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Carter The Knit Model

3 Comments Posted on April 22, 2015April 28, 2018 by Snoskred

Leah over at Just Me, Leah, posted this post – Pattern Mixing – a little while back. It inspired me somewhat, and I left a comment accordingly, because Autumn has just begun here and I’m on the lookout for that *one* great knit.

Every year in autumn, I declare Knit Hunting season open. I only want one knit for each winter, and sometimes it takes me all of Autumn to find it.

I thought perhaps Carter could model some of my past season knits and I could share the photos with you here on the blog. Carter is a little on the stick thin side whereas I most certainly am not..

I think the worst part of Carter is his bony shoulders. Sadly I do not have any 80’s shoulder pads handy in order to bulk them out a little. Also, it is super hard to put his arms into things. So we’ve gone for a cardigan draped over the shoulders look with these outfits.

This particular knit was found one Autumn in Canberra, just when I had almost given up looking for that years knit. It has a gold thread that runs through it which is difficult to see in the photos. It has been one of my favourite knits of all time, even after it lost the buttons. It drapes and sits beautifully on me – and also on Carter, as you see in the above photo.

Carter, Carter The Model, Fashion, looking back

Being That Person..

5 Comments Posted on April 20, 2015August 21, 2015 by Snoskred

Some of my stored cards.

Since my Aunt was diagnosed with cancer a while back, I’ve become that person.. you know, that person who suddenly realises that many things have been left unsaid, and now is the time to speak up and say them.

The realization that most of the important adults in my family are now over 60 and the reality that there will come a time when they are no longer able to hear those things I have always wanted to say to them.. it is time to get it together and say those things now.

They are all positive things but writing them down in a card gives me happy tears every time. I just did one this week for her partner, my uncle, and it contained the line “Even if I were to say thank you in every language on the planet, there would still not be enough thank yous in the world to say to you for everything that you have done for our family”.

I’m not saying the things to my Aunt yet because she has a lot to deal with right now, though I do plan to say them once her treatment is done. Though, she might have got a look at the card I sent to my other Aunt, which said many of the things I do want to say to her.

Because I’m 1500kms away, I’ve been sending her packages with chatty, hopefully funny cards, and little treats and goodies. She’s been enjoying them and sending me sms’s in return.

I’m so lucky to have these people in my life, and I am really thankful to be letting them know how I feel now rather than leaving it too late to say these things to them.

The details of doing this are pretty simple. When I am out and about in the world, I always keep an eye out for blank cards with beautiful drawings or photos. They must be blank on the inside, because I want to write my own things inside, not some random person making up words that do not relate to me or my people.

You can find a lot of card stands in shops with $1 blank inside cards now. My chemist has one, and two shops away from the chemist is Loot, which has a couple of different stands.

When I see them and I like them, I buy them and put them in a safe place. There’s a photo of some at the top of the post, and here are a few more. I keep them stashed away in a drawer..

I often buy more than one copy of the cards when I see them, because the same card might go to totally different states and households. Doubling up is not such a big deal, as long as I keep track of which cards I have sent to which person. These cards above are actually fifth copies of these cards. I really like the images.

The red card in the top corner actually has gold cherry blossoms on it. That one is a Loot card. Here is a closer shot, even so I could not get the gold to fire everywhere on the card at the same time. :)

Somewhere in this house, I have a ziploc bag with a multitude of cards in it, that I have stored in such a safe place that I can’t actually find it. Yay me, NOT!

So my challenge to you –

~~Drop by my place and find my missing ziploc bag~~ Nope, not that! :)

get a blank but beautiful card or even make one of your own if you are so inclined – write some positive things you have always wanted to say to a family member or friend – post it this week.

About Snoskred, challenges, family, Greeting Cards, life lessons, looking back

My Uncle

12 Comments Posted on April 10, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

I’ve sat down to write this post so many times, and I have deleted it without posting it. But this time I am going to push through, complete it, and post it.

When I was a kid, family gatherings were my happy place. Most other kids would have done almost anything to get out of them but I have such a huge respect for the people in my family that I would always go, even if it meant missing out on time with my friends.

My Uncle has always been a bit of an odd duck, but I’ve always adored him anyway. He has a lot of quirks, quite a bit of OCD, and he loves his alcohol – possibly a little too much.

He has always been an argumentative type of person. I recall many family gatherings where he started an argument with someone over something so trivial and mundane and the type of argument that cannot actually be won because there is no right and wrong.. sometimes these arguments lasted for hours.

While I never landed on his side of the argument, I had to deeply appreciate his willingness to stubbornly stick to his side of things despite many excellent arguments to the contrary. He rarely won these arguments and some of them could be raised again simply by mentioning them.

I do remember one very long family gathering where one of the cousins had $5,000 to spend, and there was a huge argument – should he buy a block of land, or a car? My Uncle was for the block of land. My cousin chose the car, which he later wrote off in an accident, and this is always mentioned when they see each other.

He split from his first wife fairly early on, and then was single for quite a long time until he found someone new, lets call her Amazing, because she had to be to put up with the things she did.

My Uncle ended up working with myself and my Dad in an electrical store for about 2 years, when I was young and just starting out in the working world. This was a time when I had many arguments with my Uncle. We are a family of salespeople, but some of us in the family refused to sell products we knew to be shoddily built. My Uncle would sell whatever got him the most commission.

One day we had a huge argument about his brand of washing machines – 99% of people would get less than 2 years out of his favoured brand, due to a built in electronics panel which always failed – in fact many of us in the industry believed it was deliberately designed to fail. He owned one himself, and the company routinely paid $20-50 per machine sold to the salesperson – they call it a “Spiv” or a “Spiff”.

My brand was built to last, had an old school mechanical dial which never failed, plus had a 10 year warranty. They did not pay spivs.

One day he arrived at work looking downcast – his washing machine electronics panel had failed. His machine was less than 18 months old and yet, out of warranty, at least for the electronics panel. The replacement panel would cost him around $300, and I said – don’t replace it, because it will just fail again! Buy my machine instead!

I could not tell you whether I finally won the argument – whether he did replace the part or not, or whether he spoke to the supplier and told them to replace it for free otherwise he would stop selling their machines. I’d guess it was the latter option if pushed, but I honestly cannot remember.

What I do remember was this electronic panel failure meant I finally won the argument with him. Though I’d always won that argument with myself all along – I knew the right thing to do was to sell the customer the most reliable product, even if it might not be the one they walked in the door asking for.

I can also tell you that at any opportunity, my Uncle does not fail to remind me of this argument we once had. Neither of us even owns those washing machines anymore! He just loves to argue the old arguments, even if he lost them a long time ago.

Things were going well with my Uncle and Amazing, they bought a house together, moved in, and my Uncle was working in real estate sales and doing really well in general. Then he had a health complication and things began to fall apart. He split up with Amazing and eventually..

..he decided to leave the country and go to China to find a new wife.

boggle

Yes, this was quite a shocking development to the entire family, this decision seemed to arrive out of nowhere and many of us were concerned as there is a tendency for Australian men in their older years to marry Women from Asia and then the ladies take off once they get Permanent Residency here.

Coming soon – the story of my Chinese Aunt.

family, looking back

Happy Birthday Sephyroth

4 Comments Posted on March 25, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

My dearest and bestest friend in the universe, Sephyroth, has a birthday which was a great day for many years, until 2001 came along. Why 2001, I hear you ask. Well, his birthday happens to be September 11th. So after 2001 the birthday became a bit of a downer day for him instead of the happy occasion it ought to be..

So much so, that at some point I assigned him a totally different birthday. I forget what it was, I think it was sometime in April. I guarantee you he will pop up in the comments and paste in the actual emails or logs of our chat on this subject, because he saves these things foreverz. :)

But this year, it SHOULD BE be a very happy birthday, because September 11th happens to be the release date for a little movie I am super excited to see. It is called Triple 9, and it contains Norman Reedus – better known as Daryl from The Walking Dead – and Aaron Paul – better known as Jesse from Breaking Bad. Plus, a few other randoms, eg Kate Winslet, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor..

Yo, best you be planning a cinema trip for your next birthday, Sephyroth.

Of course release dates can and do change, I’ll keep an eye on it.

Me personally, I don’t really do birthdays myself, nor do I tend to remember other peoples birthdays. I actually seem to remember other things, eg I have a friend whose birthday is the day after International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yes, that is a thing and it gets mentioned around the web quite a bit in the lead up to the day, so it is like a little reminder for me.

Update –

Did you guys know that Sephy has a login for my blog? No? Well, now you do. And of course you can guess that Sephyroth happened to log in on Monday, for reasons but that is another post, and he saw this post scheduled and could not help but read it. He then forwarded me the email I sent him, and here tis.

Subject: Happy Non-Birthday

On Sep 11, 2011, at 5:49, Snoskred (snip) wrote:

As I cancelled your birthday and rescheduled it to Feb 18th, today is no longer your birthday, officially.

So Happy Birthday for next Feb 18th, instead. :)

Your new birthday is the anniversary of this –

1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden “flight” on top of a Boeing 747.

It comes with a photo!

And this

1979 – Snow falls in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the only time in recorded history.

Your new birthday is also the birthday of – 1968 – Molly Ringwald, American actress

It is also –

Christian Feast Day:
Colmán of Lindisfarne
Flavian of Constantinople
Simeon of Jerusalem (Western Christianity)
February 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of the Gambia from the United Kingdom in 1965.

Pls to note that on almost everyone’s birthday, something not awesome happened. EG on my birthday –

1896 – The deadliest tsunami in Japan’s history kills more than 22,000 people.

Had that happened in 1996, my birthday would be quite the bummer. :(

Anyway, happy Non-Birthday. And if you don’t like Feb 18th, pick another one, There’s 363 other days you could choose. :)

So, its night to me.. :)

Blog Friends, Sephyroth, things to remember

Meal Planning

3 Comments Posted on March 16, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

This year, I’ve been using this great free meal planner found at #4 on this post – High Five for Getting Organized! – from kelly’s kinda crazy.

The meal planner comes with a grocery list – Above you see Carter – my trusty skeleton friend – holding it. I’m thinking from now on he will get to hold the grocery list each fortnight so if I need to add something he will remind me to add it when I walk past. :) Here is a closer view with this fortnights shopping on it.

When I write my shopping list, I mentally walk around Aldi in my mind and I write things on the list in the order they appear in the store. Thank the deities, unlike Coles and Woolworths, Aldi rarely changes their floor plan. Both Coles and Woolworths have recently re-arranged their stores and now I can’t find anything in there. :(

I also sit down with my laptop and the shopping list and go through the Coles and Woolworths brochures and write down any items which are on special that we need to stock up on. I’ve been doing this for so long now that in general we never run out of things that we regularly use.

I’m loving the cute design of the meal planner. I used to do meal planning on my whiteboard which was not so pretty, nor could I take it with me to other rooms of the house which, on occasion especially when writing the shopping list, was mildly inconvenient. It also means I can keep copies of the old meal plans on the clipboard and review them when making the next meal plan. This way, I tend to notice meals we have not had for a while and add them back in.

Just be aware the file prints out an entire year worth of meal planning – you can choose to print just one or two pages at a time but you’d have to do it manually. I printed mine out at the start of the year and I’ll have enough to last until the end of this year..

This meal planner runs fortnightly and so we have been planning our menu fortnightly and shopping fortnightly as well, with just a quick stop at the shops on the second weekend if we need to pick up something fresh. Most of the time we don’t need to, because I am getting very good at planning meals which have the fresh ingredients closest to the shopping trip – and also very good at freezing things we need for later.

This past weekend we made our regular trip to Lenards at Warrawong which is roughly an hour or so drive from here, depending which way you go. We took a little detour past Albion Park to catch a glimpse of the Grand Old Lady VH-OJA at the HARS museum. If it wasn’t too busy we would have stopped to get out and take some photos, but as expected the place was absolutely packed and we just drove past. So, my apologies, I have no pics of that for you.

I also have no pics of Chicken Young Lad who has served us on our past 3-4 trips and who is starting to remember that we are the Crazy Bulk Buying People. Even so, after each item he asks “Anything else today” and we’re all.. YEP, give us 4 of those and 8 of those.

Meat wise, we eat quite a bit of chicken in the house. When we lived in Adelaide we had a Lenards close by and we could drop in and pick up chicken on the same day we were going to cook it. We really grew to love their chicken and moving here we discovered two things –

1. It is super expensive to buy pre-prepared chicken here eg kievs & filos.

2. Even though it was super expensive to buy, none of the local options tasted anywhere near as good as the options from Lenards did.

So we make the trek to Warrawong every 8-12 weeks, and we stock up on our chicken, we bring it home, then we food-save it and freeze it. We have the Sunbeam Foodsaver. I’ve tried other methods in the past including freezer bags and ziploc bags and we find the foodsaver to be the better option.It ends up looking like this –

The red chicken breasts that you see paired in the foodsaver packets with Chicken Kievs are the pocketed breast with baby spinach, dill, fetta and ricotta. They are my favourite – so tasty! I don’t mind a chicken kiev, either, but I deeply love these little red thingies.

We took every single chicken mini roast that they had prepared and we would have taken more if they had them out the back – sorry everyone else who wanted one. I normally pre-order but this time it did not happen, for a few non-interesting reasons. I foodsaved 6 roasters but we got 7 – one went into the fridge for tonights dinner, which looked like this –

We also stopped in at Dan Murphys and bought enough cask wine for cooking to last the next 6 months or so. I use Banrock Station Cabernet Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc for cooking and they are routinely $5 or so more expensive locally so if I need them and we’re already up Shellharbour way, I like to stock up.

Last fortnight, I ran out of white cask wine and had to use red wine for our white sauce chicken, bacon and leek pasta. When you use red wine in white sauce, you end up with a delicate light purple sauce. Not that either of us minds that because it still tastes great, and I find the merlot has some interesting flavours which the sav blanc does not. I really do need to put my white sauce pasta recipe up here sometime soon. :)

If you enjoyed reading this, you might want to take a look at this post – some things I know for sure about grocery shopping.

None of the companies or products mentioned gave me anything or paid me to say this stuff, and of course if anyone did I would make that very clear right at the top of the post and it would not change my opinions on things – I call it as I see it.. :)

So, over to you..

Do you meal plan?

Carter, country life, food, get organised, Home, shopping

The Package

9 Comments Posted on March 4, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

My excellent friend Sephyroth sent me an awesome package this week. Interestingly, it arrived just one day after I had been at the post office sending my own package – not to Sephyroth and on this occasion I would have much preferred to be sending it to him. I was sending a package to a very much loved Aunt, who has recently been diagnosed with cancer..

I had an idea that I could put together just a few things each week while she is having both radiation and chemotherapy. I can’t be there in person because she lives in Adelaide, but maybe I can put a small smile on her face each week and remind her that all the family here are thinking of her.

For the first package, I made sure to include a few ginger treats that another good friend of mine swore by during chemo. There was also some Chai tea, some pawpaw lotion, some amazing mango scented anti-bac hand sanitizer that smells exactly like you just rubbed an actual mango into your hands, and a few other bits and pieces. I have already picked up a couple of items for next weeks package.

So what was in the package Sephyroth sent to me? Let us take a look.

Some shower gel and handwash from my favourite Bath and Body Works.

Some cup-a-soup and some loom bands.

Many chocolates!

These things are SOOOOO tasty! I love wild cherry flavoured things. :)

Some wax melts – I bought Yankee Candle two wax melts for my next package to my Aunt.

A lovely Wisconsin calendar!

There are actually 2 bottles of 265 antacid tablets. These things do not taste like chalk like Australian Quick-eze does.

A shoe bargain which we chatted about on the Kakao Talk while Sephyroth was in the Adidas clearance store near him.

Another view of the shoes.

Some potato chips of awesomeness.

And my Guaifenesin. :)

Thank you many millions my excellent friend! I will organise a package for you soonest, I already have some stuff put aside to send. :)

Happy Snoskred, Sephyroth, Snoskred hearts, yay

Television Thursday – Conversatory

1 Comment Posted on December 18, 2014June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

Snoskred – My Downton Abbey will not play.

The Other Half – What do you mean it won’t play?

Snoskred – It is just freezing up.

The Other Half – Which episode is it?

Snoskred – Season 5, episode 3.

The Other Half – So when you watched it before, didn’t it work then?

Snoskred – This is a new episode. I haven’t seen it before.

The Other Half – What do you mean it is a new episode?

Snoskred – It is a new season.

The Other Half – But I thought that series was finished, or something.

Snoskred – No, it hasn’t finished, it is a new season.

The Other Half – Oh, ok. I’ll go check it out. Season 3, episode 5?

Snoskred – No, season 5 episode 3. I can’t tell you the name of the episode, or what happens in it, the storylines, or what cast members might appear in it, or any other details like that, because I need to *watch* it to know that stuff.

Snoskred thinks to herself..

wait a minute.. I probably *can* say what happens in it.

Upstairs, Mary (Michelle Dockery) is her usual snooty self, men chase her for her affections, and she might get uppity because she knows things about pig farming, or perhaps another subject she has chosen to become an immediate expert in.

Edith (Laura Carmichael) pines for her man who disappeared to Germany, and stalks her daughter that she sneaked off to have secretly and then palmed off onto some poor neighbours.

Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) is annoyed and upset about something miniscule and unimportant, and he fights with Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern) about these things, and she will speak in her soft American accent and make everything better with her words and her smile.

Tom Branson (Allen Leech) will be considering whether he should stay at Downton, or leave, given his wife died many moons ago and that was the thing keeping him there.

Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton) will still be mourning Matthew – in a fabulously beaded black number of an evening – who died two season ago. Violet (The amazing Maggie Smith) will make amusing remarks many of which when translated to proper English are actually well thought out and delightfully constructed put downs.

Downstairs, Mr Carson (Jim Carter) is upset about something – perhaps progress of some kind, or a newfangled invention, as he likes things exactly the way they have always been. He will make snarky comments in a snooty voice about this to Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan), who will tut tut in her Scottish brogue and dispense witty advice and solutions that Mr Carson will totally ignore.

Mr Barrow (Rob James-Collier) will be pining for an attractive boy, or lurking menacingly in corridors, threatening members of staff who he is blackmailing for various reasons.

Mr Bates (Brendan Coyle) will either be committing murder, in jail for murder, suspected of murder, or under suspicion of some other crime. Mrs Bates (Joanne Froggatt) will be dreadfully upset about what is happening to Mr Bates, though Mrs Hughes or Mrs Patmore will have to drag what is upsetting her out of her, with cups of tea and or careful plots.

Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol) will be worried or upset about something. Daisy (Sophie Mcshera) will spend the entire episode trying to find out what Mrs Patmore is worried or upset about.

In addition to the above regular storylines, at least one cast member will stick their nose where they should not, and it will cause repercussions of some kind. There will be conversations held in the presence of the larger cast which are amazingly only heard by the two people having the conversation, even though no whispering is involved.

The reality is, none of that stuff matters. Downton Abbey is eye candy for the fans of period costumes and houses. I’d watch it even if they played the same storyline week after week just in different settings with different outfits.

However, it is NOT Emmy award material. I don’t think it ever has been. I think that is just an excuse for the Americans to invite the British cast to the US to party. :)

(oops! This post published as a surprise to me – obviously it is Thursday and I’ve changed the title to suit. I’ll let it stay and apologise for my scheduling boo boo.)

Annoyed Snoskred, television shows, The Other Half

Shoe Sunday – Pearl Harbor

2 Comments Posted on December 7, 2014June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

It is not my intention to tell the story of the attack, or the leadup to it, or the aftermath. If you don’t already know the story there are loads of places you can find out – starting here with Wikipedia – and more than likely your local history channel will air a documentary about the attack at some point today..

I could not do justice to the story of what happened, nor could I do justice to my own personal feelings about Pearl Harbor. I cannot tell you the story of my meeting survivors of the attack during our visit to Oahu in 2011. I will simply state that Pearl Harbor is an incredibly special place for so many reasons – and so is Hawaii overall.

What I *will* talk about today is the shoes I wore to visit Pearl Harbor, and a special map moment that happened while Sephyroth, The Other Half, and I were at Pearl Harbor in November 2013.

These Adidas Climacool shoes were the first pair I bought last trip and the photo above is me trying them on in the store. I got them at Ala Moana on Friday the 1st of November. You may recall, I also own Adidas Climacool in green.

The green and pink Climacool shoes saw a lot of wear while on Oahu because they are super perfect for a hot environment – most of the other shoes remained unworn until they arrived back home.

At Pearl Harbor there is a large map drawn on the ground near the entrance. You can see in the image above my feet standing near Sydney.

At the same time, the feet of Sephyroth were standing around abouts where he hails from in North America.

And there you see our feet together near the map in Hawaii. Oahu is around 10 hours flying time from home for both of us, so it is a perfect meet in he middle location. This is the second time our feet have been together in one place – first was when Sephyroth travelled to Australia in 2011, second together in Hawaii in 2013, where will the third time be? :)

Please to note –

this will be the last Shoe Sunday for 2014 – we will be taking a break over Christmas and the New Year. Shoe Sunday will be back mid to late January 2015. :)

get the InLinkz code

About Snoskred, Sephyroth, Shoe Linkup, travel

Photography Box

4 Comments Posted on November 20, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

A while ago I asked The Other Half to build me a white photography box. And eventually, enough time went by, and he created it. You’ve seen some things photographed in it, already.

It has 12 LED lights at the top, set in the silver thing you can see at the very top of the box – I can’t show you a photo of the lights because they will destroy your retinas! Retina burn, not fun. :) But here you can see the shadows from the LED lights.

He also made me a shoe ramp, which can be used to mount smaller items to photograph as well. I will likely get some white cloth to use in the box, as well.

And here is a photo of something sparkly, just because.

The LED’s are awesome to photograph with, and if you set the aperture low, you can get these little sparkly stars of light.

NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, photography, The Other Half

The Kitties & Carter

7 Comments Posted on November 13, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Happy, the little kitty has taken to sleeping on the “lap” of Carter just lately. For those of you new to the blog, Carter is our Costco skeleton friend. Want to know more about Carter? – Meet Carter – Carter Gets Dressed – Carter Got Cold.

Happy truly is the most hilarious kitteh we have ever known. Plus she is amazingly sweet tempered, she has never once bitten or scratched us. She is the only cat I have known who allows us to scratch her belly and actually really enjoys a tummy rub, she turns to jelly.

She is not the brightest cat, if we were to put it into kitty terms, she is a few kibble short of a full bowl. She does not seem to have enormous faith in her own abilities either. It has taken her ages to learn to jump onto the kitchen counter.

Apparently, Carters lap is The Place To Be at the moment. Interestingly the kitties do not find him to be too bony to sit on. Carter moved chairs recently to a spiffy recliner, and his lap has become that place the kitties share regularly. Here is Grumpy hanging out with Carter.

Carter, kitties, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014