Almost there!

At long last the painting and carpet laying is nearly finished. There is a bit of a glitch with the paintwork which the painters will be looking at soon and then the inside of the house will have been freshened up after being long overdue for some TLC but I still have to find a home for everything so hopefully there will be a few trips to the Op Shop to donate whatever I can happily live without.

A sunset during this week when the fires were burning at Pechey

Have you heard of Black Garlic?

I opened up an email recently from Bush Christmas which starts on the 27th November and in it was an interesting article by Budgee Garlic and Herbs about Black Garlic which I had never heard of before. As Budgee Garlic and Herbs is at our Farmers Market each Saturday I called in there and asked if they had any for sale as it sounded quite fascinating.

A Mug-rug Giveaway

As I mentioned in my last post, my very crafty and generous friend Judy, has offered to make a couple of mug-rugs for a giveaway on my blog. She is very talented and we both used to be the moderators of the craft forum on Rhonda's Down to Earth Forum when it was still running.

September musings

Well, it is the almost the end of  September and already we are having summer temperatures. Apparently our city was 'drenched' during a storm at the weekend according to the news. However  we didn't see much rain here on the northern side but I do hope some of our farmers got some good falls and had no hail damage. The Carnival of Flowers has finished for another year and I have just found out how to get some photos of the gardens off my camera onto the PC. It never used to be such a problem with Windows 7. LOL!

A little rain and and a Blogger problem

We had a little rain overnight and I am sure nobody is complaining. We heard thunder yesterday for the first time in many months and hopefully some areas received helpful downfalls in the storms that passed through. We had mainly light rain where we live but I am not sure if it was heavier on the other side of town which is often the case. Still a little rain is better than no rain as it is extremely dry in many parts of Queensland and some towns are almost out of water.

Nearly finished....thank goodness!

Some of my readers may have read a post late last year when we were having kitchen and bathroom renovations done. We had arranged with the builder to come back this year to renovate the laundry and toilet which were way overdue for some TLC just like the kitchen and bathroom had been. We were hoping they would have time to do the work in the warmer months but unfortunately they had a couple of weeks spare in the middle of winter so there have been some early mornings for me as they arrive at 7am.

Now for the finishing touches

Well, the kitchen and bathroom renovations are finished apart from painting over a few scratches which were made when the cabinet makers had to come back and add something to the cabinets so that they went right to the wall as the painters couldn't get into the little space. The blinds were put up yesterday which was very timely as the kitchen faces the west and we are expecting 36C on Friday.

 

My poor neglected garden

As the past few weeks have been quite hectic with the renovations being carried out and a family member moving out, my garden has had to take a back seat apart from being watered. Before the renos began the CEO removed the kikuyu from the front garden which was quite high and, as he didn't want to use Roundup it proved to be quite a big job. Of course it is an ongoing procedure as it is such an invasive pest in the garden. At the same time he dug up some of the hundreds of dahlia bulbs he has planted over the years and replanted some of them and now they are starting to flower so hopefully we will have a few showers in the coming week to help them along. Firstly though starting tomorrow we have two hot days in the mid thirties before it cools down mid week. Our northern friends have been doing it tough with 40C days on the coast as well as inland plus there are currently 120 fires burning and to top it off it looks like a cyclone might be forming off the Queensland coast.

Nearly finished....I hope!

These past few weeks have been a bit of a blur as we have been invaded by various tradies and our quiet routine has been disrupted while kitchen and bathroom renovations have been happening as well as the long awaited and much overdue painting of the outside of the house. Today has been the first day I have had a chance to take a long look at how my plants are surviving as they have been covered in dust on several occasions as the house was sanded and then new stairs were installed. I thought I had moved most of the pots out of the line of fire but it is amazing how far dust spreads.

Getting there

Hi everyone. I am too tired to blog properly with all the disruption in the house during renovations and a family member moving out in the middle of it all so here are a few photos of the progress. All this happened in a week including the arrival of the painters at the end of the week and they have already sanded the house and have half the priming done in readiness for painting next week.

 

Coming up

As we are nearing the end of 2018 there are a number of interesting events coming up in our city. I know several people who read my blog live in Brisbane or in the region and like to visit when these craft shows are on so I thought I would let you know when they start.

Halfway through the heatwave....whew!

Here in Queensland much of the state is experiencing heatwave conditions and I heard on the news tonight that the temperature out in Birdsville is in the mid forties which is roughly about 113F if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. In our 'cooler' climate it is 36C with two more really hot days to get through before the temperatures drop by 10C. Thankfully.

Yippee...the NBN is working!

Just a quick post while the NBN is working as it has been off ALL day and for three weeks it has been turning off and on all the time. In despair I rang the foreign call centre again and a technician is going to come tomorrow to see if anything is happening to the 'node'. As the Aussie ad says 'Not happy Jan!' I have had to ring a number of companies who are doing work on our house to get them to ring my mobile phone as the home phones won't work when the NBN is off. However, the drizzle today stopped the builders from coming as they are doing outside work before moving inside to pull apart the kitchen so that gave me some more time to pack everything up. What a huge job!

It's all happening

Life around here is a little hectic at the moment as the builders have arrived and have put us out of our usual routine. Add to that the fact that I don't like change.... I will just leave it to your imagination how I feel at present. A friend down the road who had renovations done a couple of years ago remarked how invasive it was and I must agree although the young men who are doing the work couldn't be more friendly and helpful and the work they have already done is impressive.

Full steam ahead!

Finally we have a date for when the kitchen and bathroom renos will start so I need to have packed up the kitchen and bathroom items by the 1st November. No more procrastinating! Well, just a little as I had to take some photos of some of the roses that are flowering at the moment as I am quite chuffed seeing as this is the first time I have grown roses.

How the other half lives.....

As we prepare for the long awaited and much needed kitchen and bathroom renovations, I have been thrust into the world of tiles, stoves, floor coverings, benchtop colours and so on and the choice available is just overwhelming. In our forty years of marriage I have never really had to choose what type of stove or what colour cupboards etc. to buy as the CEO always picked up specials from garage sales and the cupboards were left over from a house his father built back in the 1970s :-) I am starting to feel like I have entered a different world.

Like a beached whale

Do you ever have those days when you feel like a beached whale? I am not sure if that is an Aussie expression so my Northern Hemisphere readers might be wondering what on earth I am talking about. LOL! Well it means having days when you just don't FEEL like doing anything even though you KNOW you have heaps to do like going through all the kitchen cupboards and sorting through what really needs to be kept after forty years of living in the same house.

Too many choices!

I wanted to start off my post with something pretty and remembered I took some photos of the roses in the Queensland State Rose Garden a few weeks ago so here are a couple. If anyone in our area is interested in learning how to prune roses you can learn in the rose gardens on the 4th August at 8.30am.