come brothers and sisters throughout the land

Yes, the times they are-a-becoming-quite-different. I woke up yesterday a new woman. Not so tired, not so grumpy.

I had a busy day yesterday, crossing things off lists. One thing I crossed was to go out and buy some software protection. Yes, for years I've got by on the free stuff you download. I've always known it wasn't good enough. I always knew I was putting everything at risk. I always meant to go out and buy something good. Then early in the week, things started going a little Dali-esque. Everything took for ever to happen. Strange screens would pop up un-announced. Word wouldn't open. 'oh, pants', I mumbled to myself. Or words to that effect. So the computer didn't get turned on for nearly a week. But my new, shiny software is now installed and things seem to be going better. I hope it's not just wishful thinking, but at least now I've done the smart thing and backed up all of my photos onto CD.

And here's a photo:

My, it's ugly, isn't it?

This is my kitchen. Well part of it, but all of it is done in this horrible faux wood grain laminate. As many of you know I live in my grandparent's house. Well, technically now it's my mother's house and one day it will become mine, well mine and my brother's. Built around 1952 it's one of the later austerity houses. By which I mean to say it's ugly and nothing works. That's not quite fair, but it is cream brick and the rooms are on the small side. The kitchen was put in during the early 1980s, and my doesn't it show. You'll notice that the bottom draw in this picture has a different handle. That's because the originals are too wide and you can't open the oven door all the way. The dish drainer runs backwards so you get these fetid little pools of dish water, which results in mould everywhere. Which means I need to clean a lot. I hate cleaning. I can also never understand why the fridge (the cold thing) is put right next to the oven (the hot thing).

So it's all going.

Four main issues here.

1. It's going to cost shit-loads
2. I need to knock down a wall
3. What do I put in instead
4. It's going to cost shit-loads

Now, I realised that point one and point four are the same, but it's such a significant point I thought I'd mention it twice.

Then there's knocking down the wall. Next to the dinning section of the kitchen is the piano room. There's no piano in there now, but it's where my grandmothers was, and so it's still called the piano room. I'd like to open them up into one. Naturally I can't do this myself, so we go back to points 1 & 4. I also don't know if I like the idea of doing away with my grandmother's piano room, which at the moment is just full of my kitchen overflow (thousands of cake tins, extra wine glasses, huge casserole pots etc).

What do I do instead? I've looked at some kitchen show rooms, and it's fair to say: I hate them all. So I'm going free standing. So last weekend JC and I went down south. If you're ever looking for great second hand furniture you're going to have to work out where we went, because it's so wonderful I'm not sharing it with the world!!! We bought this:

I loved it when I saw it. JC said it'd fit in the back of her car. I wasn't so sure. She was adamant. So I bought it.

Didn't fit in the back of the car.

"That's OK", she said, "we'll put it on the roof rack". Now I couldn't strap anything to a roof rack if my life depended on it. But JC's an outside camping, canoeing, diving kind of person. I love diving but am scared of sharks. I'm also terrified of boats. (although I love camping). But the short of it is, I rarely strap. But a few minutes later we'd found a couple of lads to lift it up for us and she'd strapped it on and away we went.

So now I have the start of my new kitchen. I'm after a big, old fashioned enamel sink. And I've found the hob I really want. And my father knows a cabinet maker to build the whats-its to put them in. I always wanted a Smeg fridge. Partly because of the name. Partly because they come in red. And red goes faster.

So there you go - all I needed was a little building project to get me back on track. Unfortunately due to violent illness (don't eat at Kens in Adelaide's China Town) my plans for today have been cancelled. It's also the end of day light saving, so I have an extra hour in my day. So I think I'm going to spend part of it lying on the couch reading, part of it going to kitchen show rooms and part of it doing the bloody cleaning. And I'm making jiaozi for dinner tonight. Think how much more delicious they will taste once I have my new kitchen!