Michelle and I have just spent the last 8 hours hauling our efforts from last weekend to the garbage tip.

I thought that gathering, loading and driving our garden waste to the tip wouldn’t take that long, a morning at most. But after starting the process we soon realized that we had a lot of waste to dispose of.

How much you say?

Well I’m going to take this opportunity to hold a competition. The entry closest in kilogram weight to the amount of green waste we dumped today will win a very fantastic* prize.

To help you guess, we took two trips to the dump using a caged ute (or bucky for the South Africans). Both loads were about the same amount as what you see in the picture accompanying this story.

You have until Wednesday next week to enter. Please send you guess via email to:

 <benpriebe> at gmail dot com

Winner announced Thursday morning (AEST).

* Prize may not be so fantastic – who knows really!

Michelle and I are starting to show the signs that we are homeowners now. This weekend we spent the two days getting our hands dirty tending to our ‘gardens’.

Our yard had been left to fend for itself while it was under the not-so-watchful eyes of our tenants and it got a little bit unruly. Not that we blame our tenants, I’ve never ever tended to garden maintenance when I’ve been a renter – why would you when the pain involved can only be enjoyed if you’re there for the long term? Anyways, let’s just say that parts of our yard were so overgrown that we often had to turn back tourists looking for National Lamington Park.

After a quick trip to Bunnings (about the 63rd time we’ve been there – literally) yesterday morning to stock up on basic gardening tools, Michelle and I were getting down and dirty and have managed to get our gardens to a semi-respectable level. The only problem is that we have soooo much leftover shit spilling out onto our “yard” that we’re going to need to find a rubbish pick-up solution ASAP.

All in all, I’m happy to have achieved something with the yard this weekend but know for certain that we’ve got a few more weekends worth of work to go to get it to a point where we’re happy to show it off.

After 108 days or 15.5 weeks or 4 awesomely great months off work I head back today refreshed, excited and a little apprehensive.

I’m not only starting my first permanent job since leaving Australia, I’m also moving into a new role that I’ve never done before – Systems Architect.

Cross your fingers I do ok and that I don’t have to pull out the “It’s my first day” line too many times.