Neither shaken nor stirred. Again.

Every morning I make my coffee and then pick up my iPad to check my emails, social media, and any news alerts for things that happened overnight, something I’ve done that for a very long time. This morning I saw an alert for a news story: “Why phones woke thousands before 5.9 magnitude earthquake”. My first thought was, “what earthquake?” It happened at 4:51am, while I was asleep, and was centred near the King Country town of Taumarunui, some 170km (around 106 US miles) south of Kirikiriroa-Hamilton. I never felt a thing, and I also didn’t get any alert, of course, since I’m an iPhone user.

Actually, not only have I never been awakened by an earthquake (so far…), and I’ve only ever felt two earthquakes (so far…). The first was on July 19, 2004, when we were living in Paeroa, and the second (and stronger) one was on February 21, 2007 when we were living on Auckland’s North Shore, something and I mentioned both in a post about the 2007 earthquake (it’s quite handy that I’ve been blogging for nearly 20 years).

Having said all that, there have been times when I’ve felt a gentle rumble and wondered if it was a heavy truck nearby, or maybe Rūaumoko was stomping about underground. More often than not, it would’ve been a truck—or not (very mild ones, mostly too mild for humans to feel, happen all the time in New Zealand).

Earth Sciences NZ seismologist Sam Taylor-Offord told 1News that aftershocks will continue for months, and he also explained something I’d wondered about: Why folks on the east and west sides of the North Island may not feel earthquakes on the opposite side as strongly, or even at all. According to the linked article, he said:

"There's kind of this shadow between running right down the middle of the Taupō volcanic zone, where the Earth is sort of softer, hotter, and seismic waves get worn down really quickly."

The thing that started my journey into finding out more about this morning’s earthquake was the phone alerts some people got, and I think the tech behind is interesting (of course…). It’s likely to improve and become more accurate over time, and, if it does, it’ll inevitably come to iPhones, too. This tech won’t mean people will necessarily feel the earthquakes they’re alerted to, but it could give folks a brief warning before a potentially bigger one reaches them wherever they are. Maybe?

Once I got to social media late this morning, I read the stories of people who felt the earthquake. While it’s not even remotely unusual for others to have felt an earthquake I didn’t, this time my first thought was actually about how I couldn’t even imagine being awake at 4:51am on a Saturday morning. That’s definitely about me.

This morning, and not for the first time, the morning news alerts on my iPad told me about something that happened while I was asleep, and so, I was, also as usual, oblivious to it all. But the Internet brought me up to speed on the story, and this blog helped me precisely remember specific details about some of my own history with earthquakes. To me, this is a good example of technology making my life better. Others may not feel that, of course. C’est la vie.

Hauling for the house

Another day, another haul post—sort of. Yesterday’s post was about the things I bought for creative work. Todat;s is all about stuff for projects around the house, which mean; that today’s post is actually closer to what my 2022 post was about. Similar, but different.

The photo up top has only three items, but they have little to do with yesterday’s post, and nothing at all to do with each other. First up, in the back and at the left is my biggest bargain: A box of flocked thin coathangers. I learned about them from YouTubers who focus on decluttering and organising. They used them because they’re thinner than normal hangers, and that means they take up less space, and because the flocking helps keep clothes from slipping off. When I started decluttering clothes from my wardrobe, I bought some of the hangers to hang up t-shirts in the newly freed-up space, mainly because I realised I never wore the t-shirts because I needed to be able to see them to remember I have them. Then, I decided to switch all my shirts to them—and that meant I needed to get a lot of hangers.

The hangers I was buying were $6.99 for a pack of eight, and I planned to get up to six packs, which would mean they’d be $55.92. But when I was using the store’s App to find out what aisle they were in, I saw they had a box of 50 of the hangers for $25.99—less than half price plus two more hangers—such a deal! But, wait—there’s more! I also got the 5% Gold Card discount.

When I hung the t-shirts on the hangers, I also tried the trick of turning the hanger “backwards”. The idea is that I wear an item, then after I wash the shirt I hang it back up the right way around. If the hanger isn’t turned around in six months or year, then, the theory goes, the shirt (or whatever) can be donated. The trouble is, I started this with t-shirts—in winter. While I do wear t-shirts on mild days, there aren’t necessarily very many of those in winter. So, I figured that this probably wasn’t among my best ideas, though I have already turned some the right way around. Here’s what that actually looks like:

On the right in the back is the next thing, a small sheet of coreflute (a plastic sheet similar to corrugated cardboard, but stonger). I bought it to make a prototype/proof of concept sort of thing for a solution to fix a defect in my kitchen cabinets, one that annoys me every single day. More on that another time, but I chose the material because it’s inexpensive and easy to work with, and the store had one that was cheaper and smaller than what one of the home centres offers (better for a prototype that may not work). However, it was also the main reason I chose that day to buy the new cutting mat I mentioned yesterday: It’ll be big enough for me to use to cut the coreflute.

In front, on the ground, are some cheap (both senses of the word…) placemats. The placemats I currently have are around 15 years old and perfectly usable, but the main reason I wanted new ones is because their white stripes mean they don’t make good backgrounds when I take photos of food I make. I take a lot of photos of my meals, but I very rarely share any because I take the photos just to get better at and shooting those photos.

I saw the new placemats on the store’s App, and I thought the'd make a better photo background, and also that they’d also go better with some fabrics in my living space. In fact, I’ve already used the placemats for a background to a photo of my breakfast for a post that’s still to come (which really means I haven’t written it yet…), however, that identified a problem.

When I finished my breakfast that day, I noticed that I'd spilled something on the placemat, so I got a damp kitchen cloth to wipe it off, and for no particular reason I lifted up the placemat and the table underneath it was wet: What I thought was a fake “weave” look turned out to be more like an actual weave, and they’re not solid as I thought (the photo at right shows the light streaming through a placemat I held up to a window). All of which means that they’re fine as photo backgrounds, but not as placemats. Still, they were cheaper than anything else I saw, and dramatically cheaper than some. You get what you pay for?

These items aren’t related to each other, except that they’re all for the house, one way or another, but two things are at least conencted to yesterday’s post: The placemats are related to creative projects (photography), and the coreflute convinced me to get the new cutting mat that I’ll use for a lot of projects, including creative ones. But all of the items in both these posts have one thing common: They all have their own stories. Apparently, everything does.

A creative haul

Two weeks ago today, I went on a mini-shopping trip. I intended to do a blog post of the “haul”, much as I did way back in March of 2022, when I shared a “shopping haul” photo, in a post that was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. So, I began a post in the same vein, however, I was having trouble making it come together. When I got to the third draft of that post, I realised that this one was different: It was motivated by a very specific thing, something I kept putting off: I wanted to get supplies for certain creative things I wanted to do.

The photo up top was my second attempt to capture the “haul”, after I worked out there were two very separate “hauls”, both with stuff with different stories. This post is about the more important of the two (the other will follow tomorrow).

Of the stuff in the photo, the item standing in the back is the most general: It’s an A2-size cutting mat, something I use whenever I use a razor or craft knife to cut things out of paper, like when I make labels for storage containers in my pantry, but I’ve used cutting mats for all sorts of creative projects over the years. I already have one cutting mat that’s smaller than a sheet of office paper, and I’ve had it for 20+ years. I also have one that’s A3 (similar to 11x17 in US paper size, and the A2 one is like two of those side-by-side vertically). The small one is often too small (even WAY too small), and right now I have no idea where the larger one is, or even if I still have it (I think I do…). This new cutting mat is big enough for everything I need/want to do, which is why I’ve wanted one like it for so long.

At the right-hand side, and leaning against the mat, is a pad of paper suitable for use with acrylic paints, and on the ground in front of it is a set of acrylic paints. To its left, in the centre on the floor, is a set of mixed media brushes. To its left (the left side on the floor) is a pad of watercolour paper. I already have a set of watercolour paints that I bought a couple years ago and never used because I didn’t have the right paper. The final part of the painting supplies is standing up on the left-most side: A pad of palette paper for use with the acrylic paints. Together, all of those supplies were the real point of my shopping excursion.

Both my parents occasionally painted, mostly using oil paints, so I grew up with the (occasional) smell of oil paints, linseed oil, and turpentine, and to me, it smelled like art. A decade and a bit later, I was in high school and found myself with long blocks in “study hall”, which was boring. So, I added a basic art class. The next semester I took a painting class. After high school, I continued to paint in oil and water colours, but stopped—for absolutely no reason—before I was 20.

In the decades since, I often thought about picking it up again, and in the Covid Era I even ordered a basic set of water colours, which is what I referring to earlier. A couple years ago, I went with my brother-in-law and his partner to Raglan, a bohemian beachside community on New Zealand’s Tasman coast, west of Hamilton, and it has a lot of artists’ galleries of various kinds. We were walking through one gallery when I said offhandedly that sometimes I thought about taking up painting again, and my brother-in-law said, “why don’t you?” In a rare moment of clarity I said, “Because the last thing I need is yet another thing I’m NOT doing.” And there it stayed.

Three weeks before my shopping trip, I went to Warehouse Stationery and looked at the stuff I’d need (all of which is in the photo), but bought nothing. The first Tuesday of every month is “Gold Card” day, which gives us cardholders (folks 65+) a 5% discount, and while that’s not much, it’s also not nothing. But, why this month, and not any of the previous “Gold Card” days over the past few years? It was because I came to a realisation.

There are many things I want to do that I’ve felt I couldn’t do for one reason or another. For example, I can’t work on furniture because there’s no room in the garage, and because that was the case, I felt I couldn’t do anything about any of the other creative things I’ve wanted to do, either, and that obviously included painting. I also realised that there were specific barriers, such as, I didn’t have any of the things in the photo. Buying them wasn’t horribly expensive, and getting them means that I can paint, regardless of whether I actually do. The barriers are now removed, and the rest is up to me—and inspiration.

I have no illusions that I’ll ever be objectively “good” at painting—though, how can I ever find out if I never try? However, the reality is that the main reason I started focusing my visual creativity on photography was that it was the first time I managed to capture what my mind saw. At least now I have what I need to find out if painting is for me—assuming I choose to try.

There’s one more thing I bought for creative reasons: In the centre of the things standing and leaning against the cutting mat are some house-shaped cookie cutters. I saw them by chance when I was looking for something else, and they’re perfect for a craft project I’ll work on later this year, which I’ll talk about then—also assuming I actually do that, of course. However, I’ll also use them for making cookies, so even if the craft project doesn’t work out, I’ll still get use out of them—which is honestly more than I can say about anything else in the photo, apart from the cutting mat, which will get a lot of use.

Part of my motivation for acting was that I got 5% off everything I bought, which, as I said, isn’t much, but it’s also not nothing. But everything I bought—in this “creative haul” and the one I’ll talk about tomorrow—was something to me, regardless of whether I use the creative stuff or not. The biggest thing, though, wasn’t the stuff I bought, nor what ultimately happens with them, it was that I decided to start removing barriers that have kept me from doing the things I want to do, the things that might actually finally help me build whatever my life is going to become. Actually, that’s precisely why I created my latest plan to change my house, as I discussed last Friday.

In the end, my hope is that all of this barrier removal so far will lead me to remove even more barriers. If that happens, it’ll be a bargain at any price. Discount not required.

The next phase

I have a plan. It’s no longer theoretical, or merely possible, but actually already in progress. I entirely skipped over the concepts of a plan stage, though, obviously, no sensible person would ever think that was actually a thing. Of course. Instead, I’ve made actual plans, and they’re now beginning.

This all relates to what’s essentially the last remaining work on the inside of my house, and I’m starting inside for good reason: It’s literally the middle of winter here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and that means that it’s not pleasant to be doing stuff outside (or in the garage), though I do make sure I mow the back lawn every other week. It’s cold and damp outside most days, and while neither would my choice of weather to work in, it also a lot rains this time of year, and so, outside work isn’t happening right now.

A month ago, I wrote about sending piles of clothes and bedding off to a charity shop, something that took me a couple months to finish because I constantly kept finding more stuff to donate. On that last day, when the stuff left my house, I already had a vision for what was next.

As I said last month, my priority is the inside of my house because “I want it to be my sanctuary”. I decided to start with what seemed to me to be the “easiest” room, the living area. The stuff headed for the charity shop had been piled up in the living area of my house all that time, and after helping me get it all packed and ready leave, family members then helped me tidy and clean up the living area, something I definitely neglected during the sorting phase. Since then, I’ve focused on keeping it tidy, and that includes vacuuming a couple times a week (and I’m very glad I bought my stick vacuum last September.)

The next phase is to finish decluttering the living area, because there are three spots that have some excess stuff. However. This work will be interspersed with a different room, the guest room.

Work on the guest room isn’t about decluttering as such because the room doesn’t have unnecessary stuff in it. However, the room’s wardrobe has become a sort of storage cupboard, and one that’s not well-organised. So, I’m going to finally install the wardrobe system I bought for the guest room wardrobe. That project will mean I first have to do some wall repairs, then prime and then re-paint the inside of the wardrobe. While those repairs are drying, I’ll work on finishing the living area. I emptied that wardrobe today so I can start working on that wardrobe tomorrow morning.

I’m pretty sure that I’ll finish the decluttering in the living area before I’m done installing the wardrobe system, so if I still have down time on that wardrobe project, I’ll use it to work on tidying my bedroom. I’d almost completed work on my bedroom (not including the wardrobe) quite awhile ago, but when family was staying with me for a time recently, I needed to empty out the guest room and its wardrobe, and some of that stuff ended up in my bedroom, back where there hadn’t been any clutter since last year.

Finishing my bedroom’s not a big job, so I can do it in small doses, like when I’m waiting for paint to dry in the guest room wardrobe. Installing a new wardrobe system in my bedroom’s walk-in wardrobe will be sometihng I’lll do much later on, mainly because the decluttering of clothes gave me a lot more space to hang things, and so, the reorganisation of that wardrobe isn’t a priority any more. My final inside project will be completely re-doing my office, which is so overrun with stuff that doesn’t belong in there that I very rarely actually use the room. I’ll talk about that more when I get to that stage.

I also have a number of relatively small projects for every room that are related more to decorating than mere decluttering and reorganising. Much of this will also be work I’ll do concurrently, and not entirely separately, so I’ll mostly talk about each room separately because it’ll be easier to understand what I’m talking about. There will be photos, of course.

The final inside project is The Garage Of No Return, and I hope to begin that in early spring, when it’s no longer bloody cold in there, but before it gets hot. That’s also the time I’ll start working on outside projects, too, so that when spring actually arrives I’ll be ready for it. As with the projects for each room, the garden is a subject all on its own, and I’ll talk about that when I get to it.

And that’s the entire plan: It’s not linear, but it’s definitely about methodically working on the things I need to, and in the ways that work best for me. I expect it’ll be quite a ride. I planned for that, too.

Successful return to the past

Yesterday morning I did something I haven’t done for nearly 60 years: I made scrambled eggs in a cast iron pan. That sentence raises so many eyebrows (even for me), that there’s only one logical solution: A blog post. And here we are.

When I was a young boy, my mother used cast iron pans—a larger-sized one, a medium one, and a small one. She also had a large deep-sided pan with a cast iron lid that she called a Dutch oven, but, to modern day me, it was like a very deep fry pan with a lid, though the use is what matters. Her pots, on the other hand, were all aluminium.

At some point around 1970, my parents got an aluminium fry pan with a Teflon coating, and that’s what I used after that—and nearly all my fry pans from that point were also aluminium with a nonstick coating right up until very recently. Some years back, I became aware of the research showing evidence of the potential toxicity of PFAS, the chemicals that are the artificial chemicals that are used in nonstick coating for cookware, but also in flame retardants, waterproofing treatments, carpets, yoga mats, wall paint, adhesives, and lots of other stuff. The stuff stay around in the environment for such an incredibly long time that they’re commonly known as “forever chemicals”. Some PFAS are carcinogens or endocrine disruptors and have been linked to all sorts of health problems. I wanted to move away from non-stick cookware to avoid PFAS.

Sometime between 15 and 20 years ago, Nigel bought us a set of stainless steel pots and pans from an online liquidation auction company, and I still have them all. He later got us a set of name-brand non-stick pots and pans that were all in a line carrying the name of a famous British chef and TV cooking show presenter (the brand and names aren’t relevant to my point). Nigel preferred the non-stick pots and pans, and for a time I was indifferent—though the nonstick frypans were undeniably easier to clean than the stainless steel one we also had.

Around 2015, give or take, I’d started becoming increasingly concerned about the proliferation of chemicals in everyday life—but I still used the non-stick cookware. That all changed after Nigel died and I moved to Hamilton: The hob (cooktop) in my new house was induction and incompatible with the non-stick cookware, apart from the two frypans, which had a steel plate in their bases for better heat capabilities (the pots’ metal were all exclusively aluminium). I gave the pots away, and kept the frypans.

The smaller of the two frypans (the oldest one, which Nigel bought separately) began to lose its non-stickiness, and I knew I needed a replacement. I decided to go back to my roots and buy a NZ-made cast iron fry pan, which I did in 2022. I didn’t mention that here at the time, but I did in 2024 when bought the same cpmany's cast iron dutch oven to replace our older one that was also incompatible with my induction hob.

Cast iron has to be “seasoned” to be used, and over time it develops a natural non-stick surface. However, I only recently started using that pan reasonably often, so I didn’t know if it was non-stick enough. But it was becoming more urgent that I use it because a similarly sized ceramic-coated pan I was using was losing its non-stickability, and I needed an alternative.

It turned out that the cast-iron pan performed very well, with only a little sticking at the edges, where the base meets the wall, which is acceptable to me. It was, in fact, better than either the failed nonstick pan or the ceramic one, and the scrambled eggs stayed together, which is what I was after that day. My next attempt will be to try making fried eggs, and if that’s acceptable I’ll no longer need either the ceramic pan or the last remaining nonstick pan I have, although that one I’ll need to replace regatless because it’s slowly losing its non-stickability, and its surface is starting to get pits in it, which means it’s time for it to go).

I’m still mastering (re-mastering?) the use of cast iron cookware, a lifetime after I last regularly used that kind, but I feel good about this change—actually, it’s not a change as much as it’s going back to my roots. Apparently, this really is a successful return to my past from decades ago, but one that’s been in the works, one way or another, for many years. It’s about time. And patience. And the right cookware.

Before the later salty tale

Sometimes stories have extra dimensions. I recently saw that reality in a story where I hadn’t seen it before—until someone else’s reaction reminded me. That’s a good thing.

Last Sunday I published “A salty story peppered with more”, which was just a simple story about salt and pepper grinders—until I was reminded it wasn’t. My pal Roger Green left a comment on that post:

I had never HEARD of a salt grinder. A pepper grinder I use regularly.

As I said in my reply, “actually, I’d never heard of one until well after I moved to New Zealand.” Naturally, there’s a story there, too.

When I first arrived in New Zealand in 1995, Nigel had the sort of salt container that was common at the time, as well as a supermarket pepper shaker. The photo above shows both, along with a salt pig (stay tuned…). Nigel and I replaced the salt container several times, but what I noticed about it was that there were two settings: Pour a lot, or, maybe, somewhat less: There was no shaker. I found it very difficult to work out how to use the thing (to “sprinkle” salt, I had to make the opening as small as possible). Eventually we switched to salt grinders, something I’ve used ever since.

The pepper shaker is many years old, and I still use it—however, I don’t use it unless I’m mixing a spice blend that requires a certain amount of ground pepper: It’s far easier to use that shaker than to grind pepper and then try to measure it. When it does run out some day, whatever will I do? Probably buy another.

Now, the salt pig: It's a wonderful thing. A salt pig (in New Zealand) is usually an earthenware pot that contains salt. There’s usually a spoon, often wood (as in the photo of mine above), to help dispense the salt. The idea is that salt is always available when cooking, which is useful plenty of times. However, I personally use mine mostly when making pasta (I salt the water once it’s boiling to help keep the pasta from sticking; contrary to popular belief, salting the water before it boils doesn’t make it boil faster—it’s the opposite, actually—but it does, apparently, help prevent the pasta from clumping and sticking together, or, it seems to do so for me).

Nigel wanted a salt pig for a long time, even though they were kind of old fashioned. When we were out and about one day, we saw and bought the one in the photo. I’m pretty sure it was at our last house together (though it could’ve been the house before that), but I have absolutely no memory of where or when we bought it. At the time, it just seemed like a perfectly ordinary thing to do, not worthy of note—so now I have no idea how or when it came into our lives. Even so, I use it all the time.

What this addendum is about, really, is that every story has annexes and anterooms, some of which lead to whatever our current story is. This is one of those times.

When I posted last Sunday, I thought it was a very specific story about very specific things. Roger reminded me that it was actually bigger than that, and, in fact, there was an origin story behind it. I think it’s good to think more broadly about our own stories, even the salty ones. This has been one of those times.

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 426 is now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 426, “Success story”, is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast episode, along with any other episode.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

The fruit of my labour

Behold the fruit of my labour! The photograph is of my tomato harvest for this year. While I did grow the tomato, this wasn’t actually the only one, just the biggest. But in away it was most of the harvest. As always, there’s a story to that.

Back in November, after the Labour weekend at the end of October had passed, I bought a 6-cell tray of little beefsteak tomato plants. I put them on my kitchen bench, under the Solatube skylight, and left them there—for months. By the time I was finally ready to plant them, only two survived (yes, I watered them, and I also rotated them periodically to make sure they grew well). There are a lot of reasons I didn’t get to them planted earlier, only some of which are kind of lame, but all of that’s kind of beside the point: It was simply the reality of what happened.

I planted to the two remaining plants in pots. As I have in previous years, but one of them didn’t survive the transplant. The one that did flourished and started producing—but time was running out. I was turning into autumn as the plant grew, and while we had a very mild autumn, it was still autumn. I left the plants to grow as long as I dared, but when nighttime temperatures started to get close to freezing, I picked the tomatoes green and put them in my fruit bowl with some store-bought tomatoes that weren’t quite ripe.

The tomato in the photo was the first to start growing, and was the biggest of the harvest (there were five in total), and it was also the first to start turning red. I had the first one over the weekend, and the others are all now ready, too.

The crop, small though it was, was quite good—sweeter than other varieties of tomato, and nice. Unlike the previous years I grew tomatoes here in Hamilton, I had no issue with blossom-end rot. That may be because of a change I made this year.

After the second year with blighted tomatoes, I did some research and read somewhere that calcium deficiency can cause or aggravate the problem. I also read that ground eggshells mixed into tomato soil increases calcium for the plants, so, I ground up egg shells in a mortar and pestle and mixed it that into the soil before planting the seedlings. I can’t know if that made the difference, but I do know the plant that survived was quite healthy and the tomatoes were as they’re supposed to be (unlike previous years), so when I next grow tomatoes, I’ll again mix ground-up egg shells into the soil.

The economics of this year’s harvest were not ideal, as Kiwis put it in their understated way. Each tomato that I harvested was more expensive than supermarket tomatoes in season—but they were also much better in every way. I like to think of this year’s tomato crop as being “Premium Tomatoes”. My garden, my rules!

For the next season, I plan on doing what I’ve wanted to do every year, but never have: Plan the next growing season while it’s still winter. That way, I’ll know what I’m going to do well before time, down to starting seeds so that the seedlings are ready to be planted-out when it’s warm enough (that method is also cheaper than buying plants…). That’s the plan, and maybe overly optimistic, but this year was an unusual deviation from even my worst years of gardening, so I think some optimism is warranted.

That’s the tale of my mini-harvest of tomatoes this year. All things considered, yes, it wasn’t ideal, but I still learned things, which is always a plus because I always like to keep growing. I just hope that my garden will next season, too.

A salty story peppered with more

Not all the stories in our lives are deep and meaningful, or, often, even worth telling—unless one is a blogger (or similar…), in which case they're "content". In those cases, even small stories may take on a larger roll. Even when they’re "just" about food products.

Many—many—years ago, we bought a salt grinder and a pepper grinder at a supermarket then called Countdown (now called Woolworths New Zealand to align its imagery and marketing with its Australian owner). At the time, one of the store’s own brands was called “Signature Range,” and the salt grinder with that branding is at the right side of the photo at right. Even that has a story.

When I lived in Chicago (roughly 1983 to 1995), I did a lot of my grocery shopping at a supermarket chain called Jewel (or “da Jewels” as some native Chicagoans said it), which is now owned by big US company Albertsons. Jewel started selling a line of Canadian products called ”President’s Choice”. Fast forward some 30 years later and Countdown’s “Signature Range” immediately made me think of the old brand, probably because of the sort of signature-like logo. Countdown began phasing out “Signature Range” and other own brand product names to consolidate their own products lines between 2016 and 2018.

We used the two grinders for many years, refilling them whenever we needed to, which seemed to be fairly often because they were what we used both for cooking and at the table. Over time, we bought other, fancier grinders that would grind both salt and pepper (from different chambers), but we still had and used the Signature Range ones, too, until the pepper grinder broke.

After I moved to Hamilton, I realised that the fancy salt/pepper grinders we had weren’t working as well as they once did, though the Signature Range salt grinder was still going strong. Because I wanted a pepper grinder, I decided to see if Woolworths still sold the grinders, and they do! Well, sort of.

The current Woolworths brand salt and pepper grinders are at the left and centre of the photo above, and they’re different from the old brand: Smaller and noticeably much less well-made. I have a feeling they won’t last very long, certainly nowhere even close to the one or two decades that Signature Range salt grinder has lasted. Still they should last a while, anyway, before I need to find a more permanent solution.

Meanwhile, the veteran salt grinder is now by the hob (cooktop) because, as I recently learned when researching something only barely related to to this story, many chefs prefer courser salt (like that produced by a grinder). Those chefs say that ordinary table salt (like from a shaker) overwhelms dishes with saltiness because it’s finely ground, and so, courser salt is better (some table salt also has additives to prevent caking, among other things, which can affect flavour, too). It turns out that I think those chefs are right, though it hadn’t occurred to me before.

This story is a perfectly ordinary tale about me needing to replace a perfectly ordinary thing, and, as so often happens, that resulted in me remembering things from the past, and also learning new things related to my ordinary tale. Ordinary, yes, but so much of life is “ordinary”. I think that finding the adventure in the ordinary, and also learning new things along the way, makes every day better. That’s my ordinary belief, anyway. Season to taste.

Resetting the house, part one

This photo might not look significant, but what it represents is huge: Four large rubbish bags, one ordinary one, a shopping bag, and a box, all filled with stuff that I was donating. This is an ongoing story.

In late February, I started going through clothes and continued off and on until last week (I kept realising there were more drawers or boxes to sort through). It’s a mix of stuff that was mine, Nigel’s, and Nigel’s partner before me, Gary (who died a couple years before Nigel and I became a couple). On Friday, as my final sorting before the donation, I gathered all the bedding I don’t want or need anymore, mostly duvet cover sets and some sheet sets for a bed I no longer have.

Friday evening, one of the family and I finished sorting and folding the clothes, and then Saturday morning another family member packed it all up and took it to the op shop (aka charity shop or thrift store). The photo is of the stuff’s last stop before leaving the house.

Getting rid of the clothes, etc., wasn’t even remotely emotionally challenging for me, though I did keep three things of Nigel’s for purely sentimental reasons (two shirts and a jacket). However, most things had memories or stories attached to them, and remembering them can actually be more tiring than the sorting itself—tiring, but not even remotely painful.

I still have a lot more stuff in the house to go through, like, for example, Nigel and I had lots of stuff for big family get-togethers, and I don’t need all of it anymore. That’ll be a big job, too, but it’ll free up a lot of space for the stuff I DO need or want.

Then, of course, there’s still the garage to declutter/clear out, but I don’t actually care about that: My top priority is to free the house itself of excess stuff, and then take on the garage. The reason is simple: I don’t go into the garage often, but I’m inside my house every day (obviously…) and I want it to be my sanctuary. First things first, in other words.

I first mentioned this decluttering in a post back in April, when I described as a project “neither planned nor even intended”. Technically, it’s actually a “sub-project” because it’s really one part of my “Operation Re-invent My House” project—or maybe “mega project” is more accurate? Anyway, this particular part was done in small bits, mainly because I kept sorting through more stuff until I decided to stop for the time being simply because I wanted to get the massive piles of stuff I’d set aside to donate out of the house. There will definitely be a lot more.

So, yesterday what felt to me like a massive amount of stuff left my house, and that was just the beginning. Suddenly this long and difficult journey I’ve been on felt a little bit shorter and easier, and, yet again, the family helped me get there. Now, on to the next goal! It feels a bit more achievable now.

Leo is nine

Today isn’t merely the first day of winter in this part of the word, nor is it merely the King’s Birthday public holiday in New Zealand, no, the MOST important thing is that today is my little boy Leo’s ninth birthday!

Leo came to live with us shortly before his first birthday, and was such a gentle, loving soul that Nigel said, "we're besotted with him,” and he was right. I still am enough for both of us.

I've written several times about the how he and I are the only survivors of the family he joined back in 2018, and how how he's on of the main reasons I'm still here to talk about it—and no, I'm not talking about anything dire that might have happened, but, rather, simply that he gave me a reason and focus to keep moving forward. In other words, Leo was with me during every loss, and that's made me feel incredibly lucky to have had him with me.

As has often happened in past years, he needs to be groomed, but unlike in the past, he's been allowing me to trim his fur and we're making progress. Hopefully he doesn't change his mind before we finish. Today, however, was a day off for him. Of course.

Happy Ninth Birthday, Leo!

(Also I don’t think he’s intentionally giving me side eye in his birthday portrait…)

Related:

Leo is eight – 2025
Leo is seven – 2024
Leo is six – 2023
Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition – The post in which I announced Leo joined our family
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

Fortune’s favour

Maybe fortune favours the bold, as the saying goes, but maybe it’s simply persistence that wins the day. I’d like to think so, anyway.

Back in March, I wrote about a failed project to help Leo: I bought some steps to help Leo get up onto the bed more easily. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, but he wouldn’t use it, which I talked about in that post. But, contrary to what that post implied, I didn’t give up.

I recently moved the steps back to the foot of the bed, but rather than being parallel to the end of the bed as before, I turned them so they were perpendicular to the foot of the bed. I thought that in that position, when viewed from in front of the steps, they’d appear to rise easily from the floor to the bed top, and so, be less intimidating for Leo.

While I’d thought about doing that back in March, the reason I didn’t do it is that I felt it would stick out too far, maybe even creating a tripping hazard for me (I walk past it every twice a day, in the morning to open the window blinds and later in the day to close them for the night). I thought the tripping hazard had become minimal because I’d cleared out some “stuff” that had been stored in my bedroom for “quite some time”, and that meant there was more room at the foot of the bed. It was worth a try, I thought.

A couple weeks or so ago I moved the blanket box over a bit and dragged the steps to the side of it (see the photo up top). However, Leo still seemed uninterested in the steps. As I did in March, I tried to encourage him up the steps, placing his paws on the steps for him, and I did that a few times. That much worked, but he never initiated the climb on his own. I decided to regroup—and chill out.

I thought that maybe he just needed more time to feel comfortable with the steps and so be willing to use them on his own terms. Over maybe a couple weeks, he didn’t use the steps, preferring to jump up, awkwardly and seemingly with much effort.

Then, it suddenly changed.

The night before last, I said to Leo, as I do every night, “let’s go to bed,” and as is our ritual he walks slowly, looking up and me expectantly. I then ask him, “aren’t you forgetting something?”, and he runs back into the living are to grab Brown Dog, his favourite toy. Then we can go down the hallway to the bedroom at the other end of the house, Leo trotting ahead of me, tail wagging.

Two nights ago, he entered the bedroom, and started to veer right, which usually means he’s about to climb under the bed (he always goes under the bed from that side). However, he simply walked up the steps and then climbed them to get onto to the bed. I was shocked, and may even have gasped a bit as I put my hand over my mouth as I muttered a (nearly) silent, “oh my god!”

I praised Leo effusively, and he looked up at me with one of his, “what are you carrying on about? looks. I understood my notes from him and left him to play with his toy while I got ready for bed—wondering all the time if that had been a simple accident.

Last night we did our nightly ritual again and, as I’d hoped, he climbed the steps onto the bed. I cannot express how happy this made me: I started the whole thing to make his life a little bit easier, and seeing that he appeared to have adapted gave me all the feels. Nothing will change that, even if he doesn’t continue using the steps—but I have a feeling he’s worked out that the steps are a much easier way to get up there rather trying to jump up. It did make me think that maybe I should come up with a similar solution to help him get up on the sofa, but that space is much smaller and tighter than the bedroom is. More thought is required.

One thing I didn’t bother to mention in March—or at any other time, for that matter—is that for both me and Nigel, our dogs have always been allowed on the furniture, including the bed. I’m well aware that some people are against that, perhaps even strongly so, and such folks may harbour quite negative judgements of people like me. I couldn’t possibly care less. Both Nigel and I always considered our furbabies to be family, but after Nigel died, having the dogs sleeping near me every night was comforting, and now, after we also lost Sunny and Jake, I appreciate Leo’s presence even more. Many nights I wake up, then reach over to pat Leo before I go back to sleep. After so much loss and the change that demands, having Leo’s reassuring presence is pretty damn important.

And, that, in a nutshell, is why I launched this little project in the first place, and why I persisted after the initial failure. Leo has been so vitally important in my journey to learn how to create a new life for myself that there was never any doubt that I’d find a way forward.

This isn’t just about a plan coming together, or that persistence was a vital ingredient of the success. Instead, it was always about doing that I could to make my little guy’s life a little bit easier. It the very least I could do.

But, yeah: Maybe fortune really does favour the persistent.

The clocks changed

Here we go again: New Zealand just changed their clocks again, this time back one hour to New Zealand Standard Time (NZST). All of mainland New Zealand is one time zone, but the Chatham Islands are 45 minutes ahead of us. Even so, they do seasonal clock changes the same as the rest of New Zealand, which makes sense. Makes sense? Do these seasonal clock changes make any sense?

I’ve mentioned before that I never used to be bothered by seasonal time changes, but that as I’ve grown older I find them harder to adjust to. Fortunately, I seem to have less trouble adjusting to the autumnal change than I do the “springing forward” thing. However, “less trouble” doesn’t mean it’s easy.

As is usually the case—perhaps contrary to a belief popular among people who know me in real life—I was in bed well before 3am when the clocks suddenly went backwards one hour. All was fine until morning: I woke up, as I usually do, some seven hours after I fell asleep, but that was just before 8am, quite a bit earlier than I usually get up. I laid in bed for awhile, just resting, really, but just before 8:30 I gave up and got up.

My day today was filled with minor chores, since I did this week’s big one—mowing the back lawn—yesterday (and, side note: I think I can now switch to mowing every other week). I spent some time, as I often do, thinking about how I want to prioritise various tasks, things that aren’t necessarily related to any project, but I did decide I should pack up the stuff I’ve been gathering for the op shop, which I talked about this past Friday. I still have what I might call “home stuff” to go through (kitchenware, serving dishes, tchotchkes, etc.), but I expect there’ll be a lot of that, so I’m better off donating all the clothes I’ve gathered together—well, yeah, but maybe I’ll do just one more check of my closet first (because I know I’ll find more stuff to donate).

There was one somewhat unusual thing about this particular clock change this time: The oven. When the power was turned off last Thursday, I switched the oven off at the wall. I used the oven this morning to cook some bacon, and that meant turning it back on again—but it was too early in the morning to re-set the clock using my old man Life Hack—though, full transparency, and all that, the clock hasn’t been right for months because the power was shut off when the derelict air conditioner was removed in December. Well, it's correct again now—even though I found myself waiting around in the kitchen for the better part of five minutes to make sure I didn’t miss my opportunity.

All up, then, so far this particular clock change itself has been a non-event—so far? This coming week will tell.

A project neither planned nor intended

I’ve had lost of projects over the years, most of which I’ve at least mentioned, but I never could’ve imagined that one of my biggest-ever would be one that I neither planned nor even intended. And yet, this project can change so much.

Last month, I started getting things together to donate to op shops (aka charity shops or thrift stores). It began because I’d never gotten around to getting rid of Nigel’s suits—absolutely no reason, I just never did. But then I started looking for what I could add to the donate pile. I started with shirts that had been Nigel’s, but that I kept to wear. All of them fit, but I decided I didn’t like them anymore, or else I realised the sleeves were too shot for me. That was just the start.

I started looking through my own shirts—ones that had always been mine—and I did that several times, always finding more shirts to add to the donate pile every time I looked. Then I found shorts, pants—all sorts of things. I knew I wasn’t done, but the donate piles were growing higher.

Nigel had put some stuff aside in those plastic zipper bags that you suck the air out of with a vacuum cleaner. Some of the stuff was his, and some was from his partner beofre me, Gary. Nigel wasn’t particularly sentimental about things, but those things he kept meant they were meaningful to him, and I wanted do right by him.

The problem was that after so many years in those bags, the stuff smelled bad. The culprit was the perfume in the laundry powder: Some scents deteriorate over time, and that’s what happened to those items. So, I spent a couple weeks washing, re-washing, and then giving them a special pre-soak before washing them yet again, and they finally stopped smelling bad/odd.

There was one more bag of Nigel’s stuff, things that no longer fit him, but that he didn’t what to get rid of, and that included t-shirts from our last trip to the USA. I went through an expedited process to wash them (I’d learned…), and, after trying them on, I kept most of them. One from our last trip to New York City was a bit too small, so I made that a t-shirt I wear to sleep in, and added one of my too-small sleeping t-shirts to the donate pile.

I then remembered that sometime in my first year in this house I’d put under-bed storage bins under the guest bed. I pulled them out—and it took a rake to pull them close enough for me to grab. Some of it was an instant add to the donate pile, but there were some of my shorts that I didn’t know were there (but wondered what happened to them…), plus a couple of Nigel’s that are perfect for my walking workouts. Even so, a lot ended up in the donate pile.

I know that if I go through my wardrobe yet agin, I’ll still find more things to donate, and this is a good thing, of course, so I’m going to do exactly that. However, there’s SO much more! I have—what’s the word?—“homeware”? “Decor”? Basically, decorative things that I don’t want or, in some cases, even like. There’s so much of that sort of stuff.

I also have excess bedding (chiefly duvet sets) and good quality towels that I can donate—once I go through them. In fact, I found one duvet set recently when I went through the blanket box at the foot of bed what I was working on the ill-fated steps for Leo.

And that’s where I’m at right now: Lots of stuff to pack up to donate, and more to go through. That’s why this will ultimately end up being my biggest-ever project, even though I neither planned nor even intended to start it. Yes, but I’ll feel so much lighter once it’s done!

Powerful again

Today was the day I was warned about: The power to my house was turned off for some sort of routine maintenance. And then it returned. Still, everything about it was strange.

This morning, I was sitting catching up on news on my iPad, sipping my coffee, and then I got an alert telling me that a personal hotspot was available on my phone. That message told me the power had gone off, because my tablet knew the wifi was suddenly gone (the iPad I have is wifi-only). It was approximately 9:03am.

My house was quiet at the time—but it’s always quiet at that time of day, so that wasn’t enough to tip me off; the alert did. I next went and switched off all important things at the wall (TVs, kitchen appliances, laundry machines, computers, etc.) so that when the power came back on, and in the unlikely event there was a power surge, nothing sensitive would be damaged. The alert from the power company had warned me to do that. I then had the presence of mind to make a list of all the power points I’d turned off so I’d remember to turn them all back on (except for the laundry machines, because they can remain switched off until the next time I need them.

I knew that apart from making a coffee or cooking, there wasn’t not much I couldn’t do today, though also nothing Internet-y on my wifi-only iPad (obviously not important). Yesterday, though, I’d planned on mowing the back lawn today, but I needed to charge the battery and forgot to do that yesterday, and didn’t get a chance to charge it before the power was switched off. However, it rained last night, so I wasn’t going to be able to mow, anyway. I’d also thought about doing some washing, and then remembered the power would be off. Ironically, I could do the vacuuming because it runs off 18v batteries—and I did vacuum today, but it was after the power came back on.

I made my breakfast (and Leo’s), which meant navigating the darkened fridge. I had my shower a little while after that, knowing that even though there was no power, the water in the tank would still be hot, and it was. But, then what?!

I thought about doing any number of the things that didn’t require power, but I realised the house was getting a little warm and stuffy, so I opened up lots of windows using the new window screens—for the first time, really. That worked well and helped lower the temperature. Even with the windows open, it was so very quiet!

I decided to hand wash some dishes while I still had some hot water, and that went well. And then I had an idea: I’d use my hot tap water, which often feels really hot to me, to make a cup of instant coffee. It was an incomplete success because it was quite warm, but not hot. Even so, caffeine. ‘Nuff said.

My phone was beginning to run down its charge (I didn’t charge it overnight), and I knew I had a solar-powered powerbank I bought not long after I moved into this house, well before I had the solar panels installed. I’ve never used it, apart from trying the torch (flashlight) function, which told me the power switch was crap. After much perseverance—and reading the instructions—I got it to charge my phone, but at only 5w, it was slow!

While my phone charged, I spent some time doing some chores, but I eventually started getting bored (and I was tired, as usual, from poor sleep caused worrying about whether I’d have enough time before the power went off to get up and have a coffee (I did) and a shower (I’d didn’t). So I sat down and picked up my iPad to play a game that I knew didn't need wifi. But I accidentally tapped on a different game that I thought wouldn’t work without wifi, and it loaded and played not just normally, it was better than normal. The game normally played endless long ads between levels, and it frequently froze for a second or two, but none of that happened without wifi. I wasn’t planning on trying to play the game, because I thought it needed wifi, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it to work perfectly without wifi.

The power came back on at 1:53pm, not quite 5 hours after it went off, and two hours earlier than we’d been warned about, which is pretty good. I slowly started switching things back on, starting with the fridge, but I realised I wasn’t exactly sure how to turn the air conditioning back on. I went outside and turned the outdoor compressor back on, and when I came back into the house I saw the control panel was lit up, and the display said that it was off. I tapped the cooling button, and it still had all the settings—maybe it has battery back-up for settings? I learned I really ought to read that manual sometime…

What surprised me the most about today was that I didn’t mind the disruption at all. Sure, I could’ve planned things to work on, and arguably “should” have, but I wasn’t constantly checking my watch, and, in fact, was always surprised how much time had passed since the last time I checked my watch.

So, today was a bit annoying, sure, but the disruption wasn’t a big deal. But it was a day filled with lots of little surprises, too. Maybe the warning we got made a real difference this time?

I’m a serial mind-changer

I sometimes change my mind (about any number of things) for reasons like better information, the price of something, or any number of other reasons. Every once in a while I’ll change my mind about something several times. Like about breakfast.

Back in June of last year, I wrote about bran cereal, because I tried a new (to me) one, but decided not to switch brands. However, I later decided that I would switch to the brand, and I talked about that in a follow-up post last November. I’ve now switched back to my original bran.

The fundamental reason for my switch back was the taste: I never actually liked it—it’s more more accurate to say that I tolerated the taste because of the cereal’s somewhat better nutritional profile. As I said last June:

There’s an irony here: Many people I know personally have screwed up their faces at the mere mention of All-Bran, declaring, "it tastes like cardboard", which made me wonder how they knew that. As it turned out, once I tried the Woolworth’s cereal, I understood: It’s not necessary to actually taste cardboard to get the sense that something must taste like cardboard would. To me, the High Fibre Bran was exactly like that

Irony maybe, but the taste never grew on me—in fact, the only actual flavour was the lemon yoghurt (maybe I should say the only pleasant flavour?). I recognised from the very beginning that “Just as I like All-Bran, which many people I know don’t like, it’s logical that other folks may love the High Fibre Bran cereal. To each their own.” Exactly.

In the November 2025 update post, I said:

I decided to continue to buy it—for now: If history is any indicator, it probably isn’t forever, because Woolworths has a habit of dropping it’s own home-brand products, though for all I know, they may just stop exporting them from Australia to New Zealand. In any event, it may not be around forever, but, for now, it’s my choice.

Woolworths has not (yet?) dropped the cereal, but I was nevertheless correct in guessing that “it probably isn’t forever”. I could get all philosophical and say “nothing is forever”, or wharever, but this is actually just about me changing my mind, then changing it again. Like I said: I'm a cereal—sorry, serial—mind-changer.

Important Note: The names of brands/products/companies listed in this post are all registered trademarks, and are used here for purposes of description and clarity. No company or entity provided any support or payment for this blog post, and all products were purchased by me at normal consumer prices. So, the opinions I expressed are my own genuinely held opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the manufacturers, any retailer, or any known human being, alive or dead, real or corporate. Just so we’re clear.

A welcome warning

Most people get warnings, alerts, advisories, etc., and often they can be useful, like warnings of approaching storms, for example. Earlier this month I got an alert about something happening early next month that was important to know about—and that alert was something I can’t recall ever having received before.

This story begins with an email. On the evening of March 7, I received an email from my electricity provider that said:

WEL Networks, is planning to turn off the power in you area for routine maintenance work between 09:00 AM Thursday 02 April 2026 and 04:00 PM Thursday 02 April 2026.

A little background: WEL Networks distributes power from the national power grid to consumers throughout the Waikato region, which includes Kirikiriroa-Hamilton. The company is owned by WEL Community Trust, and the Trust, in turn, returns an annual dividend to consumers in the form of a credit on their electricity bill.

What made the email so unusual is that I can’t remember ever getting one like it. In the past, WEL would drop notices in our letterboxes if there was going to be a planned interruption in electricity supply, but I think that was back when most of the area I live in was still under construction. It’s been a very long time since I received a leaflet about interruptions, and that’s probably why they’re quite rare now. If my electricity supplier hadn’t sent that email, I might well have ended up surprised when the power is switched off in April, with no idea why it was off. Because I don’t get power bills by mail anymore, an email was the only way the supplier could warn me.

When I read the email, I hoped that “9am and 4pm” means sometime between those hours, and not the entire 7 hours, but I have no way of knowing. They also advised, “Before the planned outage, please make sure you disconnect all electrical equipment,” which really just means switching them off at the wall (in New Zealand, power points/wall outlets all have individual on/off switches for each outlet). That’s good advice for sensitive things like TVs and computers, and anything that’s always on, like fridges. When the power has gone out unexpectedly, usually because of storms, I always switch those items off at the wall to protect them when the power comes back on.

Another part of the email was for households where someone “depends on electricity for critical medical support”, as the email put it, and such folks were advised that they can contact their electricity company to see what their options are. I'd have thought that people with critical medical equipment would already have a contingency plan (I certainly would), but power companies are required to help those who don’t.

Hamilton City Council doesn’t send any kind of notices of work being done in the area, like tree trimming, weed spraying on Council land, or, even worse, when the water is going to be shut off for any scheduled reason. HCC hardly ever even posts alerts on their Facebook page, so pretty much everything they do is a surprise, which isn’t ideal.

I was glad that I was sent that email, and it’s even better that we got nearly a month’s advance warning of a power outage (when I say “we”, that’s mostly because I posted about this on our community Facebook Page, partly because I have no idea whether other electricity companies sent notices to their customers, nor whether others read such emails). I added the event to my calendar, of course, so I can remember it’s happening, because I’d certainly be unlikely to remember otherwise. This way, when it happens, I can be prepared—devices fully charged, coffee made before 9am, those sorts of things, because my solar panels don't have battery backup.

So, thanks to that unusual email, I should be set. I guess knowledge really is power.

Update – April 2, 2026: This post has been updated.

A cleaning work-around

Most people have tips and tricks they use for household chores, especially cleaning. Some people share those on social media, and it turns out that many of those shared things actually work—and others definitely do not. This isn't about an actual tip or tick, but an adaptation I’ve made to make one particular cleaning task easier—even if it might not sound like it does.

As I’ve said before, Leo tracks in grass clippings every time he comes back inside—and so do I, for that matter, but he goes outside several times a day and I don’t. When I mow the lawn, it only takes a couple days before the carpet in the living area is covered with various sizes of clippings, including longer weed clippings that the line trummer lopped off (I leave them where they fall in the hope they might help kill off the weeds; I’ll clean it all up this winter when they hardly grow).

The problem is that those clippings, especially the long ones, fill up the vacuum quickly, or even cause a clog. When I realised all that a few years ago, I’d walk around and pick-up the long pieces—which hurt my back, of course.

Back at our previous house, I bought one of those “grabber” things, with pincers at the end operated by a squeeze handle, and that because of baby Leo: He had a habit of taking his toys under our super-king bed, and leave them in the middle where I couldn’t reach them, and there wasn’t enough room for me to crawl under the bed. I could grab his toy with the grabber, and then hand the toy to a very happy Leo—who would carry it back under the bed sooner or later (he eventually stopped doing that, but if he does it now, he still forgets he did that…).

The grabber has been handy for me whenever I drop something that falls into a difficult-to-get-to place, so it was logical for me to use it to pick up the big bits of grass and weeds—and bits of stuffing that Leo pulls out of his toys. The photo above shows the results of my recent hunting expedition, posed on a source of (most of) the troublesome debris.

When I’m done hunting, I vacuum as normal, and it always goes better and faster than it would if I didn’t do the hunting. Different vacuums might work differently, but the one I use (which I bought around six months ago) is awesome, and my pre-vacuuming chore means I don’t need to empty the dust bin as often.

If this wasn’t weird enough for some people, there’s this: Picking up the larger debris manually is oddly satisfying. It’s quiet (no vacuum is…), and I’m never tempted to move fast as I am when I vacuum. It’s quieter, slower, even more leisurely, than any other cleaning chore that I do, and it’s kind of nice to have that sometimes. Still, even I don’t do it every week, but when I do I never regret it.

To each their own!

A well-meaning fail

Not every project I take on works out, but all of them begin with good intentions. Recently I tried a project with the best of intentions, but it didn’t pan out. Even so, I don’t regret a thing.

The background is simple: Leo will turn nine in a few months, and I’ve noticed that as he’s grown older, he’s had more trouble jumping onto furniture, like our bed. To be honest, I think some of it is performative, because if I walk over to lift him up, he suddenly manages to jump up on the bed or whatever. Even so, he’s a little guy about to turn nine, and, just like me, he’ll need some minor alterations to things to make his ageing easier.

I thought that there was something I could do to help him, and I designed something, a kind of steps to put at the foot of the bed. I imagined a three-tier thing with storage in each tier. It’d be strong enough for me to sit on, like wooden the blanket box that’s there right now. However, the Garage of No Return doesn’t have enough room for me to build anything, and I don’t know when that will change (note I didn’t say “if”—I live in hope).

It was then that I found a four-tier step system (the bottom of the two photos at left; the blanket box I mentioned is the top half) that I thought would work. It’s a bit smaller than what I designed, but I thought that the four steps would make it easier for Leo. Each “step” is actually a soft-sided storage box, and each step is attached to the next-smaller step using a zip (aka zipper) on the front and back. The zips were a little tricky to fasten, but assembly was otherwise straightforward

And that was the end of the success. Leo wouldn’t step on any step, and wouldn’t jump onto a high one like he did on the old blanket box. I tried to lead him up the steps, but his reaction was as if he thought I was trying to hurt him. He didn’t “get” how to walk up stairs. He’s a smart guy, so this puzzled me—after all, we had stairs in the last house we all had together.

Yeah, well, I often forget how much time has passed since then. He lived in that house for 19 months (beginning shortly before his first birthday, and we moved away when he was 2 years old). I can’t remember how often he went up and down stairs at the old house, but we left that house more than six years ago, and we’ve lived in this one-storey house ever since.

I know that it may have nothing to do with his past, but the small stairs I bought for him may not have felt safe to him. So, I put the old blanket box back with just a blanket on top of it (making the top he jumps onto a centimetre or so lower than it had been).I moved the fancy steps over to the other side of the bed and put some of his toys on higher steps: He’s never tried to get them, not even when I put his favourite toy on it. I think that if the steps were more conventional, he might’ve been more willing to use it—or, at least, not as frightened of it as he seemed to be, but it it what it is.

This means I’m probably back to building something for him. Right now I think it should have a wide lower step for him to step onto, but I’ll have to create a temporary one to see if he uses it. We’ll see. The point is, just as I have various plans to make this house better for ageing me, I’ll make changes to make things easier for an ageing Leo, too. This particular attempt just wasn’t a good one. Oh, well—onward.

Seasonal changes

By anyone’s reckoning, New Zealand is now definitely in Autumn. The 2026 March Equinox arrived March 21 at 3:46am. Leo and I were asleep at the time, of course, and its arrival certainly didn’t wake us up, and yes, I’m being a bit sarcastic. As I’ve made clear, in this part of the world we use the first of the relevant month as the start of the seasons, and not the equinoxes and solstices later that month.

I’ve also pointed out how the weather changes when it changes, and it has little to do with whichever date one chooses for the start of seasons. This particular autumn has certainly followed that pattern: We’ve had quite summery weather this month, and a few days ago Kirikiriroa-Hamilton hit a very summery high of 27 degrees (80.6F). It’s also been rather dry, as summer is, and not rainy as part later in Autumn can be.

However, there are obvious changes. The photo up top, which I took this afternoon, shows the tree on my street that s been in many of my photos over the years. That tree has an increasing number of yellow leaves, which means we’re not far from seeing the leaves leave. I’m not happy about that—just like every other year, of course.

Still, this particular season isn’t all bad. The cooler weather means the grass—and the weeds—don’t grow as quickly. This makes autumn (and early spring) the best times to clear out weeds, as I still need to do. It also means that the garage won’t be as hot as it is in summer, and that means I can work in there. Meanwhile, the rest of the house doesn’t need cooling quite as much, and doesn’t yet need heating, so I don’t sweat as much doing projects in the house—and it’s getting close to the all-too-brief time when I can open the windows—using my new window screens!

My list of projects to do (or just complete) is still very long—probably inhumanly so. The seasonal weather change may make projects physically easier to do, but it certainly doesn’t guarantee I’ll make any progress on any of them, let alone finish any. And yet: Every day is another opportunity to succeed, and it that doesn’t happen that day, then maybe the next one.

Honestly, though, I really do prefer that tree with it’s summer outfit on.