Everything but the kitchen sink.

Here's some updates since the last time I posted.

We still don't have DSL. We're in the "waiting for Telstra" stage, and as soon as they get their act together, Internode is going to contact us and we'll get the rest of the servers over here. And it's still painfully slow using a modem. Ugh.

In the "why didn't I think of this before?" category, I made pancakes this morning on the barbecue. Because there's this huge flat plate on it (two of them actually), and so I can do six pancakes at once instead of one at a time. Which really cuts down the cooking time, and they don't get cold so quick, except I didn't realise at first that I'd need to run it hotter than we do for cooking meat. But now I know, so next time it'll be real quick.

We got a ladder today. So now Darrin can get up in the roof, and run cables (as soon as we buy some, probably next payday), and he can put all his maps away now in the top cupboards in the bedroom.

We now have a soap dish and a towel bar in the laundry, and we've taken the screen off the window in the laundry so we can run the hose from the washing machine out on to the lawn (because if we run it into the sink, the floor drain backs up).

We still have apricots falling off the tree.

Gas cooks quicker than electric. Some of you probably already knew this, but I've only ever used gas ovens in other people's houses, and home ec in high school. Our oven is probably older than both of us put together, so it needs to be lit manually, but it does the job.

I have the new Fleet Farm calendar.

The cats are mostly adjusted to the new house now. Biscuit still jumps a bit, but he always did anyway.

We can now walk in the shed. After Darrin brought home tables from work last week, it was just piles of stuff, and then the other day he organised it so everything is around the walls.

And...umm...oh yeah. I bought bananas yesterday for the first time in about a year. No way was I going to pay up to $15 a kilo for them. Now that they're back to around $5 a kilo I'm willing to buy them again once in a while.

Think that's pretty much it. But I'm sure I'll think of something else after I hit "save" and kick myself for it. Ah well.


*urp*

I just went to a staff lunch at the school with Darrin, and I ate WAY too much....

Anyway, so I'm here using the school's fast internet catching up on some of the websites I visit regularly. And I thought I'd post another update on things.

Got our address changed with a few places in the last couple days. Got our first mail at our new house - a Christmas card and a letter from the conveyancer. Got some extra bookshelf supports, because we've run out. Got a cheap phone at Big W so we don't have to pay Telstra an extra $2.99 a month just to use their phone - it'll pay for itself in 10 months. Got some taps to (hopefully) let us connect the washing machine in the laundry room, because there aren't any there yet, just the ones for the laundry sink. They don't quite look like what I thought they would look like, so I hope the lady who showed them to me was right. Anyway, I always keep receipts for things like that at least till I know they're working, and longer if they have a warranty. Got about 20 boxes of books put away last night, and all the empty boxes are stacked on one of the chairs in the lounge room. Darrin got the computers we brought along all connected again, so although we don't have DSL yet, we do have a network, and we can use our media box, and play our music, watch our movies, get to all our personal files. And we're borrowing a power point tester to check all the points in the house, particularly that one I tried using for the fridge the other day.

And did I mention the apricots? They're very tasty. I had four of them this morning. Might have to get a net for the tree though so the birds can't get to them so easily. And this is a DRY year - one can only guess what the fruit would be like if we'd had plenty of rain over winter.

Okay, so now I've read all my websites & everything, so I'm bored. Off to find Darrin and distract him from work. ;-)

Home sweet home

As far as I can tell, we're all moved. We have one big room full of all the stuff that we don't know what to do with yet, and the rest of the house is more or less the way it's going to be. I haven't been at the Glynde house since we left there at...what, 7 or 7:30 this morning? Yeah, THAT early. Darrin woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, then about 5:45 I woke up because he was up, and I knew I wouldn't be getting any more sleep either, so we just got a WAY early start. All the better. We actually got the trailer a day early, so we were able to bring over a load this morning when we brought the cats.

Oh, and how did that go? Not bad actually. Calico REALLY didn't like being put in the box, but it was better for everyone if she was. She meowed a bit begging to be let out, but thankfully it wasn't the entire trip. And Biscuit? Well, first he hopped up in the back, right in Darrin's rear vision. We coaxed him down, he meowed a bit, but he really wasn't too bothered. He just kept looking out the window, and any time he meowed I reached back to give him an ear or chin rub, and he was happy. And then about five minutes from the house, we smelled a smell. And Calico had her back to us. And then quite possibly because of that smell, Biscuit thought he'd make his own smell. Almost as if they'd communicated and said "Let's show them what we think of this car trip." Thanks, guys. At least they were solid smells rather than runny ones.

Yeah. And then Darrin unloaded the trailer, and I told him where to put things. And I got hungry, so I hopped across the road to the shop and got us some breakfast. And then we ate, and tried to comfort the cats (who just wanted to hide), and then he went off and came back with Craig and the full trailer a couple hours later. In total, the two of them filled up the trailer AND the back of the car three times, and emptied it all three times, and by the last time they came back they were both looking pretty red, because it was pretty sunny today.

We (okay, I) found one dodgy power point. It just happens to be the only one in the kitchen (a double), and every time I plugged the fridge in, the ENTIRE HOUSE shut off. When Darrin & Craig got back, we tried a different point, and success. So yeah, now our food won't go bad.

And Darrin's put in the request to get DSL moved over, so hopefully we'll hear something about that this week (and hopefully Telstra won't screw it up).

Yep, so that's pretty much it. We're officially residents of Salisbury now. Already got the obligatory Commodore. ;-)


A little bit of everything...

Firstly, yesterday I had the entire site shut down temporarily to try to stop the spammers from spamming my recipes. And then I turned it back on again, and got seven more overnight. So I thought I'd take it one step further and download the new version of the cookbook. Well. I installed it, and it doesn't work. So until such time as I can a) fix it, or b) find a new recipe component that WORKS and doesn't take spam, it's gone. If you wanted a recipe I'll be happy to email it to you, just ask.

Second, we're getting keys today. Yay. So I've got the car, and I'm going to pack it up with some stuff to take over once we get the keys, then pick up Darrin when he's finished at work at about 3. It's the last day of the school year so the staff are just having a party and getting drunk, and everyone leaves early anyway.

We're moving boxes tomorrow and big stuff on Sunday, then sleeping there Sunday night for the first time. We decided we'll take the cats over first thing Sunday morning, then Darrin will pick up Craig and they'll get the trailer. I'll stay at the new house with the cats and unpack some of the things we've brought over, like all the kitchen stuff. And then we'll probably have a barbecue because it's easy and quick and everybody loves a good Aussie barbecue.

My breakfast this morning was/is a bacon & egg McMuffin, hash browns, and hot chocolate.

Oh yeah, and I'm still pregnant. Still getting my bladder kicked daily.

Yeah. We're moving. There's gonna be some downtime.

All essential services (web, email, IRC) are staying here until DSL is working in the new place. We don't know when that will be because we're waiting for the phone to get turned on before we start any DSL setup. Once the DSL is running, there will be downtime of AT LEAST three hours while we disconnect everything here, pack it in the car, drive to the new house, unpack it, and set it up. Possibly longer because nothing computer related ever goes with the best case scenario.

We will try to give plenty of warning before we shut things down, but if it happens on a day we're not doing anything else, it's likely to just happen with only an hour's notice. Seriously folks, we suffer as much as the rest of you do when our servers are down (more so actually), so of course we're gonna do whatever we can to make it go as quickly as possible.

The final countdown...

This morning we got the last of the bank forms signed and handed back to our consultant at the bank. And I just got back from our regular bank with a cheque to give the conveyancer, covering the last little bit to pay for the house in full. I'm dropping it off this afternoon when I pick up Darrin from work. And then the next thing we'll probably hear from anyone is Friday afternoon sometime, when the conveyancer tells us we can pick up the keys from the agent.

And then you may not hear from me for a while because I'll be too busy unpacking everything, and we'll only have a modem at the new house for the first few days.


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