shopping

I decided to spend some money on myself today.  I knew I needed new slippers, and I also wanted to get some bras that fit me properly.  Target was having a sale, so I trotted off to the local shop for some retail therapy.

I found the slippers easily - I don’t have too many requirements for slippers, just that they slip on (so they’re scuffs, I guess) and they aren’t pink.  Or floral.  So, slippers in hand, I made my way over to the ladies’ underwear section.  Turns out underwear was 30% off, yay!  I had a quick look around and found my favourite g-strings, so I grabbed a heap, then turned my attention to the brassiere section.

I have had a long and frustrating history with bras. 

home stuff/moaning about mother

Things are feeling more and more settled.  All of our units are tenanted (yay!) so we don’t even have to think about them.  Our house is slowly (very slowly) getting back to a habitable state.  For example, I have an oven!!  It’s not installed; it’s currently sitting on the floor in the family room.  But at least it’s in the house.  If I’m lucky, and play my cards right, SO may even install it sometime today.

The laundry situation is under control, the bathrooms have been cleaned, and the sheets on the bed are fresh.  The kitchen is also reasonably neat and tidy.  All in all, it’s starting to feel more like a home, and less like a dump we have to live in for protection from the elements.

There are other signs life is becoming more calm and regular, such as my increased interest in cooking.

mundane stuff

Life has certainly settled down a bit. Not having renovations to do leaves both of us with a lot of ’spare’ time.  I say ’spare’ because in reality it’s taken up with lots of things – like going through our house, deciding what to keep and what to move on.  We have a kerbside collection for household goods in a couple of weeks, so we can get rid of lots of stuff that way, like the oven we’ve had to replace. 

It’s been on the blink for a couple of months – everything lights up but it doesn’t heat.  According to my mother, it was the heating element that had packed it in.  So SO had a look at it over the weekend.  Not only had the element gone, but the fan wasn’t working.  As a result, and given the age of the oven (around 14 years old), I made an executive decision that it wasn’t worth fixing.  So I started pricing replacements.  Amazingly, they ranged from $950 to the one we decided on – $569.  I couldn’t believe the variation in prices.  We went for the $569 version.  I’m not interested in cooking, SO isn’t either, and paying an extra $400 for an oven that’s still very basic seems like a waste.  Hopefully we’ll be picking it up either tomorrow or Thursday.  I’m excited, primarily because I’m looking forward to having the gaping hole in the kitchen filled up.

We’ve also been going through a process of rationalisation of our clothing. 

my dad

It was my dad’s birthday yesterday.   Since he died, my mum, my brother and I have always met for lunch.  It’s been nice, not solemn or miserable, and it’s been a good way to remember my dad.  Well, mum didn’t arrange anything this year; and she didn’t call, email or text me, or presumably my brother either.  It makes me sad.  I know she has J now, but she was still married to my dad for over thirty years, and had two kids with him. 

I guess the thing is that while a husband can be replaced, a father can’t.  I miss him so much, and I can’t help thinking that it’s just not fair.  I wish he were still here.

spring cleaning

This has been the first real weekend we’ve had to ourselves since we finished the latest reno.  It was a highly productive one – we cleaned out our two spare rooms.  To give you an idea, neither of us really knew what was in there any more.  We found tools, old clothes we’d forgotten we had, bugs (dead, luckily) and enough Christmas wrapping paper to last us for approximately a decade.  Two days on, we’ve sorted it all out, everything has its place, and both rooms have been vacuumed.  It’s a huge relief, too.  Both rooms have been worrying me for ages, just knowing they were so revolting.  So yes, that’s a weight off my mind, and I’m a happy girl now.

SO is happier too.  While he hates cleaning of any description, he does like his home to be neat.  He even offered to hang a picture tonight, out of the blue – we’d dug it up from one of the bedrooms, and picked a spot to put it.  When he volunteered to hang it, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather.  He loathes hanging pictures, in case it ends up in the wrong spot, so it just indicated how happy he was.

It’s amazing how something so simple can give such a sense of satisfaction.

loss

I’m sad tonight.  My mum had to put down one of her dogs on Wednesday.  He was the older of the two, and sure, he was on his way out; but it’s always heartbreaking to lose a pet, even one that has a skin condition that makes him stink and need steroids to stop him going crazy with itching.  It was good in a way, when we were at Mum’s the other day for SO’s birthday, I made a big fuss of him and spent a lot of time just patting his old head.  SO noticed it and even commented on the way home.  I’m glad I did, as I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye before he was euthanased.

At least it was a peaceful death for him.  He wasn’t in pain, and he just went to sleep looking at the one he loved more than anything else – my Mum.  As far as animal deaths go, that’s as good as it gets.  In fact, it’s probably the best humans can ask for too.

Bye bye Marty.  We love you, and we’ll miss you.

birthday

It’s SO’s birthday today – he turned 35. It seems like just a couple of months ago that he was having a crisis over turning 30, and now here we are.  Middleaged, but happy

I got him some transition lens sunglasses for his mountain bike riding, three shirts for work, some pyjama pants, and some socks.  Not very exciting, but he loved them, especially the sunnies and the work shirts.  We had a very lazy morning, and then were taken out to lunch by SO’s dad and stepmum, which was lovely.  Of course it was a long slow three-course meal, so by the time we got home it was nearly 5pm.

We were at Mum’s place on Friday night, celebrating SO’s birthday with my side of the family.  After dinner, Mum and J informed us that they’re getting married!!  My brother A and I then made lots of jokes about how relieved we were that Mum would now be J’s problem.  (Actually, I don’t think we were joking.)  So that was lovely.  They’ll have a little celebration lunch in a couple of weeks’ time, with us and J’s kids (and their kids) so just the immediate family.  I volunteered to bring a garden salad and potato dish, which made Mum happy as she knows how much I hate cooking.

And what of the reno, I hear you ask?  Well, after much to-ing and fro-ing, it’s finished.  We had a couple of last minute disasters - the couch we bought didn’t fit into the unit, through either door, or the window, so we needed to buy new couches on a Sunday.  $1300 later, it was done.  Also, one of the beds was missing a bit, so on Monday morning of last week we bought another bed frame.  So it didn’t go quite as smoothly as it could have, but all in all we are SO glad it’s finished, and how it’s turned out.

So, some photos.  Here’s one of the toilet beforehand.  Notice the substantial plaster cracking around the hot water system.

And a close up of the original basin and cabinet.  Observe the condition of the shelving above the cabinet – mmmmm, nice.

The toilet afterwards:

And the cabinet area after:

Not bad, huh?  We’re pretty happy with the outcome.  The rest of the unit looks equally good, but I’m not going to put a huge amount of photos up as they can take far to long to load.

Yes, so it’s been a busy but happy couple of weeks.  I’m now going to fall into bed and catch up on some of the sleep I’ve been sorely missing.