Monday, June 30, 2008

Yeah... well...

I think I have mentioned before that husband has a strange sort of boss.

Actually "strange" is probably a charitable description.

His recent trick was to cancel a day of annual leave he had already approved for husband to go to Fieldays with me because he (the boss) had to go to Fieldays and someone had to run the business. I'm sure you can't do that! He didn't actually get away with it as husband rang him the morning of the day and told him he was taking his annual leave and too bad.

Then there is the "I'm so good to you I'll send you to Aussie" Back in February or so he asked husband if he wanted to go to Aussie for a weekend to do a course. He could have some more time off before or after if he liked rah rah. So we discussed it and decided we would both go for a week. Then the boss decided that HE was going to go for a week and booked husbands ticket to leave on Friday night come back on Monday morning (needing to check in at 6am what fun) and spend the intervening two days at this course. When boss was told that that wasn't really what we wanted he shrugged and pointed out that the tickets were non refundable and non exchangable and done and paid for now. So too bad never mind.

That was this weekend - I'm sure he's had lots of fun (not!)

With a weekend to myself and some mediocre weather I moved a bookcase and the tropical fish tank. Moving the tank was sort of a largish task, and definitely required several buckets and a supply of towels. Apart from that I played with the foals for a bit, put the old girl Ears on a lunge for ten minutes (in an effort to work her weight back upwards, she has lots of belly and not much topline since having Storm) read a book and watched the first season of Grey's Anatomy on DVD.

Wasn't all bad.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Finally

I think it was two and a half weeks ago give or take that the old kitchen was removed. That left a microwave and a camping stove and the slow cooker. The old dishwasher went to live in the laundry but when it threw a hissy fit we were left with doing dishes in the laundry tub. (I'm most upset about the dishwasher - we paid $25 for that a year ago, I'm not sure we have had our money's worth)

This evening, at last, the new kitchen went in and became sort of functional. There is a fair bit of finishing but we have a sink with running water, a dishwasher, and a stove.

Finally feels like we are getting somewhere.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

cat
more cat pictures

Sunday, June 08, 2008

And this week on Kismet Farm

The usual attempts to get all exercise into the weekend so we can return to work for a rest.

Saturday

Bought stock food
Bought groceries
Went to the building supplies place with a long list of stuff that we needed prices for. Total much smaller than suspected.
Bought sundry hardware items
Unpacked groceries and stock food
Put a coat of sealer on new walls in kitchen
Picked up some of the hedge trimmings left from last weeks hedge trimming

Sunday

Put first top coat on the kitchen
Picked up rest of hedge trimmings
Admired mighty large pile of hedge trimmings (and I mean very big - approx 8 metres long, 3 to 4 metres wide and a couple of metres high)
Moved stock round (they love this bit and race round for ages)
put second coat of paint on kitchen
Chopped onions and hoped paint smell would go away
Wrote formal letter to incompetent builder requesting materials account
Packed to go away for a couple of days tomorrow.

Hmm - that's all.. seemed like more somehow.

Builder woes some more

Guess what - bad builder sent the bill.
Yesterday we went - with a list of every single thing we could think of that was used - and got a price for it at the same place builder used. Guess what - his materials account (which has no detail at all) is $2800 and the number we got is $1250.

His time seems a little stretched as well and he had an attempt at charging us for a skill saw as he blew up his old one (he withdrew that bit when we asked he return OUR skill saw then)

Wonder if this guy spends his whole life ripping off people or if it was just us.

Obviously he is required to provide an itemised materials list before we will even contemplate payment...

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Friday, June 06, 2008

some people have very short memories

Less than five seconds it appears.

Back a bit over a year ago we put the other house on the market. And sold it in about three or four months. Nothing too dramatic we got caught in a slowing market.

Earlier than that husbands boss listed their house. And got an offer at about 20% less than their asking price straight away. Which they declined. Fast forward - as there is nothing interesting happened in the meantime - to yesterday when they accepted an offer for $100,000 less than that first offer.

Some moments after sharing that the house appeared reasonably close to sold finally (after over a year and a half) the boss told husband that houses in town sold a lot better than those in the country of course and he would never consider a lifestyle block.

Thank God for that - we have enough stupid neighbours already...

Monday, June 02, 2008

Happy birthday to Her Majesty

who's real birthday is in April I believe. Anyway we get another day in the weekend.

Which was fully utilised in household renovations:

Saturday
Phone call from my mother reporting someone had vandalised her letterbox overnight
Go into town to collect some hardware things and check the letterbox.
Fix letterbox.
Arrive home to get phone call from tree trimmer man who will be down this afternoon to start trimming trees. Move animals round and open gates and things.
Strip some architrave. Very slow going.
Tree trimmer man shows up and trims some trees before it gets dark at which point he goes away.

Sunday

More gib fixing and general mucking around
Pick up manure
Trim some horses feet
Go out to dinner with family.

Monday
More gibbing and stuff
More paint stripping. Slow but slightly faster than Saturdays effort
Tree trimmer man shows up and finishes off. Lovely job but not inconsiderable pile of macrocarpa pine and pittosporum trimmings left lying round the place.
As it rains on and off all day spend time putting covers on and taking covers off the horses. Very good training for foals. With adjustment number 15 we manage to get Tee's cover fitting finally so it doesn't slip sideways on him. The other possibility is that he grew into it in the last week.
Fit panelling now devoid of paint (mostly)