First coat of undercoat

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First coat of undercoat, originally uploaded by Sams76.

This is pretty much how it is tonight. We’re about to head back over for a second coat on the far wall and to start the first coat of real paint on the other three walls. It’s going to be a long night. And, it’s also probably the last time I’ll post until about Wednesday. Glen has to organise with Telstra to connect the ADSL at the new house. This could take days, weeks, months, years. I exaggerate, but who knows when I’ll be on again.

Hopefully by the time you see this room again, it’ll look just as it should - purple in all its brilliance!

Off track, with good reason

I haven’t been eating too well the last few days, but I have my reasons - we’re moving house and painting etc. On Friday, we had Nandos chicken and chips - not exactly WW material! Then on Saturday, we had roast chicken with chips and some niceish salad. For dinner last night, we had thai food - so I had chicken with oyster sauce and rice.

I feel like crap for it you know. I’ve had a few headaches and at one point, I honestly thought yesterday wouldn’t happen, as I woke up in the middle of the night with a migraine. Thankfully a nice sleep on the lounge, some nurofen and a real fan to cool me down were enough to give me the rest I needed. It’s just a nightmare.

Having said that, I’m getting a pretty good workout from the sanding, moving etc. So I expect that the next time I weigh in - not this week, the week after, I should have a good result. If only I can find something decent to eat.

If anyone’s interested. The progress on my house is at this place.

Smelly Cork Tiles

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More Smelly Cork Tiles, originally uploaded by Sams76.

As you can see folks, this is corkboard we had to rip off the lounge room walls today. It was smelly and grungy and generally very unappealing. I am still dumbfounded at why some stupid moron would have put such a thing on the wall. It’s just gross and did I mention, smelly?

Anyway peeps. I’m off to bed, but wanted to leave you with a bunch of photos we took today. Nothing overly exciting, just some progress pictures on the loungeroom wall. Should be nicer photos coming tomorrow as we will be applying some paint and hopefully beginning the feature wall.

Did I mention the feature wall was going to be PURPLE? hahaha! I can’t wait. I finally get my purple wall. This house is so going to be trademarked ‘Sam was ‘ere! 2006′

Nightynight folks

Putty for snot…

We got the keys yesterday afternoon! Yay for us. I left work early to go over with Glen, and we immediately set about ripping those god-awful cork tiles off the loungeroom wall! The house was kinda disgusting actually. There was this rank smell in the loungeroom, which we discovered was the tiles. They ponged! Anyway, by the time we left last night, we had all but a handful of the tiles off the walls. In the process, we discovered that one of the tiles was hiding a huge hole in the wall - not surprising really. Also behind the tiles was a nice plague (?) of mildew, rampant across the wall!

Today, we packed the car full of stuff, including the dog. We drove over to the paint store, waited in line with a store full of angry tradesmen and one very flustered sales person - it was a wholesale store, so it offered trade prices, but it wasn’t worth our time to keep waiting, when we needed someone to give us lots of advice. So, we walked across the road to another retail paint store. They were hugely helpful and we walked out of the store less $450!

By the time we got to the house, it was 9.30 - despite the fact that we left home just before 8am! A lot of fluffing around.

So, we spent the day pulling the rest of the tiles off the wall, sanding back the glue, mildew and residue tiles and trying to fill the holes in the wall. At one point, we decided that we needed a better sander, so I sent Glen to Bunnings for an el-cheapo. As I was closing the gate, a gust of wind came up the driveway and instantly, I was locked out. So, I waited for 20 minutes until Glen got home and he climbed in the loungeroom window. Mind you, we have inherited about 20 keys for this house! It’s true!

Even though we’ve hit some snags today, we’ve made some good progress. Tomorrow, we’re going to put the undercoat on and hopefully start painting the walls. God knows if the colours we picked will actually fit, or look good, but at this point, I’ll be happy with anything!

Now, I’m going to get a tissue and blow all the dust from my noise! Pleasant imagery there, I know. Sorry, I guess! I’m finding it kind of amusing actually!!

PS: After spending the day at our new place, I’m starting to feel more at home. And it doesn’t smell like mildewy-cork! Now…must update load some pictures.

Alzheimers…

We had our final inspection this afternoon. I have to say our agent is a complete fucking moron. We were there for 28 minutes - we were driving away on the 28th minute and all through the inspection, the agent was watching the clock, trying to hurry us up and carrying on like he had to be somewhere else. We didn’t care and ignored him.

So, the part about the house. The house is fine. Thankfully, the power and gas were connected, so we could try everything. The carpets are well cleaned and quite nice. The revelation was that the cork tiling on the wall is in fact cork board - it’s unsealed. So, should be easy to get it off. I just can’t believe someone had that god-awful shit off the wall!! Anyway, the kitchen / dining area was a bit of a revelation. There’s a wall unit type thing connected to the wall and it’s god-awful disgusting. It’s just a bit of a sham and it’s going down!!

Outside, there’s junk splattered across the carport and backyard. In the sheds, there is a shopping trolley and a spare oven! Don’t have a freakin’ clue why!! On the upside, there are stacks of fruit trees in the yard - some will have to go away to make room for my plans.

Anyway, there’s a bit of crap left at the house, so we’ll be filling up our garbage bins with the stuff. Very annoying, but a means to an end.

Tomorrow, I head to work until about 2.30 and then heading off to grab the keys, take a load over to the house and start pulling down the cork wall crap. Fingers crossed it works. I dare say that updating here will be very short, if at all. I’m a bit focussed now! I’ve placed a couple of photos on my flickr site, but they aren’t overly interesting! Oh and yeh, there’s a really bad shot of me in the loungeroom - try not to laugh.

It’s the final countdown…

It’s getting a bit tense here, me thinks. Tomorrow afternoon, we’re heading over to the house for our final inspection of the house. It seems rather surreal. We’re ready for it. More than ready, baby!

This afternoon, we mowed the backyard. Glen’s been cleaning out the back shed and has packed a few more boxes and run some more errands. I think he’s a bit tense though and seems stressed, as if he’s not doing as much as he would like. But we’re on track, well loosely. I mean, I don’t feel stressed about it, in fact I just want to get it over and done with.

So, it’s all going to start steamrolling ahead tomorrow, so I’ll probably be very quiet, but I may post some pictures on my flickr page, so keep an eye out.

Suffice to say, it’s becoming harder and harder to concentrate on work when I am at work - I just want to be home preparing and daydreaming!!

Also, can you keep your thoughts with Snazzykat, whose facing a really heartbreaking challenge this week. What should be the happiest moment in her life - giving birth to her first baby, is turning into a nightmare. You see, little Sammy hass HLHS, which is Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Pretty much as soon as little Sammy is born, he will face an operation on his heart. HLHS is a life-threatening condition, so there is a chance he may not make it - but there’s also a large chance he will bounce right through it, as he’s proving to be a strong little man! Anyway, keep Erika and Jay in your thoughts

Uninspired

Yesterday was too hard to really update here and talk about my meeting for WW. But I kinda feel like I need to share.

I’ve been attending WW since January 5. I went to two community meetings before our workplace got together and decided to have At Work meetings and have the leaders come to our offices and conduct lunchtime meetings. So far, I don’t think I’ve really got much from any of these meetings. I don’t find inspiration from them and often wonder whether I should be doing something else with my time.

Yesterday topped it off - our leader sang to us! It was cringe-worthy for me. Honestly. This woman was a former high school teacher, a mother of 6 or something and she’s singing to a group of women who, at best are in their mid 20s. Hardly a singing-audience.

The woman gives out stars for good behaviour, inspiring ideas etc. This is fine, it makes it lighthearted and remotely fun, but I don’t get inspired to carry on for another week to make sure I lose weight and eat well. I find I get more encouragement outside of the meetings, when we’re talking in the office kitchen, or in the hallways. We ask how the other is, how they are coping and whether they are getting the support they need at home from spouses and family. I don’t get it from the meetings.

I’ll probably continue to go to the meetings, largely because they sell food stuff and because I have to weigh in! But I kinda switch off and I lose interest. That’s bad, right? The thing is, I get loads of support from Glen at home, he eats the meals. Hell, he even prepares them! He polices me when I reach for more chocolate, when I shouldn’t be! I get the support from work. My co-worker in my team is on WW with me and we keep each other honest. I guess I’m more fortunate than many others in the group. Many of them complain about spouses who refuse to eat the food, or spouses who cook dinner and refuse to cook something WW-friendly. I’m lucky, but I guess they aren’t, so they get the support they need from the meetings.

But let’s face it, a singing leader just doesn’t really do it for me.

Can’t hold the licker…

Is it just me, or did everyone else think that Harrison Ford was a little bit more than tipsy on Rove tonight? The man was slurring his words and looked like he needed big sleepy-bo-bos!

The man doesn’t seem to have much personality, which makes me think he IS a good actor!

Updating

Two things.

Check this out - new updates relating to weight loss etc will be here. Let’s see if I can get my crap together enough to update two blogs. I normally have enough problems with this one! Argh!!

Secondly, it would appear that our house inspection which was to occur tomorrow afternoon will be pushed back to Thursday night. No one told us that the power/gas wouldn’t be connected at the house unless we had it connected for the inspection. I would have thought the owner would have had it on because we were told that the owner would need the week to make sure everything was ok with the house - I would suggest that the stupid owner hasn’t bothered. That’s my thoughts on that.

Anyway, I’m trying not to get irritated, panicked, annoyed and generally pissed off about this stuff. We’re so close, let’s just get there. So, worst case scenario, we see it Thursday night, not Wednesday.

Ok, signing off. Gotta go pack some stuff shortly. Poor Glen was run off his feet today doing other small things and still hasn’t had a chance to pack, or clean. No wonder his blood pressure is up!

Loss

I weighed in today and lost another 600grams, even though I was convinced, going into the meeting, that I had gained!! I should really stop weighing myself in the mornings when at home. I do it because I want to prepare myself for whatever will happen in front of others at the WW weigh in. I know, prepare for the worst, get the best?? Hrm.

Anyway, short one from me.