Tag Archives: holidays

Back to Reality

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After 6 weeks of holidays in the USA and Canada we have been home for a little over a week.  We went back to work the day after arriving home so the priority has been catching up on sleep and doing the basics to keep things running smoothly.

There have been some significant changes to ‘The Castle’ in the past few months and now that it is mostly finished, I can share the details with you.

We have had some of the verandah flooring replaced and it has all been sanded and resealed.  The railings are all new and possibly the most exciting thing from my point of view is the screening and gate at the end of the verandah.  This provides a bit more privacy and security to the verandah and creates a clearly defined entrance to the house.

Looking along the front verandah.

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The railing on the patio.

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The new entrance.

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The whole picture.

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We have lots of painting to do and there are plenty of other projects on the home improvement list but this is a big one ticked off.

If you missed the holiday adventures you can read all about it here.  There will be one more post once I sort out the final spending tally but other than that I will be back here – hopefully on a fairly regular basis.

Other Places

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I have not had a chance to update you recently but the lack of posts is due to the fact that we are on holidays.

We have left Psycho Dog, Mr K and the chickens in the capable hands of the housesitters and headed off on an adventure to the other side of the world.

If you would like to join in the fun please come over to my travel blog.  Lots of commentary and photos on where we are and what we see and do.

Posts here will resume when we arrive home – but that is not for several weeks yet!

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Appointments

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Part of being organised is making and keeping track of appointments.  This week I have appointments for a dental check up, haircut and mammogram on 3 consecutive days.

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I am lucky because Breastscreen and my dentist both send reminders when an appointment is due.  I simply make the appointment and make a note in my electronic calendar at work.

My hair appointments are generally 7 weeks apart and I make the following appointment when I am at the salon.

The dentist and hairdresser both send an SMS reminder the day before the appointment.

My haircut on Thursday was one of 3 that I planned and booked back in February.  I did this as I was calculating the intervals so that I could make sure I had my hair cut just before we leave to go on holidays in July.  I will have it cut 2 days before we leave so that it will last for the whole holiday.

What regular appointments do you make and how do you manage them?  Diary?  Electronic notes?  Some other method?

Tracking 2015

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Today is Saturday.  Where did the week go?  I am very busy at work so although I have been thinking about my blog that is as far as it went.

Not only is it Saturday, it is Saturday 31st January.  The final day of the first month of 2015.  1/12th of the year gone.  Have you already forgotten what you resolved to do better/differently/more consistently in 2015 already?

BudgetingOne of my goals was to actually track how much we spend.  We have never worked to a real budget – actually allocating a certain $ value to each item/category but we keep careful track of the regular bills – rates/insurances/phone/internet but is the variable spending that is more difficult to calculate.  I do not have a specific amount of money for groceries each week as I tend to bulk shop for dry goods and meat and buy perishable items on a weekly basis.  I need to average my grocery spending over at least 6 months to get a fair and accurate idea of how much we spend.

As I said it is the last day of the month and we have been shopping so there will be no more spending today.  The grand total of our variable spending in January was $5,134.53 – yes, over $5K!  Almost exactly half of that was airfares and accommodation for our Singapore holiday later in the year. So, $2,618.73 looks somewhat better.  This figure includes food, clothes, gifts, hobbies, eating out, entertainment, alcohol, car fuel and maintenance, haircuts, public transport, pets, medical/dental and incidentals.

Apart from the holiday spending which is really a one-off, the categories with the highest spend were food $623 closely followed by public transport $620.  This is really interesting because what finally prompted me to track our spending very carefully was that I wanted to know how much we would need to live a comfortable lifestyle on our terms in our retirement.  Giving up paid work is a few years away yet but it is important to budget for life without regular employment.  We will still need to eat when we are retired but public transport will cease to be an issue as all of that expenditure is related to our lengthy commute to the office.

Do you know how much you spend?  Working or retired?  I would love to hear your comments.

Done and Dusted

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Christmas is over, or in the words of Uncle D, “Well, that’s Christmas buggered for another year!”

I must confess that I was anything but organised this year but I am safe in the knowledge that I will have an opportunity to improve in 2015.  I did not even send cards/emails this year but I am planning to do make that a job for the coming week as I am at home and there will be time to make it meaningful correspondence.

We spent time at Caloundra with the family and had a most enjoyable short break.

2014-12-27 01Decorating the tree which we took with us.

2014-12-27 02Gifts under the tree and ready to go.

2014-12-27 03Trying on new hat and sunglasses.

2014-12-27 04Dressed and ready to go out for lunch.

2014-12-27 05Everyone is now back at their respective homes in 2 different states.  The Duke and I have unpacked and things will gradually return to normal.  As always, I am keen make the New Year a great one but more on that another day.

Best wishes to you and yours for Christmas and the New Year.

Shiny Shoes

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Just a short post tonight as I have been busy with the photo project which is progressing well.  There are a lot more of the older blog posts which now have the photos reinstated.

Last week I was in the local shoe shop where I had bought these 2 pairs of shoes a couple of months before we travelled overseas.

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I wore them practically every day for 6 weeks and have worn them quite a bit both before we left and since our return as they are simply some of the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned.  I asked about cleaning them and as I had suspected I was told that they could be washed in a washing machine.  I decided to handwash them using a little of the regular liquid detergent that I use in the washing machine.

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After soaking them for a few hours, I rinsed them thoroughly, squeezed the excess water out and set them out on a towel on the bench to dry.

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Once these are completely dry, I will repeat the process with the red ones.

The lady in the shoe shop also advised that you can buy replacement inner soles for $5.   It is nice to know that some things are actually made to last rather than designed to be tossed in the bin at the first sign of wear and tear.

Planning – A Haircut

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I had my hair cut yesterday.  Now that does not sound terribly exciting but I planned it carefully.  You see, it is 15 weeks tomorrow evening until we fly to the UK for 6 weeks and since I regularly have my hair cut about every 7 weeks it was important for me to have it done just before we go.

We also have a milestone birthday celebration for The Duke 6 days before we leave so I want my hair to be freshly cut for that event.

When I went to the hairdresser I discussed all of this and with the aid of a calendar we worked out the appropriate dates.  I will have 2 more haircuts before we leave – 12th June and again on 31st July.  I will look a bit like a shaggy dog when we arrive back in the third week of September so another haircut will be on the agenda as soon as possible after we return.

The other thing we did this week was more directly related to our upcoming trip.  We had new passport photos taken and sent off the forms for the renewal of our passports.

Enjoy the Experience

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I have written before about the benefits of experiences versus stuff, particularly in relation to children’s gifts.

On the weekend I bought tickets to a show.  It is a musical called ‘Pete the Sheep’ and is based on a book of the same name by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley.

Pete the Sheep
It is being staged at a local venue at the end of April and is suitable for 4 – 9 year olds so I decided that this would be a perfect Easter ‘gift’ for our 2 granddaughters.  I do not think an overdose of chocolate is necessary nor over-the-top presents so this seemed like a perfect opportunity.  I am sure they will remember an evening of musical theatre long after the chocolate wrappers are in the rubbish.

It was not all about the grandchildren, though.  On Saturday afternoon, The Duke and I had an opportunity to see a screening of ‘Philomena’ by the Maleny Film Society.  Enjoyable is not a word I would use, however, it was challenging and thought-provoking.  It was perhaps not Judi Dench’s greatest role but I am glad I saw the film.  We took the opportunity to become members of the society and look forward to seeing many more of the really interesting films that they bring to our community.

Philomena
I have saved the best, or most exciting, till last.  We have booked our tickets to see ‘Les Miserables’ at Queen’s Theatre in London when we are there in August.  For years, The Duke has always said that he wanted to see Agatha Christie’s play, ‘The Moustrap’ if we ever went to London.  A couple of years ago it was staged here in Brisbane and naturally we went to see it.  So, he is now feeling a bit like ‘been there, done that’ about it.  We trawled the internet to see what else was going to be on while we were in London and the standout for us was ‘Les Miserables’.  We saw the Australian production back in the early 1990’s in Adelaide and of course, the recent movie with Russell Crowe’s cringeworthy performance.  I love the story and the music and am really excited to be seeing it again.

Les Miserables