Finally its Saturday morning and two long weeks at work after our wonderful holiday felt like a lifetime. The kids have moved out [yet again] and we have the whole house to ourselves which a lovely feeling.

My first ever diet

This week also marks the start of my Lite’n’Easy  diet program, I seriously have to lose 5 kg and I would seriously love to lose 8! The last year has been my laziest, I don’t know why, even with the renovations I struggle to find the desire to exercise. I eat fantastically but lack of exercise is literally killing me. So I thought I may compare my healthy eating with a controlled program hence I trying out Lite’n’Easy.

Week 1 – First Impression

Well ordering was easy enough, the options were easy too. I went for the 5 day all meals, standard pack. It had all the benefits of convenience such as delivery to my door, pre-packaged meals to take to work, a printed program to follow and was very cost effective.

Good points – brilliant service, easy to order, immediate email confirmation, support phone call from a nice young man .. it was a nice experience. Sure enough on the allocated delivery day, a Styrofoam esky was delivered to my door with all the nominated goodies for the week. Yay .. on time and no problems!

Problemo 1 – most of it is frozen and we have the tiniest freezer on earth. It simply didn’t all fit so I unpackaged the lot and pulled a magical trick to stack everything into the freezer and pushed the door shut.

Missing 1 – the menu! I thought the nice young man on the phone said it would also come in the esky however the confirmation email had a link and eventually I found the right page to print.

My jam packed freezer, and I had already eaten 1 day of the 5 sent.

My jam packed freezer, and I had already eaten 1 day of the 5 sent! Mmm = dog food.

Breakfasts:

  • Were surprisingly enough, I thought I would starve. They are varied and you can stagger the quantity throughout the morning.
  • In reality the frozen single slices of bread, yoghurt, fruit and muesli I already had at home. In fact it was really no different to what I already ate. In fact what I already ate was healthier! I already had chosen far less sugar in my meals, more natural yoghurt, gluten free cereals and less butter.
  • Plus the volume of single packaged frozen bread slices was clogging my freezer.

Lunches:

  • So far this has been my highlight! Again more than enough with yummy snacks for morning or afternoon tea.
  • Best of all for me this = convenience to take to work. The variety was awesome.

Dinners:

  • Convenient – yes, occasionally tasty – yes, easy to pack in the freezer – yes, plenty of options – yes.
  • The standard pack I got .. revolting! Sausages and potato, roast and potato, spag bog. I gave them to the dog, sorry I don’t do standard.
  • Looking a the menu there are so many wonderful options, so warning for others – don’t order the standard pack!
  • The size of the meal was my biggest difference from my own cooking, I certainly cooked healthy enough but the portions are half my regular half a meal. I did feel hungry.
  • I did still cook meals for Ray, that was easy enough.

Very annoying:

  • The packaging, so much packaging, so many plastic bags, lids, trays, wraps, all inside more plastic bags. I have an issue with plastic wastage – it is seriously poor on the pollution front although all the packs say bio-degradable bags. It is almost enough to make me quit.
day2 menu

This is one days worth of plastic. It came in a bag, then had 3 more bags, then inside was another 6 bags, 4 tubs and one tray. .. 15 items of rubbish!

Notes for my week 2 order:

  1. Don’t order breakfasts although watch my portions at home.
  2. Take the time to select the dinners, no more dog-food.
  3. Send all the plastic bags back in the styro esky.

Around the home

Easter signalled the start of planning the next step in our renovation, or not. We bought our tiny mid-century modernist home two years ago with grand plans. Year 1 we renovated the bathroom and two bedrooms; year 2 we built our patio and landscaped.

The house as we bought it

The house as we bought it in Jan 2011. The image at the top of the post was the original house in 1964.

BlueMist_2013

Here is is two years later in 2013 with one side and front landscaping done.

 

The grand plan has three final stages:

Stage 1: Remove a wall to create an open plan home and build a a new kitchen.

Stage 2: Then build a 2-car garage and a master bedroom upstairs with ensuite overlooking the mountains.

Stage 3: Lastly, finish the backyard and build a mini outdoor art studio.

So this time instead of project managing and subcontracting the build, we decided to get quotes for the whole design and build for steps 1&2. A whopping $200,000 – $250,000 ..arrghhh too much! Our budget for resale return value and so we don’t over capitalize was $150,000 max.

Mt Dandenong

Mountain views from the roof.

 

So now what to do?

Option 1: Stick to the plan, overspend and not get any profit out of the house – we would get our money back however.

Option 2: Try to project mange ourselves again, bring the budget closer to $150,000 and bust a gut for 12 months as well as working.

Option 3: Downgrade the grand plan, if we don’t build the upstairs bedroom, the whole project will be under $80,000 and far easier to project manage.

Renovation plans

3d image from the front of the grand plan

Renovation plans

3d image from the back

 

Renovation plans

3d image of the new kitchen and open plan

So this week we negotiate some more with the building companies we have chatted to, we consult a real estate, ask some local folk who recently built up and book an appointment with a draughtsman to compare a self-managed project.

Plenty of work ahead so stay tune for many more posts on this subject.

ALWAYS THE ARTIST
Dina

 

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