My Place Monday – Glass

Window Sill

It turns out that quite a few  people like blue glass! So I thought I’d expand on my photo from the HooHaa 365 Group.  I actually have quite a lot of blue stuff – mostly cobalt blue coloured glass bottles, but a few other bits as well.  There is blue glass in the kitchen, the laundry, the bedroom & the living area!!  I’ve only just been able to get some of it out again & show it off now that the kitchen renovations are nearing finished.  It looks good – but still not as good as it used to in the flat that PB & I first lived in.

Now I had to fish this actual photo out of one of my scrapbooks and scan it, so please appreciate it!! LOL

Back in the day

My fascination with glass started with this little piece that I brought a long long time ago – yikes – over twenty years ago – now that I figure it out. It was all that I could afford at the time back when Hoglund Glass was just a small venture in a the Craft Habitat in Nelson .  Now I can hardly afford to look at Hoglund Glass, never mind buy it!! I just don’t have the hundreds & thousands of dollars lying around that some of their pieces command today.

Hoglund Glass

You say, I say

It’s weird sometimes – how just one little word can change the meaning of a sentence, or completely confuse us. 

Take ‘Kiwi’ – for instance.  Are you talking about me – that is, a person from New Zealand, or is it that small brownish oval shaped fuzzy fruit that’s green inside, or then again, is it that truly peculicar flightless bird with th really long beak and the really large eggs – and who also comes from New Zealand????  Language is a very strange thing …..

You would think, at first glance that NZ and the US, or NZ and the UK, or even NZ  and that far West Island called Australia, were pretty much the same. But thanks to the invention of Postcrossing, blogs, Twitter, Flickr and other marvels of modern technology, I’m learning more and more how different we are .

Laundry is today’s topic of discussion. At the moment, due to having no kitchen, we are washing our dishes in the laundry tub (well, not actually IN the tub – but in a plastic crate, in the tub.Who knows what last got washed in my laundry tub!!!)

The first point to note is that, in fact, I’d usually say ‘washing’ instead of ‘laundry’ (the clothing etc.)  And probably ‘wash-house’ instead of laundry (the room where-in resides the washing machine.) So that’s different.  And generally (when it’s sunny)  I peg my washing outside on the ‘clothes line’ to dry.  When it’s not sunny (usually) I put my washing on the ‘clothes horse’ to dry.  In fact, I don’t even own a ‘clothes dryer’ (as in the machine that tumbles the washing around and blows hot air on it until it’s dry!!)

However – the word under discussion currently is  laundry ‘tub.’

Tub and Washing Machine

Here is a picture of it – well, a picture of half of it and half of my washing machine:

This is my laundry tub, or laundry sink, or washing tub.  Nowdays all kinds of random stuff is likely to get washed in there, but not  the washing.  (It does have the ripply bit down the side that you would use for doing the washing in it!!)  The washing machine does  drain into it though.

So – do you have a thing like this in your laundry (or wash-house) and if so, what word do you use for it.

And did your mum/mom use one of these to do her laundry/washing?? Because my mum did!!

A wringer washing machine

And while we’re discussing household appliances – what DO you call that thing that you use to suck up rubbish off the floor. NO, not the dog.  The machine!!!

Fat Chance …..

Now that the French doors are in, and the west wall will be finished today, I though I’d drag an old chair from the bedroom out where I can sit in the sun – or the breeze – from the doors.

I sat on it yesterday. For about half an hour. Peacefully reading my book.  Then I got up to go to the toilet.  I was only gone for a couple of minutes:

"Thanks Mum! this will be just great for looking out the doors."

Fat chance of me ever sitting in that chair again!!!

 

His sister took it over later in the evening:

"Yea - it'll do. I don't like the Ruger cooties though."

 Hmm ….. I really must wash that glass……..

  it’ll stay clean for oh, about five minutes, I guess.

 

Until it gets covered with dog snot.

 

Inside Outside

We are getting closer to indoor-outdoor living!!!  The doors out on to the (non-existent) verandah are permanently in place now.

The dogs are kind of puzzled. When we are outside and say to them ‘inside’ they go to the old back door and have this kind of “Huh????” look on their faces while WE go to the new French doors. But they’re pretty smart, so I think they’ll have it figured by the end of the day, if we just keep using the new doors – ’cause the old door isn’t gonna be there much longer anyway!

The hole in the wall earlier today. Builder & PB working on it.

French doors IN!!

"We can see out!" (Sort of -Mum needs to wash the windows!!)

 

"We can even GO out!"

"Are you SURE we can go out here?"

"Let's just admire the view for a bit."

Everything but the kitchen sink…..

Another one of those ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ moments.

When I went out to the SPCA this morning, I had a kitchen sink.

Everything AND the kitchen sink....

 

Now I have a hole in the wall.

Everything but the ..... well ...... even the everything has GONE!!!

By this evening I’ll hopefully have doors.

 (PS. You can have that car. Totally free. Just come and take it away. Please.)

Money Money Money

If nothing else, renovations suck up your money! Just forked out a whole bunch of dollars today for a permit at the Council, and on Wednesday, a whole lot more to the store for the cabinets, and paying the builder in between times for what he’s done so far.  He’s kind of at a stand-still at the moment, as he has done most of what he can do internally before the permit for ripping open the outside wall comes through.

 So this is what our kitchen is sort of going to look like. Except it is absolutely NOT going to be purple!!! The real colours will be natural colours – green, a sort of terracotta in a couple of different shades and cream/white.

Draft layout of Kitchen

Where there are the french doors out on to the verandah in this picture, there is currently our kitchen sink and some bench space. Where the fridge and stove are is currently a little porch area with the door from the outside. The end wall with the door in it is the wall you have seen before in this post: Now You See it … that goes through to our laundry and then the toilet.

So it’s all starting to seem a bit more likely to actually get finished ….. one day!!! LOL

Now you see it…

… now you don’t!

When we went out this morning on a little geocaching trip, this was what our east kitchen wall looked like:

That was the old pantry.

Now it looks like this:

That's our laundry - with everything jammed in one corner.

 Looking the other way from the laundry in to the kitchen – some progress is being made on new cupboards etc.

Looking toward the new kitchen.

Christmas Kitties

Every Wednesday I volunteer at the local SPCA (Society for the Protection of Animals) for a few hours. Mostly I just clean out the cats’ cages and sometimes do a little bit of computer stuff.

The manager had been hoping that most of the cats and kittens that she had in would get homes before Christmas, but there are still a few little furry faces looking for a home.  We took some photos of them today for advertising, so I thought I’d show you a few – these are some of the funny or cute photos we didn’t use.

 

 

And on a slightly cat related theme…..

This is an old Kiwi children’s joke (and probably an American, British, Scottish & South African children’s joke for all I know!)

“How do you know that an elephant has been in the fridge?”

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“There are footprints in the butter!”

The Annie & PB variation:

“How do you know that a cat has been on the kitchen bench?”

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” There are footprints in the plaster dust!!”

Raining. Again.

 The builder has been, put in a beam, and gone again.  If it would stop raining, he would get the Gib-board and do that.

Out the office/craftroom window. There should be hills in the background.

So we have been:

Sitting on the window sill

Sitting on window sill. Glaring at dogs.

Snoozing under the big desk (a kind human kindly rearranged her belongings so that there was room for two dogs.)

Snoozing Neve

 

Finishing off some Christmas gifts.

For a friend

Gifts for collegues

Now that the builder has gone, some of us will do housework. I guess the others will continue with sitting and snoozing. 

Dog Day Discoveries

A dogs’ eye view of renovations on Day One:

• Our water tastes really good now that our bowl is in a new place – we’ve been testing it every 10 minutes so we’re really sure.
• Mum – I don’t like that noise – but listen, I can make a louder noise – aren’t I clever???? Mummm… don’t you think I’m clever???? No?
• I do like this big desk Mum, only Neve could fit under that little computer table – I like this one more.  There’s plenty of space for a big dog like me.  Anyway, she’s too busy guarding Dad’s socks  to be bothered about sleeping under here.
•  I’m OK – I’ve got socks. I’ll be fine. I’ll just stay here under the clothes airer and guard Dad’s socks … I’m not too sure about that builder guy. He might want to borrow them.
• Hey, where have our biscuits gone … oh, out there in the hallway … yep, they’re still there…. Ok they are still there now… yea, they haven’t gone yet …. Alright, they are still safe out there now…..  yep…..that builder guy didn’t steal them yet…. It’s alright, they’re still fine ….