u/chikenenen

My dad bought this bedroom suite for me when I was a teenager and it stayed at his house until he passed away 25 years later.

After he died I brought it to my house and set up a guest bedroom with it but he was a two-pack-a-day smoker all his life, he kept all the windows closed so his house had that sting-in-the-back-of-your-throat musty cigarette smell and that has seeped into the furniture over the years.

It's been in my house for 5 years and it still smells, it's making my house smell so I decided to paint it rather than give/throw it away.

So I tried the pottery barn finish from Black Sheep House's youtube tutorials. I primed it with a shellac odour-blocking primer and had to wash all my walls but the smell appears to be gone.

The orange stain is the before and the lighter colour is the after. It took me a good month but here we are and I think it looks great!

It's a bit of a shame to lose its original orange charm but the smell wasn't tolerable so this was the only real option I think.

I still need to get some new lamps and a different doona cover as it doesn't suit but overall I think it's ready for the next 30 years.

It was used with Cabot's Cabothane water-based clear and then washed out with water as per the instructions but has dried..... quite solid.

I've tried re-washing it which did nothing, soaking it in metho and turps which softened the bristles but it re-dried solid again.

How do I un-fuck my brush?

I'm digitising some family tapes on VHS and found some old footage of my parents.

My dad was pretty heavily into cars and engines, he built this thing and took it out to play in. In this day and age he would probably be reported to CPS. 😄

Thought I'd share some old footage of the gateway bridge being built that I found on some old VHS family videos that I'm digitising.

My 2.5yo kitty was diagnosed with wet FIP at 5-6 months old and finished treatment two years ago, almost to the day.

Ever since getting sick she's never been a big eater but she lost all interest in wet food. I spent about a year trying basically every brand/type on the market to try entice her but she was never interested. Even cooked chicken wouldn't interest her so I gave up and she's eaten just dry food for the past 6-12ish months.

Well she recently started showing interest in my other kitty's dinner and I'll be damned but her appetite appears to be back with great gusto. I haven't seen her eat like this since I got her as a 3 month old kitten.

Just wanted to celebrate a little win and leave some hope for others that it appears even picky eating can eventually come good.

I'm not sure if it's just improved over time or if it's because of the feeding changes I've made. I used to feed them twice a day but a couple months ago bought a dual autofeeder which now dispenses three small meals a day, the first at 5AM, the second at 11AM, I feed them myself at 5PM and then the autofeeder dolls out the last one at 11PM.

Either way it appears I have one happy kitty!

A little while back I posted about some chicken that had 2 cups of water come out of it during cooking, and had learned that almost all chicken in Australia is now processed by Spin Chilling where it's submerged in water to bring the temperature down fast.

The chicken absorbs water during that process and it all comes out in your pan after you've had the luxury of paying $17/kg for that added water.

Some other aussies also replied and said they'd long been unable to get a sear on chicken due to the amount of water that comes out in the pan and yep I've had the same problems for years.

So I found some chicken that's cooled by Air Chilling instead and sure enough, no excess water.

Yep, it's expensive but I think I've decided that I'd rather eat less better-quality meat rather than more lower-quality meat. Handling the chicken didn't even make my hands sting and itch which is something I've had a problem with for about 10 years and have been unable to figure out.

I'm not going to mention brands because I don't want it to seem like an advert but look for air chilled chicken. Coles/woolies may stock a small amount in an organic section of the meat aisle but a local-to-your-state chicken producer may be your best bet.

Here are some pics, completely unseasoned chicken chucked in a pan (with a bit too much oil, it slipped) and then the whole pan chucked in the BBQ for 15 minutes. This is how I remember chicken being.

Australian chicken producers do pump the meat with water but this is ridiculous.

I put four marinated chicken breasts in the slow cooker and this poured out of them. $17/kg for chicken breasts. 480grams of water, so I've just paid $8 for two cups of water.

Chicken didn't used to be like this 20 years ago, this is australian enshittification at its finest.

Edited to add because there seems to be a lot of misinterpretation - I did not buy marinated chicken. I bought raw chicken and then marinated it myself in one tablespoon of yoghurt and one tablespoon of tandoori paste. That's it. The only reason I mentioned it was to explain why the water was orange.

My scrub mommy is getting on a bit so I replaced it but the replacement seems....... off.

It's not as thick as my old one, but I'm not sure if my old one has just kinda gotten saggy so that's why it's wider. The ratio of pink scrub to yellow sponge is different, it's an even split in the new one whereas I swear the old one had more yellow sponge than pink. And in my hand it just feels like a much smaller sponge.

What's the deal? Is this shrinkflation across the Scrub Daddy range or is this a counterfeit?

I bought it from a local brick-and-mortar store who had a whole rack of Scrub Daddy products, so it wasn't even bought online.

A few weeks back I posted about trying to find an already-dressed 100x100mm timber post in a fancy timber to be used as a hose reel mount in a new garden bed.

Unfortunately I didn't find it, smallest sizes for nice hardwood were 150x150 and I'm in a semi-rural area so options were limited.

I ended up grabbing some treated pine, primed it, painted it, attached it to a stirrup and concreted the stirrup in the ground. So now if I ever find that piece of fancy timber down the track I can swap it out without having to dig up the old one.

But here she is, all finished and dolled up and looking pretty :p

Just thought I'd post some pics as I think half of the sub got involved in that post about the post.

I have two desexed two and a half year old tonkinese cats that I bought from a breeder and brought them home at 12 weeks old.

For anyone unfamiliar with the breed it's a half burmese half siamese cross. They're not my first tonkinese (my previous one died at 21years of age) but I'm here because one of them doesn't have what I'd consider a tonkinese temperament. I've never had a full siamese but I think one of my cats has swung so hard to the siamese side and me being unfamiliar with the breed I think I need some help/info to keep a happy relationship with him.

He is incredibly demanding and I think might be possessive of my attention.

When he was a kitten he would get in my face and meow at me for an hour and a half before every mealtime. He'd bap my face, lick my nose and constantly meow at me. He was fed four times a day so that was six hours a day meowing at me at face-level. Ignoring him didn't work, I tried for months but he'd just meow and bap harder to get my attention. I eventually gave up and swapped to free-feeding dry foood so he could help himself, which finally brought me some peace.

All that to say he's quite demanding, there's no compromise and ignoring any unwanted behaviour does absolutely nothing in changing it. If he wants to be let into the backyard and I don't comply immediately, he gets up on top of the blinds railing or gets into things he knows he shouldn't be in.

The bigger issue is that he seems possessive of my attention. If the other cat tries to run up to me he'll jump on her, bite her on the back and pin her down. He jumps up into my arms and insists on being carried around. At the computer he'll lay on my hands trapping them to the desk.

At first I thought he was just super affectionate but is this possessive behaviour? Is this a siamese thing?

The other cat loves the cat wheel but he doesn't. If I play with her on the wheel, when we're done and walk away he'll get pissed off and go bite her on the back. Is he jealous? So I make sure to play with him as well but he can't seem to handle her getting attention. I've not known this to be a tonk trait.

He gets this walk about him where I can tell he's pissed off. It's hard to describe but his musculature looks more pronounced around his shoulders, his tail gets a flick about it and his ears are half way between forward and backwards. This isn't really a tonk trait, the burmese side usually contributes a calm nature.

I do play with him, we go outside and he'll chase a wand toy around the yard until he's breathing hard. He helps me in the garden. I'm home 24/7, I literally can't give him any more attention than he's getting.

He seems to have a very high prey drive and if my girl cat tries to run away he'll chase her down but he won't back off when she hisses at him. She's smaller so can fit into spaces he can't, but he'll then hover over the entrance/exit and wait for her to come out. His body language is the same as if he's chasing down a lizard. She'll hiss at him and try and get away but it doesn't deter him, he'll corner her and chase after he when she makes a break for it. If I see it I go scruff him and put him in a room by himself for half an hour. He seems like a bully and I hate it, it's not any tonkinese behaviour that I've ever seen.

They have separate feed bowls, 3 litter boxes but he also likes using the dirt outside as a litterbox so there doesn't appear to be any resource-related issues.

At night he patrols the house. he'll walk from room to room doing laps, checking out windows and doors as if he's a military man on guard duty. I've never had another tonk do this. He takes this job very seriously, meanwhile the other one is off dozing somewhere.

I got two cats so they'd always have company and play with each other but one of them seems to have jealousy issues and is territorial which is making life less peaceful. He is quite an intense cat meanwhile the girl is just an easy cat to have around.

I've noticed that if I don't give him attention - putting him on the ground when he traps my hands, not carrying him around and instead putting him on the ground, he eases up on biting his half sister and there's more peace in the house. It's like I have to reduce the bond between he and I for the bond to increase between him and her. It doesn't feel good but feels like my only option.

Everything I've described, are these things that are common with siamese? If so, any tips or advice on how to ensure a happy family life for all of us? Given they live 20+ years I'd like to make sure we all live in harmony.

Here are some videos:

Here he is on the cat tree - https://i.imgur.com/eLChs7T.mp4

His first time with catnip, he loved it - https://i.imgur.com/ZRWFuWB.mp4

But when girl cat checked it out he wasn't having it. He jumped at her and chased her around the house - https://i.imgur.com/bPFJb8Q.mp4

Did the catnip fire him up? I've never had a cat get wound up from catnip, always the opposite where they mellow out.

But they also nap together peacefully so they don't completely hate each other -

https://preview.redd.it/hz3std2n41yg1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=9ca92d38b4d66b3babd765caf963c0f9720e74b3

Any thoughts/opinions/tips/advice/etc all appreciated!