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Hi there!!
Sorry I just disappeared on you all! Have been without phone or internet for a week or so. (That’s like extreme survival in todays society isn’t it??)
Our service provider has killed something and its not coming back to life very quickly.
Oh, and apparently you can’t do anything unless you call them. They don’t allow for those of us left who don’t have mobile phones.
We got sent a new modem and of course it didn’t help with the overall issue but its redeeming feature is a sim card that accesses the internet via mobile (or something) so we have limited connection.
Still working on the phone and the proper internet connection. Have been using Kirrilys mobile tonight to talk to the tech people… who keep telling me how they will call me back tomorrow. Amazing how people can’t grasp the concept of “We Have No Mobile Phone”
Challenges challenges

Anyway… things have changed very little here. Its still permanently twilight and still raining. There is a severe weather warning out for the next 24 hours so will be watching those trees nervously!

I have been trying to take it easy since the international students left last week. I was pretty tired out from that escapade. Not sure I would do it again. To be honest – I didn’t enjoy it all that much. It was uphill work the whole way and more like extreme babysitting rather than the cultural exchange we were hoping for.
I think they were just too young socially to really appreciate and embrace the opportunity they had here. They never got excited or verbally appreciated anything from the food to the outings – I constantly had to ask “did you like…” I’d get a yes but nothing more. The lack of enthusiasm was tedious.
And if it was up to me I would have thrown their mobile phones in the ocean!! Even on a ‘modern kid’ scale, it was just ridiculous.
So… it was an experience. There was obviously a lot more to it that I won’t go into minute details, but I was disappointed as it felt a bit like a failure, but I know we tried. Their goodbye letters were sweet as they finally let us know all the things they enjoyed, but it would have been so much better if they had made the effort to interact with us more rather than spend all their time either on the phone or in the bathroom.
I cannot explain about our recent hot water bill. Best not dwell.

So life is back to being a bit quiet. Trying to get some direction and find some motivation among the dark weather.
We had to palliate a chook this week. Sadly we lost our speckled ‘pink chook’ She was just old and it was her time. Her last couple of days were being fed on a bed of comfy straw inside in the cat carrier in the warm house.
The other girls are laying eggs like champions and I am able to start supplying family again with them.

Pip is on a diet of wallaby mince and he is vacuuming it up like nothing else! Its seems to be suiting his problematic digestive system.
Plus he is jumping up on really tall things a lot… hmmm

Hopefully I will be back again soon with more regular posts if this tenuous connection holds out!
Cheers

 

Hi… bit of a goofy looking snap of me with a freshly picked cabbage!
We had the two Kinmen Island teachers over for dinner and Bens taught me how to make a Taiwan Hotpot meal.
It was pretty easy and tasty… we boiled the chicken legs in water then added things like the cabbage, tomato, pumpkin, corn, salt & the fried up onion and garlic – pretty much just whats on hand!

The meat is dipped in soy as you are eating it.

It was good for the girls having their teachers here, communication was a bit more free and easy. Probably in hindsight should have had the teachers up a bit earlier in the whole visit. 🙂

We learnt a lot more about Taiwan (as we really didn’t know much except what we googled before the girls got here.)

The weekend is meant to pour with rain. Taking them into Burnie tomorrow for a last stint at shopping and all excitement with a promise of a MacDonalds visit for lunch. (To be brutally honest I need twenty laps around Anniversary Bay before I need that cheeseburger!! yipes!)

Best get a wriggle on towards bed! Pip has gone and planted himself somewhere so I have to go find him and put him to bed then follow suit!!

Cheers!

Hi there!

A no photo post! Gasp. Its like being naked!!!
Weird
Anyway, we picked up our girls later this afternoon and got them home safe and sound.
Guess what? A rat died in a wall and has started to stink. Timing????
Sometimes the country living really tests my love.

LOTS of incense, and bought a plug-in air freshener and trying to get away with it!

We have Peggy (Pei-Chi), Tiffany (Ling-Ya) and Lisa (Ya Jung) They are all about 14-15 years old.
Their English is limited and I know absolutely no Chinese which is the language they speak on their island.
But we are communicating pretty well so far as I am used to speaking to people when neither of us know the other language so well.

I made up a big pot of bolognaise sauce to have with pasta, but the girls opted out of dinner altogether tonight. I thought that might be a possibility – tired and nervous. Its an easy dish to put aside to eat tomorrow night.
Mind you, they were very happy with a mug of hot chocolate and some choc chip bikkies!

They came downstairs and asked if I would play UNO.
I got my hide tanned haha (meaning I lost a LOT) but I did learn some Chinese words during the whole process.

I won’t be able to show photos of the girls during their stay – part of the rules of having kids stay which is totally fair enough. I’ll think of something creative of course!
Tomorrow we plan on a relaxed start and maybe go to the markets or a beach or both!
Monday they also have a free day with us before their first day at school on Tuesday.

So – I need to get to bed!
Hope everyone is having a splendid weekend
Cheers!

Two batches of chocolate chip biscuits (cookies) done today. They taste pretty good too… (My attempt to impress the teenagers tomorrow)
Today is a bit blurry. I did go to the vet sans cat. I think the vet was amused at this.
Pip went on a hunger strike the other week. Digestive issues are tricky with him and if he doesn’t want to eat what YOU want him to eat… well… I think he just would have fainted/died in preference to giving in.
He lost a fair bit of weight quite quickly so I went back onto a supermarket tinned food, of which he has been gobbling up to the tune of 4 tins a day!
Siamese Cats!!!!
Anyway, it was good to go over all the recent issues and work out a plan.

I think because I can…

I picked up this new sort of yarn that really wouldn’t be so good for clothes but makes lovely bags

Best toodle off to bed – a few little things to do tomorrow before collecting our girls!!
Cheers!

Hello!
I had a deliciously lazy day today!
One little job I did actually manage was processing up some eggshell.
I usually wash out my eggshells and let them dry on the sink overnight

They then travel to the cupboard to live in a newspaper box that soaks up any remaining moisture

Once dry I pop them into a jar where they get squashed down by hand every now and again to make room for more.
When the jar is full-ish I take to it with a blender and maybe finish off with the mortar to grind it up

I haven’t been quite this dilligent about this process in the past, but now I think I have enough shell grit to use in the garden, either as a calcium boost or a slug/snail deterrent.
Anyone else do something interesting with their eggshells that we should hear about??

Have a great day!

Cheers!

Hi – Feels weird. Two days, no photos taken!
Got the house looking reasonable for when the coordinator of the international students came over to check us out!
He was pretty happy with the upstairs room and took us up on our offer to take a third student!!
Apparently one of the host families had fallen through because they didn’t get around to doing their paperwork and applying for the appropriate registration.
SO – next weekend is the start of a busy and interesting couple of weeks with three teenage girls from Taiwan!
They will be at school most days which includes trips out to most of the places we would normally take visitors.
Weekends the girls get to hang out with us, so will try to get them to some of our favourite beaches, a couple of hikes, maybe some sapphire panning and a little shopping so they can get some presents for their families at home.
Not to mention doing the whole “Mum” thing by organising school lunches, getting kids to school etc etc… something I haven’t had to do since dropping Emma off at day care as a toddler (horrible experience!! She cried so much at us leaving I felt miserable all day, then found out she recovered within 15 minutes haha)

Anyway, tomorrow I might be doing something that is worthy of picking up the camera for – I have a list of things I am working through

Until then – hope your week finishes on a real bright note and the upcoming weekend is fabulous!

Cheers!

Hello!!
How is everyones weekends going?
Its still filthy weather here. The rain has been insane – it gets really really loud at times. The wind is also howling – a lot!
I did go out for a short time to feed the chooks some treats and load up on firewood, but wow – icy cold and not nice!
Best plan of attack these days is to get through the house jobs.

I took down the shower curtains a couple of days back and threw them through the washing machine with some bicarb soda to spruce them up a bit.
We have a really awkward small bathroom – quite the over-achiever though when you think of all our guests!
The floor is raised and the roof is lowered. Jeff doesn’t fit so well into the shower while standing in the tub!
Its a silly setup – a lovely bath of course, but those claw baths need to sit in the middle of a big fancy bathroom, not jammed in the corner, where the shower water spills out over the sides to the floor.
I have been taping cut-down shower curtains to the top end (see where the paint is missing above) and to the mirrors so the water goes down the drain and not all over the floor

Oh those mirrors!! Impossible to keep clean, most are marked or chipped and look generally manky.
A major renovation job to the whole back end of the house would be marvellous! Bigger bathroom, practical fittings etc.
A smaller option would be to take out the claw bath (gasp I know) and have a shower wall but no door – just a walk in affair with the floor angled to the drain.
Remove the silly mirror wall and replace the vanity.

The old hot water system had a case built around it. No options of being able to open it. So when it died we had to rip the case from around the wall. And of course never built a new one.
It has remained ugly.
We picked up a screen in the garden section of the local Bunnings then did a kind of Dodgy Brothers Job to set it in place.

I screwed in a couple of brackets then screwed in some timber along the top so I could tie the screen to a frame to keep in in place.

I can live with that!

Three coats of paint later – we used the outside house paint instead of going out to spend more money. This is just a tidy up not a makeover. We also figured if the paint was good for the outside elements it could survive our bathroom!

Instead of my usual ‘duct-tape-the-crap-out-of-everything’ approach, I got some stretchy cord and some hooks. Decided to cover the mirror entirely.

Main curtains back up and we are about done!

There is still a small matter of a lot of unused bathroom products that need to be sorted and tossed, but that can wait a day or so!

Pretty nice to get a job done that has been bugging me for an eon!

Now I have to think of a way to amuse myself tomorrow – doubt this weather is going to clear up yet!

Cheers!

Hi!
I won’t bore you with cleaning tales.
We bored Pip enough today as it was!!
Basically we pulled everything out of our bedroom and gave it a good cleaning. The kind of event that means you move furniture, vacuum, mop & dust and sort the odd things that found their way in there to live when they really shouldn’t have!

Since the weather is forecast ugly for the next five days, a few other rooms are slated for a winter’s spring clean!

Hope your day was infinitely more exciting!
Cheers!

Hello!
How weird! I have a normal weekend like a normal person! I even have to go back to work on Monday!!
Its been a long week really. I am not used to sitting inside concentrating on people talking! Its more tiring than I would have suspected. I get very fidgety and uncomfortable by the end of the day!
It’s harder to keep up concentration when you can’t join in the discussion or ask questions or generally be involved!
We are nearly done. The judge didn’t want to finish her summing up of points regarding the law and make us deliberate on Friday afternoon/evening after a long day listening again. So we are back Monday to hopefully come to a decision.

Even at this point I am still undecided – as I mentioned before, its a tricky case.
Will be glad to get it done and dusted.
This weekend the weather is meant to be dismal… still hoping for some garden time as I need to not be inside for a while!
Was lovely and foggy this morning. I had time to take a couple of snaps before heading out.

So… for my ‘Real Weekend Like Normal People’ what have I got planned?
Pretty sure the house needs a vacuum! Love the fire, could do without the debris & dust it brings! Oh well.
Garlic – more in the dehydrator!
Mind just went blank. I ran up a mental list of about 20 things I had to do over the weekend while I was cooking dinner!!
Yawn – (thats me yawning in the real world here) I suppose I better get to bed and tomorrow I will regale you of tales of all the useful things I did with my Saturday!

Happy weekend everyone!
Cheers

Hello!
Just dropping by to say hi!
Trial still going on. Got quite interesting this afternoon! (As opposed to yesterday afternoon where it got to be a challenge to concentrate!)
I have succeeded in remembering all 10 of my fellow jurors names. We lost one juror after the first day as he belatedly recognised a conflict of interest.
So… any guesses on who was chosen to be the Juror foreperson?
😀
Yah – I have the responsibility of reading out the verdict when the time comes.
Better get to bed – this real person schedule takes some adjusting to!!
Hope everyone’s week is going wonderfully and you are as happy and content as Pip looks in the above photo!
Cheers!