It's getting scary..

Another quick update from us.

We met with a property agent from Elders. Their percentage was slightly higher (and by slightly I mean a difference of $4 a month) but they have -no fees- apart from that. So we're going with them. They're keen to get the house on the market ASAP, so on Tuesday they'll be dropping around to take photos. Lots of cleaning up and hiding to do before then.. especially the yard. Our hope is to get $320 per week, which would give us around the $285 a week (minus maintenance). $310 would give us $275 so still okay.

Shaun has awesomely agreed to rent us his place for $280 instead of $300, so that works well.

We've also locked in our moving date - the removalist is arriving on Monday 4th Feb. We'll load them up, and probably stay another day at home to clean up and everything before heading to Bendigo.  We'll organise family to meet the truck in Bendigo for us. Yay for family :)

My goal is to have the maintenance-y type things sorted by the end of November, which lets us focus on packing and cleaning. Some of that is stuff I can do (painting, mowing) and others we'll need to get someone in for (the dishwasher, power box, shutters). I'm not sure we'll get there, but it's the goal.

So that's 13 weeks left. Minus the week we take off over Christmas.

Yeah. Getting scary.

More housey stuff

Cheryl and I met with a property agent this week. It was really good.. she gave us an estimate of what rent we could ask for, and then a break-down of all the various fees as well. It was better news than I was expecting to be honest. The ongoing costs aren't too bad, although every new tenant will bring with it about $1000 in fees, which kind of sucks. Hopefully we can get a nice family in who are happy to stay for a few years :)

We've still got a lot of work to do around the house.. more cracks to fix (in Ossie's room), painting, and the expensive stuff like updating the electrical box and fixing another broken roller shutter. If I could work out how to open up the metal container on the roller shutter I'd have a shot at fixing it myself to be honest. Oh and we'll replace the front door too - I've got a friend who's a carpenter who has offered to help us out with that.

We did a big clean-up in preparation for the agent's visit, although no doubt we'll have to do another before we leave. We've done a bit of packing here and there as well. Cheryl's family might be visiting after Christmas to help out around the house - I suspect by then we'll be in full panic mode and very thankful for the assistance.

Oh, and when Oscar found out we were selling stuff on eBay he picked a few of his (broken) toys to sell as well! What a team-player :) I think we'll chuck them in the bin and then say we sold them and give him some money. He can use it to buy more Lego :)

Moving Plans

So by now you've all heard that Cheryl and I are moving back to Bendigo. Our reasons for this are pretty simple - here in Adelaide we have each other for support, and while we're both awesome people and very helpful, it would be nice to have family around when we need them. Also as the kids get older we'd like them to have their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents nearby.  The possibility of babysitting certainly doesn't make the idea any less appealing too ;)

As such, there are some pretty major changes to be made, and I thought I'd update you all on where we were at with them.

For my work, I'll be moving over to contract at GDD, which means I need to get an ABN, set up a home office and start learning words like BAS and GST (okay, they're both acronyms, but you get the idea). I've bought a MacBook Pro which is now my main computer for work, so when we do move I'll be well and truly adjusted to using it. I'm also planning on getting a widescreen monitor, an external hard drive to store work on, and a printer. I think that'll do me. I do like the idea that the "office" is pretty portable - if I want to I could always go outside or to a park for a few hours to work. We met with an accountant last night, and he'll be helping me out and handling the tax side of things for me.

Cheryl is going to quit her job, and see what pans out in Bendigo. Right now what with the cost of parking, petrol, child care and the like we're actually losing money with Cheryl back at work.. Originally the plan was once Lily stopped breastfeeding Chez could get more hours, but now she thinks she'll just finish up around November and be done with it.

Oscar and Lily don't work, so it'll be an easy adjustment for them ;) We are planning the move to give Os time to start Kindy, hence end of Jan/early Feb as a moving date. Lisa has given us some great links to look into on that front.

We've decided to keep our house here in Adelaide and rent it out, and then rent a place in Bendigo. Realistically if we can get as much in rent from here as we're paying in Bendigo we'll be in the same situation.. although we will have to account for agent fees and the like as well. In a lightning strike of extreme luck a friend of ours has just bought a house as an investment property. He's in the process of doing it up a bit with help from Cheryl's siblings, and he's happy for us to move in there. It's about 30 seconds walk from Edith and Landon's place.

Cheryl's been contacting a few removalists to get quotes (it's EXPENSIVE) so hopefully we can just pick a date and move all our stuff, and Cheryl's fam can meet the truck at the other end for us.

That leaves us with a fair bit of work to do in the next few months - apart from packing/selling everything we own (the selling is an attempt to bring down that moving cost, which as I said is EXPENSIVE) we've also got a lot of work to do to the house to get it tenant-ready - fix the door, patch up cracks, repaint, replace the dishwasher.. and fork out the $1,800 to fix the electrical box as well. We can't claim those as deductions, apparently, but we can use them to bring down the capital gains tax when we do decide to sell.

I've also got to register for an ABN, get a licence for my swords, and probably a few other bookworky things I've forgotten. Still, The Move continues it's inevitable rumbling approach like the cleaner from the Labyrinth, and each weekend brings it a little closer.  At least we look to have locked down the two biggest worries (my work and the house) so that's good.

But yeah, looking at the help provided us by Lisa, Rach, Daz, Edith, Landon, Mum.. I think that pretty much explains why we're making the move. We really appreciate having people we can rely on who can help us out with this big life change.

And the babysitting will be nice too ;)

Happy Birthday Chez!

Happy birthday Chez! I know there wont be any drinking and/or carousing but I hope you enjoy your day (and we'll eat plenty of cakes at lunch :D)

I want more power tools

We've got a bit of a break between visitors so I thought I should write a quick update.

We were expecting Darryl at some point before the baby was born, but he surprised us by calling us a few days before the weekend to say he'd be here along with his family. Luckily I had just spend a large chunk of the previous weekend cleaning the spare room (for the guys to come and fix our shutters) so we were okay. It was great to see Darryl, Alicia, Charlotte, William and Spencer, and although Oscar got a little upset about having to share his toys early in the week (especially after his nap when he was still tired) by the end of it he was happily (for the most part) playing with everyone. He seemed to like following Charlotte around, copying her, and later he and Spencer both copied each other.. which was good, because they were playing together, but not so good if they both wanted to play with one little toy :) I think it's a small taste of what's to come for him though. Daz was brilliant.. he made us the wardrobe (which we're still in the process of filling), fixed up the front security door, reattached the linen press door.. just generally did those tasks you really need power tools to do. We repaid him as best we could with beer and chocolates, but I think we still owe him big time.

This weekend Rach arrives, which will be great too. She's staying for a week, and I know Os is going to love having family here who don't want to ride on his bikes or read his books ;) Sadly Rach wont be bringing power tools to fix up whatever is left, but that's okay.. I think Chez has got a day off work so I'm sure they'll get up to no end of hijinks.

Speaking of Chez, she's doing really well. Only 10 weeks to go, and the little girl is very active. Os calls her "baby sister" and occasionally points out toys for her :) The time seems to be flying by now. We put up some photos of Cheryl so you can see her belly too.. I don't think it's as big as it was for Ossie. Either way I'm sure you'll agree she looks beautiful.

And me.. I'm on a weird low-carb diet. I'll write more about that when it's over if you're interested.. Then I'll have final numbers and the like. Either way, it seems to be netting a result for me, which is good.. because I do miss delicious carbs.

Update from us

As usual, it's been a while since we posted anything on the bandwagon, so I thought I'd give a bit of an update. This week has could have best been described as Hellishly busy. After a few weeks of not much going on at work, suddenly a client came to us with a massive job and a really tight deadline.. today being said deadline, and I'm writing this over my lunchbreak while awaiting any more feedback from them. Unfortunately, this was also the week in which I've got two Iaido demos.. one on Sunday, and the other yesterday afternoon. This basically meant that the last few days I've been starting around 6 or 7am so I can get the work done and also so I could leave early Wednesday for the demo. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but the sum result is I'm pretty tired :)

So the demos. Yesterday afternoon Takeo and I were at a big park in Adelaide for a half hour or so. We did some kata together, then faced off against each other with Takeo attacking and me defending.. then we did five each alone (we were clapped at the end!) and finished with some bamboo cutting. The crowd actually built up to be pretty large. Cheryl has posted photos, and I'll chuck a couple in here.. you can see it's fairly sparse in the first one, but by the end there's people behind us watching as well. The demo Sunday should be a bit less stress.. it's just for my Dojo in Reynella, so myself and a couple of students will do about 3 kata each and that will be all.

If you want to see all the photos you can see them here.

We hung around at the Moon Lantern Festival after the demo to eat some delicious Korean food and watch a few of the shows on the main stage. Oscar also tasted his first ice-cream.. which was Cheryl's ice-cream, but he didn't want to share ;) We got it off him when we offered him a banana instead.. he loves his fruit!

Oscar is growing up so quickly and learning a lot. He's gradually adding more words, some from us (like "nan" and "up") and some from childcare (like "ta" and "more") and some he just seems to pick up himself. He started saying "nose", "mouth" and his favourite "eye" suddenly one day. He really likes to mimic us too.. sometimes you wont realise you're doing something (like scratching the top of your head) until you see Os doing it too.

He's becoming much better at feeding himself.. some foods are easier than others of course, but he loves using a spoon, fork and knife when he can. He also loves reading books.. I think that's his favourite quiet time activity. Sometimes he'll even sit down and look through the books himself. We play a lot, he loves chasing and hiding games, and really likes exploring outside. He can get a bit quiet and shy with new people, but I reckon it takes about 20 minutes for him to get used to them (and it took about 2 minutes with Sam :))

We're looking forward to seeing Mum and Nana next week, even if there is a fair bit of cleaning the house still to be done. I'm getting Wednesday and Thursday off work (which I appreciate even more after this week) and then Friday Cheryl and I will go out for a few drinks with friends to celebrate my birthday. Gotta make the most of the experienced babysitters :) Monday is a public holiday too! It's going to be a good week :)

Hmm.. I think that's it from me. Hopefully Cheryl can pop on and say how her work is going, and anything I might have forgotten. I'd better get back to work!

Tees, Teeth and Tsuka

Dayna said we need to get the old bandwagon a-rolling along again, so I thought I'd give a quick update on what I've been doing for the last few weeks.

Last Saturday I had a tee up on TeeFury. My previous tee, Oh The Humanity, had sold just over 500.. of which I get a dollar for each.. so I was hoping for something similar. This time around it was my Flight of the Conchords tee, and I sold over 1100! It was quite a shock.

As it turns out, I wont be splurging on some awesome holiday just yet.. Last week a tooth that has been going downhill for a while started really hurting. On the other side I had another tooth that had a chip out of it.. which meant for a week I was unable to eat on either side of my mouth. On Tuesday I had the bad tooth out, and having seen it I can say it's better to be gone. Then on Saturday I finally got the other one filled. Dental work is sadly quite expensive, so that was the end of my big profits.. the rest is going to stay in the bank for a while.

Today I had my Iaido grading (if you haven't seen the site, go and check it out - I built it over about 4 months). The grade was "San Dan Ho" or provisional third dan.. basically each dan grade takes two years to achieve, so next year I'll have my third dan grading. It was pretty hard, but I think I've passed.

Also on the topic of Iaido, I'm opening a dojo in Reynella. I'll be borrowing equipment from the Honbu, and the hall hire is cheap enough that I just need two ongoing students to pay the rent. It will be interesting to see how it goes, anyway, and see if there's an interest for it in the southern suburbs. It'll open at the end of April, after school holidays.

That's about it from me. Maybe if we can get updates from Lisa or Glenn I can write one about the Adelaide Mason you're all really interested in, my man Oscar :)

Update from Adelaide in the form of an epic novel

Hey all,

I thought it's about time we did an update from us. Let me start with childcare..

Friday a week ago was to be Oscar's first day of childcare, and Cheryl's first day of work. We were totally psyched for it, I was going to take lunch off and we would both drop Os in and ease him into it. Unfortunately, best laid plans and all that, Os got a fever Thursday night which continued throughout the day. We decided it was better for Chez to have her first day, so (with big thanks to my boss) I took a half day, dropped Cheryl at work and took Os home. Unfortunately his temp continued to rise, and once it got to 39.6 I took him to emergency. 3 hours, much poking and prodding and a very unhappy Os later we were able to take him home, Cheryl having left work early to catch the bus. The doctor's final report was along the lines of "probably a virus, we can never be sure with kids, no other problems so he'll be okay in a day or two".

It wasn't an ideal first day.

Over the weekend his temp sorted itself back out and he was looking fine for his Wednesday childcare when on Tuesday arvo he picked up a fever again. Thankfully while generally these things are 48 hours or so he was fine on Wednesday and was able to have his first day.

Once we got him there, he was fine. I suspect if you surround him with toys and girls who smile at him he'd be happy anywhere (and who wouldn't?). Apparently it took a little while to get him to sleep, but once they found out the tricks (rubbing his blue bear against his face, patting his leg) they got there and he was asleep when I arrived to pick him up.

Oh, that's the other thing. On his childcare days I leave the house before 6am, walk 4.5kms to the train station then train into the city and bus to work, to be there by 8am. Then I leave at 4pm, bus to the childcare and pick him up.. although the plan is for me to stay there with him for a while, to help him get comfortable until around 5:30 when Cheryl finishes. There's probably a bus I could catch later in the morning, but I need a couple of big walks in the week. Plus when Os is older I can say "back in my day I had to HIKE for 45 minutes through the SNOW etc etc".

On Friday he stayed home with Nanna and Granddad who by all accounts doted on him and carried him everywhere like a little prince :) So he's only had the one day.

Sunday (today!) we had his birthday party. We had something like 25 adults and 10 kids, but somehow we didn't run out of food or seats.. Certainly not something we could have done at any of the units we lived in ;) It was a really great day.. Os had a sleep from around 10:30 until 12:30, so he was in a really good mood for his party. He even got to eat some cake, although I'm sure he didn't realise it was a treat. Babies played with Os' toys, kids played the Wii and ran around outside, and adults ate, drank and generally made merry. Just as a first birthday should be. I'll post photos up to flickr later, and I'm sure Cheryl will post some to facebook too.

I might get Cheryl to jump on now and tell you how her first few days of work are going..

Cheryl here :) Work is going well. My first shift back my supervisor got me to do most of the sales to help me get back into the swing of things. Nothing like being thrown into the deep end to refresh your memory! Apart from wondering how Os was doing, it all went well. I'm enjoying being back at work, and Os & I are slowly working out our new routine. And I'm enjoying not having to worry about all the supervisor stuff I used to do! It's also great just being around my work friends and students :)

Okay, that's it from us.

Oscar's first trip to the pool

We have just gotten back from Oscar's first ever trip to the pool! It's been a bit cold and rainy this weekend, but the pools were indoor and heated, so it was quite warm when we got there.

Initially we took him into the baby pool. I'm sure mum and dad can guess his first reaction - he kicked around like he was in the bath :) However after a bit of that I think he realised he was somewhere different, and spent the remainder of the time studying everything he could with a detached expression of mild curiosity.

The pool we went to has these weird mushroom things which rain water down, and he rather enjoyed that. It also has a sea creature which sprays water from it's head and he really tried to grab that water, even though it just made it spray into his face :D

After a bit of a play in both the baby and the kids pool (he was a bit weirded out by floating I think) we changed him, wrapped him up and he instantly fell asleep. He's still asleep now that we're home :)

We didn't take any photos at the actual pool, but there are a few shots of his cute little outfit on flickr and facebook, so check them out :) He looks very tall in that first one..

Happy Birthday Cheryl

Happy birthday beautiful!

I would have posted this yesterday but we were in transit.

And so ends the triumvirate of birthdays ;)

Oscar's day on the farm

Hi everyone!

Yesterday we took Oscar to the miniature farm barn for a friend's 2-years-old birthday party. We dressed Os in some cold weather gear and he met a lot of animals for the very first time. The first part of the party was a bit of a tour and feed then it was pony ride time. All of the kids were too scared! Apart from Oscar, who sat on one for a little while. They were really cute ponies (I know what I want for my birthday!) and if they could have held my weight I would have been up there in no time as well! ;) Some of the little girls ended up putting hair clips into the pony's mane and leading it around the yard. Next was farm equipment time. I think Os enjoyed the tractor ride the most :) Then all of the kids went inside for some morning tea and cake. Oscar had his milk and then sat next to his little friend while he played with a serviette. It was a very cute party and it tired the little guy out. He fell asleep on the way home, so instead of trying to get him into the house without waking him we drove to the local shopping centre and Damien and I took turns going in to get lunch and eating in the car while Oscar slept (sneaky! :) We took heaps of photos, of course :)

Today we've had a quieter day. We went to the shopping centre for lunch and spent the rest of the day at home. Not sure what we'll do tomorrow. Probably enjoy the public holiday indoors with the heater on :)

Blue-eyed future Sword Saint ;)

Just a quick update from us.

Oscar has calmed down a lot - he's on Losec for his reflux - the Mylanta we had him on previously wasn't doing the trick. It does help, although sometimes it can still be difficult getting him to sleep.. but he's not awake every 45 minutes all day and night now, so it's a big plus. We're hoping once he reaches that 6 month point we wont need to give him the medication.. often that's when it settles down anyway.

Cheryl had her shopping day in Melbourne on Saturday (for our anniversary I got her a return ticket).. she spent most of her time (and money) at the DFO at Southern Cross Station, definitely worth a look if you're ever visiting the rainy city. I looked after Oscar for the day.. from 5am when Cheryl left until 9pm when she returned. Thankfully now he's got his medication he was much more relaxed and actually managed a few hours of sleep in there.

The other thing that helped keep me sane over the day was my new iPhone - Cheryl's anniversary present to me.. well, a combination of Cheryl and Kevin Rudd really. I was able to hold Oscar and still surf the net or play games I had downloaded. It was much better than my previous method of passing the time - staring into space :)

This morning we all headed to Goodwood for Iaido, because we had the Grading Certificate Presentations. I am now officially Ni-Dan, which makes me a sensei and also meant I got an art name - a name specific to the style to represent me. My name is "Go Seki".. the "Go" part is from Shihan's art name (Go Ho) and indicates that we have come from the Australian school.. and the "Seki" part means "stone" or "rock".. which was Shihan's (and the Grandmaster's) opinion of me I guess. I hope it's solid as a rock, and not rock-headed ;)

Oh, and finally there's a few more photos of Oscar up - http://www.flickr.com/photos/damienmason/3495448177/in/set-72157613379231082/ Cheryl took some fantastic shots, and I think it's pretty safe to say Oscar's eyes will be staying blue now :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody. I hope you all have had an enjoyable long weekend.

(more new photos over at flickr)

Oh, and big thanks to Auntie Dayna for the present, you can see him enjoying it here

Smile!

Update from Adelaide

Hey guys.. well, some pretty big updates on the bandwagon. Jared, I hope you had a great birthday, we're still organising your present, maybe we'll give it to you when you visit. Ma n Pa, sorry to hear about the scary ER visit, but I'm glad Dad's on the mend again. A trip to Emergency is never a particularly pleasant experience.

As far as we are going, things are all pretty good. We've had Edith and Landon here for the last three weeks, and Rach arrived on Tuesday, but they headed home this morning. I know Oscar enjoyed seeing his grandparents and auntie, and we certainly appreciated an extra few pairs of hands to cook, clean up and occasionally take the baby so we could sleep :)

We took Oz to the beach on Saturday, which was great.. he slept pretty much the entire time. Then when we got home he was awake for some photos and a quick webcam chat with his other grandparents (and great-grandparent). I've put still more photos in the Oscar set on flickr.

I think the photos are generally 1200x1600, so if you want them at a bigger size to print just let me know.. the originals are more like 2500 x 1900. Mum and Dad, you do have that book to fill up after all ;)

That's about it from us. The time just seems to be flying by, it's hard to believe Oscar's a month old already. In no time he'll be eating all the food in the fridge and sleeping until noon :)

BellyWatch: Week 39

Hey all.. well, we're down to the last two weeks before the due date, which means it could be any day from a few weeks ago to about a month from now. This means we don't tend to make plans, and I jump whenever my phone rings at work :)

Cheryl is still feeling good, although occasionally the baby finds a spot to poke that makes her uncomfortable... and of course at that point he decides it's a great game to just keep on poking that spot. Still, she's managing a walk every day of around a kilometre, as well as keeping up the various stretches and other exercises that are recommended.

In an effort to improve my fitness I've also managed the occasional walk to the train station in the morning.. it's around 4 - 4.5 kilometres, which means to catch the train at 7:30 I have a fairly early morning. It's a good walk though, mostly uphill :)

Apart from that we're pretty uninteresting I'm afraid. Just generally kicking around at home, staying cool in this stupid weather and not making plans for any long trips.

What has everybody else been up to since Christmas?

Guess the time and date (and eye colour) competition

As discussed, I'm going to run a competition to guess the time (to the nearest hour) and date of the baby's birth, and the eye colour. That means if someone has the same time that you want, you have to go a different eye colour :) The winner will be the closest time first, and if there's two times that are close then whoever gets the eyes right.
I'll put it up here for a day or so for you all to guess, and then I'm going to post it on my website and keep a running tally of guesses up there :)
The expected due date is Feb 1. Both Cheryl and I have brown eyes, but both our Dads have blue eyes. Oh, and there is a prize (it'll probably be one of my tees from redbubble.. it wont be naming the baby, sorry Jared)
Good luck! ;)

Nursery update

Hey everybody.. today we bought a change table, finally. Cheryl is going to get a capsule for the car in January, after she finishes work, and then I think we have all the essentials. Somewhere for the baby to sleep, be changed, and a way to get him around :)

We also bought a really cool cot set, with monkeys and turtles and all that good stuff. We put it in the cot just to take some photos to put online.

You can see all the nursery photos here.

Oh, we also had a very kind woman in Toys R Us give us a voucher which saved us about $40 (after the change table had already been reduced by $100 i might add). She was just another shopper there, and being nice.. some people are awesome :)

Saturday we also had the first of our three classes at Flinders Hospital. The second is with a Physio, and covers relaxation techniques and pain relief, and the third is about taking the baby home and looking after it.. Which unfortunately meant that this one was about labour and delivery.

I wont go into specifics.. but rest assured, they did ;)

Still, it was really good, and it's left both Cheryl and I feeling better about the whole thing. There were a few things that I had heard, or read in older books, which were completely wrong. Which is good.

And that's about it from us for this week.

BellyWatch: Week 27

This weekend Cheryl officially entered her third trimester. We took some photos. It may look like she's really pushing her stomach out, but that's just how her back is.

So I guess we're officially in count-down mode now.. it's no longer "27 weeks in", now it's "13 weeks left". We've still got a fair bit to do - the most pressing of which is to organise a car seat from the RAA, or we wont be able to take the baby home. But apart from that we have supplies to buy, not to mention furniture.. we've ordered a cot, but we've still got to find a little chest of drawers or bookshelf or something to put a change-table on top of.. and of course the change table itself.

Such fun :) Time for a trip to Ikea methinks.

We did buy a pram on the weekend. A friend was recommending the brand when they found one on eBay that was actually being sold in Adelaide. I sent a message through to the seller saying we'd like to have a look, and she gave me a call - turns out she lives about 5 minutes away from us.

So we headed over there for a bit of a look, had a practice pushing it around, opening and closing it to make sure it was all easy enough, and then bought it from her straight away. It's a nice little pram, a Peg Perego Pliko P3.. they retail for around $600 - $700.. I was a bit taken aback with the cost of prams to be honest... But yeah, second-hand we got a good deal. It obviously sits back for a baby as well as being upright for a toddler, and our friends said theirs has lasted several years.

Cheryl took another video while I was at Iaido on Sunday, this one is even freakier than the last. Check it out at my website

BellyWatch: Week 18

Just a quick update to say Cheryl is immune to pavovirus so no slap cheek for us. We thought it was pretty safe but got the blood tests anyway.
I don't know what's going on with the colour in this photo, next time i'll try to take it with less sun behind her :)