We haven’t been sleeping the best of late, as either the boy or one of the dogs wakes us for a little attention. Last night it was both, at different times, so after Dee put the dogs outside and took Jules upstairs for a feed I put my headphones on and tried to drift back to sleep listening to a mix of ambient noise — like I was on an air-conditioned train, riding along the beach, with a light rainstorm, monks chanting in the background, night owls hooting, crickets chirping …

Surprisingly enough, the racket sent me off to sleep for another couple of hours!! When I awoke, I was almost paralysed by the sound, tooooo relaxiiiiing … but managed to yank the earphones out and stir myself for breakfast.

Ken and Mary were on their way to Warburton, so stopped in briefly; when they left, we headed to Bunnings for supplies, and a sausage in bread — it’s almost mandatory! We picked a few colours for the kitchen and dining rooms, found the stuff Dee needs for patching the walls and even remembered to grab some ceiling hooks to hang the chandeliers, avoiding the typical, “Oh! We forgot the…” situation we usually find ourselves in about halfway home. Dee put Jules to bed and got to painting wall swatches; I burnt off some of our garden waste and mowed the still-somewhat-wet grass. It’s not the best job, but looks a damn sight better than it did and I’m not sure we’ll get a better chance this rainy winter.

The next-to-final bit of good news today was an email from a potential employer asking if I was interested in “… continuing the conversation.” It’s for a pretty exciting, challenging role, and could be a bit of an adventure for all of us if it comes off, but I’m still very early in the process so we’re trying not to get too excited about it. But it would mean a break from Melbourne and a different lifestyle for us, for a little while at least. (I also have a pretty promising role in Melbourne that could come together, so at this point I’d be chuffed with either.)

And the penultimate cherry on the cake of a day? Dee finished a level on Mario Galaxy 2 that has been plaguing us for a week! Good times.

We picked him up around 4 and headed into Collingwood, stopping oh-so-briefly at a skate shop on Brunswick St to buy some bitchin’ baby threads … strange, but once you get past the boards and rolling gear at the front there’s a little “kids” section at the back, featuring some very cool stuff from Paul & Paula: hoodies with dinosaur heads or sharks, cool little jeans. It’s like Etsy – they’re one-offs, and custom sizes can be ordered – but you can see the clothes before you buy them.

A quick coffee in The Fitz and we headed to Smith St, found a park and had a wander. Smith St: we pull up across the road from a “happening” — music thrashing, leather jackets clinking, Mohawks, er, mowing. “That’s not where we’re eating, is it?”

Thankfully not: Gigibaba was a tiny little place half a block up that served meze sized Turkish food: kebap, sausages, baba ganouj. Apparently it’s hard to get a spot, as they don’t do bookings and most of the seating is along the bar. Despite their rep, we got a table with room for Jules’ pram, admittedly when they opened at 6 — and the food was delicious. Expensive, but delicious.

We ate, ordered more, ate more, repeat … eventually we were full enough to resist the burger joint next door, so headed off, sated and done for the night. It was fun!

A Southern Yellowjacket Queen - Opo Terser

It started one morning — Dee came out to find a bunch of dead wasps in the sink, with a whole lot more (alive) outside the kitchen window. We investigated (well, Dee investigated, she’s braver than I) and realised they were flying in and out of a hole in one of our weatherboards … awww crap, we have a wasps nest!

It got worse as the day went one: we could hear them inside the walls, crawling over each other, rustling and chittering. (Okay, maybe not chittering — but rustling! Definitely rustling!) Too, too creepy: we called an exterminator and were very happy to hear he could come that same day.

The actual “extermination” took about 15 minutes, and most of that was the guy getting into and out of his biohazard suit. He then told us a delightful tale about a Thai rip-off merchant, how to get out of speeding fines, and his attempts to form a kingdom of one. But by the evening, no more rustling!

We’re getting a few quotes to do the whole house and surrounds now, kill everything and dissuade it from coming back.

Once signed up I haven’t allowed myself to consider not finishing, and fear of the event has had me up almost every morning for a run or body-weight circuit – 6 days a week in fact, with just a single morning off. I’m about halfway through the C25K programme now, and feeling fitter than I have in a while – although my beer belly is persistent! I’ll get you, belly. Anyway, it’s not so much about losing weight for me, although that will hopefully be a nice side effect – it is about finishing the Mudder with my team mates, doing something that in 2011 seemed all but impossible.

I’m not a natural runner. I’ve mostly forgotten how to swim. I couldn’t run up a hill without getting out of breath, let alone do it while carrying a log on my shoulder. But come 2 months time that’s exactly what I’m going to do!

Diet-wise I’ve been trying to stick to 1600kcals of high-protein, low-carb “food is fuel” – lots of steak, salmon, lentils, kidney beans and diced tomato, as well as a protein shake for breakfast before exercise. My weight seems to have “stuck” at around 92kg last week, so I’m trying to keep better track, get more sleep and drink much more water.

Tomorrow – February 1st – means a new “stage” for me, so tonight I’m doing up a new training calendar. I have basically missed one day in January (and subsequently made it up) so it is times to increase my training I reckon.

Can’t wait! So excited about this!

We finished work a little early tonight to take a quick spin to Knox – we completed our cutlery set, and Dee got some cupcake baking trays, whilst I splashed out on some running gear. The guy in the Mountain Designs shop had even heard of the ToughMudder course!

Two more months of training for me, then: I’m nowhere near ready yet but I can already see an improvement, and I’m totally psyched about doing it! We’re going to head down to Phillip Island on the Friday (run is on Saturday morning) with my two team-mates, maybe stay ’til Sunday to make a weekend of it – a muddy, freezing, exhausting weekend!

Tomorrow we might have a friend or two over for a barbeque lunch I reckon. Saturday is my Cheaturday – a day to refueling on carbs and eating/drinking those things I’ve denied myself during the week – so at the very least I will have some chocolate and beer. Probably not at the same time.

Plans for the weekend?

Dee’s solution to an escaping puppy – the fence to end all fences. We even have a gate! Using the treated pine posts that used to be the dog yard (and which Jared and I ripped up last time he was visiting), we’ve dug holes and wired up some proper dog-fencing. Each panel has a tensioning wire at the top and tent-pegs at the bottom, so she’s not getting over OR under. I’m so proud of this effort – Dee did most of the work, but I helped in my lunch break yesterday so I get to claim partial credit.

Next outside project is to tear up the pavers, mow and weed the lawns, and maybe hoe the ground flat to let new, soft grass grow on the only piece of flat land we have – the future site of any play equipment we get for young Jules, so keeping Lucy out should avoid any nasty grass-mines (I swear I stood in the same one three times yesterday – in bare feet!). A few retaining walls, a little concreting, and we’ll have finished stage one.

In the nick of time, too – I’m not sure if Crazy Duck Lady and friends actually DID anything on Sunday when we were out for dinner, but Monday morning the short, temporary fence was pushed down (Dee thought it was me and I thought it her) and Lucy’s chain unscrewed i.e. one link joining two shorter chains was “twiddled” open, so she could’ve theoretically escaped AGAIN – and no doubt Duck Lady would’ve shot her “in self defence”. We can’t say for sure that it was funny business, but I’ve never seen a chain link untwiddle itself. I’m putting up a webcam this morning for when we chain her up outside, in a nice visible location, just in case she gets some funny ideas.

Waiting on a wifi webcam from Hong Kong now; if its any good I’ll buy a bunch more and setup Zoneminder security system.

We didn’t know how she got out, but “hardened” the perimeter in various ways: more wire, nails, tent-pegs so she couldn’t tunnel under, etc. A few days later she got out again but this time we were home and vigilant and Lucy made it as far as the driveway before I was after her with a leash.

I reached the bottom of our driveway in time to see Lucy sniffing around the neighbours front yard, whilst said neighbour, rather irate, harrangued her from the porch. Mongrel this, mongrel that. I collected my dog and faced off with an apoplectic middle-aged woman. “She bit my duck! She bit my duck! That cost me $100 vet bill! I’ll call the council!” I promised to come back once I’d put Lu back inside.

She was raging! Pointed out paw prints in the mud, but grudgingly admitted she’d not actually seen Lucy do anything -indeed, she hadn’t seen Lucy before that day. When did it happen, I enquired? “Yesterday,” she sputtered! Ah, but Lucy wasn’t out yesterday. “The day before then,” she groaned. I agreed to pay the vet-bill, all the while protesting Lucy’s innocence – considering it “neighbour tax” and helpfully warning her about the many dogs in the street, not to mention the area. She was nice as pie once she had the money in her hot little hand.

Then yesterday we were putting the final touches on a dog proof fence — 6-foot high, staked into the ground, made from electrified adamantium — and Lucy, recognising the inevitability of yard-bound life and wanting one last fling, saw her opportunity and made a break for it. She’d been somewhat under house arrest for the interim, chained up when we were out and supervised when she went out for a pee, so we were quickly after her.

This time she didn’t bother with the neighbour, walking past towards her German suitors, but nevertheless our Crazy Lady neighbour was out there brandishing a pitchfork and flaming brand, with the now-tired threat of a call to the council. Difference? This time she met Dee.

“Calm down, she wasn’t even in your yard,” I imagine Dee said, but it’s hard to be reasonable with unreasonable people. “Good, call the council!” Dee returned with Lucy, then went back for a chat that was reportedly even more frustrating than the first. “She’s not a mongrel,” Dee explained to me later. “That’s just factually incorrect.” She did however manage to get a copy of the bill and a receipt for the money I’d paid.

The end result is we’re finishing the fence today and hoping our neighbour — a renter, “townies, eh?” — was so distraught by the situation that she moves out and we never see her again.

After a torrential downpour last night, it looks to have cleared up nicely for Isaac’s birthday in the park.

We’re running late, of course – after the work Christmas dinner on Friday night and an Audrey Tatou movie on Samedi, I was wiped out this morning. Lucky for me Dee is so capable – she not only managed our babies (one small, one large and furry) effortlessly, she brought me breakfast in bed AND finished our De Blob 2 game on the Wii! A guy couldn’t ask for more…

We arrive just in time to sing “happy birthday” and watch Isaac cut the cake; he immediately resumes his tireless play, from bubbler to spinny-roundy thing, haring around the park with nary a backwards glance at nap-time. Good to see he’s enjoying himself!

Take turns holding other peoples’ babies for a while, then time to head back home. I’m still so tired that I may well have an afternoon nap; more likely I’ll do something mostly brainless, like play a game or do some Euler programming.

Thank you all my lovelies for the birthday wishes, I feel much loved! . I had a brilliant day, slept through the night with Jules, fab present from Glenn accompanied by mud cake for breakky, shopping then lunch at chaddy, then back home to find flowers on my door step (thanks big sis) topped off with pizza and my fav wii game DaBlob2. Dexo