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Hello and how are your weekends starting off??
So far I have only wasted about 3 hours sleeping. I will state again that morning is not my forte, and 5am should only be used for emergencies!
But… I got up and coffeed myself into consciousness and ended up awake enough to set up our sale down at Margies.

We set the gazebo up on the lawn by the driveway with attractive goods – Margies knitwear, nice crockery, Jeff’s arrowhead jewellry, and some of my jams/sauces etc.

Of course, the advertised 8am start is ignored by the frantic, desperate, habitual Garage Sale Lurkers, who turned up at 6.45am!!!
Of course not even half the stuff was set up or ready – but I said if they had money they could come in!! Actually those early birds bought enough stuff that made it worth the inconvenience of trying to manage customers against actually getting properly set up!

Our layout worked really well – first past the nice stuff under the gazebo & Jeff who was greeting people and keeping an eye on what was happening at the front. (In between reading the magazines he bought off Fiona!)

Funny thing – see that cushion he has parked his bum on? Well… Ruby walked all the way down her rather long driveway and out the front and back into the driveway of Margies home carting this cushion for Jeff so the poor dear ‘didn’t get hemorrhoids tonight!’ Ahhhhh nurses! What would we do without them??!!

Anyway, back to layout. People were basically funneled down the drive and did a nice loop, walking past every part of the sale and back out.

Having a combined sale is a good idea. We had 4 households joining in. At times it was a little complicated sorting out sales when a person might buy several things from each of us – but we managed!
It also meant more people to watch all areas and deal with multiple customers/questions at once.
And for the customers, it means greater variety. I remember giving up on going to garage sales in Canberra where you would travel substantial distances to go to a ‘Garage Sale’ that would consist on one card table with a few things on it!!

I had baked a banana cake, Ruby supplied scones and Margie had the coffee going. Its a lot easier to take a tea break at a garage sale than at the markets!! (The loo is closer too!!)

We were so lucky with the weather. Considering the rain we had yesterday and a good portion of last night! Sunshine brought the people in!
Everyone sold a good amount of stuff – and I am really happy to report that Jeff & I got close to $500!!! Couldn’t believe it! (Actually I shouldn’t be that proud. Bottom line is that we have too much crap!)
That is really going to help out in the Texas-Spending-Money-Dept!

I don’t wear a watch but I was thinking at one point.. must be getting close to 3pm… should I start packing?
er – when you get up unusually early you misjudge time a fair bit. It was 11.30am!!

Eventually it was after 3pm and things had really quietened down so we packed up to leave Margie in peace. It was nice not having so much to have to pack back into boxes!

Mission accomplished!

Cheers

Gotta go to bed and its way later than it should be!
I have to get up at an hour I would normally see from the other end of the day (5am)
Have to be at Margies early to set up for the garage sale.
And we all know by now how much I luuuurrrve mornings!! (This will be character building I am sure)

Anyway, the weather has been pretty average… with a lot of rain. We could do without the rain tomorrow, but this is Tasmania in autumn, so – anything is possible!

I shall return tomorrow evening with a full report, a few snaps and with luck, a few more dollars!!!

Cheers!

Hello!
Yesterday I muddled through a few things, then gave up and did a speedy walk around Anniversary Bay with Jeff. We smashed our normal time too! Pre-Overland days we were doing that circuit in over two hours. A few days ago we managed 1hr & 45 minutes. Yesterday we felt a bit chuffed with a 1hr & 31 minute dash!! (pant pant)

So – I felt brave enough to start trying on clothes to see what I could take to summer in Texas. I was upstairs rifling through my swimmer collection and I could hear all these thudding noises… thought it was Jeff.
Well… it was Jeff, but not my Jeff… Cousin Jeff with a load of wood!
Yay (frantically adding this to list)

So – I guess my next job is wood stacking!

Actually there was a small lavender bush growing in the path where the wheel barrow would be going, so I had to do a bit of transplanting first.

It was growing so happily in the dodgiest soil ever!

Since I have managed to do nothing with this patch since I created it, I figured the lavender could live near the self seeded pumpkin.

And I might add my compost soil in here is a bit divine!

I would also like to point out how brilliant this plot is for lack of weeds!! I created it months and months ago, and not a weed in sight! That thick layer of newspaper really did the trick! One day I might plant something in it!! (besides the lavender bush)

Anyway, I then busied myself and turned this –

into this –

It was kind of annoying because I just finished clearing the stack and Cousin Jeff returned to drop the second load off!!

But I left this pile here and will look forward to sorting it out tomorrow

Time to get back into my packing mode.

I had to write a new list – just of people and presents/souvenirs I wanted to take. I think I finally have most of that sorted. (and packed into safe boxes and packets)

Then it was the agony of going through my clothes to see what was suitable to take with me. Happily a lot of my clothes are fitting better. I think I have found enough that aren’t too horrible looking to pack so I can avoid the whole dreaded ‘shopping for clothes’ excursion.
Granted the jeans I want to wear on the plane need a button sewed on, but I can cope with that (All my other jeans have worn through in the nether regions and aren’t possibly the best ones to take with me)

Anyway, I have a pile of possibles to go through, presents sorted, shoes glued and bags decided upon.

11 days and 14 hours to go.

Cheers!

So… what do you do with 32 million five cent coins?

You make them into a massive heart of course  – get yourself a world record then dump all the money into cancer research!

I have been following Connie & her brother Sam at Love Your Sister – a family that has devoted so much to raising money to kick cancer in the backside. (Sam, I must admit has a whole string more of colourful adjectives than I am willing to write down in my blog 🙂 )

One of my sisters, Rosemary, who lives in Canberra where this event is happening, and my niece Emma went down after work to join in the fun – so all the photos are from Rosemary (She is like my interstate correspondent)

Due to the amount of coins received, there was no way they could stack them – so they just built a big heart shape and let people (in Sam’s words) “Piff them in!”

There were stalls set up to buy this and that to add $$ to the cause – I can’t upload videos on my page, but the fairy floss had flashing lights!! Can’t get much cooler than that hey?

Rosemary said the security at the barrels amused her. How far do you think someone is going to get trying to move a barrel full of coins?? Only the very strong criminals need apply.

There was other fun stuff around. Fancy a go on a unicycle?
When Connie was diagnosed with breast cancer, Sam set out on his unicycle and rode 15,000kms (9320 miles) around Australia, setting a Guinness World Record and raising over 1.75 million dollars! That takes brotherly love to a whole new level!

You donated by buying five cent coins by the metre. I am assuming that distances to each location noted here also let you know how many five cent coins you’d need to line up to get there!!

Meh – too much maths – lets eat fairy floss! (Emma and her friend, Oscar – who was experiencing his first ever taste of that sugary goodness!!)

This is Connie’s last project. The cancer is taking its toll, but she wanted to do something amazing while she still could.
They aimed at a million dollars. Things are still happening out there as I write, but at last count they were up to $1.6 million.
I am so very happy it has been such a success – and that money will go directly to the places it needs to go to get the research done.

Cheers!

PS link to an interview with Connie and Sam – They are so excited – its lovely to watch!

PSS while proof reading this I did read that they made over $2 million!

 

 

Hello!
I realised yesterday that I only had two weeks left before I am due to leave the country. It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but somehow I thought I had THREE weeks to go (this makes all the difference of course!)
I needed an emergency cup of hot chocolate, a lie-down and probably would have benefited from breathing into a paper bag for a while.
Then I scoffed half a block of chocolate which felt good at first, then I regretted it  (Like how many km’s am I going to have to hike to work THAT off my bottom huh?)
Stupidly I have been a ball of anxiety all day. And its not like I haven’t travelled about the world before!! I’d like to figure out what it is that is making me all skittish and sort that out because its driving me nuts!  I prefer the laid-back version of myself!!

It was a pretty nice day out there!! But I had to knuckle down to some of the essentials.
Went into Burnie to pick up my plane ticket out of Tasmania (essential for sure) and printed nearly 200 photos. (Ruby’s b’day photos and others I needed for my book project)

Then an afternoon jaunt to get a bikini wax (like everyone needed to know). But I am going to summer – with beaches and things! (Note to self- find my swimmers that got no use in our summer this year)
So ow ow ow and that’s all done and another tick off the list (which I re-wrote)

Too nice of a day to miss out on doing some laundry.

My poor shoes! They have been worn almost to death! I bought some shoe glue to try to get the sole sticking back where they are meant to be. New shoes are definitely not in the budget right now, so these are going to have to do. I love them anyway – so comfortable. But I would rather not arrive in USA looking completely scruffy!

So for a start they got a soap up and a scrub and a good feeding with some shoe polish. The tin said ‘dark tan’, but to my eye, that looks purple!
Coooool 🙂
Will glue tomorrow and hope for the best!

Ok – I am going to go and stare at Pip and get some relaxation pointers!

Hope everyones week has started well!

Cheers!

 

 

Hello! This was my late lunch. Hot chocolate, cheese, bikkies with a dollop of sweet chilli sauce on top!
It was a fiddly kind of day. The weather wasn’t much – not inspiring to work outside. But I did have to go into town and fix up several bank-like tasks – depositing car money, ordering US dollars, cancelling car insurance, dropping off the car disposal notice… blah blah… shopping… That kind of thing.
I discovered something about myself today – why every now and again I get totally titchy about running a house/yard etc. Its the little things. Not hard jobs, just seemingly mountains of five minute jobs that have to be attended to that stops me from spending all day or even half a day being able to concentrate on a single project.
They are just so pesty to my mind! Some I enjoy, some not so much, but all of them are small tasks that pull you from here to there and by the end of the day it really doesn’t look like you have done much at all! Does anyone else get that or does no-one actually have any idea what I am rabbiting on about?? haha

One of my unfinished projects – compiling a little housekeeping book with recipes and budget ideas for the Texan Bride to Be.
I finally spent a couple of hours yesterday making a start on it – and grabbed a few more minutes today to add a couple more recipes.

I guess its all the other jobs that seem to eat my day away run along the lines of – Washing up, water the hothouse, feed & water the chickens, put the bread on, clean the kitty litter, empty the compost, find scraps and return to chickens, washing up, top up firewood, put shopping away, and a heap of other non-noteworthy five minute tasks that never seem to end!
It doesn’t help I am NOT naturally organised and tidy – but I would rather get my teeth into one big all-day project than all these (essential) small tasks.  (Really – how do people with CHILDREN survive????) 🙂
Oh well… its a first-world problem isn’t it? I need to work on more strategies to keep the house and those tasks under control rather than stringing them out all through the day with no time left to work on the fun stuff.

I did gather some change that was floating about the house to donate to Connie’s Big Heart Project Love Your Sister is an amazing family who are throwing themselves into raising money for cancer research. Cancer seems to effect all of us in some way or another – no family seems immune these days.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get to spend a little time in my much neglected garden – just have to wait and see what the weather decides!

Cheers

 

 

We said goodbye to our car today. The young couple and their girls turned up this morning to complete the transaction and take the vehicle with them.
What a surprise when the oldest of their girls (Miss 3) presented us with this box of farm fresh produce!!!
Lamb chops, pork, mince and two dozen quail eggs!!!

And the coolest part was the awesome decorations by the girls – Heidi was responsible for creating the big flower, the dinosaur (I had to check with the artist to see if it was a giraffe or dinosaur) and the very appropriate car. Frieda, her little sister, did the smaller flower! (They were too adorable!!)

I am already googling what to do with quail eggs! They are so cute!

It was a really really lovely thing to do – very unexpected. And here I was thinking car related transactions were boring!!

Hope your day had something amazingly positive too!

Cheers!

Another day and the camera had no work to do! Just posting a few images from my birthday hike that were taken along the Twisted Lakes Track (great name huh?)

Well… two major ticks off my list today.
First up, we accidentally sold the car!!
Seriously – we were going to sell it, but delayed when we did the Overland Track as it was so much cheaper and more convenient to car shuttle while we had the two cars to get us to the start of the hike and back home again from the end.

Then, with one thing and another, we just didn’t get back onto cleaning it back up and advertising it.

Yesterday a friend called me and said her friends car was cactus and repairing was not worth the cost and needed something new.
Fabulous. So a lady called and arranged to come and see it this morning. I got up early to wash and vacuum it – haha – it’d gotten a bit shabby with all the driving lately.

Nice couple. They asked to take it to a local mechanic for a check over, so we said sure – here are the keys, see you later. (So funny – in the country where people know people you tend to trust a lot more)

They got back and I said they could think about it as we hadn’t got our act together to advertise it so they didn’t have to make hasty decisions. They kinda looked at each other and said they wanted to talk price and paperwork!! Decision made apparently!!

So relieved to have that off my mind. Just one less thing and we owed my parents  what the couple are paying us for the car, as my lovely folk helped us out to get the new car, as we really have overstretched ourselves a ‘little’ this year!
Oh well… we are normally less extravagant but sometimes you just got to get out there and do stuff as the opportunity arises!

So – the second tick was to actually get a flight out of Tasmania to Melbourne so I can catch my flight to the USA!! (Fairly important I suppose!!!)
So thats done. Because my international flight is early morning, I need to get the the mainland the day before. Still debating about sitting at the airport all night with my luggage or get a hotel room. I am leaning towards the saving money side and convincing myself I have oodles of time to sleep on the plane! haha. Budget, people Budget!!!!! 😀

OK – time for bed. I have to get up absurdly early tomorrow (note -anything before 9am is what I class as early) as cousins are picking us up and we are all doing a hike up at Cradle (you know – just for something different)
Actually the hike will be about 2/3 a different track
Its also supposed to rain and the warmest it will get is about 11C (51F)
I have a lot of warm things packed and a separate bag with dry clothes to change into – learning my lesson from the last hike!

Cheers!!

Hello!
My biggest achievement today was not messing up the parts of the house I cleaned yesterday!!
I did have a three hour long cuppa & catch up with a friend that was overdue, so that was pretty nice and relaxing!
Chilly tonight!
Hope your week is going along swimmingly!

Cheers!

The highway out the front was uncharacteristically quiet today.
Unfortunately two trucks came to grief only a paddock’s distance away from our place!

Both drivers happily survived, although one man was reported to be in a critical condition in hospital.
It took them a fair while to get him out of his truck.
But the highway was completely blocked for over 7 hours today!

So it was actually rather lovely and peaceful at Norwich House today – just glad that (so far) no-one paid with their life for it.
The main damaged truck was full of potatoes that were spread all over the highway! (I saw from media’s photos)
I really don’t think our little highway is built for the volume of traffic it gets and the speed limits it has. There are few options for diversion for the big trucks, a lot of which had to sit on the highway all day waiting for it to be cleared. Other routes aren’t very suitable for high volumes of trucks using them – but today there was little choice.

I woke up with a fair amount of aching body-parts.
I couldn’t leave the property due to the accident (well… I would have had trouble returning) so I lazed about at home.
Found some celery and pulled up a couple of carrots – added them to some other things and slow cooked a beef soup/stew. Was pretty tasty and there is plenty leftover for tomorrow night!

Hope your weeks starts well!

Cheers!