ITS OFFICIAL...............

I have the bestest wife in the world,

I mean who else but the bestest wife in the world would put up with her husband (who she hadnt seen for 2 weeks) coming home from Brisbane, spending the night with her then buggering off for 3 whole days sailing, drinking and generally having a good time with is mates and not with her ?

Yet that is precisely what happened last weekend.

Dancin to a bit of Jimmy Buffet

Yup there I was, celebrating Australia day, feeling a little 'tired and emotional' after the passage race from williamstown down to Royal Geelong yacht club. that race we came 20th out of 51 boats in our division, but all up there was a little over 400 boats there for the weekend.

SOME of the yachts

The race the following day was going well until we buggered up, leaving the shipping channel and winding up 'on the bricks' (read run aground), needing yours truely to do his best 3 toed sloth impersonation hanging from the underside of the boom while the rest of the crew pushed the boom (the horizontal sticky bit that hits you in the head) out over the water, thus tilting the boat and lifting the keel off the bottom. But despite this we wound up 15th out of 31 starters, so we would have been a shoe in for a top 10 place if we hadnt made our 'navigational error'.

The 'A' Team in action (Im in the blue hat)

The final day was light and we all wanted to get home early, but we started the race and again did really well until the wind died completely. When we worked out that there wuld be no way we could finishe the race in the alloted time we dropped the sails, fired up the engine and went home.

To add to my wifes already legendary status I came home to a lamb roast followed by a few drinks and an early night. Certainly not the meal of 'hot tongue and cold shoulder' you would think I would be in for after such a weekend.

But Tueday morning as I got ready to go catch my plane back to Brisbane my wife came up to me, put her arms around me, kissed me softly and said 'it was nice to see you for the few hours that you were actually here, maybe next time we can build it up a bit until eventually we might even spend a whole day together..........'

Message received and understood

Shes such a treasure

J

Andrea ... aka whinging cow

To my friends, family and cyber-friends ... I am SO sorry for having a huge blowout on here.

A. It's got nothing to do with the house
B. Makes me sound like a pathetic loser
C. People simply aren't interested in hearing about my troubles

So .. sorry folks. Happy face is on .... no more complaining unless it's the house I'm complaining about :-))

Birthday day got WAY better after a couple of drinks at lunch time with friends from work. Got a beautiful bunch of flowers delivered from hubby then friends came over for dinner ... where more wine was consumed.

I became the plant lady for my birthday .... receiving 4 lovely natives and 5 or 6 other plants (agave, cordylines, lilirope and aloe vera).

Unfortunately all of these plants will be for out the back yard so they'll have to live in pots for a while yet.

So .. once again ... sorry for the rant and rave. It was a minor meltdown but hopefully shouldn't happen again.

Love ya's all

A

Happy birthday to me

(to be sung to the tune of Happy Birthday)

Happy Birthday to me

Squashed bananas and wee

Don't waste it just taste it

Happy Birthday to me

Yay for me ... 37 today.

If you haven't picked up the sarcasm in that last line entry I'll just let you know that it is there!!!

Feeling even crappier today than I did last Wednesday (meltdown of the year day) .... everything really sucks at the moment.

Anyway .... no point whining about it all the time hey ..... nobody gives a crap and it just makes me feel even worse.

So ... happy face on ...... going out for lunch today with the guys from work and a couple of friends are coming over tonight for dinner (a 'la Bridge Jones birthday dinner ... minus the blue soup).

Hip hip .... hooray

Too much work & getting old

What a crappy week. Good thing it hasn't been that hot because otherwise the heat would have sent me over the edge!!

I worked until 3:00am on Monday morning to get a tender in on time (due Monday morning) and since then haven't really been able to catch up on sleep. I hit the wall yesterday and was a mess - wanted to cry everytime somebody spoke to me, everybody and everything was annoying me and all I wanted to do was shoot everybody fair and square in the head.

So a combination of my tiredness, missing hubby, and my 37th birthday fast approaching all culminated in a minor meltdown yesterday. To top it off I got home and for no particular reason (as nothing has changed in the last 6 months),I got really really sh*tty that the backyard still looked like something out of a Stargate episode when all life has been wiped from a planet for 30,000 years. Huge holes ... some pieces of wood sticking out of the ground and big ugly nasty weeds.

The completely insane part of me then starts questioning all of the decisions we have made and the major one was should we have spent so much money on our honeymoon when we could have had all of the landscaping done with that money???

Well I answered my own question by looking at the pictures of the honeymoon .... even while the weeds grow at an alarming rate and the dogs are in fear of their lives due to the large craters they may fall into ..... if I had my time over again .. I wouldn't change a thing.

So today .. I'm much happier ... I've had a lot of sleep ... and some additional good news is that my man will be home at the end of February.

Life is good.

The sun

Man it's hot

Be careful what you wish for

Welcome to 2008!!!

I've finally got a chance to sit down ... take a deep breath ... and reflect on what seems like a whilrwind few weeks.

The silly season has come and gone as quickly as it took to spend my whole month's salary!! Fortunately having a hubby that gets paid weekly helps the situation however on the weekend he misplaced his eftpos card therefore the promised trip to the movies with the children was put on hold as we had no way of getting any money out of the ATM and since my money tree hasn't arrived from the Garden shop yet ... well .... you can just imagine the result.

Good thing I had some beans in the cupboard to eat :-))

Anyway ... that was a minor hiccup in what was a fantastic few weeks with the family.

Tim & Chris (John's terrors .. I mean ... lovely little boys) headed back home on Sunday morning after spending a week at our place. They seemed to enjoy their room that we had made in our house just for them and there didn't seem to be any arguments about who had the top bunk. I think the week gave Sarah a taste of what it would be like to have brothers and sisters ... at times I think she would love some siblings but at other times I think she was pretty glad she is an only child!!!

but in general all 3 kids got along great. Sarah is the bossy one and took on the role of 'mothering' the boys when John and I weren't saying anything. Tim is a typical video game nut and as long as the X-Box was playing Need for Speed, he seemed to be in his element. Chris is far more imaginative but can't sit still for more than 3 minutes (has the attention span of a house brick) so entertaining him was a little bit more difficult but fortunately there weren't too many times we were just sitting around doing nothing.

The Gumbuyah Park toboggan got a great workout from myself and John .. unfortunately the 2 boys were too young to go on it ... so we had their turns for them!!! what a cool ride that is. And for those that haven't been .. you don't even have to walk back up the hill ... a neat pulley system brings you back up to the top!!! Some lazy ass man invented that I reckon :-))

As for the house ... well it seemed to endure the myriad of guests we had over the 2 weeks however at times was a bit squishy. Christmas lunch we had 13 people .... we have a 6 seater table ... you do the maths.

So it was a good lesson to us that the patio area really does need to be finished by Christmas 2008!!

We picked up a lovely outdoor table (8 seater) in the post christmas sales ( half of it paid for dad as a wedding present) so now we just have to hurry up and get this jolly paving done.

As for the heat ... well I think I lost 5kgs in sweat alone and on Saturday I had had just about enough so we signed up for Evap Cooling. Installation is 3-4 weeks away however knowing Melbourne in February, it will get used quite a lot before the weather starts to cool down. And I guess we would have to put it in next year anyway so may as well do it before another price increase (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

The down side is that by being lovely and cool, I don't get a motorbike at the moment but I'm willing to sacrifice being cool on a bike to being cool in the house.

The front garden has been left to fend for itself and unfortunately I paid the price yesterday by having to dig up a billion weeds. I'll stick to what I was doing previously I think ... a little bit of gardening every second or third day is a hell of a lot easier than a whole day in the garden every few weeks!!!!

Anyway .... lots and lots happened that was pretty fun and exciting but I can't bore you all with the nitty gritty's of it all. Needless to say, we had a fantastic christmas and new year.

We are looking forward to the year ahead. My new job is going great and I'm busier now than ever. John also seems to be enjoying his job in Brisvegas (although he's not enjoying the weather ... who ever said Qld has the best weather should be shot). Fingers crossed he heads back to Melbourne at the end of March as his contract states. Wouldn't put money on it mind you but here's hoping!!!

I'm looking forward to updating you with lovely patio pics and a finished front yard soon.

Merry Christmas one and all

Dear readers,

Just signing off for the next week or so while I prepare for the festivities ahead.

The new house will be packed with visitors so we are looking forward to seeing how the house will cope with so many people in it!!!

John will be home over christmas and Tim & Chris (John's kids) will be over for a week before they all go their separate ways again. Sarah, Tim & Chris are now officially step-children so the beatings and brain washing is completely legal now :-))

To all our friends out there in cyberspace, have a very very safe and happy christmas. Eat and drink far too much but more importantly, enjoy the time with those people that you love the most.

2007 has been a stellar year for us .... here's hoping 2008 will be just as great.

Love to you all,
Andy

Editors note

To our readers ... please let it be known that grumpy Santa is not really grumpy and a miserable old thing who won't buy his wife something she really wants :-)

It's just Mrs Clause having a minor hissy fit because she can't get something she wants right now.

Santa is truly, still ace.

:-)

Half way there

Well last night I had my 2 hour 'pre learner' course with Ride-Tek. They are accredited to run these courses and they will also be the people testing me for my licence.

There were 3 of us doing the course... me and 2 guys. They were both in their mid 20's and I had a horrible feeling that the next 2 hours was going to be me watching my back for them hooning around me.

The trainer asked us what our intentions were for riding and why we wanted our licence ... I said that I wanted to commute to work as well as do rides with hubby (even though I wouldn't be able to keep up with his bike for the moment). The next guy had it all planned out to get to a Harley ...... then the second guy ........ wants to ride a scooter to work. Boy did I feel better after that. I figured that perhaps all young guys aren't 'hoons' and I was going to enjoy my 2 hours after all.

We rode the Honda CB 250 ... nice little bike and I felt pretty comfortable on it.

Anyway ... without boring you too much it went really well.

I was booked in to do my test on Friday ... but after chatting with 'santa' I've got a better chance of wearing a size 8 pair of jeans than getting a bike this side of 2010 so I'm reconsidering the whole thing.

Pretty flowers

Well hubby is only 4 sleeps away from coming home ... but this is what greeted me at the reception desk when I returned from lunch today .....

how lovely :-)

Houses are boring

OMG ... did I say that????

Well yeah I did ... and it's only boring because my husband isn't here with me [insert awwwwww here].

So to pick my mood up, I am getting very excited about next week's events ..... going for my motorbike Learners.

Woo hoo!!!!

Bit nervous but very excited at the same time. Tuesday night I am attending a 2 hour pre-learner course at the riding school where they will teach me all the things I need to know to pass the test. Then if all goes well I will go for my test on Thursday.

This is my christmas present to myself :-))

Being a rider from way back, John wants to make sure my first couple of years is on a 'safe' bike (read: boring) so I have a couple of choices ....

The Honda CB 250 ...
or the Yamaha Virago 250

If I pass my test, I just need Santa to buy me one for Christmas.

And I've been very very good ....

Yay for the concretor

Well the concretor was in my bad books for a while. The scenario went something like this:

1. Coloured the concrete with the base colour - which also went all over my deck and the plants
2. Next day top colour goes on and there are some areas that look terrible (like a junior concretor has done it and didn't give a toss).
3. Ask him to look at it but he says he can't do anything about it but the sealer should even it out
4. Sealer gets put on and it doesn't even out the crappy bits but now that it is sealed, he again says can't do anything about it
5. Get home that evening and there are bubbles all over the driveway and the sealer has dried

Not happy Jan!!

Fortunately John got on the phone to him straight away and said that I could have lived with the other bad bits but I wasn't going to pay for it with bubbles all over it.

So concretor bad.

However on a quick trip home yesterday (have been away at a friend's place for a couple of days) I notice that the driveway is all shiny again (from new sealer) and he has also re-coloured it so there are no crappy bits!!

So concretor good!!!

It looks really great and I am so pleased with the end result. It's quite different to everybody elses in the street so we are pleased that we don't look the same!!!

So next weekend it will be re-doing the garden bed around the letterbox as I need to extend it out. Will have to say farewell to my hedge as it just isn't growing very well .. think I need to improve the soil a bit more before I replant stuff.

And you know what that means ... I can go to the nursery and spend some money!!!

Yipeeeeeee!!!!!

We have driveway

Well I think as I was writing about not having a driveway .. they were laying it yesterday!!

They have to come back today and put the sealer etc on it and hopefully clean up the mess they have made!! Was a bit annoyed as the colour they sprayed on is now all over our deck and over the plants. grrrrrrrr

I'm happy with the way it's turned out .... but of course now it makes the portico colour look even crappier (if that was possible). So the re-painting has definitely been moved up the priority list!!

New job .. no husband

Yesterday (Monday) was a bit of a mixed emotions day. Started back at my old employer and it was so nice to hear everybody pleased that I was back. Certainly was a boost to my self esteem with one person commenting 'everything is better now that you're back'.

On the down side, I had to take John to the airport to start his job in Brisbane. Was determined not to get sooky about it as he will be back for 2 weeks over christmas ... but .... as much as he annoys the crap out of me sometimes I love him to bits and the house is very lonely without him.

Driveway still hasn't been done ... and we had a knock on the door from the lady on behalf of the developer of the area to tell us that solicitors letters are going out within the next 2 weeks to people that haven't done their front yard as per the contract!! Eeek. Unfortunately terrential rain down our way yesterday meant that bugger all was going to get done. Let's hope when I get home today there has been some action.

So other than that, the lead up to christmas is going well. The tree is up and looks beautiful ... I bought myself a present on the weekend (which will be from Santa) and is under the tree. Official shopping starts on the 17th December (after pay day!!!).

Only 20 days to go!! Woo hoo.

It's the final countdown

da da da daaaa ..... da da da da daaaaaa..... da da da daaaa daaa ... da da da da da

yeah go on admit it .. you sung along didn't you?? (if you are old enough to know the song).

Well it's Tuesday afternoon ... and I figure that although there are officially 3 days left in the week, I only have half a day left of work.

Andynomics working again??

No .... I'm going to work from home tomorrow and Thursday .. then pop in to the office on Friday to drop off my laptop and other bits and pieces then that's me done for this 6 month prison sentence!!

Of course my first day back at the old employer is going to be an easy one as I have to leave at lunch time to take Johnno to the airport!!!

Some people have it easy hey :-))

Greetings from Mt Black - nothing to do with the house..... sorry girls

Howdi all,

Greetings from Mt Black, My office in Rosebery Tasmania. If you think the place looks like a hole in the ground well your dead right...... it is, a bloody big, bloody deep hole in the ground that extends over 4ooo meters deep and they pull all the good stuff out of it. They mine some Copper, lead, and even some gold (between 30 and 50 kg/month, enough to cover payroll Im told), but by far the biggest product they mine here is zinc, some 660,000 tonnes of it last year. my job here is to look at a mine expension that will involve a new flotation line, a SAG mill and a ball mill that will boost the mines output to 1,000,000 tonnes of zinc a year. So the last couple of days I have been involved in a site survey of the mines HV electricity distribution and to finalize the location of several substations as well look at various other bits and pieces for different projects.

Ive been staying in a place called 'top pub', the local hotel where I have been meeting a few of the locals. Good, honest (mostly) straight talking folks that pretty much call it as they see it. The food here has been absolutely magnificent. You can get beautiful tender piece of scotch fillet for $22 bucks, great stuff.

The only bad thing is that this morning I was woken at 5am by the sound of the beer truck reversing, then the sound of the guy firing up the fork lift to unload it. Apparently I should count myself lucky that the guy slept in........ the beer usually arrives at 4am most weeks !!

Well its been a great trip, Ive finished all the stuff that I came here to do, had my trip down memory lane (I was last working here 17 years ago) and had a few good steaks as well, so all there is to do now is to drive back to Burnie, jump on the plane and be back in Melbourne for dinner with the ol ball and chain :)

J

I love this time of year

It's scary to think that Christmas is only 5 weeks away. Why is it that the older you get, the quicker life seems to go by?

2007 has been an awesome year for us. We have built a beautiful house and got married. No, there won't be hearing the pitter patter of tiny feet in the new house so it's a good thing that John's niece was born this year ... that's the closest we'll ever get!!

Sarah is in Grade 5 next year and before I know it she'll be off to high school.

Christmas is my all time favourite time of the year. I love the carols ... the decorations .. copious amounts of food and alcohol .... but more importantly, spending time with the people you love the most.

While there are some disappointments at this time (John going to Brisbane, paving area not done, front landscaping not finished) the joys of the silly season will far outweigh the negative stuff.

So deck the halls and joy to the world ..... heat, famine or flood could not ruin my good mood for the next 6 weeks!!!

A new driveway ... and a runaway husband

So I'll start with the good news.

Driveway has been cleared ready for the concretor to come in next week. Can't wait!!!! Although I've gotten so used to looking at it the way it is, it will take a while for me to get used to having something that looks good (fingers crossed anyway).

We are having stencilled concrete and the pic below is the pattern we have decided on. Colour will be Uluru Red. Bit worried about the colour as I'm sure a printed brochure is somewhat different to the colour the actual concrete will be .. but I'm putting my trust in the concretor that the colour comes out the way we want it.

I guess at the end of the day it's a driveway ... as long as it isn't pink or purple, it's not going to be such a big deal.



So on to the bad news .... my husband of just 3 months has decided that digging holes and building a paving area is far too difficult so he is going to work in Brisbane for 3-4 months to try and get out of it!! :-))

Just kidding about the 'getting out of work' bit ... not kidding about working in Brisbane.

He's off to work on some sort of gold mine or something like that and I'm hoping that he is back by March at the latest.

Pro's:

1. Only have to cook and clean up after myself
2. I can watch all the Seinfeld, Simpsons and Gardening Australia episodes I want to without a smart ass comment
3. I might be able to get my motorbike a little quicker if he doesn't spend his money on booze and hookers

Con's:

1. Will get lonely
2. Paving won't get done until mid next year
3. Who will I nag?
4. With no internet connection at the moment, how will I download the guide onto the Media Centre??
5. Will have to purchase another X-Box 360 to act as a media extender as he will take the current X-Box with him (mind you this one is also a positive because then when he gets back Sarah gets the X-Box in her room as another extender).

Unfortunately the nature of John's work is that this will be happening for the next 20 years or so, so I've learnt to just suck it up and deal with it.

He's off to Tassie this week for work and as he was packing he said "When I go to Brisbane, can I send you a load of washing each week?".

Good thing I wasn't holding something very sharp and pointy at the time.

:-)

Ok .. so stop your winging

OK ... I had my vent before regarding the heat and our lack of air conditioning. Hoping to gain some sympathy from my cyberspace buddies, I was quick to learn that my women friends are far more willing to empathise.

The men however ... [scoffs loudly]

So, I have decided to post a good news story instead.

As most of you know, my job for the last 6 months has allowed me to 'work from home' (or as John tenderly puts it 'shirk from home'). This has enabled me to visit loads of nurseries and do work in the garden!!! (I'm pretty certain none of my bosses read the blog so I've no worries about getting sprung).

On the down side of course, is the fact that for 40 hours a week I have been going slowly insane due to the lack of work and I think some of my brain cells have even died off with lack of use.

OK OK ...... I'll give you time to have a giggle to yourself about the fact that:

a. you didn't think I could lose any more brain cells
b. why is the last 6 months any different to the rest of my working life
c. insert own comment here

Anyway .... I have been lured back to my old employer. Something I am very pleased about. Won't go into the detail about why I left to start with but basically it was a BAD move. So at the prospect at going back and starting a new career is very exciting. It is also only 20 mins from home (although I have to tackle the Monash car park in the morning) but if I can leave early enough in the morning, I should avoid most of the traffic.

Of course the downside is that I will actually have to work quite hard and unfortunately visits to nurseries will be postponed to weekends ... but, it's a price I'm willing to pay.

Oh .. and the other cool thing (no, not the weather ... literally) is that I have been given permission by my other half (yes ... he actually wears the pants in the relationship ... except for 'pants off Friday') to get my motorbike licence and buy a motorbike.. which I will do by this time next year.

So .. woo hoo!!! Very very excited about that as I have wanted one since I was a kid.

So for those in south east Melbourne ... I'll give you plenty of warning when I get on the road. :-)

#1 Regret

For those that have previously built or in the process of building a house, there are always the 'I wish we had thought of that' or 'Dam, I wish we put an extra one of those in there'.

While there are a few of those niggly, not very important regrets, there is a HUGE one that has to be rated as the number 1 regret of this decade.

NO AIRCONDITIONING!!!

[insert angry face here with a gutteral growling sound]

'We'll be fine' we said ... 'we've lived with no air con for years now' ....

Well dam it ... I want air conditioning!!! I'm getting older and crankier and a bad night's sleep due to the heat doesn't help the situation at all.

Quite simply, for the saving of a few thousand dollars during the build ... I can only say 'We're idiots'.

Must be off now ... my sweaty fingers are causing concern for the laptop.