This house….

I am totally fed up with this house. It’s been nothing but hassles since we moved in in January. Our lease is up in early july, so we’ll be moving. The problems so far:
- Still no heating (’should’ be fixed tmw though)
- There are no keylocks on external doors, corner block, so we park in the driveway and have to walk all the way around the house to get to the front door to get in. There’s an external door next to the garage, but no key lock in it!
- No privacy. The blinds here are see-through! We can see out during the day, and people can kind of see in, but at night when we have the lights on people outside can see EVERYTHING inside the house! The bedroom blinds are thicker and ok, but the living areas are public….
- No door on the ensuite. There’s a door on the walk in robe, but not the ensuite. nuff said…
- Teeny backyard that was supposed to be landscaped, however no-one mentioned that landscaped meant a load of gravel being spread around and three trees that died from a lack of water.
- Little fold out clothesline that holds one load of washing and then it’s full.
- No side fences, so the back yard is easily accessable from the street. We’ve got guinea pigs out the back and we’ve had dogs and even a FOX come in! Luckily it wasn’t interested in the piggies!

Now, we were prepared to live with all this because it’s not permanent and we really didn’t want to pack up and move again so soon, but the kicker, the absolute last straw, came yesterday. I had a visit from a Parking Officer, who told me that someone in the street down from us had reported people parking their cars so they were blocking the footpath, therefore I couldn’t park my car on OUR OWN DRIVEWAY as it was blocking the footpath! Oh, and by the way, it’s against the law to park on the nature strip too. Today was a verbal warning, listed on their computer, but next time it will be a $64 fine and because there was a complaint they’ll be patrolling the area for the next 3-4 months, and they patrol anywhere between 7.00am and 5.30pm including weekends!

So where the heck are we going to park two cars and a bike? Currently the bike and a heap of boxes, gym equipment, Eddie’s tools and woodworking gear is in the garage. We aren’t allowed to park on the gardens because it breaks our lease, the road is too narrow as it is, so we can’t park on the road. I rang Eddie in tears and nearly had hysterics over the phone. He’s said no previously when I asked if he was interested in moving, but this time he said to go and find a house!

We have nine weeks left on our lease so I’ll be looking around for a house in June. Oh, that’s right, Eddie is away in QLD for all of june too!

Dian’s new bike and Mud

Dian received a new bike on thursday. Her old bike had been her fourth birthday present and she was waaaaay too big for it! Her new bike is bright blue, with purple and pink trim.

Today, saturday, it rained…. so what does a girl with a wonderful new bike do in the rain??? Why, you go off and ride through puddles and have a mud fight with the neighbors!!!! Can I just say, that as the mother who has to clean the clothes, I was a wee bit less than impressed…..

Spinning Wool

I finished spinning up the last of my multi coloured merino on thursday. It’s turned out a gorgeous purply tweed colour. I’ve ordered some more, and I plan to knit this up into a cuddly shawl. These pics show the sliver before spinning, and the end skeins.

Wooly Mail

Received four balls of Noro Kureyon #178 today! Gorgeous earthy brown/green/purple colours in this. I’m planning on knitting a Moebius scarf with this, and I should be able to start tonight! Yay! I had to frog my first moebius scarf, the moebius part worked out fine, but I knitted it in twisted knit stitch and it really didn’t work out well. I guess it didn’t help that I knitted the twisted knit wrong too! LOL!

Homemade ice cream

Believe it or not, this ice cream qualifies as healthy food!!! It’s made from real milk and eggs, and several vanilla beans. Yummy, scrummy, it’s the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted! The little black flecks in it are vanilla seeds. No preservatives, no artificial colours or flavours, minimal sugar, just lots of real ingredients and home made love! Can’t get better than that….Not cheap ice cream unfortunately, and definately not something that you just whip up in a few spare minutes, but it’s pretty special!

My new Bookshelves

While Dian and I were holidaying in Canberra and NSW, my wonderful Eddie made this bookcase for us. It’s over six foot tall, and about five foot across. The top two shelves are height adjustable, and there’s a shelf/drawer in the bottom. He designed it and all himself, this is his first attempt at woodworking/carpentry! Pretty cool dude I married! LOL!

BTW, it’s not crooked or leaning really, that’s just my bad photography!

Changing to healthy eating habits

I’ve recently been reading “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon. She talks about the inefficiencies in our westernised, highly processed, mostly cooked diet and how it affects our health. Sally suggests reverting back to the foods our ancestors ate, lacto and naturally fermented, raw milk and dairy, raw foods etc. Eating a lot of foods with natural enzymes in them to support our body’s digestion and enable all the available nutrients to be utilised. It all makes a lot of sense. Since I’ve been trying to eat healthier for a few years, cutting down on fats, salt etc it’s going to be a huge change in our diet!

I’ve got a lot of concerns with making these changes. Will I eat the foods? I’m a fairly fussy eater, I don’t like meat and hate fat. I love my sugar! Will I be able to get Eddie and Dian to eat the foods? So far I’ve changed Eddie’s Equal (aspartame sweetener) for Stevia powder, and I have to say that the taste will take a while to get used to! Dian often won’t eat if she doesn’t like the meal, how can I get her to eat unusual foods???? And the sheer logistics of changing the way I cook, shop, store food etc.

My plan is that we’ve been eating in relative ignorance for this long, making changes slowly isn’t going to kill us! So, as we run out of foods I’ll either replace them with better choices in line with Sally’s directions, or not replace them at all. I can start making simple changes to our menu, making my own broth and soups, and start on a few ‘gentle’ fermented foods.

My Kombucha tea is staying! Which I’m very happy about! Among other wonderful things, kombucha contains glucoronic acid.
“Glucoronc acid is not readily commercially synthesized, but the healthy human liver makes large amounts of it to detoxify the body In the liver the glucoronic acid binds up all poisons and toxins - both environmental and metabolic - and rushes them to the excretory system. Toxins once bound by glucuronic acid cannot be reabsorbed into the system so we are rid of them.” Tom Valentine, Search for Health.

Ouch!!!

Another thing that doesn’t mix is polished wooden steps and slippery socks. While staying with friends I managed to (very inelegantly) fall down their internal stairs yesterday. I was about to walk down the stairs, had one foot on the top step, when my feet slipped and went flying out from under me. Landed on my butt and bounced about four times down to the bottom. Ouch!!! I’ve got black bruising all up one buttock, a very badly grazed and bruised elbow, and have jarred my hips, back, shoulders and arms. God was really looking after me, I could have so easily have hit my tailbone, spine or head. Instead I’m just a bit uncomfortable with some bad bruising.

Holbrook and I - we don’t mix…

Holbrook is a lovely country town in NSW, on the Hume highway. It has a park with an old RAN Submarine for the kids to play on, a great cafe there, and is a regular stop for us when travelling. Or was a regular stop, I think I’ll find somewhere else for a break as Holbrook seems to have something against us! LOL!

Last January, when we moved from Canberra, Holbrook was the place that I managed to leave my mobile phone on top of the car when we drove off. I realised it about an hour later, so the phone has never been seen since. I now have a new pink phone, very cute, but I lost a lot of phone numbers.

This week, while driving back to Canberra for a visit, we stopped in Holbrook for fuel. Pulled up at the pump and realised…. DH’s car, my keyring and a lockable fuel cap with no key! Argh!!! We found a friendly mechanic who demonstrated some wonderful brute strength with a screwdriver and broke the lock, were able to refuel and keep going. Doh!!! Fortunately the fuel cap is only an off the shelf one, not genuine Holden!