One of those days

Ever had one of those days when you feel like you should have stayed in bed?

Monday for me was one of those days. I had everything for my day planned out and was busy preparing our family meal, when the gas oven died..... I put a batch of impossible pies in and turned it on. It fired up okay but within 10 minutes it had turned off and I couldn't get it started again.

I went outside and dragged hubby inside to take a look. He spent the next few hours fiddling around with the oven, making phonecalls trying to find a tradesperson to come and have a look and pricing to get a new one should it not be able to be fixed. Turns out there is only one gas fitter in our town and he is booked out for the next TWO weeks.

Now I know hubby is a busy man but for the last seven years I have suggested that there was something not right with this oven and it needed looking at. I mentioned this nearly every time I used it. Two years ago he tried to get someone to come and have a look but it was the same sad story that they had too much work and couldn't come around. So it was deemed unimportant. Don't fix something until it is broke right?!

Only trouble was that we had a nice snapper in the fridge that was kindly given to us by dear friends that needed to be baked. Oh dear! Another friend visited us that day amongst all the mayhem and suggested using a webber. So hubby remembering that he had a cheaper type webber thingy tucked away somewhere in his shed proceded to clean it up and fire it up. So the snapper did get cooked okay and I baked a lemon pudding in the webber and that turned out fine also. The snapper is pictured below and it is missing it's tail and some other bits that dh had already eaten before I got to take a picture. It was delicious.

I have had to rearrange my meals though so that I won't have to use an oven. So there will be no desserts, cakes and bikkies etc for a while, much to everyones disappointment.

A few flowers that are in my garden today. The trusty old geraniums are doing well at the moment and add some bright colour to the barren garden.

Lovely pink one.

And another beautiful bird of paradise, the colours are brilliant.

Take care,

Tania

Tour of our home, part two

Continuing on from yesterday's post....

A better photo of the dining area.

More of the lounge/living/family room from different angles,

and again...

Nice warm fire for winter.

Next is the main bathroom pictures.

This bathroom has two doors either side, one leads to the second bedroom.

This bathroom is massive, it is hard to show in photos.

The spa that rarely gets used because of water restrictions.

The basins and cupboards, heaps of storage as you can see.

Onto the laundry, please excuse the untidiness, this tends to be the dumping room.

The view from the entry...

View from back door...

View of window. Whoops.. I could do with a new laundry basket.

This is another large room. Excellent wall to wall to ceiling storage cupboards. There are three of these, could only fit two and a bit in photo.

Thats all for today folks,

Tania

Tour of our home, part one

Today for those that are interested I would like to take you on a tour of our home.

This is looking straight out my front door. (We are Adelaide Crows fans, hence the flags)

Slightly left of front door.

Right side view from front door.

Left side view from front door.

Picture of the front of our home.

This is the entry to the house, and what you see upon walking in the front door. The washstand is one of the pieces of furniture given to us by my parents to restore (was painted blue, my mum loved blue). Beneath the washstand is a restored butter churn from my parents also.

This is what you will see next, the lounge/living area. The house is open planned and this area is large. I still haven't bought a new lounge suite, as I can't find any I like yet. I need to take another angle of this room so you can get some idea of the size and shape. I will do that later.

Pictured here is the timber ceiling, absolutely beautiful when you first see it.

Next is the dining area, sorry I have missed getting most of the table in. Will take a better picture soon. Kitchen dresser I found in my dad's workshop full of his tools. This was painted pink, green and black. It was without the back but we managed to find one that fitted perfectly in a second hand shop. The meatsafe is dhs that he inherited from his uncles shearing shed, he has restored it back to its former glory. I use it for the daycare craft materials at the moment, but I want to eventually use it for my collection of patchwork quilts and linens.

View of my kitchen from dining room side.

Some dishcloths I have been knitting. These sit on the window sill in the kitchen.

Heart of the home and the place I spend most of my time. The kitchen...

View taken from the window end of the kitchen. Here is the pantry...

Another view from the dining area showing the high kitchen bench.

This is what you see when looking out the sliding door leading to the outside from the dining area. Sad, dead lawn sorry! We are thinking of paving this spot as we are not allowed to water the lawns.

Looking slightly left from sliding door.

Lastly we have what I see when going out the back door. You guessed it, this is the door leading from the laundry. Sorry again for the dead lawn. We don't quite know what to do with this area. Maybe planting small native shrubs and grasses might be the go.

More to follow in the next few blogs.

Kindest regards

Tania

Our Little Athlete

Our son Jack does well at athletics or any sport in general. At his local school sports day he won most of his events. He came first in high jump, long jump, 100 metres, 200 metres, 500 metres and the relays. In shot put he didn't do so well as he is a slight build with not much muscle in his arms. Discus he came second. Not a bad achievement for a 12 year old. He will get to compete later this year against all the local schools in a district sports day. Jack won all the running events when he competed at District sports day last year.
High jump clearing 1.31 metres. Nervous Dad watching on.

Winning the 100 metre sprint.

Guess where he went a few weeks later? He was selected to run in the country areas SAPSASA competition at Santos Stadium in Adelaide. This is the main Athletics stadium in the state of South Australia.

Here Jack is coming third in his 100 metre heat. He is the one in blue. Unfortunately he missed out on the final by 200th of a second. Bugger!!! He competed in this event last year and got to the final to finish 8th in the state against all the country kids.

Being lead off the track at the finish of the race. Jack is the one with the number 32.

A proud moment for his parents and himself.

This year Jack has been competing in some SAPSASA (South Australia Primary Schools Amateur Sporting Association) competitions including Hockey and Soccer. He has been asked to come out to train for the soccer team but won't know for a few weeks if he has been selected to play in Adelaide. If he is chosen this means we will be spending a full week in Adelaide while he competes. He was also asked to play hockey, but he didn't like that game so much, although he seemed to be good at it. Jack plays under 13 aussie rules football too.

Have a great evening,

Tania

Out the back

After the weatherman promising we would get heaps of rain, we ended up with 1mm (4points). Our capital city Adelaide three hours away had over 50mms (200points or 2 inches). Here is a picture of what we received. I expected to get up the next morning to the lovely sound of rain on our verandah but it had all passed by through the night.

Spot, splat, spit!!

I have added some pictures that my daughter has taken of the scenery where we go walking. The past few mornings we have seen some kangaroos watching us close by but haven't had the camera with us.

I have been so busy since stopping work I really don't know how I fitted everything in. I am enjoying cooking from scratch and I have had time to plan our meals which makes life so much easier. I must say that the desserts I have been making aren't doing much for our weight watching. They are really nice though!

I am hoping to get time to post regularly on my blog. Another post tomorrow I promise.

Hope your day was a good one,

Tania

My Simple Living...

Over at Rhonda Jean's blog she is encouraging us to write about our simple lives, so here is my story:

I was raised on a large farm on the far West Coast of South Australia and could not have wished for a better life. My parents have always been happy to live frugal and are now in their retirement.

I have inherited many of my parents' qualities by not spending money I dont have on unnecessary things. If I need something, I save the money until I have enough to purchase. At the moment I am looking at a new lounge suite (old one has had its day). I have never owned a new lounge before, have always had second-hand. Most of our belongings are second-hand. We have a mortgage but are trying our best to pay it off as quickly as possible. This is the only debt we have.

I will have to live very simply from now on as I have decided to take a break from working (as a home daycare provider) as my eldest daughter has moved back home for awhile after living in Adelaide for ten years. I found taking a break to be the best option so I do not become too stressed over everything. This way I can cope with all that I need to do without putting myself under pressure.

We live on a 2.5 acre (1 ha) block and grow our own vegetables, as well as having planted plenty of fruit trees. We have a french drain that waters our fruit trees; a french drain runs underground, and rather than transporting household grey water to a treatment plant, it flows onto our back lot and from this the fruit trees and grape vines we have planted benefit. I will blog further about this at a later date.

Our fruit trees include orange, mandarine, lemon, olives, mulberry, nectarine, apricot, grapefruit and grape vines. We also have chooks for our own use (eggs), and sell our surplus eggs for profit. We are looking at getting more chooks as we have plenty of people wanting to buy our eggs - people are attracted to the thought of free-range, organic produce at a reasonable price.

I am cooking from scratch when possible. I have had a bit of an issue thinking of things to make for a vegetarian daughter, but thanks to the many bloggers out there who love to share there recipes I have discovered a valuable resource.

When doing the grocery shopping I buy generic brands where possible. I use my re-usable shopping bags, look for specials and keep a stockpile. Any excess fruit and veg that we grow we turn into preserves, jams, sauces etc. I purchase only what we cannot grow.

For cleaning I use bi-carb soda and vinegar. I knit my own dishcloths, and soon I hope to make my own washing machine liquid using Rhonda Jean's recipe. I use cold water to wash clothes and they are all line-dried (I do not own a dryer). We have a spare clothesline under the verandah for the rare occasion that it is raining.

Our house is heated by a wood fire; hubby collected wood all year from different resources for our winter stockpile. He collects trees cut down by the council and left on the side of the road and asks our friends not to throw away any wood suitable for burning. He also offers to chop trees that need felling.

I save fuel by not going into town unnecessarily. I make sure I have several errands to do before heading off to the shops. It is a 7km drive so it doesnt take love for the fuel to disappear. I try to make do with whatever I have when I find that I have run out of something. It would be nice to be able to walk to the shops sometimes.

Entertainment-wise, we dont go out all that much and we dont drink alcohol or smoke. This saves a lot of money.

We have also recently installed solar power, and hopefully in July we will get some money back for putting power back into the grid. Wind generators will be our next venture. We also have four large rainwater tankls around our house to collect the little rain we get. Due to severe water restrictions this has come in handy for watering the gardens. We have not had rain here since before Christmas. The dirt has turned to bulldust - it is like talcum powder at the moment.

This is a summary of my simple life; please refer to earlier posts and posts to come for more information and pictures.

Regards,

Tania