This Australian Life

Hey there readers. In tonight's instalment I'll be telling you some great stories, and bringing you some pictures direct from...you guessed it - my life. First up, my amazing January so far! For Christmas my dearest got me tickets to both David Sedaris and Ira Glass in their similarly named 'An evening with....' shows 1 week apart at the Athaneum here in Melbourne. Josh introduced me to This american life about a year ago or so, and I aint done ever looked back. Much like many other regular listeners or downloaders of the American radio show/podcast, I think Ira Glass (the host) is some kind of demi god. He ticks all the boxes of what I want to hear and is pretty much just a cool dude. It was on this show that I first heard of the author/humourist David Sedaris too. He was reading aloud an essay from one of his books and i was hooked in! His exaggeration technique is like a kajillion times more amazing than what i could ever dream up! 

So first up was the David Sedaris show! I had been reading his books and listening to him for a while and even starting to follow the career of his sister Amy... in a non-stalkerish way naturally. I could not believe i was going to see him in person, and I was nervous too as there was an opportunity to meet him after the show in the book signing!!! Now, I am not the smoothest of characters so I was already envisioning the ways I would embarrass myself. Plus I read that he chats to each person for a few minutes at the signing and then draws/writes something interesting in your book. One lady wrote that he signed her book something about diabetes thus the thinks he was insinuating she was fat. Now I really love DS, and I was thinking if he found fault in me I would have to ceremoniously burn all his books and pretend I'd never heard of  him to avoid the stab of pain that would come every time i saw one of the books laying around. The broken fan heart. Luckily he thought i was AWESSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEE!!!

Not even joking, Josh had a great idea of writing something in the book before giving it to him so I drew a pic of DS along with some other stuff and when he opened it he grinned and was like "WHO DID THIS?!!" and I fessed up (sorry, i have recently (and ironically) read a DOLLY mag.. omg, i'm OTT crazy atm) and he was like "That's fantastic, i love it etc etc.." so the 3 of us (me, the bf, and the housemate) stood there chatting to him, and he proceeded to tell us filthy filthy jokes!!!!!! It was amazing. He wrote in one of my books how much he loves my drawing, and made sure to tell me again as i left. Hoorah. Guess i can pick up another of his books to add to the collection now. He passed the test. the test of being worthy enough to keep a reader interested. Anyway that was a great night, and a few days later was Ira!!!!!!

We started the night with drinks and postulating what he'd talk about. 

They were cleverly concealing their giddy child-like glee... as was I. Actually i cant really conceal anything so i made a few strange noises and squeeks that happen at these times. Skipping ahead, Ira was also great! He was different to what I imagined (posture and body language-wise) but in a way I was glad to see a bit of the real Ira and realise he is just a dude. Just a normal down to earth dude who had no idea people in Australia loved him so much as he bowed time and time again at the end of his talk. He began his show in total darkness as the voice we all know and love filled the room. When the lights came on, the crowd went wild! One of his first questions as he grinned around the room was 'How do you guys even know who I am??' - funny. I think he has learned quite a lot from his visit and his eyes are opened a little about his fanbase. I was surprised to know that their staff only consists of 8 people. Working nutso hours and trying to pull stories from everywhere they can. So amazing.

Anyway, I also just got back from a little weekend road trip to Adelaide for my cousin's birthday! We took my mannequin 'Derryn' along for the ride and he had fun at the beach. People were a little taken aback, but in the end the police calmed everyone down and we got the head back.

At first i thought we wouldnt even make it, as I had been having car issues. I had no power, and sometimes couldnt get over 80km/hour. i also later found out both brake lights were out. The mechanic my mum took the car to (as my xmas present) couldnt fix the situation and didnt fix my brakelights before returning it. So i got my un-roadworthy car back and avoided driving it. I had it booked into Nissan for a detailed inspection and was prepared to fork out a few hundo (that i didnt have) for a solution. Then luckily my sicko brother did a little online research and found out that my model of car has this in-built safety mechanism thing that when both brakelights are out, the engine goes into safety mode or something. So $3 in light-globes later, the car ran perfectly again. I could not believe my luck!

In unrelated news... here is a zucchini that grew like crazy while i was interstate. I picked it today when i got up! It is the size of my shin.

Lately I have been doing a little cooking (of course) but not photographing much of my escapades... here's just one for you:

Also, I found this at my front door one night....

I opened the door looking for my cat late one night (yes i know, cats should be in-doors etc etc) and there is was, with the fairy attached to the top like in the pic. As you can see it is half eaten by snails and has obviously blown from someone's bin. In my mind though, some young girl has taken a liking to me from the few seconds each morning she sees me cross the yard to my car and has drawn and almost flawless picture of me. It is quite remarkable how alike we are really. Those dead eyes, the black boots. Amazing.

I've been getting a little arty too, I made a bunch of snowflakes for Xmas to add some christmas flayvaaaa to wrapping paper. these ones went on the wall :) 

Oh and this one... This is not a real person. This is a sacrificial scarecrow we made when Josh quit his job. We burned the uniform and badge and all in my back-yard. It was wild. And scary. And smoky. But mostly funny. Those bits on the ground are the arms. They fell with a dull thump. It's amazing what petrol and hay and leftover wrapping paper can do. Ok, i'm wrapping this up as I am getting way tired. Below is a picture of a gnome i bought from a country op-shop for $1. I thought my suburbian yard needed a little cliche to it. I love his childlike bearded face and cross leggedness.

I am yet to name him though. Any thoughts?

Backyard make-over!

The time has come where I finally made-over my yards ready for party-season! With the help of family and friends we were able to transform my dirt-bowl/weeds into this nice little zone....  

Yay! We got good soil delivered (as mine is orange clay) and some mulch and sand. The bricks were donated by Josh's mum who had them left over from when they built their house....over 20 years ago!! She was glad to see them go!

Give the plants a few months of eating super-charged nutrients and they will be huge. As you can see, the fences are still like eye-level so those neighbours be-gone at the back will eventually block out the house. I'm thinking of putting in another fruit tree in to act as a fruit wall along one side. I have a peach tree, dwarf nectarine, lemon, bay tree, a mystery stone-fruit tree which grew from a cast-aside pip thrown into the vegie patch at my old house. Also I have rosemary, mint, parsley x 2, lavender, and in my new vegie patch zone there is zucchini, eggplant, chili, tomato, and strawberries. We'll see how that all goes! I was thinking of taking out the half-dead passionfruit on the pergola post and putting in grapes, how pretty that would be!
Also was thinking of putting lattice on the fence above the vegies so I can grow beans or peas..... MM!

I'm loving the weeping cherry in the middle of the yard, that will look BEAUTIFUL next year all covered in white flowers :D hoorahhh.

All i can say is, wait until you see what I've been up to INSIDE!

Domestic Tip #279 - Washing Machine Maintenance

This is my first ‘domestic tip’ (although I felt that #279 was the right number to start at) and the information within is as half-formed and potentially incorrect as most of my other posts. Let me explain the purpose of this. Ok so, In this crazy old life sometimes you need a guiding hand to show you the way on certain issues. I know if i needed to, i could ask my mum, aunty, grandmother or even my dad for some advice on domestic life and I would be handsomely rewarded with some family wisdom, form a closer connection, and indeed carry on their domestic legacy to future generations. Oh how rewarding. I can see it now, us wandering around Bunnings laughing as we accidentally go down the same aisle twice, then partaking in a $2 sausage in bread with onions all before sharing some car-park rage while navigating our way out.

Since I am a child of the internet, by google-searching things like “How to clean a washing machine” or “DIY paving”, it’s almost like I am performing this family activity anyway... because Internet is my parents, siblings and friends, and I never need anything more. So, in an attempt to rekindle the olde worlde charme of sharing information, even though it’s a case of the blind leading the blind, I’m offering my knowledge to you. Again, I really don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to cleaning and washing clothes... but I try to feel my way.

Right now I am listening to my washing machine clean itself. You read that correctly. I never thought such a concept existed, but indeed a washing machine, used to wash clothes, needs washing. It’s one of those surprising things you learn once you move out, that you actually have to look after your things and administer maintenance. You, like myself, may have thought that a washing machine was so clean that it was almost a sterile environment, and if you ever needed to have an emergency birth in the house, that’d be the place to squat. You couldn’t be more wrong. There exists a build up of gunk and detergent and whatever else out of sight in the barrel which needs to be removed somehow.

Papa Google told me that a shit-load of Vinegar into a hot wash would work – no clothes. So here I sit, wondering if the problem has gone away yet, and also slightly afeared at what I will be surprised by next. Maybe “Oh yeah, didn’t you know you’re supposed to use strawberry topping on a Q-tip under the lip of the toilet every fortnight otherwise your house floods?!” or “Holy crap, what do you mean you have never vacuumed the inside of your roof!? Fire hazard!”

I hate those things, being a kid was so simple – everything was magically done and you didn’t consider the time or monetary costs of things, nor did you constantly feel guilty for doing NOTHING and try to think of more constructive things to do with your time. You could spend a whole week in PJ’s or play video games for a marathon 8 hours or so, and nobody said a thing. It was like you could do what you want, when you want and just do the things that made you happy, without being questioned or expected to behave in a certain way. Seriously, is this behaviour still allowed in Adults? Maybe I should hire a cleaner, gardener, personal shopper, scribe, and bedside nurse to assist me with showering and toilet functions so I can spend more time effin’ and jeffin’. Hmmm...

it's about time...

HA! End Post. No not really. While that photo is indeed about time, the real message here is that it's about time that i pulled my finger out of my anus and started making some more progress on the house! I decided to paint, and the colour i wanted was one similar to what my dad used when renovating. It was picked for him because it complemented the blue laminate kitchen at his house, and obviosuly was the cheaper option as apposed to purchasing a new kitchen. And as my house is decked out with blue carpet (shudder) I figured it would match too. Luckily he still had about 4 litres left so i can use as much as i need. I think it looks much cooler....

I am going to do one more wall, as it looks funny just having that corner done. Now that I know it looks good, i'm going to amp it up! Wieew! Also, I have an electrician coming on saturday morning (7am) to install all my lights finally. I bought them sooo long ago! I was quite busy over the weekend!! I also set up the worm farm i got for christmas....

And here are my little wormy friends. I have 1000 worms to start with, and we'll see how they go! I think i can start feeding them now :)

After all that hard work, i sat down to a cup of apple and cinnamon tea in my new teapot and tea cup! Josh got me the teapot for xmas - he thinks it is garish but its the one i wanted, so he got it for me anyway just to make me happy :) what a nice boy! And i got the cup from my friend Claudia! It matches the blue ones i have :D awesome!

 Also, i did lots of cooking! I will post up the proper recipes in another post, but for now here is one dish i invented. I can't make it count towards the total 52 dishes cos there was no recipe, and i didnt really like it but i wanted to use my giant tube pasta i got from the Italian Deli in Williamstown...

 It fogged up the lense so i did a soap opera pose... as you do.....

Ok, yeah so it was one of those nights when i didnt know what to do... so i made bruscetta and also pesto (with waaay too much garlic - oops!!) and then sort of put it all together into a pesto pasta nest with baby bruscetta topping!

Visually it looks awesome but i didnt quite get it right. I might thik about it some more and attempt it another day :P I'll be back tomorrow with more food stuffs :D wooo hooooo!!!

DIY Bungalow Makeover

Well you all know I love a good DIY makeover, and boy have I got a good one for you! My friend Bec recently moved house with her mum and luckily there was a Bungalow out the back for her to call home. The only problem was that it looked like this:

Le Bachelor. No problem! All they had to do was go to IKEA and add some nice finishing touches and VOILA:

Those white boxes are great storage solutions - i need to get me some! It's such a nice little zone, very relaxing and pretty! If there was a kitchen, I totally would have been convinced I was in an IKEA display!! Needless to say I'm quite jealous of her little space, I wish I had something like that when I lived at home!! My brothers and I would have fought each other to the death for it. But one day my house will look as chic as this :D all I need are polished boards instead of my terrible blue carpet!! eeeeeyuckk!!!

piece of art for the house

Well, although it is not your traditional piece of artwork ie. painting on canvas, i think it still constitutes as art - cruddy as it is. I selected pictures and frames, then Josh and I arranged them in an order we thought looked best. There are some road-trip memories in there, a picture from Nagano in Japan, one of Chester, one of my Grandpa, one of Josh and I in McLarenvale wine region in SA, and some other nice ones.

I drew this a while ago, and i got the frame from an op-shop. Love it!



Got this from an op-shop too. So cute, and it makes me want to escape there sometimes!

 So what do you think? Does this act as a TICK off my list??

more DIY updates - shabby chic (shit) mirror

Herrooo! It occured to me that I have lots of un-addressed topics on here. Ages ago I decided I wanted everything WHITE!!! I have lots of found or donated furniture and it was all different wood stains and the combination of all of those stains was staining my eyeballs RED! So i mentioned the kitchen stools, here is the mirror before:

Yes, it was pretty nice in the first place, but my nature is to destroy. Destruction is the greatest form of creation as they say! So I planned to try my hand at some DIY shabby chic. Maki calls it "Shabby shit"... clearly it's not his prefered decor! I didn't want to take a photo earlier because I hadn't removed all of the tape from the mirror and i hadn't cleaned it. But then I thought "fuck it" and took a picture or 3 last night!

You may notice some purple tape remenants as well as some heinous smudging near the top of the mirror. I do not apologise for these things, nor do I apologise for the fact that I am wearing TRACKIES ie. my cooking/lounging clothes in the photo. Bogan. I know. Hey, we're among friends here aren't we? I'm comfortable with you, this blog is like a sleepover that you can't leave. I've cracked it and gone crying to my parents, and for some reason they can't get hold of your parents so you have to stay. Most awkward sleepover ever. Then it turns out your parents didn't like you and made a suicide pact after they dropped you off, and left you to my family in their will because they thought my parents seemed as though they had it pretty figured out. Now we are siblings. LOVE ME!!!!

boudoir bonanza

Hi there :) The other night I got a bit restless and decided to give my bedroom another mini-makeover. Since buying a house I have been struggling with how slow life moves financially. I live week to week and have to wait for so long for anything I want. I have an eternal list of wishes and things to do... but I love it really. It feels so much more like an accomplishment when you plan and work and fiiiiiinally achieve. Growing up I was used to watching my parents decide to do something and fully achieve their goal in a single afternoon. Sometimes I would come home from school and my mum would have totally re-lanscaped the garden, or re-arranged the furiture in the whole house, including my bedroom- don't worry I put a stop to this once I reached high-school fo real. Anyway I guess mum's "go-get 'em" attitude rubbed off on me and as a result, in my adult life, I usually can't sit still at nights. Woop.

So here are some shots of the slow progress of my bedroom makeover taken over the last 4-5 months. Unfortunately they are all of the same wall and the bed... the rest of the room is not as visually striking... yet... haha. The lamps and bedside tables in the first photo were my first purchase to help create my new look bedroom haven...

Basically when I moved into this house I was going for "WHITE! EVERYTHING WHITE OR CREAM!!!" I chucked out my burgundy and gold everything and decided for a brighter feel...

Then I painted the walls to give the white furniture more attention...

Behind the scenes, I also got my new tv, and re-arranged the furniture and cleaned out my walk in robe. Then I put my new IKEA $20 bedspread on...

Then I had this idea:

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!! I love my room!! There is still more to go, but by blogging about the process it will push me to do more :) woop woop!

ikea trip omg

Sooooo I went to IKEA on Friday night, and picked up a few things!! I could have gone insane there. In fact my purchases were already too numerous as i had to carry it all home on 2 trams and a train... oh well! It was worth it :) Here's what I got:

Photo frames x 3

cool thermos for drinking tea out of :D

6 wine glasses as I keep breaking mine :(

a cute baby blue throw rug. Haven't decided if i want this in the bedroom or on the couch...

a vase! I didn't reeeeeally need this... wait i didn't really need any of this :D

a lovely bedspread (only $19.95)

A nice big jar for my chickpeas :) I will have to start getting more so I can have lots of dried beans and things :D woooohoooo. I think i got all this for around $70 - which I think is awesome! When I get home i will put up the picture frames. I just need to get some pictures for them!!

frames and bunnies

Firstly, look at what I saw at the Vic Market yesterday....

I want to buy this rabbit, LOOK HOW CUTE IT IS!!!!! I think it was looking out the corner of it's eye at me weeeee!!!! OMG Ok, calm down, calm down!

What I was really wanting to post about is picture frames. I have lots of photos which i want to display in my house, but I'm not 100% sure how I want to go about it. I could stick the photos themselves onto the wall in a big collage... or i could use lots of frames. I think I like the frame idea, but then the secondary question arises of what way to display them? A random cluster of different shapes and sizes...

Or a more uniform arrangement with similar frames and all lined up in rows?

Wow, i love the white floorboards :D *one day* ahem... I already have lots of frames from the op-shop so i guess i should use those and do a nice little cluster. I will probably go for the black and white look and might have to get some card to make faux mat board. I am excited! The only thing is, i think it would look more effective on a coloured wall but I am planning this for my hallway... which i don't really want to paint. It's not like a cool victorian style hallway, just a boring modern one. I will have to get cree-ay-tive!

I stumbled across this blog the other day while i was looking for pictures of the kitchen from the movie "It's Complicated". It's called Hooked on Houses and this woman is totally obsessed with houses and interior design. There is a section there for Movie and TV houses where she puts heaps of still shots and explanations and quotes from the set designers. I found out that the production designer for It's Complicated, Something's Gotta Give and The Holiday are all the same- which explains why when i saw the movies i was wowed each time. Great style! I haven't gone through it yet, but there is soooo much still to see. I hope to get some good ideas to add to my *dream house* collection of photos. Enjoy!