Sunday, June 19, 2011

Blog Update - Random Thoughts

Since Easter, we've been spending most weekends down at Victor working on the house, and during the week, I've been busy catching up with shopping, washing, sewing and internet surfing. I've also been suffering with the most terrible congestion for the past 5-6 weeks; at first I thought it was a cold, then possibly hayfever, then sinuses maybe, but by the 4th week I had no idea and was just so tired of not being able to breathe through my nose or get a decent night's sleep. I finally managed to get an appointment with the physio and it has improved immensely since then, although not cleared up altogether. So coupled with busy weekends, I've also been going to bed at a ridiculously early hour (for me, anyway) so I'm way behind with sewing.

But this weekend Mr G is working, so I finally got around to having the glucose test I was supposed to have done 3 months ago (when am I supposed to find 2 hours when I can just sit and do nothing at the IMVS???) and today has been a completely lazy day, where neither of us have quite managed to get out of our pj's yet. Although for some reason we didn't get our paper delivery this morning so I am going to have to drag on enough decent clothing to walk down to the servo to get a paper before they sell out....which had better be soon.

Miss R had a 'playdate' (what do you call them once they hit the teen years???) with a new friend yesterday and as they offered to drop her home again afterwards, I spent most of yesterday afternoon frantically cleaning the house. I had a huge box of stuff to drop at Salvos, so popped into one nearby and found 2 pairs of shoes that I just couldn't leave behind. I'm a bit (ok, VERY) wary of buying second hand shoes but these were both virtually new (in fact, I suspect one pair had never been worn), one of my fave brands (Diana Ferrari) and one was a style that I already have 3 pairs in 3 different colours because they are so comfy. So when they tick all those boxes AND are in the right size, isn't it meant to be???

One great thing about furnishing a holiday house on a limited budget, is the euphoria you feel when snagging a bargain. So far I've managed to snaffle, not one, but TWO Stanley Rogers cutlery sets for around $40. One is a 8 person setting (including salad and cake servers) and the other is a....wait for it....12 person setting! Woohoo! So we should have plenty of spare cutlery for when pieces get lost. Harris Scarfe were having 50% off kitchenware so I stocked up on lots of bits and pieces - graters, whisks, roasting pans and I've also managed to snaffle discontinued quilt covers for a bargain price. So while my spare room is almost overflowing, I think we have just about everything we need apart from beds & mattresses, TV and washing machine/dryer. (Although we have been offered a washing machine for $25, we don't know what condition it is in, so it may only be ok for the interim.) I won't lose this anxious feeling until we actually have some bookings though, so I'm hoping to get it listed on the stayz website by the end of  July, ready for bookings from October.

I've made steady progress on the music themed quilt I've been commissioned to make. I've chosen a Chinese Coin design and it is coming together very nicely. Right now I'm too lazy to take any pics but maybe next time. I've had several quotes for having the 2 1/2" square quilt professionally quilted; one was significantly cheaper than the others so I rang and discovered that she had misread my email so had quoted on a smaller quilt. But she is prepared to honour her quote, so I will drop in one day in the next few weeks to discuss quilting options. For a brief moment there, I thought it actually WAS affordable to have quilts professionally quilted!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Update to the Pile O'Crap

One of the things we discovered amongst the crap was a Nintendo GameCube, controllers and games which we thought might be worth listing on eBay.

I'm pleased to report that we got $53.65 for the lot.

Score!! LOL