If you follow me on Twitter at all (I feel like I seem to start every entry with that line nowadays), you’ll know that Michael and I are looking at buying a house in the not-too-distant future.
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.
It is so amazing how time flies by. I have been so busy at work and taking care of things at home that I just have not had a chance to even get on the computer, let alone type up a blog post. It seems like only yesterday Michael and I made the decision to get married, and now it’s only 9 weeks until the big day! I always scoffed when my mum told me that each year, as you get older, flies by faster than the last, but now I know exactly what she was talking about. Before we know it, it will be 2010 and Michael and I will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary 
Anyway, to update you on what’s happening in terms of the wedding since I last posted about it: -
- My Nan has already made the cake (a fruitcake) and it is now in a container at her house, ready for the fondant.
- My Auntie has accepted the request for her to be our MC at the reception – we just need to sit down and talk with her about exactly what we want her to say – mostly it will be just introducing us as a couple, and inviting people to tell stories or make speeches.
- Guest list was finalised a few weeks ago, and invitations went out a couple of weeks ago. I handmade every invite (and I’ll post a picture below of them) and then had my mum send them out.
- Shoes for both Michael and I have been purchased. Michael’s were relatively easy to find, and cost $160 (down from $400, mind you!). Mine were more difficult to find; we spent a whole weekend looking for them and ended up finding them at Cotton On for $30, so I was pretty impressed! Photo of these below as well.
- Michael’s suit has been purchased in Melbourne, and is being altered to fit. His parents will be picking it up.
- My dress arrived a few weeks back, but since I don’t want Michael to see it, no photos will be posted online yet! It’s beautiful, though. I absolutely love it.
- The reception will be catered by the Catering Class at the High School I attended. We just need to find someone to tend bar and serve the food (and we have a couple people in mind).
So really all that’s left to do is to finalise our ceremony with our celebrant, to make my bouquet and the arrangements for my bridesmaids, and to organise a photographer (we’ve possibly got one lined up).
Everything is coming along great – it’s starting to get really exciting now!
Slowly but surely, I’m starting to feel better. It’s been hard, and there’s still a way to go yet, but after talking with many people about it, and getting my feelings out, it’s getting easier to talk about her, to look at pictures of her, to do all that stuff.
Michael has been a huge support – he’s going through the same thing that I am, but is dealing with it, at least on the outside, a whole lot better than I have been, and he’s been there for me each step of the way.
Anyway, onto brighter topics. I went shopping yesterday, since I had two $50 gift cards for Kmart (well, one for $50, one for $43.95 since I spent some of it) and bought:
- Hot pink eyeliner
- White eyeliner
- Maybelline’s Define-A-Lash in Waterproof
- Blusher/Bronzer
- Four eyeshadows
- Eyeshadow palette
I also bought ‘Twilight’ – no, I haven’t read it already, so I’ve been desperately avoiding spoilers online. I’ve done pretty well so far, since I only know that it’s about a chick who meets this guy who’s a vampire. That’s all I know. I started reading it last night, and am up to Chapter 3 (they’re long chapters, aren’t they?!). I’m enjoying it so far, but it’s not ‘must-read’ to me just yet, or something I’d be recommending to people yet. Obviously, because I’m only up to Chapter 3.
Then today, I went out and bought a perfume (just a cheapy that states it’s comparable to Britney Spears’ Curious perfume), cat food, hair mousse, a lip gloss and some choccies and a card for Michael, since I didn’t give him anything for Valentine’s Day. I had Subway for lunch, which was good – nice to have something that tastes healthy.
As for my site, Inspirata hasn’t seen a lot of love really, so I did a little revamping around the place, adding some more subpages, separating stuff out a little more. Happy so far.
Aanndd I need to work on my other sites more. GeekWitch.org has not seen ANY love for a while, which is a shame because I love that site, and TasPagans, don’t even get me started there. I think I jumped into that project with too much hope that it would really take off. If we haven’t got a lot of traffic by the end of March, I reckon I’ll just redirect the URL to the Tas Pagan Alliance site. Make things easier.
Anyway, that’s enough for now.
