... that it has been a while since I last wrote. Quite a lot seems to be happening at once!
Niece had her Senior Formal last month. It was Hallowe'en themed. It wasn't a full on thing, dress was Hallowe'en themed, smart casual.
We bought a new dress for her. And in typical fashion, things didn't go to plan while we were getting her ready!
She was supposed to wash her hair the night before. She didn't. It was greasy as heck Thursday afternoon when she came home from school. She washed it. She didn't wash it properly and it was all greasy and yet sticky underneath. Back to the shower to do it properly. Her hair is very fine and lacks volume; alas doesn't tolerate shampoos with sulphate. Which rules out most volumising shampoo. Okay. A quick blowdry upside down and hope for the best. Nope, no better. Curls. But I don't have a styling wand so had to make do with my straightener. It didn't quite work properly. No styling mousse either. Hey, I don't style my hair do I.
She put on her dress. And I laughed. Naughty me. It has a side zip, and once again she had put her arm through the zip and was trying to zip it up.
We found some make up ideas on Facebook and had bought some face paint to work with. Alas, the brush turned out to be less than up to the task so it didn't work as well as it might. However, I wasn't going to pay >$100 for a professional face paint kit! We made do. Orange and olive green eye shadow painted with black bats. A green tint in the lippy and presto! Hallowe'en themed.
We arrived at the venue and escorted her to a group of friends. Some of the boys seemed to be in costume but most of the girls had taken the opportunity to dress up and they looked beautiful. MOTH and I knicked off to the nearest shopping centre to waste two and half hours as it wasn't worth returning home just to turn around to come back again. It was about half hour drive home.
Suddenly the house hunting is underway in earnest. I thought we'd ease into it but nope, full on. Endless searching on realestate.com.au and trying to decide which surburbs we want to look at. The school gives me an idea of what areas will do the bus run and mentions that one of the suburbs I chose was outside that so we could live there, but we would have to get her to school ourselves. One of the others was in a different school catchment. What does that mean for other suburbs? We take this to mean that we will choose a suburb and see what happens. There's nothing available in our current suburb within our budget. They're small, 3 bedrooms, and around $370 to $380 a week.
While the current way of thinking is not to pay more than 1/3 of your income in rent, I will happily pay up to 1/2 as I am very fussy. Very fussy. It must look right. It must feel right. It must be clean. I won't live in a place I consider a dump. Most anything that is less than 1/3 of our current income falls in that category I'm afraid. And I won't pay top dollar for a place I will never be happy in. Did I mention I am fussy? Most of the houses we looked at were over 1/3 of our income.
The ones we like in the outer suburbs are the same or newer but $350 to $360 a week. A good saving but higher fuel costs as we drive to and from the school twice a day. Hmmmm. We look at a suburb a little closer. It's a lovely area but the housing is around $360 to $370. Just under half. Suddenly, my calendar is full of reminders about inspections. There are a couple of suburbs we could look at with cheaper rents, old housing commission homes but the areas don't have great reputations. So many nice houses to look at in other surburbs, and we're busily putting in tenancy applications. But they're all knocked back. So depressing!
We look at everything from houses to units. And some of the units were lovely but way too small! I put in an application on one before viewing and what a disappointment. Lovely lovely lovey but only enough room in the living area for 1 x 2 seater couch, coffee table, television unit. And behind the couch, 1 metre to the kitchen bench. Upstairs though were 3 generous sized bedrooms. I think I'd rather the space in the living area.
One pops up in our area. MOTH loves it. It's 3 bedroom and there are a lot of people at the inspection. I like it but I'm not sure quite how I feel about it. However, it DOES have a proper clothes line. They are surely getting rare these days!
And then suddenly, an offer! On the house MOTH really liked. I liked it too but I think he liked it better. And the same day when I contact agents to withdraw any applications we had, I find out we had successfully secured a townhouse. That one was our second choice. 3 bedroom, brand new. Pet friendly. Airconditioned. *the new house doesn't have this. cue trepidation!* Brand new I say! Not hugely spacious, but we could manage. And not far from the local tavern either. I don't think noise would have been a problem as it was set some distance back from the road. Oh wait. That was the one we were shown. But we did express a preference for one in that row. And MOTH informs me that we also had a very good chance on another in a nearby suburb. MOTH did this inspection by himself. *the first time Tee didn't turn up early so i couldn't go* It had an unusual layout that MOTH liked and I liked in the photos.
So now, all systems go while we sort and pack. And try to coordinate things so that it all comes together. Visitors. Volunteering weekend. Graduation. Assessments for my diploma. It all falls at the same time. Wish me luck people!
