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.
Do you often have times where you’re soooo looking forward to something, then it either turns out to be a total let-down or it doesn’t happen?
This has happened to me a couple of times just in the last week. Firstly, my mum wanted to go and see Avatar, which I have already seen, but I said I’d go see it with her again because I really did love the film. We were going to see it last Friday while Michael was working, but then on Friday morning, Mum called me and said that Dad also wants to see it, so we’re putting it off till next Wednesday. I said that’s fine, no big deal – and it was really a better time for me because that was my payday.
Wednesday comes around, and now Mum is in too much pain (back pain) to sit in the cinema for 3 hours. Again, fine, but I was kind of looking forward to it. We said maybe Thursday, possibly Friday.
It’s now Thursday night and I think we’ll be lucky if we get to see it tomorrow night. There just seems to be something else that gets in the way, or something just disrupts plans, when I’m really looking forward to doing something. I’m not a very social person, so for me to make the effort to go out outside of work hours is an achievement in itself, but it really peeves me when it’s something I really want to do, and then it gets screwed up.
I’m REALLY looking forward to sleeping in the extra half-hour that I get to every day next week. Please, Universe – don’t ruin that for me too.
Warning: This post is just my brain spilling everything that’s buzzing around in there. It’s all over the place, so I apologise.
So, I went back to work today. Joy, oh joy. As much as I enjoy my job, I dislike routine (hey, I’m an Aquarian), and getting stuck in a routine of getting up, showering, going to work, coming home, eating, sleeping, and doing it all again is just not my cup of tea. My ideal situation would be to work from home, but I know that’s a goal of a lot of people and it’s not easily attainable.
Maybe it’s because it’s only my first day back, but I guess I’m sick of being exhausted all the time. This might be another reason to lose some weight – maybe I’ll get back some of that energy that I’m lacking. But I’m really not that motivated to lose the weight. I need to lose about 23kg before I’m even at a slightly healthy weight.
Fuck it. I need to do it. I need to lose weight. I need lots of healthy, easy recipes though. I want to eat salads, but I’m not a fan of lettuce (I’ve had too many salads with heaps of lettuce that all tastes like dirt). Any ideas? I guess my problem is where do I start?!
So I’m back to work on Monday – leaving officially 2 days of my holidays. Where the hell did that time go?! I mean, I know I only got off work on the 23rd December, and we went to Melbourne on the 24th, the Gold Coast on the 27th, and then came home on the 2nd January, so that’s a decent chunk, but I had an extra week, and I feel like I’ve achieved nothing!
You know when time sometimes seems to fly by in some aspects, but the same amount of time seems to have been going for a long time? That’s kind of how I feel right now.
In other news, it’s like a month till my birthday. Woohoo!!! I’ve already asked my Mum if they can buy me a 1TB external harddrive, because I am running out of room on my computer, fast, and I don’t have any additional SATA slots left. Actually, I think I have one… but I’ll just get the external HDD. I can share it with Michael, then.
Also, I thought of my Dad’s 60th birthday present already – and his birthday is September. I received an email fwd from him – some ‘things you’ve done in your life’, and one of the questions was ‘Got a tattoo?’. His answer was ‘No, but there is one I have considered’. I asked him what it was, and he said ‘The Eureka Flag‘. So, I think I’m gonna organise for him to get his first tattoo on his birthday. I won’t tell him at all until the day – I mean, why not when he’s 60?! He’s semi-retired, so doesn’t need to worry about it for his job or anything, and it’ll only be small. I thought it was a neat idea and Mum agreed! So we’ll see what happens, but I reckon it’d be an awesome present.
