Milton the Horse

My darling little Milton in his horse blanket made for dogs.



Going to miss him so much when he's kenneled for a week starting tomorrow!

No. 30 - Visit A Winery

Went to the Gapsted winery near Myrtleford. Milton came in the car and was tied up at the bicycle rack while we went into try out some wine.



Looked out of the window and realized there was a man carrying him - without his leash. Went out and was told that Milton had managed to somehow wriggle out of his leash and was running amuck among the grape vines.

Whoops.

No. 35 - Change Blog Skin

True, I didn't do anything fancy. But there isn't anything to be fancy about.

No. 5 - Cut Hair Short

I've just started the 101 in 1001 challenge. For those who don't know what it is, basically you make a list of 101 things that you'd like to do but have been putting it off, and do it over the course of 1001 days.

For years I've had long hair - ever since I was 12 or something like that. Been toying with the idea of cutting it short for the past 3 years but just never had the nerve to do it for fear that I would have it. Plus, it took ages for my hair to get as long as it was! However, took the plunge:


My hair at its longest - almost to my waist.


First step - Hairstylist said there was an extremely high chance of me crying if I went all the way the first time and I should do it in stages. So here's me after the first stage, with hair at the shoulders. Very annoying, ends kept flicking out.


Final product. Still not used to it to be honest - I look at this photograph and think... "This isn't what I see when I look into the mirror??" Anyway, pretty happy with my decision.

20 Things That Make You Happy

1. Milton coming up to me and asking for some attention by crawling into my lap, positioning his head right under my hand for optimal petting convenience, etc.

2. Freshly laundered bedsheets.

3. A perfectly squeezed tube of toothpaste.

4. Trying a new recipe and having it turn out well.

5. Finding exactly what I want on sale.

6. Speedy and reliable internet connection.

7. Not having to stop at any roundabouts on the drive to and back from work.

8. Receiving parcels in the mail.

9. Easy extractions - the ones where you put the forcep on, do a nice gentle twist and it just pops out.

10. Wearing a very good pair of socks.

11. Finding unexpected money in a forgotten place e.g. pockets, under the car seat etc.

12. Arriving exactly at the right moment to catch public transport - no waiting time!

13. Emptying the vacuum cleaner bin - allows me to quantify how much work I've done.

14. Having patients tell me that I'm a gentle dentist.

15. Tea and scones for weekend breakfasts.

16. Getting a good haircut.

17. Being warm and snug in bed in the depth of winter.

18. The beach.

19. Soft serve cone from Macca's at the end of a hard day.

20. A constant and accessible supply of chocolate at hand.

Mind Numbing Boredom

Now that Milton is a lot better than what he used to be, I have a lot more time for myself. Except I don't actually have anything to do.

One can only obsessively clean out the house so many times. To illustrate how serious the situation was, I told my housemate maybe I would be better off studying for FRACDS. That got her pretty worried.

I can't continue cooking because there's way too much food in the house. I can't do jigsaw puzzles, knitting, embroidery, cross stitching or any of my favourite precision hobbies because it's bad for my precious precious eyes that have to be preserved for dentistry. I could do sport, but I think that's a even crazier suggestion than studying for FRACDS.

Suggestions, anyone?

No. 45 - Buy a Pair of Designer Shoes

After doing the weekly groceries, vacuuming my room (3 bins full of stuff - no idea where all this dust and fluff is coming from!), rearranging the pantry, rearranging the furniture in my room and talking psycho babble to Milton, I remembered that I have yet to break in my new pair of shoes.



Bought it over a month ago and it's been sitting in my closet, patiently waiting for its debut. Love it - only thing is that I'm still not used to toe cleavage.

So. Bored. Entire. House. Rearranged. What. Else Is. There. To. Do?

Have sudden flashbacks of ridiculous childhood memories that I've been suppressing because guess what - it's unproductive to dwell on bad experiences and people who are already so out of your life it's not even worth thinking about.

*clicks delete button*

What part of Milton likes to follow you out of the room to sneak a pee when you're not looking do you not understand, Dental Girl? What part??

Close the stupid door behind you next time!!!!!

Scavenger

Milton had this bad habit of going through the trash. He usually emerged unscatched, except for this instance:



Here he is with the Club Cheddar label stuck onto his head. He spent a good 10 minutes rolling on the ground, trying to get rid of it.

I would like to say that he stopped sniffing around the bins but the truth is I bought a rubbish bin with a lid to solve the problem. And solve it it did.

Land Of Ws

Apparently the worst place to be is the land of Ws. Specifically, the land of Wishing, Wallowing, Whinging and Wasting Time.

Knowing that, I've decided to make this an extremely productive weekend. So far I've:

1. Cleaned out the pantry.
2. Rearranged my room (again).
3. Given Milton his weekly bath.
4. Done the week's worth of laundry.
5. Written up a full list of things to do.
6. Cooked some seri muka and bo bo cha cha.
7. Cleaned out the entrance of the home.
8. Found a good home for all the green bags for groceries.

Shall continue onto the laundry area, the garden and my car.

Baked some red velvet cupcakes and realized that I'm running out of all my baking basics - sugar, vanilla essence, milk, flour. Feel extreme urgency to stock up but cannot be bothered to drag self all the way down to the grocery store in this frigid cold.

Because it is cold in this country town. I've never seen frost until I came to this place. Every morning my windscreen wipers have a scrapy start with the ice crystals. Not the best.

Have purged contents of shoe closet, car, fridge and kitchen pantry. Have officially run out of things to reorganize. Am in serious danger of getting bored but have decided to come up with a new and fresh way to entertain myself - devote my soul to Farmtown until I get to Level 26 so I can get my windmill and retire as a virtual farmer.

Only about 1500 XP left to go.

Childhood Memories

One of my best friend's from back home sent this photo to me recently.




That is a picture of the ceiling of my room back home in Malaysia when I was a teen. Yes, those are glow-in-the-dark stars and other heavenly bodies.

It's not like that anymore - it's currently a perfectly respectable ceiling painted white.

Craze Continues

Continued on with my merciless purge of my closet's contents.

Let's be honest here - we all probably only use about 20% of what's in our cupboards. We're never ever going to get back to the size we were 5 years ago. That top that still has tags on? If it still has tags on 2 years on, it's time to let it go.

Shall move on to the shoe cupboard next.

Settled

I've been looking for the perfect tea infuser for several months now.

After several fruitless visits to various homeware stores, I concluded that it doesn't exist and settled for this.



Does the job, I guess. When the 'one' comes, I'll just get another one.

Now that Milton is a lot more well behaved and is therefore taking much less of my time, I finally have time to resume my favourite past time of all - organizing.

Have organized my closet, learned new ways of folding towels for the 'perfect' look, vacuumed my room daily and constructed a Ikea drawer for my table. All in about 3 days.

Will now tackle the kitchen, seeing that the living room has been stripped of all possible useless items.

Lemon Cupcakes

Baked cupcakes for our housewarming party.

Military Milton

Have gone into one of my crazed clean-ups again today.

I think Dyson vacuum cleaners were made for clean freaks. Even if you have vacuumed the carpet and emptied the bin 10 times, you can still go over the same carpet and get another 2 loads again. It's amazing - no idea where the dust is coming from but it's coming from somewhere. Have resolved to live in a hardwood floor home in the future.

Am so sleepy but refusing to go to bed. Do this all the time.

Feel like cutting my hair short. I think it's time.

Define: Cavalier

- a gallant or courtly gentleman
- a royalist supporter of Charles I during the English Civil War
- given to haughty disregard of others

No. 87 - High Tea At Windsor

After talking about it for a long time, we finally wended our way to Windsor Hotel for their famous afternoon tea.




As per usual, the tiered tray arrived and we tucked in.






As per not so usual, we headed over to the buffet section and I have to say I was pretty impressed with their dessert selection. Most of the other high teas I've been to stop at the tiered trays but this was above and beyond that.







This is just a representative plateful that we brought back from the buffet section. We went back for about another 4 plates, all with various different things. At the end of it, we still hadn't sampled everything they had - the selection was just too big.



Had a really good time. Left with a very very full tummy and a sugar headache - who knows how many tablespoons of sugar I consumed.

Went to Ikea over the weekend.

I think I'm becoming more and more country bumpkin-like. The traffic in Ikea was crazy - took us 30 minutes just to get our car up to the loading zone to get all our stuff into the car. Very traumatic.

Bought 2 items, both quite disappointing. One was a small chest of drawers for my table. After 45 minutes of highly irritable hammering and screwing I finally got it up and running - everything all not really perfect, of course. Yes, it may have something to do with my inferior carpentry but I think it should be a little bit better than that.

And the alarm clock I bought! It looked good but when I took it out of the packaging I found 2 dents on it. It's supposed to be stainless steel. Probably 0.2mm thick. Now I have to drag myself all the way back the next time I go to Melbourne to exchange it.

Not the best experience.

Long weekend here I come!!!!!!

Heating

So the heater in our house broke down and I had to get the plumber to come around and see what the problem was.

Plumber: So, is it an electric one or a gas one?
Me: I dunno? :S

Plumber: *Looks at the controls* It's gas. Is it an in-roof one or is the unit outside?
Me: I dunno? :S

Plumber: Lemme have a look outside... Okay, it's in roof. Where's access to the roof in this house?
Me: I dunno? :S
Plumber: *sigh* It's usually in the laundry. Where's the laundry?
Me: Oh, I know! There!
Plumber: I'm not ready for this... I'll be back in a few hours with the right tools.

In my defense, this isn't my house and if I knew, maybe I'd have been able to fix it myself!

Sleeping Milton

Am going to be on leave for 2 weeks at the end of June and early July. Not really because I want to but because they just can't find a nurse to assist me and since I definitely need assistance I have no choice but to go on holiday.

It's not too bad I guess - will be going down to Melbourne and probably Sydney to visit friends and enjoy life away from work. Will still have a week leftover though - will probably just hang around Benalla and catch up on a huge buildup of housework and just plain enjoying life.

Looking forward to it.

Gratefulness

I guess at the end of the day one has to count one's blessings and appreciate everything in life.

Just reviewed my wishlist and realized that I have managed to tick off 12 items from it. Seeing that they were all ticked off very recently (in the past 2 months) after waiting for months/years for it, I think it is fitting that I should appreciate how lucky I've been.

Very lucky.

Sir Lancelot

Sir Lancelot from Merlin is my new favourite fictional character, right up there with Fitzwilliam Darcy and Suwabara Kai.