I passed, I passed, I passed, I passed!

As of this afternoon I am now legally able to operate a forklift. I am soooooo looking forward to a whole range of new employment prospects opening up :D!

This is the forklift I was trained and tested on. I had to bend it through the cone line in forward and then reverse it bending through them again as part of the training.

Cheers,

Robyn Louise xo :D

New experience

I was going to post updates on my knitting and some sleepy cat photos but something more important to my life has arisen so the R&R stuff can wait.

I have spoken to my boss and he has allowed me to change my working hours for next week to fit in with a course I am doing from Tuesday to Friday. It means working/learning 15.5 hours Wednesday and Thursday, 12 hours Tuesday and 9 hours Friday (that'll be easy....if I don't fall asleep!). Thank goodness I'm rostered on to work this Saturday and not the same week as the course.

What am I doing you ask?

I'm training to be a forklift driver!! :D

I figured if I can drive a 4.5tonne GVM truck with 3 horses loaded on it around the hills/corners surrounding Kempsey for years then I can balance an equally breakable load of packaged wine casks/bottles around winery warehouses. It will cost me over a week's current pay to do the course. One of my friends at the winery said not to forget to claim the course fees on my tax and that having a forklift driver's ticket is a definite bonus to gaining a job at the winery. He should know as he's a packaging manager there.

Wish me luck :D!

I'll try to find a few mins each day to take a pictorial record to post here as this is a bit of a milestone for me.

Cheers,
RobynLouise xo

Weekends…..

....are usually the time when I cook for the week, wash the laundry and clean house and possibly potter around gardening.

I don’t really like cleaning house through the week as I already spend between 26-30hrs doing pretty much the same at work – sweeping, mopping, vacuuming and wiping stuff down. To come home and do it just seems like I haven’t left work. I think I need a change of mindset as I should make myself do at least one job a day at home then I can have more of my weekends free – even those ones where I'm rostered on Saturday morning and don’t finish till 9am.

This last week had a few little surprises in it. I discovered that I can cook on my woodstove. Why on earth I never realised that before is beyond me but I thought the little handle was so one could lift the tiled section up to clean under it…..I never thought of putting my camping teapot or my saucepan there. That’s going to save me a little bit of gas charges over Winter.

I also received a lovely hand knitted beanie from Shirley over in WA. Adore the colours and finding myself living in it on cold days as it’s so warm! Thank you again Shirley!

I finally bought the knitting needles and found some 8-ply wool for the sock knit-along at the DTE forums but they have been sitting there mocking me as I haven’t even cast a stitch on yet! I really need some more socks to wear outside work so I’ll have to motivate myself!

Hoping everyone had a lovely weekend!

Cheers,

RobynLouise xo

Discover…..

I hate Winter, but I love the sound of rain on a tin roof

I hate cold weather, but I love watching the fire and feeling the warmth from the combustion stove

I hate being surrounded by people, but I love working somewhere that has hundreds of employees

I hate socialising, but I love meeting new people

I hate feeling lonely, but I love living alone

I hate pubs, but I love that it costs nothing to enter and the entertainment is free

I hate that past relationships have gone awry, but I’d love to try another

I hate listening to the rain, sitting in front of the fire, feeling lonely but I'd love if that would change...if I could change.

RobynLouise

Tempting, Toothless, Temperatures and Tasty

Look…look….I found a local who sells free range eggs! $4/dozen if you collect and $5 delivered. I fried 2 to have with my bacon this morning and they are the freshest, most golden eggs I have had since I had my hens on the farm 2 years ago. Nothing like the flavour of a fresh egg. I could be tempted to eat lots of these poached, fried and scrambled but I’ll be good and use most of them for cooking. Beats the beejeebers out of the pale runny “organic” eggs you can buy from the supermarket. She only lives a couple of blocks away too. Another thing I love about living in a village J.

I was eating crunchy ANZAC biscuits last night and thought one bit was overcooked then realised I was a bit short on the eating equipment! Excuse the "morning face" WYSIWYG!!

Thank goodness for friends to ask (thanks Di!) and Dentists on line and that they have a vacancy tomorrow. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s going to cost me a couple of hundred dollars L.

BRRRRRRRR………it’s definitely Winter!! By CRIKEY it was cold last night! I lit the fire in the wood stove again but made sure I stacked some extra wood in it before I retired for the night. There was a nice crispy first of the year frost in my back yard at 7.30am when I finally dragged myself out of bed. Didn’t think to take a photo but everyone who’s lived with it knows what a good frost looks like – right? So I thought I'd post a picture to make everyone in the cold climes feel warmer.

Made myself some chicken stock yesterday in the slow cooker using chicken necks and then added to it to make chicken and vegetable soup for lunch today. Nothing like hot homemade soup on a cold day. The ingredients are all purchased but I hope to change that in the future, well except for the chicken, but then maybe I can find someone around here who will give me a non laying freebie or sell it to me cheap.

Cheers to all plus keep warm wishes to those in the Southern Hemisphere!

RobynLouise