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this is the land of ferrous

if you're visiting to see pictures of riley, my beautiful little boy, see some pictures here.

otherwise, use the navigation to the right (scroll down past the buttons) to look at other stuff.

my niece, britt, had leukaemia, but is now officially clear! please help to raise funds to find a cure for others by visiting cruise4Acure.

shop for unique hand crafted gifts for yourself or your friends & family at the shop my friends & i have at shop dot wiccked.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

burn for four hours - 01:51 PM
(filed under 'general')

i wonder why some long-burning candles have the advice that you should burn the candle for a miniumum of four hours the first time you use them?

i've seen this a few times. i'm not sure what difference it would make. the cynic in me wonders if maybe it's just so that you're already four hours closer to buying another candle. *raises an eyebrow*

comments (1)

the problem with water-saving shower heads - 08:18 AM
(filed under 'green living')

mum & bill have recently renovated two of their bathrooms. when i came around one time after they were finished, i had a shower in the guest bathroom upstairs, & had a difficult time trying to get the water temperature right.

we're on strict water restrictions here in queensland. we're supposed to limit our showers to only four minutes. that's a problem when it takes you about five minutes just to get the water temperature right.

it seems that with the water-saving shower heads, with the low-flow & fine spray, that when you turn the tap to adjust the temperature, it takes the water a long time to get from the pipes where the adjustment was made, to up into the shower head & out onto your body.

when you turn the tap, it takes about twenty to thirty seconds to feel the difference in the water. maybe it's not actually that long, but when you're standing naked in a cold bathroom with the water either so cold you have goosebumps on your goosebumps, or so hot that your skin is starting to turn red, it feels like forever.

here's how it goes:

you've turned on both taps on & the water is flowing but it's too cold, so you turn the hot tap on more. you wait a few seconds, standing there shivering with your hand under the stream of water. nothing happens, so you turn the hot tap on a bit more. you wait a few seconds longer & still nothing happens so you give it another really good turn. it finally starts to get warmer, so you move your body under the water with a happy sigh, but within a few seconds it's scalding hot & you jump out again with a squeal, reaching through the hot water to turn it down, but only a bit so you can try to get that optimum temperature. you go through the same process again, but this time in reverse. you then do this about two more times with varying degrees of temperature extremes until finally the temperature is just right & you can actually begin to wash yourself.

i've been through this with the shower at suzanne's house (where we're house minding), too. i know that each shower is different in how far you need to turn each tap to get that 'just right' temperature & it does take a while to learn how to get it right the first time. when it takes so long for the water temperature to change, though, it makes it really difficult to have a four minute shower. especially when you add in the normal waiting time for the hot water to come through in the first place.

it's kind of frustrating. i guess i'll learn exactly how many turns each tap needs by the time suzanne & family come back. lol!

comments (2)

attitude central - 07:33 AM
(filed under 'smiley')

smiley is driving me nuts. he seems to have turned into a teenager about ten years early.

i'm taking the rare affection & nice manners with much gratitude & revelling in it when it happens. if he actually comes up to me & gives me a hug (shock! horror!), i hang onto those warm fuzzies for as long as i possibly can & desperately try to draw those feelings up again when he's being a little pain in the bum the rest of the time.

every day, several times a day, he tells me, 'just let me do what i WANT!!' & 'go away!' & other variations on the theme.

if he asks me a question & i answer it to the best of my ability, he almost always tells me belligerently, 'no! that's not it!' & then gives me his own answer anyway. he's always right.

the lack of manners, the complete impatience, the demanding attitude. frankly, he's turned into a really rude & horrible little boy.

i'm onto him all the time about his behaviour, but i'm trying not to hold it against him, because i can recognise in what he's doing, the same things i've seen in myself when i've been in full hormonal overload. i've seen myself be an absolutely horrible cow, with a constant mood, & know that i'm doing it, yet i've not been able to stop it, even while i could see myself doing it. i've gone through that twice in my recent adult life & it felt awful to be so out of control.

i think, perhaps, that smiley's not old enough—nor experienced in life enough—to see in himself how horrible he's being, so i'm trying to keep that in mind & tell myself day by day, minute by minute, that this, too, shall pass. that surely it's one of those normal hormonal things that kids/boys go through around this age.

i've read that this is right about the age when they have a testosterone overload. that around this age, they have about the same amount of testosterone surging through their little bodies as does a full grown man. if that's the case, then all i can do is try to understand & ride it out with him.

he's been this way for about three or four weeks now. i can't remember how long he was taken over by aliens the last time, but i really hope it doesn't last much longer.

comments (2)

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

finished my jumper! - 09:19 AM
(filed under 'creative')

i finished my jumper! it took about four months to finish, but that was with plenty of long breaks. if it was the only project i was working on, i reckon it might have taken only two months or less.

i'm really pleased with how well it turned out.

i need to get myself a white or off-white singlet top to wear under it, i think. audrey gave me a voucher for cotton on for my birthday/mothers' day so i think i'll use that.

comments (3)

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

hansel & gretel - 10:14 AM
(filed under 'animal')

finally got some good pics of them. hansel is the brightly coloured one & gretel is the pale coloured one.

comments (1)

transgender? or maybe role reversal? - 09:23 AM
(filed under 'smiley')

okay, so maybe it's not transgender or role reversal, but just a certain four & a half year old's particular attitude lately that he's always right.

hansel & gretel, smiley's pair of finches, are actually the other way around, gender-wise, from what he insists. hansel is actually the girl & gretel is the boy.

i wondered that myself when i was looking at them since i know that in the world of birds, the boys are usually the brightly coloured ones & the girls are the more muted or plain colours.

melanie & jade & co. came around yesterday & melanie said that she thought they were opposite to what smiley was saying. i emailed rudi & he confirmed it.

i'll try to get some pics of them soon. they're really quite cute.

edited just now to add that i've finally convinced him that the brightly coloured one is the boy. so now they have their proper names. hehe.

comments (2)

Sunday, May 04, 2008

a pair of finches - 09:30 PM
(filed under 'smiley')

rudi bought smiley two birds at the market today, a couple of finches. he called them hansel & gretel & they're a pair so they might make babies if they use the nesting box.

smiley made a letter box for them & was just talking out loud as he was 'writing' a letter to them. 'dear hansel & gretel,' he said. 'please lay eggs.'

rotfl!!!

comments (1)

Friday, May 02, 2008

no dishwasher for me - 07:36 AM
(filed under 'general')

there's a dishwasher here at suzanne's house (where i'm house minding), & i was kind of thinking i may use it, despite (or perhaps because of) never having had one of my own & not really having used them before.

previous times when i've come across places that have dishwashers, i've never been all that impressed with the job that they do. the dishes are mostly clean, yes, with no bits of food left on them or anything, but they sometimes have a particular smell (i've noticed it, for instance, when i've had a drink of water out of a glass that's regularly washed in a dishwasher) & they often have a kind of frosted sheen on them.

i've noticed on a few plates here that they have a sheen. not really the even, all over, frosted sheen that i've seen heaps on drinking glasses, but a sort of broken egg shell shaped pattern of sheen on them. it's hard to describe. you can only really see it if you hold it in the light just the right way with the light reflecting off it. sort of like how you'd look at a glass window you've just cleaned to make sure you've cleaned all the spots off. know what i mean?

so anyway, i just did a small experiment. i washed one of the plates with my enjo kitchen cloth & did just a really quick wipe on one half to get the surface dirt off. the other half i gave a proper, concentrated clean, the same as i'd do if i was washing a properly dirty plate, say, one that that had dried-on food on it.

i then dried the plate & had another close look (holding it the right way in the light, etc) & the half that i cleaned with the enjo cloth is shiny & smooth. i can see the actual surface of the plate. the half that i gave only a cursory wipe still has that sheen on it.

so i'm definitely going to be hand washing the dishes i use while i'm here. it would seem that my inherent, supposedly non-sensical, long-held distrust of domestic dishwashers is warranted.

(on a different, semi-related topic, my inherent, supposedly non-sensical, long-held distrust of microwaves has yet to be proven publically & world-wide by the greater science community, but i'm still trusting my instincts on that one.)

comments (4)

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

a cold on top of a cold - 07:42 PM
(filed under 'general')

i'm getting a bit sick of having a cold. i'm almost over a cold that i've had for about two & a half weeks (i'm still a bit throaty sounding, but there's not been any more coughing & lung congestion) & now this evening it seems i've caught smiley's cold which he came down with on sunday night.

after not having to blow my nose for the last half a week or so, i've now started getting blocked up again tonight. cross your fingers that it stays only in my nose & doesn't block up my sinuses like the previous one did in the beginning.

ugh.

comments (3)

house minding - 06:37 PM
(filed under 'general')

i'm house minding for a friend who's gone overseas with her family.

i love the age we're in that allows me to take my wireless modem/phone line & have my very own internet & my own phone line (even with my own normal phone number) in someone else's house! it took me a while to get my head around that & i know some others have had trouble understanding how it can be done, too. hehe.

so anyway, this place is on the north side of brisbane with the beach really close by. it's not a white sandy beach, but one of those kind with the dark, grey, very fine sand that's almost muddy. it's shallow for ages & ages, high or low tide, so it's perfect for smiley to play there in the sand &/or the sea.

a friend came to visit me here today & we had fish & chips & a beer at the beach. lovely!

it's a really nice place to stay. it's like the holiday you have when you're not having a holiday. (2 points to anyone who can pick the origins of that quote. if you're not australian then you get five points. lol! )

i'll be back & forth to my place & here, but thanks to the wonderful advances of technology, i'll never be out of contact of anyone. ta daaaa! very cool.

comments (0)

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