Catching Up...

Is it proper for a woman to fall in love with a bread machine? Welllll, I don't care - it happened. We told you about our frustration with the boring and unhealthy selection of bread here in Oz. Thanks to good ol' eBay (more about eBay later) we purchased a Breville Breadmaker. What a great machine. What a great invention. I've never been a "kneady" person, so a machine that will do it for me is a gift from above. All we do is add the ingredients - of which there are endless varieties - press a button - and voila!.... three hours later the bread that dreams are made of. Unhealthy bread problem solved.

You want to know how we are settling in? We have discovered the house has timber (read "wood") floors under all the "stuff." Slowly but surely things are getting put away wherever there might be an extra inch of space. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that we still have way too much "stuff." After four yard sales you might think we had whittled down to the bare necessities. Well, think again, my friends. It is embarrassing - I knew I had trouble getting rid of things, but this is ridiculous! Anyway - we are filling more boxes with unwanted and unneeded items. An interesting practice the Ozzie's have is to leave things on the street curbs in front of their homes. One person's junk is another person's treasure.

Freedom Kitchens is doing our kitchen renovation. Jelena, our designer, came up with the best price and the best plan so it's all systems go. She came up with a great and affordable appliance package for us, but I am having fun finding my own on the Ozzy eBay. So far I have found a high end wall oven and ceramic cooktop, a stainless steel sink and a tap/mixer that has a pull-out spray. Now if I can only find a great (read "cheap") dishwasher, we'll be all set. Collecting our eBay treasures allows us to visit areas in NSW that we might not otherwise get to. Yesterday we drove an hour to Caringbah (south of Sydney) for the cooktop. The oven is in another direction. I only used eBay once in the States, but Oz has very poor and limited on-line shopping, so eBay Oz is a great alternative - and the deals - let me tell you about the deals!! Just kidding - well, you really do get great deals. :)

Hugs, Judi