My life changing appliance

A stick vac.

Yep. I'm addicted.

In fact, Elle said if she was ever asked about my hobbies, vacuuming would top the list.

And Sass (not to be outdone) said if she had to nominate her parents' occupations, then Geoff is a builder, and I'm a vacuumer.

They all get very annoyed with me, but I like to have some vague feeling of order about the house and just because they're sleeping, watching TV or on the phone - I take no heed - and vacuum on!

Geoff bought it at great expense, and I must confess, to begin with, I was skeptical - now I can't leave the damned thing alone. It's just so handy!!

So, when the girls were cleaning Elle's car, and she ran over it - twice - I completely lost it at her. I'd probably have been calmer if it'd been the cat. God knows what the neighbours thought, but I dredged up my angriest of angry mother voices and let fly.

Geoff taped its poor broken head, but it does now tend to cut out fairly regularly. But like a mother with an empty pram, I keep moving it around until it eventually kicks back into gear.

Unusually, Elle had cause to use the stick vac recently, and I was speechless when she dared complain that the cutting in and out business was really annoying....

Stuff

So easy to acquire - so hard to offload!

The renovation is finally underway, and the first task is to clear out the excess of 'stuff' (I'm using the term generously!) that's accumulated the last couple of decades.

It's highlighted how easy it is to buy - click a button, pop your details in and voila! Disposing? Not so simple.

I have stuff on eBay and Gumtree. I even Googled the legality of listing on both (you can). We have art and furniture and collectables and light fittings and god knows what else to get rid of. I didn't realise it was possible, but I actually maxed out with the value of what I was selling on eBay in a single month - so I started listing more crap on Geoff's account! We've become quite good at it - the app is the way to go.

Sass had a stall out the front last weekend. The mandarins and oranges from the trees in the garden, which we also had excess of, were quick to sell out. She managed to move a bit of junk, but geez, there's loads more.

Overwhelmed, I jumped online and booked a Camberwell market stall. We've culled CDs, DVDs, (do we really need any of either??), books, photo frames, video games, prints and goodness knows what else. Lucky it's a few weeks away as it'll give us time to gather even more.

Things have been priced to sell, and still, buyers want to screw you down. I listed a mahogany filing cabinet for $200 and got $160.
Do you know how much we paid for that? Geoff asks, affronted, every time I get excited that something else has sold. I tell him I don't want to know. But he often does. Oh well.

I'm even agreed to drop a chair to Werribee to a buyer this long weekend - just to get rid of it.

Everything that's staying is being stacked into the garage, and I'm sure at some stage, we'll be living in there too!

How long do you think this will take? I asked Geoff, the builder on this project.
I reckon Christmas, he replied. It didn't escape my attention that he didn't specify which one.

Where are we putting the fish tank? Geoff asked.
eBay? suggested Elle quietly - not really joking.

And here it is... on a bench in the garage.