Sunday, March 30, 2014

Long time working, losing ground

Well, it's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened.

I've actually put on 0.2 kg, so I'm not overly happy with how my weight is going, but I know that I've not been eating the best (I had two birthday parties to go to on Saturday alone) and I've also not taken the time to exercise.

On the home front, however, I've been making good progress.  I've sold a total of twelve things on eBay and have averaged about $50 per sale for my old Super Nintendo (SNES) and Nintendo 64 (N64) games.  I had listed sixteen items last week, but shouldn't be surprised that most of the Nintendo DS games didn't sell as the market is currently flooded with them (they are still current) so I think I'll store those away until their value has increased a bit.  I've pretty much sold all of the games I was planning on selling (will still keep some as it'll be handy to introduce children into computer games without having to fork out hundreds of dollars for the latest system), only a few left.

I'm now planning on using the fifty free listings per month that eBay allows and going to start listing other things as well, like books and DVDs.  Looking through my garage and book shelves, there really is such a thing as too many things.

Another positive is that we've now taken delivery of the cot and so the process of converting the study into a nursery.  We're a little early (4 months to be exact) but the way I see it is the more we do now, the less we do later.  Also, there's no point in hanging onto the study for another four months when it'll become the baby's room for the next 18 or so years, so there's really no point in delaying the inevitable.

Anyways, today is Monday 31st of March and my current weight is 112.2 kg (1.0 kg lost, 32.2 kg to go).

Looking at the fact that since starting this blog I've only actually lost 1 kg, I'm really going to have to start making some big commitments...  but that is a post for another day.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Two steps forward, one step back

It's been two weeks since my last weigh in and I was justified in being nervous: I had put on 0.3 kg in weight.

Having focused on all of the different things in my life (career progressing training, getting my house ready for baby and other things) I had neglected both my diet and my regular walks.

The up side was that I've finally completed over a week of training which has taken me away from my usual duties (my job is such that I'm still expected to complete those duties, despite being on away on business related training) which will keep my busy with catching up on the back-log, but at least I'll be back in the driver's seat.

One of the downs I had was that a friend's ashes were placed in his family plot last Friday.  He'd passed away late last year from cancer and it was very upsetting for all who knew him to lose him.  True to his character, he never told us he even had cancer because he probably didn't want to burden his friends with his problems.  He was a great person and he'll be sorely missed.

On the up side, I've rounded up most of my old video games and have started photographing and cataloging them in preparation for posting up on eBay.  I'm not sure how I'll go, or even if I'm doing it right, but time will tell.
I've decided to drip feed my games onto eBay as I don't want to overload myself with having to package and mail out fifty different packages to fifty different address in a single week.  I'm also thinking about potential buyers who may not be able to afford to buy multiple items from me in a single week.

So far I've listed five of the items and, if that all goes to plan, I'll probably post up ten per week until I have sold all the games, at which point I'll start putting up other items around the house to clear out, like books and DVDs.

With all the stuff I'd amassed (extra weight around my belly aside) in my years of living at home with my parents I'd say that, if I sell 40 items per month I should be inventory free by about November... of 2025!

Of course there are many things that I'll want to keep for sentimental value, other things that I'll keep to let my children play with, but I really do have a lot of stuff that is just taking up room that perhaps someone out there may want.

Anyway, I've made good progress in my way forward, just not in the weight department.  I must get back to watching what I eat (not easy on training when so much temptation!) and going for walks.  Hopefully we won't have too many more hot days left this year.

Today is Sunday March 9th, 2014 and my current weight is 112.0 kg (1.2 kg lost, 32.0 kg to go).

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Of opportunities and compromise...

I'm very depressed at the moment.

February has been a huge month for me both personally and professionally in that this month my workplace has received word that we'll continue to operate for another two years at least, which is far better news than those poor workers at Qantas received last week, I found out a former work colleague passed away late last year and I didn't even know about it and I've passed on the career opportunity of a lifetime for various reasons.

My work situation pretty much speaks for itself in that our organisation in general is only assured of another two years of operation, after which deep cuts may take place with myself being included.  That's what makes my third reason so hard to swallow.

I was basically offered an on-going position working in a rural area for what would be a hefty salary increase, would be a secure position for life and would give me the opportunity to move up greatly in my career.  The two catches are that it would mean my wife wouldn't be able to continue to work in her current job (five hour commute) and we'd have to move away from our respective families (about five hours drive away).

The point about her job is a bit of a sticking point for me because, due to the lower cost of living in this town, if we were to move we'd be able to easily live on my salary alone, would even be able to put money away and I've just got this feeling that once my wife's got our baby in her arms she's not going to want to go back to the stress of working, not even part time.  In our current location we could afford for her to take some time off when the baby is born, but with all of our current financial commitments (mortgage, gas, electricity, etc) we'd slowly be going backwards.

Like anything financial, once you start going backwards the momentum builds and continues to snowball until big decisions are forced to be made ie downsize house or move to a cheaper area.

I'm feeling depressed because on the one hand I want to provide for my family and give them the kind of life that they deserve and give my wife the option to be a stay at home mother, but on the other hand the easiest way for me to do all that would be to commit her to being a stay at home mother and, worse, take us away from our family support network at the same time.  This being my mother-in-law's first grandchild, I don't think I'd ever get forgiven.

The job itself is also a very interesting one with big budgets, lots of growth opportunities and, most of all, lots of autonomy and the opportunity for me to actually be the one making the decisions for a change.  In short, I'd be able to become one of only two senior people in my field in a small region.  My cousin who has a very big entrepreneurial spirit lives in a small town and thrives because, as he puts it, "I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond than a little fish in a big pond".

I put it to my wife that we could always treat this as a seven year plan (as the bulk of the interesting work would probably be coming to an end by then) and we could move back to Melbourne so she could go back to her full time job just before her seven years leave could run out.  The simple answer was that she didn't want to live in that small town, regardless of what freedoms it could provide her from having to work, even if it meant we could have several more children without having to balance when to have them with when would fit in with work.

This opportunity is a one time thing, so if she changes her mind in six months then the ship will have already sailed.  My biggest dread is that in six months time she does just that, then get annoyed that I didn't try hard enough to convince her to go in the first place.

I'm not sure if this is a common thing with wives, but my wife has a habit of running around doing things, then if it happens to cause her problems it's my fault.

An example of this is that our house has locks on every window.  She was worried that we'd get robbed by someone breaking the window and unlocking it so she locked all the windows, gathered up all the keys and put them in one place when I wasn't home.  I didn't notice she'd done this until I wanted to open a window and she grumpily went and got a key for me.  Fast forward several months and she's now forgotten where the bulk of the keys are and the only keys we have to open the windows are the few that she'd fetched shortly after hiding them.
Today, my wife wanted to open a window and promptly yelled at me with "why are all the windows locked?!?"  That was my cue to go and fetch one of the few located keys.  She believes that the obsession to lock things comes from my side because I have a compulsion to lock doors (mainly front doors) because to leave them unlocked is to ask for uninvited guests in.  She grew up in a small town (different one) and her family doesn't really worry too much about it unless they're going out or at night.

I guess I'll have to just accept that my situation in that I'll have to stay in my not-so-secure job to allow us to stay in the location my wife wants to live and hope that I'll still have a job in two years time if she changes her mind and decides she wants to stay at home longer than she's currently planning to.

I just hope that I'm not going to look back on this passed opportunity as a mistake on my part.  Only time will tell...