Dinner @ Sofia's

Sofia's @ Camberwell (857 Burke Road) is THE place to go if you have a large group of hungry people to feed.

Zhao'en had warned us about the huge portions, but really!

Here's what 7 of us shared -

One pasta (3-in-1: seafood, spag bol; carbonara)
One calamari entree
One chicken hawaiian pizza
One slice of blackforest cake
One massive ice cream: multiple scoops wobbling in one tiny cup (sorry, we didn't take a pic of this one)





Guess which was Beth's favourite? :-)

What Weekends Are For

Today's going to be a great day.

Beth and CA are off to Family Fun Day at Heathdale Christian College. She's been looking forward to it for months, and begged us to get her the $25 wristband that lets her go for unlimited rides. That, and to please let her skip Chinese class because after all, FFD is only once in two years whereas Chinese class is every week.

You can't fault her logic. :-p

This afternoon, we're having a visit from our NZ friends Janelle and Mark. Then, a nice dinner in the City with another Sg friend, Zhao'en.

It's going to be a lovely Global Singaporeans gathering! :-)

How To Pay Less For Energy Use

After the initial excitement about HRV, we've decided to pass on the offer for 2 reasons:

* hubby doesn't think there's any room in the roof after The Insulation Job
* it makes more sense to install HRV in a new house

I was going through our gas and electricity bills this week and decided we're paying too much.

There's gotta be an objective way to do comparisons without the pressure from eager telemarketers and doorknockers.

Here are 2 links I've found:

ShopAround.com.au

Pros: Great website. Easy to use. It's best that you have four bills (one for each season) handy for the most accurate recommendation.
In my case, they recommended that I switch to Red Energy.
Cons: The site is relatively new and they have just four suppliers to choose from: Actew AGL, Click Energy, Country Energy and Red Energy.

ChoiceSwitch.com.au

This is an affiliated site to Choice, the consumer awareness and action site.

Pros: Great website. Easy to use. You need just one bill at hand. Because Choice is more established, they have a larger list of suppliers on their panel.
I received a list of 20 energy plans to consider, with estimated savings in the first year ranging from $1.29 right up to $359.28.

Cons: Nothing yet.

How To Reduce Your Home Heating And Cooling Costs

I just spent a whole HOUR with a salesperson.

I am normally leery of telemarketers and door-knockers. When I get cornered into a conversation with one, I find myself chafing and wondering how to get away without being rude. Those that read from canned scripts and won't pause to let you get a word in are the worst. Next to those who pretend not to understand the meaning of "I'm really busy right now".

With those companies that play the green washing game, it's worse. They're always trying to convince you that if you switch from your current utilities provider to theirs, you'll get an x% discount on your bill.

After a while, it can get pretty confusing, and I'm sure that's the caller's intention. I mean, unless you have your bill handy, how many of us know how much we pay per MJ of gas consumed, how much is the service charge, freedom discount etc, and what all the info means?

The conversation with Nick from HRV was different though.

He was here to talk about how I could:

• save at least 50% on our gas bills by capturing some of the free heat that's trapped in the roof cavity and using it to keep our home at a comfortable and steady temperature throughout the year, esp in winter
  
• reduce moisture from condensation and keep my house low-maintenance for longer
• improve the quality of the indoor air supply so I can have a healthier home
  

Energy saving is a very relevant consideration here because energy costs are rising all the time and VIC is still suffering from drought, which makes water a precious (and expensive) resource.

Being at the mercy of energy providers by continuing to live the way we do is simply not sustainable in the long term.

Nick walked around our place with a thermal scanner and showed me how the temperature in different parts of our house varied. Our home is not exactly 5-star energy efficient, and there are many days when it actually feels cold indoors even though it's nice and sunny outside.

When he lifted the manhole cover with a broomstick and pointed the scanner at the ceiling, the temperature was an astonishing 27.5 deg, a whole 10 deg warmer than the indoor (ambient) temperature.

And this was an overcast day.

How the HRV system works is this (you can also watch the video):

In winter, it draws the heat from the sun, filters the heated air to remove most of the dust mites and other particles that cause allergies and asthma, and pushes the filtered air downwards along the walls and floor and distributes it evenly around the house. It even improves the heat retention capability of the house by keeping the walls and floor warm, so that you wake up the next morning to a nice cosy home.

The HRV system costs $0.10 a day to run, uses the equivalent of 75W and will pay for itself in 3-5 years.

What HRV does is send someone over to install a little 30x50 cm ventilation unit in the roof apex where it's warmest, which takes half a day, and then depending on the size of your home and the number of living areas, a number of outlets are installed in the ceilings of your living areas.

We were given a quote for a 2-fan system with 8 outlets at a cost that works out to about $12 a day over a one-year period. The system has been certified independently by GECA and Nick was able to provide plenty of testimonials and even utilities bills from happy customers showing the savings gained.

Now to explain all this to hubby...

Aus Govt Raises Interest Rates

The good times are over. For home owners anyway.

After months of falling interest rates, the Aus Govt has reversed its policy and raised the central bank's cash rate by 25 points to 3.25%.

This is the first hike in interest rates since March 2008.

This works out to about $40 a month extra on a home loan of $300,000.

Aus is apparently the first developed country to go against the trend of rate cuts which most countries have adopted in response to the GFC.

I'm waiting for a letter any day now to tell me our minimum payment has gone up. But it won't matter in real terms, since our plan is to continue paying extra into our mortgage whenever we can.

Takeaway Homes

Domain.com carried an article this week about builders outsourcing the construction of high-rise apartments and even an entire project overseas (guess which Asian country?).

The concept has never been used in the context of high-rise housing and already there are rumblings about quality control and the integrity of the product.

The project in question is waiting on Council approval and has so far attracted 90 objections.

Daylight Savings - The Third Year

I think I've finally got it figured out.

Daylight Savings means I lose an hour.

So when I put the clock forward from 2 pm to 3 pm, I have lost time because it is now officially 3 pm when it should really be 2 pm.

That explains why in summer, the sky is still bright at 9 pm. It's actually 8 pm!

Why do humans create these artificial methods of confusing ourselves?

It's like the tech revolution. We make more gadgets and then have to buy the accessories to go with them, and all of them take money out of our pockets. First there's Wii, then there's Wii Fit. Why play Wii tennis when you can (or should) be playing real tennis outdoors?

Not that I would either way of course. So perhaps Wii Fit is for the couch potatoes and occasional gym goers. Like moi.

Hello & Goodbye

We've just farewelled our house guests at the Gull bus stop @ Kelly Park/Werribee RSL. Shirlynn and SG arrived last Sat and stayed for six days.

As I write, they are on the bus to the airport. By midnight, they'll be back in warm, humid Sg. By Monday, they will be back at their desks working as hard as every other Singaporean.

After nearly a week under one roof, being a household of six felt natural, almost as if this is how it's been for a long time.

Each morning, we would breakfast together before Shirlynn and SG went off in their hired car for a day trip to one of VIC's tourist attractions. In the evening, they would display (and sometimes share) their purchases, we might open a bottle of dessert wine or whatever wine connoisseur SG had bought, and we would enjoy hearing all about their day.






There is something about opening your home that makes for especially deep and intimate bonds.


You get to know each other's likes (Nescafe cappucino with a shot of milk here, "teh si siu dai" in Sg) and habits (taking pics at every photo opp). You get to see yourself through another's eyes. The dynamics of relationships shift slightly as everyone adjusts to a new context and environment.

The girls, esp Jordanne, benefited from having new adults around. It's nice for them to be with different people... and a good break for Mommy!








Aside from being spoiled rotten with sweet treats, having someone different to play peekaboo and watch Pete's A Pizza with, they got to practise their manners and be a part of the joy of having stayover guests. I hope this imprints positively on them as they grow up.

As I am continually finding, I enjoy my home and possessions better when I have friends to share them with. It's like, we've been so blessed with our cosy cottage and lovely local community, and hosting visiting friends seems like a great way to give back and share what we've received. Having the occasional visitor and house guest makes life more interesting, colourful and fuller.

Thank God for the gift of friends.





But even knowing that one grows from embracing the bitter with the sweet, and even remembering what Gandalf counselled at the final parting by the Sea ("I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil"), it was hard to say goodbye. Hard to articulate all the thoughts, prayers and blessings in my head.

All I could do was hug Shirlynn many times over, and cry silent tears as I drove home. The car felt different - lonely, somehow - with just the kids in the back seat instead of our friends in the front and me in the back with the girls.

So brutally back-to-usual.

Beth was lovely. As I sat at the wheel in our carport trying to compose myself, she leaned over and hugged me long and hard.

"Which side of the chest is the heart?" she asked as she handed me a tissue.

I said the left, and she gently patted me there.

How blessed I am to be the mother of my girls...