Colour therapy

Ever feel that life has got you down? That you got out of the wrong side of bed? That the grey clouds are not only sitting heavy and leaden in the skies, but also in your heart?

Then maybe you need some colour therapy. Seriously - that, a cup of tea and some choc-chip biscuits work a treat as far as Grumbles and I are concerned!



There's something so lovely about sitting and nattering to Grumbles about, oh, any old thing as we wield our sticks of colour. It certainly has the power to drive away the mean reds (emotions, not the pencils. I would never banish the actual colour red. As far am I am concerned, to live without red would be to die! Actually, that reminds me - I must show you all a picture of my new glasses. They're, um, red. Really red!)

The colouring book we are are using (and very much loving) is The Usborne Book of Drawing, Doodling and Colouring. This book has been such a hit in our house. Now, if only the darn textas didn't keep running out...

Boo!

We're not really into celebrating Halloween here at chez Jorth. In fact, as a holiday it's never really taken off in Australia at all. However, Grumbles has been learning about it at school and has become quite gung-ho about decorating the house.
After she came home and presented me with her umpteenth scribbled pumpkin head ("Look Mum! Isn't it scary? Mum: Um, surrrrre!") I decided to take matters a step further, and enforced a family decorating session on Saturday night. Anything to keep the fambly happy, right?

It was a complete and utter debacle. Galumph, who was in charge of cutting out the face pieces, keep doing them out of the wrong paper. Grumbles decided that pleating paper wasn't really her thing, and kept wandering off to do other things, and I developed a bad case of sticky tape rage.

Due to my sticky tape rage, I actually morphed into a ghoul, berating my poor husband with snitchy comments like "If you don't cut out a black eye instead of a white one, I'll GIVE you a black eye!" We all ended up with a bad case of the Halloween blues, not helped by the fact that the darn decorations wouldn't even stay in place when we tried to hang them up.

I know that you're wondering about the masterpieces we created after all that energy was expended. Let's just say that I'm hanging up my Halloween crafting crown, because they really are pretty crap:

The only thing scary about these is the fact that I insisted on making them in the first place! Bloody Martha Stewart. Never again! I'm sticking to sewing from now on.

Craft Spring Cleaning

I'm not sure if it's the extra sunshine in the air, or fact that I have my usual amount of mobility back, but I have been taken by the sudden, not-to-be-ignored urge to do some craft spring cleaning. I look around our tiny home, and shudder at the wips and ufos that are lying about, adding nothing but an air of clutter and an atmosphere of crafting guilt at their unfinished states to our home. I feel like they are dragging me down, down, down to the very depths of a rut of incompleteness. And that, to quote Mary Poppins, will never do!

So this morning has been spent finding all these projects, and deciding what to do with them. The above was formerly the back of the lovely Cherry by Anna Bell, which for some reason that I seriously cannot fathom now was lying in a box under the bed with it's needles pulled out. Taking it out and shaking off the dust, I tried to read my knitting notes (I take copious notes when knitting - does anybody else?) but found them to be as unilluminating to my mind as hieroglyphics. What the heck was I jotting down? Unable to interpret myself, I frogged with a grim face, and decided that this project could be tackled at a later date, once other things had been completed and the weather was more suitable to wearing a cute summery cardigan.

I will admit to a slight twinge of sadness as I frogged - I remembered so very clearly beginning the cardigan as I sat next to Grumbles on the front stoop of our old home, I basking in the sunshine as I cast on and wrangled with my cable needle, Grumbles besides me slurping away on a succession of home made frozen yoghurt icy-poles, watching our hunky, usually shirtless neighbour berating his girlfriend at the top of his voice - even, at times, chasing her down the street as she sped off in his car - before turning to us, giving a friendly wave and saying "Hey duuuudes, how ya doin?" Apart from the whole yelling-at-his-girlfriend thing (and to totally honest, she ignored him completely, so she didn't seem to bothered by it all) he was a pretty friendly guy. I miss those days!

Oh, and don't fear, fellow knitters, about the frogging - to be honest, my tension was spectacularly crap, as I hadn't really gotten the hang of knitting with cotton at that stage, so it truly is all for the best! That's what happens why you focus more on the sunshine, Grumble's company and the street's spectacles than knitting with cotton. Lesson learned.

Back to spring cleaning: My other Yoga Wrap, which travelled around Europe with us, only to be worked on for a couple of rows at the very most before I realised that knitting on trains gives me motion sickness has been pulled out, with a pledge to finish it before the cool weather disappears. Likewise the coat and dress I have cut out and sitting on top of the buffet that houses all of my sewing gear - these too have been moved up the sewing queue.

And yesterday I finished the summer cardigan I have been working on for Grumbles (pics soon, promise!) so really, things are moving along at a cracking speed. And that, my friends, feels gooooooood!

If only I had such a can-do attitude to spring cleaning the dust bunnies under the bed...

Organisation is the key!

It hasn't taken me long to figure out that the difference between a happy working Jorth and a nasty, grumpy, mean-tempered working Jorth is having a good supply of dinners tucked away into the freezer. Because, honestly, nothing will put me in a fouler mood than spending all day on my feet, and then having to come home and cook - particularly when it's wet and dark, and poor old Grumbles and I have had a 20 minute walk home in the freezing winter gloom.

And if I have to do dishes before I cook, then watch out - I am definitely not pleasant to be around (yes, it's a fault, I'm working on it!) So what I do now is to make double batches of any soups/lasagnes/casseroles that I'm making and have then waiting on standby for nights when I've worked.

It's heaven! All I have to do is pop whatever it is in the oven, and then whilst we wait Grumbles and I cuddle on the couch, catch up on each other's days, and if we are feeling particuarly industrious we even do her reader. And peace and harmony reigns once more.

Although, if all else fails, there is always omlettes...

How much is that fancy double glazed window?

We moved into a new home the week before Christmas, and already the teething problems has turned into some sort of cranial-facial disorder that requires immediate surgery. We've had to:

 - get a chap in to fix our rangehood fan that is either broken/not inserted correctly (but which, thankfully, is under warranty)

 - get both the Telstra technician and some electricians in to fix the phone points, which were patched to the outside of the property, but not the inside (and surprise, surprise, the Telstra guy fluffed around for over an hour and left without even fixing the problem, whilst the electricians had the job done in two minutes flat)

 - wrestle with loads of scary chemicals to clean off the graffiti that was sprayed on our property 4 days after we moved in (thanks for the housewarming present, you pathetic layabouts with nothing else to do)

 - yak yak yak back and forth between the real estate agent and the owner/builders over a myriad of little things that we needed to get fixed/find codes for/organise workman details etc etc.

But the real fun begins of a evening when the pubs close and our friendly party-loving neighbours come home. Due to the middle of the night reconnaissance work by myself and the Galumph (ok, so we peered out the window) we have figured out that one of the backyards that faces our bedroom window is home to some merry folks who like nothing than to come home most nights of the week, tanked to the gills and ready for a midnight until three backyard chat. The main culprits are a girl who seems to be possessed of a wide social circle, all of whom apparently befall nasty traumas on a weekly basis, and her male flatmate who finds everything hilarious after the midnight hour.

It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have a laugh like a malfunctioning machine gun that can only operate on 180 decibels, but alas, he does. So there they sit, and have conversations in the dark that go something like this:

Tragic Girl: So last week my aunty had a massive seizure as she was coming down the stairs, and has broken her pelvis AND split her head open.

Machine Laugh Guy: Nak-nak-nak-nak!

TG: And so when my uncle was driving her to the hospital, he accidently ran into the back of a truck carrying chickens, all of whom have now met their maker instead of being transferred to a free range farm. There were feathers everywhere, poor things.

MLG: Nak-nak-nak-nak!

TG: This sent my aunt into another seizure, which made my uncle have a panic attack, so she's like totally bleeding and thrashing about, and all he can do is scream that he needs a paper bag.

MLG: Nak-nak-nak-nak!

TG: The chicken driver called them an ambulance, but it took over an hour to get through because of all the chicken carcasses and banked up traffic.

MLG: Nak-nak-nak-nak!

TG: And when they finally got to the hospital she had to be operated on by a junior surgeon, because the main surgeon had gotten himself hit on the head during a caber tossing tournament, and is expected to be in a coma for the next few months.

MLG: Nak-nak-nak-nak!

TG: The hospital insisted on keeping my uncle in for a few days, because he'd like totally gone into the shock and stuff, so when he finally got home he found out that both the cat and the hamster had died, because nobody had fed them.

MLG: Nak-nak-nak-nak! NAK-NAKKITY-NAK!

So there lie the Galumph and I, cursing both our feeble windows and the never ending stories emanating from our annoying neighbours. I shove my head under the pillows, dreaming up evil ways of disabling their midnight chats. So far all I have come up with is throwing water balloon at them; feeding them chocolates made out of laxatives, so they will be indisposed and hopefully in bed during the dark; and bellowing out the window "SHUT THE CUSS UP SAD STORY GIRL AND MAN WITH IRRITATING LAUGH!"

As you can probably tell, I'm not so hot at coming up with ideas or insults during the middle of the night. I need sleep, nagdammit!

The Galumph, however, is made of more pragmatic stuff. He has spent the last few days researching double glazing options and prices. So far we've been quoted minimum $600 per window (although some quotes are as high as ($900). I've just done a quick count, and we have 11 windows on the top level alone.

Eleven windows!

I must log off now. There's some weeping to be done.

We're baaaaaack!

Good grief - how hopeless am I at the holiday blogging? For all you know, I could still be stuck in that cathedral at Köln. Instead, we caught the train to Paris, where we stayed for a week, then caught the Eurostar back to the UK, where we footled around visiting relatives of the Galumph before hitting up London town.

And then we flew home.

And then four days later we bought a house.

Yes, it's mad. Absolutely stark raving mad. I have no fingernails left, as I nibbled them all to pieces due to stress, but who needs nails when you have a HUGE WHOPPING DEBT? Geez, talk about killing that holiday feeling.

Anyhoo, we move in a couple of weeks, which means we'll be celebrating Christmas in our new abode. Hoorah! I can sticky tape tinsel to the walls, and not worry about losing my bond if some paint comes off when I rip it down in the new year. Heck, I could paint blue sqiggles all over the walls if I like! Not that I will, but I could. Giddy days!

In the mean time, here's a sneaky peak at some Paris pics. I think I'll still post pictures on the blog, it just won't have that 'live blogging' vibe to it. More a distant "hey-remember-when-we-were-young-and-debt-free" nostalgic haze.

Oh, there's been sewing. Yes! Actual sewing! So stay tuned ;-)

A door of one's own

We're looking at not one but two houses this weekend. One of which we may or may not potentially buy. I know: EEEEEEK! Buying a house - isn't that what grown up people do?

As far as one of the houses goes I'm pretty sure we won't even bother bidding for it as it's severely overpriced. In fact, their asking price is nothing short of ridiculous. Actually, it's so nuts that it's SITTING right on top of ridiculous, and the adjective 'ridiculous' actually had to tear itself from the page, trot along to the OED offices and ask that the damn asking price get off it right now please.

Still, tyre kicking research must be done. As you can imagine, these are exciting times at chez Jorth. Just as well I'm not a nail biter, as I'm sure I would have nothing but bloody, ragged cuticles left. Part of me is thinking "Crazy girl - isn't this the worst time possible to buy a house?" and the other part is thinking "Oh well, you've got to jump in sometime, can't just sit around waiting". As my father-in-law says, "The best time to buy a house is always yesterday", and since he's a town planner and valuer I figure the man knows his onions. Not to mention his houses.

Deep down, a wee portion of my soul is rather sad at kissing the house in the country with a big cherry tree orchard dream goodbye. The Galumph and I have had many a serious discussion about this, and we feel that it's just not quite the right time in our lives for the country abode, fruit trees included. Which is just as well, really, as I bought a bag of cherries at the market last weekend, but stupidly left them in their paper bag instead of washing them and popping them into a bowl, and by the time I recalled that I had a bag of lucious, juicy cherries just begging to be eaten, they had turned into mushy, stinky, rapidly decomposing cherries, just begging to be composted.

In other words, I'd have been a crap cherry tree farmeress.

*Sigh* All this real estate hoo ha is already doing my head in, and we've only just started looking. Decisions, decisions...