Council is taking forever to approve the plans but we believe that we are now only a few weeks away from having the formal approval so the construction certificate can be issued. Once the certificate has been issued the build can begin. At this rate we're not expecting anything to start until January and although the builder has 12 months to complete the build, we're hoping that they'll be finished by next Christmas. All up, it will be roughly 3 years from when we paid the deposit on the block until we can actually move in. We knew that the process was going to take a while but we didn't think it would be 3 years.
I think the two biggest lessons that we've learnt from this experience are.
- Buying a piece a land that isn't even registered yet isn't ideal, if we are ever going to build again then we'll buy a piece of land that is ready to build on. Due to the current market and the time things have taken to progress, the cost of the build has increased significantly. The builder has already sent an updated quote adding roughly $30K to the total cost and we've only got construction fences up.
- We'll find our own architect and design the house that we want with them. The process of having to go through the sales person and not having any communication with the architect was extremely painful and changes kept getting introduced that we didn't ask for.
But as my wife and I keep saying, "it is what it is" and we're not pulling on the reigns just yet. We've been saving lots of money recently but it looks like we're going to need it.
My gaming YouTube channel is still going. I release a new video every week and sometimes do a mid-week short video but I need to work on the quality of the content. My subscriber base is very slowly growing, I currently have 22 subscribers, I had 9 old subscribers before I restarted so 13 new people. I've been trying a few different things to try and get more views but it is very hard going. I usually get only 10 or so views in the week that I release a video. For the shorts that I've done, I usually get several hundred views. I didn't really want to try and use click-bait but I'm thinking that's going to be the only way as that's how the shorts are doing so well. I'm still enjoying making the videos and am starting to realise just how hard it would have been to make the moto-camping videos I originally wanted to make.
Finally on to diet, exercise and losing weight. I'm currently at the end of my second week of being on Optifast. I've lost roughly 4kg so far by doing the "Intensive" program. I currently have an Optifast shake for breakfast, then only water water between breakfast and lunch. For lunch I have an Optifast chicken soup, then again nothing but water until dinner. For dinner I have a vegetable stir-fry or some other low starch vegetable meal, like cauliflower mash in a vegetable gravy/soup. Last night I had baked curried cauliflower with a cabbage, carrot and capsicum slaw on the side. I need to have at least two cups of vegetables a day and this is the easiest way to achieve that. Then I continue to have water and at around 8pm I usually have an Optifast chocolate desert. The results are currently there so I'm going to continue with this program for as long as I can.
I can't continue on the intensive program for too long, but I do intend to break my diet for Christmas, I'm not sure at this stage if it was just be for Christmas Day or if it will be for a week or so. My brother is coming to visit so no doubt there will be a few family get togethers.
I've started doing weights again too, well when I say "started", I mean I managed to do them once last week but I'm hoping to do them several times a week from here on in.
Take care out there,
Bomber
Random Blogger at Best.
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