Snoskred - Life in the Country

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!

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.

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. As usual, clicking on the image will get you a bigger photo. 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. 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! 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. 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.. 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! 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.

This is NOT a sponsored post, but I feel the need to share the following information with you. It is possible that you may hate cereal as much as I always had until I tried this new cereal from Weight Watchers. Please note, I know nothing about Weight Watchers or their points system. I hated cereal all my life, I was never a breakfast person. I have only recently started eating it because it is supposed to be more healthy and I could do with a bit more fibre in my diet. I have been so surprised by this cereal. There is something so wrong about it. This cereal should be everything I hate. When I saw it on the shelf I thought yuck, I’m going to hate eating that. There were other cereals there, ones with lots of sugar and general badness. Even one with chocolate chips! But I chose the Weight Watchers fruit and fibre cereal even though I knew I probably wouldn’t like it based on the fibre content. I thought - it’s only one bowl a day, I can survive it. However, it’s brilliant, so I’m sharing cos that’s the kind of blogger I am. Normally on cereal I need at least one spoonful of sugar to make it palatable. This WW cereal, I don’t need to add anything except milk. The fruit that is in it makes it sweeter than normal cereals I’ve eaten. The first day I ate it, I did add sugar as I usually do and it made it way too sweet. All I can say is, they must have some absolute geniuses over at Weight Watchers if they can take a cereal which contains everything I should hate and turn it into something I absolutely love, that I look forward to eating in the morning - and have even eaten a couple of times INSTEAD of a bowl of potato chips while watching tv in the evenings. I’m not lying, truly! If you’re in Australia you should give this cereal a go.

The fruit is soooo nice. I love it. I’m not a fan of dried fruit usually but when you add the milk to it I find it softens nicely. They say it contains 34% fruit. You can’t get a spoonful of this cereal without at least one piece of fruit on it so I believe they are right.

I needed my cereal this morning, because we spent all day moving stuff. I’m completely exhausted and only here to post this before I shower and collapse into bed. We did manage to get the pool table upstairs, so that was fantastic. I met a neighbour and their dog before we’d finished unpacking the first ute load. People are very friendly there. I’m looking forward to that.

I also found out they have Tai Chi within a very short walk, so I might be signing up for that. Half the art/dining box room is now empty, we got a lot done today and now we can take it easy for the rest of the week. I have packed the entire kitchen, only leaving out a few bowls for cereal eating.