Tag Archives: washing machine

Morsels

Posted on November 17, 2005 | Comments Off

Morsel 1
So apparently by the time I posted last night, the ‘incompetents’ had actually won the match on a penalty shoot out and “we’re” going to the World Cup. Yay us. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi. There. No one can accuse me of being un-Australian now 😉 The most amusing thing for me is that OtherHalf fell asleep and missed the excitement. Ha!

Morsel 2
We have a washing machine! The guy who installed it raved on about the brand as he ran me through the workings of this new model. I rolled my eyes. I must say though, I am honestly happy with the larger size, despite what we’ve been through to get it. It seems the company will only honour the original warranty, which expires in August ’06. That’s what I expected, but it would have been nice to have a few months added to the warranty in compensation, if not an entirely new warranty for the new machine. But hey.

Morsel 3
Last week’s SBQ. I can’t really flesh it out enough to be a post of it’s own, so:

When comparing large projects versus small projects, which do you get more excited about finishing?

Without a question, it’s large projects for me. I like finishing small projects, for sure, and they certainly make the numbers add up faster. But for me, nearing the end of a large project (and I’ve only finished two) brings a tangible excitement, and once I’ve actually finished, I find I can’t tear my eyes away from it for at least a week!

Morsel 4
Want to know what made my day today? I retrieved a man’s walking cane for him as I waited in a checkout line… and he responded with “Thank you, my lady”. My lady! That is 500% better than ma’am. Which I hear all too often… and it’s been far too long since I heard a ‘Miss’. I say we return to ‘milady’, and to hand kissing and jousting for favours, too! What fun :giggle:

Morsel 5
What didn’t make my day today was a $50 parking fine. OK, my own fault, I deserve it. I thought I looked at the parking sign, but I somehow saw only the time restriction, and not the fact it was paid parking. D’uh! I was at a perfectly wonderful toyshop while unwittingly parking illegally, but somehow my toy shopping expedition feels a little tarnished now 🙁

Morsel 6
Lastly and leastly, though I answered her already, the answer to Cathy’s question of a few posts ago is that I am due June 20th. Just reached the 9 week mark this week. I would put a countdown over on the side bar there, but I don’t want to be tempting fate just yet, no no no.

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, General Ramblings, Memes, Pregnancy

Tagged pregnant, SBQ, soccer, washing machine

The Occasional Blogger

Posted on November 16, 2005 | Comments Off

Have been in a bit of a funk lately. I seem to have developed a case of the baby-blues – only about 7 or 8 months too early. Having been sick (non-pregnancy related, I’m lucky enough not to get morning sickness), not to mention all of the stresses of last month, has caused me to slip into my own private doldrums. But the good news is, I am clawing my way back out, I have a bit more energy this week, and in the meanwhile, I’m stitching, which is a capital-G Good Thing.

I also received a most lovely RAK from Tami Lynne on The Wagon yesterday – Legends of the Dragons, which just cheered up my day no end. And today I bought myself and the babe-to-be this stunning book (this is the US cover art – as is so often the case, it has a much nicer cover over here :giggle: ). This book is just lovely. Everyone should go and buy a copy – kids or no kids – buy it for yourself as a meditation aid or something. The artwork is gorgeous, and I am in love with the beautiful simplicity of the book. Yes, it is ‘just’ a kids’ ABC book, but trust me on this!

In further good news, after much grinding of teeth and waiting on hold, I got through to someone with half a clue on the washing machine issue today, and it would appear that we are getting a new machine at 8am tomorrow! Stay tuned… hopefully a happy dance and much laundry will happen in the very near future.

Oh… and look out for a retrospective post sometime in the next few days – dated November 11, which was our 5th wedding anniversary (no, we won’t ever forget 😉 ). I thought I’d pull out a couple of photographs and a recap of ‘the day’ for you.

But now… must go to bed. OtherHalf (usually completely uninterested in Sport apart from that involving cars), is swearing at the incompetence of the Australian Soccer Team. Fer crying out loud – am I the only person in Australia who hasn’t got on this bandwagon?!

PS. I just noticed my blog is not adjusted for Daylight Savings time. How interesting! Will do something about that when I get a chance…

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Posted in Family, Pregnancy

Tagged Pregnancy, RAK, washing machine, wedding

Stale BBQ Shapes

Posted on November 9, 2005 | 11 comments

We live in a suburb with no laundromat.

I find it incredibly odd that we have no laundromat in our suburb. Or in the next suburb. Or the next! I had to drive 3 suburbs over just to do my washing tonight.

From that, you may also deduce that the problems with our washing machine are ongoing… after two months :grr: I’ve been sparing you the endless spleen-venting over that, and you should be thankful. Today, however, we finally received news that the company will now replace the machine – with a newer and larger model, what’s more. Hoo-bloody-ray, at last. I expect it will take them another week or ten to deliver it though.

Anyway, back to the laundromat. With the help of a phone call from OtherHalf, who unlike me had the presence of mind to look it up in the yellow pages, I found our ‘nearest’ laundromat, and threw a week’s worth of washing in the biggest machine they had. Super-duper-hooper machine, that one. I want one!

Then I made a hasty retreat as there were two weird guys in there that I did not wish to be near. There are always creepy guys in laundromats. Why is that? Anyway, I sat in my car and stitched a little on my Christmas exchange (it’s nearly done, hooray!) When daylight grew scarce, I sat in my car and ate stale BBQ shapes.

I ate BBQ shapes because I’m pregnant and I crave junk food. The fact that they were stale had nothing to do with laundromats or pregnancy, but it did serve to make me want never ever to eat another BBQ shape :ill:

…

And that, my friends, is the most roundabout way for anyone to anounce a pregnancy to the world. Don’t you think?!

11 Comments

Posted in Family, Pregnancy

Tagged junk food, laundromat, pregnant, washing machine

My Blog Should Be Purple

Posted on September 22, 2005 | Comments Off

According to Blogthings. Just in case you were wondering 🙂

And…

“You’re an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything. You tend to set blogging trends, and you’re the most likely to write your own meme or survey. You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you – not what anyone else has to say.”

Well damn straight. Who else is it going to be about?!

Don’t know about that setting blogging trends bit though. It took me until 2005 to even start this thing, so I’d say I’m pretty far behind in trendset-iness.

I’m not really interested in making my blog purple, so nyah, Blogthings. I have many ideas running through my head for my perpetually delayed template re-jig, not one of them is purple.

Dum de dum…

This post is rather full of good nothing-ness, isn’t it? I need more nothing-ness in my life. I would rather be stitching, but in the 10 minutes I’m taking a study break for, I would get next to nothing done, and would want to stitch for the next 2 hours, instead of slaving away on a Web Databases assignment.

Speaking of stitching, I received goodies yesterday! So happy – Laura sent me a wonderful chart, (which Finn promptly decided I should start stitching for him, but since he deleted a vital chunk of my Usability Engineering assignment on Tuesday, he’s not in line to be demanding anything of the sort :grr: ). Sorry, I digress. It’s Unicorn, by Peter Underhill. Finn does have a point, it would be pretty funky for a boy’s bedroom 😆 Then Mum arrived, and forced new fabric on me! A beautiful bluey-purpley solo from Silkweaver – and a huge piece, too. I’m envisioning a Mirabilia Fairy on it. Can’t wait to stitch again.

Before I disappear, here’s the 5 second update on the Grrr things in my life (in case you care):

Update: nope, it IS working. Yippee!

won’t

will

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Posted in Blog Blather, Counted Stitchwork, General Ramblings, Postgrad Study

Tagged car accident, cross-stitch, study, washing machine

Washing Machine: 4, Melanie: nil

Posted on September 15, 2005 | 2 comments

Ahahahahahahahahahahaheeheeheeheeheeheeeeeee! :topsy:

Yes, folks, we have moved from the minor breakdown phase, into the loony hysteria phase. The washing machine broke down again last night. I assure you, I don’t know which deity-of-machiney-things I have offended, but I promise, I’m sorry. Please, please, can’t I just have some appliance-breakdown-and-vehicle-collision-free time now?

If this was an old washing machine, I would be less concerned about the situation. In fact, we would have replaced it by now. But it’s only four years old. It’s still under warranty (thank goodness – some time after we bought ours, the warranty period dropped to 3 years, we were lucky to get the 5, as it turns out). This machine is a complete and utter lemon, let me tell you. At 2 years old it had to have major structural repairs – the drum ended up being replaced. At 3 years old, the pump was replaced, and we were told to ‘just live with’ some odd noises the drum was making. (Incidentally, at that point I was told I did ‘too much’ washing… what?!) Now, at 4 years old, it has had its brains replaced – the expensive-looking electronic board which controls the whole thing. But the burned out board turned out to be just a secondary symptom of whatever is really going wrong, because a week after that was replaced, it’s gone out of its tiny mind again. I’m ready to dig the thing a grave, warranty or no warranty, I tell you.

I’m not going to be petty and name the brand (ahem-Italian-starts-with-‘A’) , but for darned sure we will not be giving them any more of our dollars.

By the way, no, the car was not terribly damaged in the brother-in-law incident. In fact, to make lemonade out of lemons, an old scrape that I was responsible for myself (neighbours fence 😛 ) has been covered over by the new damage, so the repair will be like a two-fer-one freebie! In the light of ‘one-week-after-it-happened’, I do feel mildly embarrassed by my breakdown, but as I said at the time, it was not really about the car. It was more about the everything. I’m good now. Hysteria is much more fun :giggle:

2 Comments

Posted in General Ramblings

Tagged car, lemon, washing machine

On The Upswing

Posted on September 9, 2005 | 4 comments

Didn’t I tell you I’d post an all GoodThings post someday soon? Well, things are not quite all good, but are definitely back on the upswing.

The washing machine finally stayed dead long enough for TheGuy to see what was wrong, and hoo-boy was it nasty. The control board had burned out badly enough to have charcoal on it! I don’t want to know what one of those things costs, I’m just super glad the machine was still under warranty.

The car is fully repaired and happy to be home again. The liability issue is ongoing. Let’s not talk about that :giggle:

Then, good things arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday and Wednesday. First, official notice of unconditional approval on our home loan application. There had been some delay in that, for reasons beyond our control. Second, a lovely stitched piece by Annette arrived. This was the final mailing in the seasonal exchange we took part in last year, and I just love it, it’s a great design. And thirdly…stash! For me! New Stash! I’m sure you can tell how happy I was about that – I bounced around the room for a good half an hour :giggle: Kati from The Wagon sent me these great Paw Printings charts which have been on my wishlist for a good long while:

I think I have enough black perle cotton in my stash to stitch the ornament on the Onyx chart, and suitable substitute beads, so after I finish my red piece, I might treat myself to a new start. I can do that right? It’s only small, after all…!

Thanks Annette and Kati. It’s so nice to share a hobby with such a great bunch of people. Kati’s gift was a RAK (Random Act of Kindness), which have just been introduced on The Wagon. I RAK’d someone this week too, but shhh, it’s a secret!

Oh, and the final GoodThing I have to report? I’m not going to turn this into a weight loss journal. But. I’ve lost 5.5kg in the last 6 weeks. Happy Dance!

4 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, General Ramblings

Tagged cross-stitch, exchange stitching, RAK, washing machine, weight loss

Of Zen, and Frogs, and Dingoes

Posted on September 2, 2005 | Comments Off

The washing machine picked itself up off the floor and behaved like a perfect angel when TheGuy came. I gritted my teeth, and of course after he had left, it blew me a raspberry and resumed its former position on the matter. Grrr. There’s a laundromat around the corner where I expect to be spending some time studying over the next week or however long.

After last night’s post, I decided I needed more Zen in my life. Went looking for something I just knew would be on the www. Yes, you too can play with your very own Zen garden. I taught Finn how to do it, he had a ball :giggle:

So I stitched a bit more while he had fun on that this morning. Sadly, while stitching in monochrome is somewhat easier, and almost meditative itself, it is not exempt from the froggies. Three separate frogs visited me in a short space of time, so I put it down for the rest of today. I think I’m about 25% done in these few days though, so it shouldn’t be too long before another happy dance.

That covers the Zen and Frogs of my title, but what about the Dingoes, you may ask? Well, since TheGuy got in and out before our regularly scheduled story time at the library, we were able to make it there after all. And… who knew… it’s the 21st birthday of Wombat Stew today: Happy Birthday WS! Total coincidence that we were at the library for the 11am National Simultaneous Storytime. I love this book, we have it at home, and Finn thinks my singing voice is hilarious as I emulate the dopey dingo and his “Wombat Stew, Wombat Stew – Gooey, Chewy, Crunchy, Munchy, Wombat Stew”. And of course, I’m not one to give away endings, but let me tell you that the Wombat comes to no harm in the end!

So that was my Friday. Sadly, tomorrow is Saturday. While for some (OtherHalf, Finn) that means sleeping in, indulgent breakfast at home, and pottering about the house and garden, for me it means 4, maybe more, hours at uni. Blech! Looking forward to Sunday.

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, General Ramblings, In Progress

Tagged washing machine, weekend, wombat stew

A Spring Shower

Posted on September 1, 2005 | Comments Off

Well, the stitching drought may not have completely broken, but there has been the equivalent of a light shower’s worth of stitching in this house over the last three days. There was linen, and there was silk (red), and for a little while, all the NotGood things in my life receded into the background. Stitching is Good, and I should never not do it again!

The NotGood things in my life at the moment are mostly some variation on crap customer service. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s me. In the last week, or thereabouts, I’ve had NotGood interactions with our bank, our insurance company, one of my tutors, and the girl at the copy centre. Oh, and our washing machine decided to die a horrible (and stinky) death. What’s going on? It must be me. I must be giving off “piss-me-off-today-coz-I’ve-got-nothing-better-to-do” vibes! Or perhaps it’s a full moon*. Whatever it is, I wish it would just go away :grr:

So I will continue putting a few stitches into my new (top secret) project each day, keeping the NotGood things at bay. And hopefully sometime soon I’ll be able to make an entirely GoodThings post 🙂 Meanwhile, think good washing machine thoughts, coz TheGuy comes tomorrow, and I’m really hoping this death thing is just temporary!

*Nope, nuh-uh, not a full moon. Therefore it’s the vibes. QED.

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