It's been busy around here...

Well... I'm halfway through a huge retrospective update about things, but I'm no where near finished, but I just thought I'd give an interim update about what's been happening this week.

Well, Monday we got our new Asko dishwasher installed... very happy about that, because I really don't like doing dishes. It's a perfect fit for the kitchen and it's soooo quiet and it does a fantastic job of drying them... the last 2 dishwashers we've had to use have been old, noisy and crappy at drying... so I'm feeling quite spoilt getting this fancy, schmancy dishwasher (which we got on sale for a pretty amazing price! Bonus!)
In the afternoon, Beth and I popped out to run some errands and to get a few groceries and when we came home it was hot, so I let Beth sit outside with a bowl of water, a cup and spoon and Beth spent a good hour playing with the water and pottering around in the backyard... it's amazing how simple things amuse her. She really loves the outdoors... she was pushing her toy lawnmower around and laughing and just generally being silly!

Here's a photo of my girl having a good time with a bowl of water -

Notice how that long strand of hair in the middle of her forehead is plastered down with water while the rest of her hair is dry? That's because she decided to dip her face in the bowl of water! She's a funny one, my Beth.

Tuesday, I had a guy come out give us an air conditioning quote... I should mention now, that it was hot on Monday, but I didn't realise how hot... the forecast had been for 30 degrees and it ended up being 35 degrees... I was wondering why I felt sooo hot... so Beth and I managed to survive a typical queensland summer day in our house without airconditioning... pretty impressive. Having said that, I'm not keen on sweltering regularly, so getting airconditioning installed can't come quick enough! It gets pretty hot in our house when it gets above 25 degrees! Still sorting out some things (like getting insulation installed before the ducted aircon gets put in)... but with any luck we'll have aircon by the end of the month.

Our heavy 69kg flat pack desk from Officeworks also got delivered on Tuseday... more on that later.

Tuesday afternoon, we went to Chermside... Target had a 20% sale on swimwear, and I needed new swimwear for the swimming classes that we're about to start... Now, I thought shopping for swimwear was pretty stressful... but shopping for swimwear with a toddler in tow... that's stressful! Beth decided to be whingy, whiny, noisy and a general pain the whole time I was looking at swimwear... I found it impossible to find stuff
(a) in a decent colour
(b) which covered up all the lumps and bumps I needed to cover up
(c) in my size (doesn't help that I'm a different size up top to the bottom...

I finally found a few different things to try on and then had to try them on with annoying child in the change room with me... In the end, I opted for a brown halter neck top with blue flowers (sounds hideous, but trust me actually looks quite good... I know Em is thinking "OMG, you chose brown?!?!"), with matching brown board shorts with a small similar motif. And a blue rashie (need the sun protection in this Queensland sun!) After all that whinging, I let Beth sit in a helicopter ride thing for 20 minutes! She needed the break and so did I!

Wednesday, had another aircon guy come to give us a quote in the morning... and then had to go and pick up my new Baumatic cooktop from Clive Peeters in the afternoon. Boy, did that turn out to be a headache... I had called them in the morning to confirm the cooktop was there (it was being ordered in apparently) and talked to someone who said they would get my salesman to call me back. After 2 hours, he hadn't so I called them again and after being put on hold for a bit, spoke to the salesman and he said yes it was there for me to pick up. So I went to go pick it up and discover that he's had the display/showroom cooktop wrapped up in bubblewrap for me to take and didn't even have the courtesy to tell me. Not a happy camper, but they knocked another $100 off the price and I was ok to take it. Got it home and had a look through the manual and discovered the last 3 pages of the manual were missing... and they were the important pages with the installation, electrical and guarantee information! Called up CP again who told me to called the after sales support... was on hold for ages getting through to after sales support, but finally got through and managed to get a copy of the entire manual emailed through to me. Thank goodness I checked the manual, because we would have had a lot of dramas when installation time came if they didn't have the installation and electrical specifications!

Wednesday night, Phan and I tackled putting together our flat packed desk... Now we've done our fair share of putting together flat packed furniture in the past (and we've had a couple of mishaps), so we've learnt some lessons... such as using a level is generally a good idea! It took us 2 nights to put together the desk... The instructions were a bit wrong and difficult to understand and it didn't help that some of the pieces of wood were labelled and others weren't... and then we discovered that some of the pieces that were labelled were labelled incorrectly! What the? Are the desk engineers purposely trying to do our heads in? But we figured it out and did most of it on Wednesday night and then just the drawers on Thursday night. We're pretty happy with how it all worked out... Phan and I make a pretty good team when we do this kind of stuff... Phan does most of the putting together, but I'm there to hold stuff together, label things and double check the instructions and re-read the diagrams to make sure we're doing it right... They should have a subject in highschool called "assembling flat packed furniture"... I think it's a pretty good skill to have... and practical too :)

Thursday, my new cooktop got installed at 7:45am in the morning! After all the drama I had with it yesterday, I just wanted the damn thing to be put in... and I was relieved when it was installed, although not without a couple of close calls. Firstly, I needed a wooden insert put into the cutout for the stove... (the cooktop is a couple of centimetres too small) and the guy thought he had no wood to put in an insert, but managed to find a piece in his truck, thank goodness. Secondly, the circuit breaker needed to upgraded from 25V-30V to handle the induction hobs... they thought they would also have to upgrade the cabling to handle it, (which would have taken 1.5 hours!), but thank goodness the cabling was adequate to handle the upgrade. So after those minor hiccups, it was all installed by 8:30am. After having some breakfast and getting ready, I headed out to get some new cookware to use on the induction part of my cooktop.

I spent a good half hour browsing DJs for my new cookware... I had $270 worth of vouchers (from my credit card reward points), so in the end I got a Jamie Oliver Pot Roast Pan (like the saute pan that Phan's mum has, which I loved using while we were staying with them during our holidays) and an Essteele 7 litre Pasta/Stockpot with pasta insert... both were on sale ($289 down to $190 for Jamie, and $189 down to $95 for my stockpot), so I only ended up having to pay $10 once the vouchers were used... what a bargain! :) I'm very particular when it comes to buying cookware... It's worth paying good money for good quality stuff that will last.

After that, Beth had been so good whilst I had been shopping, I treated her to some sushi for lunch (gee, she loves it!) and then I did a spot of grocery shopping and discovered that Beth had fallen asleep in her stroller once I'd finished. So I quickly browsed Big W for a couple of things and let her sleep for 40 minutes and then tried to transfer Beth to the car without waking her... which wasn't very successful... she woke up whilst I was moving her.

We got home and I gave Beth a bowl of water to play with outside whilst I cleaned up the kitchen and tried to learn how to use my cooktop... I made bolognaise in my Le Crueset cast iron pot using the induction hob and man, I have to say I'm impressed... it heats quickly and the heat is so even... I've always had hot spots where food sticks using the le crueset (even on low heat and whether it be on gas or the crappy electric hobs I've used at the townhouse), but induction gives such an even heat, it's amazing... no food sticking here... and the temp control is amazing, goes from boiling to a simmer in less than 10 seconds... Can you tell I'm totally loving induction cooking? If you want to read more about induction cooking try reading this. (Yes, this is for your benefit Em! :p). Now to figure out how many more induction approved pots I need, so I can use it more often... :)... Perhaps I'll ask for a chip-in towards pots for Christmas... :) (Yeah, I'm sure a few of my family members out there are rolling their eyes at the thought of giving me cookware for Christmas! LOL!)

Now today (Friday) has been a totally cruisy, tradesman free day. This morning, Beth and I did some craft... We've actually done drawing and craft every day this week... I'm setting up a wall in our open plan dining area with all her artwork blu-tacked on display... :) It's nice to have that bit of space to display her creations... Then I tied some streamers to our portable clothes line and Beth spent *ages* walking through them... it's hilarious, cheap fun! I got some (dodgy) photos of her playing in the streamers, which I may post later.

In the afternoon, popped out to do our grocery shopping and spent the afternoon in the backyard playing and chasing Beth and trying to take photos of her. There is a great big tree in our backyard which casts a big shadow, so it's nice and cool to play outside there. Oh, we also had our first "drawing on the wall" incident. I knew it was going to happen so time and she decided to decorate the wall with purple texta... lucky it was one of those Crayola washables and it wiped right off without a trace!

Phan's working this weekend and I've got a roller door guy coming to install an automatic garage door opener at 7:30am tomorrow morning (nice and early!)... and then a fence guy giving me a quote at 10am.... Then we're planning to go to Ikea to check out some stuff in the afernoon and pop into Trangs on the way home for dinner. Sunday is supposed to be 32 degrees! So we're just going to try and stay cool... maybe we'll go scope out the local pool and see what that's like. Either that or sit in the backyard with a big bowl of water! :)

I'll leave you with a photo I took this afternoon that I quite like -