Sutra: That crazy time of year!

Who has finished Christmas shopping and is ready?

Everyone except me?

I just ask that so I make my self feel worse! I have not finished and I should be!

Damn it!

I hate being in town at this time of year also. everyone is always really annoyed!

Sutra: This roof will not provide shelter.

Hello,

I have been terribly busy doing important things, like:

Building a house

Shopping for xmas pressies for 100000000 people

Working in a job which makes me tired

Organising a rabbit to give to my almost niece (fun!)

Going to board meetings (bleargh)

I love the way the sun lights up the timber framing! It looks warm and lovely. This image does not do it justice!

Living area picture! You can see exactly whats going on here right?

This last 2 images you can kinda see the roofing joists, which is what we have been doing lately! Now comes the fun part where we have to leap from joist to joist while doing the roofing iron. Lucky I am not afraid of heights huh?

And this? Well this is a pen w a tractor in it... Cool huh!

ETA: Oh you can clearly see the parapet walls! These are essentially a wall on top of a wall which the roof will sit inside. So our house will look like a big box rather than having a slanted roof... This is for no other reason than the looks of the house. Which is what happens when a fantastic, super modern architect designs your house for you!

Sutra: Where did my weekend go?

We of course spent much of it up the block. But thankfully I had a chance to do some fun things too!

I had Friday off to help my friend move house. Mostly because I wanted to have a sticky beak at her new house, but also cos I am a nice person. Here is a picture of some boxes. I moved many of these.

We had a productive weekend up the block with. As you can see from the image below the external frame is now all finished. The linkway was the last thing to be done. Now we have started on the parapet wall before going and doing the internal walls. (parapet walls are kinda annoying to explain but its basically a wall on top of a wall... You will find out more in the future when we are finished working on them.)

On Sunday morning I went strawberry picking with my sister and her boyfriend. And treated myself to this tasty tasty ice cream. mmmmm yum!

Unfortunately we were not actually allowed to pick the strawberries! Because they were having a rest day to ripen up after being picked almost clean over the past few days :( So instead we picked raspberries! Very nearly as good!

This little guy had made a home in our stacks of timber. He could not stay there lest he be crushed by falling boards. So I had to relocate him! Cute huh!

Beautiful sunset in the afternoon at the block! (one day I may actually have to start calling it my house...)

So what did you all get up to??

Have a good week

x

Sutra: How to assemble a house:

Well you should probably start with a working knowledge of building... This may help.

If you don't then you should have a relation (or boyfriend) who is incredibly smart and likes to look in to calculations and to scale drawings and think deeply on such things.

If you can't locate your self either of these 2 things. Probably don't build.

We are actually thoroughly enjoying building together. J has it all under control and then I bring him lunch. I usually spend all afternoon with him on the weekends and his dad spends all morning.

When I show up they will have a bunch done already. Then his dad heads off and I hang out, we get maybe a third of the amount done... I am very distracting and I am scared of the nail gun and the saw. Drills and Rattlers are where I am comfortable (Rattlers: not snake but drill type thing which is not a drill for some reason)

Building is not for everyone. I am just terribly grateful that we have supportive people to live with while we make our own amazing house!

If your reading this have a great week. If your not, have a great week anyways...

Sutra: The Economy

Today I am working. I am not an economist and I know nothing really about economics, aside from the little I learn't by attending the subject in University (I didn't like it).

But today I would like to take a few seconds to speak about the subject.

Right now the economy is going through this kinda sucky time warp period where no one really knows whats happening and things are trying to be sold for too much and people want to pay too little.

For instance, the property market where I live is all crazy, wherein people are trying to sell their houses for much more than they are worth because they paid so much more for them a few years back.

Also tourism (my industry), is having a very slow start to the season and visitor numbers are down slightly. Spend p/individual is down a tonne, which doesn't affect me directly but affects the business I work for and means that we have to talk about it heaps.

On to the AUD which was for a long time above parity with the USD (hello online shopping) But is not back at parity. :( *sad face*

Luckily prior to the USD gaining some ground, I managed to put in a VS order which has just arrived!

Yippee for my awesome new bathers and makeup! Will have to post some pics because the website I don't think... I LIED well not exactly cos its these bathers but in the black w gold spots which there is not a pic of. Also got THIS in Star. Which is great cos I love some shimmer in my life and this stuff is v shimmery!

Ok well I hope that post didn't make me sound too much like I have not idea what I am talking about (which I don't). But I felt the need to ramble somewhere and this stuff has been on my mind lately.

Well that, and a whole bunch of other stuff which may well be even less interesting!

Sutra: 2 walls!

Today was rainy and horrible in the afternoon, which meant that we spent a considerable amount of time looking out the window waiting for the rain to ease so that we could go and keep working. Even though the weather was agains us and the rain picked up in the late afternoon, we still managed to get all this done!

Sutra: A house with a wall

See this is a wall! It wont protect us from the elements very much. But it is a great start!

I am so proud of J who has just been doing this afternoons after work and all day yesterday! We were there until 10pm! (I did not get there until about 4pm as I had a pole performance for most of the day)

This here is a sunset!

And after the sun went down the frogs and crickets started up and it was so peaceful and beautiful!

Now if only I had a house from which to enjoy this serenity...

Sutra: Portals - Windows to the soul

Portal frame assembly looks kinda like this:

I really like that they are called portals because I feel like when we walk through them its like your stepping through time or if life was a stargate episode we would be stepping into some other universe!

These are actually really boring. They are the structural bit of the house which massive windows sit in. So the Frams offer support for all that weight and stuff (I Think...)

In other news!

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show airs on TV in the US on Nov 29!

eeeeeeeee! I am so excited!

That's all folks!

Sutra: A stage complete

Wow, would you look at that! The floor is something really tangible which you can look at and say, "I have really finished"!

Next up is the framing which will be great. We will really start to get a real feeling of the space of the house now!

Sutra: That geeky feeling

eeeeeeeeee! To my new phone which I was finally able to pick up on Tuesday morning!

Here Follows Rant:

So Aus Air Express tried to deliver my parcel to my home and no one was there. So obviously they took it to the next Post Office on their route which is 10min from my home.

I work 9-5, an hour out of town, which means leaving home at 8am and getting home at 6pm. The Post Office they took it to is only open 9-5. They could have taken it to my local Post Office (open 7-7) and dropped it there (where most of my mail goes) But no. They didn't.

Call Aus Post and ask for it to be transferred: "You will have to pay postage"

Could someone else collect it for me: "No, you will need to show ID upon collection"

ARGH!!!!!

End Rant...

Sutra: My Weekend Gone

Hello!

I had my hair done on Saturday, look at how lovely and shiny and clean it looks! Yay for the hairdresser!
Then I tried to take a picture of these cute flowers up the block! They were tiny though and as I didnt feel the need to lie on the ground to capture them accurately, this is what you get.

On the weekend we started laying our flooring! This is the yellow tongue I was telling you about last time. We got a whole bunch done on the weekend after a trial of maneuvering which started off Saturday morning. Where about 10 sheets fell off the back of the truck! Luckily as I was at the hairdressers I missed the angry grumpy fest which this would have created.

And how do you get the bunches of boards off the truck and 3 metres in the air? Digger power of course!

In order to make this not a completely building related post, as that is all I talk about lately. I took a pic of my Sunday outfit. Inappropriate shoes certainly, top and jeans too matchy-matchy, course. Comfortable? Yes.

Have a great weeek!!

Sutra: Floor Joists Done Like Dinner

See what I mean?
We have some really lovely looking floor joists now!
You can see in the middle their is a length of timber which makes up part of the link way between the two sections of the house. Don't worry there is actually more there now. I just don't have a picture of that yet!
This weekend we will be putting down this stuff called yellow tongue which is like a particle board with little yellow tongues which sit in the grooves.
So then we will be able to walk on it safely which will be nice!

Okies y'all have a great weekend. Off the the hairdresser tomorrow which is always a treat!

who gave this to me?

Which refers to this cold I have recently acquired.

By recently I mean today, at around 11am.

I have this terrible feeling somewhere between my nose oxygen passage and the back of my throat where instead of nice soft fleshy tissue I am breathing using sandpaper.

I often get sore throats. I am of the opinion that this is because I am a Taurean and apparently throats are very volatile areas for these ppl. Thats my theory and I am sticking to it until someone gives me something better.

Anyways...

So the minute I get a cold I rush out and buy Olive Leaf Extract because I believe that it's the bom. (which is good)

Taste = Foul: Try ehinacea in liquid form and nothing will ever taste worse than that.

Immune boosting and sickness warding offness = wicked

The second thing I do (not necessarily in that order) is to make a lemon drink. For which I have decided to do as many other lovely bloggers of note have done in the past, and make a pictorial step by step of drink making procedure...

To make this drink of health you will need: Lemon, suger, industrial size bucket of honey (no need to use the whole thing less u want to), hot water (not pictured), a cup

Cut the lemons in half and squeeze lemon juice into cup using preferred methods of squeezing. I like this jaw clamp thing so I can really squish the life juice out of them.

Add hot water then honey. I like to use 2 teaspoons depending on how strong the lemon is

I also like to add sugar. No reason. I just do.

Ok I have now drunk 3/4 of my lemon drink and I am already feeling better :)

See now u know how to feel better when u feel like crap too! Happy world

Sutra: The Floor For The Floor

Would ya look'a here! That there is the beginnings of what will one day be a floor.

Now we just have to do all the joists for the bedroom wing.... Exciting!

Sutra: Welcome Visit

We have a bunch of different animal and bird life at our block.

Including but not limited to:

Wombats, echidna's, various possums, wallabies, bandicoot's, pardilow's, kurrajongs, and more fun stuff.

This little guy was gorgeous and he kept staring at me while I was taking pictures!

So cute!

Have a great day

Sutra: House Update!

Sooooo,

Over the weekend we reached a milestone in our building progress.

We finished painting the steel work!

This was a hugely long process because we had to paint all of it in situ and all the time clambering over tanks, steeing ladders up on stupid slope-y and rocke-y ground and having to climb all the way to the top rung in some places (not recommended by ladder labeling people)

I have to say that I am actually immensley proud of my efforts as you should know, I pained it allllllll my self!

So as you can see above the evolution of our house thus far.

Know what comes next? Floor joists, flooring then ...... Framing!

Then it will really start to look like a house!

Have a great week

Sutra: Block Weekend...

You may notice something different about our house....

It is bigger!

This is because over the weekend we finished putting up the steel work for the deck which is the back half of the bit directly in front of the camera and that bit on the side where the digger is.

Cant wait to finish painting it so we dont have to think about steel work for a good long time. Steel is boring!

As a side note, Sunday was such a lovely day here!

See below a picture of my hair...

I was so proud of my self for creating a half decent curly looking thing!

Yes the shed is a mess. You can come and tidy it for me.

Have a fab week xx

Sutra: Shopping...

Sooooo, I decided to do some online shopping....

Belt Jacket and Flats are all from asos.com and the rest are from topshop.com

usually I am an all black kinda girl but I am attempting to mix it up and I figured the best way to celebrate asos now having an Australian website was to buy stuff from it :-)

So I did.

Now I hope that everything fits me and that it looks ok on me! (which it might not and probably wont)

we shall see!

Have a good day

p.s. dont worry I am not planning on wearing all that stuff together, that could be a weird mix

Sutra: Audrey Kawasaki

Check out artwork by Audrey Kawasaki
Its so lovely. These ones aren't even necessarily my favourites! Well I really like the goldfish one!
Have a fab weekend!