Moving to Melbourne Musings

Count Down to Melbourne

May 13, 2013 – 6:28 pm

According to the count down widget on my phone, there is only 292 days left till the big move! Time has certainly flown by since the trip in November where we decided that we were going to move to Melbourne. I’ve slowed down my clearing of stuff, but have certainly accumulated quite a lot of things for the garage sale. Hoping to have one in the semester break of uni where Matt doesn’t have to work the weekend. All proceeds will be going to the “Move to Melbourne” fund!

 

A new found hobby of mine is to borrow books from the library & type up the recipes that I intend to cook, so that I don’t need to buy the entire book! Must say, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of recipes already. Now the thing is, I have got to try at least one recipe per week to make things interesting. Hoping to start that soon actually, hoping to make edible food! :P

 

Also on the topic of starting studies, I’ve worked out that I start on 26th August, not 27th May as I was previously advised by OUA. Heh. An extra 3 months of waiting around to start studying! Not too bad I guess, could be a lot worse. Gives me more time to cull my belongings for the move, really.

 

Been contemplating taking up jobs as a library assistant or library officer while waiting for the move. Only thing holding me back is the pay, really. As much as I have had it with my current job, it does pay well & it is pretty cruisy. The fact that I’ve got a mortgage is scaring the crap out of me if I left my current job. Such is life, pretty much. Only 292 days. I keep telling myself that.

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Green Thumbs

Gardening Update – April 2013

April 24, 2013 – 11:10 am

I’ve been rather excited since my last post about my seeds. I’ve been looking up this awesome website Gardenate which provides so much useful information about when to plant seeds, what to plant where and the whole shindig! Been planning where to put stuff into my garden beds, but I still need to prep the actual beds where the veggies are to go as there is currently just sand and mulch mixed in. On Friday, I will be making the old Bunnings trip on Friday to get more potting mix, plus investing in some compost to try to give my soil a bit of a boost before putting in any plants. Not to mention, I’ll be trying to plant some seeds into little pots or go the greener route of using old toilet rolls to plant out some seeds first. Problem with that is, where to source heaps of toilet rolls! Haha, not a bad problem to have all in all.

 

Will try to get some pictures of the process I use to feed & prep my garden beds before planting. Not really a stock standard approach that I’ve read from anywhere, but I usually just collect food scraps and mix it in with bits of paper and other biodegradable stuff around the house to be buried in spots in my garden beds. You’d be surprised at how many things can be put in a compost heap (not that mine’s a heap or anything…). This is a great article that I found about the principles of composting. I don’t have space for a compost heap (as seen in my previous post), so I apply the composting principles by burying my food scraps & compostable items. There isn’t much information out on the internet about this, but I have found some articles here and there about it and from my experience, it has been proven to work. I composted my way in a spot back in January, and the soil there is quite fertile at this point, with all the food scraps decomposing into nice, fertile compost. When there’s a will, there’s a way. I usually cultivate the soil every fortnight or so from where I bury food scraps. Usually I have a few composting “holes” in the ground at any given time and cultivate the soil so that it spreads things around. So far, that’s the plan for the long ANZAC weekend here. It’s predicted to be a hot one with 29 degrees for Thursday, 27 degress for Friday and 25 degress for Saturday. All in all, not bad gardening weather for this time of the year. Will be attempting to plant some broad beans & onion seeds to try to get things kick started around here. I’ll probably end up throwing in some carrot seeds too as I’ve not been very successful with it thus far, so I’m not quite expecting anything from it.

 

I’ll throw up some pictures in my next post! Hoping to do a step-by-step guide on composting my way, so stay tuned!

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Green Thumbs

Seed Shopping Spree

April 21, 2013 – 9:50 pm

Had a bit of a ‘moment’ when I came across a few gardening blogs based in Melbourne (Hooray for Aussie gardeners! Links below), and poured through the posts on growing veggies & fruit for their family to eat. The amount of produce that came out of their gardens were incredible! Such that ignited my errr, slight obsession with growing things again. My parents are here for a visit & they’ve revamped my garden beds quite a bit & I must say they are pretty impressive.

 

Revamped Garden Beds Revamped Backyard Revamped Garden Beds 2

 

I’m mostly happy about the beds itself, just rather meh about the fact that there is still just sand everywhere. I’m planning to lay a layer of weed mat down followed by a layer of pebbles & rocks for the bulk of the area with sand, but in one specific area near my alfresco, I’ll be putting down some slab pavers surrounded by some pebbles to make a feature area. So far it’s taken a while to organise for this to happen, mainly cause it costs quite a bit but also I’ve been pretty busy with things and don’t want to think about it too much haha.

 

Anyway, getting back on track. I must say, reading those blogs last week has made me want to attempt gardening more so that I can grow my own veggies to eat. I’ve actually begun composting to feed my soil & I’ve actually come to enjoy it pretty much seeing something come out of scraps. I’m a sucker for those kind of things. Since there is just sand in the big patch round the side in the pictures, I’ll be chucking food scraps & mixing it into the soil to get some organic matter for the plants to feed off.  Speaking of plants, here are pictures of the seeds I bought the other day. I know, I did get a bit obsessed with it all. Matt actually had to stop me from buying anymore as I would have bought all the seeds there if I could!

 

Seeds 5 Seeds 1 Seeds 2 Seeds 3

 

Showed mum & dad the seeds and dad wanted to try planting out the corn. I should be trying to plant out other stuff soon, might even have to create another garden bed for more fruit & veggies! Yes, I obsess over things sometimes. Oh well, I’ve only got another year or so before the Melbourne move, might as well make use of the garden space while I can! Which one should I attempt to plant out first? I’m thinking of doing the eggplant, broad beans & corn. And both the broccoli. I can’t decide!

 

Hoping to get some planting done next weekend along with some purchases at good ol Bunnings. Sometimes I wonder why Matt humours me when I get all excited & insist we visit Bunnings. On our last visit there, I bought a kids sized garden cultivator. It was on sale & it actually fit me. Not bad for a $7.95 purchase, rather than the $29.95 adult version. Being midget size sometimes has it’s benefits. Hopefully when I blog next, I’ll have some pictures of my handy work in the garden & there will be some progress with my current plants! Till then, happy gardening everybody!

 

P/S: No, this isn’t turning into a gardening blog. Hoping to do a blog and/or vlog post about cooking from the garden when I can harvest some stuff, so stay tuned! :)

 

Links of blogs I visited:

Suburban Tomato

Bek’s Backyard

Kebun Malay-Kadazan Girls

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Personal

Turning Waters

April 14, 2013 – 9:24 pm

In regards to yesterday’s post about changing careers, I thought I might write about that today. In essence, I am a registered Occupational Therapist but I don’t work in a hospital. I work for a disability employment agency supporting people with disabilities in open employment. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve been in my current job for 4 years & it’s been the 3rd government contract since I’ve been there. Things have changed heaps & it currently is pretty bad for the entire industry.

I’ve blogged before about feeling rather restless at work & have made attempts to change my job but to no avail. I must say, it was all pretty much in the disability industry but from different angles. In my previous post I wrote that I have been accepted to study Information & Library Studies at uni.

My boyfriend is currently doing the same course & from the looks of things, it’s pretty manageable. He’s worked in the library for years & in the nearly 2 years we’ve been together, I’ve watched him work & to be honest it’s quite a varied job with quite a lot of interaction with people. It’s also one with a lower stress level than my current role. I currently have to account for each 15 minute block of time throughout the day & bill it to a registration. It’s stressful sometimes as things don’t always fall into 15 minute blocks & I end up doing extra but feel like I’ve done nothing cause I can’t really bill. I think this is only something people in the industry would really understand.

For me I don’t look at this as taking a step down in my career, but more of a diversifying one. With this qualification, I can be a librarian but I also bring with me skills from the disability industry & I believe will have an advantage when it comes to getting jobs. Somehow this feels like a right step for me, I’m not entirely sure how to explain it. Worst come to worst, I’ve got a Post Grad qualification paid for by the government. Not too shabby considering my 1st degree cost just over $80k.

I’m actually quite excited about going back to studying. It’s been a good 4.5 years since I’ve hit the books but it’ll be quite gratifying. This time round it’ll be quite different as well, I’ll be working full time while studying full time (no, I don’t have a time turner necklace) which will be quite interesting. I might have to pull more late nights & cut down on my gaming :-(

Also, I will be doing 2 of the same units as Matt, so it’ll be pretty handy when it comes to studying. At least I’ll have someone to refer to when I’m not sure of stuff. My only regret was not starting the course earlier as I highly doubted myself in being able to get in & I was not sure if I could really handle studying while working full time. I start on the 27th of May, which isn’t far off! Here’s to going back to studying! :-)

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Growing Up Moving to Melbourne Personal

Turning 27

April 13, 2013 – 1:47 pm

It has dawned on me in the last month or so that I’m now 27 years old & I’m in my late 20s. Somehow in my mind, I haven’t aged since I turned 25. Wishful thinking much?

 

27 candles

 

I think maybe the fact that I haven’t celebrated my birthday in the usual dinner time this year has something to do with it. Either way, I’m not fussed, just saying.

 

The fact that it dawned on me that I’m now 27 hit me while I was driving down to Matt’s place last month. Then in the past few weeks, I’ve just been noticing little things that I somehow always managed to gloss over. I’m by no means a skinny person, but I do have a healthy appetite and could shovel away heaps of food without it affecting me much. It’s lately that I’ve noticed that I put on weight a bit more easily around the love handle area and find it a bit hard to shift. I could usually shift 1-2 kilos per day just by having a reasonable amount of food & a sensible amount of water. Nowadays, its a bit of a different thing.

 

I’ve also noticed that I’ve got aches & pains in a lot of places: my back, my neck and my knee. I’ve been seeing a chiro on & off for about a year now and each time I go, it definitely helps a lot. Although it does make me think that my body is slowly degenerating. As it does as you grow older. I keep picturing my ligaments & cartilage wearing out a minuscule amount with each step I take. I know, I’m a bit of a drama queen at times, just ignore me.

 

The reason for this post is probably the fact that I’ve had an epiphany that I’m not living my life to the fullest & there is so much more that I want to do & could probably do. One of the main ones is to look after myself & chase my dreams. I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to actually getting down to doing stuff as I keep thinking of what other people would think of me if I did this or didn’t do that. I’ve been working on that for a while now & so far I’m getting a bit better at it and it feels good. I’ve still got a long way to go, but I feel like I’ve made progress and am coming out of my shell. Also, I’ve got to stop waiting for the perfect circumstances to come along before doing things, as that’ll never happen. Just do it, as Nike always tells us.

 

Something that has been on my mind quite a bit lately is the move to Melbourne & what I’m going to do for work. I’ve been in the disability industry (I don’t like that it’s called an industry. Makes me feel dirty & feels like I’m taking advantage of people with disabilities) for just over 4 years now in my current job. Basically I support people with disabilities in open employment and ensure that they are getting a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. Part of my role involves listening to their problems & having a yarn with them. For a lot of the people I deal with, I’m mainly the only person or “friend” they have to talk to about things and tell them what to do. In essence, I take on all my registrants’ problems & talk them through it. For the most part, its quite easy as some of them just talk about what they’re going to do on the weekend or which footy team they support. On the other hand, some of them bring pretty heavy stuff to the table & I’m running around liaising with people, trying to fix their problems. There are many people in the industry that I know who have burnt out or suffered copious amounts of stress from it and I feel like I’m close to hitting the wall with it. There is only so much of people’s problems I can absorb before I break. I’m basically a sponge absorbing things, but not letting them out.

 

That’s probably something I need to work on but for the most part, I feel like my time in the industry is drawing to a close. I’ve made plans to go back to study in an entirely different field (libraries – a story for another time) and somehow knowing that my days are limited in this field has put me at ease a little. I’ve only got around 9 months before I leave the industry (might or might not be for good) and pack up to move to Melbourne with Matt. Also the fact that it’s a new beginning excites me. I know there will be challenges in itself to move to Melbourne, but I’m ready to start a new chapter in my life. Wish me luck!

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Moving to Melbourne

Perth Bucket List

April 9, 2013 – 11:53 am

Considering that we’re moving from Perth to Melbourne soon, there are a few things left for us to do. Having lived in Perth for just over 9 years now, there are still manay things I haven’t done & would like to do before we live. I’ve just started a page on top to list the stuff we’re looking to do or places to visit before we leave. Keep track of our Bucket List progress via the tab above! :)

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Green Thumbs

Summer Gardening Update

February 25, 2013 – 6:35 pm

Note: This post was written on 4th Feb 2013 but only published today as I had issues extracting pictures from DropBox & my Note 2 died on me :(

 

As promised, here are picture of my gardening escapades this summer! No pictures of my lettuce cause that’s half dead and I’m just a tad sad from it after it growing so much at the end of last year!

 

2013-02-06 17.12.41

Here are them chilli plants. I’ve got 5 mild chilli plants sitting in one corner of my garden, the one at the back is a hot chilli plant. The mild ones are really mild, so I’m hoping the hot one is rather hot as I do want to try my hand at making homemade sambal from my chilli plants :)

 

Chilli Close Up 2Chilli Close Up 1

Close up pictures of the chillis that have started to form on the hot chilli plant. I’m really looking forward to them finally growing out as these are the buds since I got the plant when it was a tiny seedling.

 

I’m hoping the crop this year will be a bumper one before I have to give up my place when we move to Melbourne. I’ve kinda lost hope after a few of my seeds didn’t sprout but that might just be the bad weather and the heat wave we had over summer. I’ve put in a batch of Asian greens over the weekend, hopefully something will come out of it!

 

All pictures taken with my new Samsung Galaxy camera. Frigging awesome stuff!!

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Moving to Melbourne

Moving to Melbourne – Almost Garage Sale Time

February 1, 2013 – 11:52 am

I guess now would be a good time to update you with a Moving to Melbourne post! Since my last post, I have since partially cleaned out my walk in robe and filled out that box with clothes & miscellaneous items for the garage sale. It’s scary to see how much junk I’ve accumulated and carted around with me for about 9 years. Oh, my 9 year anniversary of moving to Perth as a student was on the 27th of January! Yay me!

 

Anyways, I digress. I’ve only emptied the clothes part of my wardrobe out, I’ve not even looked at the shoes or bags or cosmetics yet! I’ve still got a chest of drawers to rifle through to see how much more I can put aside. That being said, I’m hoping to get down to about 4 suitcases worth of clothes to bring over to Melbourne? Sounds a lot but its mostly winter clothes (I freeze easily!) and good quality stuff that I can’t not take with us. Trying to pack your whole life up is a bit of a job to do and so far I think I’ve made a bit of a progress. I’ve gotten rid of clothes that I’ve hung on to for years but never worn and I’m looking twice or three times at things befoer I buy them in the shops now. On the bright side, I have saved up quite a bit doing this clearing out of stuff. It’s quite cathartic!

 

So far left to do:

  • Clear out chest of drawers
  • Clear out shoes
  • Clear out handbags & bags
  • Clear out cosmetics

 

That’s the plan for the month of February. Next I have to tackle clearing out all the foodstuff in my pantry and use up food within the year, clearing out my garage & repacking all my books that I want to take to Melbourne and other bits and pieces. More updates & pictures soon!!

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Green Thumbs

Spring/Summer Gardening

January 31, 2013 – 11:37 am

I’ve recently picked up gardening as a bit of a hobby. Seeing all the pictures on Facebook and Twitter of people with their gardens, made me want to grow my very own veggies too.  The summer heat in Perth has been a bit extreme and not being at home all the time has resulted in a few casualties. My lettuce which was thriving was half baked in the heat but has sprung back to life with some TLC and plenty of water! My chives and celery have semi died with the heat. My parents half created my veggie patch for me and I’m only really beginning to nurse it and fill it with more potting mix now. Since I built my house, the backyard has only ever been filled with sand and its not the best of growing conditions. We’ve put in some potting mix in some areas but not a whole heap. This is my version of composting, the lazy way. Please be warned that I’m only experimenting at this stage and have yet to see results of how this will turn out. Hopefully, it won’t be a disaster zone!!

 

Over the weekend, I’ve emptied my pantry, fridge and freezer in an attempt to clear out expired food and lo and behold I found some interesting things that I’ve put aside to put into my veggie patch to fertilise it a bit. Some of the things I’ve chucked in there were: frozen brussel sprouts (they didn’t taste anything like the fresh ones), old frozen mixed berries, old wholemeal English muffins, eggs shells, old frozen basil bits and some cuttings from when I cooked green beans the other night. Needless to say, it was a whole mish mash of stuff in there. I dug a hole in the general area where I tried to grow some carrots from seeds and failed, poured the food stuff in. Next, I covered the whole slightly with some sand/potting mix and poured a bit of potting mix on top to ensure that the food was burried. I then watered the area to try to encourage it to decompose quicker. With the summer sun and heat, the food should break down relatively easily and quickly. With the help of a bit of water, and soluble fertiliser and the sun, hopefully this will make the soil a bit more fertile than what it is currently. Will also try to add some torn up pieces of newspaper and cardboard to the mix to help with the composting. I will be forking the patch a bit this weekend in hopes that it some of it will have started to break down. Stay tuned for pictures!

 

Next for my garden is to continue this process till the entire veggie patch is conditioned the same way. My mistake previously was that I didn’t put any soil wetting agents to ensure that the roots of my veggies had adequate water. Looks like that’s on the shopping list of gardening stuff for this weekend!

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Finance Matters Growing Up

Finance 101

January 30, 2013 – 3:20 pm

I don’t proclaim to be a financial expert or even have a background in finance or economics. I’m a science student through & through. I’ve had friends ask me how I’ve managed to buy a house being young & single (both of which I’m not anymore by the way) and still have funds to live a modest lifestyle. I must admit, I was brought up with my parents drilling into me common sense and being thrifty with my purchases. I was given a monthly allowance for which I had to pay for food, tuition fees, transport fees and any extras I might want. I learnt the hard way about budgeting (I had to borrow money from my younger brother a few times to tide me over for a bit as I was a bit extravagant with my purchases, bless his cotton socks as he never told my parents! :P ).

 

I write this as what I’ve been doing for the past few years and as to what my current financial state requires at the moment. Please don’t take my words as gold as  I’ve tailored this for me. If you want financial assistance or advice, please see someone qualified to assist you with this.

 

I recently read a number of articles here and here and realised how similar it is to what I currently do. Strange as it sounds, I currently have 4 bank accounts for different purposes. Since I’ve read these articles, I’ve modified my financial strategy to be somewhat like the articles. I’m hoping it’ll give some pretty good results in the next 6 months or so, I ‘ll let you guys know!

 

  • Everyday Cheque Account

This is the account where my salary goes in each fortnight and this is the only account of mine which I have a card attached to it. This account is kept to a bare minimum as it doesn’t generate interest & is used for accessing cash & purchases online.

 

  • Rainy Day Money Account

This account is pretty much a no go zone. I take about 5% of each pay & chuck it in here and not touch it. This account is online and attracts a bonus interest rate for topping up each month and making no withdrawals. Shop around for banks or financial institutions that offer high rates as this money essentially just sits there making more money. What you want is for this account to have enough money to tide you through 3-6 months if the unspeakable happens and you can’t work.  Once you hit this amount for this account, I’d say good on you! Then I’d say use the extra to put towards your mortgage or a credit card debt or something that you might have accumulated. I have an opinion on credit cards, but that’s another story for another time.

 

  • Specific Savings Account

This account is for the big item things that you might be saving for. For example, for me this is where my funds to buy my air con came from. Save this for big item things that you don’t usually buy and might be a one off. I keep about 5% of my pay in here each fortnight to help me save. If I get bonuses, they usually get chucked here so I can buy the bigger item things quicker! Haha. Oh and did I mention that this account is also online based but is a flexible account where I transfer the specific amount to my Everyday Cheque Account for these purchases. Oh and this money also earns a high interest rate as it sits there. Shop around for good interest rates and easy access without any fees or penalties if you withdraw your money. It definitely pays to spend an hour or 2 just browsing banks & financial institutions for the best product. If you find it hard budgeting for multiple items in the one account, you can always open more than one of these accounts to help you keep track. There are accounts which costs nothing, so have a look around!

 

  • Bills & Mortgage Account

The name of this account is pretty self explanatory. I generally dump a good portion of my pay into this account to sit in while it waits to pay mortgage & bills. This account is the same type of account I have for the Specific Savings Account so that it also generates interest. This is essentially like a offset account. My stupid bank decided I don’t earn enough (I actually surpass the threshold by at least $4k) and I don’t have enough assets to warrant for me to hold an offset account. This is a bit of a “screw you!” to the bank to try to gain some of my interest back while paying them my mortgage. I’m on a variable interest rate, so each month’s payment is a bit of a hit & miss so I tend to generally put too much in there just to be on the safe side. Now that is where it comes in handy as the extra amount there will gain interest while I wait for bills to come in & pay from that account.

 

I must say as all my accounts are with the same bank, I have it pretty easy with transferring things over with a click of a button. My self-restraint is generally pretty good too, so I’m not tempted very often to overspend on things. I guess at the end of the day, it really boils down to how focused you are at managing your finances and how much you don’t want to end up with no money. I’m a visually motivated person & I like creating pie charts or those thermometer type things which mark down how much I’ve saved & how much more I’ve got to go to my goal. Use whatever method you need to and always remember that you are in control & it might take some hard work but it is possible to overcome debt & live a modest lifestyle.

 

And that is my birthday present to you. Happy 27th Birthday to me! :)

 

Hope you enjoyed this post and please leave me a comment on what you think and if I should post more of these types of stuff or what you want me to write about!

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