Hook a brother up

Finding a great work life balance that's the question, how much money do you actually need? Yes, so I am going to have more expenses, that's for sure, taking on a mortgage is a big responsibility for an adult or a child. So what does a person do to make MONEY..? Unfortunately we do not live in a society where people realise,  there is not enough work for people to do. Automation has taken many jobs away from people and it is no longer feasible to consider that there is enough work for everybody to have a good quality of life. So basically we need to find a new system but that's not going to happen so I've got to be reasonable and figure out how to get MONEY! And of course you can never have enough, or can u?

SO,  I had some pretty good IDEAS so I thought, a lot of people found them kinda  of funny but I was serious. There must be another WAY, besides working for the man..

I liked  my idea of HOOK A  BROTHER UP,  which wasn't really my IDEA,  it was kind of my friend Christina's idea but I claimed it as my OWN. I mean what nurse doesn't dream of a business selling beer and cigarettes from a truck.

I wasn't allowed to have a coffee van or a food truck because we live on an island with  a very conservative council and you are not allowed to sell anything from public lands.  So that rules about everything out.  

I thought about buying the pet store business. I like animals especially cats, I don't really like lizards and snakes, I mean I like them in nature but I wouldn't really like to have to feed them mice and stuff, anyways back to the point. I'm really not sure what kind of profit I could have turned anyways, but basically Ivan said no! He said it will be better if we paid our mortgage first and then after we paid it I could do whatever I wanted...

I also considered a business in Driftwood. Driftwood is very profitable it seems.  A piece of Driftwood can sell online for a lot of money a small piece can COST $40 or so. ALL you need to do is walk around pick it up, soak it and sell it. Maybe I'll still get the Driftwood going on......

I really dreaded the idea of having to commute to work, it was a burden on my brain.  It meant getting in a car,  parking a car,  getting on a ferry, traveling a half an hour,  getting off the ferry,  getting in another car,  traveling to my destination and then doing the same on the way back. This would have at least cut into 2 hours of my life everyday and then what job would I do would? I be an agency nurse. Would I have to do shift work,  it all seemed very depressing.

Luckily for me, the Stars must have been aligned one day,  when I talking  to Jo and Trudy,  my awesome neighbours,  we were just casually talking about how, to make turmeric capsules,  when Jo mentioned that she heard they were hiring people for the new medical centre they are building on the island. 

So a few days later I tried my luck, I called the number she had given me, it was for a real estate agent who was supposedly building the new Medical Centre, he gave me the number of a pharmacist who was actually the one who was actually building it,  of course he knew nothing about it but  gave me the number of another lady to call, who would know about a job.

I called that day and talked to a very nice receptionist, she said that I was one of the luckiest people she knew  because it just so happens that their nurse was retiring.  NOW,  There is only one nurse on the island, I had planned on other ways of trying to get rid of her but luckily she decided to go on her own ACCORD, now all I had to do was get the JOB.

I was actually quite a professional at doing interviews as I had just interviewed the week before for a position as a clinical work nurse at the place where I work and I had been the successful candidate imagine that? So I knew I could ace this one job. I actually did some preparation which is quite unlike me!

Unfortunately all my preparation  was all in vain. It wasn't really an  interview but it was more of a 'did I look normal' and if I did I could probably have the job kind of thing , so I am fairly normal looking, so I aced it!

So now, I have made the decision to become the islands nurse. I don't really know the full implications of how my life will change. Of course I will know  SOME very intimate details about a lot of people that I will see on a regular basis this could prove quite INTERESTING.

I do feel sad to leave my current place of work because I have an awesome bunch of colleagues and really do enjoy the work I am doing but I have decided on this Sea Change and this is just a little part of it! Sometimes you have to give something up to get something NEW!

HERE I GO INTO THE VOID!

Virgin Cut

Mowing the lawn

Now I guess mowing the lawn is something that most people have probably done a million times in their lives. Girls and boys, just about everyone but me and Ivan. We are a unique pair, we could be 2 of the only people on the earth that have never actually mowed a lawn  until this point in time.  You see I'm a city person or when I lived in the burbs my father always cut the grass.  Ivan came from a village in Russia were they didn't have lawn mowers and they actually used a scythe.  He said he was very good at it, and it is a great workout for your obliques.

You need to keep your grass cut to keep the council happy or you will get a fine. So at first we used to get a company to come around to do it. Being budget-conscious we didn't want to keep paying somebody to do something we could do ourselves Ivan wanted to buy a scythe and get out there and hack, i didn't think that was such a great idea especially with all the snakes on the island. Ivan says he has never seen any snakes.

We came to the conclusion we needed to buy a lawn mower.  How exciting!  Ivan was overjoyed with the idea he got to put his usual handy work to test. He is the ultimate shopper and did a lot of research. He found us a great mower! 

  We chose a nice gas lawn mower that cost about $150. We brought it to the land on the ferry,  unfortunately the air filter must have gotten saturated with oil during the transport process.

We had a helluva time getting the stupid thing started and then our kind neighbour Jo came out to help us , we were happy to see  her. She actually got her own lawnmower out and help us cut half the grass too.

We ended up taking the air filter right out of the mower and that way Ivan got really really dirty he was covered from head to toe in dirt I have never seen a dirtier man In My Life

Luckily he was able to wash himself in Kevin's sink

Erectile Dysfunction

This is the story of the shed and its erectile dysfunction and the moral of this story is "we can't have it all ". It started when we needed to find a cheaper apartment. Our beautiful modern city pad in Milton was just too expensive. It was awesome of course but just a little more than people who want to build a house should be spending on rent. We decided to move to Stafford, which is really close to my work  and pretty convenient to get to the city from. It was a bigger apartment, but it wasn't Milton, but like I said we couldn't have it all !!

We had accumulated  a lot of outdoor stuff on some shelves that we had constructed on our parking spot. It didn't really make sense to move all the stuff over to Stafford and then in the future bring it back to the island, We needed a shed !!!!

It was all very rush, rush, I must say but it's amazing what two people who are connected as  Paul likes to say can do in a day! So this was the day: ( I called in sick, but don't tell my boss). We got online, to buy the shed and we  rented a truck online, drove across town to get the truck , booked the ferry to the island , packed the truck , picked up the shed , boarded the ferry, then drove to the  land.  PHEW !!!  By the time we got there was about 4 o'clock.  So we thought, okay, quick quick , let's get the shed up and get on the ferry with the truck by six o'clock... 

WHAT WERE WE THINKING!!!!

Wishful thinking! Then our nice neighbor  Kevin saved by saying " hey mate,  come in for a beer, you're crazy you're never going to get that shed  up today" How hard could it be? So little we knew.  I don't think we really had any real notion of how difficult it was to build a shed. Honestly, I have to say the building the shed was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my whole entire life! I sweat, I cried, I begged god to take me, I got eaten by mosquitoes. It was not pleasant .  I have a the ultimate respect for sheds and the people that put them up!  Now, when i now see people that have sheds , i always say nice things about them !

We returned on the weekend and started on Saturday afternoon, we figured we would have it up by that evening . But first we had to dig . OMG now there are a lot of things I have never done and digging is one of them. Digging should be part of boot camp!  Luckily Ivan was a pro, he is from a small russian village and had a dacha ( communist rural house next to your garden, in the country) so basically i stood around and cheered him on! Sometimes from Kevin's balcony with a cool drink. My Bad!    

This was about 7 o'clock and  the mosquitoes were having a feast on our uncovered body parts, but we didn't stop we had to get the roof on before dark , 

We got the roof on that night in the dark. The next morning we could tell the whole thing was lopsided and the shelves we wanted to put inside, were too tall to fit. We had to raise the whole thing. So we drove little white car to the hardware store and bought some sleepers to go under it . this is very backwards, in case you hadn't figured that out . 

then the fun began and the real digging started , we had to get the sleepers under the shed ! Why didn't we do this first ? WHY!! Why!! WHY!

We were digging and digging and then decided there must be an easier way we would cut the shelves down so they would fit 

The cut shelves fit !

Here we are the proud owners of a baby shed ! They should announce completion of sheds on television or the queen could send out letters of congratulations maybe! 

One day i am going to paint my shed bright yellow !!