chester the hippy cat

Ok, so if you know me, or if you have been looking at my blog... you should also know my cat Chester. I have already written about his life story thus far. So now, not only is Chedda friends with fish:

and birds:

if that's not strange enough he now has 9 new friends that are dogs. Our neighbours 2 doors up breed these dogs. I think they are miniature collies or something... not sure. Anyway they have 3 adult dogs who are all prize winning show dogs, and recently their female dog had a litter of 6 puppies! She is the "only American bitch in Australia" apparently and the father is the South Australian grand champion or something. Haha it's so funny.. i have no idea but to them it is so prestigious...

This is Chester and Bob. In the background i think is the mum (Bonnie?) and some of the puppies. I can only remember one of the puppies names: Backstreet Boy. Yep, i know. Basically Chester hears the puppies barking and wants outside. Once outside he lays on the ground and rolls around while they all surround him sniffing and licking him. One time there were 2 adult dogs and 3 puppies surrounding him and he was in heaven. He is so weird. My neighbour calls him a tart, which is probably true. They don't actually "play" or anything they just walk around together or lay on the grass together. I have to admit it is really really cute to watch. But if you go out there you have to listen to the lady talking about the dogs and once she made me feel a puppies testicles. She said it is very important in preparation for their first show. When i hesitated she said "come on love, it's just a dog!!" and i thought "you know.. you're right! what are my hangups??" but then now when i think about it, puppies usually pee everywhere then walk in it and sit in it. Oh well, you live and you learn hey...

Well until Chester makes friends with a mouse, this is another strange tale of Chester complete :)

sneak peek at my projects...

I got bizzay on the weekend with my DIY projects! Bizzaay, bizzay (reminds me of on superbad when the cop played by Bill Hader is going "you're a fucking puss-ay, puss-aaay"...) um anyway...

So here is a sneak peek of the re-stained and re-upholstered $5 chair....

Haha this is by far the neatest corner. Re-upholstery is hard man... I have seriously fucked it up in 2 places. I have managed to dodgily cover up one bit, but the other is proving to be quite tricky. I won't be finishing it for a while cos i need a sewing machine to make a cushion cover and also some little furniture tacks for the back. I thought I could get away without them but yeahh... i need them. But it already looks a million times better than it did. Josh called it a "classy chair that he would like to sit in" which is a strange yet rave review.

Ok and my other project is the dressing screen! Here is a crap picture of it:

Yeah so I got the 6 bits of wood and gave them an undercoat of green paint just incase the wood absorbed it, i didnt want to waste the blackboard paint. So I let those dry and then got lazy and watched the godfather instead. On Sunday I did a coat of blackboard paint but the brush is really shit so there are huge streak marks in it. So yeah now I want to get a paint roller and tray so the second coat is nice and even. It has to have 16 hours beween the 1st and 2nd coats anyway :S looks like i will need to duck into bunnings tonight or tomorrow.... *shrug*

Well there you go, I am slooooowly getting there. But seriously i have had that dressing screen for like a million years so this is a huge step!

cheese, onion and herb scones

This weekend I felt the overwhelming urge to chill the fuck out at home - and that i did. I seriously went from bed to couch to hammock. I watched movies, did beauty treatments, did some gardening, read home decoration mags, and read my book THE SECRET HISTORY (OMGGGGGG SO GOOD) and yes basically loved every second :D Oh yes, I also got started on my 2 projects which i will put in a seperate post :)

Sunday I was feeling in the mood to bake so I decided to make some scones! These were really easy and only used a few ingredients! Let me show you! Also one tip that i learnt AFTER making them was that the less you knead the dough, the fluffier and puffier your scones will be. Thanks for telling me when it was TOO LATE, RECIPE BOOK!!!!

Ingredients:

- 2 Cups Self Raising Flour, sifted
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 Cup milk
- 1/2 Cup water
- 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 1 small onion, finely diced
- small amount of rosemary and thyme

Method:

Preheat the oven to 210 degrees cencius (fan forced).

Cook the onion in a little bit of butter in a frypan until soft and translucent. Add some rosemary and thyme and stir in until fragrant.

Sift the flour into a bowl, then add the cheese and salt and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre then add the onions and MOST of the milk and water. Use a flat bladed knife to slowly bring all of the ingredients together as shown...

Lightly flour the bench and tip the dough out. VERY LIGHTLY knead and flatten to about 2cm thickness. Use a floured cookie cutter to cut out the scones...

Place them on an oven tray lined with baking paper. * Optional* Lightly (VERY LIGHTLY) sprinkle them with Cayenne Pepper.

Pop inthe oven and bake for 10 mins or until a bit golden on top.

Yummy yummy in my tummy blah blah blah...

Daftly DIY a-brewin

Welll I have been ultra slack again this past week. I haven't felt like blogging - probably because it has been hot and sticky and too uncomfortable to do much of anything blog-worthy. I did go back to the Mill Markets again and bought a cool pot rack for $29 and a soap dish. Wiiiew!

Lately I have been pretty pre-occupied with money which is why I have not been doing much of anything that involves casshhhh. The house i bought settled almost a month ago, so I am still getting the hang of it all. I have already made 3 or 4 mortgage repayments (AH) and have collected 1 months worth of rent (as the house is still tenanted until May at which time I MOVE IN YAAAAY!!). So I am slowly trying to work out my weekly budget and also do Christmas shopping and am trying to put money aside for a few things i will need to do to the house. Plus as usual with all this going on we got 2 bills in the mail so it's fair to say I have been quite broke and boring for the last 2 weeks :S

But on the plus-side, last weekend I became inspired to work on some of my dormant DIY projects around the house, and I made a little trip to Bunnings to get some supplies!

I am focusing on 2 projects at the moment: My $5 chair from Camberwell Market and my dressing screen. Let's start with the chair..


I saw this chair at Camberwell Market and was like "oh that's nice, i wonder how much it is...?" then i went over and saw a big orange sticker on it saying $5-. I asked the guy if it was correct and he insisted he wanted to get rid of all his stuff and I should definately take the chair. So i did.

Anyway it is pretty old and pretty ratty but, hey.... FIVE BUCKS! how can you go wrong?? So I bought some sandpaper, varnish and fabric in the hopes to transform this old chair into a nice new looking chair! So far i have sanded it back and applied 3 coats of varnish, and I hope to start re-upholstering tomorrow.

My other project is my dressing screen. I don't have a picture, but basically it is a 3 door screen with hinges. Each door has 2 panels which are hollow. This is the closest i could find...



I bought this maybe 4 or 5 years ago from a salvage yard... i don't know it could have been longer. Anyway, but it was bright purple and for ages i didn't know what to do with it, and how to fill in the panels. I painted it cream, and then for a while i was thinking of somehow putting material or lace or something in it, but I had a brain wave recently involving BLACKBOARD! I want a blackboard pretty badly and have been keeping my eyes peeled for a while for a good one. Then i thought i should get some blackboard cut to size and insert it into the recess at the back.

Nobody seemed to think you could get big sheets of blackboard and i was frankly too lazy to search so instead I bought some thin wood and blackboard paint. The wood is being cut to size today for the six panels and hopefully I can start on this tomorrow as well. I am so happy that these old half-finished things will not be laying around in the garage or spare room any more! Plus it keeps me from spending moneyz hehe! In regards to the old fashioned writers desk.... i still have NFI what to do with it :P one day... one day.... lol that was my first DIY project on the blog and i fear i shall never actually finish it. But it is so pretty... sigh

stick bowls, bento lunches, and nutcrackers

I have been quite the slack schmack lately and haven't blogged much at all. So last week i brought to work a rather un-japanese bento lunch consisting of leftover comfort food (mashed potato with mashed vegies through it) and some tuna, rice and seaweed. it was actually so delicious, and i had to eat it over two days cos there was a bit too much food for one girl. The mashed vegies comfort food was *like* my favourite thing ever as a kid. I would
mash all my vegies together on my dinner plate and then squirt some dead horse (tomato sauce) all over it. Whenever i am down or sick i love a bit o' mashed veg. Takes me back to the womb days pretty much. I imagine my womb days were very chillaxed as my mum didn't drink (although now she enjoys a drop or two) or smoke or do drugs so i was sittin' pretty. I wonder if a hillbilly baby is still safe in the womb or if the alcohol and drugs transform into little laser ships that shoot it in the soft head. it's kinda freaky how babies heads are so soft even after they are born. Josh's nephew was born with a massive cone head due to the suction cup thing and i worried that it would stay that way but luckily he is a normal, nay adorable, kid now with a nice round head. what the hell am i talking about... here is my bento:

then on the weekend i decided i was going to get crafty and finally make my stick bowl. i can't think of a better name. Basically in apollo bay i saw this cool bowl made of sticks painted white and thought "i could totally make that...." and so i did. I transformed this pile of sticks:

into this strange looking white nest. The shadows aren't really adding to its attractiveness. it actually looks kinda alright. I hot glued a whole bunch of sticks together while watching Pineapple Express and was shocked to see that it looks a little bit like a kindergarden art project. oh well. i haven't figured out what to put in the bowl yet. I suggested i would lay my baby jesus in it but it has these bits that jut out and would probably pierce his holy kidneys. oh well i'm sure i can think of something else to put in it.

oh and yesterday we did grocery shopping at ALDI and i got this awwweeeesome nutcracker man for a christmas decoration:

He is awesome and pretty big. Josh doesn't really like him because he has no lips and he says he looks too much like a zombie. preeeeetty fair call, but still c'mon he is cool. christmas decoration # 3 is on display. I am getting there slowly. I don't know why but i am super excited about this christmas! wwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

my first home-made bento lunch

I made Japanese a few nights ago and used the left overs to make myself a lovely summer lunch for work! I picked up this red bento box in Japan last November and this is sadly the first time i have used it. BUT i do plan to use it more often. I just have to cook more Japanese first :P

I had salmon and avocado sushi, with Japanese potato salad and teriyaki chicken! mmmm. i wish i had this today :(

antique-a-palooza (IMAGE HEAVY)

Well, on the weekend I thought i would do something different as i generally veg out or "lay like broccoli" as Vivienne aka Pretty Woman would say (yay i love that movie woo!) to counteract my busy full time week. I started my "different weekend" with dinner at an overpriced German restaurant in the city. Of course it was delicious but it is quite rustic and basic for what you pay. Plus the beer was really expensive too so i could only afford 1. eep!

Then Saturday I organised with mum (the ultimate antique roadshow lady) to go on a nice country drive to do some op-shopping and antiquing! She didn't have to even think twice and we were in the car on the open road. We went first to Ballarat and had lunch at the delicious Beechworth Bakery. She wanted to buy the cookbook so it was a neccessary pit stop. As was the purchase of lunch, 8 cookies to take home, and a rasberry tart to have later on that day :P

So after that we hit the road towards Daylesford hoping to find some cool stuff... and man did we ever! The first place we went to was in the main street called Junk Style. I don't remember seeing it any of the times i have been there, but she swears they have been open for a few years. Maybe 2. shrug. So walking along you see this sign:

Then you turn to look up the stairs lined with old mirrors and paintings and clothes, needless to say I was totally pumped to see what else was up there!

You walk out to see this amazing vintage/retro loft FULL of crazy things. It was a visual orgasm, there was not one boring thing there and there was simply too much to take in!! I didn't take a picture of what i bought but i got a beaded pineapple candle holder (josh said it is borderline garish/cool) and a babushka :)

that's my mum checking out their vintage furniture to outfit her little californian bungalow house that is being re-built.

Next stop was another antique store on the main drag as well. This place was called Wombat Hill Antiques, and was a nice old building on the corner across from the Info centre.

Inside was like a rabbit warren of rooms, packed floor to ceiling with heaps of old stuff. I didn't end up buying anything here - partly because there was noone there. my mum and i were the only ones there - i think the owners were out for lunch or something, but the door was open and this little old TV was on near the register and i could faintly hear some sports playing on it. It was a little weird. I half considered stealing something but they were probably watching on a hidden camera and would set off some hidden bear traps or something. i think i have seen a horror movie like that. ha. oh man, they had a stuffed peacock with all its feathers! i couldnt get a good pic cos it was up high and behind stuff. anyway here are some of the cool things i saw in the shop...

gotta love the headlines on those mags! anyway, after a good browse we went to another place that was mainly furniture and quite expensive. I did buy a candlestick and an old milk jug but no pics! Then we were ready for the peice de resistance. THE MILL MARKETS! There are Mill Markets in Geelong, Ballarat, Newcomb, i think Warnambool, and here in Daylesford. I thought i had been here before but walking in the door i knew i would have remembered a place like this...

three words played on my mind: Holy Fucking Shit. It is like a Bunnings but all op-shop stuff and antiques and crazy stuff! there was another shed almost this size behind me. I have never seen something so amazing.

It is made up of hundreds of little stalls set up by local shop owners or individuals. Generally they don't man the stalls and the price tags have a stall number on it which gets noted at the cash register. Here is mum perusing one such stall...

I saw this little money box and had a flashback to childhood. His name is Robbie and i had one as a kid. You put a coin on his hand and he lifts it to his mouth then opens wide and eats the coin. he was a good tool to get us to save our silvers, thats fo sho.

oh and i saw this retro picnic set - how cccccccccoooolllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!

and here are some other cool shotzzz of my fun time at the mill markets!

omg those face jugs are made by Royal Doulton and are like $250 each. No thanks! Oh and guess what my fellow subarashii friends!!!???! I found ANOTHER DIRTY PILLOW!!!!!!! omfgomfgomfgomfgomfg!

this one is very cute, i cannot believe i now have 4 pillows from the 70's. all of which kinda freak people out. But let me think - the one above cost $15... the elephant one was $2.99, and the two others with people on them were $2.99 each as well. So that's $23.97 for 4 pillows. I'm sittin' pretty.

yeah obviously i saw this and was drawn to what i thought was a board game called "lose your shit"... but even "lose your shirt" is fairly strange. I couldnt reach it cos it was up high but i wonder if it is some kind of stripping game... Sadly i just put my suspicions to rest by Google searching it. It is a lame horse racing game where the jockey "loses his shirt" if you lose. boo!

oh and i saw this cool bird cage below for nearly $1,000!!!!

I watched "A series of unfortunate events" last night and i swear this same design cage was in it! But it housed reptilessssss! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppp. Also from the Mill Market i bought 2 70's style serving dishes - one is from Japan. I also got a Christmas Drinks Tray, aaaaaand mum bought me a Champagne ice urn which is really fancy and lovely!

Once we left there we were starving hungry and went to get our bakery tarts from the car. Unfortunately we didnt realise it had gotten so hot and they were pretty melted and gooey. hmmm.... we still ate them though. laaawll. So anyone up for a drive to daylesford or one of the other mill markets sometime soon? you wont regret it :D

my loooong weekend

Well, here i am! After 5 days off work i am feeling.... honestly... crap. BUT I'm sure given time i will go from crap to 'meh' just like that! Over the weekend I was a busy bunny indeed! On Friday night I hosted a fundraiser party for the Cancer Council called "Girls Night in" in which we raise money for Breast Cancer research. I think we ended up raising over $200 :) hooray humanitarian hooray

the next morning Josh and I packed up and headed to greyer overcast skies at Apollo Bay. I may have been there once as a kid but dude I never appreicated how amazing it is! Although the weather at the beach was colder and darker than back at home, we still had a rad time. On Sunday i went walking on the beach to collect wood for an art project... when i came across this:

it was just a stick but it looked like a turtle head! i kept him :) I also took a few other pics of the things around, that is of course when i wasn't busy stealing flowers from peoples gardens to make a native floral bouquet haha.

This is in a place called "paradise" in the otways- just behind apollo bay. it was stunning!

My mum came over yesterday to show me the baby bird she rescued from a crow. Chester immediately loved it - but in a good way - not in a normal cat/bird way...

how effing adorable.