In August and September, I was helping to prepare, organise and enjoy the Australian Wiccan Conference – we had an absolute ball. It was an amazing energy with incredible people that I’ll never forget. Considering it was my first large gathering, included my first large ritual (ie more than 5-6 people) and my first national gathering, it was a real eye-opener for me, and a really emotional, spiritual experience. Loved every minute of it. The energy was just awesome.

So most weekends in August and the start of September was taken up with preparing decorations and small items for the Conference. I loved every minute of helping to organise the event and would do it again in a heartbeat.

My parents left for Europe on Saturday just been and it’s been really quite strange without them around already (it’s only been 4 days out of a 3-week trip!). I’m trying to keep an eye on my brother after last time without being too overbearing. I know that was over two years ago but I’m still not sure if he’s grown up much since then.

Unfortunately, at 2:00am Monday morning, Michael received a phone call that his Grandma had passed away. 2011 has not been a good year for us in terms of loss – I’ve lost more people close to me in the last 6 months than most people do in 5+ years. We’re not sure when the funeral will be, most likely next Monday or Tuesday, but that will mean a trip to Adelaide for Michael – we can’t both afford to go so just him and his sister will be attending.

So really, it’s been a hectic couple of months, hence my only posting now. Hopefully life will get back on track a little more and we can live some normalcy for a while. I’m trying to get in touch with myself again, spiritually. Finding it difficult to focus with everything going on but will try my best.

We have looked at quite a few, and two of them have stood out for us. The first is a 1930s house with three large bedrooms, a built-on kitchen and bathroom, and a reasonably large backyard. It is on the market for $210,000.

The second is a property that was a house, again built in the 30s, converted to a dentist’s surgery. The house is completely empty, has a reception area and a waiting room (which would be the living room), and has potential to have three bedrooms (two of them previously being the rooms in which dental surgeries were carried out). It needs a bathroom and a kitchen put in (which, to have a functional kitchen and bathroom, would realistically take no more than a week), BUT it’s on the market for $190,000.

After weighing up the pros and cons of each, and talking to our bank, we put an offer on the second one. Our reasons were, that it would be less money spent on the actual property, leaving us with money to play with to put the kitchen and bathroom in. Additionally, it’s about 5 minutes walk to Mike’s work (along with shops), and probably less than 10 minutes to mine. The first house would have been 15 or so minutes to my work.

So, we are just going to get a builder (my uncle) in to have a look at it, to ensure it’s structurally sound and that kind of thing, then we’ll sign our contract and forward it to the owner who’ll then tell us if our offer is high enough or not. We’ve deliberately started low ($155,000) so that we have room to negotiate. Thankfully, when I said the offer to the Agent, he didn’t flinch, so it’s obviously about what he thinks it’s worth (!).

I’ll keep you updated on the progress of the process of us buying our house – it may fall through at this point, who knows – but it’s a learning experience for both of us.

So for reference, here are the posts about the bigger events that happened in 2009.

The New Place – moving back into our own space was excellent, after living for something like 9-10 months at my parents’ place. We’d lived together on our own before, so it wasn’t a particularly outstanding achievement or event in itself, but it was a regaining of our freedom and independence.

New Beginnings – moving to Terri.nu was a big change – I still use the name ‘Inspirata’ for my website design stuff, but I felt it was time to move to something bigger and better. Terri.nu was a domain name I’d wanted for a while – it’s me, of course, and my name isn’t changing any time soon! Again, not much to this event, but it was something I did that stood out this year.

The Wedding Post – and of course, the biggest thing that happened in 2009 was our wedding. What can I say but it’s the start of the next phase of our relationship, true commitment to each other. The happiest day of my life.

And that’s about it. I did get a job in 2009, as well, which I am grateful for. I didn’t listen to the radio at all, unless I was in the car with my parents. I watched far too much TV and spent too much time playing The Sims 2 & 3. I lost 8kg in 12 months without even trying.

We lost Layla in February, whom we miss dearly (RIP Mama-Puss), which was a real breaking point for me, since I loved her so much.

Thankfully, though, Layla was our only loss this year – I wish it could have gone without any losses, but I suppose when a person’s or animal’s time has come, there’s not much you can really do about it.

In general, 2009 wasn’t bad. But, bring on 2010!

I just spent an hour cleaning the laundry and kitchen, and it still looks terrible.

I’ve resolved to clean a room every night after work, but I know that by the time I finish the last room, the first one I cleaned will be back where I started.

It’s so hard, too, when my hubby is a messy person. He’ll just step out of his clothes and leave them on the floor. I’ve tried to resolve this issue by putting the hamper in the bedroom, but it doesn’t help.

And another thing that is preventing me from being a tidy person is my perfectionism. When I clean, everything has to be perfect; there cannot be one thing out of place, ie. a spot on the kitchen counter, and if there is and I can’t do anything about it, I get so frustrated and upset with myself. This is particularly true when it comes to making the bed – if the sheet isn’t central and the doona cover isn’t on straight, or the doona isn’t even in the cover (like the corners not going into the corners, etc.), I get really annoyed.

I need to look at everything unbiasedly and just throw shit out. I don’t like living in clutter, but it’s how I’ve always been. Like my Dad said in his speech at our wedding, “Being tidy isn’t a priority in Terri’s life. She knows where everything is, so what’s the problem?”, but it’s kind of sad when you’re known as ‘The Messy One’ in your family…

[Part of this is cross-posted from EcstasyMB - you'd better join ]

Wedding plans are coming along – Michael’s ring arrived today, and mine is in the process of being paid off. We’ve also paid our deposit to our celebrant, and just need to make a time with her to meet her and have our first appointment. Locations for the ceremony and reception aren’t yet confirmed, but we’ve had to make a change with the reception location as the one we wanted was already booked for some 80th birthday. Umm… dress still hasn’t been ordered but I’m waiting on information from a dressmaker so as I can make my decision on who I get to make it.

In other news, I’m having four teeth pulled. Yup – all four of my wisdoms are coming out. I’m anxious, but I’m more relieved just to have a chance to get them out, since they’ve been giving me grief for so long now. I had my consultation today, and my surgery is on the 31st July. I’m going to have to take 3-4 days off work (which sucks since I’m still on probation and therefore won’t be paid for those days), but it has to be done – I can’t continue living in so much pain. This will be my first surgery, and I’m grateful that it’s a relatively simple one – not life-threatening or the result of an accident or anything. It’s going to be crazy painful afterwards though. Urgh.

Anyway, I think that’s kind of brought you up-to-speed on what’s happening in the life of Terri. Take care, until next time …

So, on Thursday night Michael and I decided we will get married later this year, on November 7th. We have been dwelling too much on the When, Where, How, Who and What for so long that we forgot all about the Why, so we decided to just do it and get it done with!

So as for the details we have so far (and none are confirmed just yet):

• Ceremony – @ the Tasmanian Arboretum
• Reception – @ our local RSL Club (which we are members of and go to often, know the people there, etc.). We won’t be having a sit-down dinner; just finger-food and drinks, which we think allows people to mingle a little more and not have them restricted to talking to people at the one table.
• Celebrant – we’ve decided on Emma for our celebrant, she’s very flexible with the ceremonies and we don’t want anything denominational (but I’d like an element of a Pagan handfasting in there somewhere).
• Dress – I love this dress as it’s so unique, but I need to try some on locally to make sure it’s the right style for me first. Also, I would change the red lace to hot pink (because of course I need to have hot pink as one of my colours!)
• Wedding Party – Michael has asked his brother-in-law to be his Best Man, and his cousin to be his groomsman; I’ve asked my sister to be my Maid-of-Honour, and my best friend to be my bridesmaid. We decided to choose only two people each, as we thought there might be jealousy amongst both friends and family if there were more and someone didn’t get chosen (!).
• Bridesmaid’s Dresses – I have asked my bridal party to wear whatever they feel is suitable, as long as it’s hot pink or close enough. I don’t want them going out and buying a specially-made dress and only being able to wear it the once.

There you go – that’s the plans so far. We haven’t got a photographer or anything yet, and we don’t want one for the whole ceremony or anything – I have a large family so everyone will no doubt be taking lots of photos, so we just want a photographer for after the ceremony to take a couple of professional shots. We’re awaiting a few quotes from photographers before making a decision.

It’s all very exciting and nerve-wracking – I can’t wait!

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been blessed with the job of taking over ‘Graphic Designer’ role for the Tasmanian Pagan Alliance, Inc. newsletter. The original GD, who had been in the role for 10 years, quit due to time and internet restraints, so I put my hand up straight away. I managed to pump out the latest newsletter, which was running late, in under 24 hours, so the State Coordinator and the Editor of the newsletter were really impressed with that – it makes me feel good to know I can contribute even more to this group I’m a part of.

Um so not much else to mention, other than mentioning the new endeavour that Catie and I have undertaken – check that out at Beauty-U. I’m meaning to post more there but the other things I’m doing (housework, Pagan Alliance stuff, etc.) have taken priority. I’ll try to post a couple of vids or blog posts this week.

Anyway, I’ve been busy. I’ve finally got somewhat of a job – I’m doing a website for a local jewellers. Essentially I’ll be running their online side of things – they’ll have an online store and such, and I’m in charge of all that, so it’ll be an ongoing task. I’ll be paid monthly, and the owner of the business said there’s also the possibility of my earning a commission off sales from the website, which is AWESOME. It looks like things are finally starting to look up
Also, we’re looking at getting our own place – we looked at an apartment for rent yesterday, but it was far too small and there weren’t enough powerpoints for us geeky types. Hell, there wasn’t even space for a washing machine, and nowhere to put bathroom products, so we said no. We’re going to look at another place, which is a lot more money (an extra $55 a week) than the one we looked at, but it will hopefully be a lot better. We’ve worked it out and we could survive on Michael’s income alone, but with mine it should be a breeze.

We also got Guitar Hero World Tour! It’s so much fun – I love the drums, finally something I’m good at! We bought it with money that Michael made selling football cards on eBay. Which brings me to my next point – I’m thinking of starting up my jewellery making again – just little beaded things – and selling them on eBay, to bring in a little extra cash. Goodness knows we need as much as we can get right now. So I’m just looking into that now.

School has been highly unmotivating, and I’ve barely touched my work lately. If anyone knows anything about development methodologies, please get in touch with me because I can’t get my freakin’ head around it! (It’s website development, by the way).

Anyway, that’s enough for a quick update. I’ve been flat out otherwise – with this jeweller’s website, mostly, and since my mum’s been working afternoon shifts it’s meant I’ve had to cook for the family, which has been less than inspiring!

I have applied for Youth Allowance (government assistance) whilst I’m studying, but it turns out I’m only eligible for $50 every 2 weeks because Michael earns too much – go figure. But I did put down a budget and worked out that if we were paying $130 a week rent (and there’s a place available for that right now), and adding in groceries, electricity, etc., we would be able to do it on his wage. If I were to get a part-time job, all the better.

Anyway, since talking about that kind of gets me a little antsy and irritable, I have also made my very first plans for celebrating Samhain this year. Samhain, for those of you who don’t know, is pronounced ‘Sow-ween’ and it is the Witches’ New Year, as well as a commemorative day of the departed, particularly those we have lost in the last 12 months. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is held on the 31st October (Halloween), but here in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s at the start of May. I will be going ‘camping’ (aka simply sleeping in a tent; there’ll be actual toilets and showers available) at a Pagan Alliance member’s house. It’s a fancy dress thing – gothic or emo dress – so I’m looking forward to that. What I’m not looking forward to is the drive down – it’s an almost 4 hour drive, which is a really long time to be sitting in a car, but I suppose it could be worse. But I’m really excited about that, since I’ve never been to an actual event for a Sabbat; I’ve only ever done my own thing.

We’re going to Melbourne for the Easter break (Friday 10th – Sun 12th) so I won’t be here then. Looking forward to catching up with my sister, my friends and Michael’s family.

Anyway, I think that pretty much catches you all up. Sorry if I don’t update here as often, since I’m doing school work too, I have to dedicate a lot of time to that.

Take care

I did stocktake on Saturday. It was okay, but I don’t think I’d do it again. It was pretty simple work, very monotonous (just scanning items on racks). The worst thing is that my body was absolutely buggered by the end of it – standing up and walking around for 6 hours without a break to sit down took its toll. Yesterday (Sunday) I could barely walk, and couldn’t even get up out of my seat without assistance – thank god it was a Sunday and Michael was home to help me out. I’ve tried to keep moving but it is very painful. I’m still sore today, and had to get my dad to take me around to the post office to post my bestie’s birthday present. The post office is less than a 10 minute walk from our house, so that’s saying something about the pain I’m in. This is just showing me that I need to get moving more often.

I did go for three 30+ minute walks last week – on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with my mum and our family friend. We’re trying to make it a habit, although it’s difficult for my mum, with shift work, but I at least go with our friend and the dog, and get a half hour in.

As for weight loss, nothing’s happening yet. I hit a low when I put on weight over the last few days, but I haven’t been eating well (despite exercising quite a bit). It’s slowly coming back off, but yeah it was kind of disappointing. Just have to regain my enthusiasm that I had in January.

I put in an expression of interest for school last Wednesday, but am still awaiting someone to contact me to confirm. I hate waiting for people, especially since I’m doing or have done everything I can and then it’s just up to someone else. Freakin’ hell it’s frustrating.

Anyway, totally babbling now. I shall post again in a day or two.