Real Estate

So we've finally bitten the bullet and signed with a real estate agent. After 10 days of having it on TradeMe and getting no enquiries we felt that in the interests of expediency it is best to let the professionals handle the sale. So we've gone with Harcourts and are very happy to have that responsibility taken off our hands.

Maybe I'll sleep better tonight!

In the meantime of course I have my big girl away for the week on school camp. Apparently today they went to Mt Cook and tomorrow they will be re-enacting the battle of Pelennor fields from the Lord Of The Rings - Return Of The King. So she should be having an awesome time.


Just over a week to go until Easter, and boy am I looking forward to the break. 2 weeks off work will be jsut what the doctor ordered. Hopefully by the time I go back we should have a buyer for the house and we can start getting on with our lives.

Well I know it aint much but at least I'm posting something!

Time or lack thereof

Well it has been nearly a week since my last post and I'm wondering where the time has gone.

I'm also wondering if I even have time to be doing this, but then again I figure nobody reads it anyway, so why do I do it?

I suppose I do it because I can and I actually enjoy writing when I can get off my sorry butt and do it.

So what's been happening? Well on Saturday it was my little girl's birthday and we had 12 additional 6 yr olds here for 2 hours. The party was a success thanks to my wife's wonderful planning. Everybody had a great time. Then in the evening/late afternoon we went out to a buffet restaurant where they had a great area for kids to play in, which made it quite relaxing for the adults.

We've had no interest shown in our house, so on Sunday afternoon we made the decision to engage an agent to sell for us. It will mean less $$$ in our pocket, but hopefully it will sell faster this way. So we are meeting with one on Wednesday night to crunch some numbers.

My big girl has gone away today for a school camp for the week. I didn't realise how much I was going to miss her, but I have felt quite emotional all day and she has been in my thoughts a lot. I know she is going to have an awesome time, I just pray that she keeps safe.

Well I might try and get to bed early tonight as I haven't been sleeping well lately, I keep waking up in the night with pins and needles in my hand from lying on it and it takes ages to fall back asleep again waiting for them to disappear. Maybe I should try a different sleeping position.

Hopefully I'll make time to write more frequently - I suppose I could do it when I wake in the night!!

A day in review

I've had a new bus driver this week. In fact he is the same one I had when I first started catching it from out here, but is relieving for our regular. He's awesome! No pissing around - just get on and get going. I'll be catching it with Rie in the morning as she has a student council meeting before school and has to be there early - nice to be able to spend some time with her.

Anyway had a good trip into town this morning, snoozed a little, watched some video podcasts - GeekBrief TV and StrongBad's Teen Girl Squad. Also listened to the Christian Comedy Podcast which is a fairly new one for me, but one I can tell I'm going to continue to enjoy.

While I was waiting for my next bus in town, there was an almighty bang outside which involved two buses colliding. Everybody swarmed outside to see the damage, except me and a few others. I wasn't that interested given that my bus was due to arrive and the more people gawking, the longer it may take to clear up and as the buses were blocking the exit of the bus exchange, I wanted it cleared up PDQ.

So I got to work in plenty of time - and checked the recovery of my HD on my PB. (Historical context insert: My PowerBook's HD gave up the ghost and although I have recovered some data from it, there is still plenty more I need so I have set it to do a "Thorough Scan" using Data Rescue II and now it is recovering the data.) It is a very slow process, made worse when somebody decided to come along and unplug it from the wall last time it was recovering data, so I had to start the whole process again.

The rest of the day went to plan and we had our weekly meeting after school and I stayed a little longer than my usual hour which meant I didn't get home until 6.15pm, so that was 11hrs 15mins away from home for the day. No wonder I'm feeling a little wacked.

Read an interesting thread tonight over on Mactalk about homophobia. Why was it interesting?

It never ceases to amaze me how people can get so strung up on what complete strangers say (or type), and how people can take offense at, what I see at least, the smallest things. We all carry prejudices with us, but we gotta be able to laugh about them. I am short, bald and rotund, only one of those characteristics I actually have any control over - short of surgery - and I could quite easily take offense at all those adverts that show hair replacement programs, or weight loss. Or feel aggrieved when somebody accuses me of being a Mac fanboy, or when somebody mocks my faith. I think we all need to grow thicker skins and get on with our lives, doing the best we can with what we have, wherever we are.

Tomorrow's hump day - then it is downhill to the weekend!
Take Care!

Remember:
"It is more blessed to give than to receive"
(Acts 20:35 NAS).

Secret Conversations

I was having a conversation with my wife the other day and realised about half way through that although we both knew what the other person was talking about, neither of us were using specific language.

The reason for this? Kids. That's right, our kids were in the room at the time and we didn't particularly want them to know what we were talking about specifically, so we were referring to general things while at the same time giving 'the look' so that the other person knew exactly what we were referring to.

After 4 kids, we have developed this ability into a fine art so that our conversations can go like this:

You know that thing we were talking about earlier?
Yeah
Well, I was thinking, we don't have to get that, we could quite easily get the other thing.
Oh you mean the... (look)
Yeah. Because, you know we don't really want to encourage...(look)
No! Definitely not. And the other would be better suited for ...(look)
That's what I mean, yeah
I agree, let's do that then.

So we can talk like this quite comfortably and still perfectly understand each other.

The trick is though to remember not to do it with people you don't know that well or else they may think you're a little touched in the head.