One Day I'll Learn How to Juggle

Friday 24/04/09

Hello Bloggees - it has been rather blank in the blogosphere. I'm hoping that you haven't all given up and gone away. I've been hiding inside my head for a few days struggling and juggling with  more balls than I know how to handle. 

Over the years I've tried to teach myself to juggle and even had a few lessons.  I can do it for a while but it doesn't seem to stick. I'm fascinated by what seems to be the zen of juggling, I can do it when I stop focusing on it but as soon as I realise that I'm no longer concentrating of course I start to try and control it, the rhythm goes and so do the balls. 

Not sure that it has the same root cause but I'm not very good at dealing with a bunch of  competing priorities particularly when it comes to spending money 

Over the last week or so I've agreed with my boss at IBM that my desire to work a three day week in IT needs to become a reality so that I can start to build up the Garden Design business and also continue the farm rebuilding process. It means a fairly big salary reduction at a time when we need all the money we can get to replace the house and other farm buildings. Concurrently I've started my first garden consulting assignment which is really exciting but I've been putting off for no good reason, calling the other potential clients that I met at the flower show and booking time to see them. My son has asked for and been committed a reasonable chunk of money so that he and his partner have the best possible chance of affording a house before the first home buyers grant gets halved post June. The insurance company asked for a statement from our bank allowing them to pay us the amount insured. It came as a bit of a surprise but after I talked to the bank  and discovered that while we would have significantly less cash in hand for building, we would have practically no mortgage and would be able to draw down on the money in the mortgage account if it was required. Apart from Ros having an instant meltdown it meant that we had to reprioritise our building strategy. $38K for a wooden barn now looks like a hell of a lot of money, particularly when a metal similarly shaped building is about $8k - $10k. Either way we need to ensure that we have sufficient for a house first. Checked with Nillumbik to see what was the biggest size shed I could build without permit. If you guessed 3m2 then you were spot on! However you can have several of them as long as you don't join them together. The caravan which we had expected to see  this weekend has a mechanical problem that will most probably resolved by next weekend. In the middle of  all  this, Ros suggests that one option might be to get the farm cleared up and then just let it sit, slowly appreciating in value and use the insurance money to buy somewhere else where the sailing was closer. I got quite excited at the prospect and began to think Gippsland, Perth, SA and especially Tasmania where they have trout fishing too. Head swirling I was still considering the possibilities when the Phoebster came into bed early one morning for  snuggle between us and I knew that it was going to be too early for a long distance break from the grandchildren and so it proved. I think I've committed to 5 years and then a check point. And of course there's the decision about the kind of vehicle I need and how much I will have to pay for it. Red ball, yellow ball, blue ball, green ball, multicoloured ba.. bugger there it goes again.

Somewhere in there I had two days sailing with Ian in La Pirogue from Yaringa Marina at the NW corner of Westernport Bay down around French Island and across to Newhaven Marina at the eastern end of Phillip island  where we spent a very pleasant evening and sailed back the following day. 

Tomorrow we're having a working bee up at the farm - cleaning up fences, finishing the goat fence for Woodie, moving more bricks, cutting down the vegetable garden hedge, cleaning up the veggie garden and more timber clearing and then we'll have lunch!  We'll have quite a crew with Cait, Nicco and the kids, Cath, Jamie and the girls from down the road in Valias St and of course Ros & the blogger. Richard will be up for an hour or so and we might see Ben, Em & Willo.

By the way, I liked the photo that was published in the Diamond Valley Leader so much that I'm going to see if they'll let me have it to use on my business card.

Busy day ahead - time for bed.