You know it's cold when

people buying thermals in Darwin make the nightly news, and the landscape looks like this. Oh and the washing steams when you put it on the clothesline. You have to look carefully, but the greyness around the top of the shirt is actually steam. I do have some cool video footage of it, but posting that would involve experimenting with youtube and that is currently beyond me, or I'm too lazy, one or the other.

The painting is finished.

I was just in time to capture the last brush stroke for posterity. The house is painted. For about 10 years anyway. We have also finished painting the exterior of the garage and put up the little blingy bits that are supposed to make it look Colonial or Federation I can never remember. But they are up and not in the way in the garage anymore, so it's all good. All we need now is a cash injection, roll on June 30!, and then we can landscape a bit. Just enough to keep the Council happy, then we can get our completion certificate and it's all good. "oh my god what do we do with our weekends now" time is looming and I can't wait. I suspect it involves a lot of weeding.

On the camera

When downloading the latest lot of photos from the camera I found Charlie had been busy again. I thought this photo of the daisies shows nicely how well the daisies are growing, the newly painted front wall of the house, and the lovely grey clouds that brought the rain. Not bad for someone who is not supposed to have the camera. The next photo is one of me standing on the steps pointing down while saying 'Come here now!' . But I'm not posting that one.

The Weather Gods

My sacrifice to the Weather Gods has finally been accepted, and we have had three days of periodic rain. I have found that the Mothers' of the Weather Gods won't let them rain on baby clothes, but my stuff is fine. Which I can live with.















On house news, the insides of the front and back doors have been painted so the inside of the house is pretty much completely painted. There is only a tiny bit of grouting to do in the main bathroom and laundry, and some work around the manhole in the ceiling and the inside is completely done. Three walls of the outside are painted leaving only the back wall to do, plus the outside of the front and back door. Finishing the actual house is really close now. Thank goodness.

Stealth Painting

Actually it's more like when will he notice that I've been - painting, replacing the flyscreen with the hole big enough to fly a jet through, and adding onto the watering system that he's been meaning to do for months. All those little jobs that need doing and which I've decided I can't really fuck up, unless I try really hard, so I've done them myself rather than whinge to him about it. The fun part is waiting for him to notice. It took him five days to notice that I'd changed the screen on the door, interestingly it took Charlie two days. He noticed the watering system about four days after I'd done it, but then he usually gets home right on dusk or when it's already dark so it's not surprising he didn't notice until the weekend.

However, I thought that the paint on me which he noticed last night and the fact that he was looking right at Charlie's wardrobe doors last night when he read the bedtime story might have brought to his attention that the painting had been done. He could also have noticed the hall cupboard doors, that he walks right past, had been painted but no. He said the other day that painting the wardrobe doors was his winter job. I didn't feel like waiting.

I'm guessing he'll notice tonight that only one set of our walk through robe doors have been painted because the other set need some planing off so they fit properly. Now that I really could fuck up easily, so I'm leaving that to him. For some strange reason I procrastinated long and hard before finally finishing the wardrobe doors today. I painted the wardrobe doors in the hall, Gemma's, Charlie's and the guest room yesterday, so I only had to do one set in our bedroom today. I had the first coat finished by 10.30am. All I needed to do was wait two hours and paint them again. About 12.15 I decided to treat myself to lunch in town, then I came home and did some ironing, brought in the washing and folded it, put Gemma's car seat back together after washing the cover, and tidied up the loungeroom. Of course as is always the way, it only took about 15 minutes to complete the painting once I got started. For some reason getting started was really hard.

In other news painting the outside of the house has begun. The front wall is completely finished and one side wall has one coat, and will be getting the second this weekend before we go to Sydney for the Dinghy's 1st birthday party. Hopefully another wall will get started on Anzac Day, and then on the weekend we might even be close to finished the outside painting.

Then all we need to do is finish some grouting in the laundry, put some coloured caulking around the bottom of the wall tiles in the bathroom and ensuite and cover it with silicone, and plane and paint the remaining wardrobe doors and my god I think we're finished! I'm sure we'll find some little job we have neglected to complete that will be the bane of our existence. We still have to finish the garage as well, but it's a lot smaller and less fiddly than a house, and we don't have to do anything inside so it should be much quicker. Then we can start on the never ending landscaping job.

Since I'm here...

We've also finished the kitchen. It was a while ago, actually last year, but I thought better late than never. Who knows when I'll get the free time or inclination to update this again, so best to make hay while the sun shines and before the next thunderstorm rolls over and makes us turn off the computer.

Visitors

Since we'll be having visitors over Easter we thought we should probably build some of these, so that our visitors didn't have to use the ingenious system of levers and pulleys that we have been using to get into the house*.
















I even had the little man in to paint them. The husband even painted them, in fact we painted them together. But I was taking the photo, so you'll just have to believe me.
















Then, immediately afterward it rained so we found a cover for them. Then we went down town as it seemed likely to rain for a bit.















When we came back, we painted them again. Immediately after it absolutely pissed down and stuffed up the paint job. I swear the Weather Gods heard the noise of the paint tin being opened. So this afternoon, the front steps got their third coat of paint. This time it didn't rain and there was much rejoicing.

* may bear no resemblance to reality.

White Christmas

We could see the storm clouds coming and there was a severe weather warning...
















We didn't imagine anything quite like this...
















































Can't complain though, there is water running into the tank, the dam is filling up nicely and apart from the garden being flattened not too much damage. Is this what I get for dissing Xmas?

Slackness abounds

Yes I've been lazy. We have been doing bits and pieces on the house though and the good news is that two whole rooms are completely finished (ooh three if you count the pantry)! The others are all pretty close, like if we paint the kickboards in the kitchen it's finished, paint the window in the ensuite and grout around the mirror it's done, paint the doors in the kids' bedrooms they are done etc. Lots of little jobs that we keep putting off because we are crap.

Having Xmas here has helped galvanise us into action because we have to show off a bit. Especially for the out-laws who are still finishing their house. Now into it's 35th year of finishing with no real end in sight yet. Our first anniversay of building comes up in January, not bad considering D has done most of it himself, while still working full time and for all of it I was either pregnant or with a brand new baby. So we've done all right. We are hoping to do more during the Xmas-New Year break with all those lovely public service days off. Or we might just eat too much and sit around groaning. It's nice to have options.

Unfortunately I can't post any photos because our camera had an altercation with Charlie and Charlie won. Actually I think he just dropped it, on the lens which was one of those ones that moves and focuses itself. Needless to say it doesn't do that anymore. The guy in the camera shop said it's probably cheaper, easier and faster to buy a new one. So we will see what is left in the kitty post Xmas. Could be a while.

New Kids on the Block

Since we got our first pet together, D and I have trawled the lists of classical names for our pets. So we've had Julius, Aphrodite, Persephone, Attila, Nefertiti, Cleo(patra), and Dido. We always threatened our families that we would name our children after historical figures as well. We did like Trajan as a boys name, but decided that our families might never forgive us if we named our firstborn Trajan, so we went with Charlie.

We haven't gotten any new pets since the babies came along, so naming pets hasn't been an issue until now. The other day we got two chookies. More as pets than egg producers, so any eggs that don't get 'toddlerfied' will be a bonus. So we needed to name them. Charlie isn't quite up on his ancient historical figures yet, so let me introduce:

Chookie and Buckaboo.














Because chookies say buckaboo apparently. No, I don't know which is which. Sorry about the dark photo, they didn't want to pose for the camera.

Willy willy gives me the willies

The weather gods must hate me. This is the second time this has happened in a couple of months. Our question now is do we replace the part again, for about $30 and hope it doesn't happen again too soon, or spend about 10 times that amount to get a new steel clothesline?

The obvious thing to do would be to move the clothesline, except that we don't have anywhere else to put it that won't have exactly the same problem, or that wouldn't be right in front of the house. Effen weather gods. We want rain! (I could regret that statement).

There is nothing like coming home

So we've been out all day planting some of the 400 trees hubby went mad and bought at the Murrumbateman Field Days. Dusty and tired we come inside to relax and discover, upon trying to find space to put the baby on the floor, that the toddler has been busy playing and spreading stuff far and wide all over the lounge room. It really wasn't what I needed after a day of holding in curses about silly people buying 400 frikkin trees without thinking about needing to plant and then hand water 400 trees in the middle of one of the worst droughts on record. We've only got about 200 to go. I hope.

Adventure under the house

I was under the house finding a screw that had dropped through the verandah, and which was essential to getting the window holder thingy back on the window, after I took it off to paint the window. We have just put a timber wall around the bottom of the house with a gate in it, to make the house look nice and keep the council happy, so I was hemmed in so to speak. So I was on my hands and knees, moving slowly and painfully across numerous bits of rock, hard dirt, rusty nails etc. trying not to think about having to make my way back again. I finally found the screw and on my way back saw a roll of shade cloth, which I thought would be good to use on the Chook Palace. (chooks arrive tomorrow). There was a dead spider on it, but I thought I'll just shake it off, then we'll be right. Just to be on the safe side I checked the distance to the gate in the fence and tried to crab walk, but decided I liked the skin on my back more. So I picked up the roll of shade cloth and banged it on a handy piece of metal support bar, and the bloody dead spider was stuck and it didn't move. So I banged it again. Still didn't move. I was determined not to take a dead spider outside with me, for the life of me I can't remember why, so I hit it one last time really hard. Then the *&%$##%$ dead spider suddenly sprouted eight legs and ran down the shade cloth. At this point I bravely decided to leave the shade cloth under the house for the husband to retrieve. Hopefully this will be my first and last adventure under the house.

Bless Him

He's off on a jaunt management course this week, so, before he went, he painted the second coat of paint on the pantry all by himself while I veged on the lounge watching Australian Idle. It could only have been more perfect if Ricky had been voted out.

Virtuous if tense

Last night instead of cleaning and relaxing in this,

we got our act together and painted the first coat of paint on the pantry.

We've been meaning to do it for weeks now, but there was always something else, like some crap on TV to watch instead, and it started to bug me that it wasn't done. Not enough to actually do it myself of course. I did that with the laundry and came away with a much more realistic sense of how much of a pain in the arse painting a room by yourself is. And the laundry isn't that big. Not surprisingly the laundry is still awaiting its second coat. Any week now. Luckily for me the painting (oh the pain the pain) is nearly done. If by nearly done you ignore the fact that we still have to paint all the tricky bits on the windows (lots of windows) and french doors and around the top of the tiles in the bathroom because we decided not to tile to the ceiling (fools fools!). And the kitchen, but there isn't much of that because most of it is covered by cupboards or non existent because of the huge window or because it will eventually be covered by a splashback. Once all that is finished all we have to paint is the hall cupboard and we're done. Inside. Outside is a whole nother problem that I just don't want to think about now because I might cry. And don't even get me started on the garage. If there is a god he'd (she'd?) let me win lotto. Okay, well probably not but it's worth a try.

The outside of the house

It's been a long time coming I know. I've just been looking through the house photos and realised that most of them are out of focus or too dark or generally crap. I'm going to have to go through the house and take some more pictures so you can really see what it looks like. Anyway here are a couple of pictures of the outside of the house, which isn't painted yet, so it still looks pretty much the same. Except the clothesline. It was blown over by a big wind when it had a drop sheet hung on it, and we haven't fixed it yet.

Sorry about the lack of comments. I didn't think about what I was doing when I went for a change of look. Normal transmission will hopefully resume soon.

My Construction Project and things made by my clever friends.

This is the construction project that I have just finished. I'm pretty pleased with it myself. My very talented friends have sent some gorgeous things for Gemma which you can see here. I don't know where they find the time, but I'm glad they did. I also have to thank everyone else who has sent things for Gemma (and Charlie). We were told after Charlie that when you have your second baby no one gets as excited and you don't get given much stuff for the baby. Well our lovely friends have really proved that wrong!

Mother's Day Tradition

Belated Happy Mother's Day to all Mums out there. In the family I married into there is a special tradition on Mother's Day. It's called the 'Tip Run'. I'm not sure if my MIL has had the opportunity to indulge in this tradtion for a while, since not much producing lots of rubbish has been happening on their house lately, but I do fondly remember her commenting loudly that it was a lovely present to drive to the smelly tip on Mother's Day over several years when D and I were first going out and in the early years of our marriage.

This year was the first year that I got to do the Mother's Day tip run in my own right both as a Mum and home owner with a lot of crap to get out of the backyard. It was a proud moment. D was particularly pleased to be able to continue such a proud tradition. At three Charlie may be too young to realise the importance of such a traditon, but his future wife need not fear, we will ensure that the importance of Mother's Day family traditions are made clear to him. Of course there are still more tip runs to do, but they won't be as much fun.

On house news, we have 4 weeks until our lease is up and we still need to paint, carpet, put down the timber flooring, tile, put in the bathroom fittings, finish the kitchen, and the garage. It will be interesting to see how much we can complete, considering that we need to have carpets and stuff down before we have to move out of here, so we really only have 3 1/2 weeks to get everything done. But we like a challenge. Or rather D does as I think trying to paint with a toddler running around and 'helping' could be disasterous.

More eye candy

And here's a picture

Yep I've been slack. And here's a picture.
Once I find the rest of them, I will post them as well. Eventually I might even put up some house photos.

(with thanks to Raman Dhillon for writing to Icon with a tip on how to automatically resize photos, cause I was too lazy to look it up for myself).