The water bill arrived, and gives me the first chance to see the difference the efficient shower-head I installed in July makes. Water consumption is down 20% compared to the same period last year, down from about 250 to 200 litres per day. And according to the little charts, we’re apparently using less water than ... [More]
I must be getting more domesticated… I look outside and see it’s a warm and windy day and think “wow, what a great day for washing.”
The first blowfly of the summer hasn’t appeared yet, but there are other signs from BugWorld that the weather is warming up. After some time without them (pretty much) since setting off the bug bomb in February, cockroaches are starting to re-appear around the house. A couple this week, a couple last week. Mostly dead, ... [More]
I’ve lived in my house almost two years. And during that time.. I’ve done bugger all to it. Not that I was planning to do much, but here’s the current list. In my defence, I seem to rarely have any spare time to attack some of these things. Short term: Find out what kind of ... [More]
When I fire up the dishwasher, and get the washing machine running, and the central heating’s warming the house, and I can hear them all going… sometimes it’s a terribly good feeling to know all my machines are working hard for me. Perhaps people last century thought they’d have robots running around doing their bidding, ... [More]
On Saturday I went up on the roof of my house for the first time. Not for anything in particular, but just to see if I could, and to admire the view. The kids stood by, Isaac in particular making worried noises about the steadiness of the ladder, and the strength of the polycarbonate verandah ... [More]
If there’s one thing you want to be working in your house, it’s the drains. At their worst, if there’s a complete blockage, you’ll end up with nasty smells and even nastier effluent in the house. Thankfully things weren’t that bad, but there was that suspicious level of water in the toilets, and some stuff ... [More]
After a year and a half of living here, I finally bought a ladder. It’s probably something I should have done as soon as I moved in, given without it I can’t re-light the heating pilot light, or get tennis balls off the roof, or clean the gutters. I also plan to use it to ... [More]
Should I feel guilty for buying my kids secondhand school clothes? They’re in very good condition — no doubt donated by kids who have legitimately had no use for them anymore because they’ve grown or left the school. $2 per item, about 90% cheaper than buying new. Reduce, re-use, recycle, right? So I’m covering 2 ... [More]
Dishwashers: On the subject of water (I think Andrew or somebody mentioned this a while ago) in last Sunday’s Age M magaziney thing, there was an article noting that dishwashers generally use less water than handwashing. Dishwashers are in the 13 to 20 litre per cycle range, whereas handwashing is up around 40 to 60. ... [More]
A fridge magnet arrived in the mail. They’re always useful for sticking things to the fridge, and this one includes emergency numbers, which if could be potentially useful if there was ever an emergency in the house and I happened to be near the fridge and in the heat of the moment had forgotten that ... [More]
In the morning it rained, rained, then rained some more. Garden nicely soaked, and even the bits of the back lawn that have been bare are (touch wood) starting to grow back. It conveniently stopped just before 11, when I had to go out. The kids and I strolled down to the shops, bought fruit ... [More]