The Big Storm

Our little pigeon hole was battered pretty bad on Saturday. Here are a few photos for anyone dropping by to enjoy.

Attacking The Bathroom Cupboards

With the plumber coming tomorrow, I have finally gone around to removing the stuff inside the cupboards just in case if he needs to access the pipes/drain. You won't believe how much stuff is accumulated inside these small cupboards. Half of the stuff are now ready to be binned and the other half are temporarily stored inside a crate. The cupboards will be properly disinfected again after the plumber's departure.
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At the moment, I am thinking about ways to maximize the storage capacity of these cupboards for when I return the stuff on either Friday or Saturday. There are some cheap but Aussie made plastic boxes at Reject Shop that might be handy but I will have to find out if they will fit into the cupboard first. I am also hoping to 'hide away' some of the things we use daily instead of leaving them on the bench to make the bathroom look less cluttered.
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Our bathroom looks so 90's! Other than giving it a fresh lick of paint, there really is nothing affordable we can do about it for now. At least the plumber is coming to fix the tap that leaks every now and then. He is also going to fix the erratic toilet flush buttons and the mysterious leak underneath the kitchen sink. We will have to go to bed real early tonight because we are the plumber's first job of the day. He will be here at 7:00 am! Two hours after the plumber's arrival, the electrician will be here too to fix a couple of switches and discuss the options of whether to replace the ceiling light in the living areas. It has become increasingly difficult in finding light bulbs that not only fit but are also bright enough for me to sew in the evening.

Slow Progress but Getting There

This blog has been neglected for more than a week! So I am doing two posts today. It really doesn’t matter much since I think that I am the only one that pops in here. I am both the writer and reader. LOL.

M has been home for more than a week. The special duty that he was doing had finished earlier than expected. Even though I like to have him home, I wasn’t prepared to have him home for such a long period. Fortunately, he has been pretty nice and helpful. I just hate to be rushed.

We finally went to watch the latest Harry Potter movie last Friday – two weeks after it was released! I had to be dragged there because I dislike going to Crown Casino and we had to go there because that’s the nearest Village Cinemas. I also had to be dragged there because we intended to use up the Gold Class tickets which we were given for Christmas. I totally dislike going to the Gold Class cinemas. The usher who showed us to our seats never came back to take our food orders. That didn’t bother me because I had wanted the whole experience to be somewhat negative so M will never want to take me with him again to the Gold Class cinemas. As for the movie, I have to say that it was better than the last one. For those who have not read the book, it is like a movie length trailer highlighting some of the more exciting bits.

The ‘Pigeon Hole’ is still quite a bombsite. 75% of our clothes are sorted and properly stored now. M put together a ‘flimsy’ metal cabinet to store his DVD collection yesterday. During the construction process, he made one mistake causing an unsightly dent. He also made a mistake when putting together my new chest of drawers last week. I hit the roof of course but somehow, M managed to miraculously rescue it. There is still a small unsightly mark towards the back of the unit but it is almost invisible. I am hoping to do as much sorting and storing in the next few days so that we can start painting the ‘Cave’ (the spare bedroom) next weekend.

I just can’t wait to get everything done so I can blog and read blogs. My wish is to get it all done before the end of Winter. This includes sorting out the kitchen cupboards and pantry. Sometimes the work inside the ‘Pigeon Hole’ feels like it’s never ending because as I focus on something, other things are piling up on the side waiting to be done. Imagine if we are doing all this with little kids in tow. That would be a nightmare. Maybe I am just not geared to be a good mother. I get plenty of praise working with children but somehow, I can’t see myself managing housework and child care efficiently.

Pat, Pat, Roll, Roll

The title to this post may be weird but that is the technique we used to paint the Caravan’s (our bedroom) walls. It sounds like child’s play buy it has worked for us! We were virgin painters until Tuesday evening when we tried it for ourselves. That evening, we tried to stick to advice printed on a leaflet M collected from Bunnings and a DIY book we had borrowed from the library. I also tried to imitate the actions of the painters that painted the living room at the end of last year. When we downed tools after midnight, we weren’t very happy with the results. M declared that he would never paint again.

We woke up to a surprise on Wednesday morning. The walls looked surprisingly good after 7.5 hours of drying time. There were a few patches that we weren’t too happy with but we weren’t too bothered because another coat would certainly hide them. That evening, we started on the remaining two walls. We were more confident and spent at least an hour less completing the work. When we were painting around the wardrobe door, we noticed consistent results when we applied the paint with a paint pad before going over the area with a paint roller. The two walls looked perfect even before the paint dried that night.

On Friday, we gave the walls a second coat of paint to finish the job. We started at around 7 pm and we were so confident by then that we got the job done around 9:30 pm. After cleaning all the tools, tidying up and a shower, we were in time to watch my team Carlton losing to Collingwood. Wicked me totally believed that Carlton would definitely thrash Collingwood again and had planned to go to bed in my Carlton jersey to annoy M. Even though Collingwood won, M was too exhausted to celebrate. He wasn’t just physically exhausted but the special duty he has been performing in the last week and a half has also exhausted him mentally and emotionally.

We used Nippon Paint Advance for our DIY painting project. The tint we had chosen is a Dulux one though. I had wanted to use Dulux paint because of its washability but had opted for Nippon because it was cheaper. Because I am asthmatic, my mum was a bit worried that the smell may be a problem especially since we were painting so close to bedtime. It turned out that the Nippon paint didn’t smell much at all. We bought a roller plus tray kit when we bought the paint. The friendly man serving us at Bunnings suggested that we buy an extra sleeve for the roller and we chose one that wasn’t the most expensive. Of all the little things we have bought for this project, the paint pad is my favourite. M chose one with an adjustable global handle. If I get to buy this item again, I would pick the one with a non-adjustable knob on its back. The handle on our one was supposed to give the user greater control but we found the opposite was true in our experience. So we ditched the handle.

While we were busy doing work inside the pigeon hole, something was also happening in the communal area of our building. A team of men returned on Friday to lay the new surface for the communal tennis court. They were here a week and a half ago to remove the old worn-out surface. When M left to perform his special duty in the morning, a man was already working on the tennis court. By the time I came home around 4 pm in the afternoon, a team of men were in the middle of finishing off their work in the tennis court. One man was riding on what looks like a ride-on lawn mower going round and round. That looked fun to me. It can't possibly be a real lawn mower because the surface is synthetic. By around 6 pm, people in our building were once enjoying tennis again. That week and a half or so must have been the longest time the court was not used in the history of our building.

Friday Morning

Friday Afternoon

Almost Ready to Paint

We are almost ready to paint the bedroom (aka the Caravan). We washed the walls with Sugar Soap on Saturday and then let them dry. On Sunday night, I assisted M in filling in little cracks and gaps with Selleys Multipurpose No More Gaps flexible filler. For best results according to the instructions, it is best that we let them cure over a period of 24 hours. Even though the cracks and gaps were only minor, we chose to pretend that they were more serious and so we have decided to not start painting until Tuesday evening, thus giving them more than 48 hours to cure properly. Luckily it hasn’t been very cold today and it has been pretty windy all day too. The window is left open in the hope that everything will be dry and ready for when we do start painting on Tuesday. I really hope that everything will go smoothly.

Camping In The Cave

We have been sleeping in the ‘Cave’ (the spare bedroom) since last Wednesday. Although I have never been camping before, our temporary sleeping arrangement is probably similar to it except that we are not confined inside a tent. The first few nights of sleeping on a mattress on the floor were more uncomfortable than I had expected. M adapted much sooner than me! I grew up sleeping on a latex mattress and when I was around 4/5, I started using a latex pillow as well. Other than hotel stays, I didn’t have my own spring mattress until I came to Australia but when it comes to pillows, I still prefer latex ones to this day. Even M prefers latex pillows now. LOL.

Unable to fall asleep easily, I had been wondering about other people’s sleeping arrangement these last few days. A cousin of mine still prefers to sleep on top of a straw mat placed above a sheet of plywood. The piece of plywood sits above the bed slats. He is not poverty stricken and he is not in jail. He does live in a remote part of the world but most people around him have pretty much upgraded to proper mattresses since the 60’s or 70’s. I have also been wondering about the thickness of the futons used in Japan. They must not have been very thick if a child’s futon can be washed in coin operated washing machines at a Laundromat. When my brother was in his late teens, right through to when he was in his 30’s, he used to sleep on a latex mattress on the floor. I, at the time, assumed that he did it because he thought the idea was cool. We have also hosted a student who preferred his spring mattress on the floor too.

Funnily, I slept pretty well last night but that could be because I was totally exhausted. I wonder if I will miss our current sleeping arrangement when we eventually move back to our freshly painted bedroom.

Absolutely Fuming Still (Super Long Rant)

The last 10 days or so have been horrible. It has not been fun sorting out the junk in the pigeon hole. The amount of junk is also forever increasing. We keep finding things that we thought we chucked out long ago. M, the much needed helper turned into a slave driver insisting that I speed up my effort. Instead of sorting things out systematically, his way was to box everything up and send them all to the storage unit. I was apparently spending too much time deciding what to keep and what to chuck. 3/4 of what we want to store in the ‘shed’ is complete and nasty M seems to think that the success has every bit to do with his push to speed things up. He totally believes that if he didn’t help out last week, nothing would have been accomplished so far. M is not a very nice person when the bully within him comes out of the closet and I know very well from whom he inherited this nasty trait from.

We completed our trips to the ‘shed’ on Friday and I was allowed two days to rest to prepare me for hell. His so-called ‘holidays’ started on Monday. He had to take time off work for a specific duty that I can’t reveal for now but it has nothing to do with the ‘Global Financial Crisis’ or any other personal reasons. We were hoping that the whole kerfuffle would turn out to be nothing and we could use the time off work to tackle the ugly pigeon hole even though I don’t really like working with him. That was not to be. We found out today that M will have to perform a special duty for the next 15 week days. That’s just absolutely great! He is going to be stressed and when he gets home, he is likely to have a go at me for doing things too slowly.

On Monday, we spent the afternoon moving things around within the living areas to make way for when we have to empty the bedrooms. I also spent some time re-arranging my Montessori bookcase and my ECE bookcase. Everything was going great until we stopped work early in the evening. M went to take a shower and he apparently used my freshly laundered PINK towel by accident. I love the feel of freshly laundered towels and had been looking forward to using it all day. I instantly chucked a hissy fit of course. M didn’t seem to see what the big deal was about. He stormed into the ‘cave’ (spare bedroom) to retrieve another one for me but the slave driver had forgotten that I had been so busy of late that a big pile of dirty clothes (including towels) were still waiting to be laundered and there were no fresh bath towels left in the wardrobe. He offered me a beach towel only to aggravate me even more. The beach towels we have received as gifts over the years are all poorly made. They shed a hell of a lot of fluff when used. Anyone reading this probably thinks that I was behaving like a spoilt brat but I think the pent up emotions gathered from previous days just exploded. I love doing things my own way and hate to be forced to do a crappy job just to fit someone else’s timetable. I also do not believe that M picked the wrong towel up by accident because someone like him wouldn’t choose anything PINK unless he had been forced to. Sad to reveal this bit of info but M was conditioned to think from a young age that all things PINK are for girls.

Things calmed down after we walked to Safeway to buy bread and milk but it didn’t stay that way for long. M was surfing the net after dinner and at one point he walked away from the computer for a brief moment and I happened to see a photo of him on the screen. It turned out to be his Facebook account and he had placed a photo of himself on it. The photo looked familiar and I didn’t recognise it right away. When asked, he explained that it was a photo of the two of us but he had cut me out of it. The photo didn’t look like a digital image. I next asked him to show me the original photo and to my utter horror, he clicked on his Facebook photo album to find it. I really believed that M had thoughtfully cut me out of the photo because he knew full well that I prefer to not be shown online. When he showed me the original photo of the two of us from within the photo album, I flew into a complete rage. At that instant, I realised that he had placed a photo of me online without my permission. It was not a digital image and so it was not from our collection. The scanned photo was taken a long time ago by his VIP and I look absolutely UGLY in that series of photos. I am not joking. Whenever the media makes fun of Michael Jackson, they always show a famous mug-shot of the singer. Well, in this series of photos (including the one he had added online), I actually looked just like an oriental/Asian version of MJ in that mug-shot pose. Again M didn’t seem to see why I was offended. The thing is that it didn’t matter if he had posted that photo or another one, I just do not want hideous me to be posted online for the world to see. It is hard enough to put up with stares on a daily basis to worry about what the rest of the world could be thinking as well. I do not wish to interfere with what is going on with his Facebook. I had long accepted that the thing is used by him to maintain contact with his family and other shallow beings but he has absolutely no rights to add a photo of me without asking me first. I have no proof as to who whipped up the idea of adding my photo; it probably was him like he said but I know full well where he got the photo from.

To make matters worse, I also found out that he had decided to tell the world what he had found in my collection of old CD’s. He thought that most of my CD choices were hilarious and had to share it. He conveniently left out the fact that the CD collections he was referring to were ones that I bought as a teenager. Some teens have shonky taste and I admit that I belong to that group but that doesn’t mean that he had to go around mocking me behind my back. As predicted, one shallow being responded with a “Hahahaha...haha…haha…ha”.

OK. If I don’t like him mocking me online and showing a photo of me without my permission, I therefore shouldn’t do the same here on my blog. I don’t think I am contradicting myself though. Here, so far in this post, I have not mocked him. With regards to posting a photo of him, I did indeed post one not so long ago but he was well aware of it and it was a shot of him from behind. When I started this blog, I had never intended to say so many nasty things about M but lately, I honestly feel that he has turned into someone else altogether. I wonder if him being testy has anything to do with how his parents react (ever so positively) to recent events that has happened to his siblings.

Anyway, when I woke up on Tuesday morning, I showed him my dissatisfactions by verbally blasting away at him for 3 hours straight. It wasn’t a good idea because I developed a slight fever after that and conked out after lunch. He probably enjoyed the peaceful hours that afternoon when I was knocked out by a couple of paracetamol tablets.
When I finally got up, I gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the day and refused to work, full-stop. The Cold War would have lasted longer but there is just so much to do around here. I don’t believe that I have achieved anything by yelling at him.

One of the first things I was taught when I came to Australia is that no one can change another person. The changes have to come from within. This is why I found it amusing on Sunday when I saw people marching down Swanston Street. Are these people so naïve? Do they really think that they are capable of bringing forth true harmony by walking together once in a blue moon? It was just one big media publicity stunt. I found it more interesting to observe the facial expressions of shoppers and visitors who were ‘interrupted’ by the loud and colourful procession.

I have not been very happy since I last blogged. I don’t think I will be cheerful for a while. Oh yeah, there was another thing that happened on Sunday night that ruined the start of this week. It was German Grand Prix 2009. Not only did my favourite driver do poorly, the one and only driver that I had always wished to never win ended up winning! He wasn’t just up on the podium coming in third or second, he won! He came first! Believe it or not, Mark Webber won? I was really hoping that his engine would stall just metres from the finishing line. That would have been a great start to the week. LOL. Mark Webber is actually quite cute but I have never liked him since he started racing in F1. Not his fault actually. My dislike for Mark Webber has a lot to do with how Eddie McGuire ‘introduced’ him to the world during his first race. I won’t go into it too much now or this post will never end.

14 Months On Already

We are still in the middle of de-cluttering the ‘Cave’. Because there is still a lot to do, I have very little time to blog. The Pigeon Hole is still a complete mess. Our current situation is quite overwhelming at times.

On Sunday, before M went to a family get together, we visited the Bunnings Warehouse in Port Melbourne. That’s the nearest branch to our home. We didn’t know that it existed until around late last year. After all of the de-cluttering, M and I are looking to give the bedrooms a fresh lick of paint. We are also looking to change the door knobs of our bedroom and bathroom. So, we went to Bunnings to get some ideas. It was a bit of a break from all the sorting and packing. M and I love the large garden centre. M saw this sublime plant in a pot and fell in love with it but because we won’t be dealing with the state of our balcony until we have completed the projects inside the pigeon hole, I refused to let him buy it. We may eventually buy one because there is a particular dish that uses lime that M and I really like. Limes can be quite pricey in Australia. I will blog about our plans for the balcony later. Let’s just say that I have been pretty inspired by some of the blogs I have been reading in the last year.

At the garden centre, I also saw other things that I would definitely buy right away if my Guinea Pig was still around. It doesn’t matter that our Guinea Pig had left us 14 months ago. His comfort and happiness is still very much important to us (me, in particular) today. We have always wanted to put a piece of rock in his cage to help wear down his claws. When our Guinea Pig was little, we used to take him to the vet to have his claws trimmed. Later, M bought a pair of special scissors to do the trimming ourselves. It was never easy because our Guinea Pig used to move around and I used to get really distressed, worrying that M might accidentally injure him. It did happen once and our Guinea Pig yelped and bled a little. I nearly fainted on the spot. Anyway, we saw a pile of marble off-cuts; each one the size of a small child’s head. How I wish to have bought one for our Guinea Pig. The marble pieces were $8.95 each. There were also bricks and square pavers that would do the job as well. I used to think that people must buy things like these in bulk because who would buy just one brick?

In the 60 Minutes episode that night, there was a segment on animals helping autistic children to calm down. It was very interesting. Even though there is still a lack of scientific evidence supporting this idea, I totally subscribe to it. It was so true when someone in the show said that people lie, animals don’t. An expert explained that interaction with animals is easier because they have far fewer facial expressions than humans. I totally second that too. Humans can be totally weird. They may seem totally warm and friendly for a while and then transform into something else without disclosing their reasons. That is just so annoying. I really wish to stay here and keep blogging but I have to get back to sorting out what to keep. There is something happening on a street nearby and I can’t wait to blog about it.

Grrr… Don’t you just hate it when posts are loading up too slow? I had wanted this post to be dated 7th of July but because things were so slow, I ended up being minutes late!

Still Pretty Messy!

Our little pigeon hole is still pretty messy today. M is becoming more impatient by the minute. He just can't wait to get everything done all at once. I just want to sort and store things systemetically so we can track down any item easily in the future. The top photo shows some of the books waiting to be sorted last week. The second and third photos, taken today, show some empty boxes waiting to be filled and boxes that are ready to be taken to our storage unit. The 'Cave' is still a bombsite. There are heaps to do around here but to add fuel to fire, M had also been called in to perform an extra duty that is likely to take up even more of our precious time.

Grrrr...It is so annoying when the photos are not loading up properly. This post is currently missing a photo. There is good news though. It was absolutely pouring a few minutes ago. I hope the much needed rain had washed away the bird poos on my balcony. The funny thing is that, as I type this post, I can hear the caretaker doing his last round of clearing the paths inside the building with his all so annoying blower. Am I the only one who think that was a pointless chore when the paths are wet? On another note, I just learned from the news that I am temporarily sharing my postcode with a famous Hollywood family. They have just flown in today and moved in nearby while one of them is working on a film in the next few weeks at Docklands!

All Messed Up Again

Less than two weeks after we tidied up the living areas within the pigeon hole because a tradesman was coming to install the new blinds, our little home is all messed up again. This time I won’t be able to tidy up in time for another team of tradesmen popping in to install new intercom handsets today! It is going to be an utterly embarrassing moment when I have to let them in!

We are trying to clear up the clutter collecting thick dust in the spare room (aka “The Cave”). Once upon a time, about 6 years ago, we turned the cave into a home office/spare bedroom. A couple of years later, I suddenly desired a more minimalist look in the living areas and ordered that all the bookcases be sent hiding in “The Cave”. From then on, the room ceased to be a spare bedroom and turned into a space for gaming, books, clothes and junk. It was quite a nice place for M to relax in there at first but all sorts of junk had taken over the space in recent years. The situation is so bad that we can no longer open the door to the little balcony and I found it increasingly difficult to access my own clothes in the wardrobe and tallboy. I am really tempted to shame ourselves by taking a photo of the Cave’s current state but I think it will scare readers away! LOL!

It is decided that the bookcases be returned to the living areas. The minimalist look is out the balcony door until we can afford to live in a purpose built house where I can actually hide my books in a personal library. We are trying to do things systematically by sorting things into different groups. Some things that we want to keep will be boxed for storage while others will be kept here. There are also things that we would like to get rid of by selling them on Ebay and things that we will give away. This is why almost the entire pigeon hole is in such a pitiful state. I think it will remain quite unsightly until the end of Winter. After years of neglect, we have so much to tackle. As things improve, I will start taking photos for when I blog about the progress. It’s just too embarrassing to show the current state now.

Praised Too Soon

We have changed most of the light bulbs in the pigeon hole to those energy saving ones in the last 12 months. I think I even blogged twice about it and I think I also praised them on both occasions. At this stage, only two lights in the dining area and the light at the main balcony still need to be changed but we will have to be quick in finding energy saving light bulbs that can fit the dining area lights because traditional light bulbs will be phased out soon.

12 months on, I must say that I am not completely satisfied with the change over to energy saving light bulbs. The light in the living area takes three candle shaped light bulbs and without checking out what are available at Bunnings Warehouse, the only energy saving option we have at the moment is Philips Brand Ambiance light bulbs. They are good in that they never emitted any annoying noise but we have only ever seen the warm white ones and overtime, we noticed that they are becoming less and less bright. When we replaced the ones in the bedrooms and the loo, we also ended up buying warm white ones because the cool daylight ones are super rare. So when the electrician came to fix the hall way light before Christmas 08, and installed this cool daylight one that I scored by pure luck, I was overjoyed. It was so nice to be able to see what I am looking for in the pantry and the hallway cupboard but the fun didn’t last long. Everyone kept saying that Energy saving light bulbs last longer than traditional light bulbs but not this one pictured here. It died a couple of weeks ago. The hallway light is only turned on when someone is trying to access the pantry or cupboard. So, it has never been turned on for hours on end. It is not the light’s fault. The electrician didn’t do a dodgy job because after we replaced the blown light bulb with a new one, the light works as normal. It is so annoying to have to buy another new light bulb after just less than 6 months. On top of that, we are now unsure of how to dispose the used light bulb safely. I read somewhere that these energy saving light bulbs have to be disposed off properly. Apparently you can’t just place it in the bin along with the other household rubbish. I think I will have to Google it.

We will be going to Bunnings soon because I wish to give the bedrooms a fresh lick of paint. We will definitely check out the light bulbs they sell when we are there to see if we have more options. Because I sew/craft (even on some evenings) and because my work area is part of the living area, I really need brighter light bulbs because I don’t want to further harm my eyesight. Right now the living area is looking more and more like it is lit with a few real candles.

New Blinds

A tradesman came last Thursday to install two made to order roller blinds to replace our broken vertical blinds. M is totally in love with the blinds. Unlike the vertical blinds, these totally block out the sun when they are down. Unfortunately there is a little gap between the two panels but we can live with it. At this stage, I am still not sure what I think about them. I just hope that they don’t start bouncing off their brackets and knocking me out.

Getting Things Done

There have been a number of things bugging me of late and one way to get by is to keep myself totally occupied. A day after the little shopping spree last week, I began to mend things that have been waiting patiently for me to tackle since the beginning of the year. I mended two pairs of pants, a shirt, a pair of shorts and my footstool. Living in a throw-away society, it is easy to just chuck them all out and get new replacements but the mending process wasn’t that troublesome after all. It was easy peasy. Now that the footstool cover is fixed, I can put my feet up again when I watch TV. Hooray!

Another thing on the to-do list that we have been ignoring was our ‘shed’ or storage unit. We moved into the new unit in January and planned to return within weeks to properly sort our ‘junk’. At first we postponed the chore by blaming it on the hot weather – that’s justifiable. Then we postponed it simply because we had other fun things to do – pure laziness. So when M came home from his parents’ on Easter Sunday and announced that we should sort out the storage unit, I agreed wholeheartedly because I was sick of being lazy. We reluctantly went last Friday (17/04). OK, I admit it. There was a bit of bribing involved. Again, we were surprised that it took us only two and a half hours to restack everything systematically. M also got to re-organize his collectibles. It was wonderful to see how much extra space we have after we stored and stacked everything properly. We were very pleased with our efforts.

It feels so good to get things done. Now I don’t feel guilty like whenever I see the pile of clothes and footstool waiting to be repaired and when I think about our storage unit. They were all done. Even my Guinea Pig’s pouch is now made and almost ready to do its duty. I just need to put it in the wash to get rid of some marks (made with water-soluble pens) first. I think the next thing to tackle is the kitchen cupboard, particularly the big one under the sink. I want to completely re-organize it to improve its storage capability. This means that we are in for a trip to IKEA. Hooray!

The Unsightly Hole Is Gone!

The painter and his apprentice were here today, to fix a hole in the wall and to give that wall a fresh coat of paint. A plumber had made the hole years earlier when he was checking for leakage. To ensure consistency, the painter suggested that we have all the walls on the left side of the living areas repainted (including the little nook where my Guinea Pig used to be). I nearly fainted when I heard this suggestion because that meant that I had to move our furniture and stuff again to make way for the painters. M hasn’t been home these last few days. Before he left for work, he helped me to move some of the larger pieces of furniture to create space for the painters. For some funny reason, last night I felt that the painters might need more space and then proceeded to move our belongings myself, before my bedtime. Then when the painter suggested painting all the walls on the left side this morning, I had to move a lot of the stuff once again! Eager to have the hole mended, I was quite surprise that I handled it without any whingeing.

When the kind painter was fetching some water in the bathroom, he noticed the shoddy work done by the previously mentioned plumber in our shower, to stop a leak. He came out laughing and asked if that was my own handy work. Until I saw what he was referring to, I wondered if he was laughing at our attempts in whitening the grout lines. I ended up telling him about what happened years ago and he kindly offered to fix one tile that was threatening to fall or break off the wall. He went on to explain that the tiles in the shower area should be retiled. He was in a total disbelief that the two lines of ugly tiles were the work of a qualified plumber.

Santa Rudd is not offering people like us any money but these last couple of days has been like my Christmas has come early this year. My hallway light is working again. We also have a brand new fan in the toilet and today, the hole that has been bugging me is gone. On top of that, the walls on the left side have all been given a fresh coat of paint. What more do I want? I am over the moon! M will be home tomorrow. He has promised to move the furniture and our belongings back to their original state. I will make him his favourite Chicken Minestrone soup. It’s nice that it is still cool enough to have soups at this time of the year.

PS. This painter is nice to his apprentice. He was not rude to him. In fact he explained new procedures patiently and also listen to the apprentice's opinions/suggestions.

Let There Be Daylight!

The electrician came yesterday. He was only a few minutes late but that’s OK. I am super happy to tell the whole wide world that our hallway light is fixed and we have a brand new toilet fan. Woo Hoo! In comparison to the old toilet fan, this new one performs like it has been turbo boosted! As for the hallway light, the socket for the light bulb was broken and had to be replaced. We opted again for another energy saver light bulb (Philips Tornado) and were very lucky to find a cool daylight one this time. You won’t believe how hard it is to find cool daylight ones in the CBD area. Now we have a super bright hallway. The electrician also put in a new door seal for our oven but I am still not too sure about it. The seal looks a little flimsy and skinny. I hope it will do the job and not melt while the oven is doing its job. Imagine the toxic fumes! It must be a lot deadlier than the paint I am breathing in right now.

A Break In, Being Sick & Busy Cleaning

I have not been blogging much this month because I have been busy. At the beginning of the month, we were shocked to find out that our storage unit was broken into and we were requested to move to another unit. Nothing was stolen. We weren’t the only one broken into; the stupid man also broke into the other units next to us as well. He has no problem gaining access into the building because he is the owner of the units that he broke into, but we rent our unit from the storage company that manages the whole building. So, while he has access into the building (to access his own unit if he has one), he has no right to break into the other units. I was very cross with this individual. Even though the storage company had already contacted the authorities, we were given details of him in case we wanted to take the matter further. A person like him is why I really can’t stand big headed hotshots. I don’t care that he is an executive of a giant mining company but idiots like him is one reason why I wish to live in a rural property far away. Unfortunately, someone like me may not be welcomed by rural communities.

The rest of the month was spent cleaning our apartment meticulously from top to bottom in preparations for the upcoming festive seasons. This late Spring Cleaning is absolutely essential because our festive seasons start with Christmas and ends on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year celebrations (which I think will fall on March 6th in 2009). We have been incredibly lucky to be blessed with beautiful weather most of this month. Temperatures under 24°c are ideal for cleaning. I am not a very nice person when the temperature soars above 32°c. This is why it is so crucial to get things done thoroughly now before the arrival of the super hot days. That said, it doesn’t mean that we won’t be doing any cleaning between now and March! We just do less. Hopefully the temperature in the days leading to the Lunar New Year celebrations will be just as good but I doubt it. For some funny reason, just the thought of the LNYC makes me craving for Nian Gao. I normally don’t even like that stuff.

M started the second half of his annual holidays last weekend. He has been looking forward to another break but he came home with a bug instead and came down with a cold within hours of arriving home. As usual, I was so angry at him for being sick and banished him from the bedroom. Luckily our Guinea Pig is no longer with us. Despite our careful attention in hygiene to prevent transmission, M managed to pass the cold to me. Before bed on Monday night, I felt like there was something in my throat. By the time I got up on Tuesday, I had a full blown sore throat like someone had smuggled razor blades into my throat while I was sleeping. Then I seemed to have gotten better on Wednesday but that was the calm before the storm. That evening the fever hit. I slept a little and then dashed to the toilet to puke, repeating the same process over and over for hours. M steered clear most of the time because that was expected of him but I found out later that he did pop in every now and then to check on me. I asked him to pull a face to show me what I had looked like when I was sick. If his acting was accurate, I conclude that I look pretty much like a dying water creature in a lot of pain. LOL.

Despite passing the cold to me, M has been a champ in helping to give the apartment a good clean. He was needed to clean all the hard to reach areas. Most of all, I liked how he patiently re-whitened the grout lines in the bathroom. Super white grout lines are very important to me. M will pick up the Christmas tree on Wednesday and we hope to have it up and looking pretty by Saturday.

A Speedy Kitchen Clean Up

The first question I asked myself when I got up this morning was “How are you going to waste your day today, Priscilla?” I didn’t like such a negative outlook at the start of the day and was determined to not let the whole day go downhill, I speedily gave the kitchen a much needed clean up. Since my trusty vacuum cleaner was used to give the kitchen floors a once over, I quickly vacuumed the rest of our little apartment as well. There was a time when I was very house proud. Nowadays I no longer clean up religiously and tend to postpone any chores for as long as possible!

Getting There Slowly But Ahead of Schedule

I am still in the middle of revamping our living areas, slowly sorting the mounds of stuff into three piles: Donation, Keep and Chuck. To trim the amount of stuff for keeping, I also need to double sort that pile to see if I have changed my mind about something. While I found it hard to believe that we had accumulated so much junk, it is fun re-discovering some stuff that we have completely forgotten about. M and I laughed ourselves silly at the notes that we left for each other. Some of them dated back to when we moved in together. We also spent some time looking at products in catalogues we have collected; realising sadly that money can’t buy most of these beautiful items again. Some of these catalogues are only 8 years old! It is so sad to see how fierce global competition has forced reputable companies around the world into downgrading their quality standards.

The sorting and chucking also freed up an old plastic crate that rolls under the sound system cabinet situated within my work area. Boy was I glad that it was big enough to be the new home for my recently serviced overlocker. The poor thing used to have a home in one of the bookcases until M recently reclaimed that entire bookcase for his growing collection of ‘books’ and the overlocker was thus made homeless. With this new arrangement, the machine can now be stored out of sight when not in use and still be within easy reach. It is handy to have my machines and tools nearby.

With my fingers crossed, I think we can complete what we have set out to do by the end of the week. It looks like we are ahead of schedule. We are already enjoying the fruits of revamping the living areas. The place just feels more homely. The next thing I want to tackle is the pantry. We don’t have a walk-in pantry. Ours is a mini version designed for small apartments. Despite its size, things can go crazy because we have a tendency to stuff all sorts of things in there. I wish that the entire pantry is all organized before M takes his next lot of holidays in November.

More Plastic

I am still slowly sorting through the mess in our home. The storage problem around my work area is now pretty much fixed. Worried that I might be hit by another flood, I have transferred all of my semi precious Blackline Masters into two existing plastic boxes and bought a compatible plastic craft box from Big W to store my growing sewing supplies. These three boxes stack up very nicely. The transfer freed up two black paperboard boxes and I used one to store objects that I have been collecting for Montessori purposes, whilst the other one is used to store incomplete sewing projects – these are projects I had started around the time I stopped attending sewing lessons and am now stuck on because I needed help to complete them. Other things stacked or placed neatly under my desk now include two other plastic boxes housing sewing supplies, my new laminator, my puzzle maker and my trusty sewing machine in its very daggy carry bag.

My desk is pretty big but it is usually cluttered with all kinds of stuff because being a part time crafty person, I am forever accumulating a punch here, a stencil there and had given little thought to how I should store them. At times, the clutter has been quite a put off. So I bought another one of those plastic drawers from Officeworks to store these bits and pieces. With everything hidden inside the three drawers, the desk did not only look neater instantly, I also rediscovered precious freed up space as well. We already had a similar plastic desktop organizer except that the old one has 5 drawers instead of 3. That one is used for our complicated finance system. The two organizers are now parked side by side on my desk with my loyal lamp sitting on top of one of them. Someone once informed my mum that I was becoming a spendthrift for buying that lamp. Sixteen and a half years later, this lamp is still loyally doing its job and required only one replacement of its light bulb about 4 years ago. Back to the organizers, because they are light and mobile, I really like how they can be stationed somewhere else temporarily for when I need extra space.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone is reading my ramblings. Part of the reason that I am blogging about how I/we tackle my/our mess is because I think it will encourage me to do more. I am hoping to get rid of the mess by the end of November, at the latest. Part of me is also feeling horrible for solving my storage problems by purchasing and using things made of plastic. I had really wanted to buy wooden boxes from IKEA and I especially liked the ones called SNACK. If I had chosen to do that, I would have to buy enough to replace all of the plastic boxes under my desk for a uniform look and that would have been quite pricey. We have allocated a small budget to ‘upgrade’ our living areas and so far, M has already used up his portion and I have only $20 left in my portion. So, going for natural products is out of the question this time. Plastic can’t possibly be all bad, can it? Despite the guilt, I do feel more assured knowing that some of my fragile paper possessions are now safely stored in waterproofed containers.

Time Wasting & Living in a Mess

One of the things that I had wanted to tackle during the holidays was to reorganize the living areas to make it more homely and less like a work space. We had neglected our little home (or ‘Pigeon Hole’ to some) in recent years, turning the open plan living areas into one big work space ‘littered’ with projects in various stages of completion. When we went to Victoria Gardens to pick up some spare parts we had ordered at Howards Storage World a week before the holidays, we dropped by IKEA. M patiently explored the big store with me. I found that strange because M doesn’t like IKEA very much. We left after collecting the latest catalogue and came away with lots of ideas on how to improve our living areas.

In the days after the big flood, I was plagued with unfounded worries of a leak in the water pipe under the hallway and the kitchen. Although it sounds stupid now, I was truly convinced that something horribly wrong was happening all because one area of the hallway took longer to dry. I was so worried that our home may turn into the Apartment of Mould, just like the House of Mould that I saw on TV. Instead of using our free time productively, I argued and picked on M for not taking my worries seriously.

I do admit that I am quite a worry wart; being especially worse at night – before bedtime. Morning is the best time of the day for me. I turn into an optimistic person after a good night sleep. Mornings are especially good now that Spring had arrived too. Spring means that the sun comes up earlier and sets later. Despite losing an hour, the result of a longer day is why I didn’t mind the earlier switch to daylight savings this year.

On one such positive morning after the flood, I got out of bed nice and early to draft a couple of layouts of the living areas for M to pick. He picked the one I liked best. Inspired by what I saw at IKEA, I decided to relocate some of our existing furniture to create small but purposeful areas within our whole living area. I made sure that I included a cosy area for us to chill out and relax.

Did we plough ahead and start working? No! We were caught up with the AFL Grand Final frenzy and went out to Fed Square to soak up the atmosphere and wasted time and money in the city bingeing on fatty foods like we had only just discovered Melbourne. We both also got pretty burnt for staying out too long in the day. Neither of us were Geelong or Hawthorn supporters but we rocked up for the parade anyway. I just went along because M never gets to enjoy events like these due to his work. There was a minor consolation prize for doing all this. Both of us ended up in a photo in the paper the next day. No, it wasn’t a close up of the two of us. It was one of those pictures taken from a helicopter in the sky. Finding us in the photo reminded me of those “Where’s Wally?” books. LOL.

Two days after Hawthorn beat Geelong, we settled to start reorganizing the living areas. The effort we put in that day was not bad but did it last? Not really. We abandoned it the next day to go watch WALL.E. Tuesday is the only day that I allow for us to go to the movies because the tickets are cheaper. We were supposed to watch the movie and buy some bread before coming straight home but we ended up having lunch in the city and hanging around Borders as well. By the time I got home, all I had wanted to do was to curl up in bed with the book I am currently reading. We did a bit more on Wednesday before spending the two days after that trying to solve the growing storage problem for the ‘stuff’ M had collected in recent years. It wasn’t easy because we were sticking to a budget.

Sunday (5 Oct) was the last day of the holidays. We went back to IKEA to try to solve my storage problem. M suddenly became very anti-social while we were at the store and we had to leave sooner than I expected. I was very cross with him and still am. Because I had to hurry, I didn’t get to carefully decide my options. M is a very considerate person most of the time but he is also capable of behaving like a very spoilt devil occasionally. He was apparently trying to seek reassurance because he was worried that I would leave the apartment in its messy state. Speaking of that, I better get back to tidying up the bombsite. At the rate that I am going, the living areas will be nice and tidy ‘soon’. Blogging about the progress may speed things up a bit.