See what I put up with?

Now you see why I haven't let him add blog messages previously!!!

Well the path is ready to be paved ... well, almost. Just need to lay some paving sand and then the pavers and pebbles. At least you can walk on it now without getting muddy feet.

This sunshine has been fantastic and has dried out our multiple pools in the backyard. I just hope that when we get back from the honeymoon the ground is still quite soft to dig!!!

FYI - 3 weeks today we will have arrived at Airlie Beach!! woo hoo

hehehehe - revenge is a dish best served cold :)

Hi there everyone, its John here, Andys other half.

I managed to get a hold of geek girls password and thougth I might have a crack of putting up a bit of a blog entry myself.

I started to suffer the effects of the flu on Friday. It got so bad that I was wearing my motorcycle dryrider jacket and a beanie in the office and I was still shivering. I rang Andy and told her of my intentions to go home. She said she would come home to as she had the car and house keys and I met her on the train home.

BOY did I some crap on the train. Aparently Andy told a work mate (another woman) that she was going home to look after me. This other girl says 'is he sick sick or is he man sick?' to which The love of my life replied 'hes man sick' and and the first woman replied, well youd better go home and look after the poor dear.

But was I looked after dear reader ???

Oh no. Instead of the call bell, sponging of my feverish brow and general pampering I was expecting, she threw some cold and flu caps at me brought me a jug of water and a glass and left me to it....... all afternoon.

On saturday I wasnt much better. I was berated again for being 'man sick' and I stayed in bed feeling guilty as hell while Andy boxed a path in front of the front garden bed and shifted about a meter of road base. I had to make do watching double impact, a movie where the only thing dodgier than Jean Claude Van Dammes acting was the 80's hair styles and fashion

Sunday I was feeling quite a bit better and I was still feeling guilty for not being able to help her on saturday so I took her out for breakfast at your fav breakfast place, sassy's in nunawading.

Anyway Sunday night Andy started to feel a bit off colour herself, we were sitting on the couch when she told me so I gave her a list of symptoms, headache, limb pain, back pain, 'frozen' eye balls etc and she nodded to each of them. I told her that I thought she wouldnt be getting up in the morning to go to work. 'bullshit' was the reply and I was given a run down about how she was a healthy as a horse and hadnt taken a day off in 3-4 years through something as minor as the flu.

Well the alarm went off this morning at 5:45am, I got up, showered got ready and said to Andy 'well what are you doing?' and she told me to take her car.

I couldnt resist and said 'whats the problem, feeling a little man sick this morning are we?'

I didnt receive an answer, but in the half light from the ensuite, I saw a hand snake out from under the doona, and a middle finger thrust straight up towards the ceiling before going limp flopping on the bed and retreating back beneath the covers.

:)

Poor dear, I hope shes ok when I get home tonight (she needs to cook my dinner).

Who needs Jamie??

Who needs Jamie Durie?? (well, other than for his biceps). I've been playing around with a garden design for the front and backyard. You'll see from my previous post that the front yard has started (hopefully it looks a little bit like the drawing!!)

The mini swimming pools we have in the backyard at the moment will have to dry out before we can make a start but I figure that if we have a plan before we start, it should make life a whole lot easier!!

I reckon the puppies are going to love running on the grass, ruining all my plants!!! :-))

Note; drawing not even remotely to scale!!

A garden bed, some roses and a wobbly hedge

The Gardening Guru

ok .. so I'm no gardening guru but I'm definitely loving this idea of having a garden to play with.

Made some great progress on Saturday while John was away finding his wedding outfit (duly noted that he did not return with a puffy shirt and an eye patch!!). I'll post photos when I can work out how to get them from the camera to here but it's starting to look really pretty in the front.

Next weekend we are going to complete the next pathway and I'll hopefully do the other garden bed .. then it's just getting the dirt ready for the grass and the garden bed along the side of the boundary and we are all done!

Fingers and toes are crossed that the plants grow now!!! After I had planted my roses I was told that they will not grow there as it is too windy, but, I'm going to leave them there and see how they go.

Planting the hedge was a pain in the a*s ... 40 tiny little plants that will take an eternity to grow!! The line that I have planted them in is a bit wobbly when you look at it down the side, but I'm hoping that when they grow you don't notice it so much :-))

Baby it's cold outside ...

But never fear ... in 38 days we will be here ..................



And then flying into Whitehaven Beach by this ......



Then honeymooning on this ....




i can feel the warmth now :-))

Aaah stuff it .. it's only money!

Well ... all is not lost! We've come to the conclusion that it's only money and you can't take it with you when you go, so it looks like the driveway might be getting done!! Woo hoo.

Actually, I won't woo hoo too quickly just in case it doesn't happen. John's job is about to come to and end which means he has to look for something else (being a contractor and all). Very bad timing due to upcoming nuptials and I am just hoping that he doesn't head interstate for work. This is a strong possibility as there is loads of work for him in Queensland at much better rates than here in Melbourne. Anyway .. cross your fingers in the hope that he doesn't go away again! Imagine coming back from my honeymoon with no husband!!!!!!!!! One that I hadn't killed anyway :-))

It was a beautiful day in Melbourne today and I was working from home (yeah right .. 'working' from home) so I took the puppies out for a walk in the sunshine. Had to drop off some gardening tools to Sarah so she could help out in their garden and I was amazed to see how everybody's front yards are changing. Some people have really put effort (and money) into their front landscaping and they look fantastic. Even those that have simple front gardens look fantastic so it bummed me out a bit that it's going to be at least 2 months before ours is looking decent. Good thing we are at the end of the street I guess!!! The plus side is that we get to see what plants do well in the area and what plants don't (although I've pretty much decided what I want .. I can always be persuaded to do something different!!).

The estate is looking really busy though with more and more houses popping up every day. It really is a lovely place to live.

:-))

39 days to the wedding

Need a second job!!!

40 days to go :-))

I promise I won't count down every day until the wedding!!

Well the minister for finance has put the kybosh on all spending on the house until after the wedding. Where is that never ending money tree when you need it??!!!

I have permission to put some garden edging into the front garden bed so that it doesn't collapse into the path we have dug out, but that's about it!!! Boooooooo.

So will just have to bore you with wedding plans until the big day ... :-))

Always remember to plan!!!

OK - so normally I am pretty organised, have a plan in place before I commence anything and do a lot of research before purchasing stuff (from previously living with a 'research king' for 10 years :-)).

As you know ... we were sick of the mud so made a little path to the front door. Decided on black polished pebbles in between the pavers etc etc. On the weekend we started to dig out the next stage of the path (that will run across the front of the house and around to the gate at the side).

Big mistake .. HUGE ... getting these black pebbles that is. It's going to cost around $800 just in pebbles if we continue with these black ones.

So ... plan B.

I'm going to pick up all the black pebbles that are currently in the path (yep ... that's going to be a great job) ... and we will use them out the back for the feature that is going to go around the paving area. Once we've dug out the path completely at the front we'll have to go for something a little more budget conscious. Not sure what yet. Maybe those browny coloured river pebbles?? Will start investigating that next weekend.

After learning the hard way yesterday we watched Backyard Blitz (why was this show cancelled?? I watched it for years when I had no garden to tend to .. now that I need some ideas the blasted thing isn't on anymore!!!). Anyway .... BB stated last night "it's important to plan ahead ... don't just do a bit .. then decide to do a bit more'. Yeah OK, maybe they saw what we were doing!!!!

Anyway ... we made fairly good progress yesterday. Saturday it was raining virtually
all day so nothing got done. Just had a very lazy day indoors.

41 days to the wedding!!!

:-))

44 days ....

UNTIL I GET MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!

Correction ................ before WE get married :-))

I know that this isn't a house related blog but this afternoon has been about googling plants and finalise wedding arrangements. Wedding arrangements have won out!!

On a more housey front however, this weekend we will be starting the horrible job of digging an 18m drain ready to put some pipe and bits and pieces so that there are no more pools of water for the puppies to drown in!!

we have started the planning of the backyard which is pretty exciting .. now it's just the hard work of getting in and doing it!!

And because it's so cold here in Melbourne, I thought I'd warm everybody up by showing the location of where we are getting married (in 44 days ....) :-))

The gardening bug has bitten

While our front yard will not win any awards, we are pleased with our efforts so far and can definitely picture how it's going to look.

The money tree has run out this week so I was unable to get the pebbles to finish off the path (probably a good thing anyway as the plumbing association is going to check the depth of the water pipes as we believe they are way to high up).

I have started to dig up the garden bed under the windows and have added gypsum and mushroom compost to get the soil ready. Hopefully in a couple of weeks (ie. after pay day) this area will look better.

There is a small 'black' strip down the left of the pathway .. that is a compost/gypsum bed at the moment and in a few weeks will add some topsoil and plant some mondo grass down that side.

Still wondering what to put in the black pots by the front door ... you can see that they are a bit wonky!! i need to level out the ground there a bit. Don't want to muck around too much in that area as that is where John will make a little deck/step type thing from the front door to the top of the pavers.

Anyway ... it's starting to come together. Would love a driveway but ... want to get married more!!!