No Nose Smiley :)

It's been a while since the last post.  I constantly have ideas about what to post on but then find I lack the time to post and once I do sit down, I've forgotten what I was going to post about! Anyway this one is fairly mundane and just an update on our movements.  Basically we're moving house!  Will, myself and Sprocket are moving down to Lugarno.  We have managed to secure a waterview house for rent -- and the biggest bonus (other than the view!!) is that it should fit all our stuff.  It even has an underhouse storage area and workshop.  Most of this we didn't even realise when we went for the open for inspection as there were about 15 groups of people looking at the same time we were, so it was fairly hectic.  I'm actually quite surprised we got the house in retrospect as apparently there were other people who even offered more than the rent price.  The week we applied we also had two others we had applied for.  Both of those were highe...

Recently I have been catching a train from Central to Parramatta and then changing over to a T-way bus (either the T65 or T65) to get home.  Apparently I should be doing the Central to Blacktown and catching a T-way bus from there but that kicks me into the next MyMultizone and it's just not worth it timewise.  The other alternative is of course catching the 616X or 616 from Haymarket to home... which is very convenient but takes forever!  (over 1.5 hours). Anyway one of the benefits of doing the swap over at Parramatta is the stop in Parramatta.  There is an IGA Xpress where I can pick up last minute groceries and they even usually have cheap bananas or strawberries on sale too.  There is a small fruit and vegetable shop and a smattering of other useful shops such as Chinese style bakery and a Chicken shop.  Priceline is also there but I never see it open when I go through unless it's Thursday late night shopping. I've been missing my Chinese groceries...

I have just watched Food Inc and thought I'd Spread the Word (yep I watched it via one of links to my favourite sites Sprword.org ).  I do love watching those films and reading books such as Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation but live in my little bubble that tells me that surely in Australia we don't have the high level's of industrialised food production that happens in the US.  But the food we buy is   still cheap... so are we industrialised?  I see the cattle that is farmed when we drive up to Howes Valley and they are grazing grass and not fed in feedlots... but then where are all these "grain fed" steaks coming from?  It scares me to think that they are marketing grain fed as a good thing when it's definitely unnatural for cows to be eating corn...   So what actions am I taking as part of watching this?  (Especially since I've now watched many similar food related documentaries including the very ...

We are now solar generators! We have panels: We have an inverter (CMS2000): Installed on a garage wall on the inside (other side of this lives the meter box).  It was better than putting it on the inside of our side gate (as the gate swings inwards it would have been a gates distance from the meter box) and better than putting it above the meterbox (as it would be too high for me to reach/read).  The installation inside the garage though is fairly low.  I suppose low is better than high up...  And we even have our Gross meter: As you can see it only just got installed as it reads with all these zeros! We have been told with $0.60 feed in tariff we should be able to generate $1400 per annum.  Which means a payback in less than 2 years.

Standing at World Square stop waiting for a 616X. I have just seen 4 Hillbus buses and they were all 610X. And here is bus 5 but at least there was one 614X in between. Surely then the other buses should not stop on the M2? - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I'm giving myself a massive pat on the back as I have completed Week 5 Day 3 of the Couch to 5km program. I started Week 5 on Monday but felt very bleah so didn't run... (not a good start) but made up for it by getting up early on Tuesday morning and doing my 5 minute/3 minute intervals. That was a really good run. Then on Wednesday evening I did my 8 minute/5 minute intervals which was a killer. Those 8 minutes could not finish fast enough. I can definitely say I was very very apprehensive about the 20 minute break through run... but this morning (Friday morning) I did it! I walked Batman (dog) when I first got up and then when I got back I started on the treadmill. Did my 5 minute warm up at 6.5kph then decided to back off the running to 9.0kph (usually run at 9.2kph and walk at 6.5kph). And I did it. With my trusty Sandisk clip MP3 player and the darkness of the morning I jogged for the 20 minutes straight! AND I felt like I could keep going for another 10 minutes...

Very happy that I have managed to complete week 4 Week 5 is the real test of my boredom level there is a 20 min run in there! - Posted using BlogPress