Jobs around the house...

I'm doing some home jobs today, things that have been put off for too long.  How often do you give your wheelie bins a bit of a clean? Me? Not often enough.

~

When they got emptied on Thursday, I got the hose and put about a foot of water in then put in about a cup of PineOKleen and gave it a good swish with an old broom. Then I left it until today. 

~

Today, I got right in there with the broom and got all the muck off then gave it a fresh rinse out and drained the water out.

I then lined it with sheets of newspaper to stop other nasties sticking.
 ~

Next job, my poor standard roses. They haven't been dead headed since they first bloomed back in November!

~

Just look at all the spent heads!

~

That's better.  It took me about 40 minutes to do them all.
~

I should get another good flush of flowers judging by the new growth.

~

There's still a few weeds but Gus will spray them tomorrow.
~

Out the back didn't look much better. I got stuck in weeding then dead heading the carpet roses.,,

~

Bonnie was there to help me...

~

It's starting to look better...

~

~

~

~

~

After that effort, I earned myself a break - chai tea and some of my Christmas fruit cake .

~

Then the dreaded task of putting away the Christmas tree and decorations. It took me an hour and a half! But it is done!

~

I then cleaned out my gift paper/cellophane/tissue paper/ribbon box. All ribbon oddments went into the big glass jar so I can see what I've got.

~

Not sure what to do next - maybe some peanut butter cookies?

Cheers - Joolz xx

dried apricot jam ...

I made a batch of dried apricot jam last night - 500gms of South Aussie apricots, 1.5kgs of sugar and juice of 1 lemon gave me 9 jars! The fruit is first soaked in water for 8 hours then boiled for an hour before the sugar and lemon is added.

Nine jars of yumminess!

~

I love the look of the gingham lids (I buy Bon Maman jams every so often to collect the jars)! I never give these jars of jam away.

~

Does anyone know how long lemon curd or lemon butter keeps for?  I'd like to make some.

Cheers - Joolz xx

 
 
 

RIP iPhone 4S ...

 

My iPhone chucked a tanty on the weekend and became useless! It started freezing (almost if I just looked at the damned thing)! Freezing during calls, swiping to open, taking photos ( annoying) and the battery life was ridiculous. I drove home on Tuesday, leaving with 100% battery. I made no calls and checked Facebook one hour into the trip when I got lunch in Tailem Bend, for 5 minutes. I didn't use it for music (no Bluetooth in the ute) and four hours later it was as dead as a maggot, switched off!

 

Yesterday morning, I was in Mt Gambier by 9am, knocking on the door of the Telstra shop! Gimme a new iPhone 6!

I chose the pretty gold 64GB IPhone 6 (not the Plus) and Joe, the rep I have bought previous phones off of, proceeded to swap the phones over. I had backed up my phone on Tuesday night to my computer and deleted most of my photos. He had a bit of trouble getting it to move across - he hoped my back up had worked otherwise uh oh! The iCloud backup didn't appear to have worked....

I got home and plugged it in to my pc and thankfully, within an hour, I had it up and running. So far, I haven't noticed much difference between the two phones, everything is where it was, sounds the same, it's just a different shape. I had a clear case put on the back and have ordered a 'glass' screen saver which should be here Friday. I also need an extra power lead, one for my bedside and one to take travelling with me.

With 64GB I'll have oodles of space for music and photos.

Cheers - Joolz xx

 

Posted by Joolz with Blogsy

Moving day...

 We got the girls moved into the house on the weekend.  We are very pleased with it.  It gives them much more space and we have the spare bedroom for when we visit.  No more kicking them out of their beds!
~

 Kirby, in the kitchen...

 Laundry...

 Bri's bathroom...

 Kirby's bathroom - yes there are two - heaven!

 Main bedroom...

 Our first meal (Chinese) in the house on Friday...

 Saturday, we enlisted the help of a mate to build furniture, mainly our bed then Brianna's...pizza for the tired and weary!

~

 Australia Day came and went while we were still moving stuff and making Ikea furniture! Gotta have a lamb chop!

~

 ~

 We stopped and had a nice lunch - lamb chops and snags, potato bake and simple salad.

 This is a lunch box I bough Bri for when she starts nursing (as a bit of a joke).  I don't think she'll want to take it on the first day, but once she's settled in it will be handy...

 ~

Tah dah! This is our room with the new bed.  Side tables are from Ikea and took Bri about 1/2 an hour to construct!  I have since added grey pillowcases and a red cushion for a pop of colour.

Cheers - Joolz xx

Happy Australia Day!

 

Wishing all Aussies a Happy Australia Day! We usually go to the beach for a lamb chop barbecue but this long weekend we have been moving our girls from a unit into a house. Its been a big job with lots more work to do today, Tuesday and Wednesday before we head home. Gus has been untiring in his efforts to shift furniture then make the new stuff.

I will take some pics of the finished product but we are still in minor chaos at the moment, building Ikea furniture pieces. Most annoying when one piece is missing from the box - we are waiting to head out to Ikea again this morning, to get the spare bit to Kirby's sideboard. Also when we were there yesterday, somehow we completely forgot to 'pick' the bedside tables we had chosen for our bedroom. We got all the way home then later realised that we just didnt get them or pay for them! Derr!

~

The girl's new over-the-road neighbour introduced himself to us. He's a lovely old Italian man named Mario and I reckon he's about 85. He welcomed us to the street with a big friendly smile, saying in his broken English how if the girls ever needed help or if he and his wife needed help, they could help each others because that's what neighbours do. He has lived in the street since 1966 in his very neat, brick and tile house. In a matter of minutes we learned that he had a wife who would be having a back operation next month, they have 3 daughters and they have 5 grand daughters and one grand son. He said the street has very nice, friendly people living here so that's nice to know.

~

Well, I'd better get into gear and go get that spare bit and see if I can get some lamb chops for Gus to barbecue for lunch.

Enjoy your day!

Cheers - Joolz xx

 

 

 

Posted by Joolz with Blogsy

Gifted pasta sauce...

 

There really is nothing nicer than to be given some beautiful food and in this case it was a big tub of Italian pasta sauce from Bri's friend, Maddy and her Mum, Dina.

It was purely a tomato based sauce so I decided to make some chicken meatballs to go into it.

I had seen a recipe for Italian Wedding Chicken Soup on Estelle's blog so I thought I'd use the meatball part of the recipe. Good move! The soup recipe will be made over winter, it sounds so good!

~

http://themainehouse.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/italian-wedding-soupperfect-for-cold.html

~

I used dried herbs in the meatballs but fresh would be fantastic too. I just lightly fried them off in a pan...

...then I added in this tub of goodness!

Bubble and boil it while your choice of pasta is cooking....

~

Tah dah! Authentic Italian at it's best!

Are you still eating Christmas treats? I still have a little stash of some of the goodies I made.....

~

This morning, Not Quite Nigella, had these featured on her blog. Oh, my goodness!

(Beautiful photo from Not Quite Nigella)

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2015/01/20/iced-vovo-cupcakes/

I really think I need to make these cupcakes for Australia Day! Do you like Iced Vovo biscuits? I do!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iced_VoVo

They are an Aussie icon, I reckon...

What about these other wonderful recipes?

Lamington Tiramisu

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2010/01/25/lamington-tiramisu-aka-lamingtonmisufor-australia-day/

Tim Tam Bombe

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2013/01/22/tim-tam-bombe-diy-ice-magic/

Beer can chicken - we've cooked this several times - so good!

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2008/11/25/a-dinky-di-ridgy-didge-australian-chook/

We will be busy on the Australia Day Long Weekend as we have bought a house for our girls to live in and will be moving them into that. Its a 3 bedroom house, much bigger than the 2 bed unit they have been in. They need their space a bit more now as Bri will be doing shift work with nursing. Their bedrooms are separated by the living area so neither will have to tiptoe around if the other is sleeping. It also means we have the 3rd bedroom for when we visit so we dont have to kick them out of their beds.

It's all very exciting!

Cheers - Joolz xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Joolz with Blogsy