too many passwords

Finally hunted down the one for this again.  My autoremembered password got lost.  Dad is ok, all went well, I've been busier than ever.  I'm now in the middle of hunting a password for something else I forgot about...so this may be the only blog for another year

and since then...

Dads heart played up (possibly triggered by robbing bees being too much).  He ended up in hospital and has now had a heart valve replaced and one of his bypass arteries from 19 years ago replaced and a pacemaker put in because his heart just didn't start again on its own...freaky.  Apart from that he surprised the Dr with how well he recovered and improved. I was spending every evening up at the hospital until he came home and I've moved back in with the parents to assist.  He'll have to go back in when everything has healed and have a heart shock because there's still a flutter they need to reboot.

Annnd my little brother is getting married and Monday I'm flying to Wales for the wedding.  its cold and wet in the welsh summer.  A bit like today here really.

bees

I robbed bees for the first time in my life yesterday.  Dad isn't well enough to handle it on his own at the moment (4 hives was a bit much even so) and I went out with him to the property they are sitting on and did some of the heavy lifting.  I didn't even get stung.  They are remarkably calm compared to my memories of the kamikazi bees we had when I was a kid (which is why I never went robbing with him).

I'd do it again...and probably will have to, I think he needs to do some back up work on them in the next month.

meanwhile....

I checked my blog and haven't updated since September.  Ooh.  I now have a newly built Deck which I painted over Christmas (so much for having money).  My little brother is getting married at the end of June in Wales, so now my slightly wobbly accounts are going to get more so.  I've booked leave so I can go over.  Now to book flights.

At some point I'll put up some before and after shots....maybe

biiiiiillllllssss

In quick succession I've had rates, house insurance, electricity, phone, internet, car insurance, car registration and annual professional memberships.  I'm glad I'd worked out what most of it would cost and worked out how much per month to put aside in an offset account.  I feel like I'm bleeding money but at least I have it to bleed.  On the flip side, I have money sitting there waiting for the deck contractor to get back on deck (slight pun intended) from his broken elbow.  I also need to replace the gutters, which are leaking and dripping daily down the fascia behind the cladding and likely producing dry rot , but I might wait a couple of months or so until bank accounts stop hemorrhaging.  Annnd then it will be christmas.

Related to bills, my electricity looks awful until I look at the average figures and realise I'm only using 2/3 of the electricity of households the same size as mine.
I also now have enough information to decide which water plan to be on.   I use only 1/7 the allowed water of the std plan.  But this is just enough that if I switched to the water saver plan I would only save 1/7 of the cost of the water bill over a year.  I think I'd rather pay that and put in a more complete garden sprinkler system.  I'd probably save more on a well planned veg. garden & citrus trees over the year.

woo hoo 3 months since I went dark!

Phew, glad thats over

I just finished the busiest work week of my year.  Teaching about 35 contact hours and having to do all the support stuff around it for an intensive subject.  At the same time I had to finalise marks for a previous subject - 5pm Friday deadline - I got it in at 5:45pm, but the woman I was sending it to was also working late to finish them.  Everything else everyone wanted me to deal with got a "talk to the hand".  I have about 5 different groups who will be demanding my attention next week, 3 of which have already filled up Tuesday.  On top of that, I'll be putting out any fires in the rest of the intensive (taught by someone else) as there are some hardware issues that will need dealing with.  Monday is a public holiday , but I'll be in at work by 8am anyway to start on them as the students are turning up at 9 - no public holiday for any of us.  I do plan to skive off and go to the show though as soon as I can get away.   Expensive entry, rides and show bags, dust, crowds, infectious aerosols and surfaces.  Mmm, my reward for being a diligent subject coordinator.

Greener pastures include wildstar

I spent all my in game earned money and an hour and a 1/2 installing a flight of stairs and an upper story floor in my rocket house last night.  Need to game more to build more.