Author: awmalloyadmin

I’m half the man I use to be. Well that’s a bit of an exaggeration when, really, its more like I’m closer to 90% of the man I was six months ago.

When I left work for long service leave one of my aims was to get fitter. I was overweight and had been told by my doctor that I really had to do something. He has been telling me this for years mind you, all the time with me ignoring him and slowly growing larger. A big part of the problem was my job – 8 hours a day behind a computer, then more at home in the evening. I was also lucky in a way that I had lunch supplied for free, but unlucky in that the selections were far from health conscious.

So when I started at home I made a decision that I had to stop fooling myself, that my lifestyle and diet were bad for me and that I had to make changes. Over the past six months the unhealthy lunches have gone, I’ve given up my one Pepsi a day (I’ve only had two in the past six months), reduced my coffee intake to one a day, the only beer I have is at the footy, just one glass of red a week, cut back on the sweets at night, opted for smaller servings and tried to have a couple of walks a week with the kids. Basically I stopped kidding myself that all the little things didn’t really matter.

And it has worked.

The highest I can remember was weighing in at 104kg. I was generally around 102ish. This past week I hit, and have maintained, my first aim of getting below 90kg. My next aim is to get to and keep below 85. I haven’t felt this good in years, the weight loss has had a real, positive, effect on an assortment of minor complaints and inconveniences, which surprisingly is exactly what the doctor said would happen.

The most noticeable outward sign is my clothing. I now look like a clown in my old jeans. I’ve dropped two jean sizes and really need to get another pair. I’ve also reached the last hole on my old faithful belt so that’s going to have to go too. Losing weight may be good for your health, but it’s murder on your wallet.

Rae came across this gardening hazard this afternoon.

Today is my last official day as an employee of Cabrini Health, my notice is effective as of tomorrow. My VPN access was shut off on Friday and I assume my security swipes will no longer get me in to the staff car park. I was talking to mum and she asked me if I missed the place and without hesitation I said ‘No, not at all.’. I miss the people but the time had come.

We went to the drive-in last night. It was such a perfect day and such a mild evening we bundled the pyjama clad young ones in to the car (Phee was staying at a friends) and headed for the wilds of Coburg. Despite the fact the terrible two refused to sleep (Missy Moo was awake as the final credits rolled) and we spent most of the evening walking up and down behind the car trying to lull them to sleep it was a wonderful night. We’ve promised Bert that next time it will be a kid’s film.

It probably won’t make the news but there was a train crash near by this afternoon.

And my monitor is now in the pink. I was working this morning when all of a sudden the white background flicked over to a rather fetching shade of pink. No manner of twiddling or resetting has worked in getting it back to how it should be so I may be dragging out the old monitor to make do for a while.

It had to happen and now it finally has. We can no longer get in to our house, yeah! We’ve reached lock up stage so when we went out this morning it was strictly peering through windows as the back door was locked and there was no way we could convince the locksmith Dupont Circle people, the laundry door is in place and the two temporary doors on the garage entrance and main door are firmly secured. The actual front door is leaning up against the dining room wall and all of the power points have been punched out of the plaster.

Luckily we’ve been out every week checking on progress and we’ve picked up one major problem – they put a small shower in the ensuite when we went with the larger option – that would have caused major hassles later. Now we’re going to have to make appointments to check the property and ensure we are getting what we have paid for.

We’ve also caught them up on an attempt to get us to pay the major lock up component of the builders fee early. We received the invoice last week but when you’re missing about 10% of your front wall (it’s cladding instead of brick for bit of visual interest) you’re entitled to ask if it really is at lock up stage. So we asked. Ten minutes later we received an email telling us to ignore the invoice and that we’d get another when the cladding was done. Either a supervisor was pushing to ensure he met his targets and hoping we wouldn’t notice or someone ticked the wrong screen. Either way it gives us at least another week before we have to start paying more.

An early morning visitor came sailing silently overhead this morning.

I remember when growing up that a Bamix was the ‘it’ thing to have in the kitchen, then came microwaves, or maybe it was the other way around, regardless these were fads that swept through the kitchens of Australia.

Looking around the kitchen this morning I saw three things that show we, in the late 90’s and 00’s aren’t immune to fads. In all their faded glory were the George Foreman grill, a bread maker and home espresso machine. They’re still being used, we had fresh bread and home made lattes this morning, but I wonder what items we’ll have to clutter up our new kitchen in the next decade.

On this beautiful Spring day we have :

Been to the house, which now looks like a house. Most of the brick work is done and over the last five days all of the internal plaster work has been completed. What’s more our kitchen is beginning to look like a kitchen!

 

We’ve had a coffee with the young ones at The Coat.

And we’ve baked our first loaf of bread in our new but old breadmaker.

I’ve decided that I’m only going to work in winter, this weather is way too nice to be inside at a PC. I’ve just rang the mortgage people to ask if this is okay, they’ve promised to get back to me when they stop laughing.

I made scones for the first time today. I forgot to take a photo but you’ll have to trust me that they were delicious. Light and fluffy on the inside, just the right amount of crunch on the outside. On second thoughts you don’t have to trust me, ask Marita, I made them for her. We had them with jam and cream and a nice cuppa tea. A lovely way to spend the day.

I am in such a wonderful mood tonight after a fantastic afternoon. Today was Bert’s first football game at the MCG and he loved it.

The parking gods were against us but thanks to the stellar efforts of The World’s Best Brother In Law And Uncle, Rob, who parked that car, Bert got his face painted and we were able to see the boys run through the banner. He was full of confidence until we walked in to the stadium proper. It was the biggest building and most people he had ever seen, and then when the roar went up for the start of the game he didn’t know what to do. He clung tight, a little overwhelmed and unsure of where he was and what was going on.

As the first quarter unfolded, and Uncle Rob found us, he began to warm up and not cling so tightly. When we moved upstairs for cover he really began to enjoy himself. He watched the game, played with Uncle Rob, clapped when we scored a goal and even yelled out ‘Go Richo!’ at random times. We kept him going with snacks and drinks all day and a  little footy and ‘I Heart Tigers’ badge from the shop made him smile. He’d had enough by three quarter time so we walked back to the car, grabbing him a jam donut on the way.

Thanks Rob, Bert loved having you there and it meant a lot having you as part of the day. The best moment though came as we drove home. Without prompting he piped up “That was fun.”. My boy is now undeniably a Tiger and while he’s too young to have this day as a memory it’s an afternoon I’ll never forget.