General Life

Kevan is generally enjoying his job. Good working conditions, money could be
better, but he is now on a bonus system as well as the basic so knowing what
he’s like, should be bringing more in.

He’s still on the lookout for something else, scans the papers twice a week, but
nothing that does anything for him.

I haven’t found anything yet (possibly something to do with not looking
properly!) Am only just starting to rewrite my CV (or Resume as they call it
here). I have got to make loads of rubbish up about management role for the
past 14 years (household management!!). Have been given quite a useful web site
about long term mothers returning to the workplace so that should give me some
ideas.

The house still looks a little like we are moving. We need a shed to put all
Kevan’s stuff in as well as general stuff that would normally go in a loft
(don’t really have one). Before we get a shed, we have to level the bit of
ground it’s going on. Before we do that, other stuff has to be done and so it
goes on.

We are getting quotes in for a swimming pool so that should be done by May/June
time – just in time to sit and look at it because it will be too cold to swim in
(well, me anyway).

Had a guy round yesterday to give us a quote for Solar heating for hot water so
need to ring him to get them to do the job. Apparently it will only take a few
hours and they will be able to come in the next week, that should keep the leccy
bills down a bit (or a lot).

Had $7,000 put in our account the other day which was nice. You get a first
time home owners grant here. It’s obviously meant for young people to get on
the property ladder but they also give it to people who have simply never owned
a property in Australia before so we got it.

Immediately went out and bought a ride on mower so Kevan can stop doing an acre
of grass with a strimmer. Quite funny, but we went to the shop on the Saturday,
he said one would be in on Monday, I could go in, check it out and pay and they
would deliver it Tuesday. Anyway he didn’t phone Monday so we rang him. Very
apologetic but the supplier couldn’t supply for a few weeks. He then said he
could get us a different model the next day and because we had had to wait we
would get a discount! Got the new mower on Wednesday for a couple hundred
dollars less than we should. Was hoping it would be delayed a couple of weeks,
then they might have given it to us.

We now have a decent carpet in our bedroom. Nutty Nora (previous owner) got it
sorted on her insurance policy as the water damage happened whilst she was here
and continued after she had gone but we had had it written into the contract
that she would sort it. Slightly better service than Rolands or John Lewis.
Guy came and measured, showed some samples. We went into the shop to look at
more, three days later it was fitted and didn’t cost us a penny.

We just haven’t found any poor service yet but am sure we will soon. It can’t
be all good.

We now need to sort out the flooring in the other bedrooms. Maybe get rid of
all unpleasant smells then. Trouble is Heather wants a pink carpet and I would
rather she had lino or wood with a pink rug – easier to clean and vac up long
hair. Flooring is quite expensive here so need to get it right first time. I
would really like to replace all the tiles everywhere else but it is such a huge
area of tiles it will cost a fortune and other stuff needs doing more. They are
white tiles with grey marbley grain running through them so they always look
dirty and quite a few of them have scratches or chips out which show up black so
I spend my time cleaning the floor and it doesn’t look any different.

Heather and Abs are still enjoying school. Abs got a birthday pressie from a
school friend and a card signed by the whole class. She was very impressed with
her birthday cake. It was an ice cream cake with sponge bottom and stacks of
chocolate on the top – had never seen one before. It lasted a week!

Heather has made some good friends. They all seem to be heavily into Jesus but
don’t try and convert her so she doesn’t mind!

We haven’t had any BIG spiders in, infact I have only seen about 6 biggies
outside. We get lots of daddy long legs spiders – look like UK daddy long legs
but are spiders. They are apparently very good to have around because they keep
the Huntsmen away but as you can imagine anything with 8 legs lasts about 3
seconds with us. We did have a few BIG cockroaches in the house for the first
couple of weeks but sprayed the whole inside and outside of the house so haven’t
seen any since except one which must have crept in through a door when one of us
came in or out. They fly which is not a nice experience! What we do get a lot
of are little cockroaches (German Cockroach) They are a nightmare to get rid of
as they come up through the drains. They are generally under an inch long and
die very quickly when sprayed. They don’t worry me too much, don’t know why.
But god knows what our skin and lungs think of all the sprays but to be honest
don’t really care as they do kill all the creepy crawlies very quickly.