Well it's time again for a quick monthly recap in pictures. I know some of you have been waiting patiently to see our kitchen renos, so let's start with a good old "before" picture:
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| Mmmm, yes, the 70s at their finest... complete with a dishwasher that barely worked, yet was named "Computermatic"... wishful thinking |
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| Plenty of drawer space, but somehow we managed to fill them all up very quickly |
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| Superb new fan-forced oven... bakes everything very nicely. |
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| One of my favorite parts- the tupperware drawer, which we use probably more than anything else. Love having it all neatly organized... there is a special area for each size of container. |
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| sink and dishwasher area... Mom, see the new Bamix mixer? :) |
And along with the newly renovated kitchen, I purchased some new placemats to replace the cheap, labour-intensive cloth Kmart ones (seriously, every time we spilled on them, which is more often than I care to say, they needed to be washed, dried, and ironed for them to look right... who's got the time?)
These new placemats tell the Australian story/song of "Waltzing Matilda"... each placemat has a slightly different picture on it, and they're painted by a famous Australian artist... couldn't decide if they were cheesy or nice, but in the end I decided on very nice indeed. Good to have a little Australian-ness in our home.
By the way, back to the reno, our landlord did most of it while we were away in Canada over Christmas. The plan was for him to do both the kitchen and bathroom and then raise the rent a bit, but he ran into heaps of delays which prevented him from doing the bathroom, so in the end he didn't raise the rent at all, which we were thrilled about.
The only part that wasn't so fun was that he still wasn't finished the kitchen when we walked in the door after 20 hours of traveling back to Australia from Canada. There he was, sanding the ceiling, floor half-tiled, no handles on any of the drawers and cabinets, backsplash not tiled, windowsill in shambles, etc. Over the next few weekends he took care of most of it, but the extremely dodgy cabinet guy didn't turn up to put handles on till over a MONTH later... we were getting a little tired of pulling the drawers open with tape :(
Anyways, first world problems, I know. We are thankful for a roof over our heads at all.
A couple weeks ago we checked out the Noosa Surf Festival, about 40 minutes north of us. They had all kinds of surf events and races, including a dog-surfing event which drew a massive crowd. So fun to watch.
Since Good Friday, Andrew and I have been on school holidays, which means there is now plenty of time to swim in pool, go to the beach, and out for coffee... well, not that much time since I've got heaps of little projects on the go, and Andrew is still plugging away at his masters. He is just working on finishing his major paper for course #9 (out of 10), and will hopefully be done the whole masters this June, which he can't wait for. He is working so hard on it, and doing so well... I am very proud of him.
And speaking of going out for coffee, I recently won a voucher for 30 free Frappucinos at Starbucks for posting a cool Frap picture on their Facebook page. We have been making good use of the voucher, and it feels so nice to wander into Starbucks, order whatever you want, see them ring up a massive total, and then hand over the voucher and walk outta there totally for free.
I took this next pic this afternoon and am gonna post it on their site... hoping to win a second voucher :)
On our walk along the beach to Starbucks today we saw a couple randomly practicing some stunts... not sure if they're in the circus or what, but it was something you definitely don't see every day.
Lastly, I was very excited this month to officially launch my fitness and nutrition website/blog, Busy & Fit. On it you'll find a bunch of healthy recipes for meals, baking, and smoothies, free workout videos to follow along with, and fitness product reviews.
Check it out, have a scroll through, and leave a comment there if you like it :)
www.busy-and-fit.com
That's it for now... stay tuned for April 2013's post coming in a month.
~Corinna for Team AC
