Don't learn to touch-type if you're ever going to allow your right index finger to get caught in a falling double-hung window.

That's about it, really.

(It has stopped bleeding now, which is a bonus. It's amazing how hard it is to get blood out of denim 3/4 pants without it, either.)

Typing has become painfully slow (as my brain tries to work out which finger to substitute) or is just painful.

But how many words need a 'y', 'u', 'h', 'j', or 'n' anyway?

... *earl* ever* o*e *o* ca* t*i*k of. (Wait! I can write 'of'!!!)

Irony

I had to do some comparison shopping for house and contents insurance today.

Having found a better price by changing companies and some judicious rearrangement of excess and what's covered, I had to give the new company all the details.

I wanted to insure my laptop separately, so had to turn it upside-down in order to read off the model and serial numbers.

I dropped it.

And broke the plastic cover over the hinge on one side.

Chance the existing insurance policy would pay out for an accident that happened while I was arranging insurance with a different company?

(and okay, it wouldn't be covered for such a tiny amount of damage anyway).

Explosively Funny?

Disclaimer: No Jennifers were seriously injured in the making of this post.

I learnt a new lesson on Monday.

When cleaning out a thermos-style milk jug with a hinged lid do not under any circumstances do the following:-

1. Sniff it and discover that it smells a bit icky.

(Well, okay the sniffing wasn't pleasant, but actually had no potential for injury)

2. Decide it needs a really good cleaning and partially fill it with boiling water and detergent.

(You can see where we're going, can't you?)

3. Find that the only available kitchen brush does not fit into the opening, so that there is no way to actually clean the interior.

4. Decide that I'll have to shake it vigorously instead, so put my hand firmly over the lid.

5. Discover that somehow (and I didn't do physics in Senior, so I'm only guessing that this event is triggered by some obscure steam-expanding pressure-building thingamy) vigorous shaking causes a build-up of pressure such that it will explode the lid open and spray boiling water over the mug stupid enough to try it.

It was so unexpected by everyone that another lady, after helping me to find wet towels and frozen peas, asked me how it had happened? When I explained, she made the mistake of saying, "What, like this?" and did it again. Fortunately I had sprayed about two thirds of the water all over me, so she didn't actually get burnt at all, although she ricked her shoulder jumping back from the 'unexpected' spray. Truly a Plass* moment.

I'm fine. Frozen peas, the gift of an Aloe Vera plant (to cut up leaves to apply to my skin) and a call to my little bro (who is a paramedic) seem to have saved my skin. No marks on my face at all, and only a few red marks on my chest which are thankfully away from either sensitive or visible areas. No blistering to date. It remains to be seen if I peel - using lots of moisturising cream and Aloe Vera.

Of all the people in the world how many other people could have this happen to them?

... Approximately None!

Although I am encouraged to think that there is at least one person who is sillier than me.

*In Adrian Plass' book "The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37 3/4" he manages to cut his thumb on a knife while doing the washing up. When asked how he had done it he did the same thing with his other hand, causing the same injury. Plass tell it much better than me.

How to Make Beef Jerky

I swore I would never have a recipe site, but here goes...

1. Go on an elimination diet where you can't eat processed meat or tinned tuna with your salad at lunchtime.

2. Go shopping in the morning and decide to buy some chicken and some BBQ steak to cook, cut into small portions and freeze, so that you have some lunch meat.

3. Cook the chicken early, so that you can have it with your lunch today.

4. Decide that the steak can cook while you eat your lunch, before going back into the office.

5. Watch an episode of The West Wing while you're eating.

6. Once finished with the TV and having eaten your lunch, go back into the office and start doing all the things you've got to do.

7. Remember that one phone call will need the piece of paper with the bloke's name and number on it - it is in your handbag on the kitchen table.

8. Discover the beef jerky still cooking in the frypan.

9. Fill the pan with water and hope that it will actually come clean.


How much good value and economy was there in my cunning plan?

... Approximately None!

A Confluence of Events

This happened earlier in the year, but was worth blogging now that the cringe factor has lessened.

We had recently swapped the super-water-economical twin tub for a second hand environmentally insensitive toploading automatic machine. I decided I'd reduce the additional water use by using the 'suds save' option where it pumps the soapy water into the laundry tub where it can syphon back into the machine for the next load. Great! Not too much extra water necessary.

After a few loads I began to be perturbed by the amount of cleanish rinse water going to sewer. Surely, if nothing else, I could take that water (via the hose that Nan gave me with the machine) and get it onto the grass in the backyard. I don't expect the poor machine to pump up-hill to the garden beds, but the backyard is down-hill. This should work.

There was one little catch. The long outdoor hose had to be connected to the washing machine's short hose. The connection was reasonably secure, but I wasn't taking any chances. I made certain that the actual connecting point was outside the laundry door where any leaks would run across the driveway and onto the grass. I'm clever like that. Always looking for the thing that will go wrong.

I went back upstairs to get other things done before the next load of washing was ready to be hung out. All was good.

I kept an ear out on the machine to see when it stopped going...

After a while I noticed that it should really be finished by now. And yet, it was still running water. Why? It should be done. I went to investigate.

During the pumping out the first load of rinse water phase the connection had come unstuck. I am clever. I had forseen this possibility.

I had not forseen that the jerky pumping action would not only break the connection, but flick the end of the washing machine hose just inside the threshold of the laundry. This meant that the water being pumped out was ending up on the laundry floor.

We are clever. We had forseen a water spillage event and had a floor waste put into the laundry when we had the house built.

What we had not forseen was that the next load of washing (which had been quietly sitting in a pile on the laundry floor) would get sucked over the floor waste by the exiting water. Blocking it. Entirely.

But, how bad could this be? It's only one washing machine full of rinse water! So not being as clever as I had initially thought was not the end of the world.

What I had not forseen was that the washing machine actually relies on the fact that the end of the waste hose is above the top of the machine in order to stop the next lot of rinse water simply running out of the bottom of the machine once the pump stops. It had been 'filling up' for some minutes.

Fortunately, in modern homes they actually create sort of a fibreglass bowl to a certain distance up the walls before they put the floor tiles down. They had forseen this type of disaster.

What they had not forseen was that they can't take the fibreglass up the wall where the door is. The garage was also awash. We have heaps of stuff stored in the garage that haven't yet found homes. Tools; bits of board or timber that might be useful some day; a timber chest full of photos.

It was a disaster. My Beloved came home to a frazzled wife, who could not move everything to get at all the water. Being a sweetie, he helped with the clean-up. Without a word, bless him.

He has quietly hidden the outdoor hose. I can't find it anywhere. The chances that this can ever happen again?

...Approximately None.

Unfinished Home Furnishing Project #89938...

There is a reason that I have't posted for a few days...

Let's start at the beginning.

Most of my friends have bought existing homes where they may want to replace some things, but everything they need is already there in the interim. Some bought new houses that were built by project builders and have everything in them all shiny and new. They are painted, have the driveway included, all the door furniture installed and even turf and garden beds.

We moved into our brand new house the Christmas before last and have been slowly working on things that we decided to do ourselves in order to save cash. My advice to anyone considering it - just get the builder to do it. Here is our list:

• Internal painting (most of it done by the time we moved in - thanks expert-master-painter-extraordinaire Mum - but the architraves, doors and the final coat on the spare bedrooms are yet to be completed)
• External painting (can't be entirely finished until we get the yard level enough for trestles)
• Door furniture installation (generally not a problem as there are only two of us in the house)
• Driveway concreting (thankfully we got this put in before the rain last summer, but we still want to get it stencilled when we can afford it)
• 'Proper' fencing to the back yard (we're relying on star pickets and dog wire at the moment)
• 'Nice' fencing around the front yard
• Battening in under the front part of the house where it isn't the full 2 storeys (most of it is now done, except where we want to have gates)
• Insulating the underneath of our floor (which I've requested Hubby to get done before next winter)
• Landscaping and garden beds (although we have one garden bed down the side of the house, the side and front yards need to have dirt brought in to level them out, and we have a mess in the front yard where we've left rubble to go under the necessary dirt)
• Curtains (We have a very nice selection of old sheets and towels combined with the odd old curtain that we've borrowed from family who have upgraded)
• Carpet in the bedrooms (which would be nice before next winter, but probably won't happen)
• Mirrors for the bathroom and ensuite (done - thank you, wonderful hubby)
• Sliding cupboard doors for the built-ins in the bedrooms (who needs cupboard doors?)

That's all I can think of for now, but it is a significant list. Things are slowly getting done, but we still have a long way to go. And every now and then, something actually happens.

My husband's father's cousin's wife, a lovely lady whom I shall call Em, offered to come and sew curtains for me. What a sweetie.

Now I was certain that I could actually work out how to sew curtains, but I couldn't find the time to complete such a huge job. The other option was to break it down into little bits and the house would be a mess of curtain manufacturing effort on and off for months. But Em said that when they came to Queensland on holiday they could stay with us for a week and she would sew. Bless her cotton socks.

So during this year I have searched for and selected fabric that I loved, and bought all the thread and lining and other bits that she'd need. We ordered the tracks and they arrived last week so that Hubby could get them up before our visitors arrived Thursday (tomorrow).

Now we get to the reason that I haven't posted for a few days. Monday morning I was madly trying to get a report finished for a client so that I'd be able to assist with the sewing party at the end of the week. My husband's father's cousin rang to say that Em wasn't feeling well, so they wanted to get home sooner, could they come to us after lunch that day (Monday)? Then Em could sew on Tuesday to get something done, and they would leave Wednesday.

There was no problem with that, I had a couple of hours to get the essential housework done ready for their arrival, then we had a cuppa. I said that if Em wasn't feeling well, she didn't have to sew, but Em was keen to get some done. We started with the lounge because the fabric I'd bought didn't have backing, and I had bought separate lining - this made them more complicated, so a more experienced seamstress was an advantage.

Things started out OK, but got ugly quickly. Em wasn't feeling 100%. I don't know enough to be much help in working out the maths. It turns out that I could have saved heaps of time by getting the fabric shop to cut the drops, rather than getting it all in one piece. I didn't know they would do that. The pattern wasn't straight across the fabric, but not off by much. This ended up with us crawling around on the floor with my trusty old high school set square in an effort to get the drops straight.

An added complication was that when I'd ordered the material the girl had told me the wrong width for the fabric. Fortunately it was wider than I thought, but that then meant I didn't have enough lining.

Also, I had taken the shop-girl's advice over the phone about what sort of lining to buy. She steered me away from a cotton twill, saying it would perish and that she had some fabrics with thermal/blockout properties. It sounded good to me, so I fell for it. What came in the post was rubber-backed stuff. I haven't done much sewing, but knew enough to avoid anything that was rubber-backed because it perishes. Of course, I didn't open the package until Monday afternoon when we needed it. It felt icky, and kept grabbing onto the face fabric and skewing it all over the place.

Unfortunately it wasn't until the first windowful of curtains were finished that the worst of it became apparent. The horrible lining had skewed, and then stuck onto the fabric at the wrong locations. As a result, the curtains had sort of static-ed themselves into weird shapes, and the hem had gone off straight (unless I pulled it down). It had to be unpicked. The horrible rubber stuff grabbed onto the sewing thread, too, which made that a cow of a job.

We finally admitted defeat. It wasn't worth doing any more. I decided to give the horrible lining to Hubby to use at work to keep his glass and security screens from getting scratched when they deliver them to site. I will unpick the finished curtain and redo it later on with good lining (once I've found out precisely what constitutes good lining).

The photos show an overview of what the house now looks like.

So how many curtains did we get finished during the last two days?

...Approximately None