Showing posts with label plans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plans. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 June 2015
Organisation Vs Regimentation
I am by nature a list maker.
This is partly because my memory is red hot on things like Red Dwarf dialogue and complex retellings of that time your friend put porn on your DVD player after we watched the Grand Final and then that guy climbed over the back fence with a plank of wood to tell us to shut the fuck up because he had work the next day... [huge breath] but not so much on remembering to go to shops when they're open.
So I need to write stuff down and set days aside for getting certain stuff done.
This is organisation.
What I am resisting with all my might is letting that turn into regimentation.
I have a coworker who routinely says things like 'my friend invited me out to dinner but I couldn't go because I do the laundry on Wednesdays'.
This lady isn't OCD or otherwise compelled by brain chemistry, she has just slowly over a period of decades settled into her groove and is now incapable of clambering out of it.
She will turn down trips, outings, exciting opportunities because she needs to get home to feed the horses, or to organise something or because she already had a plan for that day.
The plan in question is never particularly exciting, she is just incapable of changing or postponing it.
There are definitely some pre-planned tasks or events where you have to blow off exciting new opportunities but these are things like baptisms, weddings, funerals, a farewell party for someone you care about, not being able to go have an author you admire sign your book because you're going to be in another country, that sort of thing.
Any time I catch myself letting everyday stuff get on top of me or feeling too negative about unimportant shit I just bump a few things further along the list or have a completely self-indulgent 'stuff it!' day where I just push anything that isn't absolutely essential out of my mind and read or have a nap or even just clean the bathroom.
Being organised has been even more important to me since I had my argh-what-the-fark-is-happening-to-me-argh! meltdown, got my Fibromyalgia diagnosis, and began putting my head back on straight.
While I'm actually feeling pretty good now, I still have to keep in mind that I can't do too much at once* without courting the possibility of feeling a bit achey for a week afterwards, so spreading out tasks and obligations not only makes me feel on top of things but keeps me on an even keel.
Crossing stuff out on a list gives me that lovely 'aw yeah, getting shit done like a motherhuggin' adult' satisfaction and keeps me from falling into the 'I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it on the weekend, crap it's Monday' trap.
I've read a few articles about organisation and building good habits along the way and picking the good ideas (like picking one habit to work on at a time and 'habit stacking') from the bad ideas (like systems of recordkeeping which would lead to your life becoming a nonstop loop of note taking and note comparing**) has been important.
If you're already an anxious person you certainly don't want to be tracking and comparing certain things*** unless you can do it in a way that helps you make progress and feel in control rather than stressing you out and making the problem worse.
You don't want to feel like you've failed because you've assigned yourself too many tasks in a fit of ambition and you certainly don't want to make your hobbies and recreational activities and relationships feel like obligations you're failing to meet.
That kind of thing isn't going to help anybody.
I certainly remember how uninspiring I found the Wii Fit's 'oh, hey there, we haven't seen you in 47 days' passive-aggressive bulltwang.
So, to summarise:
Having my shit together and having errands and regular chores mapped out = good.
Being able to to toss most of that stuff aside every now and then because someone has invited me to a concert, I've heard about something awesome, or because I'm really enjoying a book = even better.
*For example, vacuuming the bedroom = fine.Vacuuming the bedroom, then deciding I'm going to sweep and mop and scrub the bathroom as well all in one afternoon = one of my knees quietly moaning 'I thought you looooooved' me for a week and a half afterwards.
**I'm looking at you, people at my workplace who take calorie counting too seriously and have stopped enjoying life.
***Like how much sleep you get per night.
Sunday, 18 May 2014
Put It On The List
Time for another installment of Magic Future Garden That Will Have The Space And The Environmental Conditions To Support All These Plants (And Which I Hopefully Won't Kill Through Ineptitude)!
The previous installment can be found here.
Grevillea
Lovely colours and they bring in various birds.
Dwarf river wattle (or Acacia Cognata)
I just like the look of these, they fill their part of the garden nicely and look soft to the touch.
Woolly bush (or Adenanthos sericeus)
But not as soft as the woolly bush which Mum and I call 'huggable Christmas trees'. These are lovely and very hardy.
Kangaroo paw
These are bright when they flower and as natives will deal with the odd year of shitty weather better than some other plants.
Pimelea ferruginea
Pretty as hell and apparently they'll bring in the butterflies.
Mulberry tree
We had one of these in our backyard in Coffs Harbour and I remember sitting on the fence amongst the branches picking ripe berries until I gave myself a stomach ache. Totally worth it.
Ornamental grapevine
I'm more interested in the look than whether they produce grapes or not. Growing your own grapes that turn out right, rather than bitter, is a bit of a crapshoot but having a nice vine that you can put across a trellis or use to shade you from the sun is a better bet.
The previous installment can be found here.
Grevillea
Lovely colours and they bring in various birds.
Dwarf river wattle (or Acacia Cognata)
I just like the look of these, they fill their part of the garden nicely and look soft to the touch.
Woolly bush (or Adenanthos sericeus)
But not as soft as the woolly bush which Mum and I call 'huggable Christmas trees'. These are lovely and very hardy.
Kangaroo paw
These are bright when they flower and as natives will deal with the odd year of shitty weather better than some other plants.
Pimelea ferruginea
Pretty as hell and apparently they'll bring in the butterflies.
Mulberry tree
We had one of these in our backyard in Coffs Harbour and I remember sitting on the fence amongst the branches picking ripe berries until I gave myself a stomach ache. Totally worth it.
Ornamental grapevine
I'm more interested in the look than whether they produce grapes or not. Growing your own grapes that turn out right, rather than bitter, is a bit of a crapshoot but having a nice vine that you can put across a trellis or use to shade you from the sun is a better bet.
Saturday, 4 May 2013
Warn The Amish
There have been a tonne of new reality shows and documentaries over the last few years about the end of the world.
To complement all the books, TV shows and movies we have about the end of the world.
The ones about how the world might end.
The ones about what might happen next to the people who were left behind.
The ones about what would happen to a world that no longer had people in it.
But it's the ones about the people who are currently preparing for surviving what these other shows theorise about that is causing the conversations around the office.
One of the women I work with is mad obsessed with Doomsday Preppers.
It isn't the most balanced of shows, they love to hunt out the more extreme examples of the prepping movement and put them through their paces.
I'm honestly a bit impressed at home some people have managed to get their entire families or portions of their communties on board.
Worried in a few cases but impressed.
Anyway all of these prepping programs have left her with what she thinks of as a foolproof plan for surviving in the post-apocalyptic world.
Go throw your lot in with the Amish.
Because they know how to make their own furniture and buildings, can sew their own crops and raise their own animals, and know how to do a tonne of things from scratch.
Um.
OK.
There are a few problems with that.
First of which, in your case, is that you are currently in Australia.
The Amish famously live in America.
If the world ends I doubt it will be at a pace that will allow you to fly to the States.
Even if you can they may not let you in, please see 'end of the world' for an idea of why they might tighten their border controls.
But OK, let's assume you were already in America, having a lovely roadtrip with your family, the world came to a grinding/screeching halt because EMP/zombies/global economic meltdown/aliens/mega-sunspots/contagious disease/whatever.
First of all, you have to find the Amish.
Then you'd have to convince them to take you in.
Then you'd have to fight off all the hordes of people who have had the same idea and essentially want their own serf class of stuff makers and food growers to save them.
And you may still be fighting off whatever brought about this apocalyptic scenario and what the Amish also are is not known for having a cache of modern weapons or medicines, they leave that stuff to The English.
Ideally, you should have a proper think about any skills you might want to learn that would be helpful now but could also get you out of a jam should the world go to hell in a handbasket* and have a crack at that instead.
But yeah, I think someone should warn the Amish that it's entirely possible that car loads of panicked weirdoes might be turning up on their lawn any time there is a meteor shower, a prolonged blackout, a particularly weird animal attack, or someone thinks a movie is the news.
I don't want to do it.
I don't want to have to see the pained look in their eyes when they are informed of the existence of 'reality' TV.
But a heads up would probably be a good idea.
*gardening, first aid, preserving, sewing etc.
Sunday, 18 November 2012
Glossy Habit
I never thought this was a sentence I would type but...
I can't stop buying magazines.
I don't mean fashion mags or gossip mags or entertainment mags.
I mean house design.
Gardening.
Interior decorating.
I haven't even read all the way through the last one before I'm buying the next.
I don't know where this has come from.
I guess my frustrated 'must... build... lovely... home...' desires are bubbling over into an uncontrollable acquisition of house porn to gaze at covetously.
Some of it I look at and know that I would rather walk face-first into a cement pylon without flinching rather than have it in my home but it gives me ideas.
Even if it's ideas on things I never want in my own house.
Those ideas are just as, if not more, useful than ideas of things that I do want in my own house.
Ruling things out makes your vision clearer.
It's a bit of a bugger because the mags themselves aren't what you'd call super cheap and the seeds that they're planting in my mind will probably fruit into an incredibly expensive crop if I go through with some of these design ideas.
But I can't stop.
They're just so pretty.
I can't stop buying magazines.
I don't mean fashion mags or gossip mags or entertainment mags.
I mean house design.
Gardening.
Interior decorating.
I haven't even read all the way through the last one before I'm buying the next.
I don't know where this has come from.
I guess my frustrated 'must... build... lovely... home...' desires are bubbling over into an uncontrollable acquisition of house porn to gaze at covetously.
Some of it I look at and know that I would rather walk face-first into a cement pylon without flinching rather than have it in my home but it gives me ideas.
Even if it's ideas on things I never want in my own house.
Those ideas are just as, if not more, useful than ideas of things that I do want in my own house.
Ruling things out makes your vision clearer.
It's a bit of a bugger because the mags themselves aren't what you'd call super cheap and the seeds that they're planting in my mind will probably fruit into an incredibly expensive crop if I go through with some of these design ideas.
But I can't stop.
They're just so pretty.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Elusive Architecture
Architecture is a bastard.
There's a type of room I've wanted to include in my dream house floor plan for ages. I’ve known about this room since I’ve been to a couple of houses that featured it but I had to do a bunch of weird and sort of randomly worded searching to actually find out what it was called.
A mud room.
I’m sure there are other names for it but all the ones
suggested by helpful folk were a bit too general for internet image searches.
When I plugged in ‘vestibule’, ‘lobby’, ‘antechamber’ and
other entrance way type names, I got an array of pictures or descriptions which
didn’t match what I was envisioning.
I finally hit upon the term ‘mud room’ and all the images
that turned up for that term are exactly what I meant.
And I didn’t know how much I wanted one until I saw that bundle of images pop up.
They satisfy my organisation, tidiness and
keeping-muck-out-of-my-house urges.
And my
no-i-am-not-going-to-have-jackets-hanging-on-the-back-of-every-single-door
determination.
These things here…
…very useful sure but once you’ve bought one you’ll end
up with a whole collection of the damn things.
Put your coat in the wardrobe or have a special coat
wardrobe if you’re into clothing segregation.
Don’t have them taking space up on the back of every bedroom,
laundry and whatever-else door.
They make the room look all cluttered and you can’t open
your doors all the way.
A mud room.
Added to the ‘must have’ list for my notional ‘one day’ house.
Disclaimer: My house will never at any time contain that many baseball caps.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Ricochet's Zombie-Proof Roman Villa-Inspired House Plan
The law of averages dictates that out there are people who are - to a greater or lesser degree - planning their dream house designs based on how zombie-proof said houses may be.
I personally have been considering this sort of thing ever since, I saw the movie Jurassic Park and realised how easy it would be for velociraptors to smash their way into the family house through the huge windows which grace every room, and eat my entire family*.
There are some existing house designs that you could opt for without drawing the suspicions of the council or the concern of your neighbours, such as the classic 'Queenslander'.
The Queenslander could definitely be a strong contender as long as you had a way to destroy the staircase safely, made sure that you had access to water and enough food stockpiled or a safe way to exit and enter the house without making yourself a snack or inviting observant zombies or human raiders back into your home.
The height would give some peace of mind as long as the stability of the foundations was assured and fire wasn't too much of a risk**.
But personally I like the idea of thick strong walls on the ground***, surrounding you and protecting fertile soil where you can grow vegetables and keep animals to help sustain you.
For that reason my preference would be for a modified enclosed Roman villa-style building.
To make this design more zombie-proof you would of course minimise the windows on the outer wall of the structure, and make sure that those that remained were small-framed and high-set to allow light and air where appropriate but no physical ingress.
The main door would be heavy, outward opening (so that pressure applied from the outside wouldn't open it) and easy to bolt and bar with both a thick wooden outer door and a heavy metal lattice portcullis as an inner door. If the outer door is breached the portcullis should hold back intruders whilst allowing you to kill and reduce them, hopefully driving them back long enough to secure the outer perimeter if safe.
The walls would be thick, both for protection and to muffle the moans of the undead which would cause psychological distress over time.
The roofs would be broad and set up with water collection/storage and solar panels.
The central space would be set up to allow the growing of fruit and vegetables and the keeping of chickens for eggs and meat, and goats for milk if space and arrangements allow.
A well to complement the collected water would be a wonderful addition for peace of mind.
The four corners could be adapted to each host a high observation tower to let sentries keep an eye on how things were going, man radios if available and possibly communicate with other survivors by means of shining lights or using mirrors to flash Morse code messages, use weapons if needs be.
The plentiful rooms would allow multipurpose areas: sleeping areas that could be transformed to living areas during the day, food storage and preparation, laundry areas, work and manufacturing areas.
If practical underground rooms could be included and used for storage and would be more appropriate for peaceful and safe sleeping areas.
And I guess I would explain all of this to the council and my architect as an attempt to get on Grand Designs Australia and hope that they buy it and don't have me put away in a mental asylum.
I expect it'll help if I don't actually indicate where gun turrets should be mounted on the towers.
And all I need to do to make this a reality is get rich enough to build this place whilst also making time to learn how to manage a garden, keep livestock, preserve foods, shoot and maintain firearms and make sure that none of the people who I plan to invite to join me in my lovely villa are the type to crack, throw the gates open and go running screaming into a horde because they can't take it any more****.
*I was a pretty mercenary child. I had calculated my chances of being able to save anyone seeing as the velociraptors would have access to every part of the house simultaneously thanks to all the windows, realised they were so low as to be negligible and had decided that my best bet would be to scramble into the top of my built-in-robe shelves, try and kick my way into the roof-space and then lie their with my fingers crammed into my ears trying not to listen to the sounds of my family being rent asunder.
Velociraptors are a lot faster and smarter than zombies, what other options did I have?
**Honestly if zombies overrun Australia, a pressing concern along with being eaten alive would be the bushfires that would likely break out and sweep across the country unchecked, burning out survivors and foodstuffs but hopefully crisping the hell out of a large percentage of the undead at the same time.
***And not having to worry about a sea of the undead swaying and moaning below you as you slept, constantly dreaming of the floor giving way and dropping you into their waiting arms...
****Or the type who will decide the zombies are a judgement from God and that we either deserve this because we've brought it upon ourselves OR that the zombies will only eat the unrighteous and that this is a test.
I personally have been considering this sort of thing ever since, I saw the movie Jurassic Park and realised how easy it would be for velociraptors to smash their way into the family house through the huge windows which grace every room, and eat my entire family*.
There are some existing house designs that you could opt for without drawing the suspicions of the council or the concern of your neighbours, such as the classic 'Queenslander'.
The Queenslander could definitely be a strong contender as long as you had a way to destroy the staircase safely, made sure that you had access to water and enough food stockpiled or a safe way to exit and enter the house without making yourself a snack or inviting observant zombies or human raiders back into your home.
The height would give some peace of mind as long as the stability of the foundations was assured and fire wasn't too much of a risk**.
But personally I like the idea of thick strong walls on the ground***, surrounding you and protecting fertile soil where you can grow vegetables and keep animals to help sustain you.
For that reason my preference would be for a modified enclosed Roman villa-style building.
To make this design more zombie-proof you would of course minimise the windows on the outer wall of the structure, and make sure that those that remained were small-framed and high-set to allow light and air where appropriate but no physical ingress.
The main door would be heavy, outward opening (so that pressure applied from the outside wouldn't open it) and easy to bolt and bar with both a thick wooden outer door and a heavy metal lattice portcullis as an inner door. If the outer door is breached the portcullis should hold back intruders whilst allowing you to kill and reduce them, hopefully driving them back long enough to secure the outer perimeter if safe.
The walls would be thick, both for protection and to muffle the moans of the undead which would cause psychological distress over time.
The roofs would be broad and set up with water collection/storage and solar panels.
The central space would be set up to allow the growing of fruit and vegetables and the keeping of chickens for eggs and meat, and goats for milk if space and arrangements allow.
A well to complement the collected water would be a wonderful addition for peace of mind.
The four corners could be adapted to each host a high observation tower to let sentries keep an eye on how things were going, man radios if available and possibly communicate with other survivors by means of shining lights or using mirrors to flash Morse code messages, use weapons if needs be.
The plentiful rooms would allow multipurpose areas: sleeping areas that could be transformed to living areas during the day, food storage and preparation, laundry areas, work and manufacturing areas.
If practical underground rooms could be included and used for storage and would be more appropriate for peaceful and safe sleeping areas.
And I guess I would explain all of this to the council and my architect as an attempt to get on Grand Designs Australia and hope that they buy it and don't have me put away in a mental asylum.
I expect it'll help if I don't actually indicate where gun turrets should be mounted on the towers.
And all I need to do to make this a reality is get rich enough to build this place whilst also making time to learn how to manage a garden, keep livestock, preserve foods, shoot and maintain firearms and make sure that none of the people who I plan to invite to join me in my lovely villa are the type to crack, throw the gates open and go running screaming into a horde because they can't take it any more****.
*I was a pretty mercenary child. I had calculated my chances of being able to save anyone seeing as the velociraptors would have access to every part of the house simultaneously thanks to all the windows, realised they were so low as to be negligible and had decided that my best bet would be to scramble into the top of my built-in-robe shelves, try and kick my way into the roof-space and then lie their with my fingers crammed into my ears trying not to listen to the sounds of my family being rent asunder.
Velociraptors are a lot faster and smarter than zombies, what other options did I have?
**Honestly if zombies overrun Australia, a pressing concern along with being eaten alive would be the bushfires that would likely break out and sweep across the country unchecked, burning out survivors and foodstuffs but hopefully crisping the hell out of a large percentage of the undead at the same time.
***And not having to worry about a sea of the undead swaying and moaning below you as you slept, constantly dreaming of the floor giving way and dropping you into their waiting arms...
****Or the type who will decide the zombies are a judgement from God and that we either deserve this because we've brought it upon ourselves OR that the zombies will only eat the unrighteous and that this is a test.
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Speed Bumps
I haven't thought of it as a case of 'better the devil you know' because I've
always understood that to be referring to being in a cruddy situation
but being afraid that leaving it might land you in something worse.
Complacency may have the same effect though.
Things are OK so change isn't at the top of the list of things to do.
There's stuff I want to learn, goals I want to achieve, and whilst I've been moving towards them, I never feel that I've made as much progress as I'd like in the time since I set those goals.
For instance, I've been a bit bored at work for a while now but my searching for a new job has been sporadic because:
The thing is, even though I'm having a decent enough time, you've only got so many years in your life and I've been in my current job for five years. That's a few more years than you want to devote to 'things are going OK' unless you've achieved a few more things.
I want that 'what if I cock up!?' nervous excitement of starting a new job.
I want to meet new people.
I want to live in different places.
I want to try new things.
I can visualise all this happening easily enough but when I do it's always 'in the future' and after five years of the present, I'm having to put a boot up my own bum to remind myself that the future doesn't just happen by itself.
I'm not planning to quit my job and just run out into the world, hoping that something will fall into my lap but I am going to make more of a concentrated effort to start things moving.
I'll start with what I'm good at - making lists - and then move onto what I'm determined to be better at - making decisions.
I don't want another five years to pass and to still be sitting here going 'but things are OK'.
This Akimbo comic nails the feeling pretty well (click for bigness).
Disclaimer: I know the argument in this comic really only applies to people who are lucky enough to have certain opportunities and circumstances and can't be smugly held up to people who are living in poverty and struggling to survive and feed their families.
Complacency may have the same effect though.
Things are OK so change isn't at the top of the list of things to do.
There's stuff I want to learn, goals I want to achieve, and whilst I've been moving towards them, I never feel that I've made as much progress as I'd like in the time since I set those goals.
For instance, I've been a bit bored at work for a while now but my searching for a new job has been sporadic because:
- I'm not quite sure what I want to do next,
- getting a new job will probably involve the added complication of moving because I don't live anywhere particularly central, and
- even though I'm a bit bored, my life isn't bad.
The thing is, even though I'm having a decent enough time, you've only got so many years in your life and I've been in my current job for five years. That's a few more years than you want to devote to 'things are going OK' unless you've achieved a few more things.
I want that 'what if I cock up!?' nervous excitement of starting a new job.
I want to meet new people.
I want to live in different places.
I want to try new things.
I can visualise all this happening easily enough but when I do it's always 'in the future' and after five years of the present, I'm having to put a boot up my own bum to remind myself that the future doesn't just happen by itself.
I'm not planning to quit my job and just run out into the world, hoping that something will fall into my lap but I am going to make more of a concentrated effort to start things moving.
I'll start with what I'm good at - making lists - and then move onto what I'm determined to be better at - making decisions.
I don't want another five years to pass and to still be sitting here going 'but things are OK'.
This Akimbo comic nails the feeling pretty well (click for bigness).
Disclaimer: I know the argument in this comic really only applies to people who are lucky enough to have certain opportunities and circumstances and can't be smugly held up to people who are living in poverty and struggling to survive and feed their families.
 |
| Akimbo Comics |
Saturday, 30 June 2012
Due Date
Hey baby, where are you?
You were supposed to have exited the womb in a calm and orderly fashion by now.
Today was your due date and we were all kind of expecting you to keep the appointment.
To be frank it's quite rude of you to keep us waiting, especially your poor mother!
I've read all the information sheets from the Royal Women's Hospital and watched all the episodes of One Born Every Minute and I've had my Awesome Supportive Birth Partner kit by the door for the last month.
Everyone out here is ready for you, soooo....
Yep, today was my friend's due date and her baby has inconsiderately failed to materialise.
Considering how big her tum has been for the last month we've been expecting him to pop out at any minute for the last three weeks but it seems he is in no hurry to oblige.
She's at the stage where she's a bit over it.
She can't move around easily, she's up every half hour or hour during the night to go to the bathroom, she aches all over, she can't get comfortable, she can't get much done, she hasn't laid on her stomach for about 5 months, she hasn't had a drink in 9 months...
She is READY for this baby to be ejected from the pod!
I was always one of those people who thought 'What's the rush? Just let the baby come out when it's ready' but all the years I was thinking this it didn't occur to me - and it was only pointed out to me recently - that the rush is that the baby keeps growing.
So not only is it getting cramped, it is going to be a lot bigger when it tries to make its way through the emergency exit!
That and it would probably have sucked the placenta dry by then, like the tiny vampire it is.
She's going to keep doing all the lovely labour-bringing-on-ish things that have been advised to her but if he goes too far past this following week he'll be getting an eviction notice from the medical professionals at the hospital who won't take no for an answer.
Fingers crossed he gets the idea soon!
Edit (4th July 2012): My friend has had a check up with the doctor who says everything is fine and the baby is doing well, he just doesn't feel like coming out yet.
He's been given until the 12th of July to get this show on the road on his own, if he doesn't she'll be induced.
On Friday the 13th.
Such an auspicious day! :-D
Monday, 25 June 2012
Better Now Than Later
Ow!
OK, I've started doing some preparation for my trip to Nepal in December.
Ow.
It involved going on a brisk walk - make that a very brisk walk - with one of the other women who is coming with us.
Ow.
She is at least a foot taller than myself.
Ow.
And very fit.
Ow.
It had some hilly bits and some broken ground.
Ow.
Every now and then I had to do a little jog to catch up with her.
Ow.
My legs are killing me.
Ow.
It isn't just that I had to work to keep up with her.
Short people also tend to get hell of shin splints and they take a while to settle down when you first start pushing yourself beyond your normal levels of activity.
Ow.
There's still a lot of preparation to do:
Ow!
I am so glad I am doing this now rather than just assuming that I'd be OK because I walk a lot.
Ow.
OK, I've started doing some preparation for my trip to Nepal in December.
Ow.
It involved going on a brisk walk - make that a very brisk walk - with one of the other women who is coming with us.
Ow.
She is at least a foot taller than myself.
Ow.
And very fit.
Ow.
It had some hilly bits and some broken ground.
Ow.
Every now and then I had to do a little jog to catch up with her.
Ow.
My legs are killing me.
Ow.
It isn't just that I had to work to keep up with her.
Short people also tend to get hell of shin splints and they take a while to settle down when you first start pushing yourself beyond your normal levels of activity.
Ow.
There's still a lot of preparation to do:
- more walking;
- I'll probably do some bike riding;
- definitely going to mix in some stair climbing;
- my Dad, brother and I are probably going to go camping and hiking a few times over the next few months once it warms up a little; and
- extra walking.
Ow!
I am so glad I am doing this now rather than just assuming that I'd be OK because I walk a lot.
Ow.
Saturday, 16 June 2012
Things I'd Like To Have In My House But Possibly Never Will Because I'm Mental
Folding Screens
There could be monsters behind there.
YES, I KNOW I'M AN ADULT!
OK, fine, axe murderers. There could be an axe murderer hiding behind it.
Coat Racks
It looks good, right?
Functional, a bit classy if you buy the right one.
But if I walk through a darkened room that contains a coat rack, just about every time my brain will go 'shadowy spindly shape in the corner = intruder/alien' and completely flip out.
Sure the panic will last for a split second until my memory kicks in with 'durr, it's your coat rack' but a split second of terror every night for the rest of my life?
That has to have ramifications for you health.
Basements
Ahhhhhhh! OK, to be fair it would probably look more like this...
But basements are where they keep you until the neighbours stop asking where you've gone.
We all know this.
Anything Really Antique
It looks lovely until the vengeful spirit of its original owner leaves you torn to shreds and draped around your own house like bunting at a macabre jubilee!
Shower Curtains*
Not only do they suddenly try to cling all over you like a teenage boy at a school dance if you get too close to them during a hot shower on a cold day, we also know that shower curtains are only good for two thing...
- Giving psychopaths a place to hide
- Being stabbed through.
Ahem.
I know I'm not really going to be torn apart by vengeful spirits or eaten by monsters or murdered by a shadowy figure with an axe** but I have a truly overactive imagination and a 'you never know' attitude towards superstitions and the unexplained***.
I probably will get a coat rack and a folding screen one day, dunno about antiques, and I probably won't even have to think about a basement.
I know basements are handy for storage and for hiding during Cold Wars but in Australia we've never really gone in for basements in a big way, they're not that common.
*This addition care of Erin Palette who reminded me of the existence of these menaces!
**Fingers crossed!
***And the rock-solid belief that if you say something won't happen to you and are all smug about it that you're just about daring the universe to make it happen.
Saturday, 19 May 2012
An Unexpected Opportunity
Huh, well that was easy...
Less than a month ago I was grumbling about how long it takes me to plan trips and how much time I spend faffing about researching and agonising over how much time to take and how much ground I should try to cover and then my father asked me if I wanted to come on a trip with him and I just said yes.
So, yes, in December of this year I'm going on a trip with my father and my brother.
We're going to Nepal to trek from Lukla to the base camp at Everest.
Yes, in December.
Yes, the Himalayas in December.
Yep.
As we're not going up the actual mountain, the trek itself is supposed to be manageable as long as you prepare yourself with some regular and varied exercise a few months in advance.
I already walk for about two hours every day but I'm going to have to start mixing that up a bit, replace some of the walking with stair climbing and biking to get some more cardio going.
The trip is 18 days long and includes acclimatisation days that let you rest and get used to the altitude, though I've been informed by the last few days you'll be shuffling along missing full oxygen saturation.
The reaction of various friends and family to hearing about this trip has been equally split between 'OH MY GOD, THAT'S AMAZING!' and '... What on Earth is wrong with you?'
I can over-think things at time, I can be anxious or a bit of a cynic at others but there's no way, no way, that I could let myself be the person who would one day say 'you know I had a chance to go trekking in Nepal once but I didn't take it'.
Any worries I have about things possibly going wrong are completely outweighed by how amazing the experience could be and how much I want to do this.
Have I mentioned that we'll have Sherpas? And pack yaks?
Yes, you read that correctly. Pack. Yaks.
The company we go through pays its guides and Sherpas well and operates on a 'take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints' philosophy and as the time between my decision and the present stretches out I'm getting less nervous and more excited.
Holy crap, I'm going to Nepal!
And to celebrate, I give you this...
Less than a month ago I was grumbling about how long it takes me to plan trips and how much time I spend faffing about researching and agonising over how much time to take and how much ground I should try to cover and then my father asked me if I wanted to come on a trip with him and I just said yes.
So, yes, in December of this year I'm going on a trip with my father and my brother.
We're going to Nepal to trek from Lukla to the base camp at Everest.
Yes, in December.
Yes, the Himalayas in December.
Yep.
As we're not going up the actual mountain, the trek itself is supposed to be manageable as long as you prepare yourself with some regular and varied exercise a few months in advance.
I already walk for about two hours every day but I'm going to have to start mixing that up a bit, replace some of the walking with stair climbing and biking to get some more cardio going.
The trip is 18 days long and includes acclimatisation days that let you rest and get used to the altitude, though I've been informed by the last few days you'll be shuffling along missing full oxygen saturation.
The reaction of various friends and family to hearing about this trip has been equally split between 'OH MY GOD, THAT'S AMAZING!' and '... What on Earth is wrong with you?'
I can over-think things at time, I can be anxious or a bit of a cynic at others but there's no way, no way, that I could let myself be the person who would one day say 'you know I had a chance to go trekking in Nepal once but I didn't take it'.
Any worries I have about things possibly going wrong are completely outweighed by how amazing the experience could be and how much I want to do this.
Have I mentioned that we'll have Sherpas? And pack yaks?
Yes, you read that correctly. Pack. Yaks.
The company we go through pays its guides and Sherpas well and operates on a 'take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints' philosophy and as the time between my decision and the present stretches out I'm getting less nervous and more excited.
Holy crap, I'm going to Nepal!
And to celebrate, I give you this...
Sunday, 13 May 2012
To Battle Stations!
Oh... Wow... Really?
Wow...OK...
You remember at the start of the year when I said my friend Awesome and her fella were expecting a baby?
Well it's not long to go now and it turns out that, contrary to my assumptions, I *am* going to be a birth partner 0_0
This is both a huge honour and really *really* nerve-wracking!
Because a) I want to make sure I support her properly and don't get in the way and b) DO YOU KNOW WHERE BABIES COME FROM? THIS IS GOING TO BE INTENSE!
I am soooooooooooooo* glad I watched all those episodes of One Born Every Minute when she first told me she was pregnant.
It seems it's time to dust them off and watch them again, focusing this time on the fact that I'll be in the room whilst it's going on.
I've been putting together a list of things I can bring that she and her husband may have forgotten or not thought about.
Ricochet's Awesome List of Supportive Birth Partner Paraphernalia
So, yeah, this is happening.
I think I'm ready.
But I'm pretty sure I'm not :-p
*Believe me, there are more o's. So many. You have no idea.
Wow...OK...
You remember at the start of the year when I said my friend Awesome and her fella were expecting a baby?
Well it's not long to go now and it turns out that, contrary to my assumptions, I *am* going to be a birth partner 0_0
This is both a huge honour and really *really* nerve-wracking!
Because a) I want to make sure I support her properly and don't get in the way and b) DO YOU KNOW WHERE BABIES COME FROM? THIS IS GOING TO BE INTENSE!
I am soooooooooooooo* glad I watched all those episodes of One Born Every Minute when she first told me she was pregnant.
It seems it's time to dust them off and watch them again, focusing this time on the fact that I'll be in the room whilst it's going on.
I've been putting together a list of things I can bring that she and her husband may have forgotten or not thought about.
Ricochet's Awesome List of Supportive Birth Partner Paraphernalia
- hand fan to fan her with (or hand-held battery powered one if I can find it, maybe both)
- flannels for her face
- lavender oil
- heat packs
- spray bottle to mist her with
- snacks
- playing cards for if it's a long, boring labour
- exercise ball for her to sit on
- head bands for holding back hair
- tissues for all the crying
- CAMERA! DON'T FORGET THE CAMERA!
- and last but not least, any remaining romantic notions I may have about giving birth, though I expect I'll be asked to leave these at the door as they interfere with the equipment... and the screaming...
So, yeah, this is happening.
I think I'm ready.
But I'm pretty sure I'm not :-p
*Believe me, there are more o's. So many. You have no idea.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
One Thing At A Time
Hmm.
Every time I start trying to plan my next trip overseas I get myself all tangled up.
I start with a simple thought: I should visit Japan.
What I should do next is start researching Japan, looking up sights and cities that I'd like to visit, foods I'd like to try, festivals or events I might want to be present for, which seasons would be the best for what I want to achieve during my trip.
What I do instead is either get distracted by a part of my brain that is still listing other places I want to visit* or I am struck by the Australian Distance Justification and start actually trying to shoehorn visiting these other places into the same trip.
The Australian Distance Justification is essentially that since we're so far away from everything it is financially and ecologically** sensible to try and see as much as possible any time we go abroad.
The idea of 'just' visiting one country is a bit hard to wrap my head around.
If I fly allllllll the way to another continent, only visiting one place seems wasteful.
And of course skimming over countries doesn't do them justice either so by the time I'm finished with that line of thought I'm mentally spending six months to a year out of the country so I can see an appropriate chunk of multiple countries.
Visiting just one country could be worth it if I did it right but part of my brain won't stop saying 'well, whilst you're over there...'.
This shilly shallying isn't a problem exclusive to travel plans, I get this way about just about everything.
I start planning taking up a hobby or spending time on something and then get distracted trying to factor in everything else, get paralysed by choice and just end up dicking around or making plans instead of actually doing things.
Or at least instead of doing them properly.
I go to pick up my knitting and I start thinking maybe I should do some drawing or practise my Italian or do some writing or read something and I gather a bundle of things together and try to do a bit of everything and don't concentrate on any one thing as much as I should.
I still get things done, I still travel, but if I could break myself of this tendency I'm sure I'd get a lot more of everything done.
I just need to figure out a way to do it which doesn't involve going to far in the other direction and making things so rigid that plans and schedules can't be changed.
Like any pattern of behaviour, I know I can't change it over night but I can notice when I'm doing it and make a conscious effort to knock it off.
For instance I'm going to start looking into what I might like to see in Japan.
I'll probably also do a little research into Scandinavia but baby steps.
*I'd like to spend more time in Scandinavia, visit other cities in Europe I haven't seen yet, other countries in Europe which I haven't visited yet, visit different countries in Asia, visit Africa or South America at all, get back to the USA, see Canada...
Every time I start trying to plan my next trip overseas I get myself all tangled up.
I start with a simple thought: I should visit Japan.
What I should do next is start researching Japan, looking up sights and cities that I'd like to visit, foods I'd like to try, festivals or events I might want to be present for, which seasons would be the best for what I want to achieve during my trip.
What I do instead is either get distracted by a part of my brain that is still listing other places I want to visit* or I am struck by the Australian Distance Justification and start actually trying to shoehorn visiting these other places into the same trip.
The Australian Distance Justification is essentially that since we're so far away from everything it is financially and ecologically** sensible to try and see as much as possible any time we go abroad.
The idea of 'just' visiting one country is a bit hard to wrap my head around.
If I fly allllllll the way to another continent, only visiting one place seems wasteful.
And of course skimming over countries doesn't do them justice either so by the time I'm finished with that line of thought I'm mentally spending six months to a year out of the country so I can see an appropriate chunk of multiple countries.
Visiting just one country could be worth it if I did it right but part of my brain won't stop saying 'well, whilst you're over there...'.
This shilly shallying isn't a problem exclusive to travel plans, I get this way about just about everything.
I start planning taking up a hobby or spending time on something and then get distracted trying to factor in everything else, get paralysed by choice and just end up dicking around or making plans instead of actually doing things.
Or at least instead of doing them properly.
I go to pick up my knitting and I start thinking maybe I should do some drawing or practise my Italian or do some writing or read something and I gather a bundle of things together and try to do a bit of everything and don't concentrate on any one thing as much as I should.
I still get things done, I still travel, but if I could break myself of this tendency I'm sure I'd get a lot more of everything done.
I just need to figure out a way to do it which doesn't involve going to far in the other direction and making things so rigid that plans and schedules can't be changed.
Like any pattern of behaviour, I know I can't change it over night but I can notice when I'm doing it and make a conscious effort to knock it off.
For instance I'm going to start looking into what I might like to see in Japan.
I'll probably also do a little research into Scandinavia but baby steps.
*I'd like to spend more time in Scandinavia, visit other cities in Europe I haven't seen yet, other countries in Europe which I haven't visited yet, visit different countries in Asia, visit Africa or South America at all, get back to the USA, see Canada...
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Daughter Of Planning Hermit: This Time It's Personal
To counteract the frowny-face head-shaking nature of the last post, here are a couple more things I would like in my imaginary 'some day' house*.
Dish Draining Cupboard
My Auntie Lina** and Uncle Ugo have one in their apartment in Torino and it is just an insanely good idea. It keeps the dishes out of the way, it allows them to drain somewhere that's designed to get wet, it allows a lot more space than a traditional dish drying rack, it's not cluttering up your bench space, and when it's time to put them away you just pop the cupboard open and take things out in an orderly fashion.
If I wanted to have the sink facing a window I'd have to rethink design but I think I could make it work.
Tilt-Turn Windows
These I also saw for the first time in Italy and they're wonderfully practical.
You turn the knob one way a certain amount and the windows open up properly and you can stick your head out and see who is at the door/what the person down the street is yelling about/whether there is a vicious xenomorph hiding in the shrubbery beneath your window***.
You turn the knob the other way a certain/different amount and the window pops out at the top allowing the passage of cool, fresh air into the room and hot stuffy air out of the room without having to open the entire arrangement.
Living in Australia this means I'd have to have fly wire outside to keep myself from being eaten alive by mosquitoes when I left the window top agape but I figure that could be managed.
Either just by having tilt-turn windows that open inwards, or by having inward opening tilt-turn windows and outward opening flyscreen panels.
I'd prefer the second option because that preserves the ability to stick your head out and have a nosey about.
As an Aussie I've almost never been able to do this because of fly wire being in the way.
It looks like so much fun in the movies...
I also like the Norwegian windows that have a set of windows that swing inwards on the inner edge of the frame and a second set that swing outwards on the outer edge of the frame that allow better insulation in winter but again I'd have to make allowances for flyscreens.
Maybe a rectangle of flywire secured by magnet strips that I could remove or attach at will...
French Doors In The Master Bedroom
I love French doors. These arched ones below are particularly gorgeous.
Now whether they open onto a balcony as shown here or a private courtyard as shown below will depend on how many storeys my imaginary house has and which level I chose to put my bedroom on.
The important thing is that they should be there, they should allow me to move from my bedroom to a relaxing section of the outside world and they should let copious amounts of lovely fresh air and outdoors smells into my bedroom whenever I should wish it!
Dutch Doors
This is another thing you don't see in Australia often, partially due to the aforementioned mosquitoes and so on but also because it just wasn't one of the things the Dutch saw fit to bring over or to share with the rest of us if they did.
I'm still a bit hurt about that, the Dutch.
I mean, look at how lovely they are!
You can get a bit of fresh air**** without letting pets or children wander in or out willy-nilly when they shouldn't.
You can chat to people who are outside when you're inside or vice-versa, hear things that are going on without having to open windows or doors, shut two parts of a door on somebody one after the other to emphasise how displeased you are!
Versatile!
Bathroom Fernery
My grandmother's house has a well-established fernery outside the bathroom window and it is the most absurdly soothing thing.
With the combination of the plants in the fernery and the shade-cloth that protects them, the light levels in the bathroom are gently muted, slightly green and it is always cool and refreshing.
It lets you feel like you're near nature without having to struggle to keep plants alive indoors or deal with the shed leaves, incumbent spiders or other such things.
It ensures privacy - none of that everyone can see your private moments tosh - and overall just gives the room a nice atmosphere.
Alcove Beds
A little room within a room.
A little nook to squirrel yourself away in and - depending on design - remain unseen.
Novel, an interesting use of space, and in some cases almost like having a secret room out in the open.
When I was a kid I imagined being able to turn my bed into a little secret room, I put bookshelves under my bunk bed in such a way that I had a little room underneath my bed, but if you'd told tiny me that these sorts of bed designs actually existed I would have lost my tiny mind.
Especially if it had a built-in book case and looked like it had been nicked from Aladdin.
Courtyard
There will be one. Yes there will.
It might not necessarily look like this one but look at that lighting.
Innit nice?
A nice place to relax and kick back by yourself or entertain if you feel so inclined.
Now I am aware that some of these features may make my house more susceptible to access by general intruders, thieves, weirdoes and zombies but I'll take measures to dissuade that during the planning stages.
I wouldn't want to get lax and then have to spend hours scrubbing brains and blood out of the nice rugs and wooden floors I'm planning on having.
*I am aware that if I did try and cram all the features listed here and in other posts into one house, it probably would end badly for me, for the house, and for my sanity and bank balance.
A girl can still dream though.
A girl can dream.
**Well, she's my grandmother's cousin but we call her Auntie Lina, and that makes her husband Uncle Ugo.
***Well the information will serve the people behind you well. You know very well what form the confirmation of presence will take.
****Are you sensing a theme yet?
Dish Draining Cupboard
My Auntie Lina** and Uncle Ugo have one in their apartment in Torino and it is just an insanely good idea. It keeps the dishes out of the way, it allows them to drain somewhere that's designed to get wet, it allows a lot more space than a traditional dish drying rack, it's not cluttering up your bench space, and when it's time to put them away you just pop the cupboard open and take things out in an orderly fashion.
If I wanted to have the sink facing a window I'd have to rethink design but I think I could make it work.
Tilt-Turn Windows
These I also saw for the first time in Italy and they're wonderfully practical.
You turn the knob one way a certain amount and the windows open up properly and you can stick your head out and see who is at the door/what the person down the street is yelling about/whether there is a vicious xenomorph hiding in the shrubbery beneath your window***.
You turn the knob the other way a certain/different amount and the window pops out at the top allowing the passage of cool, fresh air into the room and hot stuffy air out of the room without having to open the entire arrangement.
Living in Australia this means I'd have to have fly wire outside to keep myself from being eaten alive by mosquitoes when I left the window top agape but I figure that could be managed.
Either just by having tilt-turn windows that open inwards, or by having inward opening tilt-turn windows and outward opening flyscreen panels.
I'd prefer the second option because that preserves the ability to stick your head out and have a nosey about.
As an Aussie I've almost never been able to do this because of fly wire being in the way.
It looks like so much fun in the movies...
I also like the Norwegian windows that have a set of windows that swing inwards on the inner edge of the frame and a second set that swing outwards on the outer edge of the frame that allow better insulation in winter but again I'd have to make allowances for flyscreens.
Maybe a rectangle of flywire secured by magnet strips that I could remove or attach at will...
French Doors In The Master Bedroom
I love French doors. These arched ones below are particularly gorgeous.
Now whether they open onto a balcony as shown here or a private courtyard as shown below will depend on how many storeys my imaginary house has and which level I chose to put my bedroom on.
The important thing is that they should be there, they should allow me to move from my bedroom to a relaxing section of the outside world and they should let copious amounts of lovely fresh air and outdoors smells into my bedroom whenever I should wish it!
Dutch Doors
This is another thing you don't see in Australia often, partially due to the aforementioned mosquitoes and so on but also because it just wasn't one of the things the Dutch saw fit to bring over or to share with the rest of us if they did.
I'm still a bit hurt about that, the Dutch.
I mean, look at how lovely they are!
You can get a bit of fresh air**** without letting pets or children wander in or out willy-nilly when they shouldn't.
You can chat to people who are outside when you're inside or vice-versa, hear things that are going on without having to open windows or doors, shut two parts of a door on somebody one after the other to emphasise how displeased you are!
Versatile!
Bathroom Fernery
My grandmother's house has a well-established fernery outside the bathroom window and it is the most absurdly soothing thing.
With the combination of the plants in the fernery and the shade-cloth that protects them, the light levels in the bathroom are gently muted, slightly green and it is always cool and refreshing.
It lets you feel like you're near nature without having to struggle to keep plants alive indoors or deal with the shed leaves, incumbent spiders or other such things.
It ensures privacy - none of that everyone can see your private moments tosh - and overall just gives the room a nice atmosphere.
Alcove Beds
A little room within a room.
A little nook to squirrel yourself away in and - depending on design - remain unseen.
Novel, an interesting use of space, and in some cases almost like having a secret room out in the open.
When I was a kid I imagined being able to turn my bed into a little secret room, I put bookshelves under my bunk bed in such a way that I had a little room underneath my bed, but if you'd told tiny me that these sorts of bed designs actually existed I would have lost my tiny mind.
Especially if it had a built-in book case and looked like it had been nicked from Aladdin.
Courtyard
There will be one. Yes there will.
It might not necessarily look like this one but look at that lighting.
Innit nice?
A nice place to relax and kick back by yourself or entertain if you feel so inclined.
Now I am aware that some of these features may make my house more susceptible to access by general intruders, thieves, weirdoes and zombies but I'll take measures to dissuade that during the planning stages.
I wouldn't want to get lax and then have to spend hours scrubbing brains and blood out of the nice rugs and wooden floors I'm planning on having.
*I am aware that if I did try and cram all the features listed here and in other posts into one house, it probably would end badly for me, for the house, and for my sanity and bank balance.
A girl can still dream though.
A girl can dream.
**Well, she's my grandmother's cousin but we call her Auntie Lina, and that makes her husband Uncle Ugo.
***Well the information will serve the people behind you well. You know very well what form the confirmation of presence will take.
****Are you sensing a theme yet?
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Things I DON'T Want In My House
In a 'fortunate for me, not so great for them' fashion I've been noticing items in other people's houses that would drive me up the freaking wall.
I say 'not so great for them' not because my displeasure will rain down upon them like the wrath of the gods but because these are usually permanent features of their freshly built or bought homes.
Maybe they don't notice the features I'm referring to or if they do, they don't bother them or maybe they like them*; I just know they're not for me.
In any case, these items are on the 'not if I can help it list' for inclusion in my imaginary 'some day' house.
Push Plug Sinks
In case you don't know what I meant by push-plug**, I meant this.
I dislike them.
These drive me inordinately nuts.
You have to push them down to lock them in place and push them down again to release them.
Seems easy enough except for when they break and then you can't seal your sink or if they get stuck and you can't let what's in the sink drain away or if you have something fall down the hole that you could have hooked out if you could see what you were doing or if you get a build up of gunge in there and using a plunger doesn't work properly because every time you try to suction the gunge up with the plunger, you accidentally press the stupid button and seal the sink.
In short, they're stupid and in no way as efficient as a plug.
Sure, plugs aren't attached and I guess in theory they can get lost but they're not prohibitively expensive and they work without hindering functionality.
Novelty Basins Of Any Description
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
God, no. (And really, watermark thingie? House beautiful? Is that a claim you're willing to stand by?)
Sinks should be set in the countertop, they should be a certain depth and the tap should be positioned and designed in such a fashion that if you need to get your head underneath it you can.
Quickly and comfortably.
You get something in your eyes that you should not have gotten in your eyes are you going to want a strangely shaped basin that more often that not is so poorly designed that it has you splashing water everywhere but the sink? Or do you want a sink you can get your face into so you can wash anything dangerous off as quickly as possible without hurting yourself?
And cleaning around those amazing unique sinks looks complicated and unnecessary.
It's just a bunch of new crevices for mold to grow in and areas to bang or scrape your fingers on as you try to access them.
Angled Shower Bottoms
I don't have a photo for this one yet but essentially the floor of the shower is raised in the centre, sloping outwards and downwards to a channel that runs around the outside edge of the shower and encourages the water towards the drain.
I guess this is supposed to discourage stagnant water that might sit around being gross, encouraging the development of soap scum, and harbouring pubic hairs.
What it really does is turn the shower into a hazard that risks turning an able bodied person into a disabled person and a disabled person into a dead person.
News flash, geniuses! Shower floors are slippery! And when you angle them... people slip! And when they try and regain their balance... they stub their toes in your dumb water channels which you engineered to solve a problem that no-one ever has ever complained about.
Covered Shower Drains
Ditto with the photo thing for now.
The idea here is that they've placed a little raised cap over the shower drain so the water goes in without you having to look into the gross yucky hole!
It also means you can't clean the gross yucky hole which after a year probably has a Rapunzel-worth of hair hanging down in a long, mold clogged tail of disgustingness that allows the shower water to drain away in a slow fashion that won't startle it or allow anything else washed down the drain the chance to slip away too quickly before being gathered into The Collective.
I'm pretty sure The Collective will give you some kind of disease.
Plus if you like stubbing your toes, here's another charmer!
Certain Surfaces In Bathrooms, Kitchens And Laundries
Namely, fake marble or fake anything else counters made from synthetic materials.
Synthetic materials that are easily scratched, may discolour when you put a hot pot down on them and after a relatively short amount of time look completely beat up.
My bathroom counters will get splashed and shouldn't be made of something that will warp from the damp or develop little tide marks no matter how quickly you clean up after said splashing.
My kitchen counters will have hot pots put on them, they will have meat mallets used on them, they will have pasta makers clamped to them.
They'll take a beating and I intend for them to be made of a material that will survive this intact, looking OK and won't cause me health problems.
If a stone counter top - entire or compressed - has issues that would render them too expensive or too impractical then they're off the list.
If the wooden one would prove a health hazard if improperly cured or cared for, I may even get one with a hard-working boring industrial kitchen veneer over the top.
Whatever it's made of it'll be in a colour and style where it won't matter or show up if it scratches, won't dent and I won't give a tinker's cuss about spilling food upon.
Counter's are for using. Not for fussing over and protecting.
Floor-To-Ceiling Windows
Every second house built or renovated on Grand Designs seems to feature or be primarily composed of floor-to-ceiling windows.
They have a lot of drawbacks.
They transmit heat too readily making a house hard to cool in the summer or heat in the winter without the heat effect you're trying to achieve and maintain leeching away.
If you put up curtains to counteract this effect, and have to keep them closed for a goodly portion of the year you may as well not have floor-to-ceiling windows at all.
They'd be a bugger to clean and you'd have to clean them regularly to keep them from getting scummy or making the place look untidy.
It would be simplicity itself for a ravening horde of zombies or post-apocalyptic cannibal humans to just smash their way into your house unless you spring for reinforced magic glass which very few people do.
I'll admit that if you have a particularly gorgeous view they may be warranted in one room of the house, that's one, but let's not go crazy.
Recessed Down Lights
These are so poorly designed.
Even if you get the right size and intensity globe for your fixtures, often the heat from operating your light - a not unreasonable thing to want to do - will warp and discolour the housing it sits in.
I've been in houses, brand new houses, where the down lights are dangling out of the ceilings on their wiring because the heat of operating the down light weakened the glue or whatever held it in place and caused it to drop out of the roof.
If anything goes wrong with them or you can't get the globe out because they're recessed and impossible to get hold of, you either need to remove the entire housing or call an electrician.
Mounted down lights may be fine if done properly but recessed ones are a terrible pain in the arse.
Inappropriately-Designed Toilet Windows
I flat out refuse to look for a photo for this one but the example I give you should draw a clear enough picture.
At a brand new house designed by architects wanting to stretch their options, the tiniest room was designed with a big old window that reached all the way from ceiling to about hip high.
You know, exactly the right shape and size to show the entirety of whoever was on the toilet to whoever was looking in the window.
And this being a new house in a shake and bake community, the people next door were so close that their windows were oriented to look at your toilet.
So the only way you could have any privacy was to have the horizontal blinds closed at all times.
This meant that if you had the window open for fresh air, you would be slapped in the leg and other body parts by a horizontal blind being battered about by the wind.
It also meant that you needed to use the light switch during the middle of the day because horizontal blinds don't allow you to leave a section at the top open to let in natural light.
Idiots.
Laundry Nook
Nope.
Yes, I know we don't spend anywhere near the amount of time we used to have to on doing laundry and we don't need anywhere near the paraphernalia or the space but I reject laundry nooks.
They seem to imply that laundry is something that should be hidden, denied and ignored, as if the clothes and sheets and whatnot just miraculously clean themselves and that implying otherwise is distasteful.
Either that or is just says 'we can't be bothered devoting a room to cleaning activities and supplies because we're designing houses poorly and need the room for something else because we're trying to shoe-horn a living space onto a postage stamp with no garden'.
I want a room with a decent sized counter, a couple of deep sinks and a decent amount of storage space for cleaning items and linens.
I want somewhere to leave my sheets and towels and clothes if I can't or don't feel like washing them straight away. Somewhere they'll fit without having to be crammed out of the way.
I also want somewhere I can clean other household items that might need cleaning.
You know, things like shoes with dog poop on the soles which I strangely don't want to wash in the bathtub I bathe in, the shower I stand in or any of the sinks I wash my hands, face, food or crockery and utensils in.
Laundries are useful and versatile dammit.
There's probably a few other things but that's more than enough ranting to get on with for now.
More than enough.
*Oh the horror!
**Americans etc, you say 'sink stopper', Australians say 'plug'. This is because it can be used to plug up the drains of both sinks AND baths and saying you need a sink stopper for your bath confuses us.
I say 'not so great for them' not because my displeasure will rain down upon them like the wrath of the gods but because these are usually permanent features of their freshly built or bought homes.
Maybe they don't notice the features I'm referring to or if they do, they don't bother them or maybe they like them*; I just know they're not for me.
In any case, these items are on the 'not if I can help it list' for inclusion in my imaginary 'some day' house.
Push Plug Sinks
In case you don't know what I meant by push-plug**, I meant this.
I dislike them.
These drive me inordinately nuts.
You have to push them down to lock them in place and push them down again to release them.
Seems easy enough except for when they break and then you can't seal your sink or if they get stuck and you can't let what's in the sink drain away or if you have something fall down the hole that you could have hooked out if you could see what you were doing or if you get a build up of gunge in there and using a plunger doesn't work properly because every time you try to suction the gunge up with the plunger, you accidentally press the stupid button and seal the sink.
In short, they're stupid and in no way as efficient as a plug.
Sure, plugs aren't attached and I guess in theory they can get lost but they're not prohibitively expensive and they work without hindering functionality.
Novelty Basins Of Any Description
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
God, no. (And really, watermark thingie? House beautiful? Is that a claim you're willing to stand by?)
Sinks should be set in the countertop, they should be a certain depth and the tap should be positioned and designed in such a fashion that if you need to get your head underneath it you can.
Quickly and comfortably.
You get something in your eyes that you should not have gotten in your eyes are you going to want a strangely shaped basin that more often that not is so poorly designed that it has you splashing water everywhere but the sink? Or do you want a sink you can get your face into so you can wash anything dangerous off as quickly as possible without hurting yourself?
And cleaning around those amazing unique sinks looks complicated and unnecessary.
It's just a bunch of new crevices for mold to grow in and areas to bang or scrape your fingers on as you try to access them.
Angled Shower Bottoms
I don't have a photo for this one yet but essentially the floor of the shower is raised in the centre, sloping outwards and downwards to a channel that runs around the outside edge of the shower and encourages the water towards the drain.
I guess this is supposed to discourage stagnant water that might sit around being gross, encouraging the development of soap scum, and harbouring pubic hairs.
What it really does is turn the shower into a hazard that risks turning an able bodied person into a disabled person and a disabled person into a dead person.
News flash, geniuses! Shower floors are slippery! And when you angle them... people slip! And when they try and regain their balance... they stub their toes in your dumb water channels which you engineered to solve a problem that no-one ever has ever complained about.
Covered Shower Drains
Ditto with the photo thing for now.
The idea here is that they've placed a little raised cap over the shower drain so the water goes in without you having to look into the gross yucky hole!
It also means you can't clean the gross yucky hole which after a year probably has a Rapunzel-worth of hair hanging down in a long, mold clogged tail of disgustingness that allows the shower water to drain away in a slow fashion that won't startle it or allow anything else washed down the drain the chance to slip away too quickly before being gathered into The Collective.
I'm pretty sure The Collective will give you some kind of disease.
Plus if you like stubbing your toes, here's another charmer!
Certain Surfaces In Bathrooms, Kitchens And Laundries
Namely, fake marble or fake anything else counters made from synthetic materials.
Synthetic materials that are easily scratched, may discolour when you put a hot pot down on them and after a relatively short amount of time look completely beat up.
My bathroom counters will get splashed and shouldn't be made of something that will warp from the damp or develop little tide marks no matter how quickly you clean up after said splashing.
My kitchen counters will have hot pots put on them, they will have meat mallets used on them, they will have pasta makers clamped to them.
They'll take a beating and I intend for them to be made of a material that will survive this intact, looking OK and won't cause me health problems.
If a stone counter top - entire or compressed - has issues that would render them too expensive or too impractical then they're off the list.
If the wooden one would prove a health hazard if improperly cured or cared for, I may even get one with a hard-working boring industrial kitchen veneer over the top.
Whatever it's made of it'll be in a colour and style where it won't matter or show up if it scratches, won't dent and I won't give a tinker's cuss about spilling food upon.
Counter's are for using. Not for fussing over and protecting.
Floor-To-Ceiling Windows
Every second house built or renovated on Grand Designs seems to feature or be primarily composed of floor-to-ceiling windows.
They have a lot of drawbacks.
They transmit heat too readily making a house hard to cool in the summer or heat in the winter without the heat effect you're trying to achieve and maintain leeching away.
If you put up curtains to counteract this effect, and have to keep them closed for a goodly portion of the year you may as well not have floor-to-ceiling windows at all.
They'd be a bugger to clean and you'd have to clean them regularly to keep them from getting scummy or making the place look untidy.
It would be simplicity itself for a ravening horde of zombies or post-apocalyptic cannibal humans to just smash their way into your house unless you spring for reinforced magic glass which very few people do.
I'll admit that if you have a particularly gorgeous view they may be warranted in one room of the house, that's one, but let's not go crazy.
Recessed Down Lights
These are so poorly designed.
Even if you get the right size and intensity globe for your fixtures, often the heat from operating your light - a not unreasonable thing to want to do - will warp and discolour the housing it sits in.
I've been in houses, brand new houses, where the down lights are dangling out of the ceilings on their wiring because the heat of operating the down light weakened the glue or whatever held it in place and caused it to drop out of the roof.
If anything goes wrong with them or you can't get the globe out because they're recessed and impossible to get hold of, you either need to remove the entire housing or call an electrician.
Mounted down lights may be fine if done properly but recessed ones are a terrible pain in the arse.
Inappropriately-Designed Toilet Windows
I flat out refuse to look for a photo for this one but the example I give you should draw a clear enough picture.
At a brand new house designed by architects wanting to stretch their options, the tiniest room was designed with a big old window that reached all the way from ceiling to about hip high.
You know, exactly the right shape and size to show the entirety of whoever was on the toilet to whoever was looking in the window.
And this being a new house in a shake and bake community, the people next door were so close that their windows were oriented to look at your toilet.
So the only way you could have any privacy was to have the horizontal blinds closed at all times.
This meant that if you had the window open for fresh air, you would be slapped in the leg and other body parts by a horizontal blind being battered about by the wind.
It also meant that you needed to use the light switch during the middle of the day because horizontal blinds don't allow you to leave a section at the top open to let in natural light.
Idiots.
Laundry Nook
Nope.
Yes, I know we don't spend anywhere near the amount of time we used to have to on doing laundry and we don't need anywhere near the paraphernalia or the space but I reject laundry nooks.
They seem to imply that laundry is something that should be hidden, denied and ignored, as if the clothes and sheets and whatnot just miraculously clean themselves and that implying otherwise is distasteful.
Either that or is just says 'we can't be bothered devoting a room to cleaning activities and supplies because we're designing houses poorly and need the room for something else because we're trying to shoe-horn a living space onto a postage stamp with no garden'.
I want a room with a decent sized counter, a couple of deep sinks and a decent amount of storage space for cleaning items and linens.
I want somewhere to leave my sheets and towels and clothes if I can't or don't feel like washing them straight away. Somewhere they'll fit without having to be crammed out of the way.
I also want somewhere I can clean other household items that might need cleaning.
You know, things like shoes with dog poop on the soles which I strangely don't want to wash in the bathtub I bathe in, the shower I stand in or any of the sinks I wash my hands, face, food or crockery and utensils in.
Laundries are useful and versatile dammit.
There's probably a few other things but that's more than enough ranting to get on with for now.
More than enough.
*Oh the horror!
**Americans etc, you say 'sink stopper', Australians say 'plug'. This is because it can be used to plug up the drains of both sinks AND baths and saying you need a sink stopper for your bath confuses us.
Saturday, 11 February 2012
A Slight Oversight
It's been ages since I went travelling* and my realisation of this fact ran smack-bang into my remembering that one of my friends who has been working in New Zealand for the last year is finishing up her contract in about a month and will be heading back to Australia.
I messaged her saying it was a pity I hadn't had the wherewithal to get myself organised to go over and see her at any point during that time.
She said "What are you doing the weekend of the 25th and 26th of February? We're going to the beach for a weekend, you want to come?"
A few years ago this sort of spontaneous arrangement would have had me hyperventilating into a paper bag, here in the present I just said 'YES!'
I started looking at flights, got the OK from my boss to take some time off, made myself a reminder to buy a new bathing suit and then I remembered...
My passport was due to expire mid-June!
Crud!
Sure I'd be travelling in February but they advise you not to travel on a passport with less than 6 months on it on the chance that you get to the other country and get turned back at the gate.
Crud crud crud!
I have my Italian passport of course and that would work but what if when I came back into Australia on my Italian passport that meant the immigration office would be considering me a foreign entry and would later demand that I leave the country and come back in on my Australian passport?
Unlikely, I know, but this is where all the nerves which would usually have popped up when I made the decision to travel had obviously decided to set up shop.
I jumped on the Australian passport website and started clicking around to see whether I was in fact screwed.
According to the website it usually takes 10 working days to process a passport - score! - but you should allow between 5 and 8 working days for postage to be safe - un-score**!
Crud crud CRUD!
But wait!
What's this?
Priority processing?
For an extra wad of cash we will process your passport in 2 working days instead of 10?
So, bribery, ey?
I can play that game.
On the Sunday I filled and printed out my passport renewal form and located my old passport.
On the Monday I went into the post office, had a photo taken, signed my form, transferred my wads of cash, watched as they invalidated my old passport with a pair of scissors*** and submitted my form.
On Tuesday I received notice that my passport was finished and would be on its way to me soon.
On Thursday my passport turned up in the post.
Phew!
Pheeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeewwwww!
Considering the amount of dreams and nightmares I've had about racing to airports and realising that I'd forgotten to bring my passport with me, I found the prospect of actually not having a passport completely terrifying.
Now I have my passport, I have my flights booked and everything else is just details.
This is going to be fun!
I know this is just going to set me off again, with the scheming and the planning and the yearning.
And oh boy am I ready for that.
I am definitely ready for that :-D
*A bit over 2 years.
**At the time I had 15 working days available to be and I was not willing to gamble.
***They just snip a bit off the front cover with scissors so nobody can mess it about to look valid again.
I messaged her saying it was a pity I hadn't had the wherewithal to get myself organised to go over and see her at any point during that time.
She said "What are you doing the weekend of the 25th and 26th of February? We're going to the beach for a weekend, you want to come?"
A few years ago this sort of spontaneous arrangement would have had me hyperventilating into a paper bag, here in the present I just said 'YES!'
I started looking at flights, got the OK from my boss to take some time off, made myself a reminder to buy a new bathing suit and then I remembered...
My passport was due to expire mid-June!
Crud!
Sure I'd be travelling in February but they advise you not to travel on a passport with less than 6 months on it on the chance that you get to the other country and get turned back at the gate.
Crud crud crud!
I have my Italian passport of course and that would work but what if when I came back into Australia on my Italian passport that meant the immigration office would be considering me a foreign entry and would later demand that I leave the country and come back in on my Australian passport?
Unlikely, I know, but this is where all the nerves which would usually have popped up when I made the decision to travel had obviously decided to set up shop.
I jumped on the Australian passport website and started clicking around to see whether I was in fact screwed.
According to the website it usually takes 10 working days to process a passport - score! - but you should allow between 5 and 8 working days for postage to be safe - un-score**!
Crud crud CRUD!
But wait!
What's this?
Priority processing?
For an extra wad of cash we will process your passport in 2 working days instead of 10?
So, bribery, ey?
I can play that game.
On the Sunday I filled and printed out my passport renewal form and located my old passport.
On the Monday I went into the post office, had a photo taken, signed my form, transferred my wads of cash, watched as they invalidated my old passport with a pair of scissors*** and submitted my form.
On Tuesday I received notice that my passport was finished and would be on its way to me soon.
On Thursday my passport turned up in the post.
Phew!
Pheeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeewwwww!
Considering the amount of dreams and nightmares I've had about racing to airports and realising that I'd forgotten to bring my passport with me, I found the prospect of actually not having a passport completely terrifying.
Now I have my passport, I have my flights booked and everything else is just details.
This is going to be fun!
I know this is just going to set me off again, with the scheming and the planning and the yearning.
And oh boy am I ready for that.
I am definitely ready for that :-D
*A bit over 2 years.
**At the time I had 15 working days available to be and I was not willing to gamble.
***They just snip a bit off the front cover with scissors so nobody can mess it about to look valid again.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Expanding The Franchise The Old-Fashioned Way
Do you guys remember my mate Awesome?
Well she and her fella have been married for about a year and a half now and towards the end of last year she told me that the two of them were trying for a baby.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Awesome has never been that interested in kids and had always said she was going to have dogs instead.
Of course that was before we met our friend Inky*.
Inky has three little boys.
When we first started hanging out with her they were 0, 2, and 4.
They're now 2, 4, and 6.
Over the last two years Awesome's time with Inky's kids has obviously convinced her that tinier humans are not in fact the devil's spawn that she thought they were and that having one of her own might not be such a terrible thing.
And now Awesome and her husband are expecting.
So having been informed I am going to be an auntie, I immediately starting thinking of ways I could help out.
For starters I've been reminding everyone that as a metal-head couple, Awesome and her fella are not going to be wanting any gifts in pastel.
They've already bought Awesome Junior this here jumpsuit...
...and most of the baby's other clothes are likely to be fairly similar in nature.
The other thing I started doing was research.
This is what I do.
I read up on stuff and just have it sitting in my head in case it becomes useful.
It's how I helped my sister and Awesome plan for their respective weddings and it has served me well in a lot of other situations.
So I did a bit of generalised reading here, a bit of asking all my kid-having relatives and coworkers what are the most useful things you can do to help out a new set of parents there, a bit of looking a baby paraphernalia when out and about.
Over Christmas I spent about four days getting some hands on experience with my cousin's 4 month old and 20 month old so that when Awesome is all sleep-deprived and serial-killer-looking I can pop over for a bit and wrangle the child as she has a shower and/or a nap and gets out of the house for a bit.
Two tips I learned from that particular experience:
Awesome isn't quite ready to actually think about the Baby Exit Strategy just yet so I figured I'd have a look into it for her so that when she is ready to start planning I can have the information on hand.
So I started watching this documentary One Born Every Minute and Oh My Lord.
Apparently having babies can be somewhat painful!
I mean obviously it would be considering what has to come out where but until I watched this show I didn't fully comprehend how long labour went on and some of things that can happen during it.
Bloody amazing.
And some people's partners are completely [redacted] useless!
They just sit there looking fed up and making snide comments whilst their lady writhes around in agony.
I know you're only seeing a slice of their life and it's at quite a stressful time but you'd think that during labour would be the one time you'd manage to reign in your jackassery and be supportive!
Even if just to look good for the cameras!
But overall it's a fascinating series.
You get to see a snapshot of people's family situations, their circumstances, their personalities and witness an important moment in their lives.
It does make you think the human body is somewhat bodged together as it seems to take an absurd amount of effort to eject a fresh human being from the slot.
Inky is going to be Awesome's other birth partner (along with Awesome's husband) as she's had several children and is a registered nurse so I won't actually be there but knowing what is coming up is both incredibly interesting and rather daunting.
Both from a logistics point of view and from a 'holy crap, we're adults now' viewpoint.
Obviously we have been for a while, we're all about 28, but the events of the last few years have really driven it home.
Awesome has gotten married and is expecting a baby.
Eep has built a house with her fella and they're getting married at the end of this year.
I have a credit card and have used it to book international flights and hotel rooms like a real grown up and am routinely taken seriously despite constantly feeling like I'm play acting.
We've all had cars, had jobs, paid taxes, organised all sorts of weird and woolly grown up things and after Awesome Junior pops out of the chute everything is going to be different from then on.
Awesome will be the first of my friends to have a baby*** and even with all the reading I've done I don't think I'll be ready for how much that's going to change our lives and the nature of our friendships.
If nothing else it's going to be educational.
*She has tattoos. Lovely tattoos.
**This didn't happen but it was close, oh so close!
***Inky has babies but I didn't know here when she was having them. They came as part of the package with our friendship. Awesome is the first of my school friends to have a baby.
Well she and her fella have been married for about a year and a half now and towards the end of last year she told me that the two of them were trying for a baby.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Awesome has never been that interested in kids and had always said she was going to have dogs instead.
Of course that was before we met our friend Inky*.
Inky has three little boys.
When we first started hanging out with her they were 0, 2, and 4.
They're now 2, 4, and 6.
Over the last two years Awesome's time with Inky's kids has obviously convinced her that tinier humans are not in fact the devil's spawn that she thought they were and that having one of her own might not be such a terrible thing.
And now Awesome and her husband are expecting.
So having been informed I am going to be an auntie, I immediately starting thinking of ways I could help out.
For starters I've been reminding everyone that as a metal-head couple, Awesome and her fella are not going to be wanting any gifts in pastel.
They've already bought Awesome Junior this here jumpsuit...
...and most of the baby's other clothes are likely to be fairly similar in nature.
The other thing I started doing was research.
This is what I do.
I read up on stuff and just have it sitting in my head in case it becomes useful.
It's how I helped my sister and Awesome plan for their respective weddings and it has served me well in a lot of other situations.
So I did a bit of generalised reading here, a bit of asking all my kid-having relatives and coworkers what are the most useful things you can do to help out a new set of parents there, a bit of looking a baby paraphernalia when out and about.
Over Christmas I spent about four days getting some hands on experience with my cousin's 4 month old and 20 month old so that when Awesome is all sleep-deprived and serial-killer-looking I can pop over for a bit and wrangle the child as she has a shower and/or a nap and gets out of the house for a bit.
Two tips I learned from that particular experience:
- Don't wear necklaces around babies and toddlers. Not because they will get a hold of them - though they will - but because they have this disconcerting habit of flinging their heads against your chest and you don't want to have to explain a Celtic cross shaped bruise on their soft head bits**.
- If you've got a voice you use for telling your dogs or cats off it works perfectly with kids. You say 'put that down' in the 'no' voice you use for dogs and they put that right down. So useful!
Awesome isn't quite ready to actually think about the Baby Exit Strategy just yet so I figured I'd have a look into it for her so that when she is ready to start planning I can have the information on hand.
So I started watching this documentary One Born Every Minute and Oh My Lord.
Apparently having babies can be somewhat painful!
I mean obviously it would be considering what has to come out where but until I watched this show I didn't fully comprehend how long labour went on and some of things that can happen during it.
Bloody amazing.
And some people's partners are completely [redacted] useless!
They just sit there looking fed up and making snide comments whilst their lady writhes around in agony.
I know you're only seeing a slice of their life and it's at quite a stressful time but you'd think that during labour would be the one time you'd manage to reign in your jackassery and be supportive!
Even if just to look good for the cameras!
But overall it's a fascinating series.
You get to see a snapshot of people's family situations, their circumstances, their personalities and witness an important moment in their lives.
It does make you think the human body is somewhat bodged together as it seems to take an absurd amount of effort to eject a fresh human being from the slot.
Inky is going to be Awesome's other birth partner (along with Awesome's husband) as she's had several children and is a registered nurse so I won't actually be there but knowing what is coming up is both incredibly interesting and rather daunting.
Both from a logistics point of view and from a 'holy crap, we're adults now' viewpoint.
Obviously we have been for a while, we're all about 28, but the events of the last few years have really driven it home.
Awesome has gotten married and is expecting a baby.
Eep has built a house with her fella and they're getting married at the end of this year.
I have a credit card and have used it to book international flights and hotel rooms like a real grown up and am routinely taken seriously despite constantly feeling like I'm play acting.
We've all had cars, had jobs, paid taxes, organised all sorts of weird and woolly grown up things and after Awesome Junior pops out of the chute everything is going to be different from then on.
Awesome will be the first of my friends to have a baby*** and even with all the reading I've done I don't think I'll be ready for how much that's going to change our lives and the nature of our friendships.
If nothing else it's going to be educational.
*She has tattoos. Lovely tattoos.
**This didn't happen but it was close, oh so close!
***Inky has babies but I didn't know here when she was having them. They came as part of the package with our friendship. Awesome is the first of my school friends to have a baby.
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Plants I Want In The Garden I'll Eventually Have
Prompted by the sudden memory of a bush that grew in the garden of the house I grew up in, and the two hour long search for its name that eventually ended in failure and having to ask my Dad who miraculously remembered*, I was set off on another planning jag for my imaginary 'one day' house.
Presented in no particular order, I give you plants that I wish to one day have in my garden.
Rose bush
Eucalyptus tree
Mint
Aloe vera
Lemon tree
Lavender
Pacific blue (or Ceanothus papillosus roweanus)
Frangipani
Passionfruit vine
Silk tree
Honeysuckle
Daphne Odora
*It was the Pacific Blue, by the way, we called it The Bee Tree because bees absolutely loved it.
Presented in no particular order, I give you plants that I wish to one day have in my garden.
Rose bush
Eucalyptus tree
Mint
Aloe vera
Lemon tree
Lavender
Pacific blue (or Ceanothus papillosus roweanus)
Frangipani
Passionfruit vine
Silk tree
Honeysuckle
Daphne Odora
*It was the Pacific Blue, by the way, we called it The Bee Tree because bees absolutely loved it.
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