Wednesday 9 October 2013

Tuesday 1 October

Today was a fairly quiet sort of day for me.
Got up and made some porridge for my breakfast.
Spent quite a bit of time on the computer.
When I checked my email there was one from another home-educator.
She had a few questions for me.
Her son is a similar age to Brains.
She hoped I didn't mind her emailing me.
I didn't mind at all, and replied to her.
Took a while, and then I checked banking.
Pa had caught a bus over to Wadestown to sort a bit more stuff up.
Jester had gone out.
Frosty and I had a catch up chat which was great.
Mr Magoo was awake some of the time.
He gives lovely big beaming smiles.
And when he laughs. . .well you just have to laugh as well because it is such a happy sound :)
Brains and Locket were slow to rise.
They just pottered in the main.
I did put a load of towels through the wash, but didn't get them hung out.
Around 2pm I went and picked Pa up from Wadestown.
He'd been sorting in the shed.
He'd also managed to get all the glass taken for the recycling.
He heard the truck going down the street.
Took the bag of glass out and flagged down the truck.
He explained the recycling bin had been taken.
The guy took the glass and told Pa he could get a new bin from the library.
Once I'd dropped Pa off at Johnsonvale I went to Dick Smith Electronics to get some ink.
Printer had run out of two cartridges.
The local DSE had neither of them.
I got the assistant to check and Porirua had stock.
So I took a trip out there.
Found both cartridges and also picked up a UHF aerial.
They had dropped in price. . . $50
A pretty good deal!
I also popped into Warehouse Stationery.
L-M had given me a diary. One similar to this one below.

I saw some pages that I could use for next year. Mainly the year ones.
Since I wasn't sure if they would fit I took note of the number of rings they were for.
Thought about getting the alphabet index but the only one there was open and tatty.
Was very glad when I got home that I hadn't as I'd forgotten there was one in there.   
Frosty had text me to say that if I got home and Brains and Locket weren't there it was because they had gone to play golf with her and Jester.
We sorted that I would do dinner that night.
She had been going to but it meant she could just relax.
I picked up the few extra things I needed.
We really like the San Remo range of gluten free pasta.

I'd decided to make Macaroni Cheese so got the Macaroni.
I make one cheese sauce and cook ordinary pasta for us, gluten free for Brains and Locket.
Then I split the sauce between the two lots of Macaroni.
People have asked why I don't make just gluten free.
Mainly the cost.
A packet of ordinary pasta is 500g and  around $2.
Gluten free is 250g and usually over $4.

Boar got home fairly early and so went up on the roof to put the aerial up.
Gives me the willies watching him up there!
6 metres up and he's casually sitting on the ridge of the roof.
He got it all sorted and connected.
So we now have digital TV.
Crystal clear picture :)

As well as the Mac Cheese we had mashed potatoes, pumpkin and beans.
Pa had several packets of beans in his freezer which came here.
Frosty, Jester, Brains and Locket arrived back just as dinner was almost ready.

Everyone pronounced dinner as lovely.
Jester likes his meat and didn't notice it was a meatless meal till I mentioned it.



Time Flies

Well over a week has gone by!
The school holidays are on and things are a bit quieter.
Not a lot though.

Today we got our old/new and improved computer.
Tonight I''ve been setting it up as best I can.
One thing I've discovered is that Blogger comes up with an error message with Internet Explorer.
Which means I can't post unless I use Pa's computer.
Which more-or-less restricts me to the night-time hours.

BUT
I had a brainwave/thought to try Mozilla Firefox.
I'm able to write in the proper pane so hopefully it will work.
Pretty tired after all the brain activity to set up the computer so I'm going to head for bed.
Might throw a bit more wood on the fire first.

Then a cup of hot milk with honey and nutmeg and bed. 
My eyes are trying to shut themselves.

Ok, going to try and post this now.

Hmmmm just discovered I got two posts out of order.
Didn't notice there was an unfinished draft.
Oh, well such is life!
 

 

Wednesday 2 October 2013

The last few days

Sunday 29 September

Today is the first day of Daylight Saving so it will now be lighter an hour later at night.
I didn't hurry out of bed :)
My phone had switched over by the time I woke up which was good.
I got organised and popped down to the cash machine to get some money out for Boar.
Then I went off to church.
I really enjoyed the worship and sermon.
Pastor Andrew is doing a series on Joseph.
This session was about forgiveness or not taking revenge.
At the end we saw a music video clip.
I hadn't heard this artist before and really liked the song.
Tobymac, you can listen to it here
I heard some upsetting news about a friend who has moved away.
I'll be praying for her and the situation.
Not much else I can do from far away
In the afternoon Boar, Locket and I went out to Porirua.
Wellington went digital overnight...no picture.
Yes, we'd known for a couple of years.
But these things cannot be decided in a hurry!
As far as Boar is concerned that is.
I was a tiny bit hopeful we might get a new freeview TV.
But Boar is a frugal sort of chap and prefers not to buy something when what we have works.
So as I say...I was a tiny bit hopeful but, as I expected, no new TV.
So we got an igloo box.
I was amused by the shop attendant who was talking to us.
He made it sound as though it was almost a tragedy if we couldn't see TV!
I informed him we'd still live if we couldn't watch TV.
I don't think he knew quite how to react to that statement!
Got it home, set it up, it scanned. . . and didn't find anything.
Boar was sure we had the right aerial.
One he put up when our other one got damaged after years of strong southerlies.
He got it from somewhere. . . possibly an old job he did.
He got up on the roof. . . 6 metres and a steep pitch.
Fiddled with this and that.
Came back down. Nope, nothing found.
Jester was saying he didn't think we had the correct aerial.
Boar decided to try one more thing. . . back up on to the roof.
Then Boar went to pick Pa up from Johnsonvale.
Jester took the aerial out of their room, which is stuck out the window.
Brought it and cable in here. . .hooked it into the igloo box.
All channels found.
So we needed an aerial but by then the shops were shut.
 Oh well, such is life!
In the evening we watched the second episode of New Zealand's Got Talent.
On Jester & Frosty's TV. . . which is 51" I'm told!
Ours is 21". . . .just a tad smaller!
Then it was into bed.
I was pretty tired, always seems to take a bit of adjusting when Daylight Saving begins.



Monday 30 September

The last day of September already.
First day of the school holidays, not that it makes a lot of difference to us.
The days seem to fly by so quickly.
Often on the first day of the holidays, a Monday, I'll have a lazy day.
A pyjama day, a stay in bed and rest and read day.
Brains and Locket would usually sleep in.
So it would be quiet and I would rest up a bit.
No dance classes so no need to go anywhere.
I'd sort out a quick easy dinner.
No way could I do this when the kids were all younger.
However things have changed in the household.
Not a possibility to do that at the moment.
Unless I'm legitimately unwell of course.
I did stay in bed till just after 8am.
Then got up and did some work on the computer.
Since we'd been without ours I needed to update a spreadsheet I'd created to track our finances.
Mainly groceries & sundry spending.
Our sundry spending budget isn't large so I like to keep track of it.
Otherwise it is easy to overspend.
Since doing the CAP Money course our finances have been in a better state.
Once I'd entered all I needed to I backed up the file with SyncToy.
Quick and easy.

Pa had been busy on his laptop as well.
Once we'd both finished we got organised and headed over to Hanover Street.
Pa went through papers, burnt what he needed to.
I cleaned out the bathroom cupboards and the laundry ones.
So much out dated stuff.
And when I say that I do mean out-dated.
There were things in the small cupboard in the bathroom that have been there since I was growing up.
Most of it needed to go straight in the bin.
One thing I did bring home was Potassium permanganate
Brains and Locket can see what it does.

Buried in the cupboard I found the gem below.
A potty!
I guess once upon a time I sat on this.
May need to recycle it as a pot plant holder!


The other day I mentioned Creamoata porridge.
I haven't seen any in the shops for years.
Except perhaps the single sachet ones, but I don't get them.
Not economical enough for me :)
Lo and behold, look what I found in one of the kitchen cupboards.
Uncle Toby's Creamoata oats


But I think they'll be heading for the bin.
Funny thing is we had porridge several times a week growing up.
Remembering this I offered Pa porridge for breakfast when he first came here.
Only to be told he wasn't that fond of porridge!
Hmmm, ok, must have just put up with it!

After a few hours we headed back to Johnsonville again.
I dropped Pa off at Johnsonvale and went home for a while.
Can't recall what I did there before I went to pick Pa up from the home.

Frosty was making dinner. She had bought some wraps.
Cut up a whole lot of different things and we all tucked in.

Brains and Locket had a quiet day.
Though in the evening there was a voluble discussion between Brains, Boar and Pa.
Brains was pretty sure a big tsunami would go up Ngauranga Gorge, force of the water etc.
Boar and Pa were arguing against.
Brains was busy with google finding information from the tsunami in Japan in 2011.

I didn't hear the conclusion as I got busy doing other things.
One of them being to watch a DVD.
Boar had asked at dinner if anyone had bought an aerial.
I replied no as he hadn't said to!
I started to watch the DVD and Boar ended coming upstairs to watch as well.
Wouldn't you know it the phone rang!
And was for me of course.

Once the call had ended we continued watching.
But the DVD glitched and so in the end we stopped watching.
Into bed with Brother Cadfael for me. The book that is :)