Shed is Coming Down

The weekends of hard work have paid off with our backyard now a clean canvas. Pulling down a 3 car garage was a good challenge. We had some help from Jamie's nephews, Michael and Hayden, how many kids get permission to throw rocks at windows or smash a hammer through it, we all had a bit of fun smashing the glass, cleaning it up wasn't fun though.

The demolition was injury free until we started recycling some of the timber from the shed and pulling huge nails out of it. I was pulling a nail with a J-bar and it slipped off the nail and I smacked myself in the head with pointy end of the bar. I saw stars, I thought for sure there would be blood, but no, my head swelled into a giant egg, my darling husband grabbed me some ice and I promptly growled at him for using the wrong ice. Then he proceeded to go to his car and come back with a hard-hat. So I put my hard-hat on and went back to work. I had a very tender head for a few days.

"Not" our Anniversary

Today is the 1st Anniversary of the day Jamie proposed. 07/07/07 and coincidentally at 7am. Well it was 9am in Auckland where he proposed but 7am Sydney time, I remember because I thought I had better wait til a bit later to start calling and messaging people. It brings back fond memories as he tricked me into looking out off the balcony of our hotel and when I turned around to tell him I couldn't see anything he was down on 1 knee with my ring in his hand and a cute little smile. It was perfect.

We have agreed that we only have 1 anniversary so all others must be void from my memory, the anniversary of the day we met and this anniversary of the day he proposed. Such an easy date to remember, can't we have 2.

Working Week

This week has seen some very positive outcomes for my business. I have finished my submission for Illawarra & South Coast Local Business Awards, Kim came and took this and other photos, the awards night is on in a couple of weeks and I am looking forward to that. Then I also decided to nominate for Business Champion which is a NSW wide award, I will find out if I am a finalist in this over the coming weeks.

Then today I was asked by my head office to do an interview for Mortgage Business magazine and she said it is only going to be a small full page article. So I will be published in the August edition.

So with all the work I have done this week, I think that means it's time to go home and do some scrapbooking.

Cleaning out the Shed

We are in the process of demolishing our current and very old 3 car garage to build a nice new colourbond shed right across the back of our land. In order to do this we have to move things and get rid of a lot of stuff. Finally the council plans have been verbally approved, just waiting on the paperwork to arrive.

In honour of the council finally getting their act together I decided to have a garage sale on Saturday. Jamie was off early to Paintball which left me to do it alone. I called for reinforcements and Aunty Marilyn came and brought some of her stuff as did a few of my friends, Colette and Tanya. The day was moderately successful and I sold a few hundred dollars worth of stuff, but when I looked in the shed there was still waaay to much stuff left. The decision was made to get up bright and early (5am) to take the leftover stuff to Dapto Markets. So we packed up the trailer with all our wares and I convinced Aunty M to stick around and come with me.

Well what a bizzare morning we had, arriving at the markets shortly after 6am to a stack of vultures with their torches and headlamps sticking their noses in the trailer and frantically asking what sort of stuff we had. I felt like telling them where to go - but I was still in a bit of shock at how they were carrying on. Someone mentioned that some of our books were stolen while we were unpacking. I was worth the effort and we packed up about 11.30 and headed home with about 1/2 of the stuff we came with so it was a good day. Next time I will be better prepared.

We still have a bit more stuff to get rid of but we are a lot closer to calling in the demolition team to get this project underway.

Work Sucks

Today I had to have a meeting with Danny who works with me to "Let him go" a very sad day as we get along really well and he has supported the business while he has been here, but unfortunately with the market as it is at the moment and him not bringing in any of his own leads the time has come. Back to the 1-woman show. I must say I have been putting this off for a while and a bit of stress has been relieved now that the "talk" is over. Danny said it seemed like we were breaking up, which was a little how it felt.

A Happy Day

Today I had a very nice phone call from the Illawarra and South Coast Small Business Awards to advise me that I had been voted in as a Finalist. The next step is to prepare a submission and photos as well as someone Mystery Shopping me, so I better keep on my game. Also need to give the office a little tidy up as they also judge you on clean windows and work area. I must say first job tommorrow is decluttering my desk. Just wanted to share that with you all. Oh and if anyone is free the Awards night is Wed 16th July in Wollongong, I will give you more details as soon as I get my pack.

Scrap Camp

I went to Vision Valley Scrapbooking Camp at Arcadia on the weekend, had a great time catching up with my friends who I really only see twice a year at these camps. I am pleased to say I didn't by any more scrapbooking supplies until about 5 mins before the shop started packing up and all I bought was page protectors (an essential item), so I was very please that I used all my current supplies.

I was scrapping my Honeymoon photos and have only just gotten through the first week which was Las Vegas and part of the second week which was Huntington Beach. I fear I will be doing this album for many more months if not years. I think from memory I did 23 pages so far, so it will be a monster album.

I even took my laptop and printer to the camp so I could journal as I went but silly me forgot to take the cable that connects the printer to the computer. Luckily another girl brought a printer which had the same cable so I borrowed that off her and was able to finish my pages.

I also had a pampering, so instead of spending money on scrapbooking, I spent money on me and had a facial, a pedicure and a massage, so I came home all relaxed.

The next camp for those who are interested is at Wisemans Ferry on 20th & 21st September, I have already booked in for that, it is only $125 and they really look after you with home cooked meals. Accomodation is not luxurious but the area where you scrap is awesome with a big fireplace and you can stay up as long as you want. (I have been known to pull an alnighter at these camps)

Bad Blogger

This blogging thing is harder than it looks, you actually have to remember to write something, otherwise your blog will suck.

Well what have I been up to lately.

Saw Sex in the City on Friday night with Lisa and Alicia, it was tops, I really enjoyed it, I laughed a lot, almost cried and was reasonably happy with how it ended. I would highly recommend it to anyone even if they weren't a huge fan of the TV series.

Caught up with Maxine on the weekend she has been away in Alice Springs working with Centrelink and I hadn't seen her since the Wedding in Feb, so it was great to catch up. Cindy had a gathering at her place and we had a few drinks and nibbles and a bit of Bon Jovi, it was great, and my head was thanking me the next morning for us deciding not to go out to the 80's band at Rooty Hill RSL.

This morning was my second week back with my personal trainer, I had only lost 0.5kg this week which was very depressing as I have have been really good this week compared to my normal eating, (except for the night mentioned above). Although I hadn't done any excercise homework. I trained with Colette today and my trainer Ian made me stay longer and ended up doing an hour and a half. He had Colette and I boxing as if we were in a bar room brawl, really funny, I had to punch her mits and then, his mits and then back and forth, picture the movie Roadhouse (but not really). We started pretending we were fighting over a man and then it was like, this is too hard you can have him. lol. So then we pretended to fight over champagne, well then it was on, you can have the man, but don't touch the Champagne. Such a fun training session. So now we are going to get together on our own to do some mid-week training as we are both a little bit unfit.

I am getting stuck back into my training for the Indoor Rowing Championships in October in Melbourne, providing I don't fall pregnant between now and then, this is my plan.

Work has been weird lately, 1 day very quiet the next flat out, today was pretty busy and I would have got a lot more done if my darling husband didn't spend half the day chatting to me on MSN, I will have to cut him off if he continues.

Monday Monday

Today was a pretty productive day given the huge weekend I had.

Lets start with the weekend, Friday night we went to see Indiana Jones at Gold Class Cinema, with my brother and his wife, I bought them tickets because Janet did about 4 hair trials and my hair for the wedding and I didn't have to pay for the trials, so I wanted to do something for them. They were Gold Class virgins, so I think I have spoilt them.

Saturday I nagged at Jamie to sort some stuff out in the shed so I can take it to the markets to sell and also to clean out the shed because it is getting demolished soon, we found some boxes that hadn't been looked at for 3 years, so I obviously hadn't been nagging nearly enough over the years.

Sat night we caught up with 2 of my Bridesmaids - Kristy and Maryanne and Kristy's mum Cheryl for a combined birthday bash at Mykonos greek restaurant in Parramatta, it was a good night, they played some really traggic music which I loved and after too many bottles of champas and a few bourbons and a bit of a pub crawl to finish we stumbled in at 4am.

Sunday I was feeling a bit worse for wear, I was running late to my Mum's birthday which I don't think went down well considering I was picking up the food for lunch and the kids and everyone was starving. Anyway once we eventually got there it was a good day.

Finally got home on Sunday and crashed on the lounge for a few hours and slept right through dinner and then crawled into bed. I seriously thinking I am getting too old for partying.

When will my life ever slow down. I said this to Jamie the other day and he said that I have to start saying "NO" to all the social events that we get invited to, but how do you pick and choose what to go to and what to skip out on.

At work today I started on a new business plan for the new financial year and called a few clients and tidied my office so I can be more productive.

I was going to relax at home tonight but since I have a scrapcamp coming up soon I had to get the laptop out and sort out some of the photos that we took on the honeymoon, I have culled and culled again and then I will leave it for a day or 2 then I will go and cull them again. I am trying to get it down to about 50-70 photos per group/place we went, some are easier than others.

Well it is now after midnight so I better head for bed so I can get up and excercise in the morning, my Honeymoon spread is not going away on it's own.

My First Blog

Resistance is futile, I have avoided Blogging for sooo long now, it has gotten the better of me. Perhaps it is that Facebook is boring me, MySpace freaks me out, so it is time to move on. So here is my very first Blog. I blame Cass for this as it was her Blog link that got me here in the first place. I may not be a frequent blogger but I will try and keep everyone up to date.