Category: Diary

Many, many, many years ago I joined a gym and, surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it. It didn’t last that long, I think we moved and it all just became too hard to keep up.

Fast forward 20 or so years and I’m back.

My recent little scare (which looks increasingly like it wasn’t cardiac related) has caused some re-evaluation of how I go about living my life. I’m trying to be better with what I eat by cutting down on servings and trying to avoid the bad-but-oh-so-good stuff. I still have a long way to go but I’m definitely better than I once was. If I could only bring myself to eat some fruit, that would be a big help.

The worse thing though is my job has me sitting at my desk all day, every day and that’s not a good thing. Trying to find the time to get around to walking or exercising while running my own business and wrangling the kids just wasn’t working and all the time the little voice at the back of my head was saying “come on Tony, do something”.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the shops and took notice of some flyers lying on a table. It was for the new Jetts opening at the shopping centre. I took a flyer and a couple of days later I plucked up the courage to walk in the door. Travis, the manager, was fantastic. He took the time to take me on a tour, tell me about what they offered and there was no pressure at all. I thought about it over night and went back to join up the next day.

I went to the orientation this morning so I’m all set to go. Things sure have changed, you can now plug you iPod or USB stick directly in to the machines. I think last time I was at a gym I would have taken my Walkman if I wanted my own music.  I’ve signed up for a few personal training sessions to get some advice and a program to get me started. It’s still a scary thought to be heading back to a gym but oddly enough I’m looking forward to it, even if the machines looked more like instruments of torture than fitness aids.

Ah, good to see our rates at work. Ever since we’ve been here the tree branches have hung low over the path and looked generally shabby. Yesterday the council came along and gave them all a good trim. Now we can walk along the paths and there should be considerably less leaf waste in a couple of weeks, even though we don’t have a tree on our naturestrip our house seems to attract leaves.

One question I have though is why we are the only street in our whole subdivision with this type of tree. It’s odd that we don’t all have the same.

The neigbour’s tree before the trim…

 

and after..

I guess it will also make it a lot easier to see what’s going on in the street.

Well people, it’s that time of the year again. Even thought it’s a t-shirt and shorts day we’re only a few days away from the first game of the footy season. And the first game of the footy season means it’s time to get tipping!

Yes. The Anthony Malloy Memorial Footy Tipping Competition is once more open for business (I think this is its 10th year) so head on over to http://www.footytips.com.au/comps/TonysT and join up. The less you know about footy the better you’ll go. Maybe this year it will finally head to the UK, hey Nigel?

Just wondering when nuts became a unit of measure.

I had to buy some gel for a strained muscle this week and the guide said to use an amount “ranging in size from a cherry to a walnut”. I bought some shaving cream today and on the back it said to use “an amount the size of a hazlenut”.

What they need to do is Australianise the instructions. “A quarter of a Tim Tam”, “a Violet Crumble” or “half a Mintie” makes a lot more sense.

After a horror day of niggles and arguments yesterday I thought the answer today would be to exhaust the kids. We dropped Phee at work and headed to their new favourite park on Forrest St. They belted around for an hour, screaming and laughing, and seem a little more sedate now.

The odd thing I noticed is that today must have been fathers day. There were four dads there with their kids and not a mum in sight. I wonder if the families had all been banished to the park so mum could have a rest, maybe one of them was having their fortnightly visitation, maybe like me the dads wanted a rest this afternoon.

Who knows.

Dropped the kids off this morning and walking out to see such a beautiful day it was just too nice not to go for a walk around the ovals.

On the way I had a family say hi and overheard two women having a chat that finished with “would you like to continue your walk with me?”. Seems I wasn’t the only one whose spirits were lifted.

Well, one project down for the long weekend. My desk has been cleared, cleaned and restructured. I even took the time to properly label the cords in to the power boards and USB ports, something I’ve never done before and curse every time I go looking for the right cord to unplug or jiggle.

This is my desk now, all tidy and ready for work. Nothing much to see. There’s my one antenna android, my Kogan retro DAB radio, the pinup coaster from Rae, and my pen caddy. One pen, one highlighter, one marker and one pencil makes it so much easier to just grab what you need. I know not that many people love them by I swear by Microsoft Natural keyboards, I’ve used them as long as I can remember and a ‘normal’ keyboard feels odd to me.

Project Two is the front and back garden which will now have to wait until tomorrow morning and with a bit of luck I may even get to make a start on Project Three – the overflowing bookcase here in the office.

He knows the truth, at 4.

This morning I asked Henry to pick up a plate from the floor.

“Yes Dadda.” He then paused and, oddly, said “I listen to you dad because your the boss of the fam…..no. I know who the boss of the family really is. It’s mamma.”

Poor Mr Henry is barking like a seal today so he’ll be staying home from kinder and spending the day in bed.

I was talking to Moo and said “It will be a bit strange today, with no Henry at kinder with you.”

She looked up at me with those big eyes and said “Don’t worry Dadda, I can look after myself.”

No there’s nothing wrong with my new phone – it’s beautiful and I couldn’t be happier with it. The Facebook app even runs okay on it. I’ll be happier still in a month when I can move my account away from Optus and start saving even more.

The trouble came when I was playing around with my Contacts. I went to edit Rae’s information and accidently deleted her mobile number. ‘No problem’ you say, ‘just put it back in’. Yes, well, thing is, um, I don’t know her number.

The exchange went a little like this.

“Hon, what’s your mobile number?”
”What?”

“Your mobile number, I need to put it in my phone ‘cause I accidently deleted it.”

“You don’t know my number?”

“Um, no, when I want to call you I just tap your face.”

“You hit me every time you want to call me?!”

Needless to say I’m making an effort to learn it now.