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

House or Home??

Today I was going to drive to some land that is for sale about 80km from where I live and look at its prospects for current horse agistment and possible future home site. However, I had a think about it and it’s really a waste of time at the moment as I don’t have the money on hand and I haven’t asked the bank if I am eligible for a loan. It was just an excuse to go away from here for a while and I was thinking it would make me happy to have a day out.

So I had a look at the list of “to-dos” on my fridge door and when I opened the vertical blinds I realised that I really wanted to use the closed in veranda, for something besides storage, and I need to do some cooking that I’ve been putting off for weeks. Then there are the weekly/fortnightly/monthly chores to do that are always “there”.

I realised that what would make me happy is to make this place truly my home as I’ve been a bit dispossessed the last couple of years and slept in my car in a park, stayed at youth hostels,  friends and relatives homes and in another rental that I really disliked.

I’ve started customising the garden but that’s not something that happens overnight, like customising a room can, and gardens change by themselves anyway – flowers bloom, trees lose leaves in Winter and grow new ones in Spring, grass needs cutting and weeds are always popping out of the ground. It takes a long time to truly make your mark on a garden/yard and it’s not like you eat/sleep/live in it.

Guess I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m going to be renting for a while, something I haven’t done in 30 years, and I may as well make where I live my home not just a house that protects me from the weather and keeps me secluded and separated from the world outside its walls. Time to start laying real building blocks for my new future instead of floating around in the clouds watching the world go by and hoping I find a silver lining. I discovered today that I am the one who has always made safe/comfortable places for myself, and the children when they were younger, not either of my partners as they were too busy doing their own thing and expecting us to fit in. That’s two of the mistakes I’ve made in my life and there’s probably countless others that have been forgotten along the way.

Now it’s time to properly pick myself up, I thought I had before but I was mistaken, dust myself off and make a place for me again – even if it is just a step on the way to where I’d really like to be I need to give it a solid base as ricketty steps are dangerous.

Cheers,

RobynLouise

The Bucket List and other things.....

I had a doctor's appointment the day after my last blog post to have a small growth on my head inspected. Well, it was fine but I'd been feeling a bit tired and had a couple of head spins while in the waiting room and, as that had happened at work a few times in the previous week, I asked him to take my blood pressure. I knew it was in orbit and I was correct - 180/105. I thought I'd just go home and take the meds, I managed to exercise and diet myself off before, but doctor told me no meds, no strenuous exercise, go home and rest and come back in 3 days for a blood test. He wanted a clean test with no interference from drugs. The usual culprits - vitamin/mineral deficiencies, thyroid, diabetes and cholesterol.

Well everything was fine though I was a bit worried that my cholesterol was up to a total of 5.9 (from 4.9) again but the doc said as the triglycerides and HDL's were at very good levels and the LDL's were low he wasn't too bothered by the total reading.

So....I'm back on meds....again :(. Better than being dead though I suppose *silly grin*. Back to square one - repeat - till I'm off meds again. I'm blaming this on the work stress.

Meanwhile...over on my emails...... Booktopia were having a postage free sale so of course I went in search of the book I've wanted since it was printed and low and behold it was on sale too! Well I can't take my money with me if I cark it and I don't think the government taxes your books after you've gone so I purchased it, and a companion to it, and now I'll have something to read while I drink my green tea and snack on my homemade healthy goodies and can cross it off my Bucket List!

In a renewed effort to have more vegetables in my diet I tried out the Savoury Split Peas recipe on the side of that pack. It was quite tasty, though I did add some tabasco to it to liven up the other condiments, and filling as well as being cheap.

I've been doing some more baking and tried out this Pumpkin Fruit Cake Recipe I found on the internet as I couldn't find the original one I had. DUH!! I knew I had it somewhere safe  (I can just see and hear Matti May laughing) and of course I discovered it last night on the Recipes page on my blog after I'd made the pictured cake and started this post *picture me banging head on hand*. LOL, must be practising for senior's moments but I guess I can blame it on the vagueness caused by high blood pressure!!

I’m not happy with this recipe and I think I’ll go back to the tried and tested one I posted here.

There was a bit of rain around yesterday that kept me housebound and it was accompanied by thunder and lightning. The cat spent the day inside the house and the dog holed up in the shed outside. 

The front yard.

The back yard.

Nearly forgot! My lovely friend gifted me a selection of his brews.  Lol, I jokingly tell him that if there was some way I could clone him I would J. The bottle on the left contains Old, the centre one is Pale Ale and the one on the right is Mexican. I can drink them 3 weeks after the dates on the caps so I could have the Old now….if I could lower this damn blood pressure! Suppose it gives me something to look forward to….sigh….

Cheers,

RobynLouise

Posts, Projects and Pleasant People

Well, I aimed to try to make one post a week – or 4 a month – on the blog when I started posting this year but I’ve already mucked that goal up as I only made 3 in April. Even though it averages out to 4 a month that’s not quite the same. It’s not as if I don’t have more than enough to post!

This last week I’ve been ripping out unwanted plants and discovering new areas to plant ones I do want. In other words….anything edible :D.

I tried a no knead sourdough recipe but I need to work on that some more as the timing for using the dough has to be correct. The temperature here could have been a bit on the cold side too.  I feel my effort could have been less dense and risen more and I don’t want to use yeast to do this. I have made no knead yeast bread already.

I’ve started some lemon/lime vinegar. The juice is frozen in ice cubes in the deep freeze or has been used in lemon/honey drinks, as salad dressing and also glazed roasted whole chickens.

After the letdown with the social evening I was delighted to have an early Mother’s Day present from my daughter in the form of a dinner for one at the restaurant where she works. She was my waitress for the night J. I had an entrée of Oysters Kilpatrick, a main dish with calamari and prawns and a yummy cheese platter for dessert with a very fine Sauvignon Blanc to wash it down.

I had my hair cut and coloured while I was over there too. It’s been a long time and as I’m off to the Riverina DTE meet up this weekend the photo will have to wait until after then .

I had a friend visit me yesterday with a box of goodies. There’s 2 jars of tomato relish, one of corn relish, the big jar is tomato pickle, and there’s one of fig jam. The bottle contains plum sauce. As you can see there’s also fresh granny smith apples – that taste unlike any I’ve ever had before as those were bought from stores and these are home grown – and a bag of walnuts. I’ve already depleted the apples by one, which is why there are only 3 in the photo, and started diminishing the walnuts and also opened a jar of tomato relish, which is really delicious.

All these lovely items were given to me in exchange for a bag of my homegrown lemons and limes as he wants them to flavour his home brew beer. I’ve promised him some lemon butter in the future too.  He made all the preserves and, just by the way, his name is Phil! There must be something about that name….LOL!

Cheers,

RobynLouise