Tuesday 26 March 2024

Life is just going on its regular way here, so there’s nothing very much to say about it.

The weather has been that lovely autumn weather that makes being outside delightful, so I’m trying to get back into walking the dog more. Troy and I took her to the dog park on the weekend and walked after tea a few nights, and I’ve walked on my own while he’s been at work. The dog appreciates this – although she’s really the easiest dog in the world, when you don’t walk her for a while she just lies contentedly around home but as soon as you pick up her leash she’s happily ready to go. Anyway, I’m almost as lazy as the dog is but I’m trying to get back at least the bare minimum of fitness that I let go over summer.

We’ve replaced the dead bush from the side yard with a green tea plant. The little tag tells you how to harvest the leaves to make tea – since I don’t drink tea I don’t know why I thought this was so great, but here we are! Maybe someone else will enjoy green tea from my green tea plant once it grows? I also chopped back two rubbish bins full of wisteria (the green waste bin was already full of dead plant) – surely all its leaves will fall off soon and it’ll stop growing for winter?

Kids are all just doing their things. Soren and Ashley have both had a few tests and assignments to do for the end of term, but at least they finish on Thursday and can spend two weeks of holidays glued to their screens. Although that’s a bit unfair to them – Soren still goes out and jumps on the trampoline pretty much every day, and Ashley has been doing a lot of driving. We’re at 73 hours and 58 minutes, and most of that we’ve logged in the last four months so we’re really doing well. Of the four months we’ve been working on it, two months were December/January when there wasn’t any school so our progress has slowed a bit since then, but I think there’s still every chance they’ll have their license by the end of the year. Fingers crossed anyway! And then we’ll relax until January, when we’ll have to get started on Soren driving…feels like it’s never going to end.

Gratitude

• When I went to buy a token for the dog wash this morning they just gave me a token for free
• It’s nearly Easter, and with my Monday/Friday work days now I get to take full advantage of all the public holidays, ha ha ha!
• I’m on a good streak of reading and have read about five enjoyable books in a row

Wednesday 20 March 2024

The inverter for our solar panels was replaced today, so we’re generating power again! They called Troy early to say that it came in yesterday and they had a job cancelled today so could they just come round and do it? Troy said to give it half an hour, and they turned up a little after eight. The only issue we had was that our internet inconveniently went down right when he needed to log in and do whatever it is he does, so I had to muck about turning it off and back on again but eventually it decided to work. It was also a lovely autumn day today, cool but beautifully sunny, so really perfect for generating power once it was all back up and running.

We’ve got a date for our carpet install too. It’s not until April, so I guess I was a little overzealous in getting all the books and bookcases and dvds packed up already. Oh well, at least it’s done and we won’t have to worry about it. I wish the carpet was being done sooner, but I guess with the Easter break in there it’s probably not unreasonable. I think I was just expecting it to be sooner because when they did the carpet after the bathroom reno it didn’t take this long.

We also heard about the reversing camera for the van, which is the other fix we were waiting on. Unfortunately Kia said they’d charge us $1300, which seems a bit spendy so we’re currently looking into other options. Hopefully we can get someone to install something aftermarket for a more reasonable price.

We’re also waiting on the seal on the fridge being fixed – the rubber just developed a tear in it so they’re going to fix that under warranty but had to order the part. No news on that, so who knows where it’s at.

It’s always something. I genuinely sometimes feel like I’m under a curse the way everything always breaks.

I don’t know if it’s part of the curse or what, but the bush that was planted in the side yard outside the ensuite window just died. I have no idea – I’ve pretty much never touched it and it’s always looked great, lots of thick green leaves and yellow flowers periodically and even a bird nested in it once (which I actually don’t like because of the cat, but also found charming). However over the past couple of months it’s just turned brown and dry and dead, so I went out there yesterday and chopped it all up to dispose of it in the green waste bin. The yard now looks kind of weird, and since the plant covered up at least half of our toilet window in the ensuite that room is now unusually light and bright!

Gratitude

• That the solar panels are now back online
• Autumn weather
• Soren being so obliging about helping move boxes around in the garage this morning so the guy could have clear access to the solar panels.

Saturday 2 March 2024

Ever since Covid there have been odd shortages of various things that I want to buy, but I did not expect that I would be dealing with a shortage of CO2. There are no home brand soft drinks to be had! I had to buy actual Pepsi Max again, which (while it is my favourite and I do like it more than the Aldi diet cola I’ve been living on) means I have to be on strict rations! It’s probably going to be good for my health to drink less diet cola, but I’m certainly not enjoying having to limit it or go broke buying brand names.

But I can’t spend my money on cans, because I got in the van today and the reversing camera has died so I’ll probably need a new one of those. Instead of showing me what I’m just about to back into it, it just shows me a screen of green static that’s no help at all. Obviously I drove cars without a reversing camera for most of the time I’ve been driving, but I don’t want to have to go back! The van is due for a service in twenty five days (it gives me a countdown every time I turn it on) so I think we’ll just book that in and hope they can fix it.

Troy drove down to Montrose this morning and came back with a ute load of mulch, so he and I spread that out in the garden this afternoon. It’s chipped up trees, so it should last a while before it rots down. It looks good, mulch always just makes the garden look more intentional. I also cut back the wisteria, the job that never ends. Troy hedged the lilly pilly that grows out in front of the study – considering last year it was chewed up by the beetles to the point it was mostly just a collection of sticks, it’s really astonishingly thick and leafy now. You’d never know now that it had ever been decimated the way it was.

We’re going to fill the ute up with hard garbage tomorrow, and then Troy will return it when he goes down during the week. The main thing we have to get rid of is the daybed in the front room – it’s an Ikea daybed that we bought second hand and basically I don’t think there’s any way we’d be able to get it out of the room to lay carpet and be able to put it back without it falling apart. So we’re going to dismantle it and hard rubbish it, and then get a replacement once the floor is done. Aside from the daybed we’ll just fill the rest of the ute with crap from the garage – there’s a couple of broken chairs and broken plastic crates and a laundry basket that I can think of off the top of my head, but there’s probably more.

The new heating and cooling system is going in on Thursday and Friday! I’m glad it’s so quick. I’m also glad that it will be finished on Friday, which is supposed to be 30 degrees – it’ll be installed and we’ll be able to give it a good test right away.

Gratitude

• New cooling/heating being installed so quickly.
• The garden looking so nice with the new mulch and everything healthy and growing.
• That we’ll be able to clear out a few things in Jean and Steve’s hard garbage, since we don’t get hard garbage here!

Tuesday 20 February 2024

I am obsessed with the state of the lemon tree, which continues to be afflicted with an infestation of scale insects. I can’t get rid of them. Everything I google keeps telling me to put oil on the tree, but I did that and not only did the scale get worse but the oil seemed to make some of the leaves get burned and damaged. So I really don’t know where to go from here. The tree is growing a lot of lemons so I think it’s still pretty healthy despite this, so I’ve thrown down some more fertiliser and will just have to hope for the best. I suppose we are moving towards the end of summer, perhaps the bugs die off over winter and it will stop being such a concern?

I don’t know, after the lilly pilly bugs nearly destroying the lilly pillies last summer and this continuing battle with citrus scale I really wonder if I’m cut out for gardening. It’s supposed to be a relaxing hobby, not something that makes you feel like you’re being personally victimised by an army of the insectoids.

Soren and Ashley had a day off school today, so it was a rather fuller house for a Tuesday than usual and yet we still managed to have no one at home to answer the door for a delivery that required a signature. It doesn’t really matter, it was only book board for the book binding plans so it can wait until Troy gets back to collect it, but it was still vaguely irritating. Probably mostly because Claire was actually at home when the doorbell rang – whether they were asleep, in the shower, didn’t hear, or just didn’t bother to go and open the door because they knew it wouldn’t be for them I don’t know and can’t be bothered with the aggravation of finding out.

The book board was because we made a mistake in cutting the board for the cover of our notebook on the weekend and the kit only had enough board to do it right, so that was a very short lived attempt to finish the second notebook! I don’t mind too much, we’d thought we’d try to follow a different tutorial and then couldn’t figure out which one it was when we sat down on the weekend so at least this gives me a chance to watch some of the videos and find the right one.

I wasn’t at home for the delivery because I was out driving with Ashley. We went to Beaufort, which is a good distance to log time but a really terrible road to drive on. Still, I’m feeling good about it because this drive took us over sixty hours so we’re past the half way point! And while I still think the hours requirement is a bit much, it’s actually kind of fun to do with Ashley. They’re a good driver so I’m not travelling along in fear for my life, and it’s a good opportunity to just talk about all kinds of random stuff. They also enjoy driving and have developed a surprising interest in cars – they’re now really looking forward to going car shopping with Troy.

The car shopping will probably be soonish, since the refinance of the house has come through. Troy doesn’t need a new car until next year, when Ashley will take their car to get themselves to and from uni, but we don’t know how long the lead time will be to buy a new car. Some of the ones he’s considered have wait times of up to a year, so we actually do have to at least look at it now. Of course this probably means he’ll pick something that’s available immediately and we’ll be back to juggling three cars in the driveway again – how fortunate that we turned our front yard into a concrete wasteland with plenty of room for them.

I’m just glad the refinance has been sorted so we can do something about the broken evaporative cooling. We’ve been rather fortunate with the weather and haven’t been having hideous heatwaves, but it’s still not pleasant every time it climbs over 30. I’m kind of assuming that by the time we organise a replacement and book in a time to get it done summer will be over, but at least we’ll be set for next year.

Gratitude

• The refinancing of the house has been sorted out
• Tuesday is the day I change my bedsheets so I have a lovely clean, crisp bed to get into tonight
• Apple and cinnamon hot cross buns

Thursday 8 February 2024

Soren had his first music performance for the year last night, at the Year 7 music information night. I had to take him so I stayed to listen to him play, then I sat out in the car and read while he (as the only flute player there) answered questions and tried to sell flute playing as the way to go to all the year 7s and their parents. Honestly though, as a parent I’d recommend it too – flutes sound delightful (and are not too loud!) while they’re being practised at home, they’re on the more affordable end of the musical instrument scale (handy when you have to buy one because they can no longer hire as a senior student), and they’re lightweight and extremely transportable so the child won’t moan about having to carry it to and from school. (I also must admit that all these benefits of flutes as the instrument of choice come mainly in comparison to the saxophone, which is what Jericho played – he gave it up in year 9, fortunately before we had to pay $2k for one of his own!)

I made some candles today. Used up all the wicks I had and emptied three bottles of the scent mixes I use, so I’ll have to do some shopping before I make any more. Not that it will be needed for a while – four new candles will last a pretty long time, it’s not like I use them all the time. I just like having the house smell nice occasionally.

I also did some work in the garden. It’s at a pretty good place in terms of maintenance not being terribly onerous, but there’s still things that need to be done. I chopped back the wisteria (that’s the most time consuming job in the whole yard, it needs to be done basically every fortnight) and chopped back succulents from the side yard that had started to overrun the pathway or their neighbour plants. It didn’t take too long, but it’s one of those satisfying job that makes a visual difference so you get to feel like you’ve done something. Unlike the other garden job I’m constantly doing – trying to keep the bugs and sooty mould off the lemon tree – which takes much longer and if it works looks like you’ve done nothing.

Probably why I love knitting – I’ve been working on Soren’s beanie for a few days and I have half a hat done. Knitting just shows results!

Finally got myself organised to go to the doctor and get the referral done for the psychiatrist. It’s so pointless that they make you do that every year when it’s an ongoing thing like that, it just feels like such a waste of my time and the GPs time. And it’s not like doctors here don’t have an enormous backlog of genuine patients who need to see them, so writing out a referral that the psych won’t even read (I’ve been seeing him for something like five years – he knows what’s going on!) really is time that could be better spent. However it must be done so I went and did it, and at least she was able to write it and email it while I was right there so that was convenient. While I was there I asked about bloodwork, just to check on things since it’s been a while, so she did the pathology slip so I could get that done too. Hopefully nothing shows up on, but I guess I’ll have to see.

Gratitude

• Reading in the hammock chair
• The beautiful sunshiny but not too hot weather we’ve been having
• Tomorrow is Friday, and while this does mean I have to go to work it also means random chocolate drawing, pizza and movie night

Saturday 23 September 2023

Another nice day today, so Troy and I got out and did a bit of work in the yard. Well, to be quite truthful, Troy did a lot of work in the garden and I did a little bit, but at least it’s done! He shovelled up all the leaves on the concrete wasteland of our front yard and then we spread them out as mulch in the succulent garden in the side yard. We finished the mulch out there with sugarcane mulch, and then did some mulching around the lemon tree with a whole lot of shredded paper and more sugar cane. Troy also fixed up the garden edging that was starting to lean a bit. We have to plant a couple of things out tomorrow (succulents that have outgrown their pots) and finish up with the mulch, and then the backyard should be pretty well set to survive the summer. It’s looking quite lovely – I am not really a gardener, but I certainly appreciate this one that I’ve ended up with here!

We had to go to Bunnings for the mulch, and I asked Elijah if they wanted to tag along and buy some of the things they’ll need to live alone. So it was a slightly more fun trip than buying mulch alone would have been! Well, it’s not that buying things like cleaning implements and buckets and rubbish bins and a dishrack and laundry baskets and a collection of tools in a tool bag are super exciting in themselves, but buying them all because you’re moving out and getting to live alone and be a proper grown up does make it all seem a bit more momentous than just a simple mop.

It all still feels a bit surreal to me. I keep thinking of odd little things that are going to change when we’re down to five people in the house instead of six. Less laundry, especially considering her work clothes need to be washed every second day, ha ha ha. The other kids were rather displeased to realise that once she’s done we’ll redo the chores roster and they’ll all have to clean the bathroom every third weekend instead of every fourth, and they’ll no longer have a week off from dishes and recycling as they’ll all have to be rostered on to do one or the other! But really, the worst thing is the bread – we’ve been enjoying excellent Bakers Delight bread for nearly two years, but unfortunately when the freebie train ends I will not be able to afford to keep us in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed. It will be supermarket loaves for us – how tragic.

Sunday 2 July 2023

I painted the skirting board in Soren’s room today, to deal with the damage from the bathroom leak. We were originally told it would have to be replaced, but the difficulty of finding someone to do it or the hassle of working out how to do it ourselves made us take a second look at it. The paint was flaking off, but now that it’s all dried out it’s not really warped or swollen or rotten at all, so we thought the best option was just to sand it back and try to match the paint colour. It worked out quite well – probably not exactly the same colour as the paint on the other skirting boards that have been there for years, but close enough that no one will notice. Especially not as long as Soren’s in that room, since he has his desk and bookshelf on that wall and so most of the skirting board is concealed anyway.

Tomorrow we can call the flooring people and organise install of the new carpets, and then this whole bathroom caper will finally be at an end. I can’t wait.

Troy also spent a couple of hours this afternoon cutting back the creeper out on the deck. It’s all just leafless sticks at the moment, so we thought we should do a big hack on it before spring comes and it all grows back. We left it all the way to top of the wires, so it should grow in more of a solid wall rather than sending runners out to grab the ceiling beams at an angle and cutting off half the deck.

Soren had an optometrist appointment yesterday, so while Troy went off to Montrose to help with computers and tvs for his parents, I took Soren to that. It was just a check up, since he hadn’t had one since before covid I think. His eyesight is fine, so that was good and one more job checked off the list. It also gave Soren a chance to go to EB Games and buy some Steam gift cards, so he came home and downloaded a whole bunch of new games. Should keep him happy for the rest of the school holidays.

Sunday 16 April 2023

I’m back fighting pests in my garden again. The lemon tree has started in with the black sooty mould thing again, so I spent ages this afternoon washing the black off the leaves and then spraying the tree and putting down ant poison. The black stuff wipes off fairly easily, but there are hundreds of leaves on a lemon tree and so it really doesn’t feel like it matters how many I wipe clean, because there seems to be just as many still black and crap. Although I did read that apparently spraying the tree with milk can clean off the black? So perhaps I will try that next time. I mean, hopefully the work I did today will mean there won’t be a next time, but frankly I am not very optimistic on that front.

I really don’t know why I’m having such carry on with garden-destroying insects though. It’s never been a problem before! But between the lilly-pilly bugs and now this black sooty mould again (which is caused by insects) I’m starting to feel personally persecuted.

Ashley’s comedy apparently went well on Wednesday, and then they performed again on Friday which I KNOW went well because I went and watched. Honestly, they are so brilliant – they did entirely new material this time, with lots of audience interaction, and it was so good. It was a big audience this time, even including some people who were not actually related to any of the performers and just felt like watching a comedy show. (This was really funny actually, it was three people in full on evening dress who were filling in time between a wedding and the reception so not only were they total strangers to all performers they were dressed up so fancy that they stood out a mile in the audience – many jokes were made, it was great.)

Ashley had a good personal audience for Friday. Charlie went down on the train with them, spent the afternoon at the gallery and then came to the performance and came back on the train with Ashley. When I saw her in the audience by herself I asked if she wanted to come and sit with us and she did say yes – I don’t know, Charlie always used to be utterly terrified of everyone in our family but I think she’s coming round to us a bit now. I dropped Ashely at the train station earlier in the day, then Troy and I caught the train (and bus from Melton, ugh) down after lunch with Mum and Dad. Steve and Jean met us at the venue, so Ashley had a whole row of people there for them. Everyone had fun too – it’s amazing to watch their skills and talent growing the way it is!

Our en suite bathroom renovation is now underway, sort of. We had an electrician come out Friday morning and disconnect the power point in our bathroom, as well as do something with the light/fan switch so that it can still be used but the plate is gone so the wall can be tiled. (He also wired up the power point in the kids’ bathroom, so they finally have electricity in their bathroom and can stop living so primitively!). The tiler is coming out tomorrow, so that will hopefully see it all properly begun. I am not looking forward to sharing a single bathroom between the six of us again, and I’m not looking forward to having to walk through the house to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, but that does make me sound like something of a spoiled brat I must admit. It will be all right, and in another few weeks it will all be over and done with and we’ll have a shiny new bathroom of our own. And while I do have to share the children’s bathroom with them in the meantime, at least this means I get to use the newly done bathroom which should be nice. It’s school holidays for another week, for the high school children at least, so that should make it easier too.

Tuesday 24 January 2023

No luck on the Aldi job for Claire, which is disappointing. I hope they’ll keep looking, because they’ve been without a job for quite a long time now since the trolley pushing ended, and they must be running low on money. It’s not quite the easiest thing for them to get a job, I suspect they don’t interview particularly well, but they’re certainly capable so I hope they get a chance somewhere.

I was hoping for some rain today for the garden, but despite a lot of overcast humidity and a few spits of rain there wasn’t even enough to wet the ground. Most of my plants are on a live-or-die philosophy after the first summer they’re planted out (I plant them, they take their chances with the weather) but I’ve been hand watering the lime tree to try and encourage it because I really want it to live. The bugs have come back to the lillypillies out the front too, which is infuriating. They grew back thicker and bushier after being decimated, but we’ve noticed a bunch of newly chewed up leaves so it’s back to spraying them with poison and hoping the bugs either die or just move on.

Thursday 12 January 2022

I went back to work today. How tragic. Being a superfund administrator is not really a thrilling job. Although today I downloaded dividend statements and then added them to the dividend spreadsheets and the DMS all day, so there was no superfund administering at all.

I went outside after tea and sprayed the lillypilly bushes out the front. After being gnawed away to sticks by those bugs they actually made a rather miraculous recovery once we chopped the tops off them and gave them plant food. By the end of the year they were really thick with leaves and I thought we’d actually solved the problem and was basically astonished. However we’ve noticed several leaves are now appearing to have been chewed up, so it’s back on the defence. I really want the plants to survive, especially as we’ve had some hot days and they provide good shade for the front of the house.

Nothing else is really happening at home. Troy went to the office, so it was back to that regular routine this week. I’ve driven Jericho to and from work several times – he’s certainly in the money after doing so many shifts over the holidays, and there’s still another couple of weeks to go. He said they’ve hired some new juniors though, so hopefully he doesn’t have quite so many shifts once school goes back – I don’t really want him working five days a week while trying to do year 11 too.

I watched a lot of tv and did a lot of knitting while Troy was gone, so I’ve finished doing the knitting of the cardigan. I’ve still got to weave in the ends and add some buttons, which is obviously much less fun than knitting so my motivation kind of abandoned me at that point. Still, it will get done, and then I’ll be able to say I’ve finished one blanket and one cardigan already this year – kind of cheating when 99% of the blanket was done last year, but it still sounds good!

I can hear Soren typing away on the typewriter doing his journal too – I love it.