Poppalina

Sometimes, You Just Have to Buy Stuff

So Shula, in her infinite wisdom, heads off to Al Martinez's mega liquidation sale,

With absolutely no money,

And completely loses her mind.

Firstly, buying something she has always wanted and which, if she's serious about a future in pattern-making and garment construction (more about that later), will come in very handy:

A Yamato industrial overlocker.

Look. It spoke to me. What could I do?

And if that weren't demented enough, I also grabbed two patternmaking tables, which looked rather small in that giant warehouse, but when I got them home I realised that they were, in fact HUGE, and didn't fit through my front door (which is really awkward, given that I have no rear or side access).

I particularly enjoyed the way the Van Dude, after announcing that the tables were never going to fit (without even trying) took $160 off me (twice the quoted price) and just left me standing there with the tables taking up the entire front veranda, not quite obscuring the front door, but very nearly. 

Despite my technical moronity, I was obliged to pull them apart, and then spend the evening killing myself trying to reassemble just one of them.

The result was some serious muscle soreness, but a profound sense of achievement.

All those Kinder Surprises have really paid off.

 

I have a spare, if anyone's hanging out for one. I have to say, they're FABULOUS (but rather heavy).

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...

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Oh. And did I mention that I had absolutely NO money?

I am so screwed.....

p.s. looks like the table has found a home in Central Victoria. You can stop emailing me, guys...

Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk...

It's all very lovely to have a garden full of birds,

But the bastards are eating my figs.

And my (rather clever, I thought) attempt to deter them in a yogic, non-violent fashion,

Seems to have created, inadvertently,

Shushu's Fig Disco,

Which is, I have to say, very pretty. The whole garden is unexpectedly alive with reflected light.

But it's done nothing to deter those birds. If anything, their number seems to be growing.

This morning, at breakfast? 

I could swear I heard one especially smug little fig thief whistle this..

In Which ShuShu Gets Medieval with a Screwdriver and Teaches her Daughter Some Brand New Swear Words.

Look, it doesn't mean much to anyone else, I know,

But I would rather have a tooth pulled than pick up a hammer. I'm stupid with a screwdriver, and the less said about my drill skills, the better.

The ugly fact is that I am a Mechanical Moron.

Or so I thought.

Last week I managed to achieve this..

 

See that humble screw? Flush, mate. And securely fastened to the wall with a PLUG. Requiring the use of a DRILL.

Isn't there some kind of brownie badge I should be getting for that?

I admit, this job was not without it's Moment of Doubt, one where I seriously thought I would have to spend the rest of my days with a jammed drill bit protruding from the wall like Excalibur, and the operation generally, I must confess, was a little reminiscent of a Marx Brothers sketch, but hey.....SCREW IS IN.

Resulting in this...

   

We now have Adequate Lighting in the bathroom, and we are no longer applying facecream and makeup in the the light-equivalent of the family crypt.

But the DIY storm doesn't end there, oh no.

Flushed with success, and no doubt a tad over-confident, I then ambitiously - foolishly - attempted the assembly of one of those DIY kits from Aldi.

8 hours later, I had this...

 

Now, if you are thinking quietly to yourself that you'd like one of these trolleys for your kitchen, THINK AGAIN. What looks like an innocent little kitchen bench on wheels (for your easy stowing away convenience), is in fact a Bitch Demon from the Deepest Bowels of Hell in disguise. Even the emergency intervention of blokey blokes couldn't help me with this one, it completely stumped them. God him/herself couldn't have helped me, the parts were so dodgy, the workmanship so slack. At the very least, do not even consider attempting it with less than two pairs of hands. Wah'Allah hi, I will never buy shit like this from Aldi again. Seriously, it would be less trouble to build it from scratch.

That said, I'm pretty chuffed that it's done, for now I have somewhere level to work in the kitchen (collapsing floors notwithstanding). My benches are undulating waves of ancient, warped and lifting formica, overhung with cupboards placed hilariously at knock-out height. There's only so many resounding smacks to the forehead a girl can take over the course of a day, and I'd had just about enough.

Stay tuned for my next adventure: The Dynabolt.

Yes, Miss P, I'm looking at you...

Dear Landlord...

I didn't mean to rip up your carpet, honest.

I was just curious to see what was underneath, and the next thing I knew,

 

Two rooms-worth of carpety corpse dust were tucked furtively in the back of the ute, and I was feeling shocked at my own temerity.

However, if I can be brutally honest here for a moment, that carpet would never have done anything other than suck badgerfruit.

The carpet guy who sold it in the 1970s would have laughed his head off thinking anyone would even buy it in the first place, it was so nasty. 

And it's got a whole lost nastier since then. It made the house smell sad and lonely.

Which is not how a house should ever have to feel.

Anyhoo, 

Turns out your floors are Very Rough.

Much too rough for sanding.

 

And you have/have had a nasty case of borer,

Which might explain why the floors felt like ginger fluff,

And I kept feeling like I was going to fall down through the carpet,

Straight into the waiting arms of Freddy Kruger...

It was a definite possibility.

 

So, I took a deep breath. And I painted them.

Actually, it's all Bobby La's fault.

And Miss Penpen has a lot to answer for, too,

Giving me all that late-night advice the way she did. Whatever was she thinking?

It was a Lot of Work.

Especially filling the myriad holes between the floorboards,

And you could've driven a truck under the skirtings.

I never want to look at another tube of No More Gaps as long as I live,

Though it did wonders for the Sponge Problem.

In fact, I strongly suspect that silicon is now officially holding the house up.

So, my Dear Landlord, I'm sorry I took such liberties,

But, as a devout and committed yogi,

dedicated to ishwara pranidhana via prolonged and persistent asana and pranayama,

I can only say, in my defense, that

 

Your floors are now FUCKING FABULOUS to sit on.

Am I blue?

Too windy (and then hailey) to paint the back porch,

 

The shed is still sticky from my icing frenzy, and I'm worried about friends in Mumbai,

 

So I work off my anxiety with a can of blue paint in the bedroom.

 

Bloody stucco. There should be a law against it.

Icing The Shed

I have discovered caulking.

It's a lot like icing a cake, and just as much fun,

Except that icing washes off your skin when you've finished being a twit.

 

Whereas silicon sticks like shit to a blanket.