Brooklea Park Blatherings

We missed last week, oops. So here's what we've been up to for the last fortnight.

B's been on holiday, he's been to the dentist (and going again Thursday - long story), cleaned the house and continues to make me tasty food.

I had Good Friday and Easter Monday off and we did absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. Been working hard otherwise and have definitely earnt Monday and Tuesday off.

We are currently in Mallorca (Majorca, Spanish spelling has Ls). Here for a relaxing short break. We arrived late on Friday and have a plane back on Tuesday evening. B booked it all as a package including our 4 star hotel (which is lovely but not the same as a four star in Aus or the UK).

Yesterday we explored the local area and drank a lot of sangria (as evident by the g+ & fb posts). Today we've stayed at the hotel, played a round of mini golf (see g+ for our quality performance), relaxed in the sun (photo on fb), and we're just off for a swim (in the indoor pool - it's not that warm outside!). No doubt later we'll be off to a bar or several, finding food somewhere on the way. We've got to make the most of our time away!

*hugz* to all,
d&b

Life is a dirt highway

Lots of work for Dee and I this month. I'm in Sydney every week until the end of the month, by which time we hope we've got our own place over here and we can just do the move. My deployment here is going pretty well, in that I don't feel like I'm drowning quite so much (except for the weather -- lots of rain this morning, and looking that way for the rest of the week), but there is at least some chance that I'll be working back in Canberra sooner or later -- so the travel may not end just yet. Shame it's not somewhere more interesting (although I do like Sydney).

So naturally I switched off the laptop and phone on Good Friday, determined to spend the long weekend at home with Dee and Jules with no cyber-augmentation or connectivity. Dee had other ideas, about the location at least, and had been looking for a place for us to get away for the weekend -- and at the last minute she found the farm-stay at Neriga. Perfect for Lucy, as you may have seen on Facebook. Less perfect for us but still good: the whole place is on solar power, so our "tea and coffee making facilities" were a camp-stove on the verandah (very cool). A tiny (!!) little cottage on 2000 acres of mostly bushland, and an owner-farmer with an interesting history and pretty good cooking! There was one other couple, so we even had grown-up conversation one night (we brought Jules' crib up to the main house so he could snooze and we could enjoy a glass of wine or 7). The next night I put the fire on (and then turned it immediately down when it was waaaaay too hot) and collected dinner from the house, navigating the tricky path with a torch.

Relaxing, in other words. Jules had fun walking around the place with us, but it wasn't somewhere you could take your eyes off him for a minute! Also glad we got the Jeep back, since it was at least 15km of dirt roads to get to the farm -- not to mention the dirt "highway" between Neriga and Braidwood, the next town over. Even the bitumened parts of the road were pretty rough. "Les wouldn't stand for this," condemned Dee.

We've decided to put Baker Street back up for sale too: we've had a valuation done, and if we can achieve the high-end of the suggested price scale we'll be able to pay off the mortgage, pay off our not-insignificant tax debt, and maybe have some left over for a holiday and/or the start of a new deposit. We still have tenants in the house so we don't need to rush, but we also know these things take a loooooooong time. It was great to hear that Dee's renovation work has added some value. ("What about that aerial? Add any value?" "I dug a hole, Dad!") We're a little disappointed we weren't able to finish the place up the way we wanted, but getting it off the books (and us back into black) will be a great psychological relief.

Slowly getting ourselves together, but still some way to go. Really hoping we can find a great place to rent in Sydney for a couple of years, settle in and dig some roots. But we still haven't found "home" yet!!!

Gordon St Gabbing

I thought I should finally follow Mum's lead and give you all some idea of what we've been up to.

We had a great Easter. Friday we headed to the Eaglehawk park in the morning to hang out with Lisa's playgroup. Os ran around until he was bright red in the face, which is always good. Then we swung by the city for a bit of a look (they have a huge market along the street) and then home so Cheryl could get baking for Easter presents.

Saturday we decided to go for a little drive to Maldon to check out the market. Edith and Landon came along. It's a nice little town, lots of antique stores and bookshops, so I was pretty happy. When we got home Os and Lily both fell asleep, so Cheryl did still more baking (those of you who enjoyed the honeycomb slice - you can thank the exhausting Saturday morning for the kids). We went out to the Dumpling House for dinner (they're great!) and then got out about 15 minutes before the night parade started, and about 10 metres from the start. There was a clear patch of grass, the kids were well rested so we decided to stick around and watch it. Lil and Os loved it - Os in particular was talking about all the people going past, and Lil waved constantly :)

Sunday we swung by the book sale in town for a look, had some lunch and then the kids played on the new playground in the mall. They had an awesome time. I feel like the playground needs a crows nest for parents to stand in so they can keep track of their kids as they run from one area to the next. But yeah, it was a nice relaxing morning and a beautiful day. Back home for another sleep for Lily, then out to Nanny's for dinner and an Easter egg hunt.

Monday we headed into town to do a bit of shopping (clothes for Cheryl and the kids, lego for me) and have some lunch. Then we spent the afternoon at home so the kids could wind down a bit.

Os doesn't have kinder for the next couple of weeks, which will be good. Usually he's there Monday afternoon, and then Tuesday and Thursday morning.. and it's a very early morning, I tend to wake him at 7 so we'll be there before 9 (it starts at 8:15). He's missed a couple of the Tuesday sessions because he's just been too tired. So yeah, a bit of time off will be good for him.

That's about it from us. We had the housewarming, which was awesome (and Cheryl was pretty much amazing at providing enough food for 45 odd people) and in a couple of weeks I'm going to Supanova in Melbourne, but I think that's it for plans for us. We might try to get to Melbourne for an overnight trip at some point, and our anniversary is coming up too, but nothing is concrete there. Generally I'll keep on working (GDD is very busy, which is good) and Cheryl will keep on finding new ways to entertain the kids as we settle more into life in Bendigo :)

Playing in the snow

After a mostly restful night at the hotel, we packed up our luggage and carted it over to The Shire (our head office, two blocks away). It's hot here, positively balmy! So much for Winter.

We had enough time to rustle up a rough lunch snack before our bus left. Well, I say "our bus", but the fact is we didn't HAVE a bus - we weren't even on the list. Somehow I missed the RSVP. Luckily there was spare room, so we bundled ourselves on and hankered down for the four hour ride.

We finally made it to the ski village, after a lot of Giggle and Hoot on the iPad and a terrible meal at In And Out Burger. Another short bus trip from the resort building to check-in, then we were (finally!) ferried to our Inn.

And our room is huge! Older, but still lovely, with a fireplace, little kitchenette and small balcony. Audible sigh of relief, from each of us. We don't unpack so much as unzip the backpack and let it explode all over the room - but no time to spare, as we leg it back to Olympic House for dinner.

Which is when we see the logo - a giant Palantir circle-motif blazing fierce and bright on the side of the mountain. Incredible. We found a seat in the packed hall, and I filled a couple of plates with random buffet food. We ate quickly for Jules' sake, headed home and got him to bed. Then Dee went out for supplies. We sat in front of the fire, watched strange television and drank apple moonshine and wine.

Today we slept in (praise jet lag), then took Jules out for breakfast and a play in the snow. He enjoyed it, I think, but was a bit weirded out by it - crawling along on his stomach, touching the snow lightly with his fingertips, kicking snow drifts. He (and we) tired out pretty quickly, and came home for a lovely long nap.

Pizza for dinner, Inception on telly, bags packed for the journey back to Palo Alto tomorrow. Relaxed!

Welcome to America - Go F&€# Yourself!

Sitting in our (enormous!) chalet, nestled in Squaw Valley between snow-covered peaks, drinking moonshine in front of a roaring fire and watching strange American television - what a way to spend a Friday evening!

It was a massive effort to get here, with nothing seemingly going our way. First, getting to the airport - I arranged us a car, and they subbed in a taxi at the last second (no child seat available, apparently). No problem, once the cabby found our place. Off to the airport!

... Where they couldn't check us in until Jules' ticket was updated - it was booked with "Mason" as his first name! As they started the process, it came out that they had no record of his booking payment - no seat, so only 10% ticket price, but with $800 worth of taxes. For an $80 booking!

Got Tom (from Palantir) on the case and he sorted it (with much gnashing of teeth - he hates Qantas), so we headed for the lounge for the briefest of stays. And they wouldn't serve us a celebratory champagne!

On to Sydney. Bumpy ride in a dual-prop Dash 8 - which Dee has called "the Shakinator death-trap" on a previous occasion (just before I boarded, nice of her). Not the best of flyers, she certainly enjoyed our well-deserved champagne once we made it to the Sydney lounge. If only we had longer there!

Now the big flight - 13 hours in an Airbus A380. We boarded, and immediately had to ask where we were sitting, as our tickets - the second or third set issued - just said "infant". We were supposedly sitting at a bulkhead, with requisite bassinet for Jules, but the on board staff had no record. To their credit, they reseated us at a bulkhead near the back without too much hassle. Another bumpy flight, but at least our baby boy slept through.

Tired now, and headed for the gauntlet of LAX. "Say what you like about the English," I said, "they know how to queue." Unlike the Americans, who want to subject any and all visitors to the longest, most confusing lines. "Visitor or US citizen," asked Dee of a passing line-attendant. "Yes" was the unhelpful reply before she stormed off, yelling at people to form lines. 20 minutes, lucky we were in the right line AND we got there reasonably early AND they had more than a single Customs officer on duty (they had two). Painful, but we somehow made it through without Jules cracking it ( came close, but he's such a good little boy). At this point I'm feeling despair, and Dee is feeling frustration.

We got our bags, sans trolley despite Dee's best efforts at stealing one from a greedy Chinese couple - they had two! - and rechecked them. The dumbest system in the world. Hoofed over to another terminal and went through security again, making it to our departure gate with ten minutes to spare. Joy! Another flight, bumpier than it needed to be, and we're in San Franscisco.

"This is my favourite airport," says Dee, possibly because it's the last one we have to see for a while. Driver man meets us at the gate, helps us with our bags and drives us to The Westin, Palo Alto. We check in, collapse, go out for last minute supermarket shopping, collapse again, and sleep until 10am this morning.

(Will post again about life in a snow cone, but for now you're all caught up.)

Happy Birthday Jared!!

Hope you're having a fabulous day!
Did you get anything good?

:-)
*hugz*
-aunty dayna & unkie bruce-

Last day of work

It's Friday, which means today is my final day of being gainfully employed by Good Dog Design. Thankfully after a week off I'll move over to being gainfully contracted to Good Dog Design, but it wont be quite the same.

I haven't been thinking too much about it, because we've been knee-deep in moving preparations. Who'd have thought 8 years and 2 kids would bring with it so much stuff to be packed up? ;) This weekend is our final chance to finish up with all the packing, and Monday the truck will come and take all our worldly possessions away. Except a couple of air beds, sheets and pillows and the like which we'll use for the next few days.

We'll then spend whatever is left of Monday, plus Tuesday and possibly Wednesday if necessary cleaning, patching cracks, painting and doing whatever else the house needs to get it ready for rental (not that we have people ready to rent it, but that's okay). No fridge, microwave or anything that wont fit in the car means we might be eating out a fair bit. It should be fun.. suburban camping ;)

Meanwhile our stuff will arrive in Bendigo probably Tuesday, and Cheryl's family will direct it into rooms for us.

We'll spend a couple of days driving over, so we should be in Bendigo Thursday or Friday. That gives us another weekend to unpack the necessities before I'm back online and working on Monday.

It'll be a busy week at the end of what has been a very busy few months. Hopefully then things can settle down though, we can unpack gradually, spend some time playing with the kids and hanging out with family and generally try to wind down a bit. I'd certainly enjoy getting more than a few hours sleep a night, and getting rid of that 5-6am wake up should contribute a fair bit to that. I'm pretty sure Cheryl will appreciate some quiet time as well.

So I guess those of you in Bendigo - we'll see you in about a week. Those of you elsewhere - we'll see you next time you're in Bendigo :) Bye bye Adelaide.

14 Day Kickstart COMPLETE

Well I have successfully finished my 14 day Kickstart, and the results are in!
..
....
......
- 6.5kg! New weight 113.5kg

I'm thrilled I was gunning for 7 but meh I'll take 6.5. My goal is now to reach 110 in 2 weeks.
I'm on my own now, but I have also purchased he's cookbook that has a sample 14 day eating plan... The fundamentals are pretty basic so it is now going to be about exploring to create a whole new variety of meals etc... Exploring and trying new things.

Watch this space! :)

New Me

Well everyone would have seen at Christmas just how much weight I have packed on!  20kg's in fact!  I am now a whopping 120kg, the heaviest I have ever been and I am very uncomfortable and unhappy about it.
I need to change and to do that I have had to review a few things, you could say a perfect storm has gathered...

1)  I can shift my weight sticking to weightwatchers but I need to stick to the plan religiously or the weight comes back with a vengeance, I was 100kg in July!  This was something Damien discussed in a post a while back, a persons ability to keep weight off and how many fail I never saw myself like that but as I was packing clothes from my closet today I see sizes range from 14 ( I was never a ballerina!) to 20, my weight has been a lifelong battle that I am now losing and I am so very tired of it!
2)  WeightWatchers have really let me down, in their ability to keep up with technology and their complete lack of customer service, in the end I was only paying $30 a month to use a points calculator.

Thankfully a couple of really great tools have presented themselves which I am hoping will guide me into a happier and lighter me!

1)  The fitbit!  This is a great little tool you clip to your belt, it is a pedometer but it also measures how many flights of steps you take, your calories burnt, well it does a few things which you can read all about, but what I like is it sync's to an application, which captures all this data along with what you eat, how much you weigh (again this figure is sync'd from the Fitbit scales we have)  how many calories you have left to consume etc, what I really like is that Glenn and I are friends on this app so we are constantly competing against each other for steps and weight loss.

2)  James Duigan's Lean and Clean Diet, now this guy flogs clean eating, and Damien this address the permanent weight loss, the idea in a nut shell is that we store a bunch of toxins in our fat that are obtained from fake processed foods, sugar etc... James asserts that when we loose weight those toxins are released into our body, the body hates this as it now has to deal with them, we get tired, grouchy etc, so when we do slip up on our diet the body uses the fats and sugars to clean up and store these toxins again as body fat.

I start James's 14 day kickstart diet plan today, after the 14 days you are urged to eat mostly organic if you can with reductions in CRAP Caffeine, Refined Sugar, *Alcohol and Processed Foods, this is an education not a diet, you also have a simple 8 minute work out to do, which I will complete along with my steps (which i may struggle with this week due to the extreme heat!)

My hope here is that I do change my habits and I'm not permanently on a diet, either way I urge you to create an account on Fitbit and ask to be my friend, that way you can see my progress and encourage me, its also a really great source of accountability for me, make sure I'm keeping my Clean and Lean on!   You can see more about it here...

http://www.fitbit.com
http://store.bodyism.com/product/13/Clean+and+Lean+Diet

My motivation's are:

1)  Another baby
2)  More active, there are so many outdoor activities I'd love to do which I dont!
3)  I wanna look hot!
4)  Health

Wish me luck everyone!   You are all my support and motivation!

*  Yes I have even given the demon drink up for the time being!  Its been a week now, I decided I had better start that early as it took special reserves of will power! :)

On our way..

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted any updates.. I've had fabulous intentions but never actually followed it up. :-\ oops! O well, we'll see you all soon so we can fill you in in person. :-)

We're at the Travelodge in Feltham, enjoying a quiet drink while we wait for check-in time - it would have cost £10 to check in early, so we spent the money on drinks instead. :-D

Tomorrow morning we catch a bus to the airport and hope that our luggage is under the weight limit.. It's going to be close. :-)

I'm happy to have some holidays - I've had a very busy couple of months with lots of driving, lots of meetings and lots of Christmas celebrations! I'm bringing our Wii exercise DVD to work off all the extra after the "break". :-) 

I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone! It's only just sunk in that we'll all be in Bendigo in a couple of days. So excited! Yay!! We'll see you all very very soon! !
*hugz*

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 :)

Happy Birthday Glenn!

Like the title says ;)

Happy Birthday, Damien!

Happy Birthday, Damien! Hope you enjoy your long weekend! (plenty of time to put together the Lego! :)

Lots of love from Os, Lil & me 

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 ;)