Last year I was getting blurry vision a lot, it seemed that my eyes were always tired and I’d rub them to try to see clearly again. I thought I needed new glasses.

I went to the optometrist but after the eye test he refused to give me new glasses. He said it would be a waste of time. And money. He said I had cataracts – advanced in my right eye, only just beginning in my left. My eyesight had been pretty much stable since I was about 20. My right eye went from 0.5 to 2.5 in the last year. Whatever that means in eye-speak.

Anyway, long story short, I was sent to a specialist who said its a fast moving type of cataract, different from the common one which happens with old age, and that surgery to replace the crappy lens with a new plastic one was the way to go.

I had the surgery on my right eye last Thursday and it went well, Apparently. But my eyesight is still really wierd.

Sometimes its blurry and other times its super sharp. Never having done anything like this before I’m really not sure how its meant to go and how long till its settled.

I’m not sure I like my new plastic lens… On the other hand, I didn’t much like my old blurry one either…

z

I’ve been on the path of simplifying my life for a while now. More in my head than in the actual physical world unfortunately… I lie in bed at night and mentally clean out the sheds with overflow with crap I’ve accumulated in the last few years, things I plan to use to make something one day, things which will come in useful one day, things that I’m sure I’ll need again one day…

Well, I’ve decided that if one day hasn’t come in the last 5 years, it probably won’t ever come, and I’m beginning to sort things out.

Of course, its way easier said than done. Especially when you visit a friend’s house and she has way more stuff than you do, and you talk about something you once had but threw out, and how there’s a great idea for it here and now, but its gone, cause you cleaned out and threw it away, and now you don’t have it for that great idea and you kick yourself and you want all the more to hold onto things you do have right now, cause you’ll surely need them one day, when you have another great idea and you’ll go searching in the bowels of the shed where people are afraid to enter cause its crammed full of things precariously balanced on top of other things and if you shift one thing you’re in danger of being crushed by the weight of all the good stuff you can’t let go of, cause, surely, you will need them soon, or one day, cause here you are now, looking for that one thing you know you put in the shed in 1993 cause you were sure it would come in handy one day and the day has arrived and here you are, rummaging in boxes up to your neck and pulling it out triumphantly and saying “here it is! I knew I had one of those!” its perfect for the job, and you’re glad you’re so clever and had the foresight to keep it all those years ago…

UGH.

Its not easy to clear out stuff.

sigh.

But here I am, my nose full dust and, ugh no doubt, mouse droppings, cause storing stuff in sheds means that, inevitably, mice get into things and if you’re lucky they only chew up the newspaper and plastic containers and not the items you so loving shoved in there so long ago.

I began with a plan: throw out anything I’m not likely to need or use in this lifetime. That included all bits of furniture or timber which wasn’t real wood – I took things apart, removing and keeping hinges or catches or doors. Any smaller bits of real wood which were of no use were put into the kindling pile.

I allocated the space just outside the store room as a temporary rubbish dump, tossing bags of rubbish out there, flinging out the chipboard pieces I don’t think I’ll ever want to use but which I kept just in case…

I packed up things which would be sold at a garage sale I’m planning to have sometime in the near future. ie useful things which need to be in someone else’s home where they’ll be used and appreciated more than I appreciate them.

Another pile for items I’ll take to work for projects there.

Bags of things I no longer want to take to various friends who I know might appreciate them.

Lastly, I went through my big plastic storage boxes of craft and sewing stuff. I was ruthless. I managed to go from 9 boxes down to 6. I still have tons of craft materials, but I’m a bit more realistic about what I’ll actually use.

So, prepare your eyeballs for the before and afters.

Before:

After:

Almost everything on the lower level on the left hand side of the above pic is garage sale stuff – which means I’ll have that much more space when its gone!

 

I still have bits of wood, doors, STUFF, but its easier to get to now.

Before:

After:

I even have space left on shelves now! The poodles approve. They can now get through the room and get outside.

Before:

After:

I mentioned I made ice cream the other day and that I’d share the recipe if it worked. Well, it did! So I’m sharing. Its really easy. So easy its really a cheats ice cream.

A bit of background: years ago, I found a recipe for raspberry ice cream in a magazine, cut it out and made it. It was wonderful!

…Only the recipe called for 1 cup of raspberries but I had more, so, what the heck, more is better right? I put them all in.

The ice cream was delicious but you had to spit pips out as you ate it.

It reminded me of the ice cream sold in a shop in Melbourne many years ago. They made full cream ice cream and their lemon ice cream which would coat your mouth with frozen cream.

Deadly but good.

Anyway, fast forward to now and I can’t find the recipe. I’ve looked for it on and off over the years but never found it.

I did an online search but couldn’t find it, just a couple of recipes which were similar, ie no cooking! I decided I’d make it from memory and with what I had on hand.

Basically this is what I did:

1 400g container of cream
approx 400g flavoured yogurt (I had caramelised fig)
1/4 cup sugar

I used my new food processor to mix it together well. Put it in the fridge for 3 hours, took it out and blended it again. Repeat. Then left it over night.

The result is a very creamy ice cream which coats your mouth with cream, but is very hard to scoop out. Basically if you don’t mind using a jackhammer to dish up your ice cream, this is the recipe for you.

Now, having read up on google, I learned that adding sugar would stop it crystalising which is why I added a bit of suger. The original recipe didn’t have any in it. However, without a proper ice cream maker I think I’ll always have rock hard ice cream.

I may experiment with light cream next time.

Still. I’m happy with it. I’ll make it again when our raspberries are ready.

z

Montana keeping Wayne’s seat warm.

Romeo snoozing till another animal show comes on TV.

Around here the lawn is currently needing mowing twice a week if I want it to look like lawn and not the collection of weeds it really is. But I may have taken care of that. I bought Kamba-M on the recommendation of a friend who said her husband uses it on their lawn and it kills weeds but leaves the lawn alone.

I guess we’ll see. Given we have more weeds than actual lawn I think my mowing problems will soon be a thing of the past and my new problem will be the dust bowl in the front yard.

Montana squeezing into the smallest of the dog beds.

Meanwhile I’ve been working on a few projects. The major one right now is a work art installation we got roped into volunteered to help with. I’ve been making large round spheres with plaster bandage and various size beach balls. Yesterday in an attempt to keep where I’d been with new plaster bandage and where I still needed to go I had this brilliant idea… I’d use food dye to die the water I was dipping the bandage in, thus creating a definite distinction between the old (white) and new (pink) bandage.

I couldn’t find any food colouring though… I probably threw it out… so I used potassium permanganate. Do you know what that is? Well, in the dog world it can be used to stop nails from bleeding when they’re cut too short. Its a disinfectant. It goes a vibrant purple when wet so I haven’t used it in ages, but I still have it. Thing with this stuff is it goes purple but dries yellowish and stains like hell.

I had dark brown hands all day yesterday.

My nails were the worst. The hands are back to normal now, thanks to many many many many washes, but the nails are still looking decidedly jaundiced.

I solved that with some dark grey nail polish.

Live and learn.

Next time I’ll wear gloves.

Other than that, what’s been going on…

Well, I mentioned the garden flowering and crying out for work. Some things are going great. My mexican orange blossom bushes are flowering for the first time since I put them in a few years ago. The yellow banksia roses are flowering on the one stem that avoided the great massacre of last year when I thought I needed to cut them back cause they weren’t flowering. I’ve set them back about 3 years.

There are pink foxgloves coming up everywhere (not necessarily a good thing considering they’re poisonous), forget me nots are popping up everywhere, and I have baby lupins popping up all over the place too! I even have sweet peas where I sure didn’t put them. I love cottage gardens and, by golly by gosh, I’ll have one one day!

I lost two of my gauras, one white and one pink. I lost one pink daisy bush, one lavender and a few other flowers. The potato vine is struggling along after Wayne accidentally broke it while dragging out the sculpture it first grew up on. Its gonna be a hot summer without the shade that provided on the porch.

The frost damaged quite a few of my succulents but most are coming back since I moved them onto the porch. I found this little shop basket at the tip shop a while ago and am using it to hold some of my plants.

When I was at Ikea a few weeks ago I bought two white doona covers for our bed and am now loving the new white look. I’d always been afraid of white as it gets dirty so easy, but I realised that its easier to have white since you can bleach it.

Our bedroom is quite small, it barely fits the wardrobe, two chests of drawers, bed and bedside tables. I love the blue walls but I’m considering white walls. Everywhere in the house. I’ve come full circle. When I was young I wanted plain white walls. Then I wanted anything but white. Now I’m back to white again.

Bedrooms feel restful when they’re a darker colour though. What do you think? All white house including bedroom, or leave it blue as it is?

I have a plan for the bed itself… the bedhead mainly. I guess I’ll reserve decision making on wall colour till I’ve made changes to the bed. One step at a time.

I broke my food processor. It was cheapie from Kmart but I broke it making pastry for spanakopita. Not my usual pastry but a recipe I found online… Just goes to show you should stick to what you know. Anyway, I replaced it. I’m trying out the new one today. I made us milkshakes in the blender and am making ice cream. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe even share the recipe if it works out.

With the better weather comes time to move on replacing our old wood heater. I’ve gotten one quote and am waiting for one more for reverse cycle airconditioning. That’ll be exciting. Maybe I’ll actually get through a long hot summer without melting this year.

Oh, and our geese are having babies. Did I mention that Annabelle is sitting on something like 21 eggs? One of which is a duck egg (long story). Well, turns out that her daughter (as yet unnamed) is also sitting on eggs. Its so funny to watch Hank protect Annabelle, he hovers around her when she comes to the dam for a swim and a wash, then herds her back to her eggs while keeping the other boys away from her.

I have no idea what we’re going to do if all the babies hatch. We don’t have room for 5 million geese. Wayne wants more but seriously, 50 will be a bit too many.

As for the duck egg… well, the day I found and counted Annabelle’s eggs Wayne found an egg in the middle of the paddock. It was still warm, kinda like a duck had been walking along and suddenly went “oops, I can’t make it to the nest” and dropped the egg where she was. I took it and put it outside Annabelle’s nest. Next day it was in the nest with the others.

Its going to be so funny when we have one duckling in a flock of geese thinking its a goose. At least the geese protect their young from crows better than ducks do so maybe the little duckling will make it.

So we wait and see.

z