Drifting through life

...yesterday was plain awful! ("Annie") I have no idea what was going on yesterday but it was a terrible, horrible, awful day. (The Jasmine is blooming, let's blame that.) I had spent the night before waking roughly every hour for no reason I can think of. When it was time to be getting up, all I wanted was to go back to sleep. I dressed, ate breakfast, went to the bus stop. All while yawning my head off. (not literally, my head is still attached) My head, which felt like it weighed a ton. Got to work, still yawning, did a 5 hour shift, yawning the whole time. The heavy head developed into a headache, the legs were aching badly, my left hip gave painful tweaks several times during the day. And my brain? Just wasn't working. I felt dull all day, like my brain had left and gone on a holiday. After work, I dragged myself to the bus stop, napped on the bus and almost missed my stop, caught the second  bus, finally got home. I was never ...

Yesterday morning I was awake at my usual ungodly hour, sitting in bed, drinking coffee, reading a book, when I had a sudden urge to bake. So I got up and puttered around the kitchen assembling ingredients, then baked a batch of Snickerdoodles. With craisins. When the last few came out of the oven it was finally daylight, so I showered and dressed, then, still feeling the urge to cook something, I made pancakes for breakfast. Then dragged out the Easi-Yo and started a tub of yoghurt. I cleaned up all the dishes, put on a load of washing, and can you believe it? I still wanted to cook! So I made pea and ham soup. That's a soup that takes a long time, simmering until the split peas have disintegrated, then grated carrot and grated potatoes are added along with finely sliced celery, repeat the simmering until the potatoes have disintegrated. Add a small slurp of worcestershire sauce, (Spring Gully make a gluten free one), and a larger slosh of tomato sauce. Simmer ...

It's Sunday Selections time again! Time to post photos that have been hiding away in your computer files, photos that you may have completely forgotten about. Have a hunt through your files and find them. This idea comes to us from Kim at frogpondsrock, who realised one day that she takes many more photos thatn she uses, as we all do, and wanted to post some of the older ones on her blog. A once a week meme seemed like a good idea, so Sunday Selections was born, and anyone at all can join in. I often choose a theme for my Sunday Selections and this week my theme is : STORMY SKIES Only two photos today, and if you've seen them before, I apologise; I just can't find the photos I'd intended to use. I remember taking these shots about four years ago when I'd looked outside to see bright blue sunny skies, then within the hour these clouds came over, filling the sky so the day became very dark. To join in with Sunday Selections, post photos of...

This is the driveway that leads in from the side street that I use as my entrance. That's my flat on the right.  The driveway goes right through the complex,  past many more blocks of flats,  and goes out to the main road, which is also an entrance. The main entrance.  There are little gardens everywhere,  even inside some of the secluded courtyards behind each block.  This is a view of the garden I can see from my small front porch. It's mostly roses, geraniums and lavenders. There's even a couple of seats under shady trees. The blocks of flats lining the driveway on the main road side have very pretty gardens. I think the people have been living in those for a very long time. There are flowering bushes, green shrubs, pot plants and hanging baskets too. There's windchimes and other pretty ornaments either standing or hanging. People have chairs and little tables on their side or ...

This block of flats, two up, two down,  is built in a "T" formation.  Four flats in front, four flats in the "T" behind, which I didn't take a photo of. Yet.  This little bit of the block, is mine. My new home. The balcony above the front door belongs to the upstairs flat. It looks small, and when I first saw it, I worried a little. How on earth was I going to live in this? But once I stepped inside I was reassured. Not a mansion by any means, but plenty big enough. After all, I'm only one person, how much space do I really need? So I'm well settled, the flat is very, very familiar already and after only two weeks I get a sense of coming home when I unlock the front door on arriving home from work. This photo is part of the garden that fronts the complex on the main road side. It's quite a large complex, more than 100 flats altogether, with a main entrance from the busy main road, and another entrance from a side s...

You know those places where internet connections are iffy at best and nonexistent at worst? Like this place. My new home. So many days now, when I try to connect, the little green light on my usb stick is red instead and page connections are so slow I could cook and eat a meal and then clean up the dishes while waiting for my emails to load. Well, almost. Today I've tried to connect three times, finally getting a green light just now at 9.35 pm. Of course now I'm too tired to actually bother with surfing the web or reading blogs. "No-one" has mentioned the problem may just be that there are too many homes too close together here in this complex that I now call home. She could be right. It may just be a case of finding the right time of day to turn on and connect with all my friends out there. For most of this week, the ideal time has been around 5-5.30pm. Last week it was around 7pm. I'm going to start a diary type page in my note...

After having ten days off, which included two weekends and moving house, I found myself back at Coles. What with zipping back and forth between the two places, cleaning one for a final inspection, (which went very well), and cleaning the other so I could live in it, I kind of feel like I haven't had much time off at all. I was expecting to be busy, I just thought I might have at least a 3 day weekend to put my feet up. Still it's done now and I can apply for another few days off when I want to. Anyway, back at work....I now have to catch two buses to get there, so clearly I can no longer do the early morning shift. I've heard that my regular customers have been missing me and if I'm truthful, I've missed them too. I checked the bus timetables to make sure I knew what time to catch the first one in time to connect with the second one. A small miscalculation meant that I was late to work by 6 minutes. That won't happen again. I'm never late and...

Remember I said the previous tenant kept birds? Check this>  Spilled, caked on birdseed on the internal hinges in the wardrobe (and in the kitchen cabinets too) Unspeakable grunge that I had to scrape off the floor of the top-of-wardrobe section. I think it was glue that held the cages in place. Bird droppings everywhere. This one on the bathroom windowsill in the enclosed back porch.  How about my rangehood? Looks nice and clean? Look inside, down through the grill. More birdseed. How the heck am I supposed to clean that out? The vacuum doesn't reach in there.  One of the many cobwebs I've since swept away. Plaster dust left in corners and on windowsills. Thank goodness it's done now. Just have to sweep the dusty cobwebs off the front porch light.

It's Sunday Selections time again! Time to post photos that have been hiding away in your computer files, photos that you may have completely forgotten about. Have a hunt through and find them. This idea comes to us from Kim at frogpondsrock , who realised one day that she takes many more photos than she uses, as we all do, and wanted to post some of the older ones on her blog. A once a week meme seemed like a good idea, so Sunday Selections was born and any one at all can join in. I often choose a theme for my Sunday Selections and this week my theme is: YELLOW  The yellow flower and the deeper gold of the bee.  A bright yellow contrast against the blue petals.  Pale yellow petals surrounding the darker yellow centre.  Sunny yellow roses.  Bright yellow buttons making the petals look so very white.  The palest hint of yellow in the centre petals. Clear buttery yellow. So yellow it's almost orange. To join i...

...these...  ...are pretty nice.  Licorice Fruit Bites. By Fyna. (I've had some before, but a different brand, and they weren't so nice. All I could taste was artificial flavour and colour. Nothing at all to distinguish one colour from another. Even the licorice didn't taste like licorice.) But these ones above actually tasted like licorice! And the fruit flavours all tasted different! There's pink, green, yellow and orange. They don't taste like real fruit , but they are still nice. As with most things of this type, the pink colour (flavour?) is the best. But this ..... ....was even better. Beef casserole with mashed potatoes. With all the goings on involved with moving, I'd been eating things that didn't take much preparation or cooking. Quick and easy. Sandwiches, soup from the freezer.... For a week. I was ready for some real food. Mmmm, yumyumyum.

A much longer spout on the tap........ ....... means one broken spongebob squarepants juice glass. The rest of the kitchen is almost entirely satisfactory. Almost?...(I heard you asking) Well, a low under bench oven means the teatowel hanging on the handle sweeps the floor every time I open the oven door. There's no towel rail, so that's where it has to hang until I get one. I just have to remember to remove the towel before opening the oven. A paper towel dispenser on the wall just beside where the oven mitts are might be happening too. The other corner is a little crowded and I need somewhere else to stash all this stuff. There's no more room in any of the cupboards, so I was thinking of a triangular shelf in the corner, just above the tiles. But I've changed my mind on that. The wall directly above the clock is adjacent the "window" which looks out the front door, it's 58cm from corner to "window", so ...

Why yes, yes I am.  I started with this.....(notice the bed is already made; first priority)  and this.....(method in the madness, can't shower until these are put away)  this....I've lost a whole cabinet from the kitchen. It's on the back porch. A bit more of the bathroom/laundry chaos. Now I have this...  dvd's unpacked, TV set up and working....  ...most of the kitchen stuff stashed in the available cupboards...  the laundry/bathroom is looking respectably tidy. And look at this!!   Bookshelves behind the bedroom door!! I'm not sure if the original purpose of these shelves was for books, but they're the perfect height and depth, so that's what I'm using them for. This frees up a couple of bookshelves in the lounge so I can fill them with even more dvd's. Eventually. There's still a lot of tweaking to be done, things have been shoved just anywhere, so there'll be ...

Well, here I am, for better or worse, in my new home. I was told that the maintenance schedule included repairs, cleaning and painting. Repairs?  Well the broken taps over the laundry tub were replaced.  The rusty hotplate is still there. Paint? The replacement door has been painted and all other doors and window frames too. We opened the windows immediately to let the paint smell out. Cleaning?  Well!! If this is what they call cleaning, I could teach them a thing or two. I signed the paperwork to say I was accepting an acceptably clean flat, while quietly resolving to scrub everything as soon as I was fully unpacked and settled. There are cobwebs. There is dust. The top-of-wardrobe cupboard had a few seeds of the bird food variety and also dried bird droppings. UGH!  Apparently that's where the previous tenant kept his bird cages. He also had a pet turtle. With that and the birds, that explains why the back porch is fully encosed ...

When I first moved in here, I noticed the carpet had some ugly and large stains on it. Now that I'm moving out, I need to get the carpet steam cleaned. The property manager requires a receipt as proof. I'll have it done, but after eight and a half years, the already old and worn carpet is even more worn and not looking so good. In spite of me trying various spot cleaners, the stains remain. The footpaths around items of furniture and from room to room are very trodden down. I'm not sure they'll ever be revived. I'm fairly sure this is the original carpet, installed when the unit was built. Sometime around 300BC. I've also noticed, over the last eight and a half years, that this particular carpet, doesn't like to let go of its dirt. I can vacuum for hours in multiple directions, and still have to crawl around afterwards on my hands and knees picking up bits that cling to the carpet. For these reasons I am very, very, grateful that ...

I won't be online much in the next few days. There's work in the mornings, (sigh), then in the afternoon I'll be doing other things. Unfun things. Don't want to do them things. Like sweeping down the walls and washing off marks. Dusting off the light fittings. Vacuuming the carpet. (there's no carpet in my new flat, YAY!) Washing windows and doors. I'll still pop in if I have a minute or so, even just to check my email and skim a few posts, but if I don't leave comments, I'm sure you'll understand.

It's Sunday Selections time again! Time to post photos that have been hiding away in your computer files, photos that you may have completely forgotten about. Have a hunt through and find them. Sunday Selections is brought to us by Kim, from frogpondsrock , who realised one day that she takes many more photos than she uses, as we all do, and wanted to post some of the older ones on her blog. A once a week meme seemed like a good idea, so Sunday Selections was born, and anyone at all can join in. I usually choose a theme for my Sunday Selections , but this week, instead, I bring you photos of something I created. When I first moved in here, this is what I found, instead of a kitchen door.  Useless at keeping heated or cooled air in. So I made a screen. From a large piece of cardboard, (part of the box my refrigerator had been delivered in) and dozens of randomly selected magazine pictures.  Here's a closer look.  The side that faces into the...

Those environmentally friendly "green" shopping bags. The ones that are sold by the thousand in supermarkets all over SA. I have quite a few, as in the beginning, I thought they were a fantastic alternative to the plastic shopping bags we used to use for groceries. So I bought a few to use, then a few more, then I bought the"chiller" bags, insulated with a zip closure. They keep the food cool on the way home in the summer, and keep the rain off when walking home in the winter with my "granny trolley. Well today, I dragged the pile of bags out from the back room and started emptying my pantry into them. Now, I knew I had a lot of stuff, but this is ridiculous! I've filled 12 of these bags and still have one cupboard untouched! (Then there's all the laundry stuff, detergents etc. That's already in bags from when I bought the bulk supply when things were on special. So that's another four bags.) I still have to pack the fridge and freez...

My home looks so different now.                                                     Empty                                           Empty                                                     Empty              ...