Saturday, December 31, 2005

The dangers of having a Paypal account

include being able to spend money for stuff from all over the world. I bought some things before Christmas off a Canadian seller on a local auction site and so had to set up a Paypal account to get the funds to the right place. And that was all well and good. But the exchange rate is good at the moment so things in US dollars can be quite cheap (or actually VERY cheap) So browsing on Ebay is looking lucrative. Here you have to pay at least $150 for a decent miniature horse show halter (the pretty ones with beads and things) I just bought four on Ebay for very little more than that for all of them including postage. Do I need four... NO. But I couldn't decide which ones would look best....

Am not looking too hard at the clothes on Ebay. I could spend a fortune if I had a decent browse.

The New Years Project


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Some more post and rail fencing to match the half a fence we already
had, and a horse yard complete with what will be an enclosed shelter so the minis can go on a strict diet when necessary

Here's Ears

I've been a little remiss - I should have introduced you to Ears a couple of weeks ago when she first came to live with us.

Anyway here she is.

She is hopefully still in foal to Loopy Lou's mostly arab stallion
Hamish.   The scan showed she had twins so one was
removed.  The vet is coming on Thursday next week to make sure the
other foal has hung in there.


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She's a sweet old girl, and is settling in well.

Monday, December 26, 2005

Two of my boys


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Matt riding Kiwi

Herbie the cat


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Opening his Christmas pressie

The worst thing about Christmas

Is the leftovers.

The chickens can hardly walk they have eaten so well, the fridge is still packed tight (and there's no room for alcohol still which is pretty drastic) so it just seems ridiculous at this point to eat anything except cold turkey, salad, and trifle. That still leaves the ham, vegies, pavlova and strawberries uneaten....

Too much!

It was a good day though.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Christmas trees

Every year I seem to stumble into one of those Christmas shops and admire the colour co-ordinated, perfect Christmas trees. Have you noticed that this Christmas the trendy colour seems to be violet? Pink is quite big too. With silver. All very lovely.

And we have a rather nice tree this year. Which we have festooned with all the things we always festoon it with, the bits of our history. There are decorations the kids made at kindergarten, battered now, and squashed from being put away in a box for 11 months out of twelve for years on end, the two sets of lights that must be 20 years old, and cost a fortune at the time, the decorations that have a story behind them - there is the angel without a face because number one son took her off the tree and ate it when he was a year old - can't have been poisonous as he is still with us, the angel for the top of the tree that I got at half price on boxing day and couldn't bear to put her away for a year so she lived on top of a bookcase until Christmas rolled round again. There is tinsel of varying colours, icicles in strings, silver sleighs, pink and green beads and little wooden ornaments with cat teeth marks in them.

There are also a lot of candy canes. It's a Christmas tradition to hang canes in obscure places so the volunteers to take the tree down are rewarded with the previously undiscovered canes.

It's not up to Better Homes and Gardens standard, but it looks damn fine to me.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

So what's your significant other getting for Christmas

Mine's getting a new cordless drill. And a few other bits and pieces that I saw along the way and decided he would like. But I'm not discussing those cos he has been known to read this in passing.

He knows I've got him something else and the what is driving him mad....

I've just been doing a little bit of present wrapping and pondering that this is a major difference between men and women. He REALLY wants a new cordless drill as the other one is broken and so no longer cordless. He advised what voltage it should be and had a brand preference. He wants nothing else.

Now if he should contemplate buying me something of a utilitarian nature he had better add something utterly frivolous to that parcel cos girls don't want presents of things they have to have anyway.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Family feuds - not over yet, but the way forward has become clearer

My gracious invitation to have Christmas at our place has been accepted. I think that is 20....

I'd better start making lists.

Hope it doesn't rain or we will have no room, then there will be arguments.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Dressing appropriately

I think - but please please correct me if I am wrong - that it is not appropriate to take the cat to the vet wearing trackpants with a hole in the seat of them, a teeshirt with some stains of dubious origin, and redband gumboots. Actually I am not sure that this is appropriate attire for going to the mailbox, though I often do (I just wait until I am sure no one is looking).

So I got changed to take the cats to the vet. I wore black which was a really stupid idea as one cat is cream and the other cat is tabby and white. And both are shedding hair in large amounts.

The black top and navy pants I wore were also straight out of the wash, freshly ironed and pristine. This was also not a good idea as nervous cats develop leaks...

Really I should have pulled that teeshirt down over the hole in the bum of the trackies, and gone as I was.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

I still want catfood without the third degree

You may recall - but it probably wasn't interesting enough to recall - that I changed petshops Post about buying catfood. So I had to buy more cat food again today, and I find this insidious curiousity about the number, type, age and habits of my animals is spreading all over the town. I'm standing in the aisle with a bag of cat food under my arm, reading the instructions on a bottle of algae killer for the aquarium trying to figure out if the plants will keel over as well, when up comes the assistant and proceeds to 'help' me by asking what sort of fish I keep, whether my cat would like some canned food to go with the dried food, and what my pets are getting for Christmas!

Consequently I have no idea whether the algae killer will also kill plants but there is no risk of it killing mine because I put it back on the shelf. Still obviously in need of an online petshop. If I don't find one soon I may start my own.

The tiles I went into town to get haven't shown up either - so I have only a vague recollection and husband has never seen what colours the kitchen tiles are going to be. Hope they show up tomorrow we will be ready to put them up in the weekend.

Compared to other peoples thought processes

my own must be very suburban...

One of the searches recorded in the site stats is for "husband sex farm" This blog turned up sixth on that list... it was the bit about the cows getting a dirty weekend that did it.

But it would have never have occurred to me to go into Google and search on those three words - whatever I was looking for.

It's a day where things have not gone quite right

but not quite wrong either...

Yesterday I booked the cats into the vet for vaccinations and check ups for later this afternoon. Then I had to ring back and change that this morning as that isn't going to work in with the rest of my life. I always feel like such a complete idiot when I have to change appointments like that - like I don't know what I am doing from one day to the next.

Then the farrier didn't show this morning. Neither did he ring, nor did he answer his cellphone. This isn't like him at all. I hope he hasn't been kicked in the head by a horse and is lying unconscious somewhere... (after all it's darn hard finding a decent farrier - and apart from that I quite like the guy).

After having horses tied up and waiting for their manicure for over an hour and a half (they got a good grooming and even had their faces and tails washed while waiting) I was late starting the christmas cake I was intending to bake this morning. For some stupid reason I thought I would double the mixture - probably because I had enough ingredients to double the mixture. Which went very well until I broke the electric beater as the struggle with a whole pack of butter, half a kilo of sugar and ten eggs proved too much for it. Finishing off the mixing with a wooden spoon almost proved too much for my shoulders but I eventually got it done. It is all very well when you have an enormous bowl of fruit cake mixture (wafting brandy fumes everywhere - I was tempting just to have it for lunch) and after turning out every cupboard in the kitchen I find the big cake tin has done a runner. I then remembered I loaned that cake tin to someone last year and it was never returned, so it's two small Christmas cakes not one big one, and I only have about 20cm of baking paper left, so had to use my grandmothers trick and line the cake tins with brown paper. And I forgot that Christmas cake takes at least three hours to bake so I am stuck here watching it, when I should be out getting the tiles I ordered yesterday.... or maybe I should just be out on the tiles.