A few things from the week

Posted by louisa on Friday 30 December 2011 in meta | 5 comments

One. Whenever we tell people we don’t celebrate Christmas, the first question is often “what do you do on the 25th?” – we don’t do anything special, we just treat it like a normal day. A few years ago, when the 25th fell mid-week for a few years, we worked – it was a good day for doing things to busy websites or the like. Last year, it was a Saturday so we had some equally unobservant friends around for pizza and to watch dumb movies – a common Saturday event.

This year it was a Sunday so after a lie-in and a lengthy Lily-dog walk, I cleaned out the chicken coop as I do every Sunday morning – it was so warm that I was fine out there in just a t-shirt, quite different compared to last year! – then hoovered (the new bale of wood shavings had ‘leaked’ as it was carried through the house), then spent the afternoon gaming. Just a normal Sunday really.

Two. I spent that afternoon – and most of the last week in fact – in the World of Warcraft. I’ve jokingly called it a “holiday in Azeroth” – it’s changed a lot since the last time I was there two years ago and I wanted to have a look around to see what’s new – but it’s actually been more of a holiday than I reckoned. It’s as absorbing/disruptive to normal life as being out of the country for a week! I do like that I can create a character that cares about nature and spends as much time looking for herbs, crafting things, cooking & fishing as she does killing things :)

Considering there is a lot of WoW which feels like chores, it really pushes my buttons and I can play it non-stop for hours and hours. I’ve been complying a list of ways it does that – along with ways that my other favourite video games do too – to see if I can transfer some lessons from them onto my real life — make my real life to-do list as fun as running around killing murlocs.

Three. While I was gaming on Sunday, John went for lunch with his family – as he does whenever they all gather together – and returned with a huge pile of leftovers for us, so we’ve been able to join in the “when will we finish all the turkey?” game even without celebrating Christmas ourselves ;) We’ve had turkey & ham leftovers each day since then, and I made a turkey & chorizo jambalaya (like the one mentioned on here) last night which was yum. John also brought home leftover meat from people’s plates for Lily-dog & the feline duo, and leftover veg & fruit (including a LOT of melon) went down to the chickens. Glad we could use it up rather than it all going in the bin.

Four. The chickens’ new roof is working well – and by the amount of digging that’s going on in that area, I think they’re enjoying having a new dry part. If anyone sailing about 700miles south-east of Invercargill in New Zealand (the antipode of West Yorkshire) spots some chickens, they’ll be mine – having dug right through the earth.

Five. I bought some forced hyacinth bulbs a couple of weeks ago as and aside from getting a bit leggy/too heavy for their own good, they’re pretty – and so fragrant – at the moment. I am regretting it a bit though – I prefer plants to cut flowers but while these are in soil, they’re essentially as disposable as flowers. I will plant them out in the garden, to see if they’ve got enough energy to grow again in the future (apparently hyacinths are more likely to grow again in future years than something like tulips), but I’m not holding my breath over them.

What have you been up to this last week? Had a mountain of turkey to get through too? Any tips for helping my hyacinths along?

Today I…

Posted by louisa on Monday 18 July 2011 in DIY, meta | 10 comments

Today I slept late because we were up til the early hours putting the world to rights with a friend. When we’re elected supreme rulers of the world, things are gonna be sweeeeet. ;)

Today I sanded and re-primed the bathroom door frame – we did all the woodwork in there yesterday but the door frame “alligator” cracked so I had to start again rather than getting on with the first coat of the actual paint. Note to self: use the right brush for cleaning your teeth.

Today I filled in various cracks/holes/seams in/around the bathroom woodwork and in the coal hole-turned utility room. I heart decorators’ caulk.

Today I “supervised” John making doughnuts for the first time in reaction/protest to everyone going on about the new giant chain doughnut shop that’s opened up near the motorway. They were pretty good for a first try but have lots of ideas on how we can make them better. However we’ve not sure we *should* make them better – too much temptation.

Today I wandered over to Homebase (our “convenience” DIY store, although we prefer to get major stuff from better/cheaper places further afield) to buy a tile trowel and ended up buying in addition to the tile trowel & spacers: a little pot of green enamel to revamp some lanterns (reduced from £4 to £1), two 3-exposure photo frames (reduced from £10 each to £3), two mini succulents and a mini cactus (to be potted on together for John’s desk), a Calla Lily (pictured above) and some sort of stripey-leaved red Bromeliad — the latter two because I want some more houseplants and specifically at the moment, some colour for the bathroom. Naughty unplanned spending though.

Today I bumped (literally) into the same guy three times at Homebase. It got embarrassing by the third time.

Today I used my new tile trowel with my bought-super-cheap-at-Focus-the-other-week tiles to make a splashback in the former coal hole/now utility room. The tiling gods were smiling down on me for my first spot of tiling in 12 years – the corner to edge of the wall cabinet was exactly four tiles plus spacers, and the corner to the edge of the wall the other way was exact three – no cutting required!

Today I sat down at my computer to do a bit of work and didn’t realise how much tile adhesive I had stuck on my arm until it all dried and flaked off onto the floor. Another note to self: sweep that up.

Today I sanded the bathroom door frame AGAIN because the second coat of primer had cracked in the same way as the first. I decided to get really aggressive with the sand paper and ended up peeling – in pretty big sheets – three layers of paint off the door frame. It seems that somewhere down the line someone really skimped on the prep – the newly exposed level was perfectly glossy. I sanded that back though and primed it for a third frickin’ time and so far, no cracks. Woohoo.

Today I was grateful that John volunteered to cook a big batch of pasta sauce for the freezer so we could have that for dinner rather than me having to stand in front of the stove this evening. He’s serving it as I type this. Final note to self: type faster!

What have you been up to today?