Got up out of necessity at about 6:30am, and was cursing being a woman. As I ran a small section of bed sheet under cold water scrubbing in large quantities of salt, I thought to myself "on the plus side, this probably means your underwear is too big for you".
By the time Bertie got to my place I'd already brought in dry laundry and hung out a new load including the aforementioned sheet, showered, dressed, changed the sheets on the spare room bed ready for today's arrival of my parents, eaten breakfast and faffed about on the computer for a while. Breakfast was a bowl of yoghurt, berries, fibre toppers, slivered almonds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. I have started a new brand of berries today, I'm now using Nanna's Mixed Berry which comes in a 1kg bag and is quite economical. It doesn't have redcurrants (yay) but it does have strawberries (boo). I like strawberries, I just don't like them frozen. They sort of disintegrate and go all watery and muck up the consistency of the yoghurt.We set off after Bertie had eaten a spot of breakfast and were soon barreling down the South Eastern. At one point we were travelling behind a tanker marked with Kit Kat logos! I suggested ramming it and letting the melted chocolate escape. Bertie responded "You know they don't actually transport it mel... I'll just let you dream".
After enjoying our brunch in the sun, albeit tolerating the increasingly crisp wind at the same time, we headed back to the sheds to check out t-shirts, dresses, tetris leggings, sparkly galaxy leggings, toe socks, knee high socks, candy skulls and stars, music boxes, soaps that look like fruit, espresso pots, knitted toys, Yo Gabba Gabba hats, Angry Birds patty pans, and much much more. Once we'd exhausted the non-food aisles, we headed down to the dairy/deli hall and meat/seafood hall to commence the food section of our shopping.
After that we headed up into fruit and veg. I got a few things for tonight, a few more for tomorrow night and some for Saturday and Sunday. Fruit and veg are so much cheaper at the market and you have a much better variety of choice. It's buyer beware of course, but that just adds to the excitement. Haggling, finding a bargain, it's all just part of the game!
We got a little rained on throughout our expedition but we were luckily mostly under cover. It was quite beautiful as the sun returned to the sky and the wet ground glistened under our feet. I love living in Melbourne. Sometimes the weather is hard to take, but most of the time I find the unpredictability part of the charm of the city.
After lunch Bertie decided to head home so that she could do a spot of housekeeping before she had to pick my nephew up from day care. That left me thinking about housework myself and I set about finishing off cleaning up the spare room. I tidied away half of the stuff on the floor and moved the other half into my office for sorting at a later date, then I vacuumed the floor and the nearby hallway as well. I continued pottering about and tidying after that and thinking about whether I'd done enough walking to justify not getting on the cross trainer and then Mum offered to do some hand-wash dishes.
There weren't that many but I hate doing them so I was happy to accept a little assistance. Little did I know what this would kick off. As Mum washed I dried and we started talking and I mentioned somewhere along the line that I had had the outer part of my skylight replaced recently. Mum looked up and noted that perhaps that meant we could clean the inner bit which was quite visibly dirty and thus letting in far less light that it ought to. I had been thinking of doing this for quite a while but the fact is, when you live alone you don't like to get on ladders with no one else around to call the ambulance if you fall! With Mum there, the problem was solved.
I got up on the ladder and with much pushing and maneuvering I managed to get the diffuser out of its position and down to the floor. I only managed to get dust in my eyes twice. I remained atop the ladder, queen of all I surveyed, while Mum vacuumed the dry dust from the inner surface of the diffuser and then wiped off the surface for good measure. It was while I was semi-comfortably perched up there that I noticed the top of my fridge. Dear. God. So that went straight onto the to-do list.
After Mum finished wiping down the diffuser and put it aside to dry she passed the vacuum up to me and I vacuumed the inside of the skylight cavity, knocking down great big bits of loose lining in the process. This meant sweeping it up as it was too big for the vacuum to handle! I got down off the the ladder and fetched the broom. By the time I got back with it Mum had nicked the ladder and was up it wiping down the splashback wall above my stove. She'd already wiped down the stove top after finishing the dishes.
Once I swept up and she'd finished the wall to her satisfaction, we turned our attention to the fridge. The top of the fridge, as Mum put it after inspecting it herself, looked like someone had skinned a lot of mice and made a fridge top sized mouse skin rug. Now the idea of a mouse skin rug is kind of a family in joke as Mum, a biology major, once performed an autopsy on our deceased pet and we did indeed tan his little mousey hide. Nevertheless, the image it conjures was more or less correct; the thick pall of dust and cobweb was a deep grey colour and was very soft.
I vacuumed the top of the fridge and then started wiping it. While I was wiping, Mum took over vacuum operations again and started on the walls of the kitchen. By the time the fridge top was done the diffuser was dry and ready to be put back into place.
It was not an easy task.
I managed to get three out of four corners into place but try as I might, I just couldn't get the fourth one to come down. I did manage to get the middle finger of my right hand stuck between diffuser and wall for a time. Rather painful, it is bruised and purply and it did need a cold pack on it for a while. We moved the ladder, switched places and Mum assessed the problem herself. Eventually the solution we came up with was to push the problem corner up with the handle of a wooden spoon, lasso the corner with a bit of looped kitchen string and then pull it down into position. I worked like a charm and we high fived.
There were a few more tasks that got done but I think I've described enough housework for one day. I will say though, it's amazing what a second person can encourage you to accomplish in a few short hours. Not long after we stopped work Dad arrived home and it was time to think about dinner. I made some fresh guacamole while Mum microwaved and strained the liquid off three serves of my veggie heavy chile. Then Mum cut up some lettuce and tomato while I cleared the table and heated up the wholemeal tortillas.
I definitely ate more than I needed to today, but I didn't indulge in every treat I wanted. I told myself there would be other times I could have churros, hot jam donuts, baklava, cheesecake and many others. A croissant with the girls was simply not a treat I felt like depriving myself of so I went a little over today. Calorie wise it was a bit nutty, but actually blood sugar wise I went well. I tested after lunch and after dinner and both were under 7.0. I admit the low reading after lunch surprised me but it was a pleasant surprise!
I have work tomorrow and it's now midnight. I knew today would take me a while to relate back to you but now it is time for sleep. Goodnight all!
Jess
PS: If I make any spelling or grammatical errors in these blog entries I apologise but please tell me! It takes me two seconds to correct and then you and I will both feel better.
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