She's Apples

I admit it.

I love beautiful things.

Most people will try and deny it, but I'm all for embracing my desire for all things to be perfectly pretty. After a trip to the local boutique stationery place, I was even more for embracing it. I was also for spending a small fortune on printed papergoods, fancy notepads and that snazzy tote bag they had in the window.

Of course, beauty does not come cheap and I just couldn't justify spending the price of a small car on a few very attractive pens.

Still, the lady wants what she wants...

...and so the lady creates it from stuff she finds about the house.

Not bad for some old food containers and a bit of wrapping paper, hey?

It is always the small things in life that make make your soul glow. :) This week I watched a bunch of shrivelled, furry green buds - remarkably reminiscent of canine testicles - hatch from their little cocoons and stretch into bright, cheery blooms.

I've never patted flowers before, but these copped a bit of a scratch behind the ears. I couldn't help it. They were furry and adorable. Ugly, yet interesting. I could almost imagine them cooing and stretching their little stems up for more.

I rather like the little guys. :)

In our bedroom, there is a wall. It is a beautiful earthy rich red ochre and is quite a strong feature in the room. Unfortunately most bedroom soft furnishings don't expect a colour like that. 9 times out of 10 quilt covers have touches of pinks or vibrant pure reds that clash terribly. The sad thing for me is that they are usually really attractive fabrics and designs in and of themselves, they just don't go with the room. It is almost enough to make me want to break out the paint rollers and crack a pot of pink.

But no more! Today I picked up two really funky earth tone quilt cover sets - not a splodge or swoosh of pink to be seen! Both were from Pillow Talk and both were very much on sale, which is almost necessary when you need king bed size!

The first is Orion:

The next is Arcane Tangerine:

Aren't they just totally awesome duuuude? They are due for their first wash tomorrow, and then one or the other is going straight on the bed. Wheeee! Put away those paint rollers, the ochre wall is staying! No more pink quilt covers for us!

Gosford is lovely this time of year. It is even more lovely if you get to see more than the outer suburbs. Today I rolled out of bed, into Dad's ute and was driven up the coast to pick up my new outdoor setting. Well, new to me.

It isn't as large as I'd expected, but to be honest this size is probably far more practical for our yard anyway. Besides, if it turns out we use it we can always upgrade. If we don't use it quite so often, we can just fold it down and hand it up in the garage. Easy peasy. Hopefully this new little setting and the outdoor umbrella I picked up earlier in the week will mean many a summer meal being enjoyed outdoors. I'm still on the lookout for a heavy umbrella stand and some big citronella candles to ward off the buzzing insects but, other than that, we are all set!

Dad and I did manage to crowbar in some fish and chip time at Montis Ashore before beating the peak hour traffic home. There is something very soothing about ripping open the paper around your food and chowing down on freshly fried seafood with the smell of the sea filling your head. The perfect end to the trip :-)

Today was almost a bust. I had planned to spend the morning starting a new project while finishing off an existing one, and then trundle off to pick up an eBay purchase at about 4pm, and that way I could pretend that I would miss peak hour on the drive home.

What actually happened was a bit different.

I woke early and managed to squish in some brief checking of emails and browsing of sites before my morning vanished in a phone call. Unfortunately I had not managed to squish in my morning cuppa and breakfast. Heaven knows how coherent I was by the end of the call. I shudder to think what brilliant ideas I came up with that will turn out to be not-so-brilliant after all. I shouldn't talk shop before brekky. It, like, does things to you, man.

Anyhoo, after that I decided I was too wiped to do any meaningful work and that I was sick of transplanting my clutter. First it was the top spare room, then it was the kitchen bench, and now it is all comfortably residing on my dining table. This was a rather misguided attempt at giving myself a kick up the backside to get it completed, but in reality I just became accustomed to tables having lumpy surfaces. No more, today I packed up a big old garbage bag and trekked the things that weren't worth Freecycling or eBaying down to the Salvo's.

And then, of course, I was conveniently at the Salvo's shop. I love 2nd hand clothes shopping, but 2nd hand "stuff" shopping is soooo much better! Salvo's shops are just crammed full of stuff! There were very old children's classic books, a plethora of jigsaw puzzles, enough 80's dressmaking patterns to keep the Jazzercise ladies happy for decades, and an old galvanised canary cage that took me straight back to being a child and trapping sparrows in my grandmother's garden.

The thing that really caught my attention was this, a genuine 70's enamelled fondue pot with polished wood handles, complete with warming stand and matching enamelled tray:

I had to jam my hands into my pockets, I really did. We don't *need* a fondue set. Actually, it is only the pot, isn't it? I forgot about forks. It probably had forks. They are strange at that shop, they seem to separate container bottoms from container tops, but I digress... I ended up with 3 bamboo bowls of different shapes and sizes and two ex-Moccona Coffee jars for cleaning up and storing my tea in. They are nice and upright so they'll take up far less precious real estate in the tea cabinet.

I found myself at the big shopping complex to run a few errands with some time on my hands, and decided that I was going to fix some niggly things around the house with a few small purchases. The dog needed new microwave safe dinner bowls for his mince (located at the Reject Shop for $1.75 each) and I really wanted a chopping board for morning sandwich-making so I wouldn't end up with odd numbers of dinner plates mid-week (located at Big W for $17 - after much comparison shopping). Missions complete, I then splurged a set of 3 pair of big hoop earrings that I found at a cheapie shop.

On my way back to the car, I thought I'd have one last wander around the Reject Shop. Now while I know that a granny cart isn't exactly a brilliant fashion statement, I'm forever trying to lug around more shopping and library books than I should and one of these little things would probably go a long way to stopping the creaks and clunks that suddenly appear after a long afternoon shopping. Besides, for an anti-fashion item, they are ridiculously cute:

But again, I sat on my hands, bit my lip, and walked away (but I had a quick test drive of the one on the left and she goes like a dream – though perhaps she’d be less dreamy when crammed full of 15kg of library book).

I scurried home via the sewing shop where I picked up only the items for mending and making some new dog coats, and arrived home in time to realise I was supposed to be about 45 minutes away picking up my eBay bargain! I sat down at the computer only to find I did not have the seller’s address or phone number. There will be no “A+++ GreAt ComMuniCatIon!!” for me. Thankfully the seller was quite understanding. One phoncecall and a lovely nighttime drive later, I’m the proud owner of a brand new outdoor umbrella.

All up, even though it was not the day I was expecting, it was still pretty good :)

Yes, Betta with an "a".

Betta Splendens.

I have them stacked on tanks, and stacked on desks and stacked on themselves. There were over 300 of the little devils living here in individual numbered plastic jars, and if you think that sounds a bit overwhelming, you would be bang on the money. 300 fish at 2 feeds of frozen worms per day, placed into each individual jar with the help of an eyedropper is enough to send anyone a bit loopy.

So I'm thinning out the flock. That was the original plan anyway, but it is not as easy as it sounds. First you grade them, then you ditch the runts and dags into a tank to see if any ugly ducklings sprout into beautiful swans. Next you scoop off the cream and dangle it in front of aspiring breeders and enthusiasts. Once they take the bait, you are sentenced to hours of prepping, bagging, and packing them into plastic bags and foam boxes to be whizzed around the country by underenthused couriers.

Today was packing day. Tomorrow I wait to see if the courier can summon up the strength to show up at a designated time, collect the packages and drive them to the depot for redistribution, or if I have to arrange for a mad dash to the depot myself.

Right now I'm sorting the remainder of the fish. Restacking, feeding, exercising and generally making a fuss over the little things. I'm trying desperately to forget that soon I'll need considerably less of the lower quality fish. The idea of bulk bagging and trekking to various fish shops to sell them off makes me quake in my uggies.

Still, less fish means less work. Less work means more time to do the other things that need doing.

It also means less fish...