Cost Per Pizza?

It will soon be our turn to host the management dinner party.  For some reason this time kids will be present.  Theme for the night chosen by the group was Italian.  Although stressing about the group coming, I had put some thought into some options for pizza's.  With an Italian theme, it should be easy to please kids, some spaghetti bol' and having a dab hand in making their own pizza.

After searching the net, I found that we could hire a pizza oven for $150 for the night.  The broader group offered to chip in to share the cost, but I began to think about options for purchasing an oven instead.  Of course they range from several hundred to several thousand, but our baseline price was $150.

eBay is an excellent place to shop, so we began to bid on something that looked just right for the occasion, with a dual purpose.  Unfortunately we were outbid and the $375 unit was sold for $220.  Given I had several weeks up my sleeve, we simply moved onto another one.  Just before bidding on the second one, the seller sent an email advising he had multiple units and was happy to let me have one for $150....SOLD to us.

It arrived at Easter, so Maddison and I set about the assembly process.  In no time at all we were fairly certain that we had built a pizza oven :-)  Now the performance jitters for the dinner party meant that we surely had to have a couple of practice runs. 

There was much bemusement and fear from the partner at the thought of my actually using wood and lighting a fire, instead of dashing to the supermarket to pick up some heat beads.  Now I am usually pretty good with the concept of fire, and we do have a wood heater.  It took no time at all to have a good cooking heat ready to go.  Unfortunately when I put the first pizza in I didn't look at the temperature, and 300 was too hot!  So we did a small sacrifice to the gods of charcoal on the first one, but it was still edible.

Second one was timed to perfection, and was awesome.  For desserts we toasted marshmallows in the coals and dreamt up other options for the oven...damper...potatoes in their jackets...this is going to be great. 

Tonight we are having lamb and pumpkin pizzas, and will decrease our cost per pizza from $75!

 

Kids Session # 4

We have had some terrible weather recently, and it wasn't the best day to head out for a drive in the mountains.  Despite the weather, it was nice to get out for the day.  We also had the added benefit that most other people had not braved the weather, so there was no jostling in traffic or crowds.

After a nice trip up, we ordered some super large hot chocolates and a bowl of seed for the birds. Maddison has been negotiating all year for a cat, then tried a dog and has now thought a bird might 'fly'. I have passed over the cat, considered a dog after all the fences are finished and generally been ok about the concept of a bird.

I guess that the thought of a parrot was too much, so the current list has a budgie on it instead!

 

Pool Update # 4

The goal was to finish by January 2013, in time for the 40th Birthday celebrations. After sinking over $15,000 into the renovation project in 2012, it was clear that an alternative venue was to be selected.  The new fencing has been constructed, and it looks awesome.

The tradesman did give me a money saving idea. Turns out there is a market for second hand pool fencing due to the changes in Queensland laws. The easy part was to disassemble the old panels and gate. The much harder part is to dig out the existing posts. All sensible people have vanished claiming that back breaking activities are not in their job descriptions.

For the record, they are wrong. After 30 minutes on the first one, it is not back breaking at all....but OMG it certainly is bicep killing. It turns out my biceps are not going to be big enough to lift the post and the concrete out of the hole.

This may be another case of outsourcing, and I think that who ever builds the deck down there can also dig out the posts! Or maybe I can include post digging out in the eBay ad :-).

Pool Update # 3

Well that tradie sure moved faster than I would have, here's to outsourcing! The next step is to arrange for the existing fence to be relocated, and some additional fencing constructed. Given the large cash outlay for the first quarter, we will resort to some saving time before started the next phase.

Pool Update # 2

In September I made a start on the pool renovation project, 2012 year's big goal. After deciding that the best course of action was to outsource the construction of the retaining wall, I am about $8,500 poorer, but way ahead on me building it myself.

There is also an added bonus that now the fill is in, we have several more metres of usable space. The next mini project is to have a timber fence constructed on the retaining wall, and I have got the first quote underway. Hopefully it comes in cheaper than the retaining wall, or we will be celebrating my 40th birthday bash with Vegemite sandwiches!

Pool Renovation Project

Well this little gem was always going to be a a challenge. Part way through construction, the two landowners parted ways. At the completion of the pool, the other party did the handover and signed off the project without really looking at what we were getting. When I arrived at the site some weeks later, needless to say I was furious.

The whole pool construction was a nightmare. It was dug the wrong way around, then torrential rain caused it to collapse inside and fill up with water, without the concrete. The pool company then left the water to magically drain out, and of course frogs started breeding due to the time taken! When the hole was re-dug around the correct way, the darling digger pushed it over too close to the existing retaining wall. Fast forward to the fencers, and they were clearly on some sort of narcotics, but in there defence the construction guys had left a mess. So tradies do what they do best, complete the work and hope to hell you do not actually notice. They sure got a free ride with this one.

So after years of walking around the pool, trying to work out how I can actually fix the dramas without costing and arm and a leg, I have decided to just get on with it. Yes, yes laughter and about time comments are flying around :-) The actual fencing situation is really annoying, it actually bothers me heaps more than I care to admit, and anything short of ripping it all out and redesigning it, is going to leave a constant reminder of time gone past, and not in a favourable light.

The boundary fence behind the pool was built by the property developer, so really was not built to last. I have decided to remove the boundary fence, or really only part of it, as it has to be over 100m long. Then install a retaining wall, a truck load of dirt to level it out and re-fence on top of the retaining wall. This will then allow for part of the boundary fence to form part of the pool fencing, at some future stage.

I rang a landscaper earlier in the week, and the installation of a retaining wall is around $5.5K, and about $500 for the removal of the existing fence. Guess where I have been this afternoon! I traded mowing my sister's lawn for her cooking me dinner and baking a cake. Added bonus, she cooked at my house, so the youngster remained inside, and I had a cracking run outside. In around an hours time, I managed to do $250 worth of work....nice. I also got a free ab and arm work out, so multi tasking a fitness work out at the same time is an added benefit.

Lessons

Coming home from work one night recently and I had absolutely ever intention of skipping the induction session at school later that night. As we sat at the dinner table Maddison told me I needed to hurry or I would be late. I explained that the night was not essential, and that I already knew how things worked given that we had been at the school for three years.

The big blue eyes opened wide, and she said "But Mummy, I have made you a note, and it is sitting on my desk for you, waiting". Big sigh from the tired parent, and I quickly finished dinner, arranged for a babysitter and dashed down to the school.

After 30 minutes of standing and listening to the Principal espouse the virtues of the school and the essentials of all white sneakers, I dragged myself down to the classroom to sit through the next lecture. As I sat down with my knees around my ears I glanced down to the waiting letter. It almost bought a tear to my eye. And I think when the parent of the young boy that Maddison sits beside looked over at the two pages on my seat, then back to the three words on hers, I think it almost bought a tear to her eyes!

It was a humbling lesson in life about what is truly important.