Day 31 Yuk!

This evening I decided to take the nail polish off my toes as I was getting a little tired of the colour. Interestingly it was still looking fairly good for the length of time it had been on! 

As I cleaned it off, the was a line on two of my toes that was stubborn so I scratched it, and the nail on each toe peeled off! 

Last year I had my first pedicure, OMG it was SO good! At my 2nd or 3rd one (I got hooked fast!) I noticed 2 of my nails had white spots, but wasn't overly concerned, as they didn't hurt, and I thought I would know if it were serious. Then over the past few months I have been painting my nails and therefore couldn't see the spots!

I am now thinking my toenails need a rest from painting and primping until they are totally healed at least, I expect that they will look better after a soak in the shower and some shoe wearing, but in this pic, they just look YUK!

Day 30 Back to it!

Yesterday was my first day back at work for the year, today was the first day my students were back. 

The above pic is of a timetable app I have found. The problem with making a timetable for me is that as I travel to different schools, who each have different bell times, it is not easy to remember what time I need to be at what school and I wanted to be able to type in the times and have it show me pictorially how it worked. This app does that! I was worried about the amount of spaces I had, until I looked harder and found that even though there are 4h 45mins in a normal teaching day, that I am trying to teach for 5 hours each day (and succeeding to fit it in!) as well as travelling between schools-and out of town! Who needs lunch?!? 

Day 29 Happy Birthday Helen!

Today was Helen's Birthday. 

Here is Helen with her cake.

Here is Helen's song, which she had not heard before. (Click here to hear the song.)

Let's not forget last night

Yeah, how we drove along the Yarra

How we sang harmonies 

To Carole King

These three years now just gone

They are the legends of my mind

We both kneel at these rocks 

To drink of the mem'ry

You are the tunes in my head, the fire in my ribs

You are the voice in my heart that whispers compassion

Happy birthday Helen

Oh-oh..., oh-oh..., oh-oh...

We kissed on that bridge that fell down

While we held hands at the Taj

We've been stuck in a cave 

With that bloke who says Oi Am

And when I cried for my cruel heart

You rubbed my back 'til I felt better

We ate bread on the lake 

And yearned for the seasons

You are the tunes in my head, the fire in my ribs

You are the voice in my heart that whispers compassion

Happy birthday Helen

Oh-oh..., oh-oh..., oh-oh...

You are the tunes in my head, the fire in my ribs

You are the voice in my heart that whispers compassion

You are the storm on the ocean, poems in the trees

The smell of the winter that haunts me each autumn

You're my everything

You are my everything

You are my everything

Happy Birthday Helen

Oh-oh..., oh-oh..., oh-oh...

Shake

Oh-oh..., oh-oh..., oh-oh...

Oh-oh..., oh-oh..., oh-oh...

Happy birthday Helen

Happy Birthday Helen!

Day 28 Better than bought!

A few weeks ago, I bought some fabric at Spotlight and crossed my fingers. As some people know, I can be quite inventive when sewing and seem to generally be able to make things work for me. So when I had no measurements to work with when I saw the fabric but had a spontaneous idea about how to use it, I went with my instincts!

I bought a quilt cover set some years ago and it came with a 'neck roll' and a 'breakfast cushion' as well as European pillow cases and normal pillow cases. It looks fabulous when all set up. However if I change the bed covering, the print doesn't match anything else! So I bought some plain blue European pillow cases, but couldn't find any covers for the neck roll or the breakfast pillow. So normally, when the original quilt cover is not on the bed, I put the odd pillows in the cupboard! Until today!

I had the thought when I saw the pintucked/ruffled fabric, to make covers for the pillows. I took the original covers and laid them down on the fabric, cut them out, used a pair of compasses to shape the ends of the neck roll and inserted zips in both to make them nice and plump.

I think they turned out well, especially for a no pattern endeavour! Go me!

Day 27 The day after...

This morning I popped up to Belconnen to have coffee with Teresa. I haven't seen her since graduation in 2008! We had a lovely time catching up and hope to get together more often as she has some other friends who have just moved to Canberra.

On the way in to the centre though, I found that I couldn't get to my normally preferred parking area as part of the way in was roped off. I couldn't figure out why until I got out of the car and looked back and up! 

One of the pipes that runs along parallel with the roof, was hanging at right angles! I would have thought this was pretty serious, but when I came out, it was fixed....now that could be a sign of how efficient the plumber was, or of how long I spent in the shopping centre...nah couldn't be that, the plumber must have been amazingly fast!! ;-)

Day 26 Don't look now!

We had a fabulous afternoon/evening with the Iannas, we were invited over for an Aus Day BBQ, and mid afternoon the clouds rolled in and we got a massive downpour of rain. According to the BOM it was  approx 60mm in 2 hours! 

We were all keeping an eye out on their place as they have had issues with downpours in the past and actually had a new garage roof and guttering (and tank) installed 2 days prior! For the most part they fared pretty well...and the tank was full within about 30 mins!

When we got home around 10-ish, Sean did the rounds to check if we had anything amiss. It happens some times as the slab the garage is on is not raised high enough off the surrounding ground (I think they back filled after building!) to deal with lots of rain, and we are slowly clearing away and getting to add drainage to the immediate area. He walked inside and said to me, the was a little bit of water in the shed, and the office got wet. I asked how wet, his reply was maybe you shouldn't look tonight! NOT the way to get me to not worry!

I went out and looked, the office had about 2 cm of water in places. the rug on the floor of the storeroom had soaked up heaps, the curtains were soaking up quite a bit (the just touch the floor normally) but there was still water over about 40% of the floor! I took the rug out and got the mop to start getting rid of the water, but realised it would take hours that way. Luckily I hadn't had time to do all of the washing today and so had the family's towels waiting to be washed in the laundry. So I used all of the towels and mats to soak up and then pulled back the lino too to mop up some more!

Most of the furniture was saved as most of it is on wheels or legs (following the disastrous room we had while living in Fisher that flooded EVERY time it rained!). I have a feeling that we will have to take up the lino as it will go mouldy underneath as there was SO much water there...I am NOT looking forward to that task!

After an hour of mopping and soaking up water, I called it a day and came inside. I will deal with the fallout another day!

Day 25 Plugging the hole

On Wednesday, a guy came and removed the old split system air conditioner from the lounge room wall. The system had been disconnected from the power before we bought the house as it now has ducted air con. We had to get a guy to do it though, as it needed to be degassed before removal.

Now that it is gone, there is a hole in the lounge room wall on the inside and a corresponding one on the outside through the brick! 

This evening Sean and I were talking about how to plug the hole. Sean was talking about removing the brick and re concreting an new brick (the hole it only about 1/4 of a brick in size). My suggestion was to get a house number on a backing plate and stick it over the hole and fill the void with space invader foam.

 In the end I won, as it is much less hassle, but I will let Sean have his own way with dealing with the inside, not only has I got a hole but it also has a large pink spot to be dealt with (and I really don't feel like painting the room to deal with it!