Thursday, 22 January 2015

It's just occurred to me that this will be my last "stay at home Dad" post, because this morning was the last time I'll have Zoe until after she's started at school.

I woke to quite heavy rainfall. Zoe slept late, in think due to a combination of the cooler temperature, lack of direct sunlight, the rain, and the busy previous day and slightly later bedtime. I used the extra time to get ready for the day.

After a quick breakfast, we got straight in the car to get to Sarah's place, because I had to be back home again by 9:15am for a video interview with Google. It was tight, with the wet road conditions, but fortunately my interviewer was a few minutes later than me, so everything worked out okay.

Since then, I've been wandering around in a bit of a daze. I collected the last unit of my real estate licence course from my PO box. All I need now is the actual bit of paper saying I've achieved all of the requisite units of study, and I can go and apply for my licence. Oh, a business name will help too. Coming up with a name/domain name combination is proving phenomenally difficult.

I guess this lull in proceedings before a whole bunch of new stuff starts is a good time to stop and reflect.

I've had a fantastic year. This would have to be the sustained best year of my adult life. On a personal front, I've got to take a break from work, and go off and explore a bunch of other things. I did a barista course. I did a top rope climbing and abseiling course. I've finished my real estate licence course. I've had the opportunity to explore a few different startup ideas, and meet a bunch of different people.

My running has fallen off a bit, but I'm trying to fix that up again now. Maybe this year will be the year I do the Gold Coast Half Marathon. In fact I think I will actively work to that goal this year, since I shouldn't have any date conflicts like I ended up having last year.

On the fathering front, I had an irreplaceably wonderful year with Zoe. I have cemented my relationship with her, and I'm very confident in my capabilities as a single parent. I'm grateful that Zoe got to have the benefits of a proper Kindergarten program. It will give her a strong foundation entering Prep this year.

I'm also glad I managed to keep up the blogging for the whole year. It'll be nice to have this record to look back on.

As for 2015 for me, it's still a bit of a blank slate. I'm open to returning to Google, if that works out best for everyone. There's also a local job that I've found that I believe I'll be a good fit for, which I'm interviewing for next week. I could, if I was feeling really game, just freelance, and do a whole bunch of different things, but I think after a year of living off my savings, I'd prefer the security of a stable income for a while.

Right now, I think I'll try and clean up my desk, so I can start whatever comes next with a tidy desk.

Yesterday was a rather jam packed day. I'm not surprised Zoe's sleeping in, although the rain is probably helping.

We got going in the morning, and first off was the weekly wart freezing at the doctor. We're going to have to take a different approach once school starts next week.

After that, I checked my PO box, and got back one more unit of my real estate licence course (marked competent). So I'm just waiting for one I had to resubmit then I've officially completed everything. Hopefully that will come through early next week.

After that, we popped over to Chloe's place so we could all walk around to the school together to check the class lists, which were published.

Zoe did really well. She got the teacher that I'd wanted her to get, and Chloe is in her class, along with a boy, Flynn, she got to know through the Poppet program they ran last year. I met the mother of another little girl, Milla, who will be in Zoe's class too, and introduced the girls to each other. I'm very excited to see how Zoe's going to go at school next week. I think she's going to do really well.

After that, we went out to Carindale to do some birthday present related shopping for Eva and Layla's upcoming birthday, and some other general shopping. We also bumped into Mackensie's dad.

We ended up at Carindale for quite a while, so by the time we were done, we had enough time to race home, make a batch of hummus for dinner, and race out again to swim class.

Straight after swim class, we had haircuts, so we had to hurry over to the hairdresser, and then head back to Chloe's place for dinner.

Zoe had a great time playing with Chloe and her older sister, and I got to put my feet up for a bit and hang out with Kelley and Mark. It was a nice evening.

We got home to a welcome letter in the mail from Zoe's new teacher, which was nice. We made that the bedtime reading, as it was getting late.