Well almost. It certainly is a step up from the dust/mud bowl that was there. I've created garden beds using temporary edging. In the front Sarah and I planted four native plants (drought tolerant of course) and out the back we went for good old James Sterling - which I think i may move and replace with more natives. I'm just doing a little at a time so they can become established before I have to share the water among more plants. Speaking of water I have converted the family to the bucket in the shower plan, Sarah gets quite frustrated if the bucket isn't available, so between that and the rain water I've collected from the shed roof I haven't had to use one drop of fresh tap water!I'm planning on getting a couple more plants for the front garden on Sunday and hopefully if we are ever cashed up again I can order some mulch, pebbles and gravel mix as well as some proper edging. At least it feels a little more like a garden and less like a building site.
Other house news.... not much really. I'm really thrilled with additional downlights (still) the replacements look so much better than the naff gimbles. The doors look much better now the glass has been replaced. Hard to believe that that much scratching (perhaps with a diamond ring as diamond is known for its glass cutting properties) was accidental and not spotted by the supervisor before hand over. Ah well. Our new couches for the living room arrived and look lovely. The room looks less like a vacant storage area and Sarah and I like to think of it as our reading room...needless to say we don't see Aaron in there much. Speaking of whom, his new gadget in the theatre room is great (I hate it when he's right) and has made negotiating the various other gadgets much easier. He's reprogrammed the universal remote too so I actually have my chair back and don't have to share it with the 50 other remotes.
Work is going really well, although I seem permanently tired I really enjoy this environment. I have realised though that I haven't been near the gym in about 5 weeks, I thought of packing it in but Aaron says I shouldn't as it's only around the cost of a packet of smokes a week. So I finally dragged myself along last night - only for 40 minutes but it was better than nothing. I really enjoyed the warm welcome too. I've managed to find some time to swim a bit too which I really enjoy (except for the walk of shame to the towel afterwards). I swam 60 laps the first time I went (only a 25 mtr pool but it sounds good), last Monday I swam 40 laps (50 mtr pool) and this week I swam 46; I wanted to make it to 50 but I was running out of time and then they closed the lane I was in so I left. Hopefully next time I can swim the extra 4 if I pick up my pace a bit.
I've enjoyed the last couple of weekends. This weekend we crashed with exhaustion on Friday night (in bed by 21.13 - how sad is that?) and spent a fair chunk of Saturday on the domestic engineering front. Saturday night we popped out for a little while. Sunday morning we headed to the hills for breakfast at the Ivy (lovely), a wander around the gift shops and a visit to Pet Panache - of course. We headed back to the flat lands and looked for a new dining suite and coffee table - which we found - and then headed to Knox. At Knox we found a replacement iron (ours had just about given up the ghost), it's unbelievably cool (I can't believe I'm saying that about an iron) but it is a Russell Hobbs and it changes colour!!! Sarah loved it and ironed all the towels...I can see me getting all my shirts ironed. We also picked up some other boring house stuff.
Well better go and look busy.
See ya
