Book Club Book Review: The Girl On The Train By Paula Hawkins

My Book Club's book choice for the month of October was The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins.

This is a thriller told in diary format by three female narrators - the main character is Rachel a recently divorced, sad and lonely, alcoholic who can't move on from her past.

The story follows Rachel on the train each day and the lives she imagines the people who live along the train tracks live. These people include her ex-husband, his neighbors and his current partner.

One of the narrators is murdered and somehow Rachel ends up in the midst of it as the story progresses with you trying to work out "who dunnit".

I can see why this book caused so much hype and interest it really is a brilliant read, it's fast paced, realistic, and I couldn't put it down.

I didn't particularly like any of the characters, although they were written well, they weren't likable. I felt really sad and sorry for Rachel, and her story was raw and confronting at times. But that's also what I loved about this book just how shocking and real it was.

I recommend this book to thriller lovers and to anyone who thinks others have a perfect life - this will show you that nothing is every quite as it seems!

I give this book 4 stars out of  5

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch paint dry than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd give up a bottle of the worlds best champagne for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

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[Image via Penguin Books]

DIY: Plastic Pots + Spray Paint = Granite Look Pots

Our latest home improvement project has us working towards clearing the backyard for subdivision.

A mini excavator and driver came last weekend to dig up the old garden beds and we had to transplant any plants that we wanted to save and move them into the courtyard at the front of the house. Some of the plants are these yukkas we grew from cuttings that a friend gave us years ago, we stuck them in the ground, watered them occasionally, and they have turned into beautiful big plants!

Now that the front courtyard has a fence around it it's a blank canvas patiently waiting to be landscaped - but until we work out the exact design I don't want to spend money on expensive pots or start putting plants into the ground only to have to dig them up again. 

So I decided the best thing was to plant the yakkas into pots we already had .... old, weathered, faded, dirty plastic pots ...... which would be given a face lift with some spray paint that looks like granite.

To start with I gave the pots and trays a good clean with my fancy never kink hose to remove all the dirt and peeled off the labels. I left them to dry in the stinking hot 38 degrees sun which only took about 10 minutes and they were good to go!

Once the pots were clean and dry I turned to my trusty spray paint supplies and used the Dulux Duramax Plastic Primer spray paint first to apply a light coat of primer onto the pots and trays.

The primer is a must as it prepares the plastic surface which helps the paint stick to it.

The primer didn't take long to dry on such a hot day - I waited less than half an hour.

I then used two cans of Dulux Duramax granite affect spray paint. You could use one can of paint and have the background colour show through and a more speckled look but I wanted it to be solid granite which is why I used a second can of paint.

I did a couple of light coats and waited half an hour between coats to dry. Dulux Duramax is known for it's fast drying time, it dries super fast which is perfect for impatient painters like me! 

I did a review of these Dulux Duramax spray paints earlier this year which you can read more about here.

I waited another hour for the painted pots and trays to be completely dry and they were then ready to be used.

I sat the pots on the trays, filled the pots with potting mix and planted the yukkas.

Everyone looks surprised when I tell them these pots are plastic, the granite effect is very realistic and I think they could pass for being made of granite or a heavier material.

Except they are much lighter and cheaper than granite pots would be!

It feels good to be out in the garden adding some much needed greenery and kerb appeal to the front of the house.

Have you been out in the garden lately? 

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[All images my own]

Book Review: Pimp My Rice By Nisha Katona

This is a book review of Pimp My Rice: Dress it up, Spice it up, Serve it up  by Nisha Kotana that was published by Nourish Books on 15 October 2015.

Nisha is a British born Indian, rice and curry evangelist, a former barrister, restaurateur and has spent many years teaching Indian cookery to Brits of all ages in Liverpool.

The name says it all really Pimp My Rice is a cookbook about turning the humble grain of rice into a tasty dish for the dinner table.

There are rice dishes for all courses - entree, main to dessert. For any meal of the day - from breakfast to dinner. With all flavours - sweet and savoury to hot and spicy.

There are rice dishes I've never even thought of creating before like Banana Espresso for breakfast and desserts made from rice don't normally appeal to me but seeing the Salted Cinnamon Overnight Pud and I have suddenly changed my mind! There are heaps of main dishes I want to make and the Gutsy Prawn Gumbo and Jambalaya both remind me of New Orleans food I'd love to create at home as a reminder of our recent Honeymoon in the USA!

The recipes are easy to read and follow they are not too fancy or complicated which makes this book perfect for the home cook. I would have liked to see more pictures of each dish as the pictures that were in there were really appealing and made me want to make the dish there and then!

The voice of the author comes through as relaxed, friendly and fun and the summary at the top of each recipe about the dish is a really entertaining way to add a story about each recipe.

I recommend this book to rice lovers it's a really great addition for any home cook, to add to their cookbook collection.

I give this book 5 stars out of  5

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch paint dry than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd give up a bottle of the worlds best champagne for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

Pimp My Rice can be purchased from the author here and Nourish Books

Sharing my book review on Good Reads here and Netgalley

Disclosure:  NetGalley partner with bloggers such as me to help promote authors and their books and I was given a hardcopy of this book published by Nourish Books to review. As always, all opinions are my own.

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[Image my own]

Home Staging And Furnishing A Rental Property

The latest project that has had all my attention, as mentioned in my last blog post, has been to get my rental property an inner city apartment rented out.

The rental market in Perth has not been good for landlords and vacancy rates have hit a 20 year high. I discovered this when my rental was vacant for the last 3 months! Admittedly, that time included the break I had for the wedding and honeymoon. But still, when you compare it to 3 years ago when I had applications flying in and tenants offering more than the asking price to secure the place, it really has been a big change. 

Well, now the opposite has occurred, the rent prices have come down and there is over 5% of vacancies. Add to this the location of my property in East Perth where there are a lot of new developments, so tenants are going for the newer builds rather than the older complexes like mine.

I knew I had to do something to make the property more appealing to tenants because walking into an empty space not everyone can use their imagination and envisage what it would look like with a comfy couch, feature rug and modern art on the walls. Plus a lot of the potential tenants were students and travellers and wanted it already furnished so as the saying goes you need to cater for the market.

So I set myself a budget after working out how long it would take to recoup the money spent and got busy on Gumtree sourcing modern and stylish furniture and whitegoods suitable for apartment living. While most items I got were second hand, I went for quality brands and nearly new items, some of them were ex-display furniture used to stage homes for sale so they were in perfect near new condition.

All the accessories came from Kmart they are so on trend with their designs and inexpensive so it was worthwhile adding some decor items to really add personality to the rooms. Most of the artwork was also from Kmart with a few artworks from Target too.

The coffee table and side table were from Kmart's industrial range and I just love them I want them for my place! The rug had to be a real feature and statement piece and this was the only real splurge item but I scored it for half price so that made it ok - it's from Rugs A Million. 

We did a lot of upgrades too, touch up painting with some of the bedrooms getting a complete paint job, installed all new fittings in the bathroom and toilets, changed all the taps and shower head, we even replaced the old oven with a shiny new one. 

All these little details gave a new lease of life to the place and for a minor investment it really did give a big result.

Once it was furnished and decorated I took some photos and put a new ad up on Gumtree (free advertising!) and after just 4 days and 2 home opens/viewings I found new tenants.

I really do believe that with it furnished it was so much more appealing and everyone that came through said they wanted to live there compared to the way they reacted to the empty space before ... they couldn't get out of there fast enough!

A big selling point for this place is the facilities - it has a swimming pool, spa, sauna and gym.

When you walk out onto the balcony and look down onto the tropical gardens and swimming pool beckoning on a hot sunny day you can't help but want to sit out here with a drink and relax and take it all in. 

So how much did it cost? 

To stage a similar property, that's renting everything for about 6 weeks not purchasing it, will cost upwards of $4,000.

I spent less than $2,500 for the furniture, whitegoods, accessories and art for this 3 bedroom apartment and the best part is as I purchased everything instead of rented it I can always sell and recoup some of the money back down the track if I need to.

I really loved staging and styling the property and I would love to do this kind of thing for a living!

What are your thoughts on staging a property for sale or rent?

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[All images my own]

Book Club Book Review: Go Set A Watchman By Harper Lee

My Book Club's book choice for the month of September was Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

This story is set in the 1950s and is a sequel to How To Kill A Mockingbird and features some of the main characters many years on.

When 26 year old Jean comes home from bustling New York to her sleepy hometown of Maycomb, Alabama, she's shocked to learn of the racism abound in her community and from her family and friends.

The story just doesn't seem to go anywhere until the very end when Jean has a disagreement with her family and friends and finally they get to the crux of the issue and the soul of the story.

I wish the whole book had been as passionate and interesting as that final chapter.

I recommend this book to anyone who has read How To Kill A Mockingbird as you may enjoy it more than I did, I haven't read it which may be the reason I didn't enjoy this book. 

I give this book 2 stars out of  5

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch paint dry than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd give up a bottle of the worlds best champagne for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

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[Image via Penguin Books]

An Update On Life Lately ...

Firstly, I must apologise for my absence on the blog front, besides some book review posts that I had already scheduled, I have a long list of blog posts I want to share from the wedding, honeymoon, renovating updates and home projects but I haven't yet found the time to write them all! 

The reason for my absence is I've had some health issues that have put me on bed rest the last few weeks but I'm happy to say that I'm feeling much better now and even got out of my PJs this week for the first time in a long time! 

Being stuck at home these last few weeks I had a lot of reading time on my hands - from my Mum's 5 year old dusty Women's Weekly magazines, a pile of books from the last 3 months of book club reads, plus ebooks I'd downloaded to review from NetGalley - I have been spoilt for choice on the reading front and have a lot of book reviews I'll be posting in the coming weeks. 

Have you read any good books lately?

Being unwell has made me try even harder to cook healthy wholesome meals for Mr P and I and I have gone back to writing menu plans every week to stick on the fridge. This helps keep us on track to make meals that include a few servings of fresh vegetables but I still find it hard fitting in the required 4-5 servings of vegetables every day.

I want to try my hand at making my own fruit and vegetable juice as well .... yes I'm jumping on the healthy juice bandwagon! 

What is your go to healthy vegetable dish? 

Are you juice fan?

A big project that has been taking up a lot of my time is my city apartment which was my bachelorette pad before I met Mr P and is now my rental property. After a bad experience with a Real Estate company not managing it properly I now look after the place myself which means it's up to me to find suitable tenants. After 3 months of it being empty and everyone that applied for it wanted it furnished, I finally succumbed and have decked out the apartment with furniture, decor and art. 

This has been a project which took about a month to complete and I'm happy to say that after just a few days of advertising and one home open I have found new tenants! I really enjoyed staging and styling the property and will be writing a blog post about that soon. 

Styled with Kmart, Target and Gumtree finds! 

At home the subdivision plans for our block are progressing - we had the tree loppers in to remove the large ghost gum tree in the backyard. It took 4 guys about 5 hours to cut it down and turn it into mulch.

We are now waiting for a bobcat and skip bin to come and the guys will clear the rest of the backyard of all the old building material and rubble, the stumps leftover from the granny flat, break down all the brick garden beds and retaining, and put it all in the skip bin and take it away.

Tree Removal .... Before, During and After!

We have finalised a design for our front courtyard and kerb area and want to lay reticulation and then pave and lay grass. Once that's done we can landscape the rest of it and create some kerb appeal. 

I really wanted the courtyard landscaping to be finished before Christmas but I just don't think it's going to happen now as we have had to focus on other things so it looks like this will be a project for the new year.

The courtyard is desperate for some kerb appeal!

We had new downlights installed in the laundry and power points which has been brilliant because for the past year I've had to run an extension cord into the kitchen to use the washing machine!

As soon as I've found a mirror for the powder room I'll do a before/after post of the laundry/powder room renovation .... Yes I know I have been promising this forever but it's coming just as soon as I find the perfect mirror.

Why is it so hard to find a mirror that fits the spot AND looks good AND within budget?!

The last project to do inside the house is to replace all the internal doors with new ones, paint them, and install new handles.

The doors are a bit of a labour of love so we do a door every few months and have a few more still to do but I'm happy to say we are getting there and have nearly finished this project. 

I'll be sharing a post on how to hang and paint doors very soon!

I've been a married woman for two whole months now and Mr P and I are still on cloud nine from our wedding and even though we have lived together for years it feels really different now to be married. It is such a wonderful feeling and I find myself walking around with a big smile on my face whenever I think about it!

I have some DIY bride craft projects on how I made my own wedding bouquets, DIY photobooth, plus a wedding recap just as soon as I receive the photos from the photographer!

Lexi really wanted to be the flowergirl/dog!

So that's what's been going on in my life and around the Jarrah Jungle lately.

It's a really busy time now as we head towards the end of the year, with Christmas shopping to do, catching up with friends and family, parties to go to and plan, it's all happening!

How have you been my friends? Tell me what's been happening in your world lately?

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[All images my own other than image 1 and 2 via Pinterest]

Book Review: Rescue Me, Maybe by Jackie Bouchard

This is a book review of Rescue Me, Maybe by Jackie Bouchard that was published by Lake Union Publishing on 25 August 2015.

Jackie Bouchard is a lover of books, dogs and laughter and has written 3 novels on what she calls 'fido-friendly fiction'. Jackie lives in San Diego with her Canadian hubby and rescue dog.

I admit I was drawn to this book because it had a dog on the cover and because the author loves to write heartwarming stories about women and the dogs that profoundly impact their lives. True to form this is a story of love, loss and hope featuring some 4 legged friends.

Jane is a middle aged women who loses both her husband and dog to cancer just months apart. With her marriage on the rocks for some time, Jane finds herself mourning the loss of her beloved pooch more than her husband.

To help with her grief and guilt and to find employment she moves towns and works as a cook at her family's bed and breakfast. Along the way, try as she might to fight it, she can't help but rescue another dog.

I liked all the characters in the book and even the interfering step mother was likable. While I'm a dog lover myself, I did find parts of this book pretty boring, it was just a bit too slow and sad for me.

I recommend this book to dog lovers and especially those that have lost their beloved 4 legged friend as you will find this to be a comforting read.

I give this book 3 stars out of  5

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch paint dry than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd give up a bottle of the worlds best champagne for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

Rescue Me, Maybe can be purchased from the author here and Amazon

Sharing my book review on Good Reads here and Netgalley

Disclosure:  NetGalley partner with bloggers such as me to help promote authors and their books and I was given this ebook published by Lake Union Publishing to review. As always, all opinions are my own.

For exclusive extras and daily updates ... follow Jarrah Jungle on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

[Image via Jackie Bouchard]