Blogging BLAH.........

I haven't blogged for ages and there is no real reason, except I am lazy (and busy), but more so lazy.

It has now been a year since we moved to the Sunshine Coast.  We still love living up here.

We are very lucky, I think.  We have a beautiful big home, lots of land and live in a lovely town. The boys are very happy at their school and my sister and parents both live 10 minutes away.  Although I haven't made any close friends, I do have some friends from school and those relationships are developing.

Life is good.

Speaking of the house and land.  Greg is still clearing the yard and is nearly there.  This weekend is stump grinding - and there are a LOT of stumps to grind.

Just a couple of the trees he has cut down

So far he has made 69 trips to the tip, using our cage trailer that is filled with cut trees - mainly cocos palm trees, which are classed as a weed.  These basically filled the property when we bought it and I don't even think we realised just how many there were.  17 years worth of not looking after the garden basically.

BUT

We are now on downhill run and Greg is nearly finished.  The difference is amazing!  He has done such a great job.

We are also re-doing the front yard too.  This side part had some very ugly hibiscus plants and lots of weeds/grass etc.  We will grow a nice hedge and a student from work gave me some excess plants from their garden.  It will look great once established.

I have been looking for a buffet for the lounge room and I found a nice one on Facebook for $200.  A good clean and polish and it came up beautifully.  Now for some decorations and it will be perfect!

I am Vice President of the P&C - not really a job I wanted but as per usual, they were desperate for volunteers.  We actually have a really good team so I am enjoying it.  Greg helps at school during the week in Rhys and Ben's class.

We went halves with Dad with a gurney from Aldi.  I can highly recommend them for about $120 or so.  Our concrete had never been done and it was BLACK.  It took all the black off the concrete.  Wonderful!

We also got solar power put on.  Our last bill - and we did have LOTS of visitors - was $800!!!  OMG!!!!  The most recent bill - with solar for part of that time was $160 (with a $50 rebate for something from the govt).  So really $210.  It will be interesting to see what the next one will be as I think that will reflect our usage a bit more correctly.  The last bill was a bit of a mash up, due to the solar being on, but no new meter installed, the old meter was going backwards when we generated electricity.  That doesn't happen now, but it will be good to see the difference and compare.

On the work front, my contract was up and as I didn't know what was going to happen, I applied for a few jobs that had come up.  I got an interview for a temp job within the same organisation, that was very much like the one I had when I worked in HR and when current work found out that I had gotten an interview for that role they quickly offered me permanent part time.  I took the job as PPT jobs up here are very hard to get I believe.  So that is great news - to have ongoing job security.

It was a public holiday here today and Greg has been busy stump grinding all of the stumps out of the ground.  Big job, but most of it done.  There are still a few really big ones, but that will be a job for another time (and a bigger grinder).

The weather has been absolutely beautiful, not too hot and not too cold - perfect!  However this afternoon it started raining and has poured all afternoon and now into the evening (it's even a bit cold LOL).

Have a happy life!

Rach
xxxx