Crochet granny-square achievement

Would you believe it? I wouldn't. But I actually achieved a crochet something. My first granny square! It went a bit wrong to begin with, got a little lumpy at the end, but overall did end up how it was meant to!

It's not perfect and it's only one square, but hey, I'm excited!

Pest Wars

I got home tonight and found a welcoming party at the front of my house. Millipedes. Around and on my front door, up the walls, on the porch roof, floor, footpath, and even starting to wriggle inside.

So I carefully made my own way inside and ran for the pyrethrum gun, my trusty weapon that saved my strawberries from the millipedes a few months ago. (I picked up the camera on the way, of course.)

Pesticide weapon in one hand, camera in the other I sprayed them and they fell, with this little ‘plot’ noise if I scored a direct hit with the spray. So then it was raining millipedes.

It was very satisfying, although disgusting, and I was making little shrieking noises as I showered pyrethrum at them, possibly freaking out or amusing some neighbour of mine.

Possibly I used excessive force. In this photo of the aftermath, you may be able to see how the porch entry is actually wet with spray. But, those millipedes aren’t moving.

And otherwise, I was worried that I was going to wake up in the morning covered in millipedes. That they’d gradually encroach on my bed (in the room next to the front door of course) and swarm on me in the night. (Millipede woman!!!)

I can still smell them. (I probably have them stuck to my shoes.) I remember them at one house when I was a kid. Millipedes crawling up the hallway carpet, in the bathtub, even in my bed. That stinky millipede stenchiness.

If that wasn't exciting enough, today also brought other pest incidents.

This one is minor, I’m only mentioning it because it also contributed to today’s pest warfare. The kitchen at work had so many ants that it took me more than twenty minutes to just wipe them off the surface of the bench and off everything anywhere the sink. Hundreds of them.

Several times this evening (I was helping in the kitchen at an event tonight) I would come across another corner of some random cupboard where a big crawling blob of ants was eating who knows what. The last time it happened, I was preoccupied and just left them there. They weren’t near the food. They won that one.

Lastly, there were the fantastic horrors of a white ant swarm. If you didn’t know they did that, well, they do.

My mum saw them go past, firstly one by one…. are they moths? Little moths? Then there were thousands of them, as far as she could see, flying in this cloud through the air. And Neville confirms that yes, they’re white ants flying around out there. Landing in the trees on their fenceline, birds flocking after them, snatching at them and eating them as they flew.

My mum said it was like a movie, she felt like she’d just become part of a movie. It sure sounded like a horror movie to me. She couldn’t believe it was real, this great cloud of insects, flying through the town.

And as I’m listening to her tell about this bizarre event, another person then brings up the story of a house in a neighbouring town, years ago, where the new tenants said to the real estate agent ‘well, we’ve locked the white ants in the bedroom and we can’t go in now, but they’re trapped’. And the agent is confused and worried enough, and picturing these white ants crawling up the walls.

They get there and open the door, and the room is full of white ants swarming everywhere, buzzing around inside the bedroom in another great cloud.

The tenants had reported that as they tried to sleep at night, they could hear something buzzing and gnawing in the walls…..

The white ants, trapped in their little room, then proceeded to eat their way through the floorboards, leaving nothing behind but the carpet, all bunched up and sort of undulating across the floor joists, just eating their way through the wooden bits. The tenants had to leave.

Personally, who wouldn’t be fine with sharing your house with that? With buzzing and gnawing in the walls, and a concern that maybe something would buzz and gnaw their way through your bed while you slept on it.

Sweet dreams, everybody!!

Bathrobe Adventures

Amongst other things, I have an almost daily habit of running around outside in my bathrobe in the early morning, or sometimes not so early. And sometimes it’s after dinner as well, which is also broad daylight during daylight savings.

Picking grass, hunching over and creeping around my mostly dead- weed lawn, poring over it even, searching for prime bunches or even individual pieces of grass and a stray stalk of dandelion or milk-thistle, going in and out my back door with handfuls of grass. Sometimes armfuls. In my dressing gown. Carrying and taking inside what are obviously bunches of grass or weeds.

At least I try to avoid the front yard. Although it sort of is the front yard, as the side of the house is angled towards the street and doesn’t have a separate fence. If I hear people or a car, I just make sure I’m facing the other way and pretend to be perfectly normally absorbed with my bunches of grass, hunched over the ground. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to be near the hot water heater, so I can just sort of well, hide behind it, in a purposeful kind of way.

So I’m not ashamed of my behaviour, I just don’t like to advertise it. I realise that it could be construed as kind of odd.

I am very fond of my rabbit, and it is spoilt. If you are one of my neighbours, I’m not hoarding that grass in my fridge. I do buy groceries.

Why wouldn't you go in to every random op-shop you came across?

I went to Melbourne for an appointment the other day. (On this particular trip, I first almost went on the wrong day (was organising myself for the next day, and found out it wasn't the next day), then almost went 2 hours too early (was walking out the door to leave and decided to double-check). Lucky I did double check. Both times :D)

So, on my voyages there, I often go past this one op-shop but it's always closed when I can get there, but this time it was open!

Found these awesome treasures (there were lots more!) it was op-shop heaven! You know when you have a dream and you go into an opshop and there’s everything you want, everywhere you turn? Organised, prices you actually want to pay. So here are some of my recent op-shop marvels.

I find these (possibly home-decorated?)
dog glasses very comforting.

Both just nice


This box was a real treasure.
(Don't quite know what to do with it yet :) )

And this hanging kitchen tile makes
me feel very homely & like I want to bake....

And I discovered this blog: (all about op-shopping!!) It's a wonder for vicarious op-shopping!)

And this website, some people who just run op-shop tours (Melbourne): What an idea. That’s what I call a shopping tour! Although I’m not thrilled with the idea of a whole busload of people descending on any op-shop I happen to be in ;). I think that op-shopping is maybe better as a more private thing.

This one last treasure is a (blurry photo of) a roll of ribbon I got from the Violet Town market. It was from this stall that this old lady had, which also had a variety of crocheted items. I think it was one of my favourites :)

I love Engrish

This item sounded so good, I think I'll have to get one. Well at least I think it sounded good, I'm not quite sure...

A sister who knows I love pink....

My dog died two weeks ago or so. I'd had her for 7 years and I have been understandably very upset. My sister came over and very kindly gave me this present:

Op-shop pink-ness

I almost cried when I saw this cat, because I
loved it so much. I walked around the shop trying
not to talk to it like a baby, and thinking someone was about to snatch it out of my hand. OK, I was having a bad day.... ;)

And this table-cloth I think is my favourite one so far. It doesn't look as faded as in the photo, and I did iron it (!) (a rarity for me, too!), but hey it'll do :)

If I could figure out what to do with my left hand, I'm sure I'd be fine...

I've been trying to learn to crochet for some time. Nobody actually seems to know how to, lots of people's nanna's apparently do (although neither of mine seem up to it). All I want to do is to get from here:

To here:


Well, enthusiasm should count for something. After numerous attempts at following internet instructions and vintage magazines bought home from the op-shop with 70's illustrations (if anyone needs a swimsuit, I have instructions here), I finally had an eureka moment and realised that it was just like the finger-knitting that we used to do in primary school, just with a crochet needle. Well, sort of. (And finger-knitting only gets you so far....)

Then I also discovered crochet on youtube. Wow! (Why didn't I think of that before?) Now I think I know how to at least do basic stitches, but I am sticking my hands in the wrong spots apparently and I can't make the thread do what it's meant to do at the same time as the needle. Maybe my hands aren't normal, are defective in some crochet-wool-handling way. That's the only conclusion I can come to. Well, if I have to crochet dementedly, so be it.

I am very inspired by this blog

and draw comforting crochet mentoring guidance via this blog.

Now to see how far I can get.....

Juniper

Juniper, beloved offspring of Eva and Nemo, is the house-trained star of my household.

When she first came home. Don't know what she was doing there, or how he/she got in there in the first place either.

Eating, eating, forever eating

Always checking something out, especially if it involves me

Lying in the doorway, until she got very annoyed at the camera going off and hopped away again.

So, like any proud parent, I take much interest in her daily activities. Unfortunately, I am not sure if she is even a she. I have suspicions that she is a he. Doesn't matter much as Juniper will be going to the vet to have an operation as soon as he/she is old enough (shhhh).

If I feel inclined, I will include her litter tray in the next photo shoot. How exciting ;)

Chickens in the trees

Not really, just galahs. Which are almost my favourite bird, so I had to take a photo of them through the lounge window, all squawking in the gum tree in my front yard. You can't actually see much in this photo. That's not the point.

Just for Tor

Tor, this was a magazine on holiday or I would have given you the whole thing. Thought you might appreciate the picture. I did ;)

Back! For now anyway. New blog... :)

Well in the world of sez, it was time for a new blog. Time to stick some new photos in that new blog....

These are from the trip to Warrnambool with the family at the start of March... (we came back on the 8th, the day after 'Black Saturday', weren't sure for a while there if we were even going to be able to get back home!)


The fam at Twelve Apostles Flagstaff Hill



Cacti Discovery....

Can't go past a quality game of minigolf!

Father & Son

Wistful Sailor?

Seaweed Mastery

So that was that. We managed to be in practically the 'coldest' place in the state for those two weeks and avoided most of those 40+ degree days, what a bonus.

I missed my rabbit a lot.