Then there were floods......

Yeah yeah, I know, haven't posted for over a month. Well, take me out the backyard and kick me up the bum! Well, actually truth of it is that I had The Flu. (It deserves capital letters.) It was horrid and nasty and a month on I STILL haven't shaken it off! Not to worry! 
   Plus we had floods! Straight after the earthquake in June. PLUS we had another minor earthquake last Friday night. Only a 4.5. Piffling really. I felt it though. Not many did. What's next? Plague of locusts?
   David has managed to put up some shelves in my kitchen. Changed the old overhead fan to a light. Pics of those will come soon. 
 In the meantime here are some flood pics and the rear of the house.

This is a small open drain normally dry. The water is all across the parkland. Originally the Watts River would tend to flood regularly, then they built the dam, now water only floods when the dam is overfull and the surrounding joining creeks empty into it.  July 2 2012

 

This is the old caravan park which is now used once a month for a market. Reason it is no longer a caravan park is pretty obvious! It floods! I take my dog for a walk way beyond the trees at the back which is along the Watts River. In normal times it is a lovely bushland walk with birds twittering and cheeping. Not today! You'd need a kayak! July 2 2012

Ok this is in late 2009 but not alot has changed. David was replacing the leaky old gutter with a good 2nd hand one he had lying around his old house. We only have gutters in front and back. The tarps are gone and now have a roller door in the middle section. Sadly the underneath is still full of David's crap stuff. I had hoped to park my car under there out of the weather but alas! all these years later STILL waiting! Gah!

     Ok, well, off to get a cuppa and try to get back to kicking David's butt! LOL!
 Cheers!
Maria

EARTHQUAKE!!!!!

We had an earthquake! 
Few days ago now on June 19 at 8.53 pm actually. My brother's birthday actually. Pity he missed it. He lives in Perth, Western Australia. Anyway, I digress. It was COOL! 5.3 on the Richter scale and 9.9 kms deep. First one that big in 109 years. We had a minor one last year at 4.4. I was in bed that time, and felt it. My friend who was standing up didn't feel a thing. This time just about everyone on the eastern side of the state of Victoria felt it. Only very minor damage occurred and only a few bottles of soft drink gave their lives valiantly to save the breakfast cereals on the shelves.
   It sounded like my son bringing the wheelie rubbish bin down the hill back to its hidy space near the house. Then I thought son was pushing the house in anger (we'd had stern words that day.) Till my brain clicked; He ain't THAT strong! It did a few more pushy type things then BANG! Up and down and round and round for 40 seconds. I LOVED it! Then again, I'm a bit of a nerdy girl and love that kind of thing! 


The picture below shows you the approximate area where it was felt. If you see the last e in Melbourne and go diagnally up to the 7 in the green box then a tad more right, that's where I live. So, we felt it good and proper!

via Geoscience Australia

 Now all this was rather exciting and I did wonder if there was much damage to the property. I live on a split level on a rather steep hill and this house is not really ready for rockin' and rollin' at this point in time. Amazingly enough, due to that very fact of being a rickety old place, it stood the tremor well. Only minor cracks between plaster/fibro and architraves....Oh, wait! They were already there! Damn reno is too slow! Ha ha!
  The last year's quake however did move the ground a fair bit to the point our septic tank's baffle moved causing a rather nasty surprise one month later. The baffle having moved would not allow, ahem, solids to pass through and hence, they became stuck and backed up. Delightful.
 I haven't been able to have a look see if the septic has moved even more. Two reasons. One; it hasn't stopped raining since the quake and Two; the person I make ask nicely to go under like some bandicoot to looksee is away with work over in Adelaide. (That's in South Australia) He gets back next week for a few days so will have to drag out a snorkel I fear!

   Now as you may know I own two lovely animals. Did these darlings have any strange behaviours prior to the tremor? Did they become edgy and bark and meow in unison to be let out and run free at the slightest provocation? Did they become scared and slink under beds and hide in cupboards? The answer.....a big fat NO!
 I grew up always fascinated by stories like the Alaskan earthquake in 1964 where witnesses say birds and animals went a bit nuts days before. It was something of a marvel to me that animals just KNEW or felt in the earth the vibrational forces which then scared them. What a big fat cop out THAT turned out to be! Seems my Oscar WAS a bit fidgety and 'bitey' the two days following, but I also know that my female hormones at certain phase of the month makes him that way. Oscar, the King of Siamese cats, slept in his cat tree basket through the whole shake. Tess, my old girl of a dog, was snorting and snuffling her way through her dinner. Like they CARED the house was about to fall down? Nah, Oscar turned, yawned and stretched and promptly went back to sleep. GAH!

 I suspect my animals are used to the house wobbling about. My dear friend David is not the best mini excavator driver and when he was digging out and drilling holes for the new footings on one side of the house, would bash into the corner and the house would rattle for a few moments. Practice for the animals I guess!
  I have started a new blog called The Medical Oddity on blogspot. I really haven't done much around the place due to now having been diagnosed with a heart condition. Never rains but pours on me!
I am trying to do some small crafts and hope to put them up here for you to see (and buy!)
In the meantime, Be happy and enjoy life.

 

MY KITCHEN OR HOW TO GO INSANE IN ONE EASY STEP.

My kitchen is a nightmare. Yes, it is. Most people say that about their kitchens on blogs I look at. But MINE really is a nightmare! I have a laundry in mine. I have no storage in mine. Mine faces West so you only get scorching hot sun in Summer and bugger all sun in Winter. The other window faces South so not much good light there to help chop up your vegies either. You think I am kidding? Take a look at the picture and tell me you aren't reaching for the Scotch and Valium as we speak!

The disaster of a kitchen!

 

 

   I am NOT an untidy person but this always makes me feel I ought to lock the front door and keep everyone away for fear they think I should be one of those shows,  My House is a Pig Sty, or Save my Soul, redo my house! The main problem is lack of storage and work area. I recently moved all the saucepans closer to the stove as I was getting tired of climbing a ladder to reach for them. It just makes that bench look like a jumble sale! Clothes dryer, dishwasher and washing machine take up valuable floor space. There is a laundry trough right next to the ridiculously small floor oven so you have no where to put your hot pans if you need to mash up some spuddies.
  The colours? You don't like them? The lilac is called Moon Flower and was EVERYWHERE in this house. More like 'Puke, at Grandma's house' colour. We tried the yellow when it was in fashion, then I hated it. Last neutral colour is really the colour I would prefer but the manufacturer no longer makes that colour and of course, SOMEBODY who shall remain nameless...(DAVID!) lost the card which had the name of it! 
 I HATE HATE HATE working in here. Especially since if you were to turn around in the kitchen my 'office' space is right there. We are forever playing the Tetris game of shoving stuff from one flat surface to another to only have it all fall down. My pantry is only 23cms deep with all the shelves being 29cms tall from each other. (I'm not doing the Imperial measurements, about time you Americans caught up with Metric!) Sounds good but seriously how can you put a box of cereal in there let alone large jars or cans? Pfffffft!!!!!
 The thing I hate most is the kitty litter box! No where else in this house to put it and to me it is totally unhygenic.
 I really would love a Magic Fairy to come in and go POOOOOF! with the wand and give me something like this....

via Pinterest

     Or maybe even this..........

via Biedermeir Berlin

Or perchance this little lovely.......

via Pinterest

Aaaaaaaah.....One day......one day...........
 What's YOUR kitchen looking like today? Sleek and tidy? Like a bomb went off? Or just plain functional?
Maria

IS THERE A CURSE ON US OR WHAT?

I just can't believe it. My dear friend David has slashed his ring finger on his right  hand to the bone and had surgery a week ago today. His ability to work is now 10%. He's also right handed! What else? The great timing of being worse than ever with a gastro type illness and my thyroid woes, and I can barely lift a finger let alone drive him here, there and everywhere, and make him cups of tea! So our reno has been put on hold.....sigh.........

 GOOD news though! We managed to find some interesting things in the hard rubbish collection!  A sliding aluminum window perfect for the front end of the side storage/deck area! I found a sweet little chest of drawers needing some magic, and a lovely old wardrobe which I will paint and put in my bedroom. No pics of those sadly, as we stashed them into the storage containers then realised later, "Oh, NO! We forgot photos!" We weren't up to pulling out all the crap stuff all over again. Took us hours to do the Tetris game of adjusting to get them in in the first place!
  Here are some pics to keep you entertained till next time!

David looking quite jaded. Oscar hoping for some tuna from David's baked potato.

 

Unusually wet summer we have had creates some interesting cloud cover. Mt St Leonard's looking from the side of my house.

Cheerio for now!
Maria

GETTING ON......Slowly......

Well, been a while since I last put something noteworthy on this blog. Unfortunately my thyroid issues have flared up again and I crashed..big time....Sleeping most of the days away is not a fun thing when you are a type A personality like me! I have Hashimoto's (an autoimmune disease) and my thyroid medication which works fine for fifty mazillion other people doesn't work for me. So, there I was going ok for a few months, then Ker-PLUNK! Just ran out of gas and konked out in the middle of the freeway of life....No fun at all!

 SO anyhooooooos......my friend David decided to try to finish the sideway storage area and deck so we can move the tools and machinery and equipment out of my under the house work area. This, you have to understand would give me enourmous pleasure at being able to walk from Rolladoor to craft/work room without losing a limb or any  important organs.  Been a big contentious issue. Me screeching, MOVE THE FREAKING STUFF! With David humbly saying, I can't, there's no where to put it! So, to give him his (ahem) meagre credit, he tried to work and bash and drill and saw and grind and weld in between my snores. He'd come in at lunchtime and say, 'You ready for a snooze?' I'd say, 'I'm fading and will pass out in around 10 minutes.' You have never seen anyone work so fast to achieve so much in 10 minutes. You see, my bedhead is directly where he is working. Well, he's outside and I am inside but you get the point. 

Hopefully my new upped dose from 125mcgs to 150mcgs will kick in soon. It takes roughly 6 weeks for thyroxine (that's the thyroid hormone) to do its thing. In my case and knowing my luck it won't be enough and I will be in Slumberville a tad longer than I want to be.  
        Unfortunately none of the timber or steel or roofing steel is recycled/or reused. We did get offered tons of free building materials but sadly it was not treated timber. In a high termite infested area you MUST have treated timber. The previous owner did a shoddy job on structural timbers and we ended up with a McDonald's drivethrough for termites in the lower part of the house! We couldn't find any roofing material that had not rusted or full of holes or was not expensive. So all new it was, just for this project!                  Here are some pics of the latest installment of the Reno on a shoestring!

Oscar in his run keeping an eye on David, making sure he does the  job right.

 

The over engineered welded steels to support both the lower and upper structures. David learned to weld so that saved us heaps of money!

 

 

Partially covered roof! Woohoo! There will be a gutter attached soon. The open window is where my bed is.

Opposite end view. You get a better perspective of the storage area.The dodgy louvred window area is my craft/work room. The acrow prop is holding up the back end of the house! Eventually there will be a large window and a little decking out the front of that area.

Wherever you are, I hope your day is full of love and happiness and a few good belly laughs!
Cheers!
Maria