I bought a new vegetable peeler – spotted in Coles, identical to my old beloved one. It made me incredibly happy, right up until the necessity of it made me sad. But, it peels vegetables like a goddamn dream.
I also bought a new potato masher, but we are NOT going to talk about that fucking atrocity of a thing. Sure, it’s sturdier than the last piece of kmart shit, but I feel my potatoes were more “beaten into grainy submission” rather than mashed, and the stupid little holes took forever to wash.
SO. We’re still on the lookout for a good masher.
In other news, everything remains exhausting and hard work. We spent Friday turning the one large middle room in the studio shed into two smaller rooms, because now that we’re the proud owners of a tiny bit of ‘leccy, Isaac couldn’t stand to sleep in the bus anymore.
And that’s fair – the kid beds in the bus are definitely “small child” sized, and Isaac is very tall and was sleeping squashed up like a pretzel.
It was A LOT of fucking work, but Nat and I moved the wall (honestly, moving the wall framing was the easiest bit – it was moving everything else that nearly killed me).
And then Isaac got home from school and looked at me and went LET’S BUILD A BED AND GET THIS SHIT SORTED and I died a little, but remember, pretzel sleeping.
So we built Amy’s new bed and I died about seventeen more times from exhaustion, and my hands wouldn’t work, but SUCCESS I have two teenagers sleeping in the studio bedrooms and one (almost) teenager still in the bus – but at least Evelyn still mostly fits into her bed. I think. I should ask her about that.
I found some excellent books at the op-shop the other day, and they continue to make me happy, even as I mourn the loss of ALL my books. I swear, half the burned ashes of our house were books. And y’know. All my other stuff.
We’re in a bit of limbo at the moment – Insurance is almost ready to pay out (FINALLY OMFG IT’S BEEN ALMOST FIVE GODDAMNED MONTHS) but we’re waiting for our mortgage holding bank (commbank) to work out whether insurance needs to pay out the entire sum of our mortgage first.
Messy, exhausting, and I do not like it. The property assessor will be out Wednesday to decide whether there’s enough market value left in our land to make the mortgage “safe enough” for commbank to hold onto.
Very fucking annoying, and exhausting, and stressful. Our insurance amount was small enough as it was (hideously underinsured, because running a business from the property involving oils made us a fire risk – which hahahahafuckingha it wasn’t even the business that started the fire, and I was still paying $300/month to insure less than half of our shit) and I really don’t want to attempt the rebuild with even less money.
Of course if that’s how it all plays out we will still rebuild, it will just be harder and tighter, and I will be much grumpier.
ANYWAY.
We have the electricity on, and we’re just waiting for TasNetworks to inspect and sign off on the initial works. We have a toilet and shower for the winter – even if I’m super mad that I am having to walk through the outdoors to pee AGAIN, I thought I was OVER that stage of my life. We have a new gas hot water heater to install, so hopefully the wind won’t make the hot water turn off repeatedly anymore – again, cold showers are not my idea of fun.
And the bus has heating, so here’s hoping we don’t freeze to death over winter. Hurray for not being in tents anymore.
In the meantime, go buy soap. I’ve been working (fairly) solidly (when I’m not exhausted from teenagers making me build beds) and (some) things are restocked pretty well.
Yay, soap. Also we ship to the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada now, even if the postage prices are eyewateringly grim. Sorry about that.
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