Furniture construction

Because we couldn't paint the house over Christmas/New Year because of the wet weather, Peter made a shelving unit for Ben's room. After it was all put together, Ben helped Peter put the undercoat of paint on. And that is as far as it has got for now, as the fine weather has meant we have been concentrating on outside the house jobs - cleaning and oil the deck and painting the house.

1 week to go

Ben start school 1 week from today. The holidays haven't been quite as trying as I thought they might have been - and we survived the hump week (Christmas/New Year week). I do feel like I could do with a 'holiday' now (which I know is normal). And it is going to be strange having only Naomi with me in the mornings.

Hardware heartbreak

My relationship with hardware stores is going through a rough patch at the moment. I still need to purchase stuff from them, but I'm don't feel like I'm getting the service I should.

• 'Price guarantee' - if you haven't noticed both Bunning's and Mitre 10's 'price guarantee' is only valid if you find it at a 'cheaper' price. If you find it for the same price, they won't beat it by the 15%, which means you will find both stores selling the same item at exactly the same price (including mimicking each others sale prices) so they don't have to give you the extra 15%off. eg. the waterblaster we purchased last week. So I rang both stores to see if they would give me an incentive to buy from their store...Mitre 10 refused; Bunnings said (after a quick 'hold' time while they checked) that they would give me the 15% off as an incentive to buy from them even though it technically didn't qualify for the 'price guarantee'. But when I went to purchase it, the checkout girl wasn't going to give me the discount as it was the 'same price', I relayed my telephone conversation from that morning and then got grilled about who I spoke to (I couldn't remember his name)...Anyway she rang someone who authorised it, so I got the cheaper price. BUT...when it broke and so returned it and it was getting exchanged for the exact same thing, the checkout woman (different one to the first time) was going to charge me the full price and make me pay the '15%' that I had got discounted for the initial purchase.
• Customer service - went to Mitre 10 to get some oil to oil the nice clean deck with. Right from the start the guy who served me in the aisle was talking to me like I didn't know what I was doing and what we had done/were planning to do was all wrong (which it was not). Not to mention his overbearing helpfulness - every time I escaped him and went to another part of his section to get something else on my list, up he would pop and ask if I needed help, when all I wanted to do was to be left alone to consider the different product options myself and make a decision. He did give some good advice on paint brushes without just trying to sell me the most expensive ones. But my experience would have been much more pleasant if he'd had the ability to be available when I needed advice, but given me the space I wanted to make my own decision.

It has got me thinking about how having 2 mega hardware chains dominating the market is not very helpful. Although you may get a larger range of stuff, you end up being viewed in terms of profit margins so customer service and satisfaction suffer. And their seemly 'cheaper' prices aren't actually that cheap as there is no competition to stimulate real price beating. Unfortunately most of the smaller and independent hardware stores no longer exist, so I have no choice but to purchase from the 'mega chains'.

I have to visit the hardware store again - we need more decking oil, as it soaked up the first tin like a sponge. My aim is to get in and out of there as quickly as possible...no lingering to browse like I sometimes do - my heart is hardened to you O hardware store.

Finally started...

With summer having arrived so late this year (if it's really arrived yet...), we haven't got around to starting our big summer job - painting the outside of our house.  With fine weather forecast, we bought ourselves a water blaster to clean the house before starting the big job of scraping loose paint and sanding.  And... what did we do first, we cleaned the deck of course!  The steps are half done in that photo - it's amazing, our deck is actually brown, not grey!

We did also blast one side of the house, and I've managed to scrape and sand most of it - it should be painted next weekend.

We did also manage to burn out the water blaster.  According to the instruction booklet, it's suitable for "cleaning buildings".  According to the helpful man at Bunnings, it's not.  If you use it for more than about half an hour at a time, it's likely to burn out.  So, we got given a replacement seen as it had failed within a day.  And I guess we'll have to treat it carefully and hope it lasts for the rest of the house...

A good day...

After being in need of adult conversation on Wednesday, yesterday I got to talk to some adults and not have to talk so much to the kids. Ben had a friend over to play in the morning, which meant the mums got to talk for a bit and Ben had someone else to talk to and then we had friends from Auckland come to visit in the afternoon and stay for dinner, so the kids (ours and theirs) went off and played all afternoon and the adults got to chat.

I'm in need of some adult conversation

I am finding myself continually checking my reader and (Peter's) facebook for anything new to read of happening in the adult world!

Picking songs is hard

Especially when the kids don't know that many to start with. I feel like I have to introduce at least 3 new songs a term to get good coverage of the themes in the lesson material.

Kids church writing

I think I'm getting quicker. Nearly finished formatting. Still need to choose songs.

Just need to keep going...

New gadget

New gadget, a photo by peterjwaldeck on Flickr.

This is our new stickvac. Our old dustbuster has been needing replacing for a while - it's suction has got very weak and the battery only lasts for a few minutes. I had been considering options for a while, but the best solution was too expensive. Until...I found it on sale for $100 off, a 40% discount.

I also not only chose this particular stickvac, but also chose the 'green' version which is made of 70% recycled plastic.

Wherefore art thou, summer?

Summer still hasn't fully arrived. I'm sitting here with my polar fleece robe on. Yesterdays sun with cool breeze felt decidedly like Spring weather. At least the weather is going to be dry for a while now, so that will make it feel a bit more summery (January/February are usually fairly dry months here).