But lately, I am getting just that little bit sick of it.

We’ve been waiting for a few months to get our retaining wall done and the rain makes it just that little bit more difficult. Of course, if they had finished it when they were supposed to, we wouldn’t have to worry about the rain being a problem. That’s another matter altogether….

So long as it keeps raining, we will be whistling dixie to get it finished. Fortunately, we haven’t had as much rain as we have had in recent weeks today so the “creek” beside the house isn’t as full as it usually is. Even with a small of rain, this is what happens.  The amount of rain we have had means that the soil can’t absorb any more water. It is at maximum capacity, so it just sits on the surface to be evaporated by the sun. And when the sun comes out, the water is a perfect breeding ground for bacteria, mosquitoes and who knows what else.

People keep telling me to think of the finished product, so I’ll just have to keep imagining it for a bit longer to keep from going  absolutely stir crazy. After a few months though, that image of how it will look is fast fading in my mind’s eye.

It’s not exactly noice is it?

January 2nd, 2010 | Category: Home and Lifestyle |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

It’s hard to believe, but yes I cooked this. And just look at the presentation – it’s almost restaurant like instead of the usual “slapped on the plate” appearance that my food tends to take.  As Maccas is fond of proclaiming lately – “it’s a little bit fancy”.

Much as I initially begrudged having to get Foxtel in order to get TV reception where we live, I’ve discovered that it is somewhat useful for providing some inspiration for new meal ideas. And while I’ll never be Nigella, I am learning a few new things. Like simple sometimes being better and combining fruit and savoury together can be quite acceptable. So with my new found interest for cooking something more than bottle pasta and packet burritos, I went and got a few more cookbooks from Borders. Not that I need more cookbooks – I have shelves of them that I have never opened that are hand me downs from parents and grandparents. I even have a few I’ve bought myself and never opened.

But if I hadn’t gone to Borders, I wouldn’t have found this very small cookbook called After Work Healthy by the ever reliable Australian Women’s Weekly. I generally pick my cookbooks by looking at the picture on the front, the title and a quick flick through to see if I am prepared to eat at least five recipes in there. This one passed the test, so in the shopping bag it went.

I picked out a few recipes to make this week with my new-found enthusiasm for cooking and decided that this little number would be an appropriate first test. Enough fiddly stuff to make it seem a bit special but it seemed easy enough that I probably wouldn’t stuff it up. Success was very important tonight because I am from the Homer school of cooking – if at first you don’t succeed, resign yourself to a lifetime of easy, quick prepare meals involving packets and bottles. I’m pleased to say that it was a success and although the combination of fruit and chicken in the one dish seemed unusual, the flavours matched up really well. If serving it with the fruit really puts you off, you could always serve it with roast spuds instead.

December 30th, 2009 | Category: Home and Lifestyle, Nowhere Near Nigella |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (6)

Thankfully, the time of the Christmas tree is nearly over

Mojo and Rosie would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas! If you have cats, I hope you have got plenty of tinsel on the tree for them to pull off and chew to bits. It may make a huge mess but at least it distracts them from the food cooking in the kitchen.

December 25th, 2009 | Category: Cats, Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

This festive season has been particularly trying for us so it has been hard to get excited about Christmas at all. Even the Christmas tree is picking up on the vibe.

I remember when I was a kid, I would get excited about Christmas. Sure it meant that we got some presents but also because we got to catch up with the rest of the extended family. I don’t remember it being as stressful, trying to accommodate everyone’s gatherings on the one day. Perhaps it was because as a child, I didn’t have to think of such things because I simply went wherever my parents did.

I don’t remember stressful shopping experiences….certainly don’t remember traffic jams within car parks just to get to the petrol station. I do remember people lighting their houses to celebrate the occasion but I don’t remember the sense of competition that goes along with it today. I don’t remember my mum getting stressed about whether she had the right table cloth or whether the napkins matched the table cloth.

What I do remember is my grandpa falling asleep on the lounge downstairs after a belly full of food. Playing board games with my sister and sometimes my cousins as well while the adults chatted. I remember it raining most Christmas Days and not caring because what does it matter if it does? Going to the shopping centres and hearing Australian Christmas carols played over the speaker, often sung by unknown artists and delighting in it nonetheless. People smiling, wishing each other merry Christmas without the fear that the other person may not celebrate Christmas because if they didn’t, they simply said merry Christmas in return and did not get offended. The shops shut for more than 2 days and somehow no one complained about the inconvenience of it all. If you forgot something, then you simply did without or went to the “rip off merchants” at the corner store.

Mostly I remember that there was a true spirit of Christmas when I was a child. There was magic in it. Somehow as an adult, that feeling of anticipation is somewhat diminished. I do wonder whether that’s how my parents felt about it as well, even though that time of year was always memorable to me.

Have a very merry Christmas, no matter where you are or what you are doing and may 2010 be even better than the year before.

December 24th, 2009 | Category: Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Playing with the latest additions to our aquarium.

We started off our tropical tank with a small amount of mollies, a yoyo loach and one very big cat fish. The mollies have since gone to the aquarium in the sky having lived their short life span. Unfortunately the catfish put an end to any plans to have a self-replenishing group of mollies as he’d just gobble up the young as soon as they were born. The yoyo loach seemed a little lonely, so he got some new friends to play with last year. They’ve all grown bar one which we think is just like a runt of a litter. While the others have quadrupled or more in size, he remains very small.

Still the tank looked a little empty, particularly with all the bottom feeders. So off to Pet City we go to get four rosie barbs to add to the tank. So far it’s all happy families and no losses. Fingers crossed it stays that way!

December 4th, 2009 | Category: Cats |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

Almost a month ago, I was staring down the barrel of a whole month off from work. Sure I was looking forward to the break but I was hoping to get a lot of work done at the house while we had our time off. I had the best intentions of having the retaining walls done, plants in, fence up, turf down, clothes line installed, garage kitted out, curtains and shutters installed and hopefully the start of some landscaping along our very long driveway.

Back to work for us both on Monday and the retaining wall is only half finished. It is looking good though and I’m hoping that by the time it is finished, we can say that it was worth the wait. There are two to be done,  one fully along the service side of our house which will be part terraced (left and middle) and the other in the main part of our backyard near the alfresco (right).

Because the retaining is so extensive and covers a large portion of the property, we haven’t been able to do much more. I am a little disappointed that we couldn’t get as much done as I hoped but the best laid plans tend to fall in a heap at times. At least we do have our one little patch of garden finished, although I think it needs something….maybe a budda or some other garden statue in the corner. I’m keeping my eye out for something just right.

December 3rd, 2009 | Category: Home and Lifestyle |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)

We decided that after the hassles of moving into our new house, that we needed a bit of a holiday to recover. The cat park hasn’t yet been put up here and I didn’t entirely trust the moggies not to trash the joint if they were left unattended with only a daily visit from our pet minder. So for only the second time ever since we have had them, they went into a boarding shelter but one that is exclusively for cats.

They previously spent four days at The Cats Retreat in North Maclean while we were moving out of our old house and they seemed to cope okay so we decided that another two weeks  wouldn’t hurt them in the slightest. If you have nervous cats or ones that aren’t used to being boarded while you are away, I really do recommend this place. Auntie G looks after her charges very well and she is able to pick their personalities very early on to cater for their individual whims. I was a little worried about how Rosie would do given she had a recurrence of her skin problem but it has healed up nicely. Mojo has put on a little weight while he was in which is fantastic as he usually goes off his feed when a big change is in the air. And Rosie managed to lose a little of her winter flab as well I think. Auntie G even caters for nervous owners – I could send the cats an email and even a few photos from our trip away and in return, I got an email about how they were finding their boarding experience and photos of them during their stay.

I’m sure that given a choice, the cats would rather stay home and not have us go anywhere. But as a home away from home, I think they’d both agree it is a wonderful place to stay.

November 29th, 2009 | Tags: cat boarding | Category: Cats |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

I have decided to give the moggies their virtual home back. I started off this blog all about the cats and somehow it evolved to encompass a lot more than that until it was more about me and what I was doing and only a little bit about them. So I’m returning their blog to them and anything that’s more about me will be at Eucalyptus Country. Until I change my mind of course.

The cats have settled in well at our new home – we have moved to a peri-urban area. So it’s close enough to convenience but far enough away not to be bothered by it. There are cut-outs in the walls throughout the house to facilitate natural light and air flow and the cats are enjoying using them as short-cuts between areas. We got some new furniture when we moved in and the moggies didn’t miss out either – they got a new scratching tower which blissfully does not look like the leaning tower of Pisa. It even has hidey holes in it – not exactly a Funky Hollow but they like it all the same.

November 11th, 2009 | Category: Cats, Internet |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

We moved into our new house in the first week of October and we’ve been busy bees putting our personal touches on the house. Pictures are up on the walls, number is on the door and now we even have a permanent mailbox out the front of our house. Apologies to my postie for putting up with the crappy tin box we had out the front to use as a mailbox until the real thing could be put in the ground. We’re both on holidays for a month now and had the best intentions of working hard at finishing the landscaping for a week before we headed off on a much needed vacation. Unfortunately the recent rain we’ve had put a bit of a damper on those plans.

Rain turned the quarry that our sandstone is coming from into a muddy slush pit – so the truck delivering our rock just couldn’t get in to get it. The sandstone is now here and hopefully next week we will have a retaining wall fashioned around the side of the house and at the side. Until that gets done, we are more or less sitting on our hands. Without the retaining wall, we can’t shift the massive pile of bark that we kept for doing the garden beds. Which means we can’t get someone out to do the turf or fencing. We have done the one garden bed that we can do at the moment and in the meantime, we are keeping an eye out on our massive pile of sandstone making sure no one nicks off with it before they fashion a wall out of it.

The best laid plans and all of it brought to a grinding halt because of the rain. On the upside though, our tank is full and ready to be used for watering the grass – when we have some laid that is.

November 11th, 2009 | Category: Home and Lifestyle |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment