Lights, camera, action!

Hello all :)

First of, just to start off with some cuteness, here is a picture I took of Molly. She's utterly adorable but I must admit, I felt very sad when I took this photo. I was chatting to Flora on the phone and we were talking about Molly and when I took the photo I noticed just how much she's now showing her age. We very quickly changed the subject because we both got upset and were almost in tears.


On the weekend Christian and I decided to go shopping for some light fittings (by decided I mean I said 'Let's do this' and he went 'Whatever') .
We've been in the house for roughly four years and it's been one of those things I've said we need to do for ages and we've just not got around to doing.
The house did come with some el cheapo fittings but they a) looked horrid b) set on fire easily and c) nope, looking horrid and setting on fire were enough reason for me!

We looked at a couple of the big lighting stores and eventually found our way to a small little store tucked away in some shops on the highway. As soon as we walked in, it kind of felt we'd been transported to someone's Nan's attic or a little antique shop. It was absolutely cluttered as the shop was tiny but they'd tried to display as much as they could.
The ladies there were very lovely and we ended up buying from there, mainly because the service was unbeatable.

These are the basic fittings we got for rooms that didn't need fancy lights; the study, bathroom, laundry and toilet.
The glass is frosted and has a swirly kind of pattern on it.


We got these ones for the kitchen, dining room and random area in middle (technically the dining room but it's too small for a table so we put the dining table in the 'games' room which is too small to be a games room...).
It's kind of hard to see the pattern in this photo but like the previous fittings, these are frosted but the design almost looks like there are cracks through the glass.


And finally, our 'balls of string'. They're actually made of wood and we bought these for our bedroom, the loungeroom and the entry...hall? space? meter squared bit you stand in before it becomes either the lounge or bedroom?
Anyways, so we bought the last three the lady had boxed and as we were paying at the cashier, she climbed up and took down the display model, plonked it on the counter and said 'No point me trying to sell one, happy housewarming!'.
I was just over the moon, it was so nice of her. So that one went in the spare bedroom instead of one of the plain ones.


This is ball of string lit up.


Because the bedrooms are smaller than the lounge, the light actually throws shadows on the wall. I think it's awfully pretty :)


We also bought a full length mirror which is great as it means I no longer have to go outside and try to catch my reflection in the window if I want to see how an outfit looks. We just have to mount that on the back of the bedroom door as soon as Christian nicks some double sided tape from work!

Hurrah for getting small things done!

A productive afternoon

I had one of those eye opening moments today about my house. You know the type. Each week you tidy the house, do the floors, clean the bathroom, get the laundry done. The house if tidy and you think nothing more of it. Then all of a sudden, you actually *look* at your house and go 'My God! It's filthy!'. Yeah, one of those moments.
It happened when I was doing the dishes this afternoon and I looked out the kitchen window and realised I could hardly see out of the window. We've been in this house for three years and we've never washed the windows! How bad is that??? The amount of dust and grime on them, inside and out, was disgraceful. And then I started looking around the house and started seeing other things. Not just the accumulated dirt, but half completed or never started jobs, things that needed fixing, those sorts of things.
And so I made a list. I figured if I wrote down what I thought needed doing, then maybe it would poke at my memory every now and then and I would actually get around to completing these tasks (or nagging Christian to do the ones I can't do).

Clean the windows.
Wash the curtains.
Put up curtain rod and hang curtain in laundry.
Buy rod and curtain and hang in study.
Mow and edge the lawn.
Put in simple retic system for back lawn.
De-cobweb outside of house.
Clean off top of fridge.
Clean out kitchen cupboards.
Clean out bathroom cupboards.
Pot dwarf lemon tree.
Put up brush fencing along retaining wall.

Quite the list eh? And I didn't even include clearing out all the junk in time for our next curb side collection and de-skanking my yard. I've already started on the yard. Last week I dug out all the old, dead grass from out the back, smoothed down all the dirt and have put down some lawn seed (which probably won't take since it's the wrong time of year to plant but I was feeling optimistic). Our yard has just become really run down over time; to be honest, it was never really up to scratch in the first place. The backyard at least was pretty much a blank canvas when we bought the house off Dad and apart from my pots and a demented attempt at re-doing the lawn (major fail!) we haven't really done much except accumulate crap and grow weeds. I know my neighbourhood is Dodgeville but I'm sick of blending in with the trailer park trash who surround me (uncharitable I know but somewhat justified). Anyway, I'm hoping that our bulk collection will be soon so we can throw away all the junk that's built up round the place so I can start getting the yard organised.

Sorry, I digressed quite a bit there...I was talking about my list! So anyway, I wrote the list and then decided, you know what? It may be half past two on a Sunday afternoon but it's not too late to get started.
Christian also inspired me because he decided to change the washers in all the taps around the house since they hadn't been done in a while. So I started with washing the curtains from the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and the curtain that's destined for the laundry. Then I washed the kitchen window and the laundry sliding doors. The outside of the house got de-cobwebbed and I also put WD40 on all the interior doorknobs so they would stop squeaking. I made a trip to Bunnings to get a part for the spare curtain rod we have here and while I was there I bought a pot for my lemon tree and a new peg bag for the washing line. I got back only to discover I had bought the wrong part for the rod. And so I went all the was back to Bunnings, only to find they didn't have the part we needed so I had to buy a whole new curtain rod. When I got home I discovered it was an inch too long to fit in the laundry...we can put that rod up in the study but I have to buy curtains for in there first. I almost cried.

So by this time it was getting late and so I gave up on my list for now. But considering I started so late in the arvo, I thought I'd accomplished quite a lot off it. I'm just hoping that I can get everything on it done since that would make me feel a lot better.

Spring has sprung!

Spring is in the air and so are the bloody allergens! Gah, I don't think my allergies have been this bad since before my desensitisation injections. My poor little Molly is suffering too - she keeps biting her feet, rubbing her nose on everything she can and dragging her arse along the ground. Hopefully our meds will kick in and ease the suffering somewhat.

Before I really get into the swing of things I promised Boo that I would shout out a big hello to her friend David, whom I've never met but apparently keeps asking after me. So hello David! Not sure why you find me so interesting but hello nonetheless :)

This weekend was chocked full of busyness, I don't think I've stopped! On Friday night I took Molly to the vet, had dinner at my sister's place and then found myself home alone as Christian was out at a mate's place. I ended up going to the gym and then when I got back decided my fringe was a bit too long and my hair was a bit too brown. So out came the scissors and hair dye, I hacked off the fringe and have retured to my normal blue/black :D
And since everyone has been nagging for photos, here's a couple.


Both my sisters have recently started a weight loss campaign and as usual I jumped on the bandwagon. But then found that I was stressing and feeling shit about myself simply because I get obsessed with my weight when I'm dieting. Boo gave me this link which is a blog by a lady whom embraces herself for herself and believes in being healthy at any size. It really got me thinking and I decided that instead of hating myself, why don't I give up trying to lose weight, accept myself for who I am and make choices that are healthier than the ones I have previously made. That way, if I have a piece of cake one night I won't beat myself up because I've made five other choices that day that were healthier than I normally would have made.
Does that make sense?
Anyway, I guess what I find most difficult is accepting that there are people out there who find me attractive, since I just don't see it. But obviously there are people out there - otherwise I wouldn't have gotten married, seen that hot semi-lesbian action in Edinburgh (lol), had an affair or had a close friend tell me she's fallen in love with me. And so I decided that if other people find me pretty then I should start telling myself that I am and hopefully I'll start feeling like it!
The hair job had me feeling pretty good and so to further this cause yesterday I made sure I dressed in affirmative and pretty clothes. I may have been doing nothing other than going furniture shopping with my bestie but that didn't matter in the slightest.

I wore the top I got in Walmart in Canada with pride, which I have always felt self conscious wearing in the past...


And to top it off my favourite black skirt with pretty stockings and my bear shoes.


And you know what? I felt absolutely fucking fantastic the whole day!

On another note, my Dad arrives in a week and a half (YAY!) and so I've been busy getting the house all nice for the visit. This weekend I've really concentrated on the garden and I'm quite happy with the results. I got all my pots out the back tidied and weeded, the paths and driveway sprayed, my front garden beds weeded, manured and mulched and the lawn mowed. With that all done I can spend the next week making sure the inside gets up to scratch :)

I won't bore you with the rest of the details from my weekend since it mainly involed catching up with friends and watching the F1 race (*sob* poor Webber!) but at least I'vr gotten around to posting!

Straight Jacket Needed

I think I'm going insane.

Ok, maybe I was already there, but I'm certainly more insane now than I was two weeks ago.

The reason? My neighbour.

Andy, our delightful neighbour who lives directly across the road from us isn't exactly the ideal neighbour. Sure he seems friendly, waves when you're watering the garden, doesn't cause any trouble and seems to get along fairly well with everyone around. Unfortunately he has this...annoying habit that is the cause of my marbles going missing.

Andy likes to play music.

But he'll only play one song at a time.

Over and over.

For hours on end (and no, I'm NOT exaggerating)

Loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear.

Andy has a wide taste in music - he'll play anything from ACDC to folk music to kiddie nursery rhymes. Of late his song of choice has been a foreign language folk song that has lots of cow bell in it and has an eerily similar tune to Advance Australia Fair. Before this, for the longest time he would only play a Country and Western song which I guess to be called All you ever do is bring me down. When the children next door to him request it, he'll also play How Much is that Doggie in the Window or The Chicken Dance Song.

When we first moved in it took us a little while to figure out what was going on. You do kind of tune out the noise from around you but after a while your consciousness will prod you in the back of the head and say 'Oi, you can't ignore that any longer - it's the same song being played over and over!'.
It's amazing how mad it actually drives you.

The fact that I've been on holidays for the past two weeks and have been at home more than I usually am has really compounded the issue. You notice it all the time.

The problem I have is that I don't really feel like I can say anything to him about this. The volume he plays it at may be loud enough for us to hear it but I don't think it's actually anywhere near the volume of which you can make a complaint about. Add to this is the fact that not so long ago (before I moved in but I'm sure while my Dad was living here) Andy had a stroke. So I do wonder if this has affected his memory and he doesn't actually remember playing the song so he'll play it again. And then lastly, everyone else on the street has been here much longer than us and so it feels kind of rude for it to be the relative newbies on the street to complain. I'm pretty sure someone at some point must have said something anyway (out of everyone living in the area I'm sure someone has snapped in the past) so I don't think it would really do me any good.

The silver lining is that my holidays are over now and I go back to work on Monday so I should start to regain what little of my senses I have remaining to me.

If I don't, hopefully they'll allow my internet access at the asylum.

Home open

We've been moved in for a while now and although we've still got a spare room chokkas full of crap I thought it was about time to post some 'before and after' photos of our house.

The before photos were taken when we were painting the house and so my dad was still living here. He had gotten rid of a lot of his stuff by then and had only kept the essentials. I took the after photos the other day.

This is the loungeroom. The way we've got it set up now means we've cut off the gas point and will have heaps of fun plugging in the heater come winter, but it's really the only way we could set it up to fit in all our crap.

The angles on this photo are a little different to the 'after' shot and we'd already painted the feature wall when I took the 'before' one, but this is our bedroom. Both photos are taken from the doorway. Oh and those pictures aren't staying. When I get some hooks I'll take them down and put my 'Electric Wolf' pic (that you can sort of see in the lounge pics) up in the middle of the wall. We loved the colour of the feature wall (passionate blue) so much that we decided we'd paint the doors that colour. We both hated the green and wanted something different. A lot of people don't like such a dark colour on the doors in such a small house, but they don't have to live here!

This is the bathroom. It didn't change all that much except for the doors and a little drawer unit I bought.

This was the only 'before' shot I had of the kitchen and I had taken it more because my Dad was in it than to get a shot of the kitchen itself. The walls in the kitchen and dining were just repainted white, Dad fixed the pantry door but not much else was done to it. My Mum gave me some cafe curtains that once belonged to my Nanna to put up which I love. Nanna bought them back from Germany with her and never got a chance to use them so I'm glad that one of her grand-daughters finally gets to use them.






This photo of the dining room is taken from a different angle to the 'after' shot. In this one I'm standing at the back door whereas in the 'after' photo I was taking it looking at the back door. I took this photo when we first began painting (back when we were naive and still enthusiastic), it was the first wall we did.

Right, so that concludes a rather boring post.

Sorry bout that...

Once our patio is up and I've finally gotten around to mowing the lawn (I thought that was a husband job but I've been informed otherwise) I'll post some 'before and after' shots of the garden.

Bye!

A bit of this, a bit of that

I spent the whole day with Barb, Mike and the kids today. We went out to Carousel, a big shopping centre in Cannington.
Carousel is miles and miles away from me (about 40 mins), it's all on one level and is so huge that it takes a good half hour of walking briskly to get from one end to the other (and when you do get there, your feet really hurt), and finally it has all the same stores that several closer centres have.

But still I go there.

And I enjoy going there. So does Barb. We're like the Carousel cheering squad. Odd.
The kids got a bit buggered though.

Aren't they just the cutest? Especially when they're asleep.

Can't half tell they're brothers, eh?

Anyway, onto more pressing concerns. I visited my Dad this morning and got some pics of the house to share with you all. Dad said he had some other pics floating around somewhere of the house with the garden looking pretty and the house actually clean but I didn't really want to wait for him to find them. Besides, hopefully, like me, you guys will be able to see the potential in the place.

Anyway, without further ado...

This is the house from the street.

This is the park across the road where I shall be walking the doggies.

This is the backyard, it's sooooo tiny compared to what I'm used to, but hopefully we'll be able to make a nice little entertaining area. Our bbq, table and chairs, a bit of garden, a small patio or some sails...I have so many plans!

This is the side yard. The swing set will be gone, but I'd like to maybe put in a fountain...

And finally, the only shot of inside (the rest of the house was far too messy, even for me!). This will be our lounge room, all it needs is our blue couches and a mountain of tangled game console cords and we'll be right at home!

And that concludes our tour for today, ladies and gentlemen. Please ensure seats and tables are placed back into their upright positions and that all hand luggage is removed from the overhead lockers.

It's settled then.

Hurrah! Christian and I are officially homeowners! Settlement went through at 3pm today, with no hitches or glitches. I'm very excited.

Christian on the other hand, not so much.

I think it's a boy thing...

Anyway, so it's all good and I can start making plans. We probably won't be moving in until December/January though as we don't know for sure when Dad's residency will go through. I'll try and get there sometime soon and get some pics for you guys :)

So the house is now settled, now all we have to do is get me pregnant...
I went to the docs yesterday to get myself checked out and over the next month I have so much to do! At certain times during my cycle I have to go in for blood tests, plus I have to go for an ultrasound (so, as the doc put it, we can see if I got all the right bits from my mummy and daddy!), then once those results are back I have to go back and most likely have a physical...and then there's stuff Christian has to do. I won't go there as he'll divorce me if he finds out I told, but you're all smart, intelligent people, I'm sure you can figure it out!
The doctor was very reassuring and told me that in two years I'll most likely have a baby so I shouldn't stress. Obviously she doesn't know me at all! But I'll do my best not to.

And that's about it for now. Until next time!

Interest...ing

Interest rates went up again today. This is good news. For me. Not for most other people. But I was overjoyed when I heard the news. This means that house prices will eventually come back down from the clouds and Christian and I may be able to actually afford to buy a house. With prices in Perth surpassing Melbourne and only just behind Sydney as being the most expensive place in Australia to buy, the future was looking bleak. The average cost of a house in Perth just reached $400k. How crazy is that??? But with the interest hike, people will soon panic, sell up and downsize and then it will get cheaper again. Can you see my point now about interest rates increasing being good? I knew you would. You strike me as being the intelligent type.

I got my measly tax return back this week and so I finally got the Maybe Baby I've been wanting for a while. It's this tiny little microscope that you spit on (a little bit anyway) and when the saliva crystallises it tells you if you're ovulating or not. If it's 'that other time of the month' the crystals form into little fern shapes but if you're not ovulating they just make bubbles. It's really cool. It was pretty expensive up front ($85) but it's better than paying 20 or 30 bucks every few weeks for the more conventional ovulation kit.

I'm sure you guys will be fascinated by all this.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I haven't been online for a while, I'm going through one of those stages where I prefer to read a book than sit up staring at the computer screen all night. It's nothing personal - please don't cry. I'm sure in next to no time I'll be annoying you all on a constant basis again.

Okie, that's all for tonight.
*hugs*