Snoskred Lives

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Weekend Jobs, Bits and Bobs..

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

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Our new over the door coat racks – $9 from Kmart.

It is the weekend again here at Chez Snoskred. Yesterday I went and had a CT pulmonary angiogram, which I had been putting off for 4 months! and a shedload of blood tests that involved 15 or so vials of blood. The girl forgot a vial, so I had to go back for an extra needle stick, which I did with extremely good grace considering I hate needles more than anything. So 3 needles total, yesterday. NOES.

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Candle Lanterns $7 at Kmart

When she called me, I was at Kmart, where I picked up these cute candle lanterns. Little Kitty has learned to jump, and this means a sad goodbye to my present candle burners. I can’t be certain that she won’t stick her face too near or even in the flame and burn all her whiskers off in the process. I got a perfect ceramic pineapple without any chips for my mother for her birthday as well- I wanted one for me too, but I couldn’t find a perfect one without chips for me. Sorry no pineapple pic, it has been wrapped already.

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Yesterday I wrote a list of things I wanted us to do this weekend. Several of them involved a trip to Kmart. The other half checked the calender and realised it is the first weekend of the school holidays, so we ended up going to Kmart last night around 9:30pm because ours is 24/7. It was wonderfully peaceful.

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I was actually mid-another-job – laminating Hawaii calender pages to hang on the back of the toilet door – when I ran out of A4 laminator sleeves. I figured we might as well pick some up while at Kmart, also too. Then I came home and completed the laminator job, while listening to the Breaking Bad Insider Podcast on my iPhone.

The other things on the list involved a phone call to the local Chinese to make a dinner appointment for tonight, which has been completed this morning. And a trip to Bunnings – a hardware and garden store for those not in Australia – to buy sand for the chook pen.

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Of course a trip to Bunnings never means just getting the thing you went for. The other half has been planning a special planter box for a while, and this weekend he is building it.

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I found a gorgeous climbing jasmine, a sieve for the chook pen because the kitty litter scoop is not very efficient for chook poop, and a new bucket to store the chook poop in because all the old lids had broken.

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I was quite tempted by these colourful Mr Men items – Mr Men Garden Gnomes, and Mr Men on a stick.

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When I mentioned the Mr Men on a stick to The Other Half, who was busy wrangling the trolley and he did not spot them, he was very concerned at that concept, because his mind put the stick, well, guess where. But I showed him the picture and he was quite relieved to see the stick was not near to the Mr Man at all.

So now, off to do chores and jobs of work. Tomorrow, my first official shoes post. It is a good one, I think. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and consider making a shoes post of your own to link up. :)

Happy weekend all!

Chickens, garden, shopping, yay

Where Do Your Shoes Live?

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Sometimes the best ideas come to you as a surprise via the blog posts of other people. Suger from Suger Coat It wrote a post called – The triumphant return of the sneaker – and I commented – This inspires me to start a weekly feature about sneakers. I have so many pairs!

But then I thought, why limit it to one kind of shoe? Why not have a weekly shoe post? Each pair of shoes will receive a good cleaning in preparation for being posted – and the other half is Building Me A Photography Box especially for this project.

But before I begin this new blog feature – which will start on Sunday next week, I want to show you where my shoes live – and invite you to join me and show the world where your shoes live.

Drumroll…….

I will like to take you inside my Accessory Room.

Before you even open the door, there is a Scarf Bar –

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This is a simple thing to create – some over the door hooks and you too can have a scarf bar. I got mine from Aldi but a lot of places stock over the door hooks. Some of the hooks are holding more than one scarf which is super handy.

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If you don’t have a lot of room but you do have a lot of scarves, this is a simple yet great way to store them, all you need is a door and some over the door hooks.

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The door to this room is usually left open because this is also Paper Goods From Costco Nirvana. I am not running out of toilet paper, paper towel, or tissues anytime soon. And to this I say, Jesse Pinkman Style, YEAH BITCH, COSTCO! because if there is one thing I hate, it is running out of essentials like that. ;)

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On the back of the door there is a Jewellery Organiser which also holds spare phone cases. Spot the Swarovski one for my old iPhone there? It is sparkly. :) I also have a Swarovski one for the present phone.

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Inside the room there is a Jewellery Cupboard – which also doubles as a Handbag Storage Unit, and holder of the Super Holographic Duct Tape. Yes, I like it when things have more than one use. It is extra useful! And here is a sneak peek inside.

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And now we arrive at the Shoe Cupboard. It is usually closed, to keep Dust away from The Shoes.

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The big green bag on the outside is a Kipling backpack – I have a matching suitcase which also resides in the Accessory room.

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And now, back to the shoes. Let us open the Shoe Cupboard.

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Before we get an overview of the shoes, I will take out the Handbags, which have found a home in between two shoe racks.

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That is a lot of shoes. Many of which do not get worn as often as I would like.

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Rack one – there is no order in which they are stored, it is just wherever they fit they ended up.

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And there are still some shoes in Other Places because they did not fit in this cupboard –

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And, a bag’o’shoes which I am contemplating giving away.

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There are enough shoes for a full year of shoe posts, so this will become a weekly feature and I invite other bloggers to join in as well. Everyone is welcome to join in. Just add your link by clicking on the blue add link button – I’ve also put a quick how to guide together below if you have never joined a link up before.

Add your link here!


get the InLinkz code

A quick how to guide –

In case you have never done a blog link up before, I have created a how to guide and I have also made a page for the Shoes Link Up..

Join in & show us where your shoes live!

About Snoskred, Fashion, Shoe Linkup

Ball vs Bawl

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balled

 

Oh dear. I sincerely hope you did not. So many images come to mind.. netballs, baseballs, debutante balls, bowling balls, stress balls, those little plastic balls in ball pits, man balls otherwise known as testicles.. NEEDLE SCRATCH wait what?

I don’t know about you, but when I find something terribly upsetting, causing salt water to leak from my eyes, the last place I am intending to put my crying eyes is in a man’s crotch area. Maybe it is just me. :)

Please tell me it is not just me. Pretty please?

Bawl vs Ball

Two very different things which should never be confused for each other. Dear Baller, here is your Fail Whale. It is much prettier than your fail. I do not think I will ever get tired of the beauty of this art. In fact it almost makes fail whales worthwhile.

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~ Image credit to Neoyume on Deviant Art ~
 

Now if only this gorgeous art could wipe out that mental picture of testicles and eye balls..

My work is done here, kthx!

Fail Whale, wrong world

Allowed VS Aloud part 4

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~ Image credit to David Pache on Flickr~

Now let us clear out a few of these and wrap up our Allowed VS Aloud series, at least until some more of these appear to me as a surprise in my facebook feed.

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There is a new holiday in town! Hollerween! Where kids holler at each other aloud for hours on end while going around knocking on doors and hoping they will open. No candy involved, by the end of it you’ll need headache tablets. Sorry bout that!

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Yeah my cat gets real aloud making those miow sounds. So help me, I can’t even with the rest of this. I get irrationally angry when cats are involved.

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I don’t know the difference between no or know, nor do I know the difference between there or their, nor do I know or care if I am allowed to post these complicated instructions for the rest of you to follow in order for you to like a photo of some kid you never met and never will meet, nor am I going to bother telling you *why* you should do this. Like Nike said, Just Do It. Kthx.

Plus, above that, let me spam your group with a link to my new group without bothering to check the rules to see if you’ll be fine with it.

I weep for the future. Aloud. And I know I’m allowed to.

Fail Whale, wrong world

Lightbulb Moment – Wardrobe Take 2

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

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Layering tops many of which are mesh from Ezibuy.

This is part 2 of a series – part 1 is here.

So, basically we’ve learned during this process of sorting out my wardrobe that I have become less over the past few years and I have been trying to work out what has caused that.

I think a huge part of this burrowing into my comfort zone began when my favourite manager left.

My favourite manager is an incredible person. Have you ever known someone who takes every opportunity to praise you and lift you up? Who makes everyone better just by existing – who makes everyone want to do their best for them – who makes people *more* somehow?

Someone who has your back with upper management even if you’ve made a stuff up – which she will address with you in a way that will teach you never to make that mistake again, and in fact you’ll make sure nobody within your earshot ever makes that mistake either?

Someone who is there for you when you need them, and will even go to great lengths for you to get you the help you need, even if it is not a part of her official job description?

Someone who – even years after they are no longer your boss – is more than willing to listen when things go wrong, and give you the guidance you need to make the best decisions for yourself in the situation you find yourself in?

Someone who tells you the unvarnished truth, not what you want to hear?

Someone who tucks in your tag if you managed to get out of the house with it sticking out without making you feel embarrassed, and she’ll have noticed it and fixed it moments after you walked in the door, even if she has to interrupt a meeting to do it?

Someone who inspires great loyalty from everyone she works with, even if they are people she does not personally like?

That is what my favourite manager was like. When she was working there, shifts during the day never dragged on. In fact I looked forward to them, to being in her presence, to feeling her light, hoping it would land on me from time to time. Listening to her train other people was a validation of all the things she taught me to do, of all the things she wanted – needed – from us.

She is utterly hilarious. Training with her was never boring because she made everything interesting with the way she chose to present it. Having her listen to your calls was a sheer delight. Having her sitting next to you and listening in was a thing of great joy.

She also had a fabulous sense of style. No two outfits were ever the same, and myself and pretty much everyone around her took a leaf from her book and found our own personal style. She would always comment on everyones outfit. There were no flip flops, not ever in her presence. The only way you showed your toes was in a peep toe.

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Colourful tank dresses, none of which I would have bought without the influence of my favourite manager.

Sneakers were fine but they could not be plain and boring – they had to be colourful and delightful, or quirky. Layering was the order of the day and I enjoyed it, loved putting things together which I never would have considered before. Jewellery was to be oohed and aahed over, and discussed, and ranked in order of which pieces she most wanted to know where you got them because she wanted them too.

She allowed me to be who I truly am, she accepted who I was and validated the fact that it was ok to be unusual, to be quirky, to be different, to stand out in my own ways.

For the first time ever in my life, I was truly myself.

So how did the wardrobe sorting turn out? Everything in its place, baby!

Sorry some of these photos are quite long.. :)

skirts

My tiny collection of pencil skirts.

There are 3. I do not own a lot of skirts, I am more of a dress person. Plus, my Forever 21 animal print jumper.
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My colourful collection of dresses.

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So many different dresses.

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Dresses without patterns, just one colour.

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Going out tops all together in one place.

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Little shrug cardigans.

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Animal print tops all together in one place.

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Exercise tops all together.

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Around the house clothes –

You see all the identical pink ones at one end – those are all tops from rivers which are my in between seasons wear – 3/4 length sleeves. If I am not wearing a jumper and I am at home, there is a 99% chance I will be wearing one of those pink tops.

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Jumpers Together –

some of them are in the wash.

get organised, Happy Snoskred, work

Confessional

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

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~ Coconut Mango Chicken ~

There is something you don’t know about me. I figure I should just come clean and admit it.

…………. drumroll

I secretly hoard recipes on the internet in my bookmarks folder.

Currently I have 170 of them.

And this does not count recipes I have printed and stashed in the kitchen in various locations.

I know. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You probably bookmark recipes in your travels too.

What *is* wrong is, I rarely make any of these recipes.

I am essentially bookmarking them in the event that *one day* I might get around to it. Some of them are extremely complicated and demand kitchen skills I do not possess.

But one of the blogs I read – Casual Kitchen – posts a lot of easy to make, quick and simple recipes that I have made and do make. Today Daniel posted links to two really awesome posts which contain 25 recipes each and if you cannot find one thing there to try, then you are probably a kitchen wizard or a TV chef. :)

The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen

MORE! Top 25 Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen

Chicken Mole has been on my list for a while, I’ll give it a go and let you know. :)

About Snoskred, food, internet, Linkage

The story of my Sun Brooch.

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sb7

One freezing cold Friday I was booked to go and have a lunch with a couple of girlfriends. It was *icy*. Seriously icy. As in people nearby were getting snow.

Brrr!

I went looking for something cute and warm to wear and pulled out a velvet jacket from the closet. I bought it in Adelaide many years ago from the 1626 clearance store, before they were known as Autograph. The jacket was a little big for me at the time I bought it, being a size 22. It is now several sizes too big but I can still rock it – it is better if I have the other half at home because then I will wrap it around me and belt it. But in this case I just wore it like a normal coat, put on a scarf and my favourite sun brooch, and out the door with me I went.

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Lunch was awesome if a little delayed – an hour from ordering to receiving the food. Probably will not be going back there any time soon. But the company of two of my favourite ladies in the world was awesome and we hardly noticed the wait, until our tummies started growling and we checked our watches!

It wasn’t until a couple of days later when the other half and I were heading out and I wore the velvet jacket again that I noticed the sun brooch was no longer on the lapel.

Oh no.

I actually have two sun brooches – one I bought in 2011, one I bought in 2013, both from Macys at Ala Moana in Hawaii. The first one got accidentally washed and it lost a stone, then it got accidentally washed a second time and lost another one. The top one in the below photo is the broken one, can you see the missing stones? One is very obvious, one is right in the centre and a lot better hidden.

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I had put on the new, unbroken one, to go to the lunch for the first time in ages. I’d been wearing the broken one as it felt a bit safer. Now that the new one was missing, I used the broken one to close my coat at a higher spot than the buttons and headed out.

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So as I opened the gate for the other half to drive out I was having a sad, lamenting the loss of my poor sun brooch and thinking maybe me and this sun brooch were not meant to be..

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Then I got in the car and sat down, and saw the other half had pinned my sun brooch to the sparkly thing that hangs from my rear vision mirror. He found it on the passenger seat. Yay my brooch is saved!

The back pin is bent, which is why it fell off. I’m not sure it is fixable. But when I put the two together to take photos, I noticed they are actually different colours. You can best spot it from the back –

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See how the top one is like a bronze shade, when the lower one is silver? Also the bronze one has a different back where the silver one is smooth. They might look alike from the front but they are totally different bases.

I’m so glad my brooches are both here. I don’t know what to do with the pin of the broken one, if it can be fixed or not. In the meantime I will keep it in a safe place.

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This brooch always makes me think of the Queen and the Jardine Star Brooch.

Not that it looks much like it in reality. I’m still looking for my imitation Jardine Star. :)

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I am such a huge fan of the Queen. She is the main reason I began to wear brooches. I am also a huge fan of Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge – I love that she has taken to wearing brooches lately. It gives them a new coolness.

brooches, Fashion, jewellery

Allowed VS Aloud part 3

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

fw4
~ Image credit to Neoyume on Deviant Art ~

Is that the most beautiful Fail Whale you have ever seen? I love this Fail Whale so much I am going to put it on my desktop. :) Unfortunately not as pretty are the fails I have to share today.

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So once again can’t be bothered working out if there are group rules or if this fits within them, imma gonna let you have your classifieds group but just let me post this kthx. Someone stole something from me, not that I really care about that, but can you give it back for the sake of my poor sad child. Aww..

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Hmm. Let me try and answer this. If your hubby does not know the rules for having the license *and* it means so little to him that he totally forgot to renew it for a number of months, maybe this license is not for him. Best save the boat licenses for those who actually want and need them. :)

Fail Whale, wrong world

Lightbulb Moment. Wardrobe Take 1.

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

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Since I’m not going to work at the moment – a situation in limbo with no outcome as yet – I have been setting tasks for myself each day. It might be something tiny like clean the bathroom vanity, or sort through a pile of clutter. And then there are the huge tasks which are not a one shot deal – they require hours over a space of days in order to be completed. Sorting my cupboards fell into this huge task category.

This began with the other half, who has one small rather pitiful side of the Walk In Robe to himself. My clothes had quietly begun a takeover of his side of the walk in robe. It isn’t like my clothes don’t have space, there are at least 4 full size cupboards devoted to just my stuff. It was just easier for me to keep the most worn stuff in one spot.

He said “Do you think I can have my side of the wardrobe back?” – I said, yeah kthx lemme get to it. In the fullness of time. :)

So my outer self was not doing anything about this, but my inner self was quite busy thinking about how I would like my wardrobe to look and how it would be best organised.My internal self eventually came up with a plan as follows – Batch together –

– dresses

– going out tops

-layering wear

– jumpers

– tops only worn around the house

– skirts

– going out pants

– running errands pants

– around the house pants

– camisoles

My internal self tele-communicated with my external self, and a couple of days later I got started. I cleared a little portable rack which I can use for jobs like this. I also dug out my 50 pack of non slip coathangers which I wanted to use for tank dresses – of which I have quite a few but they are mostly worn over layering wear because I am not a fan of my arms.

I started by emptying out a rack which lives in the bedroom and contained stuff I had not worn for a while. Some of that went off to goodwill, others went to the correct area on the portable rack. Once I had this rack cleared, I chose to use it purely for dresses and began picking them out of.. well, chaos. Chaos looked like this –

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Dresses inside out, pants, tops, shorts, all kinds of wears all thrown together. This chaos probably resembles the inside of my mind over the past year.

As I sorted through a very colourful collection of outfits, I began to realise something about myself.

Over the past year, I have become less.

Typing it out like that it seems like nothing but the truth is, it is everything.

Less me being who I truly am.

Less wearing things I like.

Less outgoing.

Less comfortable.

Less fun.

Less inclined to want to have fun.

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A lot of my gorgeous dresses never saw the light of day or only got worn once or twice. Some still have tags on. I realised that I have been staying safe with my outfits, wearing the same clothes which I felt safe and comfortable in. Why dress up, it is only going to work.

I have hunkered down in my comfort zone and I was not willing to move out of it, no way, nu-huh, kthx imma gonna let you finish, but it is safer this way. If I am not being who I really am, when they reject me or say I’m not good enough at my job or point fingers in my direction, well, that has nothing to do with the real me. The real me is protected inside a bubble. You can’t hurt the real me.

The real me is safe.

You can take aim at the fake me instead.

This was quite an upsetting lightbulb moment for me.

I have been living an a-ha lyric. Specifically, from the song Cosy Prisons –

So if you’re careful – You won’t get hurt

But if your careful all the time – Then what’s it worth?

You can view the video for this song here – Cosy Prisons – worth watching just for the gorgeous Morten Harket. Still beautiful even all these years after Take On Me.

I need to get back to the first lyrics of that same song –

Take a moment if you dare
Catch yourself a breath of air
There’s another life out there
And you should try it

I’m going to write more about this, obviously, because once I realised this I began to think about how I got to this place, and I want to show you the end results of the tidy up.

I am not sure if the posts will all be public because a lot of this is due to goings on at work – but if I password protect them I’ll let you know in advance and tell you to email me for the password.

Right now, I haz a flu, my eyes ache, I feel terrible, so I’m going to leave this here for now. Watch out for another post on this later this week.

get organised, Sad Snoskred