from somewhere in my imagination

Suzie Homemaker Me - Featuring the Tefal Steam Iron

A few months back I was having a quick cuppa with a friend when, being an excellent multitasker, she asked if it was okay of she got on with her ironing while we chatted.  I sat, mesmerised by her steam iron in action.  I think I even went home and declared my desire for a steam iron to replace our poxy old one.

Steven raised an eyebrow, we've been married for more than 11 years, he knows how little ironing I do.  However, now that I am working in the grown up world again.  In a corporate environment, by contrast with the boots and jeans uniform of a mine site, my need for the ironing board and a decent iron has increased.

When the lovely people at Nuffnang were looking for a few bloggers to try out the Tefal Steam Iron and put together a Product Talk by Nuffnang I couldn't email back fast enough to say 'pick me'.  I was pretty chuffed when they did.  Seriously?  I got excited about an iron, I must be growing up!

Steven picked it up for me on Monday but I didn't even get a chance to open the box until sometime after the kids were in bed.  My ideas of putting together a vlog with Steven doing the ironing went out the window. Doh.

Tuesday night, after not sitting down all day other than to eat or drive, the last thing I wanted to do was even think about ironing when I put my feet up around 10.  Such is life for a mumma sometimes.

Finally, tonight, Sebastian asked if he could get the new vacuum cleaner out of the box.  I managed not to laugh to loud, I didn't want to dissuade him from showing an interest (at least) in ironing.  I said know but told him he could watch while I tested it out.

I pulled a few items from my wardrobe.  The kinds of things that often hang there for months at a time because they require such heavy duty ironing to get them back in to a wearable state.  Removed the iron from the box, set up the ironing board and got to work.

Filling the water well is easy enough.  You can just use normal tap water in the iron, it has a built in anti-calc collector (as well as an autoclean function...yippeee to anything that cleans itself!).

The retractable power cord is another winning feature.  No getting the power and steam cords in a tangle.

Once I had it filled up and plugged in I took the time to skim the instructions.  Then, I handed them to my sister to read.  Switched it on, waited for it to heat up then called it some names when it started spitting water everywhere when I was hitting the steam button.  Thankfully there is a troubleshooting list on the instructions which suggested the spitting was normal behaviour for first time use.

I promptly got stuck in to the ironing but continued getting water everywhere.  This prompted more careful reading of the instructions, revealing that it takes two adjustments to get the temperature/steam balance right.

Once I had this sorted things went smoothly and before I knew it I had nice, wrinkle free clothes back on their hangars.  Winner.

I can honestly say that the Tefal Steam Iron makes much shorter work of the ironing with a better result than a run of the mill standard iron.  It's heavier to work with, and the location of the steam buttons (there is one on the top and one on the underside of the handle) will no doubt take some getting used to.  I found myself inadvertently pushing the top one from time to time.  Oops.  I do like the weightiness of it though, and the bursts of steam make it glide across the clothes you are ironing.

The steam lasts for much longer than I expected.

The iron locks onto the base, giving it elements of safety from tipping and security against falling off when you are moving it.  Or maybe that's just me that needs that?  I'm a touch clumsy.

I'm looking forward to spending some more time getting to know my new Tefal Steam Iron, but first I need a new ironing board to replace the old poxy one that goes with the old iron!

All in all I can happily reccomend the Steam Iron...so much so I'd still love to vlog it in action if you think you might like to see it?  I'll wait for a day when I don't look quite so tired as I do right now!

I'm off to bed!

Tatum xx

 

 

Loving Life - A Walk On the Sand

Since we moved we haven’t had many opportunities to really take advantage of the beach…and it’s just up the end of the street.  I run along the esplanades at least a couple of times a week so see plenty of it.  The kids had a full season of nippers so we spent some time down there on Saturday afternoons, but there were often other places we needed to be or things to be done.

With Steven away onsite a couple of nights most weeks, me working three days a week and weekends filled with T-Ball, swimming lessons, cooking, running, cleaning and spending time with family and friends our days and nights fill up pretty quickly.  Somehow we have been living in our new house for 4 months already.

Crazy.  I’m going to turn around and blink and Steven and I will be back from NYC already.

We had the most glorious weather here in Adelaide over the weekend.  28ish both days with a breeze that kept the temperature pretty much perfect under the bluest of skies.  Steven and I got our Saturday afternoon jobs done and agreed to rendezvous at 4pm.

We served up ice creams with ice magic and sprinkles then toddled off down the street towards the beach.

I walked in the water for a bit of recovery on my right foot, which had gotten pretty sore from the wrong new running shoes...thankfully I have rectified that!  J walked with me most of the time, she ended up pretty well wet from head to toe and was somehow surprised by it!

Love that I managed to capture his footprints before the water washed them away.

It was perfect.

The kids enjoyed being kids, jumping off the sand mounds.  This included a rather spectacular face plant by J who stood up in tears, dramatically spat out all the sand in her mouth and immediately clambered back up to jump down again.

As nice as it might have been to indulge in some fish and chips, my body just isn't wired for deep fried food any more, so it was home for a snapper on the BBQ with a quinoa, carrot & chickpea salad.

Our move back to the city has been headspinningly hectic but oh so worth it.  I have changed a lot of my priorities, I'm working three days a week and we are taking advantage of the sports and other extra curricular activities that haven't been at our disposal until now. 

I have had a huge personal focus on my fitness and working towards that 2012 Marathon goal...my first half marathon milestone is just around the corner now, I got massive butterflies when I filled in the registration last Wednesday!  I love the changes that have come from my hard work so far.

I have been wondering about my blog...use it or loose it...but I love it too much.  I love the sharing and I want to continue to write and build my community.

Earlier in the week and sat and made a list of all the types of things I want to share, I see a bit of a shift from where things have been.  Hopefully you'll like where I'm heading, I'm looking forward to sharing some of my personal changes with you especially.

I'm loving life.

Hope that you are having a lovely week.

Tatum xx

Bluescreened

On Thursday night I turned on the laptop to do a few things.

The laptop, unfortunately, had other ideas.

I was greeted with the failure to boot message, repeated attempts to repair were unsuccessful which left us resigned to the fact that our old faithful laptop had finally died.

Steven was quick to pull out two other laptops, hop on the internet and order a replacement.  He’d obviously been researching it for months.  I don’t weigh in on purchases of electronic things usually, he’s a gadget man and knows what he wants.  Me, I’ll just be happy to have left hand shift and control keys I can use again and computer speed that is faster than something powered by two aging mice.

Until the replacement has arrived and my clever husband has retrieved the unbacked up portion of our hard drive and installed a few key programs blogging might be a bit sparse.  Frustratingly I had several posts planned out, but photos and all are frozen inside the old machine for the moment.

Have a happy week, hopefully I’ll get a chance to pop by.

Tatum xx