girlinawhirl's Profile

Wow... there must be a lot of short people. I'd outgrown an ordinary single (as we call them here) by the time I was 15. Luckily, My Dad was able to restore my Grandparent's original double bed for me - my feet still hung off the end, but at least I could sleep diagonally! The queen bed only came along when I bought a bed with my own money so that my 6'5 (now ex-)boyfriend could actually fit on it without being kicked off!

My Donna Hay's are kept in tact, on the shelf with the rest of my recipe books. This is mostly because even if the meal isn't something I personally would eat, they show great food styling or it's something I know I could serve to family or friends.
I tend to slice and dice my Frankie, Yen and Russh pretty speedily, as they have often got great art pieces in them that I put into little paper frames I picked up at Ikea and rotate them on my bookshelves. I have a box where I keep the other frames not in use. Fashion magazines - my mother and I are in purge mode for our old Vogues etc.
The other magazines I will never throw away? The boxes of Life magazines from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that my Grandad hoarded. Some time ago, when decorating a restaurant, we sought out Coca-Cola adverts, had them professionally scanned and printed and framed. They looked perfect in the restaurant!

Crocheted covers for jugs, glasses etc., and the mesh domes to cover your food (or if you are like my family, a teatowel or five! ... the joys of my Dad having worked in the grocery industry back in the 1980s and we still have half a box of teatowels that have never been used waiting for me to buy my own home and have room to use them) just seem to be a lot more practical and sanitary than letting flies crawl over your food. It's bad enough that you run the risk of swallowing one while eating in some parts of Queensland (where I live).
Here, the rotary clothesline has many uses, not just for drying clothes. The old fashioned aluminium ones are great for swinging on (I wouldn't recommend doing it as an adult on one of the new folding sorts) or hanging a goon bag from at teenage parties (or so I hear...). To be honest, living in subtropical conditions, we need to have inside drying just as much as our outdoor. At my house, it's rope strung up zig-zagging across the ceiling in our double garage and a foldaway line under the verandah at the back. The only time the dryer is used is if we need to shrink something or dry something in a hurry.
I've lived with water restrictions all my life, and I honestly can't say that it's a real hardship not being allowed to wash your car over concrete except at a carwash business (and all of those use recycled water), or to have to use a rainwater tank to water the garden, or to only be able to use a sprinkler on the grass on every odd day. What was frustrating was the 5min shower rule that came into play in SEQ a couple of years back. It's hard to wash your hair in a short timeframe if it's long and thick!
We also are unable to purchase lightbulbs that aren't energy saving bulbs, at least not where I live, and energy saving is slowly becoming a way of life, just as saving water has done.
There's one thing that I've learnt from American friends and TV shows is the concept of having recycling bins in the house. We have a separate wheelie bin to recycle glass, plastic and paper, but it's not always common practice to have a garbage bin and a recycling bin inside the house.
And we tend to call it a jug, not an electric kettle ;-)