SOLD

This happened in our lives recently.  

We bought a house.

It was a stressful couple of weeks of not knowing if the loan had been approved or not, but when the call came through saying 'yes', well I'm pretty sure you could have seen the weight being lifted from our shoulders. 

We don't move for another six weeks and the excitement is growing.  It is a beautiful house and ticked all our boxes of what we were looking for.  We didn't think we could achieve what we had on our (invisible) list with a budget set in mind but, well, we did.  

The thing with MrL and I is that we know what we want.  We had only looked in one other house, which was a display home for sale, but it was way out of our budget so it wasn't thought about again.  For some reason or another, this house appeared in our feed from real-estate.com.  We had both been looking for months, perhaps even a year, at what was out there and what area we wanted to live in.  This house was a little out of the area we both thought we would perhaps live, but I am pretty sure it was meant to be.  I went to the Open House with the girls, as MrL was at work.  I knew as soon as I walked in that 'this is it'.  When MrL returned from work the following week, we organised a private viewing which got nods all around.  A day of negotiating, a sleepless night and then it was a phone call from the agent saying, yep and then the true stress arrived.  (Hate dealing with any financial institutes!) 

So now this dream is a reality.  A quiet suburban street, a beautiful five year old house, our own pool, lovely little backyard and four bedrooms.  And a sewing/study nook.  It is not a large house by any means, but very much perfect for us.  As much as I love our apartment, we have most definitely out grown it.  (It was perfect for the three of us, but now as a family of four, not so much).  

(The following photos have been lifted from the Internet)

Roll on October.

Back Where We Began

So, after arriving back in Australia in January, staying in country Victoria with family for six weeks, heaving our suitcases up to a furnished apartment for four weeks in the suburb of Cairns we once called home, finding a rental property in that same suburb (which are as rare as hen's teeth) and moving in there, 10 weeks later we found ourselves back where our hearts belong....back in our own apartment.  

I broke the lease of the house we called home for a short time, when we found out that the tenant in our apartment had given notice and was moving out.  As luck would have it, there is such a shortage of rental houses up in this neck of the woods, that a new tenant was found after advertising for one weekend, so I didn't feel too bad. 

We moved back 'home' last weekend.  (Yeah, we are expert packers and movers.)

It feels great to see all our stuff back in the place it belongs...

It is a bit cold now for the pool, but the complex pool still looks very inviting....

The view from our balcony has changed somewhat - the trees have grown a lot over our three and a half year absence.

But my kitchen is still the same and I love it.  The family have been getting some half decent meals for a change! *heehee*

We are happy here, in the meanwhile, until the next adventure (whenever that shall be), begins....

Blog This and That.

I found a little display folder in the bookshelf that I had forgotten about.  It was my first blog that I had printed out - biglittlesister - which I began on one of my sister's typepad accounts.  It was my first time at 'blogging' and the date was July 5, 2004.  Two months before Monet was born.  Now here she is reading it coming up to eight years later...  Weird.  That original blog is now deleted as I started my own 'blogger' account in October 2006.  That's this blog you are currently reading.

I thought I would post a photo of the table runner MrL brought home from Abu Dhabi for me.  I requested a couple (I have a purple one too).  It is gorgeous - lots of detail and looks lovely on our dining table.

That's it for today. ;)

Pictures Worth Framing...?

You know how sometimes you get things and think "I should frame that?". (Or is that just me?)  When MrL returned home from work and handed me this....

...I thought just that.  That's worth keeping.  Can you make heads or tails of that?  Yeah, it was a Speeding Ticket but to be honest, it was a stretch of road where EVERYONE, yes, EVERYONE speeds unknowingly and the police were handing out speeding tickets like a clown handing out balloons at the circus.

But maybe I am just in a 'framing' kind of mood.

For about four years I have had a print that's been rolled up and been collecting dust.  We have moved overseas and another three times since my Mother-In-Law initially purchased this print for me.  And not one crease.  A shit-load of dust, but no creases!  I saw it the other day and thought "stuff it, I'm going to take it to the framers."  So I did.  And when I picked it up I feel in love with the print of our favourite place in the world all over again.  This is our home beach back in Far North Queensland.

It now sits proudly up on the wall in our Abu Dhabi villa.  Maybe I should take it down.  It's making me homesick. ;-)