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Sunday, day of cleaning

I spent this morning cleaning the windows in my room, they were filthy. First I scrubbed, then I scrubbed again and a rinse and then a polish with the window cleaner. Now I have windows that I can bear to look out of. I also managed to get rid of all the cardboard boxes as well, my room is now looking quite homely. I didn’t get my ironing done though, that will need to be done in the morning I guess nor did I get a chance to tackle the stove in the kitchen. I am slowly cleaning my way through the house.

One downside of new house is that I am now in high possum area and said possums are eating my lettuce (not that I can eat lettuce now anyway but I have been giving Mum and Matthew picked leaves once a week). I have moved the pot so it is now beside the kitchen stairs where there is more light at night so I will see how that goes.

When I was cleaning my windows today the resident Scrub Turkey came for a visit as well (yes my street has a resident Scrub Turkey, I tend to see him/her at least once a day). So cool.

My room has picture rails so when Mum and I went to Bunnings yesterday I picked up some picture hooks and wire. I was so excited then when I got home and tried them they didn’t fit! I was devastated. I was sooo looking forward to using the picture rails. At the moment I have some of my foam core mounted photos and LPs propped up on the picture rails and my framed pieces wrapped up beneath my bed.

Once I had cleaned and cleaned some more it was off to Mum’s and then off to The Farm. We have crumbed fish and veg every time we go to The Farm for dinner but tonight the fish tasted even better than it normally does. We also spent time counting the linen to make sure Grandad has enough to house the NZ contingent as well as other general planning. Man oh man I can’t wait for December! Only nine sleeps to go till the first of the outer towners arrives!

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day 18

A blog a day in November, what on earth was I thinking?

Today I got up had a shower/breakfast and rushed out the door to work, then it was home for a bite to eat and then over to Group for another night out with the SES. We spent the night travelling to various homes that placed calls since Sunday night to see if a) they still needed assistance or b) what assistance they would need. It’s raining a lot more tonight than it was last night. I have now been home long enough to grab a shower and start this post and all along all I can think is that man oh man I just want to go bed but I’m not about to pike on making a post a day when I have managed to stay on track for the last 17 days.

Today though apart from been work, rain and SES also marks the day in two weeks time that Karl will be walking off a plane at the Airport to spend Christmas with us. Excited? Very! Then the following day Toti and his crew arrive! Two weeks! and I will have my brother home (well one of them)

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and tonight I have Oranges

Monday is SES night, the night that I trundle to Group and learn things. Tonight though we were on storm call out from the storms that hit yesterday. When I got to Group, I was quickly given a pair of Oranges (the old jump suit not the new two piece) and a pair of boots. Then it was out to The Gap where street by street we door knocked and assessed the problems so teams could come back in the light tomorrow and do what repairs they can do. I was so excited! It looks like I might get a call out tomorrow night as well, so I am off to get some sleep!

and here is a photo!
Helen has Oranges

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a missed chance

Mum and I went to The Farm today and just before Mum started cooking tea, my phone rang. “Hi Helen, it’s Leanne from SES, are you free tonight?” It broke my heart so much to say that I was up north so I couldn’t go out tonight. I so dearly wanted to say yes as it would have been my first activation and it would have been a storm activation at that and I would have gotten my oranges.

sigh. We have had one hell of a storm this evening though. We left Brisbane round 1545 ish and as we drove the view out the rear just got progressively darker. A while after we got to The Farm, it started blowing a gale and then it got darker again and the rain started. It rained, and it rained and it rained.

As we drove home there were branches down all over the place and traffic lights and street lights out all over the place as well. I thought about giving them a ring to see if it was too late to come down and join a crew but then I thought that I am fairly exhausted from a big weekend moving and I have 38 Navy kids enlisting at 0700 or 0730 in the morning, I need sleep!

I am now sitting in my room at Auchenflower and the rain stopped probably 10 minutes ago. The only sound now is the trains as they zip past and the various bug noises.

Oh well I have SES tomorrow night and I am sure I will hear all about what I missed out on (clearing gutters I bet)

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Auchenflower Style

Yesterday and today I have moved into a gorgeous house in Auchenflower for the summer, the room is furnished with the most gorgeous 1920’s furniture with even more gorgeous 12ft ceilings. The kitchen has gas and it is just round the corner from the Auchenflower train station which is one zone closer to work on the train. Another great thing is that it is also close to the bike path which means I can and will ride/walk to work 🙂

Auchenflower

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A new baby

Tonight, my favourite store in Brisbane had it’s once yearly 20% off sale for newsletter subscribers. Since Taste open a few years ago, I have often popped in when driving past for a quick browse.

I arrived shortly before 1730 and managed to pop into the shop for about a minute before the closed the doors, myself and another lady had just enough time to confirm what colour KitchenAids were in stock and how many they had (seven and only one of each colour). When we were back outside we quickly formed a little posse at the door with two other ladies who were also in the KitchenAid quest. They were number 1 and 2 in the line, I was number 3 and the other lady was number 4. We started discussing colours and it turned out that lady number 1 and I both wanted Apple Green and number 2 and number 4 both wanted the Imperial Gray. Very democratically I decided that I would get the Ice Blue as that was my 2nd colour pref from what they had in stock (I had wanted Gloss Cinnamon, Tangerine or Yellow but there was none in stock). Number 4 decided she would get Empire Red. Once that was settled we then roped into our posse two other ladies, one who had bought her KitchenAid (Almond) a few months ago and the other who was also in the quest, her first preference was the Empire Red but she quickly settled on the Willow Blue as that would match her Le Creuset.

When they opened the doors, the five of us quickly made our way over to the table where the holy grail was and grabbed our new babies. We then made our way over to the counter where Jodie (the lovely owner) commented on how it was great to see that we had worked as a little team to get what we wanted. As we were walking through the shop some of the other Taste employees made comments as well about our little team forming to get our common goal.

The 20% off made the price very attractive! Taste retails them at $699 and you can get them from the online site round the $630 mark. The 20% off took it to just under $560.

Here is my baby (well my second baby as my first baby is my 5D)
My new baby

My other purchase was a Le Creuset Multifunction Set in Cobalt Blue. I remember the first time I saw the multifunction mentioned on a blog, I thought “that is a very cool idea” over the last year or so I have danced my fingers over them as I have seen them at various places. Tonight I picked up my own 🙂 I had been tossing up between getting a 20cm Le Creuset French Oven as there are times when I find my 24cm too big but since the multifunction set is about the same size and it gives me a saucepan and frypan that works as a lid, I decided that this year that was a better buy. ‘

I’m so excited! I can’t wait to use my new kitchen goodies.