Snoskred Loves

The Sock Project

7 Comments Posted on March 14, 2018March 12, 2018 by Snoskred

As mentioned in Monday’s post, socks are my kryptonite. I also said “But not buying these socks was one of the harder moments of this challenge for me.” My brain said – You might need socks later, and Aldi do not always have them available. It is just $6, what does it matter. You better get these now!

The way things work right now, I tend to have 7-10 pairs of socks that I wear over and over until they get a hole in them, then I either buy more because they are on Special Buys at Aldi, or dig some out of the Long Forgotten Socks drawer.

Rather than buying more socks, I figured it would be a good time to catalogue the socks I have and try wearing one pair each day.So the first task was to pull out all the socks from the Long Forgotten Sock Drawer, wash them, then pair them up again. I discovered I actually had two Long Forgotten Socks Drawers.

When I pulled the socks out of the dryer, The Other Half laughed at me and said how are you going to pair all these up? I did not initially comprehend the magnitude of the problem. After 40 minutes of sock pairing, I had to take a break, and I still had half the basket to go.

51 pairs of thin socks I can wear around the house.

13 pairs of long socks for wearing with boots.

8 pairs of bed socks.

5 pairs of fluffy long socks for house wear in winter.

17 pairs of black sports socks.

45 pairs of socks I can wear for workouts.

Plus 5 extra ones I had washed and forgot about, not pictured
The pair I was wearing at the time I did this – not pictured =

Total = 145 pairs of socks.

Dear Brain, I do not need to buy any more socks right now. So please shut up. ;)

If I wore only one pair per day I would be set for 145 days. The truth is, I do not wear only one pair per day. I wear one workout pair, then I have my shower, then I wear another pair of thin socks for the rest of the day. So in reality I am set for about 50 days.

You can expect the occasional Sock Friday where I montage together some of the cuter pairs, during this project.

No socks were purchased in the making of this post, but many, many, MANY socks were paired.

2018yobn, Aldi, shopping, Snoskred Socks

Things I Did Not Buy – February

2 Comments Posted on March 12, 2018June 5, 2018 by Snoskred

Noni B had a $20 sale, luckily none of the dresses I love were included. I already own one of the above tops – the Effie – I did like the Candice and Shelly but KTHXNOBUY. :)

We went to the local cheap shop to buy, of all things, Isopropyl Alcohol which we use for cleaning laptops, phones and tablets. As this is a cleaning item it is not on my Can’t Buy list. ;) Last time I’d paid some ridiculous amount for it at Bunnings for what seemed like a tiny bottle of it – here we got double the size for half the price. While there I spotted these colourful hanging things for $12.99 and the pompoms were velvety and so gorgeous, but KTHXNOBUY.

You guys, YOU GUYS. Socks are like my kryptonite. I am a firm believer that you can never have too many socks and this one time I bought a truly magnificent set from Aldi, when I went back the next week to get more they were totally sold out.

Aldi socks are perfection in my opinion especially the workout socks. They have never once let me down yet, not a single blister ever, and they are my main go-to for a workout sock. PLUS you get three pairs so they are $2 a pair which is CRAY CRAY.

This did lead me to do a big clean out of the sock drawer which provided me with an extremely shocking discovery, I will tell you about that on Wednesday. In the process I re-discovered a few old favourites that had vanished. I do have enough socks to last the year. I really do. But not buying these socks was one of the harder moments of this challenge for me.

PS Sorry if I am absent a little bit last week and this week, The Other Half is on holidays and we are catching up on some chores and activities we have been meaning to do. :) There are several emails I have not replied to and I am not leaving a lot of comments. I’ll get to it soon, I promise!

2018yobn, Aldi, Things I Did Not Buy

I Bought Something(s)

12 Comments Posted on March 7, 2018March 6, 2018 by Snoskred

We all knew this moment would arrive eventually. We’ve been holding out hoping that we could just struggle on with the current batch cooking pan and we made it two months, nearly three, but you tell me, would you like to keep eating out of this?

Yes that is supposed to be a non stick cooking surface, but as you can see parts of it have flaked off leaving the surface underneath exposed, and unfortunately that surface underneath is rusting.

We had two cooking pans which I could use for batch cooking, the first one rusted to a point we were uncomfortable with some months back, and we were down to just the one pan.

We tried using baking paper hoping that would solve some of the issues, at the very least keep the rusted area away from the food, but that did not work out for us. Paper + Gravy = soggy mess. I was able to rescue that particular cottage pie with a lot of skill and talent, but clearly this was not an option for future batch cooks.

The hunt was already on for a pan we could use which was dishwasher safe – the reality is, we are not going to manually wash a pan. We are dishwasher users and we know it. So some of the options were out before we even began. I was looking online at some options via commercial cookware shops in Sydney, and due to The Other Half having two weeks of holiday we planned a trip up to buy a new baking pan.

Then fate stepped in. We listed our tandem kayak for sale on a couple of local secondhand sites in November 2017, after buying a second single kayak. I’d had a few enquiries, mostly from people who wanted to pay $500 for a kayak that currently retails for $5,000. Second hand prices on our particular kayak were mostly $2,500 or so, and we wanted to get at least $2,000 for it.

There was no particular rush and we were happy to sit and wait for the right person to enquire. On the last day of February, they did, but they were in Canberra. They wondered if we could bring it over to them, and we decided that we could kill two birds with one stone – sell the kayak and buy some new cookware. So I began looking at commercial cooking places in Canberra, and I found this one with some aluminium pans that might work.

On further googling it turns out these are not dishwasher safe, and The Other Half said to me, can’t we get something stainless steel, like our two fantastic Sunbeam Banquet frypans which get dishwashed regularly without any issues whatsoever?

Honestly, if I still had the box this came in, we could box our Ellise up and sell it as brand new and nobody would ever know. They are costly up front but you get your moneys worth long term. I’ve cooked in that frypan 2-3 times a week for over 18 years now. It performed so brilliantly and dishwashed so well, we bought a second one, though I managed to break the lid on that one sadly. Glass & Snoskred = a very bad idea.

Apparently no, commercial cooking places in Canberra did not seem to have anything stainless steel. I ended up looking at IKEA and I found the KONCIS which claims to be dishwasher safe and half the price of any commercial options. We thought we would give this a try, so we planned to stop at IKEA for lunch after dropping off the kayak.

We took the “back way” over to Canberra. They have finally finished sealing it and Google Maps will now route people this way BUT I have to say it is Not Great, Bob. Do Not Want. Cannot Recommend. I nearly wore a hole in the passenger side floor trying to brake, even though there is no brake on that side of the car, which is clearly a design flaw. :)

On the other hand, you do get a closer view of those wind turbines that Joe Hockey was so upset about, out near Tarago. Not much closer, but closer than you see them on the Federal Highway.

Also out near Tarago, we saw this large air force plane doing loops. I’m pretty sure it was a C-17 Globemaster.

We dropped off the kayak, spending nearly two hours with the new owners chatting and taking them through how it works. Then we headed to IKEA for a Swedish Meatball lunch – The Other Half had a chicken parmagiana which was one of the best he has ever had, he rated it a 9 out of 10. They did have this Salted Caramel Tart which tempted me but we had other dessert plans.

I have never once been to an IKEA without buying candles, but this was my challenge to myself today – only buy things we need, not things we want. I have enough candles to last the year if I ration them effectively. But to make sure we were good and tempted, we walked through the entire store. I took some photos of items I did not buy – a post for another day. What did we buy?

2x Koncis $14.99.

1x Vardagen $9.99 as we had an incident with our current muffin tray and we wanted to try out the anodised aluminium.

This Lyckad $9.99 and this Lyckad $6.99 to replace long-ago broken baking dishes, 2x Vildkaprifol @ $4.99ea as these are much better fitting oven gloves than the Iris we own now and those Iris are a bit stained, 3 sets of Plattboj $3.99.

2x Bastis refills. I use these to remove cat hair from various surfaces, then I discovered that you could go straight to the source and lint roller the cats themselves. They absolutely love it!

We got out of there for less than $90 and not one candle purchased. We were going to go to Frugii Dessert Laboratory as we thought it was near to an IGA store and we have been on an IGA tour looking for their carpet cleaner. However it turns out that was a SupaBarn, not an Supa IGA. So our dessert was cancelled. We dropped into Heatherbrae on the way home instead.

The obligatory chai latte fingernails shot.

Dessert was a small crispy donut with cream. I also picked up a cherry and apple pie for desserts this week as The Other Half has gone camping – which makes three dinners and desserts where I can have what I love without having to worry that he does not love it too.

I made a massive Chicken Cacciatore filled with things The Other Half does not eat AKA olives, mushrooms, and anchovies on Monday and there are leftovers for the next two nights and maybe even nights after that. It is so nice to not have to cook for a few days.

So, I will have to make a new graphic for the end of month #yobn post this month. Nay, something bought in March. Rule No 1 of this challenge went as follows – If we both agree that we NEED something, we will buy it. Everything else here was also a need, not a want.

I was down to one ceramic baking dish after some of our old ones cracked and broke last year, the oven mitts were too big for our hands and food stained, and I won’t post the photo of the muffin tin because it looks so bad, after some of the coloured Coles patty pan liners left their colour behind – yes I did not even know that was a thing that could happen, but it has not washed off even after several dishwashings. Only plain white ones from now on, but the coloured ones were handy to tell my baked goods apart from his baked goods.

2018yobn, IKEA, shopping

Things I Did Not Buy – January

4 Comments Posted on February 12, 2018June 5, 2018 by Snoskred

It is a strange feeling to be out in the world and not want to buy anything. On the second day of the Year Of Buying Nothing, my parents took me to run some long put off errands. They both needed new mobile phones and haircuts. Apparently everyone else in the world also needed new mobile phones and my parents are not at all patient people.

After a couple of drop ins to the store in which the queue was too long, we finally got to speak to someone who sat us down and said they would send a consultant over. 11 minutes later – and I know because they counted every single minute and there was a robust discussion about whose watch was correct while we waited – we left the store with no mobile phones. While out I saw many things in many shops but all of them stayed there. Nothing especially tempted me.

Every morning I like to tune in and see what Today’s Special Offer is on TVSN. On the 5th of January it was a beautiful Katherine Kelly Lang kaftan at a great price. Even though it was cold shoulder it wasn’t much of a cold shoulder and the embellishment was gorgeous. But I did not buy it, because YOBN.

One thing that is DEFINITELY not tempting at all is the range at Rockmans this summer. I have never seen so much ugly clothing in one place. The prints that are semi-nice are cold shoulder in a big way, so heck no.

In our ensuite bathroom we have a plastic container full of water for the kitties. It is a large rectangular shallow container which they love to drink from. The sister container to it is our pizza leftovers container but sometimes it gets used for other things and is not available for pizza night, so I would like to reclaim the second container. I thought maybe this would be the first thing to break our no-buy deal.. but then I remembered we have a second spare Christmas Lights container and they love that one so much out in the Nirvana.

I could see about a million uses for these long “bath runner” mats in my house. We already make use of bath mats on the floor in the kitchen and in various places about the house. These are 1.4 metres long but a bit pricey at $19.99. Though that is a pretty decent price for a standard size bathmat when I think about it, let alone these which are massive. However, #YOBN, no deal.

I love mercury glass and this would be perfect for the nirvana, but no sale.

You know I love mixed media and Boo Radley. I saw this dress when it was first released and it is stunning. But, kthxno, #yobn! ;) You might want to take a look at the clearance rack though, because last I checked there were some great bargains. I usually click on lowest to highest price to see the best deals.

2018yobn, Things I Did Not Buy

My Favourite Aldi Products

4 Comments Posted on January 22, 2018January 21, 2018 by Snoskred

Wasabi Aioli

This is my favourite aioli that you can get from a supermarket. It is in the refrigerated section instead of just on the shelf and it is not too spicy, just perfect to add a little heat to our weekly fish and chips. The Wasabi one is light green and not pictured here as they had sold out – and I am totally not surprised. Made in Australia, too!

Foaming Facial Cleanser

I use two items of skincare for my face every single day. One of them is this foaming cleanser from Aldi which I use in the shower while my hair conditions. They sometimes have a tea tree oil version in their special buys which I have used before and liked. Both this version and the tea tree smell great and do what they need to do. Made in Australia.

The other skincare item is moisturizer and I have a few different ones I switch back and forth between, including a cream that I credit with keeping my skin awesome which is actually a slightly up money hand balm for gardeners bought from Scully’s in Berry. It smells amazing.

Luxury Hand Wash

If you like citrus chances are you would love this hand wash. I first bought this scent as a moisturiser when they had it on special buys and it smelled SO incredible, the next time it is in stock I am going to stock up big time. But in the meantime I have this luxury hand wash in the guest bathroom and at least once a day I go in there and treat myself to a big scenty lather up. The scent stays around for a long while and the sage adds a delicious smoky element.

I think this might be one of the best smelling hand wash products you can buy in Australia, maybe Aesop has something to compare but the Aesop one is seriously Up Money at $40 for 500ml. I’ll take the $5 version thanks! Made in Australia.

Foaming Hand Wash

My favourite is the passionfruit and guava but they are all good and I have one container of each flavour available in the house at all times. Both the pumps and refills are Made in Australia.

For those of us who do a lot of hand washing, at $2.49 for 500mls these are excellent value and they smell amazing. A little goes a long way with this product, in fact more so than I realised and I was buying one refill each fortnight alternating the flavours until the other half pointed out I had quite a supply of them building up in the cupboard.

Dishwashing Detergent

More great smelling stuff from Aldi. The lemongrass and kaffir lime is great but the pomegranate and mango one is deeply intoxicating. I love using it. Someone has worked hard on all these flavours and it shows. Made in Australia.

Vintage English Cheese

I went for six months without raw cheese in 2017. The one cheese I wanted and craved the entire time was this one. It is super strong and bitey which is how I like my cheese. It was the only one I bought the minute I decided to allow some raw cheese back into my life. Not made in Australia.

Cheese Kransky

I do not normally like this kind of product but The Other Half loves a kransky or cabana. I actually do like this one and I will eat it without any qualms, just not too often because it is slightly higher in sodium than most foods we eat now. It is a rare treat for both of us.

Brioche Awesomeness

I do not eat hot dogs but I love these buns and this is a rare bread treat I will allow myself, perhaps once a month. I like to poach a couple of eggs and place them inside the hot dog bun, and add tomato relish from The Treat Factory.

Pizza Bases

We buy two of these a fortnight, and we get four pizza meals out of each packet of two. They smell amazing, too. Just keep them in the fridge in the warmer months because there can sometimes be a little moisture inside the packet and we’ve had them grow mould before. Made in Australia.

Overall I am very happy with Aldi as a place to shop, especially considering how much effort they have put into sourcing products from our own country, whereas the other two big names tend to be looking to drop the prices down down by importing products from other countries.

Aldi

Delivery Time

4 Comments Posted on January 5, 2018January 5, 2018 by Snoskred

Supervisor cat will supervise any deliveries. :)

Ordered on Boxing Day AKA 26th of December, this was my last purchase for myself before The Year Of Buying Nothing began. However it did not arrive until the 3rd of January which made it a nice New Year treat for me.

There were three new mesh tops from Boo Radley in white, soft pink and raspberry. This item is still on clearance but at the time of writing there is only one size left. What might happen is folks get it home, try it on, don’t like it or it does not fit, then they send it back with the 30 day moneyback guarantee. Mine are most certainly staying here.

There were 42 items from Yankee Candle. This item can no longer be found on the website. I fear they are not going to restock this brand. I got 18 mini votive candles and 24 melts.

There was one more purchase we bought for the Delicate Nirvana on New Year’s Eve which I will tell you about next Wednesday.

shopping, TVSN

7 Days Of Jervis Bay

4 Comments Posted on October 2, 2017October 1, 2017 by Snoskred

Day 1 – a group of tourists take a selfie on the beach while the dolphin boat heads out.

I have lived near Jervis Bay for over 10 years now. You would expect that the stunning effect would eventually wear off. I’m here to tell you, it does not. There are days when the beauty stops me in my tracks and I cannot help but stare.

Day 2 – swimmers are surprised by a pod of dolphins on their way to meet the Dolphin Boat.

There are days when I reach my “goal” of however many KM that I set myself, and decide to just keep going instead. However the past 2 days I have not been able to get to the bay due to a long weekend and I knew this would happen so I made sure to add on an extra 5km to my 10km walk on Friday. Traffic was bad on Friday. I got stuck at one notorious intersection for over 20 minutes.

Long weekends are great times to do a lot of work at home when you live in a holiday destination but you have to plan ahead, make sure you have everything you need well before the weekend, and choose your moments – and places – if you do need to get out and get something as a surprise. Between 5-8pm on Saturday and Sunday are generally good times to go places as long as you are not wanting to eat out in a restaurant.

Day 3 – The dolphin boats await their passengers.

I have been trying to get to the walking tracks at least 6 out of 7 days for the past 3 weeks. The weather has been excellent. I would actually prefer it to rain because we really need it. If it did rain, I would still go for my walk. Thunderstorms and lightning, not so much.

Day 4 – Kayakers head out into the bay.

Lately my photos have not been doing any justice to what I am seeing with my eyes. It might be time to replace this camera. Here you see 7 photos from my most recent 7 days at the bay. Most of the photos should enlarge if clicked on, except for day 6.

Day 5 – Rays of sunlight break through the clouds.

It is school holidays here. I don’t mind the extra people about. It is so lovely to see more people enjoying the bay. Everyone I pass says hello. I do mind them being endlessly inconsiderate of others walking the path – and alternately being completely unaware of anyone around them which means I tend to scare them when I walk or run past them – littering – and somewhat memorably last week someone set fire to the toilet paper in our public toilets.

Day 6 – I made a lizard friend.

I do think sometimes I could use a bike bell to let people know I am approaching, but I wonder exactly where I would put it. Both my wrists are spoken for – one with my fitness watch, the other with my camera cord. Maybe I should wear a bell around my neck, like a cat or dog.

Day 7 – Shark Net beach is usually very calm, perfect for swimming.

I also do mind when they cannot allow the beauty of the bay to distract them from their problems and issues. I overhear things. Who cares about work, you are not there right now, you are here in the bay, enjoy it!

Sure, none of the overheard things are “No Mummy, PLEASE, NOT the mineral water, Mummy!” which was our most remembered overheard snippet of conversation ever, in a supermarket in Adelaide and we have been laughing about that ever since. We have no idea what Mummy does with the mineral water but we have imagined many things. More than likely the child wanted Coca Cola instead.

What is your most remembered overheard snippet of conversation?

exercise, Fitbit, Jervis Bay

Road Trip

4 Comments Posted on September 18, 2017September 15, 2017 by Snoskred

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.

Costco, IKEA, shopping

The Aldi Cat Bed

10 Comments Posted on July 7, 2017June 28, 2017 by Snoskred

Grumpy is appreciating this Aldi cat bed very much lately, especially since it got very cold here.

We were lucky to find this on special for $9.99. I bought one. I put it in the bedroom the first night and Grumpy discovered it and settled in. The next morning I carried it out into the lounge and put it in front of the gas heater and she spent the entire day there.

A couple of days later we had to go back into town and I sent The Other Half to buy a second one if they had it. He returned with two more!

Aldi, kitties

Softsole Express VS Milky Foot

7 Comments Posted on October 26, 2016July 9, 2017 by Snoskred

In Australia, it is heading into that time of year again where you might want to get the feet out of their shoes and socks. I like to do a foot peel from time to time in spring and summer. I’ve used Milky Foot before – it is usually $25+ where I live, so when I saw Softsole Express for $8.99 in Priceline, I thought I would give it a try.

I found it to be slightly less efficient than Milky Foot but at that price you can nearly have 3 of them for the price of one Milky Foot. You have to leave it on for longer than Milky Foot. I would buy Softsole again. Weirdly it cannot be found on the Priceline website. Maybe that is a lack of talent on my part, though.

Six tips I would give you –

1. You need to get yourself organised before you put these things on your feet, because walking will be virtually impossible in fact it is downright dangerous. Use the bathroom first. Have everything you are going to need for the next 60-90 minutes handy eg water, your cup of tea, a snack, whatever. Make sure your phone is nearby.

2. If you have a spare pair of older socks which you don’t mind if they get the solution on them, you can put socks on over the booties. This will not enable you to walk safely, but it will keep your toes warm if it is a cooler day.

3. Keep your feet flat on the ground while you have the treatment socks on, otherwise you may notice some solution begin to leak out of the back.

4. After the treatment moisturize your feet twice to four times a day for the first few days as you will get a better result this way. It can take 3-4 days for the skin to begin peeling off. You will probably notice small bits coming off to begin with usually on the underskin of the toes.

5. Once your feet start peeling, if you want to speed up the process a little you can soak them in hot water with some peppermint oil added.

6. Don’t do this treatment if you have a special event coming up in the next couple of weeks where you will have your feet out on display. The peeling can happen for 2-3 weeks.

Here is a review of the product you can read, and also the Softsole website, if you want to know more.

Milky Foot is excellent and worth a try but at the price you will likely only want to do it once over the summer. That is not a bad thing because you don’t want to do a foot peel more than once a month. Here is the Milky Foot website.

Between the two – softsole smells a lot better than milky foot does. The softsole packet is less optimal than the milky foot one is – it is more prone to splitting on the top. I could walk very carefully with the softsole packet on, I could not with the milky foot one. I think there is a lot more liquid in the milky foot packet.

My Korean friend tells me these treatments are super popular in Korea. My Chinese Aunt tells me these treatments are very popular in China. A couple of years back Milky Foot did a big advertising drive here in Australia and that is where I first heard about them.

health, reviews