Back to the Basin

body of water
Photo by David Boca on Pexels.com

It has nearly been six months since Mum passed away and how much has happened in that time I would not even know where to begin telling you. But up front let me say Google is not letting me comment on some blogs – Debby yours is one of them. I’m keeping a good thought for you both.

One night we were starting to dream of – as President Bartlet would say – what’s next. The other half wanted a bit of land to camp on, so we spent a few evenings with one of us on the tablet and the other on the phone at bedtime, seeing what land was out there. If we found a block on the tablet we liked the look of but we didn’t know where it was, we’d google maps it on the phone.

We found this great and massive block out near Oberon and we loved it, we started to think about going to see it. In the blink of an eye that one was sold to other people.

I said maybe we can find a block a bit closer to home, so the looking became a nightly event. We did it together, until one night I did it on my own because the other half fell asleep early. I must not have ticked the right box, because somehow it suddenly was showing me houses with land. And the first house to pop up was in the street we used to live in. Being the nosey beyotch I am, I took a look.. and I started thinking that this house could really work for us.

It would allow us to separate out the business from home, it had a giant shed for the other half to mess around with cars in, and it backed onto the basin, so we would be able to kayak again right from our house like we used to when we lived at the basin before.

When the other half woke up the next morning I said, I have something you should look at. And he did. And he said yeah this ticks all my boxes. And I said yeah it ticks all my boxes. And he said we better not go and look at it, until the next day he changed his mind – we better go and look at it so we can decide it is a no and move on. He said it has wooden floors so it will be creaky. We’ll end up hating it when we see it.

And so we went. Not one creak. When we went under the house we soon saw why – brick pillars everywhere. A myriad of pillars. More pillars than I’ve ever seen in one place at one time. The other half said this has been massively overengineered, which is how I would have built it. I, of course, loved it before we even walked in the door, he was the one who needed convincing. But when I looked around I saw the attention to detail the people who built it put in, and was even more charmed by it.

As we walked away I said.. that’s put the cat among the pigeons. And it certainly did. And I’m not even going to bore you with all the details because it has been nearly 3 months of them. Suffice it to say, we get the keys this week to a house I would never have even dreamed of owning. It is bittersweet, because without Dad and then Mum passing we would never have gone down this road.

After Mum passed she came to me in a dream, sparkling like a twilight vampire in her beautifully painted coffin that we chose for her specially – and I got to put her in it myself in real life, a memory I will forever cherish – she was telling me that the afterlife is enormously chaotic but everyone is there plus all the animals and she started naming all these pets many of whom I did not recognise because they belonged to other family members – I found that out later on speaking to aunts and uncles etc.

And she said to me – and I quote – “live the best life you can while you are here, set up the future generations so they can do the same, and when it is time we will come and get you”.

Part one is about to become reality. Part 2 is a work in progress. I hope part 3 won’t be for a long while, but it is good to know they’ll be there waiting. :)

I hope you are all well. I’d love to say I’ll be back blogging but I’m not sure where I’ll find the time, setting up the new house and setting up the new studio is going to be a lot. So I’ll say that I’ll pop in when I can. I am sometimes getting time to read blogs but most of the time my comments don’t go through so I kinda gave up on making them. :/

Moving House, St Georges Basin

The Last Puzzle Piece

Is now sitting in my kitchen area ready for us to take it over to Mum’s new house and put it together tonight. It is a table for the outdoor area.

It is just over 5 weeks since we picked up the keys and we have accomplished so much since then – moving her in, getting the new couch delivered, ordering a desk, a new bed, having the windows cleaned then installing blinds and a screen door, foxtel, broadband, installing a ring doorbell which Mum super hugely loves, and she is all settled in over there now.

Rabbitgoo reflections

Meanwhile we’ve not sat on our hands at my place either – so much work has been done here. We’ve reorganised our storage in the second storeroom, taken down many vertical blinds which we were not in love with, replaced them in some cases with curtains and in other cases with the amazing rabbitgoo, and we’ve just started reorganising the outdoor area ready for me to run some art workshops out there.

Rabbitgoo rainbows

Today I am most determined to take an actual day off, other than dropping off the table at Mum’s and putting it together. Hence I am still in my pyjamas at 2:30pm in the recliner with a cuckoo cat in my footspace – it is a cold day and she likes to cuddle with me when it is warm.

So what is rabbitgoo? It is a film you put over your window which can block the view of anyone outside, plus give you loads of prettiness on the inside. It isn’t too hard to install especially if you have an OCD other half with enough time to do it well. It can also hide the view of the outside from the inside which you might want if you look out onto a fence and concrete, which we do in the storeroom so we will be putting some in there as well.

Hope to be around a bit more often in the upcoming weeks, have been very focused on moving Mum and work for a bit. :) Hoping you are all well!

Country Snoskred, Home

Less Limbo Like

aerial photography of rock formation
Photo by Ian Beckley on Pexels.com

Sort of. We have a settlement date yay – 9th September which is two weeks from today. The old house has had an open last weekend and has another one tomorrow. The work swap is all picked and ready to pack. Once that is done we will get to work next week on packing the things at the old house ready to move in, but Mother is not sure exactly what her plan will be re moving in – she’ll have two houses for a little while yet.

I think we just have to make a decision and go with it. Luckily she’s bought a new lounge for the new house and that will be delivered soon after settlement. Whether we want to move her bed over there or not is a big deal because her bed is the heaviest bed in the world and it is currently upstairs. We might take one of the less heavy and easier to move beds over.

Hope all is well in your worlds! :)

Moving House

Easter Part 2

The kitties had a most wonderful time with everything being moved about and cleaned and therefore it is like they got a houseful of new sleeping places and things to play with.

Over the course of the weekend we did many loads of washing. Because the weather was nice and warm we were able to dry the rugs out in the nirvana.

Cuckoo cat was constantly trying to make Happy Cat give up her sleeping spaces so Cuckoo could sleep in them. Happy said no, heck no, and nonononono.

Somehow the two of them made this nest out of a freshly washed rug placed on the lap of Carter. All weekend it was back and forth with this nest – Cuckoo, Happy, Cuckoo, Happy.

By the end of the weekend The Other Half’s new office was starting to take shape.

And the shelves began to fill.

Once the new store room began to fill, I was able to mop the floors for the first time in a while.

Nice and shiny! :)

Essentially three wardrobes were amalgamated into one – many of the “fancy” clothes were packed away for another time, and just a small selection left out in order to take up less space.

This wardrobe now has a shoe rack instead of clothes, plus some jackets, ponchos and jumpers.

And this wardrobe, which is in the first store room, was left completely empty. We have a plan for this space, it just might take us some time to enact it.

Overall many of the jobs we wanted to do over this weekend did get done, and a couple of them which did not get done are in the process of being done on this Anzac day long weekend we are having now.

Today we went to the dump as it was closed for three of the four day Easter long weekend and we assumed it would be very busy on the Easter Monday when it was open.

Still a few pictures to be hung up, and a few things I am still deciding what I want to do with them. Like the DVD rack – I actually do not have a DVD player anymore so why the heck am I hanging onto DVD covers? I could easily just get something like this and store them away in a much smaller space.

Home

Our Easter

Let me start by saying we do not “Easter”. We live in a tourist town which becomes impossible to navigate starting the Thursday before Easter, and remains pretty much that way till late Tuesday. The plan usually is to bunker down and do whatever we feel like at home.

On Thursday I went to the pool with two of my Thursday ladies who come into the studio on Thursdays to art together. We have been water walking together for a few weeks now plus we do aqua aerobics from time to time.

It is school holidays here and some smart cookie booked in a birthday party for the same moment as Aqua Aerobics – neither group was very pleased by this turn of events. We found it somewhat amusing. We had a lane to ourselves and walked for an hour and 20 minutes. Sometimes we do an hour, sometimes two, sometimes one hour then Aqua Aerobics for an hour.

After a quick change I attempted to dash home – the traffic was already Not Great, Bob! – to pick up The Other Half then we did a quick Donut run for the Thursday art people, then to the chemist, then back here.

This year The Other Half decided he wanted to move his office and games room back in together and give me his old office as a store room for the business. In part because the kid next door constantly plays basketball which is not especially conducive to work that requires a brain. He better turn out to be the next Andrew Gaze with all that bouncing.

It is now 5:15 on Easter Monday and we have mostly finished the taskings we set ourselves. It took almost the entire four days. I am exhausted and have zero desire to move from this chair but I will have to put dinner in the oven soon.

We have decided we would like to Rabbitgoo the windows on the driveway side of the house as there isn’t anything pretty to look at out of those windows. I would much rather see rainbows! We did Mum’s front door area in December last year – these pics were taken on a Not Sunny day. We get ours from Amazon – it is very easy to apply. Though possibly a little swear inducing.

It is all worth it in the end though! Look how pretty.

Friday was mostly spent sorting things, moving things to new rooms, and creating general chaos. All of this is business stuff for mailing things – and it was all in The Other Half’s gaming room which was a bit annoying overall. It was taking up a lot of space!

There was an early Saturday morning Bunnings trip. I said we must go when they open to avoid the insanity and we mostly did avoid it but 7am is very early to be at the hardware store especially pre-coffee!

A TV was mounted on a wall to save space..

A kitty space was fought over.

My Kallax was cleaned and rearranged. I re-sorted all my oils into alphabetic order. Yes I am that OCD person.

That is L to Z. Every 6 months or so I go through and re-sort them as they are forever making new oils.

Shelves were built in The Other Half’s new room as the old Kallax were staying in the work store room

How did it all turn out? That will be another post as this one has got quite long! :)

Home

4WD Tales

snow road street winter
Photo by Sinitta Leunen on Pexels.com

The Other Half has been wanting a 4wd to use as his camping car for a while. At first I was very anti this idea. An extra car rego to pay, tyres, every year a pink slip to show it was roadworthy, it just seemed to me like a money pit we really did not need to throw our money into. There are better things to spend money on especially when camping with the boys was a once every 3-6 months thing.

And camping with ME is a NEVER thing. I do not camp, except at 5 star hotels. And those can be reached with a normal vehicle which we already own two of.

I told him he could have one providing he saved up for it out of his own monies, and he did that. He bought a secondhand old 4wd locally and has been spending his Sundays working on it for the last few months. He finally convinced me to go for a drive in this thing. I actually loved every minute of it. And here are some pics.

This is part of an area which was affected by the bushfires in 2019/2020. You can see the effect it has had on the trees. They all look very weird.

After we had explored here for a while, we went back home and switched cars and headed out to Jervis Bay for a 5k walk. By the time we got there the weather had changed a little but was perfect for our purpose.

It is still just as gorgeous out here as it ever was. And we’re making more of an effort to get out regularly now whether separately or together. We need some nature time. ;)

beach walk, country life

What does this button do?

Orders yet another cat tower, I think. Two more arrived since the first one. They have a dedicated cat tower out in the Nirvana now, though we will probably rotate them around regularly. There is nothing cats like more than furniture moved to a new place, except more cardboard boxes.

Or perhaps this button plays the next episode of Bridgerton on Netflix. I have seen them all now but certainly would not mind watching it again, that was just delightful.

Christmas was fine, we bought a new table especially so we would have enough room for everyone. Here you see the new table joined to the old table. We were 8 in the Nirvana this year and it was a big day of eating and drinking. Perhaps too much so.

My bestie and her daughter and I were at Aldi on Boxing Day first thing – masked of course – to attempt getting new teevees. There was a 55 inch smart teevee on special. We were successful and I have to say this is the best Christmas present I can remember in recent times – except of course my Lego version of Bunnings which I am to put together soonest. I have gone from three remotes to one and it is a lot easier to use.

The business is still very busy but we have started to put some things in place that free us up a little bit more, and hopefully we can tweak and fine tune that in 2021 to give us more time back.

We got solar installed a couple of weeks ago. If I had known that would be as fascinating as television to The Other Half I would have suggested we do it a long time ago.

The cats and chickens are all well and happy. Both very spoiled as always, of course.

We have been watching The Mandalorian and I love it which is weird as I do not like Star Wars at all. Maybe because it is shorter, maybe because of Baby Yoda, but whatever it is I am fully on board.

Looking Forward –

What is with everyone who seems to think New Years Eve will magically fix everything 2020 related? Do the fireworks in Sydney Harbour contain some magical virus killing properties we are presently unaware of? Do all the people who died this year magically return to life? It isn’t like a new (possibly – probably – more sane) president gets sworn in at midnight in the US, nor does midnight on NYE instantly solve world hunger or remove any of the things that vex us currently. I think a lot of people are setting themselves up to be very disappointed.

I will simply expect more of the same and I think that will continue for quite a lot of 2021. Hope is a fine thing to have but delusional thinking is another thing entirely and haven’t we seen more than enough of that in 2020?

The delusional thinking of those who think their freedoms (freedumbs perhaps) are more important than the freedoms of others, for those who think they are magically immune to things and thus do not need to mask, for those stuck in a country where the only safe plan is to hunker down inside ones own house because the people outside are determined to do whatever it is they want and f**k everyone else’s wants.. for those who think the colour of their skin entitles them to berate, belittle and outright murder those with differently coloured skin, none of that is going to magically vanish on New Year’s Eve either.

I can’t fix the world. I truly begin to think nobody can. All I can do is focus in on what exists within my own four walls and make that better. So my plan for 2021 is simply that – Home.

Unlike a lot of others home for me includes work, I am very lucky in that respect.

In these next few days between Christmas and New Year I am going to tackle some things at home which have been annoying me for a while. A pantry clean out and reorganize, a fixing of some shelves that have become a dumping place for things which need homes.. those kinds of small jobs that we put off till later but later never appears.

My New Year Wish For You –

I wish you all the best in 2021

If by chance (reality) we get the same kind of shyte we got in 2020 I wish you all the patience in the world to deal with it.

Now I press this button and we’ll see what happens next! ;)

Home

I wish I had More Time.

To blog, to do things that aren’t work related, to read your blogs, to comment, to just sit and watch teevee. This photo is from my Hawaii trip in 2010 or 2011, I am not sure which one. Wouldn’t it be nice to just sit in the water on some kind of floating device and not have to.. answer messages or the phone or pack website orders for a few days.

But I do not have more time. Right now I have admin work that needs to get done and a bunch of new products that need to be added to the website some of which have been waiting two weeks already since they got here. I finally got the photos taken yesterday in a mad bulk photography session.

Where the f**k did August go? It was our Birthday Month here at the studio and thus it vanished in a haze of giveaways and general celebrations. We posted hundreds of packages and the reason I know that is I have a massive post bill sitting here waiting to be paid.

All of this is quite boring for you folks to read I am certain of that. Other peoples work is not very interesting. So let me mention the cats and chickens. All are well at the moment.

I fear for my oldest chicken. I do that every year when it starts to warm up. Here she is with her sisters on the day we first got them – both her sisters are no longer with us. I know I shouldn’t always see them whenever I see her but I do, I can’t help it. Those three were the ultimate trio, tackling chicken life together. I miss the other two every single time I see her, and I can’t help but think one day I will lose her too.

For now, it is extra blueberries, tomato, corn and tuna for this last sister standing who I adore. She will be ten years old at the end of November and that is a very long life for a chicken.

The kitties received a surprise gift this week. They got a new cat tower. They started playing with it before we even began building it. They are delighted.

Cuckoo kitten has been a godsend for us. She gives us endless laughter and joy. She is so funny. Happy has finally accepted her as a companion and they play together. I have even caught Happy licking Cuckoo from time to time, when she thinks we are not looking. That is how Happy does most things – she will play with toys but if she spots us watching her she stops.

The wonderful lady at the cafe we buy our lunches from did Fisherman’s Pie this week. I was so tempted to buy 7 of them and have it every night for dinner. I settled for four in the end, and the other half has four lasagne. So I do not have to cook dinner for four nights this week. I would have bought some to freeze but our freezer does not have any space to spare – we are doing very well at stocking up and not going shopping very often.

I’m still wearing a mask whenever I go shopping which makes it a chore I don’t enjoy so much. I find it makes me feel like my nose is running – it actually isn’t, it just feels that way. I think it is just having something so close to my nose and having that piece of wire holding the mask in place. I just topped up on fresh foods today so I won’t have to do it again for quite a while other than to get pizza bases and milk from time to time.

Hoping everything is good with you all. :) I better go do this admin work. It isn’t going to do itself lol. ;)

Home

Sunday The Delivery Day

The plan for today was a photo every hour – big thanks to An Exacting Life inspiring me to do this. Some hours I forgot, sorry! ;)

8:30AM

We kick off the day with morning coffee in my well loved favourite mug. Sorry no photo I forgot – but above you see a photo of the mug taken when we bought it in 2006. It really does not look like this anymore, the pattern has worn off the side and it is kind of grey now instead of black. This was actually a mistake. I was meant to have a small coffee as we were travelling about 300kms today and I did not want to have to bathroom break. Epic Fail kids!

9:30AM

Soap delivery! How cute are these musk flavoured lifesaver soaps? Half are for me, half for Mother for Mothers Day, but we dropped them off on our way this morning.

10:30AM

Setting up to go and do our deliveries. These are all checked, packed, and ready to be put in the car. On one side there you can see my clipboard with the Square terminal on it which allows us to take card payments on the go.

11:30AM

I forgot to take a photo this hour because we were on the most terrifying bit of road I can recall having been on in some time. But I do have a jump back in time video for you. It turns out we were parked by the side of the same terrifying road when HARS flew the big 747 in to Albion Park. What an amazing day this was. But even better was that time I got to touch it with my own hands while standing underneath it.

12:30PM

Again I forgot this hour. Not sure exactly where we were, either. I think we lost a full hour of time! Somewhere in here we did a quick bathroom break at what used to be Westfield Warrawong. I do remember us trying to find a petrol station and failing somewhat epically on two occasions but we finally managed to refuel the car.

When I ran into the former Westfield I was a bit shocked at the levels of go back to normal folks have taken on board. Nobody was bothering with social distancing and I was one of only two people wearing a mask. I was in and out of there pretty quick but I will not be surprised if we get a major second wave in a couple of weeks.

1:30PM

And now I remembered to take a photo because I set me a timer, lol. :) On our way up Bulli Pass.

2:30PM

Having completed all the deliveries, 2:30 saw us on the Hume highway after departing Campbelltown. The speed limit here is 110km/hr FYI.

3:30PM

This was by far my favourite hour of the day, because it found us at Gelato Emporium getting gelato.

I had a cone. The Other Half had a shake, it took him exactly 7 minutes to consume it.

4:30PM

Nearly home. This photo was just past Berry.

5:30PM

Afternoon coffee time somewhat late. With a dark chocolate kit kat.

6:30PM

Wearing my comfy foot warmers in my new rug watching Helicopter ER in between answering customer queries. One of our items went viral and this has become A Thing. I am about ready to buy a pair of fresh slightly oversize gumboots so that I can wear these foot warmers everywhere I go, they won’t fit into any of my shoes sadly.

7:30PM

Having set up a Google Sheets for tracking the viral thing, the rest of the evening was mostly spent taking orders, chatting with customers and adding things into the spreadsheet..

8:30PM

Cuckoo warming herself in my lap space – she seems to love this rug. I swapped them over this week because it got very cold here.

9:30PM

Watching a little bit of teevee before bedtime. Actually watching it having put the laptop aside instead of multi-tasking watching it. :)

I challenge you all –

Will you take a photo an hour for one day this week? If yes, let me know in the comments! ;)

country life, COVID-19 2020