It’s all coming together. Yesterday the floating bench was installed in the master bathroom, we just wanted something to rest clothes on when you’re having a shower. When installing it one of the tiles cracked (bum) so that has to be fixed, but once it is fixed the ensuite will be completely finished.

It was Tony’s B’day this weekend (Christina’s Dad). A Japanese theme meant that we were in for Salmon Sashimi, Wagyu too. Even more fun was having Christina’s parents both over at my place to help clean up. Rosemary had a few boxes of kitchen goods to donate to us and Tony helped with lifting a lot of heavy stuff downstairs (the trash pile is so huge we’ll need 2 loads to the tip!).

Today we bought new bar stools.

Perfect!

A while back Suga and I visited Bimbadgen winery in the Hunter. We decided to go hard for our first wine purchase with a case of their best Signature 2006 Shiraz.

The rear side gate is finished.

Before.

After: Main side gate is on it’s way.

The other side gate is almost done too + new washing line is installed.

I’ve been cleaning up non-stop, well, kinda non-stop. I’ve found so many amazing old things which I didn’t even know I still had. I’ve been distracted by these finds and I’ve found myself going through them (when I should be cleaning!). A huge stack of business cards, old love letters, diaries, here are just a few pictures.

The left number is from the 1991 Bell MTB nationals in Goulburn, my 1st ever MTB race. The right certificate was for the 1991 Gong ride.

I saw Michael Jackson live for the BAD Tour and obviously I bought a guide. This thing is in amazing condition!

The middle spread.

Who’s bad!

Love the hat on mic stand image.

Stock R32 GT-R seats. I got stuck cleaning them up good (what for I have no idea?!).

Love letters. I got caught for hours reading some of these today. I’m emotional. Awesome.

All of these comics are Issue #1’s. I have so many more (yes I was into comics once, who wasn’t?).

Suga and I, drastically late and severely hung over from Jess’ 18th B’day party the night before.

The boys!

Just in today. A couple of pics that my good mate Oz took a couple of weeks ago at Jamie and Richie’s bogan party (celebrating Richie’s offical Australian citizenship!).

The blind guy came today (no more dust about, it’s nice outside now despite the wind) and installed blinds on 4 rooms of the house. We went for a combination of blinds, full block-out in the lounge room for bad daytime TV when sick or extremely hung over (or both) and some dual block-out and semi-transparent ones in the bedroom so we can let the light in yet still have our privacy.

Bedroom retreat, left side shows semi-blockout and the right window shows what full block-out looks like.

Detail of dual blinds (literally 2 lots of blinds/operating chains).

Lounge room 100% block-out.

My Grandma’s burial in Jakarta Indonesia.

I’ve moved back into my place now that the renovations are coming to a close. I’ve still got to go back to Mum’s place to clean up the room I was sleeping in, living with Mum for the past couple of months has been great. She loves her wine so we often got plastered together after meals (they were amazing meals too!).

Conversations sometimes got deep and meaningful. Much laughter was had as well as plenty of emo moments. The other night Mum told me some more of Grandma’s story (She passed away at 80 a few years ago).

My Grandma, Erlina Lestari, was 10yrs old when she lost her mother. Her father had 5 kids to look after and he was dead broke, so broke that he struggled to keep the family alive. He ended up giving up Erlina’s 1 year old little sister to someone else in the village but one night Erlina and one of her brothers lit up a torch and went out in the village to get her sister back.

Erlina got to keep her little sister but she had to look after her. The little baby would cry non-stop and Erlina asked a neighbour for help, turns out the baby was starving, she needed milk but there was no money for milk so they just stewed rice, cooled it down and used it in place of milk.

When mum talks about stuff from the past it’s like she’s talking about the dark ages. Maybe one day when I have kids and tell them about all the stuff my Mum went through to have my sister and I it’ll sound like the dark ages to them too.

Erlina’s little sister is still alive and well now. It’s amazing what my Grandma went through at 10 years old and bringing up a child. Makes me think 10 year old kids sitting on facebook all day have it easy.

I woke up to glowing red windows at 6AM this morning.

Was the same out the back too (yeah I was half asleep, had to check).

I thought it was the end of the world (I had been dreaming about someone stealing my GT-R too). Yesterday I blogged about my issues with dust in the house and it looks like the whole of Sydney has to deal with dust too after this morning’s huge dust storm.

Dust storm chokes Sydney – ABC news article:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/23/2693643.htm

Many more amazing images on Flickr.

I’ve been cleaning up the house and I found a CD marked RAW IMAGES JUSTIN R32 GT-R. I put it in and fuck I’ve fallen in love all over again with the GT-R. Mark Pakula, thanks so much, you are the man.

I’ve never seen these images and I have hundreds of them, of every little detail. I love you Mark!

Here’s just a few:

The big clean up continues. There’s just so much dust everywhere it’s ridiculous! I’ve gone through multiple damp towels wiping magazines, toys, surfaces. I’ve been sneezing so hard I feel high.

Cor blimey!

Very fine dust has managed to get on every single surface throughout the entire house. It even got under the plastic covers we had on book shelves so it’s all over the books, magazines, my toys, everything, you name it. In retrospect I’d have spent much more time wrapping (or moving) absolutely everything weeks before the builders ever stepped foot in the house.

Measure twice, cut once.

So I was at IKEA today (yes I hate the place and everything I’ve ever bought from there has either broken or never worked properly in the first place) to buy some of those things which hold your knives, forks and spoons in place in your kitcken drawers. Mum told me they had really nice sturdy and adjustable aluminium ones. I found them but hey presto, they don’t fit in my drawers. I’ll have to settle for plastic ones.

I’ve always wanted to try the meatballs there (I love meatballs), finally have, wish I hadn’t.