I have moved

I have moved my blog to:

http://restisnotidleness.blogspot.com/

Oh my aching back

My back is sore today, my own fault really, Cody (our cat) has some toy mice that he plays with, he brings them to us, we throw them away, he brings them back and so it goes on. He also has this habit of flicking them under the fridge, then he sits there waiting for either of us to get them out for him to do it all over again. So this morning he is sitting there waiting for his devoted servant to get his mouse out, I knelt down and looked under the fridge, I couldn't see anything under there and then I felt a twinge in my back (the usual place I get it) I thought "oh no, I can't get up" my DH came in at the point and asked if I was ok, "just my back, I'll be right in a minute" as I slowly got to my feet. Cody is still waiting for someone to get his mouse and is getting impatient so he makes an interrogative miaow (Hurry up, get it out now!!) My DH has a look and sees the mouse and gets it then throws it up the hall, Cody tears off after it, but this time doesn't bring it back, obviously he had to wait to long and doesn't want to play any more.

My big plans for today (making a no-dig potato bed) have had to be shelved. I've had a hot pack on my back and it seems to be getting better, but I shall take it easy today. I think I will try and finish my scarf. It's cold outside so a good day to stay inside anyway

Yellow Violas

The year is half over

It's hard to believe that we are already halfway through the year. The weather here in Adelaide has not been very nice lately, although it is Winter. We could do with more rain, our rain gauge has had 1mm, 2mm, 5mm and 4mm over the past 4 days. Not enough to fill up the dams. Today is another gray day, and although the sun has been out a few times it is still quite cold with an icy wind coming from the south.

Today (Tuesday) is the start of doing less work, with at the moment one day off a week, so we get a 3 day weekend. Part of doing less work means being less profligate with our spending.


profligate - recklessly prodigal or extravagant

prodigal - wastefully or recklessly extravagant

Although I suppose that profligate is not really the correct word as we don't normally go out and recklessly spend money. Last weekend we were in the big shopping centre near us and I looked at a couple of things and then thought "why am I looking at these things, I certainly don't need them even if I might want them" which led me to thinking that where once I would have been happy to spend 3-4 hours wandering around the shopping centre, buying anything I wanted (within reason) now I would prefer to be at home doing something else, like gardening, crafting, reading, surfing the internet or just doing nothing much. I used to spend too much time on the internet reading other blogs, but I have cut back on this and only have a few favourite blogs that I check out daily or weekly, sometime I will post a list of my favourite blogs.

Today I made meatloaf, we had it with roast potatoes and braised carrot, celery, beans and zucchini. There is enough leftover for meatloaf sandwiches tomorrow night. I'm trying to plan ahead so that I don't have to spend too much time cooking, so what we have for lunch (our main meal) we will have for tea or supper the next day.

Cheese

I have been trying this cheese tin that my mother sent me from New Zealand, I was a bit dubious whether it would store the cheese and stop it from drying out without using plastic wrap. I'm pleased to say that it does, I have had several types of cheese stored in it and they have all remained in good condition, this swiss type cheese has been in it for nearly 2 weeks. I have had cheddar and a blue cheese in there as well, there doesn't seem to have been any flavour transfer either. My only quibble with the tin is it would be better if it was square, that is it would fit in the refrigerator better and you could put more cheese in it as well. I have been trying to cut down on my plastic wrap use and this has been one of the ways to do it. Another thing I have been trying is plastic covers which are similar to shower caps, they come in different sizes, and work quite well, you can wash them if they get dirty, but you can't use them in the microwave

Sunday Sunset

I took these photos on Sunday night, I happened to glance out the window and saw the sunset and thought I must get a photo of that. We get to see lovely sunsets but we're not usually home to enjoy them, that will all change next month when we reduce our workload.

I have unravelled my scarf that I was knitting, I finished it but the edges curled up, which I am told happens when you knit 1 row plain, 1 row purl, so I have unravelled 1 hank of wool, and have started knitting again all in plain, and it is much better looking. Once I would have been really upset at having to do that, but now I'm quite relaxed about it, I quite enjoyed knitting it as it grew so fast so I just do a few rows while I am watching TV and it is almost half finished, another week or so should see it finished (again). The weather is getting colder now so it will come in useful on cold mornings and evenings.

I have tried to change the layout of the photos but Blogger won't let me (or I can't work it out) and I don't really have enough time to faff around, you can still see the photos and read the text so that's ok by me.

Some knitting I have been doing

I got this wool at Spotlight a couple of weekends ago, I really liked the colours in the hank and it said buy me, I had no idea what I would make but there was a pattern on the label for a scarf, so I decided to knit that. It knits up really quickly and I finished the hank but the scarf wasn't long enough, so I re-read the pattern and it had 1 x 100g hank, so I looked at the label and it said 50g !! You would think that the pattern would say 2 x 50g hanks wouldn't you? Anyway, not to worry, I just dropped in at Spotlight and got another 2 hanks, I was a bit worried that I wouldn't get the same batch and dye lot, but even though I went to a different shop it was the same batch and dye lot. So my scarf grows, it is quite heavy and I think I will have to block it as it has a tendency to curl up, it also has uneven edges probably due to the wool having thin bits and thick bits (I don't know what you call this type of yarn, my mother who knits a lot probably would, so if you are reading this Mum, you can comment if you know)