock or photos of kits on the way, with a couple of posters in between.

This has been a huge effort and I couldn’t have done it without the awesome Other Half, of course. Now we’re all set up and things are going pretty well. I have some dedicated regular students already and the kits sell very fast, oftentimes even before they arrive here. If only Australia Post would get their act together I would have more stuff I could sell. :)

Home, work

The New Setup Part 1

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred


– Our new entryway –

When we were creating our home business where people would be coming into the house regularly, we thought carefully about how we could separate our private areas from the “public” areas. We’ve always made use of “door curtains” to keep the heat in the parts of the house we were heating so we thought we could use curtains to do this job quite effectively. It has worked out well thus far with one painful exception – more on that later!

Above you can see the curtain that leads to my lounge area. I don’t go through that one at all, I consider it like a brick wall that cannot be opened. This is partly due to the lamp and coat rack which sits in front of the curtain, and partly because I prefer to go the long way around.

Now it is like you have walked in the front door – here is what you would see if you did. Some art on the walls which I am loving the position of right now but I do have another artwork in mind for this area once I create it. You see the kitchen benchtop and the mat that marks the studio entrance – more on that below.

In this case you see right through to The Other Half’s office area – but if you were coming here to visit the studio you would not see that at all, it is screened off by the curtain you can see –

This curtain screens two ways – when nobody is popping in, we use it to screen off the guest bathroom and toilet – we no longer use them, they are purely for visitors now. When people are visiting, this curtain swings across to block off the hallway – otherwise known as Other Half World. His gaming room and home office are down this hallway as well as the laundry and our bedroom/ensuite etc.

Behind that curtain the toilet and guest bathroom are patiently waiting for their next visitor. I’ve got some lovely reed diffusers in these rooms that smell like coconut and mango, it is heavenly in there.

Also in this area, we have used curtains to “hide” a couple of shelving units. This one above hides all my tupperware containers. We’ve also made signs to let people know these doors are private areas – the spare bedroom and linen closet which actually holds no linen but contains things like the breadmaker and other appliances.

And this shelf curtain which hides our medicine baskets, oven trays and casserole dishes. This sofa can be used by visitors if they want to take a break from the studio and sit down on the lounge to drink their coffee/tea/hot chocolate. We keep rugs on it so the cats can’t fur it up, we can take those off in a second if we need to.

At the studio entrance I have used this mat to remind people to watch their step. The studio was once a garage and there is a small step down into it which we have mitigated with this rubber ramp mat from Bunnings.

We have used another curtain to block off the kitchen from the areas behind it. This is where the painful exception happens – the dishwasher door is right next to the curtain and twice I have unloaded the dishwasher and left the door open intending to return and fill it..

I’ve then gone off to do something else and forget the door is open, when I go back through the curtain I hit the door with a leg or ankle. Two bruises thus far, I am hopeful that will be enough to learn not to do that again. :)

On Wednesday I will show you a little more of what we’ve been up to here. ;)

Home, work

This Makes No Sense

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Kitty Litter is A Thing in our house. With two cats and a much larger than the usual litter tray – formerly an under bed storage container which seems to solve fighting over the litter tray issues we have experienced – we go through a decent amount of this stuff. So we would like to buy it as cheaply as possible.

In the past we have tried various different options. One that tends to work quite well for us is to buy in bulk when we get a special spend more to save offer from Petbarn. At least, that is what we thought, until we did the maths. We would have to buy 8 bags to get over $250.

8x 33.19 = 271.92 – 70 = 201.92 /8 = $25.24 per bag. And that also depends on them having 8 bags in stock, which is more of a problem than you would expect. Sometimes the kitty litter would be on special which made it more worthwhile.

This is what we’ve done for a few years now and the best part is having 8 bags on standby in the mancave, you can forget about it until you need to go and get a new bag.

Every so often we like to sit down and work out if we are doing things the most efficient way – and the cheapest way – possible. Having run out of kitty litter, and having received the spend more save more email, we did some maths on our end and looked at the “autoship” options.

Having worked in a warehouse for some time and knowing how much shipping costs are, I don’t think the pet companies have done any maths on this. I suspect it would be better $$$ wise to encourage people to go to their stores and purchase the bags at a reduced rate. But instead, they offer autoship. Which is basically they send the stuff to you every so often.

Sure, it is nice for companies to know that they have orders to fulfill regularly, but on the other hand folks can cancel at any time without a penalty, so there is no incentive to stick with the autoship option.

Sure, there are probably people who appreciate getting the kitty litter shipped to their door meaning they don’t have to lug it home from the store. But it costs money to ship things and a bag of kitty litter is *heavy*. 15kg to be precise.

One has to be at home to receive it, otherwise one has to go and pick it up from the post office, removing the handy factor.

We did the maths and it worked out to be slightly more expensive to do autoship – $26.09 per bag – *but* if we bought it from Petstock we earn points with them which kind of balances it out. And we don’t have to pay out $250 at a time. Shipping is free for the customer – but quite costly for the business. We thought we would give it a go.

When they shipped it, we discovered it gets shipped from MELBOURNE. We have a Petstock about 20kms away from us. Melbourne is over 800kms away from us, plus they likely send it via Sydney which adds on at least another 400kms.

But then let us add on $$ for cardboard and tape.. really this is not a good idea for any business $$ wise. It certainly isn’t good for the environment. The cats love it because they get more boxes. We ordered two bags and each had a box to itself. You couldn’t really put them together in a box, it would be far too heavy at 30kg.

Next time I am in the area I will ask our local Petstock if they are willing to match the autoship price so they get our $$ locally. That is the other aspect – when you buy online the money often does not go to your local store, it goes to head office.

Overall, autoship makes zero sense to me. Transport costs in Australia are enormous. When you think of the fuel, the wear and tear on the vehicles, paying the drivers, etc.. it is Up Money. I would think it would be far better to encourage customers to click and collect in store.

They could still make it a regular thing so the stores would know how much stock to have on hand for these orders. Allow the customer to pay a better price for the goods than the autoship price. That way the folks doing the buying are also doing the lugging, and rather than 1200kms of lugging our items to our home, it is just a short trip home in the car. But if you want to click and collect in store, you pay the highest price of $28.99!

At this point, I am not going to rule out the option of purchasing in bulk direct from China if I can find a supplier and the price is right. We have purchased plenty of stuff from AliExpress over the years. I’m thinking of ordering that kitty litter scoop – the plastic ones break way more often than I like.

country life, kitties

Sausage Roll Monday

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

It was a public holiday Monday which living in a Tourist Town means you could go somewhere as long as you pick the right direction but getting back would be Not Fun. So we spent our day cleaning, doing the washing and cooking.

My sausage roll recipe is super simple as long as you have a food processor. Throw in the quantities you like of the following vegetables –

Green capsicum (peppers)
Brussel Sprouts
Carrots
Leek

Whizz that up nice, then add 500g beef mince and one egg. Whizz that up some more, then lay the mince out on half a sheet of puff pastry, put egg wash on the opposite edge, and roll.

Once you have made enough to fill an oven tray, egg wash the tops of the sausage roll and sprinkle on a parmesan and herb mix. I tend to use my chip sprinkle which is paprika, garlic powder, parsley, mustard powder, black pepper, cinnamon, a touch of low sodium chicken stock powder, rosemary and any other herbs I feel like throwing in when I am making it.

We made 3x 500g beef mince packs. We ate a few for lunch, then all the other sausage rolls go in the freezer for a quick dinner at a later time. There’s 92 packaged up and frozen from this particular sausage roll venture plus a few to be heated up later for tonights dinner.

That’s what we’re cooking – what else is happening?

Watching – Chernobyl. We’re about to watch episode 3. Yes it is not an easy watch but it is an important watch.

Listening – to the Chernobyl podcast which goes along with the show.

Working – on a checklist for opening and closing the shop I work in – on Saturdays I now open and close and I have my own key. I am deeply enjoying my work and it is wonderful to be appreciated for the work I do, which is a novel concept after my last workplace where my boss really did not care or notice what I did.

Wondering – about the coincidences of life – my other half applied for one job which would work in better with going to Uni full time, he got the job and it turns out it is in the same building as the shop I work in. How bizarre is that?

Adding – a new treadmill to my space. A friend did not need theirs anymore so it came to live with us.

Eating – Thai Coconut Icecream which came as part of dinner we bought last week. The other food was just so-so but this icecream is amazing, I definitely want more of it.

Ordering – more protein as I am about to run out, it just arrived last week.

Wearing – my new brooches which arrived recently, they are gorgeous, especially the Bee. Click on this image for a larger view. :)

Home, recipes

The Long Weekend

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Our Easter long weekend was mostly a lot of lazing around. This year so far has been go go go for both of us, a lot of family outings, quite a bit of work for me, work and uni for the other half, just busy-ness in general.

Living in an area where a lot of tourists – referred to by some locals as another T word much less flattering – visit on long weekends, public holidays and school holidays, a staycation is your best way to avoid long queues, busy restaurants, sometimes badly cooked meals or meals you had to wait a very long time to arrive, and much traffic.

Once I left work on Thursday, we did not go near another shop and I will not until I go back to the shop tomorrow. Part of that is thanks to getting back into meal planning and a fortnightly shop.

We did go out for one long walk down to our former neighbourhood Callala Bay / Beach. We chose that instead of Huskisson as they were having a rather large event. They do have quite a good network of walking and cycling paths down that way now, so it is always a more peaceful option we can use if Husky/Vincentia is crazy busy.

We are never quite sure if a decision will be a good one until we are on our way there. In this case we feared the worst because the traffic was quite heavy on the way down but once we got there the people all went different ways and the walking paths were mostly free of insanity.

We did a 10km run/walk. I like to split my 10kms into two halves because the first 5km is where I usually run – in this case it was the first 2km and then some sprints – and the second 5km is a bit more leisurely. It was very hot out – almost 30C (86F) so we paced ourselves.

Part of this was through the neighbourhood known as Benton Sands which is a very lovely development. They have a community centre and pool and I believe the plantings were all supposed to be Australian native plants which does make for a more natural environment. It also does mean a bit more hayfever at this time of year, at least for us.

We passed this large group of swans feeding. I’ve never seen this many swans in one place at one moment before.

We ended up at the Boat Ramp on our way back to the car which is always great entertainment on a long weekend. It was absolutely packed with cars and boat trailers. BOATS AKIMBO. Absolute madness!

At home there was much coffee..

And cake.. which made me fit in another 5km run on Monday around our home block, in which I encountered a very large spider just hanging out on the ground for no apparent reason and let out an incredibly loud scream as a surprise to myself and though I did not ask I suspect also as a surprise to the spider. I went back and took a photo, which I suppose is a step in the right direction towards not being quite so terrified of those creatures. I will not share it here because That Is Not How I Roll.

At home there was The Bus at least once a day, AKA Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m not much into the Marvel universe at the best of times and I couldn’t tell you anything about the movies but I love this show and their bus – aka the massive plane – is super cool.

I also binged Season 5 of Bosch which was deeply excellent, caught a few episodes of various shows which I am watching weekly at the moment in particular Line of Duty, LOVING Project Runway with Christian Siriano as the mentor, 24 Hours in Police Custody, COPS, and my one hate watch, Sister Wives. I like the wives, I just HATE the guy and therefore it is beyond my understanding how he has collected up 4 wives who can stand to spend as much as one minute near him.

Sephyroth and I caught up for a lovely video chat in which he updated me about a work conference he went to, sounds like it was awesome. I caught him up on all our happenings here.

I brought home the work laptop for the weekend so I could try and clear out some extra space on there, deleting useless games and various Windows junk which nobody wants or needs.

I also sat down with the Spreadsheet Maestro AKA The Other Half and we created a couple of things which will make my work life a lot easier. I’m fired up and super excited to get back to work today, then I have a couple of days off in which I will run quite a bit, and then a little more work.

How was your weekend – long or short? :)

coffee, exercise, food, Home, television shows

I Have Been Waiting For You

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

my new dark salted caramel friends. Yes, years I have waited. Why nobody made a dark salted caramel chocolate that I could buy on supermarket shelves, I am still baffled by. But here it is. And I am about to try it, right now, while writing this post on the blog. OMG yes it is awesome but a bit up money at $6 for this block. I will stock up when it goes on special.

Work has been fabulous. The new job is awesome and I am having a great time, with some minor adjustment issues all on my side.

You see, I had fashioned myself a uniform of sorts. It had to be very warm because my last workplace was like being set down on an Arctic ice shelf, with two air-conditioning vents directly above where I stood for much of my day blowing cold air on me. And hilariously in summer, the hotter it got outside, the colder it got inside. I wore Uniqlo heat tech long sleeve turtlenecks and a suedey puffer vest – with great pockets – and I was still freezing most of the time.

The new place is warm and if it wasn’t, I would be able to change the temperature myself. There is no uniform and probably no need for one though I could definitely come up with one if I wanted to. I did not realise how much time knowing what I would wear saved me each morning. I pick out my outfit the night before.

I also never wore earrings to my old job – it was actually too dangerous with the machinery. I always wore a brooch to make up for it. But now I can wear earrings, and I will.

Since the start of the year things have been quite chaotic in this household. With family from interstate visiting we had a lot more outings than usual and we’ve got out of the habit of many household routines, like the regular fortnightly grocery shop.

It has been more bitsy shopping here and there, picking up things for a few meals at a time because we weren’t sure where we would be. Batch cooking has also taken a back seat with The Other Half only at work three days a week and only needing three lunches.

It is time to get back on the no spend days horse, and time to get back on the grocery budget and meal planning. We’ve started that process today.

Home, work