Happy New year

Best wishes for a wonderful 2014, to all of my family.May all of your hopes and dreams come true.
I am going dancing tonight. Carolynn is having friends here.What plans does everyone else have?
Thursday the Bendigo ones are meeting for tea at JoJoes.

I won something!

I won something!

A week or so ago I saw a competition on The Livingroom (I think it was -- we weren't actually watching, just surfing for something to watch). Typical "25 words or less" with a website under tenplay -- or maybe I just went to the site looking for a way to win an Xbox One? Whatever the case, I entered (with a barely witty appeal to the competition sponsors, Temple & Webster) ... and a few days later I got a call telling me I'd won!

Not a small prize, either: a $20,000 living room makeover, complete with our own personal interior designer figuring it all out for us, and delivery and "bump in". We don't even need to be here! Once I'd gotten over the feeling that it must be a joke or a mistake, I was excited: what with the house and everything, we were planning on a pretty austere Christmas (no presents for each other, but of course we have some stuff for Jules). But winning this competition is OUR Christmas present!

On Friday morning I met Jess, our designer (see her style on Pinterest). She toured the house, measured stuff and helped me pick some "styles" from a bunch of magazines. Really just a fact-finding mission for her -- she'll go away and select some things from the suppliers to Temple & Webster and get back to us with options. Since we do most of our "living" throughout the whole house, there's a good chance at least (I'm flying blind here really) that her suggestions will run all the way from our little kitchen to the outside balcony where the dining table is. We might even get some bedroom stuff, towels, and possibly garden supplies! Who knows. I'll yay/nay stuff when she comes back to me, then I expect there will be a bit of back and forth until we're set on the "look", if not the individual items. So freakin' excited!

(Dee's taking a passive role, which was a surprise to me (perhaps doing our place in Cockatoo was stress enough?).  She just wants to come in one day and have a new living space, which I totally understand. It will be a surprise! Luckily I'm reasonably confident that I can pick stuff that she will like -- and, more importantly, veto those that she would hate! And of course I'll try to take some "before" and "after" photos -- they're the best part of any reno show, aren't they?)

In other good news, our house sale is now unconditional -- the buyers have been approved their finance, and the building inspection was clean. We're going to ask if they want to move up the settlement date (it's February at the moment) but I'll be taking a (frequent-flyer points) flight down to Melbourne (and a visit to the 'go if I can squeeze it in ;-)) to get the last of our stuff. (Yep, part of the sale deal included the furniture, so we don't have too much to move. Perfect, as we were just going to sell it on gumtree anyway!)

I really feel like our karmic investments are finally paying off.

Happy birthday Aunty Lisa!

I like berries!

Happy Birthday Carolynn

Happy birthday cousin Carolynn! Sorry it's late, lemme put the clock back ...

Work, swords, costumes, and general fun times.

It's my final week of work - I'm taking two weeks off over Christmas/New Years, and rather looking forward to them. Last week I was averaging 10 hours a day trying to hit a deadline for a job. It's not fun. On the plus side, though, I made the deadline ;)

On top of that Shihan contacted me to say he'd decided to come to Bendigo for a training session rather than doing one in Melbourne. That caused a mad rush to find an available hall, since my usual dojo was pre-booked. Thanks to Cheryl's quick thinking and Lisa's useful contacts I was able to organise the EUC Hall. I've since discovered my estimated 8-12 students has ballooned out to more like 20. The Melbourne guys disorganisation led to Shihan deciding to come to Bendigo in the first place, so I shouldn't have been surprised to find out only today that there's about 8 coming up. Anyway, the logistics are sorted I think and it's a huge win for the Bendigo club - hopefully if we look after him Shihan will consider coming here for gradings in the future too :)

Speaking of the dojo, we had our end of year BBQ Sunday. Cheryl did a Herculean effort organising stuff for that -and- did the actual barbecuing while I waltzed around teasing the teenagers and generally not being very productive. She is a saint. I was sorry to see Daria wasn't feeling well, and Lisa took her and Trin home. Lucky for Jared and Carolynn Nanny couldn't resist the temptation of a free hamburger and took us up on our offer to join us for lunch so she could shuttle them home afterwards ;)

We've been organising our costumes for Lisa's birthday party too. We're being a bit secretive about who we'll all be going as - all I can tell you is I've done my best to grow a beard in the last month for my costume. Oh and we're very thankful Edith is nearby and knows how to sew :)

After that Christmas day is going to be relaxing by comparison, even with two very excited little kiddies ;)

That'll do from me. Oscar's got a Kindy concert on Tuesday during which he'll apparently sing "lots of songs" and Nanna, Granddad, Nanny and Nanny's Nana are all coming to watch, but I might let Cheryl post about that after it's happened.

Cheerio!

School, Moving and China!!

So I know its been ages since my last post but I've been busy. I have finished uni and decided that this isn't the course for me, so I've applied at TAFE her in Bendigo to do a cert 4 in professional writing and editing that I find out in a week or so if I'm in, and I hope I am pretty confident with it. I get my uni results next week so I'll see how I went with that. Other than that I've moved from where I was and I'm now at Nanny's and still collecting stuff from mum's because I was there for a couple of weeks before I moved, and after thinking that Brady and I were friends I learnt that he wants nothing to do with me really but oh well friendships can fall in a heap.

I've been to China so I'll do a short post about it and put it up in full on my travel blog. So China was great fun I got to bond with a few of the girls (all younger than me) and fall out with them over little things, like knocking on the door and running away lots of times and invasion of privacy. We climbed the Great Wall and visited all the places the emperor and his family lived and visited. We spent 7 days for 3 hours dancing although I didn't do all the hours because I managed to get sick and injure myself :/ I have lots of photos that I will put up on facebook at some stage too. We had lots of eastern food and the occasional western food, like KFC, McDonalds and chips and tomato sauce. The photo is from the second day at the Ming Tombs :)

Christmas is coming ....too fast

Today I bought myself a new Janome sewing machine. The old one couldn't be repaired. It was fine one day and giving me no go messages the next. I bought a Janome 6030 so still computerized. Hope it goes for 20 years. Made me tidy up the sewing table so that's a bonus. It was one up (so dearer) than the one I thought I'd get.

Also went to check out toys. Visited Big W, Target and Toyworld. Yoiks!!! Think I know what I want to get Lily and Oscar if they're still there when I get back. Damien seemed to think they'd prefer toys Nanny had chosen over money. Got some things to wrap for Trin and Daria but I think they'd rather the money and I'm sure Jared would too.

I'm lending the trailer to a friend next month (or February) so I put the current rego sticker on (was 2010). Took some hunting to find where to put it. Then discovered the paint was peeling from the numberplate so I scrubbed that, spray painted the white and today made a rough job of redoing the black. Looks much better. The trailer really needs a coat of paint. Not sure if that will happen.

Dancing is winding down. No Tuesday's now. Castlemaine tomorrow will be the last until March. A few Christmas dances coming up. We went to Maryborough on Saturday and I was pleasantly surprised to find I could do all except one. (provided I had Clive to dance with).

Glenn do you want to keep the Big o Box of cables? I thought Carolynn could check if they are out of date  and if I could take them to the recycle yard. I found a suitcase full of floppy drives etc that I'm tossing.

I have three Christmas trees this year. Lisa's light up purple one in the lounge, a small one I quickly decorated to take to Spinners and a small fibre optic one the girls decorated(so well I had to loosen the tinsel so you could see the fibre optics.)

Started the Christmas lunches last Friday with the Gadabouts, Monday Probus, Wednesday Day Club, Friday Mad Hatters. Nana also went to the War Widows today, but didn't come to the Gadabouts. Thursday I'm going to Nana's to help get ready for Christmas. I changed her smoke detector batteries on Monday so one job done.

Carolynn has settled in well here although we're hardly ever both here at the same time. She and Lisa cleaned the old room last Sunday and the carpet cleaner is coming Thursday. That will finish her with them once she gets her bond back.

Looking forward to Oscar's kinder concert next Tuesday. That week will be for getting ready for Lisa's party.

Love to all. Waiting for more news.

Happy Birthday Dee!

We've been quiet on the Bandwagon (and other places) for some time now. Mostly we've felt squeezed, I think - moving, work, the house in Cockatoo...

Happy to say we have one of those mostly sorted out now - we have accepted an offer on Baker Street! ("Mostly" because it's contingent on their finance and a building inspection - we SHOULD be fine but will know on the 19th.) Less than we wanted, but it is just a liability for us, an ongoing source of  expenses and stress. So it's a massive relief!

We had a long lunch and the afternoon together yesterday,  and today (Dee's actual birthday) we are... scrubbing the outdoor furniture, eaves and pavers?!? Don't tell ME I don't know how to show a girl a good time!

(Disclosure: Dee is scrubbing. I'm playing cars with Jules. # DadLife)

Otherwise things are okay. My work at Palantir is always busy, but especially so at the moment because my pilot finishes in January. Dee is submitting a proposal for funding her own project which would see a 12 month extension to her contract, so we have our fingers crossed on that one too.

Jules is totally settled into day care, and his vocabulary is steadily increasing - a speech therapist claimed he was not as developed as he should be but I think that's bollocks: he's a shy boy, so didn't really want to talk to her. He does still love his dummy so we're trying to encourage taking it out to speak.

I think I've said it before but we all really love living in Sydney. This area is so nice, Dee's work colleagues are great, we can cycle into the city, there are beaches and parks and markets and cafes.

Christmas is coming up mighty fast. We are staying up here this year, so will have to get on a Hangout on Christmas day. The Melrose family are visiting (from Scotland) on Tuesday so that will be fun; Dee's mum and brother are joining us for Christmas.

Signing in from Shaft St

So it's been about 6 weeks since I've posted, that's better than 6 months LOL  So, I've officially finished work until February when we start back. It's sort of a relief, I've got those 3 days a week back to sort out this house, but I also won't have the extra $$ coming in. It's not too bad, we can survive, I've just enjoyed watching my account balance rise, if slowly. The car is going into the mechanice tomorrow and I hope it's not going to cost too much. My ignition has been playing up, by that I mean it won't lock without jiggling the key madly. I was thinking about when it started and I remember when we parked at the club for Trinity's cali break-up I was sure that I locked the car, but when we got back my door was unlocked. Nothing was missing so I didn't think too much about it. What can I say, I have children and it's not uncommon for me to find the car unlocked, usually it's one of their doors though. So I suspect someone has tried to steal my car and stuffed my ignition, b@$t&s. I'm also still having trouble with the alternator, or that is my suspicion anyway. Will ask the mechanic tomorrow and hope that 1. it doesn't cost me too much and 2. I get the car back in time to pick Trinity up from school.

I spent last Saturday at home cleaning out the shed, or attempting to make more room for my own stuff. There was still a lot of stuff belonging to Adam's family. I've bagged up clothes for Cheryl's mum or sister to take to the Phillipines, thrown out heaps of old schoolwork, and found a heap of books. I was going to keep the books, or donate them to playgroup, but since it's likely we'll see Rick in just a couple of weeks I'm considering giving him the option of delivering them. Under the books was a photo of Adam from primary school, I'm keeping that. I made room for 2 of Carolynn's tubs so that means there is a little more room in the laundry, but I have a long way to go to make this house less cluttered.

Jared has finished up at school, including 2 weeks of orientation and Bendigo Senior. He's made some new friends. Hopefully he'll help me out around the house for the summer holidays, but I won't hold my breath. He's warned me it's time to get him to work shortly so I'll cut this short...

Rugby is the national sport

I know, I know.. I said I was going to update the bandwagon weeks ago.. sorry! I've been overwhelmed with work lately and haven't found the time nor inspiration to write a post.

I've been able to recuperate somewhat this weekend - B & I joined one of our mates to see Wales play Australia at the rugby! :-)

Millenium Stadium is in the middle of Cardiff, so match days always cause a big stir in the city. Around the stadium becomes super-busy as 70,000 people try to get in and find their seats before kickoff. All the bars in town fill up, especially those showing the match on TV. To avoid these crowds we decided to have a drink in the pub near the university. Unfortunately we weren't the only ones to have that thought! Properly hydrated, we wandered past Winter Wonderland and into the throng, stopping to buy a match day scarf as we headed to the gates.

Our seats were on level six, so we had a great overview of the game. I felt like a tiny island in a silent sea during the Australian national anthem (and yes, I sang!) and was completely immersed by the Welsh national anthem - so many voices! I still don't really understand the rules of rugby but it was a good game and I think I know more about the game now than I did before.

It was really good fun. It's just a shame that the weekend is over so soon!

4 weeks until Christmas!

Time is flying by now and it's less than a month to Christmas! Cheryl and I share a Google calendar (which means it's on all the computers and both our phones, very organised ;)) and the weeks are filling up with events.

We all got our eyes tested a few weeks back - Cheryl will be picking up her glasses this weekend, and me the weekend after (Lil is wearing my chosen glasses in the photo), as well as doing some weird eye test where they put drops in my eyes to make my pupils widen and then take photos - the general photos don't get up around the sides of the inside of your eyeball, and the optometrist recommended doing this once every 4 years or so. I've never had it done, so that'll be fun.

We also got Ossie's eyes tested, which you might have seen on Facebook. He was terribly nervous, and did his trick of not saying a word. Luckily it was less of an issue for the optometrist than when we went to the speech pathologist ;) He was well prepared with a sheet of letters Os could point to, iPad activities and other games.

Ossie's vision is fine. It's one point long-sighted, which isn't an issue and shouldn't (fingers crossed) degrade over time. If he can avoid my stupid super-shortsightedness and astigmatism that'd be great.

We also had Oscar's Kindy Art Show/BBQ last Friday. Oscar's picture is great, and has pride of place on the lounge room wall :) Apparently there's a concert coming up which grandparents are welcome to come and watch - Mum I'll send you details. It'll be during the day.

My Iaido Christmas breakup is approaching, we're going to have a barbecue in the park. Should be nice. Then Shihan is visiting Melbourne, so a few of my students might go down to grade. I think I'm more nervous than if I was grading myself, actually.. I know these guys are representing me. We'll be making the most of the final 3 classes, that's for sure. The club is going well, anyway - I'm averaging 4 or 5 students a night, which is great. I only need 3 to cover the hall cost, but we could certainly fit in more now.

On Sunday I looked after the kids while Cheryl went to the Food and Wine Festival. I'll let her fill you in on that one - as for me I took the kids shopping and then we lazed around the house in the afternoon.

We've got our planned movie for Lisa's birthday party - I'm not revealing anything, except to say we might be appealing to Edith's greater sewing ability if we can't find what we need in op shops. I think it's going to be a great evening :)

Oh, and if you've made it this far I'll ask again - who will be around for Christmas?

Buick and Christmas

Hi family,
Had a friend from dancing (John Floriani) come and see the Buick and the Torana a couple of weeks ago. He then went to Tassie. Last night he rang to ask if I'd sell him the Buick. He hasn't mentioned an amount and said he'd asked some friends of his who said it could be worth anything from 20c to $20000.

Since I was at Castlemaine when he rang (Clive), I asked a couple of men there what they thought. Advice was to get more advice and that whatever John offered, he'd plan on making a profit when he sold it.(They know John more than I do)

After he'd been here and I'd taken the cover off it, I realise how neglected it is. I need to vaccuum and polish up the leather.Also pulled out the photo albums and the diary of work done Dad had kept. He'd spent $10000 and 1800 hours on it.

I first thought I'd ask what all of you think since I'll share the money between you, but since then, I don't think I'm ready to sell it, so it might sit here a bit longer.

Very interested to hear what you all think about it.

Also, Dayna and Bruce and Glenn, Dee and Jules, Nana has given me money for you for Christmas. ($50 each for the adults and $40 for Jules) I'll put it into the Australlian bank accounts. Glenn and Dee, if there is something you'd like to get for Jules please do or if you'd prefer to bank it for future needs, that's fine. Ditto for yourselves of course.

I plan to do the same thing for all of you from me, and for the same amounts. Lisa and family and Damien, Cheryl and family you get the same deal from me, unless you want to sort out about season's tickets to the Pool.I wondered about evening up the totals since Dand B get less since there's only two of them but that's too hard.

Plenty to think about.

Thank you Damien for your update.

Love, Mum

Quick update as promised ;)

Just a quick one from us - our weeks aren't nearly as interesting as Mum's I'm afraid :) We did put up the Christmas tree the weekend before last. Oscar is so excited by the idea of Christmas so we decided we might as well kick it off early. The kids loved putting the tree together and decorating it, although both of them have a tendency to just put every decoration on the same branch. I think we'll have to make putting the tree up on November 1 a bit of a family tradition.

We're going to get an advent calendar for December and watch as Ossie's brain gradually explodes from the building excitement.

We also had a picnic for Landon's birthday. The weather was beautiful.. lucky he wasn't born a week later since it's been pretty cold and rainy since then.

Last weekend we drove to Melbourne to check out Highpoint Shopping Centre again. It's a good one - huge and out our side of the city, so you can avoid tollways and the like. Daiso is the best store there.. it's like a Japanese $2 shop. I bought socks! Tutti Frutti is also a winner.

But that's about it for us, apart from that it's been work and kindy, looking after the kids, iaido, the same old same old. Somehow the weeks are still flying by mind you. I haven't worked out when (if) I'll take time off for Christmas but I'm sure I'll get a week or so in. Gotta catch up on sleeping in ;)

November

A fortnight since the last post. I know Carolynn is waiting to get past her exams.

I've been enjoying life, since returning home from Phillip Island. Morning tea with the Gadabouts, Oaks Day lunch with the U3A (didn't win the best dressed or best hat but Mum won a $50 voucher from IGA),  and visitors for tea when I made pasties on Sunday3rd..

I have been dancing including a Masquerade at Danceland on 2nd,  a Cup Eve dance on Monday at Spring Gully which was another chance to dress up, Trentham last Friday, Kyneton on Tuesday and a good crowd at Spring Gully on Saturday 9th. Another  a good crowd last night(Monday 11th). Resting time ahead as Clive has a meeting tonight so no dancing until next Thursday. Clive and I are meeting two friends of his (both ladies of course ) for tea at the Borough Club then gong to the dance at Eaglehawk. Last Sunday we went to Gisbourne to a friend's place where we had a lovely lunch and enjoyed seeing her new house. Came home the scenic way via Heathcote.

Mum had a surprise visit from Elaine and Arnold on Sunday.

Mum and I joined the Probus folk for lunch yesterday at Thomas's kitchen. Food is good but one wok, one cook means service for 37 is slow. We were lucky we'd ordered the lemon chicken since that came out early. By one, when we'd finished some folk were just getting their Mongolian beef.

My sewing machine decided to not work so this morning I've taken it in for a service and repair. It has been a lot of years since anything was done so probably due.

Finally rain here so the tomatoes will be growing without me needing to water.

I have some silk worm eggs I've taken out of the fridge. A week and still no hatching but this sudden cold snap has probably discouraged them.

With a couple of days home now, I hope to get onto some spinning. Melva asked me to crochet some squares together for her so that was the handcraft project until I got it finished. Still crocheting a dragon so I need to get back on to that too.

Hope all of you are well. Love to keep up on Facebook even if we don't get to talk much. Love from Mum

Happy Halloween

This morning I came back from the water-cooler to find a tiny skeleton dancing on my laptop...

Happy Halloween everybody!