Collect Egg Cartons, She Said

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A few years ago a lady at work sent out an email asking for people to collect egg cartons. For what reason I cannot recall. It might have been for a kids arts and craft thing, or because she had chickens, to build a space craft, for soundproofing.. I have no recollection of the reason now. But the request stuck in my mind, and collect egg cartons I did. Visitors to the house have commented on the large amount of egg cartons residing here.

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I remember taking in a stack of them in to the requester a couple of times, then I forgot all about the taking and just kept on with the collecting. Standing there in the kitchen this morning, I realised.. it has been exactly one year and six months since I was last at my place of work. I’m not going back. These egg cartons are never being given to that person again. What the heck am I still collecting them for? Are they just collecting dust up there?

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Yes, they were collecting dust up there. I wiped the dust off before stacking them into a pile. I counted. There were 36 of them. 35 of them belong to Manning Valley Eggs. I am a loyal consumer. I have my reasons, they are extremely great eggs, nearly as good as our own girls.

Letting these collected egg cartons go was a brilliant feeling. :) Kthxbai!

country life, moving on, work

Broken..

Well, I am really ready for the moving house to be finished at this point. It is 9:30pm, I have had no dinner, we’ve done two loads in the fast car from the old house of random shyte, plus I did a load earlier in the ute. I have steam mopped the floors, most of the cleaning seems to be done..

The shelf I could not get clean, we flipped it over after spending too much time trying to get whatever the last tenants spilled all over the shelf off. I’m not touching the oven and I have emails to prove it was filthy when we moved in.

I have been rarely on the internet for about a week now, and I dread to think how many unread posts sit in my feed reader. Forgive me if I hit mark all read. I’m just so tired right now.

I seem to have hurt my shoulder, too. It has been a week and two days of pain and I am getting worried, it should have healed up by now. My big fall was nothing compared to my shoulder and I am not even certain what I did to it.

I will like to sleep for a week, and then maybe eat something, once we hand the keys back in a couple of days.

On the good news side, it is so peaceful and wonderful at the new place. I am looking forward to spending a lot more time here once we’re done with the old place. I will also like to take some more photos to share with ya’all!

Moving House, moving on

Speaking of Books

There is one book that I never pack when we move.

Back in 1998 or so, I first was introduced to Jane Austen. We were travelling to Sydney the next day and I happened to catch one of the early episodes of Pride and Prejudice – the miniseries with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy – on the ABC. The story drew me in.

The next day we were at the airport, both in Adelaide and in Sydney, and I looked for the book. No joy. Why airport bookstores do not stock the classics, I have no idea.

So that night I went to bed wanting to read the book Pride and Prejudice, but not having it.

The next day we ended up in the main street of Sydney where all the shops are. It was an alien world to me – I knew the city of Adelaide like the back of my hand, where all the shops were, where to go and find what I needed or wanted. So I was completely lost and it was raining and the streets seemed slightly scary.

I can’t remember where or how but I did find a bookstore, and I found this book – The Complete Novels Of Jane Austen. It does not contain Love and Friendship (which I have never read yet) but it does have the 7 other stories that I love and can read over and over again without getting bored.

This book has travelled all over Australia with me. It never leaves my bedside when I am at home, it is the one book that never gets put on the bookshelves. It always stays on my night stand.

On the day where the nightstand gets moved, it will be picked up and placed next to my handbag where it will wait for me/us to leave.

It will travel next to me in the car if I am the driver – on my lap, if I am the passenger.

It will wait be placed next to my handbag in the new house, and once the nightstand is in the new spot, it will be placed on the nightstand.

That night, as my books will not be unpacked yet, I will probably pick it up. If I am not already in the middle of one of the stories, I will allow it to fall open to where it feels like, and then the book will have chosen which of the stories I will read next. I will turn back to the first page of that story and begin to read until I get too sleepy to continue.

books, Jane Austen, Moving House, moving on

Alternatively..

You might see more posts from me than you had been previously as moving raises some issues for me. :)

Yesterday, I began the task of packing up my office. My office has two huge bookshelves which quickly turned into 4 large boxes of books. I then packed up all my art stuff.

For some reason – even though I know I have to downsize because the new place is a little smaller and does not have storage space.. I am finding it difficult to let things go. I thought I was more than ready to de-clutter.

Earlier this year I chose to swap some of my books for new books. I used to be into true crime stories but these days seem to be switching to other kinds of books.

I had several Ann Rule books which are worth quite a bit when you take them in to swap as there is a big demand for them and I decided to let them go and swap them. I read them one final time, and then took them to the book swap. I still have a couple of her books which I wanted to keep, but some of them just no longer seemed relevant to me.

As I was packing my books I began to see a few others which I will want to read one last time and then let them go. And yet..

.. as I was packing up my art things, I found myself holding onto a small plastic container which arrived in this house packed full of cobalt blue beads which I have since transferred into a storage container. Thus the container was empty.

I found myself thinking.. I should keep this.

And I actually put it into my art box.


An empty plastic container.

It is at this point that I began to recognise, maybe I have a problem here. Maybe I am going to find this process of letting go of things – de-cluttering – saying goodbye to things I own – a lot more difficult than I expected.

So I took the empty plastic container out of the art box and put it into the recycling. Then I decided to get rid of some more plastic from that box – a couple of my art sets came encased in plastic – I de-encased, and recycled.

On the inside I want to let things go, but there is some part of me that wants to hang onto things.

life lessons, Moving House, moving on

The Slow Erosion Of My Sanity

Back in September of last year, some new tenants moved into the unit next door. Pretty much straight away we felt this was going to be an issue as they had several (two or three, we still are not certain on the exact number) children under the age of 7.

The first thing we found was a need to move bedrooms. We were not using the master bedroom in this house because we preferred the slightly smaller second bedroom without the ensuite – it tends to wake us up when the other person is in the bathroom and it is the only bathroom in the house other than a small toilet downstairs in the garage.

The reason we had to move bedrooms was because the younger child’s cot was placed up against our bedroom wall, and he was able to bang on our wall until his parents went to get him. They usually left him in there for half an hour or so, from 7am to 7:30am. Not the kind of wake up call we wanted. So, we bit the bullet and moved bedrooms after a couple of weeks.

After they take the children out of that room around 7:30am, they seem to allow them to just run riot. Doors are slammed, there is yelling and screaming, chairs are dragged across the floor, things are dropped onto the floor – and all of this we enjoy because there does not seem to be much furniture in their house soaking up the noise, and the walls are fairly thin.

This is not a problem when you have two adult couples living in the units – we’d managed nicely with the previous tenants. I guess that was because we were not trying to tear the place to pieces without any supervision from our parents.

After a month or so we talked to the real estate agents who told us it would not be a problem as it was a short term lease for 3 months only.

9 months later, one noise complaint from us which achieved nothing, and a complete run around across three months from the real estate people on the installation of an air conditioner.. we are so ready to be out of here. We found a place we liked the look of, and went to see it last weekend. We heard today that our application was accepted, so we will be moving in over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I am done being nice. The music is up, loud, in every room of the house while I pack. We have tolerated their noise for many, many months. I am extremely hopeful that our noise is as much fun for them as theirs has been for us.

With that said, you won’t see me much for a bit while we’re moving. ;) There is something awesome about the new place but I will save that for once we’re in there. ;)

Moving House, moving on, yay

This Snoskred Update May Come To You As A Surprise.

Is it possible to have the best week in ages and yet still be moving house? The week did not start out quite as we imagined, we discovered that these places have been refurbished, they’re not new, they were lived in before and the state of the appliances leaves a LOT to be desired. Major fail whale!

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In fact I’m not cooking in that filthy oven. I refuse. Either the landlord replaces the oven, cooktop and rangehood – all of which are filthy and the cooktop is actually rusted or we will just replace them ourselves. We didn’t spot it on inspection because the electricity was off, it’s dark in that kitchen without the lights on, it said *clearly* in the advertisements that these were brand new, and we made the mistake of assuming that meant the appliances would be brand new as well. Note to self, remember that rule about never assuming? :) We did feel a bit like we’d been lied to, though.

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However that has been the only cloud on our horizon this week, other than real actual clouds, which there’s been a few of as well as some rain and neither of us mind real clouds or rain, so that’s ok. ;) We’ve contacted the real estate agent and asked them to let the landlord know we’re not happy with the appliances and we’d like him to replace them or reduce the rent. I’m not going to let it bother me because either way they are being replaced. We’ve never used the oven in this house because the first time we turned it on, the smell! Ugh!

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You’ll note I put pictures from my hour long beach walk on Thursday in between the above. This is meant to demonstrate how appliances are of little importance in the face of so much beach beauty. ;) Yes, I walked for an hour, after spending an hour vacuuming and cleaning the new place, then I went home and packed more stuff before returning to the new house with the other half, to carry potplants upstairs to our balcony.

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I would have been walking on the beach every day, but I have been getting more than enough exercise packing, moving boxes, and carrying heavy things up the stairs. The beach walk on Thursday was actually a reward for myself for all the hard work I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks but soon enough it will be a daily event, rain or shine..

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There’s a reason they have stair climbers in gyms. I have missed stairs while we’ve lived in two houses without them. Carrying heavy potplants upstairs was surprisingly fun for me as well as being great exercise. That sounds like I have gone completely round the twist, but I have found every small thing I do is one step closer to being moved in and ready to start new things – a new business, a new lifestyle, and much cookery. ;) I’m excited and getting stuff done fast!

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The ute ended up being pushed into a table we had in the garage quite by accident. My parents came to visit and I asked my Dad to back the ute in so I could close the door, but he thought it would be better to push it. I was told to pull the handbrake when they said to. Unfortunately it didn’t do anything like.. well. braking. The ute kept going and there was a crash.

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There you can see some of the glass left on the table. I would have taken pics of the ute but odd people are having a party next door and I was a bit.. freaked out. So, I just have the above for now.

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The pool table successfully made its way up the stairs on Monday. As you see. Below is a photo looking back towards the kitchen from near to the balcony door.

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I have one other thing to mention in this update. Below is a screenshot of my desktop as it looks now, today. The cluttering up as mentioned in this post – Snoskred Is Getting Organised – Are You? – is a thing of the past and this new system is so simple and so easy that I don’t even have to work at it. It magically happens all on its own.

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If you are like me and want to get your desktop organised, I have to recommend the article that started it all for me – How to Keep your Desktop Organized (without getting insane) – if you take the time to put the system in place, and learn how to use it believe me this will work for you too. I am stunned by how well it has worked for me.

beach walk, customer feedback, Fail Whale, moving on

A Moving Update With Pics!

Sometime within the next day or so, I will hit 50,000 visits here at the blog. Yay! With only 2 days before we pick up the keys this coming Monday, most of the packing is done. I really only have the kitchen which is half done and our walk in wardrobe left to do, which I can mostly finish before we pick up the keys. It didn’t seem to take as long as I was expecting, and I’ve had time to do other things this week as well which I do appreciate – and some of you might too, because I’ve been commenting when I’ve had the chance.

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Above is how my bookshelves look now. I can’t bear to pack my Aromatherapy stuff until the last minute, and I’ve been burning oils and incense every day this week. Click any of these pics for a slightly bigger image.

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This is how my desk currently looks. It’s a lot messier than I like and I can’t wait to get into the new place with new ways of organising things like pens and stationery – I have plans for how I’m going to do it.

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Above you see my daily checklist, which I have been sticking to and finding really helpful especially in the midst of apparent chaos. I’ve been trying to do the reply to comments daily this week and I’d have to go back and check but I believe I have achieved it the next day after a post is posted. I used to find I’d put that job off and tend to do it twice a week or so. If it doesn’t get done the tick doesn’t get put there until it does get done, to remind me.

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The Art/Dining room was the first room we completely emptied, and we have now filled it with packed boxes and furniture ready to be moved.

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Here is a view of the art/dining room from another angle and you can see my favourite cabinet, the tall red one with glass. I think this was the best bargain we ever bought, it was just over $100AUD at an import clearance of furniture from Bali. There’s a smaller one which matches it, which we had bought in a different state at least a year before, you can see it in the previous photo under the lightning picture. We were lucky to find these!

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This is a photo of the kitchen/pool table room. The pool table is the first thing to be moved, it is costing us an absolute fortune because it has to go upstairs. Please cross your fingers that they can actually manage to get it up the stairs. :) You can also see our outdoor setting, which all needs washing off before we move it, and the lanterns in the gardens are ours as well, they’re going to need a good spray with spider spray. At our new place, we are “borrowing” my parents water feature because they can’t use it where they are now. ;) It’ll look great on our balcony.

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Here you can see my packing area. This is where anything glass, ceramic, or generally breakable gets packed.

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This is the other part of the packing station and let us state for the record, I am a genius. :) It was my idea to put sticky tape on the clothes horse like this. It saves you time and a lot of grief from trying to wrap something and then cut tape. ;)

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This is many of my sentimental much loved knick knacks, which take a lot of time and effort to pack. The ceramic castle I made myself, when I used to do ceramics as a hobby – I also did that lovely green candlestick holder, which is going to have pride of place on my dining table – which will be used for *dining* in the new place *shock* *boggle* *awe* rather than art. The dragon you can see the back of with the big copper wings, The Other Half did that himself at Ceramics. We used to do it together once a week. No, it’s not girly! It’s creative art!

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Nothing you see here cost over $10AUD. I love collecting glass and you can probably tell blue glass is my favourite. The tall red and black thing is actually fortune telling sticks which my parents brought back from Japan many years ago. I love them. Some of these items, though inexpensive, are my most treasured things.

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Another empty room, Yay!

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A not so empty room – this is The Other Half’s office. He is refusing to pack it till the last minute. Can you tell this is somewhat.. annoying to me? I mean sure, leave the computer there, but the little stuff which he’s not going to use, surely he can pack?

Today three potential tenants toured this house, including a family with two kids, said kids were amazing. The younger one was wearing a superman outfit and he was getting excited about each room of the house. They mentioned they would be putting in an application and I am very hopeful they are the ones to get it. ;)

Thanks to all my regular readers for hanging in there with me during this time of upheaval and chaos, but I am hopeful it’s going to be worth it in the end – for me because I’ll be walking every day and attempting a healthier lifestyle – and some menu planning, and for you because you’ll get a lot more beautiful photos, and more community orientated kinds of tales. I do intend to become involved in the community down there, getting out and meeting new people and being a part of things. I may even begin selling my art at the markets from time to time.

So, it’s not much longer now. I will be around a bit during the week but there will be at least one day I will be at the new house cleaning for most of the day.

move to the beach, moving on

Snoskred Has Massively Huge News

We’re moving! YAY! My to do list has 15 things on it which aren’t related to blogging, so more as soon as I have time. I’m just completely overjoyed. The other night when we drove to our soon to be new town, we saw one kangaroo, one fox and then two bunny rabbits on someone’s front lawn in the main street. Then we drove past our new place and all was quiet.

Peace. 10 minutes walk to the beach. Daily beach walks. Dolphins playing within my view. Taking the camera with me so I can grab photos for ya’all. Living in a community. All about 3 weeks away.

Don’t ya’all worry, I am pre-blogging like there is no tomorrow. At worst you’ll still be getting a thought a day but most days you’ll have at least one post from me too. I may not be commenting as much as usual, I hope you’ll forgive me for that.

beach walk, moving on, seachange

Letting go..

Hump Day Hmm

I have a very good friend who likes to wallow in – well, various things. The dark hole of depression, feeling sorry for yourself, mediocrity.. the comfort zone of sabotaging yourself and setting yourself up for failure, receiving all kinds of good advice, nodding and smiling and never taking any of it.

Now I’m a very supportive friend, but there comes a time when between two good friends you have to be honest with each other, and that time came eight months ago. I spoke to this person honestly – and politely – here’s what you need to do to get yourself out of this hole. I know how to get out of these holes, having been in them myself many times.

So, I then shut up and let them get to work – at the end of the conversation I said I wouldn’t bring it up but if they wanted to chat about it they could always raise the topic. Of course, they never did. A couple of months later this person was feeling sorry for themselves again and told me so, and a pattern began to appear. I’d say all the right things – here’s how to get out of this hole. They would nod and smile and promise faithfully that they would try it. A month or two later, it would happen again. The last couple of times, I haven’t been quite so polite about it. In fact I told them they needed to get off their rear end and get to work and I pointed out this pattern which I saw clearly.

Then just a couple of hours ago this person arrived on my Skype and from the moment they said hello I knew the deal – they were down and feeling sorry for themselves, and they were waiting for me to do my usual there there, here’s how to fix it, pump you up with positives, you can do it, ra ra.

There comes a time in any relationship where you have to draw a line. You have to let go. I’ve been propping you up for far too long now. I know you can do it. I can’t do it for you. Nobody can do it for you. I can make positive changes in my own life, and I do it regularly. But I CANNOT WAVE A MAGIC WAND AND FIX YOU – though you know I would if I could. It takes hard work, and you have to do the majority of it yourself.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.Jim Rohn

I’m a huge goal setter. I’ve spoken before about my depression and the combat strategies I used, some of them were goals that I set for myself. I set goals all the time – even silly stuff like playing a game on my computer – I’ll want to get to a certain score or achievement before I quit the game.

This past couple of weeks, I have set myself a really unusual goal – to drink more water. I mentioned an article I had read in one of my weekly wrap ups and said I was implementing this change – 9 Great Reasons to Drink Water, and How to Form the Water Habit – but what I did not mention is.. I dislike water. I always have. I would prefer to drink soft drinks, coffee or fruit juice. I used to drink one can of real Coke each day with my main meal but there came a time when I really didn’t feel like it, so I would drink fruit juice instead. Before I read that article, I had begun to substitute water every third day, instead of Coke or fruit juice, mainly because the meal I was having didn’t go with either of those drinks.

So with a goal like this, it helps to break it down. The guy who wrote the article (Leo Babauta) actually did that for me – thanks! ;) – by saying – “Best is to form a routine: drink a glass when you wake up, a glass with each meal, a glass in between meals, and be sure to drink before, during and after exercise.” This is my new religion. I have these plastic cups which hold 250ml (just over 8oz) and a chart where I gleefully tick off each cup I drink. I’m up to 8 a day. A huge change from one every 3 days.

Can you believe that after just two weeks, I would rather reach for water than anything else?

So what I know is, anything I want to achieve, I can set a goal, break that down into smaller chunks, and then set out to achieve it. If I can do it, anyone can. Me who is not very good at self discipline and who isn’t the most organised person in the world.

Sometimes it seems easier to stay in your comfort zone, to keep sabotaging yourself to stay there. The fear of the unknown, the fear of what comes next. It is no different to jumping out of a plane for the first time – except you’re basically jumping out of the plane for the first time over and over, heading towards a bigger unknown than you have ever faced before. Yes, it is scary. It can be terrifying. Who will I be without my depression? At the moment that is what defines you. That’s all you know. You’re gripping on to the doors of that plane so tight your knuckles are white.

You have to let go and jump out of that plane.. or else you will stay in that hole of depression forever, and I can’t be your friend if that’s where you want to be. You see, I dug my way out of that hole with my fingernails. When my nails were all gone, I didn’t stop digging. I used my fingertips. I was so desperate to get out of there my fingers were bloody nubs by the time I managed to climb out of there – but I made it. I’m baffled that you *want* to stay there. I can’t imagine why you would want to. It’s a horrible place to be.

If you’re willing to get out, I’ll help you. I’ll do everything I can. Except keep going round in circles like this, it is pointless and useless. I’m not going to keep enabling you to feel better every now and then – I want to enable you to feel better all the time.

Have you ever heard the Meatloaf song “I’ll do anything for love but I won’t do that”? So many people speculate about what the thing he won’t do is. The thing I won’t do is allow myself to be dragged back to that hole and pushed / pulled into it – not by *anyone* – because I know how hard it was to get out of there, how much it cost me, how much effort it took every day. I said in a previous post about depression

Normal people who have never been depressed will not understand the effort required to do just simple every day tasks when you’re down. Just to get up out of bed and have a shower seems like something impossible. The effort involved, to me it always seemed like someone had tied weights to my arms and legs, and it was difficult to move them. Probably most people who have been down will understand that.

I’m not going back there. It’s not until you get out of there that you realize how bad it was. Please, my friend, *please* let go of thinking your dark damp hole of depression is where you should stay. It’s either that, or let go of me, because you’re dragging me to a place I WILL NOT go.

depression, Hump Day Hmmm, moving forward, moving on

Drive it like you stole it..

I got a phone call about 2:30pm. I was actually in the middle of a West Wing episode at the time. The caller said “10 Minutes” and I hung up the phone and raced off to get ready because I knew what that meant. 10 minutes later, my Dad pulled into the driveway for the last time in his old car. Well, not like old, it was only 3 years old. But today was the day it was going back to the dealer, never to be “ours” again.

During the time he had it I had only driven it twice and both times broke speed limits but fortunately for me did not get caught. It was a Ford XR8, and it had the power. That’s why I didn’t drive it more often, because it could have tempted me into being a very bad individual while driving on the back roads. Or any road, really.

Saying goodbye to a car is not an easy thing. The Other Half and I have recently talked about the possibility of saying goodbye to our car, and that car has been many places with us. The side mirror is a very good friend of mine. We’ve only driven 50,000kms in it, over three years, but when I close my eyes I can see images of many travels from the perspective of looking out my side mirror. I feel like I’d want to keep that part of the car. I know that sounds utterly insane. ;)

However, saying hello to a new car is a very easy thing. This new car is *beautiful*. It truly is a work of art. It’s sitting in Dad’s garage as I type this. It is very low to the ground, and the car dealer said to us that it’s inevitable that the front of the body kit will scrape and get cracked. The old one on the XR8 did. He’s got a guy who fixes it easily if you want it fixed, but he figures it’s a fact of life, live with it.

That is the one thing holding me back from saying to the other half yes, let’s get the new car. The person I was when we first got our car wasn’t the nicest of people. I get pretty angry over anyone careless enough to even look at it the wrong way, let alone go near enough to it to scratch it. When they really damaged our side door as I wrote about here (my side door, so each time I get in the car I am reminded) the more I think about it, the more I realize I probably would have really damaged that person who left the dent in my door if I had turned up when they were doing it. It still manages to fill me with such a rage. I’m not sure I’m meant to be such an angry person.

In other news, today is the first day of the school holidays, and please can everyone pray for rain for the next 2 weeks so those people across the road won’t interrupt my peace. This afternoon the kids across the road started up with a soccer ball on the road in front of my house and I have just realized, it’s two weeks of school holidays with them constantly out there making noise, and I’m still stuck in this house. I had hoped we would have moved by now.

The idea of watching one West Wing each day was dead in the water on day one, as the first episode meant the second had to be watched, and the second definitely meant the third had to be watched. I was in the middle of Episode 3, and I’m going to finish it now, and then off to bed. ;)

cars, moving on, The West Wing