Lots of things crossed off my list of 50 things

Of course moving helped as there was finish kitchen or move, redo bathroom or move etc even pay off cc’s (incidentally also reduced ones limit from just over $5000 to $500 and canceled another entirely) was aided by the move as was a clear out of my scrapbook room. Btw I got a whole room not a cup board after all!

and I’m working on the herb garden….I may just make it yet although the overseas holiday I’m not so confident about!

I’m still alive…

just in case anyone noticed I haven’t blogged in ages again.  So we moved and all is well. Some good and some bad news – the house sold a couple of days after the Auction (pending finance but am told shouldn’t be a concern), the bad news is that the price was very dissapointing.  In the end though I/we decided that it wasn’t worth holding out for the hope of a better price because it was simply too stressful.  He has til the 30th to organise the finance then it will all official and settlement is to be the 21st December ‘or earlier by mutual agreement’ …..I agree to earlier lol!  Will see how it goes, but at least we know where we are headed.  We are still going to be able to upgrade to a Kia Carnival (with enough proper seats for all instead of the dicky seats in the back of the wagon which are only good til Corey gets too big – and in the summer he cooks back there).  My mate let me drive her Kia Carnival yesterday. I had decided that based on our needs and our budget that it was the ideal car for us but wow after I drove it I can’t wait! It was awesome to drive, up high you can see everything – so comfortable I am going to love it!  We should also still be able to afford to get the jayco hawk campervan that we decided on.  We’ll be looking at 2nd hand for both the kia and the camper so might take a while to find the best deal we can get seeing as we will have less money than hoped for.  Looking forward to being debt free (except my hecs debt) by xmas. No repayments for credit cards, for loans etc means I will actually be able to save!

Had a mate come help me clear out my scraproom yesterday. She took 3 big boxes of stuff home with her and there is more yet that has to go so back again next week.  Lee is gunna clear out a cupboard for me here (like linen cupboard sized) and everything pretty much will have to fit in there so massive downsizing happening, but I think that once that’s done I’ll be more inclined to scrap as I won’t have as much stuff – a good clear out is probably healthy.

So still alive and happy

Jude

and some good news

the estate agent suggested before that we move and then put the house on the market empty. This idea, while appealing, caused me some stress as I’ll lose my pension but then we’d still need to continue to pay the mortgage until the house sold – being 2 months in front meant if it sold fast all would be good but if not well then there could be difficulties.  So I rang the bank today to check that if I stopped the payments I could make partial payments fortnightly to extend the 2 months that i’m ahead….she said yes of course but then also added that I wasn’t 2 months ahead I was actually 4.5 months ahead.  Now that information sure does change things a bit.  So Now the plans have changed a little.  House won’t go on the market on the 1st September, we shall leave it a week or two longer and sell it empty.  So this means that this weekend I can focus on repainting the kids new rooms and getting them ready.  Then we move stuff. Get rid of excess stuff and clean the empty house.  So should *hopefully* be all done in the 2-3 weeks!

 

starting to get organised now

I picked up some new wooden bunk beds that I bought on ebay ($150 bargain) today and took them around to Lee’s place for the boys.  We haven’t put them up yet because the boys are objecting to a bright pink room so we need to repaint.  This weekend we are re-arranging some furniture over there this weekend so we can empty out the pink room and repaint. the other bedroom is brown and a bit dark so we will repaint that one too then they will both be ready for furniture.  Picking up Corey’s new tallboy (a bargain at $60) tomorrow morning – aparently he has outgrown Thomas the tank engine.  Yogi painted the tallboy with thomas the tank when Nic was little (Nic is going to be 19 in a couple of weeks). Didn’t have the heart to repaint so passing it on to another little Thomas fan.  Hopefully this weekend we will also get the rooms over there painted this weekend so we can start getting them sorted out (not that we can move just yet but will start moving some things over.

Getting excited now – although a tiny bit stressed as really there is a LOT to do but now we are more at the ‘what goes where?’ and ‘what do we keep and what do we get rid of?’ stage…..we can justify two bread makers (one white loaf and one fruit loaf at the same time) but two lawn mowers (both less than a year old and identical) we just don’t need!

Jude

I should be writing my essay….

but I am procrastinating….suprised? nah didn’t think so! lol

Well after a discussion with the mortgage bloke who wasn’t to confident in our plans to buy a 5 bedroom house together, and also some issues with the new school in Tarniet not having funding approved for the next stage of development which had me doubting my decision to move the boys their….we have had a rethink of our plans.  We are going to sell my place still but then we will move into his.  He has 4 bedrooms and 2 big living areas (and potentially a 5th bedroom in a one room only bungalo out back when the kids are older).  Two boys will still need to share a room but they have to do that here.  The other option would be to wait a few years til I am working and we can improve our chances of getting a loan and frankly the idea was unappealing.  We may decide to look and buy together down the track. For now we just want to be together in one house.  So now I’ve started on a list of what to keep and what to get rid of.  We’ve discussed and are organising additional storage in the kitchen (because I will insist on having such things as flour and baking pans and my food processor) and we’ve talked to the boys about paint colours (cause one of the bedrooms is currently bright pink)!

The upshot then is that I won’t have a big asset anymore (I also won’t have a big debt – or in fact any debt) and I won’t be ‘trapped’ in this house without any options to move.  I will also have a lump sum of money to deal with. Current thought is to invest it and sit on it for 3 months while I think about it.  Leaning toward buying something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember – a caravan!  Kids would love that too and would give us the opportunity to take off for short breaks or even just in school holidays.  Yes it’s a risk but life is a risk…..and if a man is willing to clear out his cupboard of computer bits so that you can have somewhere to store your (downsized) scrapbooking collection…..well sounds like love to me!

 

best get back to the bloody essay – its only 800 words at present and needs to be 2000 by midnight Sunday

I saw the stars again this morning…and they were beautiful

I am still not sure how we can call it morning when the sky is dark and the stars are out but I was up early to drive Lee to work this morning (sometimes he just can’t organise a ride). But this morning it was somehow not as hard to be up (once I’d showered and dressed at least)!  The stars were beautiful and coming back home the sunrise was also beautiful.  And now its not quite 10am and I’ve made a batch of potato, leek & bacon soup for later and a batch of my raspberry, coconut and white chocolate muffins – Lee’s mates are dropping  in later for a cuppa so thought it would be nice to be able to offer them something with it – and hey I just felt like baking.

The estate agent came around yesterday to do an apraisal and tell me what I should fix up before I sell the place.  The bricklayer had been in the morning just before hand to fix some stuff – I had a window bricked up but someone who said they could lay bricks…..but couldn’t as it turned out – it was terrible  – now all fixed and not to expensive.  I have to put the rangehood up in the kitchen (which means finally finishing that little spot of plastering) but other than that just tidy up and tame the garden, declutter as much as possible.  My predictions of value were fairly on the money with theirs….not worth terribly much but I still have a fair bit of equity so should have a good deposit for our new place.

Survived the school holidays – well it wasn’t too hard as kids went to holiday program  a fair bit.  Corey lost his glasses during a holiday program excursion to the movies – they were very apologetic – but I wasn’t too stressed – they were falling apart so I was going to get him in for an eye test anyway.  Gotta love spec savers – ordered on Saturday and he was wearing them Wednesday afternoon!  It should be noted that the jacket he is wearing in the photo was bought for his cousin Nic when he was about 5, it was worn by Eriq later and by Owen and Brett and now Corey so that’s at least 5 boys who have been ‘cool dudes’ wearing it!

Corey James with his new glasses

Just a note about the book depository

I have been happily shopping at the book depository for a while now. Being in the UK books do take 10-14days to arrive but the prices are good and the postage is free so when they sent me an email about signing up as an affiliate I did. The link over there —> in the side bar will take you straight to the book depository and anything you buy I will make a small commission on (doesn’t cost you anything extra). So please feel free to click and shop.  I think it is safe from Brett to mention here that I just put in a birthday order for him (his bday is August) for a lego ideas book, a harry potter time turner, a harry potter  ‘fantastic beasts and where to find them’ book and a novel for me.  The whole lot came to under $50.  Have some stuff in my ‘wishlist’ for xmas presents too.

sorry about the advertising but thought I best explain the little ad in the side bar!

So it’s payday and I’m almost broke again now but all the bills have been paid  – have got Brett’s bday presents sorted and have money put aside for Owens and Coreys – taking advantage of the toy sales at kmart and bigW.  Corey is at the zoo with school today – hopefully the sunny weather stays and he has a ball despite the cold – at least they are going this time  – last time it was postponed due to heavy rain.  Brett and Owen are going rock climbing with cubs on Wednesday….can’t believe that term 2 is almost over and we are about to start holidays again!

Well I think its time for lunch now (bought myself a little handful of marina mix as a treat today so having that with some pasta – yum).

Jude

some progress…

The estate agent I spoke to is good!  I met her when I went to an open house a while ago and she has rung me a couple of times to see if I’m ready to let her come look at the house (Ok I might have mentioned it wasn’t in a fit state for me to let her in). I keep putting her off.. The other day she rang and talked timeframes. We want to be in our new home for Xmas – thats the aim. But close to Xmas would be good as it means minimal disruptions (and me not having to drive from from new house to 2 old schools til end of term).  So she says hmm and looks at her calendar and tells me that she is coming at 11am on 13th July and no excuses will be accepted!  Ok some people might think that sounds pushy but I laughed – it is most probably exactly what I needed….well that and Lee coming over here more often perhaps.  The kitchen was in a dreadful state but is now heaps better and I can see most of the loungeroom floor, I even got around to hanging the new curtains I bought about a year ago in the loungeroom!  Best of all when HE told Brett and Corey that they had to clean up their room they actually did it (mutter, mumble, grumble why wouldn’t they do it for me?????).  Owen now has a working power point and blinds on his windows.  This weeks mission is to finish the kitchen and get moving on the laundry.  I will reclaim this house by the 13th July deadline…..meanwhile I will keep up at uni too.

life is good 🙂

Jude

Life is a funny adventure

wow I have been so very slack about this blog so here is a quick catch up on my life right now…

Firstly, I’ve now been off my antidepressants for 3 weeks – I clean forgot to take them for a week and a half and then suddenly realised that I was still feeling good…great even…so I’m off them and its all good.

Which leads me to the next bit…I’m happy. Yes I have days when the kids drive me nuts, when I get overwhealmed by housework and knee high grass, when I’m stressed about money or broken down cars or life in general…..but overall I am happier than I can remember being in a very long time.

The boys are going along nicely although Brett seems to think the world has it in for him at the moment – I do hope that improves soon.  He had a horror week last week but I have decided the best thing is to start fresh this week and hope we can improve things.

Lee and his son Ryan came on holidays with us up to Loxton and Adelaide for a couple of weeks.  Was great to be able to introduce my man to my family – was even better to see that they all got on well (never really doubted that they would)!

I have finished another unit at unit (intro Indigenous studies unit) – still awaiting marks of course for the last two assignments but the first do I did well so should be all ok.  I’ve also just (yesterday) started my new unit – Psychology of Wellbeing (positive psychology) which sounds really interesting and I am looking forward to getting stuck in (who knows maybe I can find something to help with Brett’s attitude to life in the learning materials).   It’s my first level 2 psych unit so will be interesting to see if I can maintain my good grades.

This next couple of months I will be on a mission to get the house tidied and some repairs/maintence done too as we are looking at some massive changes to our lives….a new home and two additions to our family (Lee and Ryan).   So hoping to see a big FOR SALE sign going up in a few months time – ideal time for the move would be at the end of the year as there is a good chance that the kids will have to change schools.

So there you have it life is good (mostly) and I am oh so blessed and happy!

 

What happened to the holidays?

School is back tomorrow!  What happened to the holidays? They flew right past so quickly!  So just so you all know that I’m still in the land of the living here is a quick summary of what we got up to….

Ditched the playroom and gave Owen his own bedroom – still getting them all cleared out of crap and sorted….new curtains/blinds will hopefully be up in a week or two.  I still need to replace Bretts broken tallboy (Corey opened the drawers and used it for a ladder and broke it).  Owen having his own room also led to another plus – he has his own dirty wash basket and has now (for a month) been responsible for doing his own washing, so far he hasn’t run out of clean clothes….am proud of my boy.

Discovered that I actually CAN start a lawnmower….bought one – it’s orange and it is pretty easy to start and doing a good job…am gradually taming the overgrown grass and reclaiming my yard.

Saw lots of Lee and his son Ryan over the holidays – mostly at his place. Not having enough seats in the car means we can’t just hop in the car and hit the road…

And the exciting news – yesterday I found an ad on gumtree selling a dickie seat for $200 – a good one with 2 seats and retractable seatbelts. Am going to pick it up on Friday morning and then it will be fitted into the back of the wagon and we will have wheels and be able to go places all 6 of us!

Uni is plodding along – 4 weeks left til the exam (assignment due on Monday week) not enjoying this unit at all (info systems) looking forward to the new one (aboriginal culture).