To all my wonderful readers and commentors, I wish you a great 2018. ;)
Snoskred Lives
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Christmas = Completed
I took only one photo on Christmas Day, see above. I took it so I could send it to family in Adelaide. This is in tune with my “be in the moment, put my phone down” policy which I have enacted ever since the Duchess of Cambridge visited Australia and I saw a photo of people who went to see her, most of whom were taking photos of her on their phones and cameras.
You best believe if the Duchess of Cambridge is in my presence I will not be taking a photo of her. I’ll be looking at her with my actual eyes. I have seen more than enough photos of her. I know what she looks like. I could identify her in a lineup, even if they brought in all her impersonators to stand next to her. I’m not too sure how I would go with a sketch artist but I would give it a red hot go.
When I raced back to Aldi to get the wine glasses, I also grabbed this cute set of cheese knives for the INSANE price of $4.99. I’d bought the serving platters earlier in the day. These items were so useful at Christmas lunch because we had a table full of nibblies.
I mean seriously how cute are these? They got a LOT of use. I am loving the tumblers we bought too, they look great with soda water in them and they go so beautifully with the copper coasters.
Google Mini was a hit with the visitors who kept asking it questions, many of which it did not know the answers to. You’ve got some work to do, Google. It amused my parents by telling them their store is normally closed on a Monday but Christmas may affect their opening hours.. This was news to them, seeing as they are there every Monday!
In preparation for the year of buying nothing, I grabbed a couple of items from the TVSN sale. I’ve had these Yankee candles on my wish list for a while, and they were the cheapest I have seen them. Usually one melt costs $3.99 at Spotlight, so this is good value for so many melts plus all those votive candles.
These are half price and they are an item I use a LOT but I only have two in black now, so I bought three colours in my actual size, which is now 10. I would have bought more if they had them in my size and colour. You can see the sale here.
It was a happy day and we all enjoyed it. That is the first time we’ve hosted Christmas in a long time, and we’ll probably do it again now that we have the delicate nirvana. Not one single blowfly or mosquito bothered us. It was brilliant.
Happy Christmas
I wish all my readers maximum compliments of the season! ;) Many blogs will be posting not much today so I thought I’d hit you with a large-ish post today.
My previous post Christmas Preparations = Complete – may have been somewhat incorrect. I should have said Christmas Buying = Complete but even that would be wrong. Wronggity wrong.
Some bright spark namely myself purchased a new piece of exercise equipment mid-December which has meant it is time to move things around in the house. The art room is becoming The Other Half’s computer room so that he can have airconditioning in there, which means his computer and tv room will now become a tv and exercise room.
At around lunchtime on Wednesday I downloaded this video – The Best TV of 2017 With Sam Esmail – from youtube and listened to it while cleaning out the art room. Sam is the writer and director of Mr Robot, still one of my favourite shows.
One of the shows they talked about interested me – Mindhunter – and it was on Netflix. On Thursday I was just going to watch the first episode to decide whether The Other Half might like the show. I decided he would not, but I also could not stop watching it. What an amazing show. If you have Netflix and have not seen it, I suggest you put this on your must see list.. :)
Set in 1977 – in the early days of criminal psychology and criminal profiling at the Federal Bureau of Investigation – Mindhunter revolves around FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), along with psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), who interview imprisoned serial killers in order to understand how they think with the hope of applying this knowledge to solving ongoing cases.
On Thursday night we did present wrapping, at which time The Other Half realised we did not have much in the way of presents for my parents. At bedtime I was up to episode 7 of Mindhunter.
On Friday morning, I did some cleaning then watched the remainder of Mindhunter while waiting for the postman to arrive with a parcel we needed to fix Dad’s ute. The afternoon was spent cleaning the kitchen to a level I am most happy with.
On Friday night we went to a local place which was having a special late night shopping event. I won a door prize and we were successful in finding more presents. My parents are so difficult to shop for, so I just aim for something different and quirky these days.
Driving there was bizarre. We were expecting a lot of holiday traffic but the roads were almost empty, eerily so. We thought perhaps the zombie apocalypse had happened but we just did not know yet. We also went to Bunnings where we found some awesome plants and hatched a plan to drop by and steal a pot from my parents which did have plants in it but they had died, so we have replaced them with new plants as another gift.
There was so much cleaning I needed to do on Saturday, and after getting up at 6:30am to go and get our Christmas BBQ Meat which is very Aussie – sausages, scotch fillet and lamb chops – we ran to Aldi to pick up some more serving platters and I found these gorgeous tumblers in my favourite colours which are plastic. They also had wine glasses and I contemplated grabbing them but decided not to. Big mistake. Huge!
We successfully thieved the pot while my parents were out, and drove back home where we parked the car fully intending not to take it out again. HAHAHAHHAHA. Funny joke!
Much cleaning was done, including the chook pen. I realised this is the first time we’ve done it with the new girls as I did it right before they arrived. They were so freaked out by the scary rake and the wheelbarrow and worst of all, my hair was annoying me so I put it into a bright pink scarf thing and they thought I was someone else they’d never met before.
At some point during the day I began to feel Not Great that The Other Half had no presents to open at all. He is getting a new motherboard for his computer and did not want any presents. But that is really not cool in my book. So 7pm that night after the crazy traffic died down, I talked my parents into going for a Kmart run.
With a stop at Aldi for the wine glasses, and Woolworths for a couple of last minute things. You don’t even know how rare this is. Well, the part about me going to Woolworths is probably almost as rare as my parents going to Kmart, because you may recall I broke up with Woolworths long ago.
Sunday was spent deep cleaning the Delicate Nirvana, the lawns were mowed and leaves on the driveway vacuumed up, and then the doors were built. I forgot to take a photo when we were done and it is dark now, so I’ll save that for another post.
We’d put some plastic door curtains up in the meantime which you can see in the above photo. They will remain there as it protects the doorway from flying creatures when the doors are open.
I don’t have much in the way of cooking to do today, just roast potatoes. We’re having loads of nibblies, a couple of cheese platters, prawns aka shrimp, then a bbq. I just have to do some chopping of things for the nibblies.
Christmas Preparations = Complete.
Victory is mine. I got the food covers!
We also picked up a couple of spare chairs for the nirvana and some cherries. With just one small trip to Vincentia for specially ordered meat at sparrows crack of dawn on Saturday Morning, I am now going nowhere for at least a week. :)
What Is It?
Anything in this shade of green stops me in my tracks, but in this case it took me a little while to work out exactly what I was looking at. Shades of teal green are my favourite as well as a great favourite of my Mother.
I very nearly bought it for her for Christmas, but it turned out to be $77. It is quite large, so I can justify the cost. However I cannot justify buying her random glass items just because they are her favourite colour, or because they are something I might love to own. ;)
T-shirts At Last
On a recent trip to Canberra I thought we would go to the Canberra Outlet Centre and try to find some t-shirts that actually fit me. This was a bit of a mistake on my part because it involved dragging The Other Half around a lot of stores which created frustration on his behalf on my behalf, if that makes any sense. I was annoyed that I was not finding anything and he was annoyed that I was annoyed.
After trying countless womens departments which were all an epic fail – the sleeves are far too short – I decided to try a few menswear places and we ended up in Factorie, a store I had never been in before in my lifetime but it reminded me a lot of Cotton On and I discovered later they are a part of the same company. I found a few t-shirts that looked like the sleeves would be an ok length and more importantly the material was not too thin, plus they were quite long even in the medium size, so I tried them on.
I wasn’t sure whether the length of time we’d already spent looking had worn me down to a nub but I thought these would do for around the house, so I bought two for $25. The next day I wore one of them and fell in love, so I went to the website where I discovered I could get a whole lot of them for $4.95 each. Free shipping was $50 so I splurged and bought 10 t-shirts – one being $9.95 to take me over the $50.
I do not know on what planet some of these can be considered menswear. The curved tail tee is super long on me, ending up somewhere mid-thigh. The colours are mostly pastel shades. They are very soft and comfortable and perfect for around the house. I’ve got enough to last the summer now and a couple of them are good enough to wear out if necessary.
This was the most expensive of my order online buys – the shaded angle t-shirt for $9.95
I will be keeping an eye on their clearance section because I saw these gorgeous tie dyed tees in store and while I do not want to pay $24.95 for them, I will be happy to pay under $10 for them at a later time.
Only In Australia
Seen today at Bunnings, which is a local hardware store.
Due to our lack of rain, recently the local kangaroos have been heading into the more populated areas in order to eat peoples lawns. :) I wonder how they would react to these “twinkle” kangaroos if they met them on a lawn somewhere? Would they recognise it as another kangaroo?
A Quick Fashion Post
Recently I was looking through one of the fashion websites and one of the new dress arrivals at Noni B made me gasp out loud. This is the Viviana, it is currently nearly $127 and that is 25% off, which is not something I am likely to pay. But that store regularly does $50 dresses so next time I am there, I will try it on and establish what size I need, and whether I actually like it on, and if I like the material.
I was in Target recently – well not the real Target, because we have “country” Target here, which is like removing all the awesomeness of Target and leaving.. well, whatever is left. I am not a fan.
Maybe 20 years ago I bought some t-shirts at Target which I still have and wear to this day. I thought I saw something similar on a recent drive by the store but it turned out they were a thin material and Not Great cut. They had just got the Christmas t-shirts in, and it was yet another time where the plus size option was far better than the option for not plus size.
The smallest size they had was 16, it would have been far too big for me. :( When you look at these two side by side, you will notice the sleeves are also shorter on the “normal” sized option. I prefer the design on the plus size option, too. When you write Merry Christmas on something, there is a smaller chance you can wear it at other times of the year, whereas the plus option you could likely wear that anytime and nobody would really notice it is a Christmas shirt.
I have been hunting for weeks to find t-shirts that I like and epically failing. What do I want? Material that is not see through, too clingy, too thin. I want a decent sleeve length. I would prefer that it goes to the elbow. I would like cotton if possible. I already have quite a few super short sleeve tops and they are fine for hot summer days, but on cooler days I would like a bit more sleeve. Something with a gorgeous design. I like skulls, I like koi fish, I like a foil print, a metallic accent or stud embellishment, I love sequins, probably what I really need is a trip to Hawaii because I found plenty of all of that there!
Ghanda make a great range of long sleeve crew neck tees – perfect material, great designs, quite a bit of tie dye which I love, but the short sleeve tees are just too darn short for me. Sometimes I have found the mens range will work for me but this time too many of the tee designs I liked had one pocket and I was not a fan of that. The sleeve length was also not the longest I have seen.
One night after a Chinese dinner at Greenwell Point, we were sitting in the club listening to music and The Other Half was browsing Ali Express, as he sometimes does. He found these utterly gorgeous t-shirts which I am very tempted to order a couple of just to see what they are like – despite the apparent shortness of the sleeves. And at those prices, how could you go wrong? They have some incredible hoodies, too.
This is something I found browsing Ali Express. If I could find something like this in a shop where I could try it on and then buy it, that would be perfect. If you see it or something like it in your travels, let me know. :)
Road Trip
I ran out of candles. That is as good an excuse as any for an IKEA roadtrip! Plus of course the crossing songs off our list thing, which I mentioned here last week. River commented that it might be better just to download the songs we want in .flac format. My problem is, I do not always know what songs I want until I hear them. I am bad like that and The Other Half is even worse, so this kind of project is a great way for us to recognise what songs are missing from our playlist.
We stopped at Heatherbrae’s Pies twice on this trip. They are kinda hidden away at the Exeter/Bundanoon exit of the Hume Highway behind Mcdonalds. We first met Heatherbrae’s at their Newcastle location and we are so happy to have them locally.
The reason we stopped twice is because I got a Chai latte on our first stop and it was *incredible*. That may have been the best cup of coffee I ever had in my life, and I have had a lot of coffee. It is definitely in the top 10. So on the way home I said lets stop again and have dinner. I got the bacon, tomato and cheese quiche. I like how they hide the tomato at the bottom.
It is super dry everywhere we go at the moment. We have had very little rain this year. We have been advised that this is going to be a very dangerous bushfire season, and as I type this they are putting out a large fire within Booderee National Park, close to one of our favourite bushwalks. More on that in my Wednesday post this week.
On the way to Canberra there is a large former lake. Actually I don’t know, do you call something a lake if it has no water in it presently? I have not seen much water here for some years now. I remember one time seeing this as a lake, but every other trip it has been grazing land for sheep. And now someone has stuck a bunch of wind farms way out there. One day we will drive to see them, but I have no idea where they actually are or how to get there. :) This is a terrible photo by the way, taken while driving, and the horizon is skewiff. :)
On arrival at IKEA there were swedish meatballs for lunch. The other half chose to have the meatballs as well, and at some point I said, you know this gravy would be awesome in our cottage pie, and I can buy it in a packet mix from the food section here.
Which of course I did. ALLEMANSRÄTTEN is everyone’s right to field, forest, and a fine meal with savory sauce, apparently. According to the packet, anyway.
These Sinnlig candles are very good value at $1.69. I got one of each flavour. Normally I buy the candles at Aldi for $2.99 but these burn almost as long for a smaller price.
I also bought many Sinnlig $2.79 for 30 tealights, which will be dotted in with my cheaper Glimma $4.99 for 100 tealights.
The other half picked this little mini-cactus because it spoke to him. And shall we now tell the fascinating story of my dream mini-farm? It will have mini chickens, mini turkeys, mini ponies, mini pigs, mini cows, mini every possible animal. Plus now I will add a mini cactus farm and a mini garden. One day!
And finally, I got some Frajen bath sheets as a gift for my Mother. These are huge yet quite thin so they dry very fast. I have been using mine all winter and they are great value at $10.99. We dropped in at Costco, grabbing some cheese and a few other treats. It was a very quick stop and soon we were on our way back home. There were kangaroos in the fields everywhere, making me realise that this would become something to watch out for once the sun went down.
We made it to Heatherbrae just after sunset, and picked up a piece of vanilla slice and a custard tart for my parents, the other half got a cream filled donut, I got a cherry and apple pie which I ate the following day for dessert. Soon after leaving Heatherbrae, we met our first wildlife friend.
Happy moments and a fun road trip for us! :) Even with all the wildlife encounters.
So That Was August
Bargain Beanies – these were $3 each from Cotton On. I wear a lot of beanies around the house these days and I figured for $3 each I might as well have some stylish ones. Why have I been wearing beanies around the house, you wonder? Wonder no more – here are our temperatures for the month of August in celsius –
No wonder I was freezing cold much of the time. Two days where the low was over 10C (50F) – that is very cold for where I live. We have not had much rain at all. We have had many days where there were no clouds, so as soon as the sun disappeared the temperature dropped.
Thank the deities I found these gorgeous and extremely comfortable boots on sale at Mathers – these are the Colorado Caffara which I managed to score for the massive price of $40 during a sale on an impromptu shopping trip with my parents which came to me as a surprise one Saturday afternoon.. They were originally $249. I have been wearing them a lot lately.
I found this goldstone ring for $10 at a local place – I cannot resist goldstone. It is one of my favourite things. I am planning to see if my favourite rings can be resized soon but until then, I can wear this one. It matches my new boots too.
As mentioned in my No Buy July post, I intended to buy this pin from Noni B, and buy it I did, though I got it for just over $17 during a sale. It does pay to sign up for their email mailing list and rewards card thingy, if only to be told when things are going to be on sale. :)
We did a little reorganizing and created a nice sun trap for the kitties which happens to sit right next to the chickens favourite place to hang out and dust bathe when they are free ranging.
They can relax and enjoy the warm sun PLUS have chicken entertainment. Most mornings now they are both found somewhere here.
They take it in turns for the cat tower, the other cat usually sits on the chairs which are covered by an IKEA bath mat.
Meanwhile the chookies have just experienced their first blueberries for the season and they were very happy about it. Delicious blueberries = happy chook moments.
There were two manicures in the month of August – my nail artist opened her own shop this month which was super exciting for her and I am so happy for her. The first manicure was blue with a holographic glitter in it, which threw a rainbow of colours. I got 3 full weeks out of this mani, but in the next photo you can see why I like to stick with tips only – see the new growth which has no polish?
This particular nail colour also showed me exactly where I use my nails to do things, as parts of it turned pink with wear towards the final week of the manicure. The pinky finger in particular got a lot of wear – I figured out this is where my finger meets my tablet cover and I use my pinky nail to hold it upright while reading at night. It was so weird, there was no change in the thickness of the polish or the quality of it, not at all. Just a colour change.
I mentioned the other manicure last week, but here it is pictured resting on the outfit I mentioned. Again it is difficult to take photos of these things and do them justice. You can almost see how it matches this dress perfectly. That is a chiffon tank dress from Millers which I bought in late summer and then the weather got too cold to wear it. I have been thinking about this dress for months, waiting to wear it and finally we got a warm day.
The dress and I, plus The Other Half, went to Shellharbour, then we took our new “long way home” which goes via Robertson, where I took the obligatory Big Potato Photo. It was a beautiful day, reaching highs in the 20s. The next day it SNOWED in Robertson, and we suddenly went from 16C to 6.6C here.