SOLD! ITEM #24: BOOK: 2008 diary

I thought this 2008 Red Cross diary might come in handy since it's so close to the new year. It is a great size and if I hadn't already purchased a Moleskine diary I would definitely use this. It's quite small (peg used to provide scale, but if you really want it, the peg is yours too) and has a week to two pages.

I haven't written my birthday in it yet (as the photograph shows) but can do this for you if you want! :-)

This will be my last post for 2007 - so please enjoy the rest of the year. During my two week break I'll find lots of stuff at home to post on this site in 2008!

ITEM #23: KITCHENWARE: egg cups shaped like cows

I received this for my birthday from my old high school friend N. I love eggs and egg cups so this was actually a great gift. The only problem is that the eggs I buy are much too small and they barely poke over the top of the holder so I can very rarely use these even though I love them.

They’d be great for someone who buys jumbo eggs or to use as a sauce/dip holder when serving crudités. I’m not much of a gardener (I blame the possum outside, but that doesn’t explain why stuff doesn’t grow indoors) but you could also possibly use these to grow something like mung bean sprouts which I imagine have a very small root.

ITEM #22: KITCHENWARE: Ritzenhoff artificial sweetener holder

I love Ritzenhoff stuff but when I bought this I thought it was a sugar holder. When I got it home I realized it was for artificial sweetener, which I don’t use. I tried to put sugar in it, but it just doesn’t work… it also meant that I also couldn’t return it.

This sweetener holder is so cute. I love the way the sweetener comes out of the bird house. If you can think of something else that has small pellets that I could put in this thing, please let me know! I want to keep it! 

ITEM #21: MISCELLANEOUS: Hand-made beaded wasp

I bought this at the Kuranda markets in Cairns in 2002 after the conference mentioned in item #5.

My workmate R and I couldn’t get a direct flight from the Whitsundays back to Brisbane so we decided to fly to Cairns, have a couple of hours delay there so we could do a “site visit” of Tjapukai, Skyrail and the Kuranda markets before heading home.

I think this would look great hanging outside near a garden. Actually, I might try and hang this outside at my place until someone claims it. That should also wash away some of the dust it has accumulated over the years.

ITEM #20: MISCELLANEOUS: Mickey Mouse dangly thing

When I was in Japan in 1997, a girl who was on the same tour group as us gave me this after we went to Tokyo Disneyland.

It’s silver and has a small bell attached to it. It would be prefer to dangle from your bag, pencil case, key ring, or ikea lamp (as it currently resides at my place). I thought it would make a good mobile phone dangly thing, but the string is too thick. I’m sure that once this is in your possession you won’t know how you managed through life without it.

ITEM #19: FURNITURE & LIGHTING: Ikea desk lamp

I bought this from Ikea for something like $9 – dirt cheap! I bought it for J because I didn’t want him to go blind from reading in the dark because I hog the other lamps. I don’t want you to go blind either, so please have this lamp! 

ITEM #18: BOOK: Getting to yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton

This was a textbook for I subject I studied, possibly entitled Communication and Negotiation, at uni in 1997.

If you ever hear me talk about BATNA – Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement – this is where I got it from.

For those out there frequently getting rejected from the opposite sex, maybe this book could help you out a bit??

ITEM #17: BAG: Shell handbag

I bought this bag in Vietnam in 2001 and wore it to my brother’s wedding in 2003.

One of the handles broke off. I tried to get it repaired but the guy at the repair shop said that nowadays things are designed to be replaced rather than repaired. So I removed the other handle and haven’t used it since.

I think this bag could easily be used as a clutch. Particularly for anyone who won’t look at it and think about how bad it is that things can’t be repaired anymore…

ITEM #16: FOOD: assortment of tea

This is an assortment of flavoured tea including:
– cranberry
– raspberry & strawberry
– quietly chamomile
– lemon twist
– blackcurrent
– choc orange

I prefer to drink loose leaf tea (favourites include honeybush vanilla, Japanese evening mist, French Earl Grey and Lady Rose Grey) now. But if you’re ok with tea bags then these are quite nice for a change.

I also recall reading in Speed Cleaning that the tannin in tea is a natural dust mite killer. They suggested vacuuming up a damp tea bag to kill the dust mites that may be partying in your vacuum cleaner bag. I’m not sure if the above teas have tannin but it probably wouldn’t hurt giving this a try.

ITEM #15: KITCHENWARE: bottle opener

It says Calana vineyard on it. I don’t know where that is or who gave this to me. I don’t think I’ve ever used it before either.

I’m pretty convinced it would work well. It would be handy to keep as a spare in the picnic basket, in the car, or in the top drawer at work. You never know when someone will hand you a non twist-top beer. It’s better to be prepared than miss out.

ITEM #14: MISCELLANEOUS: Rubber band ball

I was inspired by my Dad to make this ball out of rubber bands that I collected from the mail, around vegetables and other stuff. Dad was inspired by a draftsman he saw who would add bits of tape from his drafting table to a growing ball.

I’ve been working on this rubber band ball for a couple of years (maybe since early 2002). I’m pretty slow (don’t get much mail and don’t seem to buy asparagus frequently enough), so it’s only a little larger than a golf ball. It bounces really well but it goes all over the place.

I think this would be great for someone who isn’t willing to start from scratch, but is happy to take the credit for someone else’s work.

SOLD! ITEM #13: BOOKS: Calvin & Hobbes comic books

I love Calvin and Hobbes comics. They’re laugh out loud funny.

I’m sure my Snoopy came to life like that when I was little…

If I were the type of person who could rip up books, I’d tear out the paper and use the sheets for wrapping small gifts. With some coloured ribbon over the top it could look quite cute.

ITEM #12: VASE: Small dark blue pottery vase

See item #11 for why I don’t really need this vase.

I got this vase at a flamenco dancing restaurant in Madrid in 1996. While in my possession, it’s only held flowers maybe 2-3 times.

It’s between 10-15cm tall and is dark blue in colour. I think it would be nice to hold some hand-picked daisies from your garden. If you had a garden like that… or your neighbour has a garden like that.

I haven’t tried this, but it might also be a nice ikea pencil holder. Or those old pizza hut pencils if you’ve kept any from the old days.

ITEM #11: VASE: Silver metal vase

I don’t really like to keep cut flowers at home because watching them slowly decompose is disturbing. And when I do display flowers, I like to see the stems so I use a clear vase from wheel & barrow or a crystal vase from my top friend A.

My old school friend D gave me this many years ago. She recently ignored my facebook friend request so I’m pretty sure it’s safe for this vase to find a new home.

In terms of size, it’s quite narrow and the height is from my wrist to my elbow. It doesn’t need too many flowers to fill so is quite cost effective in that respect. If you’re planning to buy someone flowers you could present them in this vase. Receiving flowers already in a vase is a nice touch. Keep this in mind for baby showers, housewarming parties, kitchen teas and birthdays.

SOLD! ITEM #10: BOOK: Perfume by Patrick Süskind

I bought this from Borders one day because I just had to buy something. This was the cheapest book I could find at $9.95.

It took me ages to read this because there is one section where he lives in a cave which I found terribly dull. It doesn’t really add much to the story though, so if you’re going to read this book and are struggling during the cave section, just skip it. It doesn’t matter.

I finished the book in October 2006 and watched the movie in January 2007. The book is better.

And, without trying intentionally to ruin the book for you, it has a killer ending. Big sex scene.

ITEM #9: BAG: Black Audrey Hepburn/Marilyn Monroe handbag

My Mum gave me this handbag because she knows that I absolutely love Audrey Hepburn. I’m fairly indifferent to Marilyn though.

I don’t like bags with a black internal lining so I rarely use this bag.

From memory, it has a mobile phone pocket and a small internal zip pocket.

ITEM #8: BAG: Clear Hamilton Island beach bag

Someone gave this to me on Hamilton Island in 2002 at that conference I organized (see item #5).

This is a great bag for the beach because it is plastic and has a small inside pocket.

I don’t really use it because I’m already mistaken for a tourist in Australia too often. You can’t really blame other people for asking “where are you from” or “where did you learn such great English” when you’re carrying around a Hamilton Island beach bag.

You could also consider gifting this to person mentioned in item #5 (photo frame) but the bag looks a little used so you may have a hard time getting away with this.

ITEM #7: BAG: White PVC handbag

I bought this bag in Sydney in 2001 during my first “business” trip.

If you have a super small mobile phone and don’t wear glasses you could probably use this bag all the time.

I personally prefer a bigger bag because I’m a nerd and like to carry my glasses, an umbrella (we’re in a drought for heaven’s sake) and my diary. You’re not a nerd, so you should consider this bag.

SOLD! ITEM #6: BOOK: The little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

According to the inside blurb, this book is the most translated book in the French language.

I read this in March 2006 after buying it at the Lifeline bookfest for a couple of dollars. There are two short stories but I never read the second one.

Here’s a quote that I took from the book:

“Judge yourself… that is the most difficult thing of all. It is far more difficult to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself correctly, then you are truly a man of wisdom”…

For those who don’t really enjoy reading, there are also some cute little pictures in the book.

ITEM #5: PHOTO FRAME: Green Hamilton Island photo frame

This was a gift from my old boss. We went to Hamilton Island in 2002 for a conference I organized. Personally, I think this was the best event I ever organized.

The photo doesn’t come with the frame. I can’t even remember who that person is on the right.

The next time you go on holiday and someone asks [after you’ve returned] “what did you get for me” you could give them this frame. If they say that you didn’t go to the Whitsundays, you should explain to them that it wasn’t easy to find a nice Hamilton Island photo frame for them in [insert location here] and that you hunted high and low to get them this perfect gift.

DISCARDED - ITEM #4: MAGAZINES: 15 months of Madison magazine

When Madison magazine first came out in March 2005 I subscribed for a year because it was super cheap (something like $40 for a year). I stopped subscribing because I couldn’t read the whole thing in a month because I was subscribing to too many other mags (which may appear as a future items).

I have issues 1 to 16. Sorry, issue 9 is missing.

Since the cycle of fashion is moving so quickly now, I’m sure the clothes listed in 2005 are either back in fashion or considered “vintage” by now so these mags are still probably very helpful.

NOTE: I have since discarded these. They were taking up too much room on the bookshelf. I did remove all the recipes first though!

SOLD! ITEM #3: STUFFED TOY: Dulux dog

J and I went to the RAIA National Awards dinner in Alice Springs in October. The goodie bag at the dinner included this Dulux dog. I gave one to my friend V and now I’ve got one spare.

If you’re renovating your house, you could get this dog and pretend you are a model in a dulux tv advertisement.

SOLD! ITEM #2: BOOK: The truth about Hillary by Edward Klein

I was addicted to the West Wing in 2006 and after watching the final season on TV earlier this year I started to become interested in ‘real’ American politics. So I bought this book at Borders using a $10 off voucher.

In the book I’ve underlined all the words that I wanted to look up in the dictionary. Examples include: obstreperous (page 16), consigliore (page 28), pugnacious (page 29), and gubernatorial (page 33).

I was planning to read this book, then Hilary’s autobiography, and then the books written by the other republican and democrat candidates. I couldn’t get through anything other than this book.

The full list I wanted to read is as follows:

• Hillary Clinton, Living history (Didn’t get past the intro. She loves bragging about herself)
• Barack Obama, The audacity of hope (started this, but couldn’t stick with it because he name drops a lot. And I don’t understand the reference)
• John Edwards, Home: the blueprints of our lives
• Al Gore, An inconvenient truth (saw the documentary, borrowed the book – very environmentally friendly – but didn’t read it)
• John McCain, Character is destiny
• Rudolph Giuliani, Leadership
• Newt Gingrich, Rediscovering God in America
• Mitt Romney, Turnaround
• George Pataki, Pataki: An autobiography
• Mike Huckabee, From hope to higher ground
• Chuck Hagel, Voices of war

If you ever get the chance to read any of the above books, I’d be happy to hear a book review.

SOLD! ITEM #1: BOOK: No one cares what you had for lunch – 100 ideas for your blog by Margaret Mason

My sister T gave me this book on 13 November 2007. She told me about how she saw it in the Dymocks discount bin for $3 and I told her to buy it for me. Now she’s wondering why I’m giving it away.

I have folded the corners down for the ideas that I thought were pretty good. You might see these ideas appear in my future blogs. Or you could quickly nab these ideas so that I don’t spend the rest of my life blogging. I’m sure my boyfriend J will thank you for this.

See www.itadakimasu-eats.blogspot.com for a better understanding of why my sister would think to buy me this book.

What's mine is yours... and this is why

I have been inspired by a book my sister T gave me called “Nobody cares what you had for lunch: 100 ideas for your blog” by Margaret Mason author of http://www.mightygirl.com/

I am going to combine several of her ideas for my new blog. The ideas are:

• Spill everything – catalog the contents of a space that isn’t ordinarily open to the public
• Take inventory – what do you collect? Photograph each item and explain where you got it and why (or whether) you love it
• Clean house – Time to empty your closets and fill up your blog by posting about the things you need to let go of.

I’m planning to move house in about two years time. Between now and then, I will go through my stuff and photograph what needs to find a new home.

I still actually like most of this stuff so it’s no big deal if I’m left with the lot… but I figure that there are people I know (and people they know) who could love this stuff more than me…. Or at least use it more than me.

The stuff is free for you, but if you’d like to make a donation in exchange I will donate all funds raised to Youngcare*. See side bar for current tally.

Everything given away will have to be collected because I don’t want to send anything in the mail or for it to cost me any money.

I’ll aim to post at least one item every work day to this blog… or until I run out of stuff.

My aim is obviously not to make money (so please don’t suggest I put this stuff on ebay), but to make me think more about my consumption habits, and as a fun way to recycle.

Please post a comment if you want any of these items. I’ll let you know in the heading if it has been snapped up.

Enjoy!

* Youngcare's mission is to provide suitable, dignified and relevant lifestyle/accommodation for young Australians with high care needs (http://www.youngcare.com.au/)