Making Merry

We've had a lovely Christmas.

Christmas eve saw us celebrating at an impromptu dinner with friends, thankfully for us, they too live on the the north side, so the drive home was pretty easy.

I woke up quite late, and we exchanged gifts before we headed out. I got a gardening through the year book, a month by month guide to what one needs to attend to in the garden. I'm such a novice at it all that I need the help! I also got a paper shredder.... there is not much scrap paper in our house that has not been shredded now! Gadgets are cool! I also expect that the shredded paper will be good for composting too. BabyCakes seems pretty happy with his home brew kit from brewcraft. It came complete with a bench top capper and a book explaining all the intricacies of beer making.


We opened up presents with my side of the family on Christmas morning, with a few families having to head off to have lunch with their other halves. We stayed and had lunch with my folks. It's odd to think that lunch for 11 is a small affair.... but it is!

After lunch we headed home for a bit, before going to BabyCakes' parents for dinner. More food was eaten and more good times were had. It was a low key day, and nicely balanced to minimise stress.

Yesterday we went to Bunnings and spent some vouchers we'd been given to buy some fencing materials and plants. We told a few people that we would be home on Boxing day and that they were welcome to drop in. Rastas and the Primrose Goddess were the only ones who took up our offer, and we shared dinner and chatted into the evening. The Primrose Goddess had a chance to look around the garden in daylight during this visit, and she helped identify some of the plants we have, and which ones might be best if removed - most of which I'd already decided were weeds for me.

Overdue

Hiya,

It has been too long since I last posted. Sometimes the more I looked at how long between posts it had been, the less I wanted to post, or the more embarrassed about posting I became.

So I decided I should just post and move on!


We're settling into our home pretty well. We enjoy living here, and now that we have all our services connected (and the bills rolling in), it feels much more relaxing.

The silly season has created some busy times for us, and I must say, I'm looking forward to spending some quiet time at home with BabyCakes without feeling like we should be somewhere else, which I hope will happen in the time off after Christmas.


We've decided that we will be at home on Boxing day, and will welcome drop-ins from those that are looking for something to do/somewhere to go/someone to see. We're also going to be home for New Years Eve, and might even look at doing another spit roast if people are interested.

Lots is happening everywhere, and now that I've ended my shameful break from posting, I will endeavour to share some of our news in the near future.

Post 100! - A Phone, a Phone, My Kingdom.... Ahh Whatever!

As you know, our phone was supposed to be connected on Friday.







I've since worked out, that that was very optimistic.

Think about the joys one can have with dealing with Telstra.... well, I'm dealing with a CUSTOMER of Telstra... that's two who layers of bureaucracy before one even works one's way through the departmental minefields!

I'm not even going to start trying to log how long phonecalls to the phone company take, the crappy mobile reception at our new house and the hidden "joys" of pre-paid phones.


On Monday I received a text to tell me the phone was connected. I was excited, but not so excited as to start giving out the number to anyone but BabyCakes.

After a full day at work (yeah, how often does *that* happen?), going straight to the flat to clean it, hiring a carpet cleaner, returning to the flat to steam clean carpets, and finally getting home at 9:15pm, I excitedly plug in a phone to each of the 5, yes, f i v e phone points in the house searching for a dial tone......

.....to find none had one.


I swore. I went to bed.


Yesterday, another phonecall was made from work (I know, two days in a row at work - amazing..... and likely to be more - all week in fact - who woulda thunk?), and now we have a fault lodged. Hopefully, sometime in the next couple of days someone might be able to make it so a phone rings in our house...

The upside is, that whilst the phone is officially connected, they can provision the dsl to the line... so once we have a phone, we're likely to have our internet back too!


Anyway, back to work....

Still Alive.

Howdy!

Just a quick note to let you know that we're still alive. We've been busy moving between the flat and the house, and a large proportion of the move has happened.

The big stuff (fridge, sofa, book cases, and other stuff) will be moved on Saturday. Mail redirection, telephone connection and cable connection happens tomorrow, with the ADSL being provisioned sometime after that.

We're enjoying the new house, the cat a little less so - but she's always been a bit skittish. She is definitely settling into the swing of things and is more and more curious about what is on the other side of the doors and windows.

We're looking forward to having the fridge in the same venue as the bed, and being able to shut the door on the flat and not have to come back.

All part of the process I guess!


I'm going to pack my computer now - so I'll see you on the flip side!

Why Doesn't Everyone Understand How Important Today Is?

The managing agent told us weeks ago that she'd booked in to do the post tenant inspection first thing this morning, which was great, because it meant that we expected to be able to get into our house by about lunchtime.

At about 1pm BabyCakes range the agent to find out what's happening, and she said that she was planning to leave the office soon, and then had to do a report and that maybe by about 3pm she *might* be in a spot to give us our keys (ok, maybe she didn't quite word it like that, but it feels like it).

So, I'm home from work, and going stir crazy, I just want to start moving some of the mountains of boxes.

*whinge*



Thanks Rastas for your comment this morning on my last post... it made me smile!

3 More Sleeps!

....until we can use our new keys. The girl downstairs is playing loud music till all hours, the trains are getting noisier (I swear they are!), and we just want to move on with our lives. We're a bit excited that on Monday afternoon we can enter our new home :)

For The Wah...

We Got Oneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The house settled yesterday. :)

Now we have to wait 11 days 'till we can use the keys we got!


I'm a bit restless to write much now - I might write some more later :)

Ever Have This Feeling?

New Tricks?

It may seem slightly odd, but I can't touch type. (That (and this) sentence took me three times as long as it ordinarily would to type, because I am trying to become a reformed hen-pecker.)

I've given up for the moment and reverted to a pretty poor technique in an effort to stop myself going insane with the lack of speed I was typing at.


I found a pretty cool site to help with my new plan of self improvement - well this particular part of it anyway! I also find, that there is a balance between concentrating and over thinking that needs to be found - sometimes I surprise myself with speed and accuracy, and others I get insecure over fingering and slow right down... my brain on some level, does know where the keys are - I just have to learn to start using my pinkies and ring fingers more.

I'd really like to be able to type without looking at the keys...



Today is one of my brothers' birthday. Happy Birthday dude! Have fun on your weekend away.


The house purchase is rolling along nicely, settlement is booked in for 3pm next week and the solicitor and the finance company have confirmed they have everything they need... I guess that just means the seller's side has to be up to speed and we're all happy! Update on that - my solicitor just emailed and gave me the list of funds we need to provide for settlement. Scary! Luckily though, I didn't accept blindly and asked a question that saved us paying an extra $400 to the government! It means there is $400 more in the wedding/honeymoon money - which has GOT to be a good thing!


In other news...

BabyCakes' Mum's health has become a concern again.

My Dad has also been in for more tests - his results are confusing - pretty much routinely abnormal which means more tests and more um-ing and ah-ing by his various doctors as they try and work out what is happening. He's upbeat about it all though.



Life really does keep moving on...

Life Gets in the Way

Hiya,

Lots has happened since I last posted. The house purchase has gone unconditional. YAY! The tenant has given notice, and we have a moving date. We don't officially know that though until the house is ours.... and that will be next Wednesday. Double yay! Moving day is set for Saturday 10th of November which is almost more exciting.

The flat looks awful at the moment - we reclaimed everything from storage in an effort to save some money we didn't have to spend and we quite literally have boxes stacked up all over the place, and some messes arising from not having items that all completely fit into the boxes that have been packed - lots of "half-a-box-fulls" - that is what most of the mess is.

I started organising the services to be disconnected and reconnected which definitely makes things feel a lot more real, realer than the packing boxes everywhere.



For me, the last couple of days have been tough. Ever have moments that undermines your confidence so completely that it scares you? I do.

Up until a few days ago the working plan (always room for possible change), was that we get married and start not trying to not have kids. (re-read that if you have to, it will become clearer)

A couple of comments from different sources have made me feel scared and insular, and made me want to be selfish and safe. Walking round shopping centres and hearing parents and children, and children and children interact is also undermining to the tenuous desire to accept that I might do ok as a parent, that we'll find a way, that we will cope with parenthood.

Signing documents like a shared mortgage, thinking about what happens if something happens to one of us, life insurances, those looming mortgage payments... HUGE. Just plain huge, in anyway you look at them. A large part of me wants to hunker down, shut out the world and concentrate on making our home safe and secure for the two of us. I think that is quite natural. But I can't focus all my energy on that. We're planning a wedding, a honeymoon, thinking about kids.... I can also tell you that if we'd had that magic one dependent on the mortgage documents, I don't think we'd have had such a smooth loan application process.

I don't know.

I wanted to get some of my thoughts out of my head, to purge them. I have no idea what is happening next, I think I need to just concentrate on the next step, and do as best I can with that.

Oficially a Tenant

Settlement went as planned (except for some fees I hadn't noticed), and the bank balance is looking healthy.

I'm very happy that we can move forward now. the fact that I don't have a mortgage anymore is somewhat novel too!

The bank manager has also indicated that it looks like we have been approved for the loan to buy the house but he couldn't say 100% that we have - hopefully that will come tomorrow or Friday.



YAY!

More Steps

Our offer was officially accepted last Monday. This means that a week from today, we will either have an unconditional contract, or be looking for a new house to get excited over!


As testament to how excited we are, here is a (rough) floor plan I made up last night, to help describe it to people and to get an idea how furniture we have (and don't have) will fit.

Last Wednesday we had the pest and building inspections, and both men were quite free with their praise for the house. "They don't make them like this anymore" type comments were heard, and the pest guy seemed quite infatuated with the house, saying that he himself would buy a place just like it.

The completion of the building and pest inspections signified the start of my real excitement for this purchase, and we just got more excited over the course of the weekend as we went to the auction for the other property we had been interested in. The run down "fix-er upper" went for $505,000 - well over what we would have paid for it, and well over our budget for a house in general. The feeling of absolute relief and confidence in the price we offered for our new home was very satisfying as the auction bids went higher and higher.

The flat is due to settle on Wednesday afternoon, so it seems all our checks and balances are falling into place as everything gains momentum to our goal. (I'll also be without a mortgage then... and have a fantastic looking bank account for a while too!)

The only blemish so far in the ease of all these transactions is that the house has a tenant in it, and legally she's allowed to stay until the 23rd of November. That leaves us with 6 days we don't have a home! Additionally, her contracted rent payment is less than we have to pay to stay on in the flat!

We will wait until the house goes unconditional before we start negotiating with the tenant, to make sure she knows there will be no penalty for breaking the contract early. I just hope that the fact that every time we have been to the property there have been more boxes packed is a sign that they are looking to leave sooner rather than later. I can't imagine that anyone would plan to live with packed boxes for 2 months or more. Fingers crossed she finds an ideal place to live and can't wait to get there!



Now comes the time to seriously contemplate packing and the move.... I'd love to be in our new home at the start of next month.

A Verbal Acceptance

We've had a verbal acceptance of our offer on this house. The owner didn't want to sign anything without her solicitor being present, so we won't have a signed contract until Monday.

I'm excited but wary.

We have to get the building and pest inspector through too, to make sure there are no hidden nasties.

A new house, a new home, a new reason to go to Ikea!

BabyCakes has never had a mortgage before... an exciting but nerve wracking process.

Now to arrange the furniture....

Waiting Waiting Waiting

We have received word, that we won't receive word on whether our offer is accepted until tomorrow.

What an awful wait!





The Nerd Test says I'm cool... does that make me cool? or just nerd-cool?

Step Four?

Today we put an offer in on a house. It is not the one that we spent a lot of time thinking about, but one we've had on our radar for a while.

This is a smaller house than the one up for auction in Nundah, but it is in a much quieter location and far more of a "just move in" proposition.

We will just have to wait and see if the owner accepts our offer - a nerve wracking time to be sure.

We made an offer that BabyCakes and I feel comfortable with, and I doubt we'll negotiate further. We made our offer significantly high enough that we do not expect that there will be negotiation, it's more of a yes/no proposition. I'm not sure if this is where the market is at at this time, or it is the culture of the real estate offices we have been dealing with recently, but it was like this when I sold the flat too.

The house does need some work - the guttering is holey, obviously damage wood work in places and tree stumps left in the ground. There is also a tenant in place until the 23rd of November. With any luck, given they won't be able to stay on after that date, they will want to move out sooner...

Hopefully we should know tomorrow if the offer is accepted. I hope it is, it would be very exciting.

Step Three!

Today the contract on the flat became unconditional :)

Now we get to go shopping for our new home.



The current forerunner is this "fixer upper". The fact that it is an auction is somewhat intimidating.



We spent the weekend at the Neurum Creek Acoustic Music Festival and had a fabbo time, forging some new friendships. BabyCakes and I both had our first taste of acupuncture, and BabyCakes especially had some fantastic results (his back responded very well).

The weekend was a lovely camping experience (despite the deflating air mattress that came with a patch kit that didn't actually come with enough glue to completely secure the patch....), mixed in with some great music and a low key vibe.

We really relaxed over the course of the weekend, and enjoyed socialising with our friends, new and old.

Step Two

If step one in our plan to move into a house was to put the flat on the market, step two was signing a contract accepting an offer on it.

It was a busy weekend, our first open inspection (and hopefully our last one too). We had an offer on the flat on Saturday afternoon, after one person from the open inspection brought their partner back to look at the flat later in the day. They wanted me to make a decision within a couple of hours which was very stressful, and in the end they didn't get. The real estate agent went back to them on my behalf and told them I wouldn't accept any other offers or let anyone else see the property until I had made a decision on their contract. The called the agent the next day having "cooled off". It was our first big taste of the fact that a signed contract does not equate to sale.

On Monday the agent brought an interested buyer through, and they subsequently made an offer too. the contract offer and terms were very similar to the first one, so it was a much easier decision second time round to accept the offer. I actually got to sign this contract, so that was a step beyond where we got the first time. Now we just wait the 14 days until the contract is unconditional, and then we wait the next 16 days to make sure the money goes into the account! Realistically though, an unconditional contract is the next step.

The ad has been removed from realestate.com.au, so the property does not appear "stale" should there be a need to re-list it due to a contract crashing.

In two weeks, we could possibly be in a position to seriously hunt for our new home!

Sunday was a big day, trying to squeeze in some laundry on a day we could afford to leave it hanging on the line (not a good look when "showing" a home), more driving by houses, lunch with my family and dinner with BabyCakes' folks. Lunch was fun with three toddlers racing around trying to not let the others out do themselves, and another baby looking on. It certainly changes the dynamics of the group interaction.

Dinner at BabyCakes' parents place was much more low key (much needed at the end of the weekend), but equally as enjoyable. I wouldn't have thought that a crossword scratchie could be a group activity.... but it can!

Saturday night was an impromptu outing to the AFL. BabyCakes was offered the tickets on Saturday morning and so we invited Mr & Mrs C to join us, as they are the only friends I have who really mention AFL, and Mr C hails from Geelong, so I thought he might enjoy the nostalgia. Mrs C had to unfortunately leave early to make it to work, but it was a nice shared outing. We had to battle the crowds to get there (Riverfire plus Gabba event = busy Brisbane), and I accidentally spilled half a beer down the back of two chairs in front of me, and the occupants of them.... oops.

All up, a busy busy weekend, after a busy busy week... but it's been nice to have things to do. I'm just wondering if it will every calm back down to a mildly busy weekend...

OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!???!!!!

I think I could learn to love my real estate agents. Yesterday they called me to let me know that they'd contacted about a quarter of the people on their lists waiting for a flat in the area. From those calls they'd arranged 3 viewing appointments, and more people driving past to have a look before making appointments. I was happy and excited by this... the flat isn't officially on the market, and I've not signed anything to officially "hire" them as agents.


This morning I get a call from the agents, saying they have a guy who wants to put a contract in on the place. He's not seen it. The agent had to tell him he can't do it yet, because not all the paperwork is ready for offers yet. She also encouraged him that he really should look at it first too. He'll be stopping by tomorrow afternoon with daughter to look at the property. I just can't get over the fact that they were prepared to promise money without even seeing it....


It makes me feel that we will get what we want for it, and maybe a bit more too.










WOOHOO!

Holy Moly!

We have had 4 real estate agents through in the past week to look at our home. They all wanted on their books, and quite frankly, all had a pretty similar offer in how they would market the property. We in the end chose an agent that we thought would look after our interests and also be a fair agent on our behalf when dealing with prospective buyers. It is a mind wracking process to be honest, and simply picking the agent seems like the first hurdle of our new journey. We have picked the agency that we have the strongest affinity with and a balanced offer in their sales style. Our current home could be on the market as soon as next weekend. EEK!

It is absolutely mind numbing to think that this process could see us homeless for a while... We have to have a bit of blind faith (and contingency plans), that we will be able to go from the flat into our new home. The market moves so quick and is very intimidating for it. All I know is, while we haven't sold the flat, we can't afford to buy just about any house, and certainly not the home we want.

Making a decision to list and who to list it with is a big emotional step. We're excited though. We're getting closer to buying a house.