Well hello dear readers. 'tis been awhile. Again, not due to lack of content but rather lack of motivation to get to the computer and write it all down. I think I've mentioned before that if they could hurry up and invent a mind to computer recorder I would blog a lot more often. Then at 3am while I was narrating a blog entry in my head (yes I do actually do that...how sad is that) - it would be automatically blogging to my site. How cool would that be!!??
And so begins a life update:
My HealthIs doing quite well thank you. I can't wait to see the specialist in a few weeks to get my meds reviewed though - there've been a few blackouts of late when I've stood up too suddenly and I've fainted momentarily because my blood pressure must just drop... of course, they may not change my medication at all....after all, keeping my BP low is the point I think. Anyway, I'm braving work one day a week as of the first of December (always good to return to work during the silly season don't you think??) so we'll see how that goes.
My PrincessesI never feel like I can do justice to this section of my blog. So much happens during the day with them both that it's hard to capture their hilarity, their drama, their ability to stun me with their personalities..... so some snippets.
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(note well: we've been quite aware of charli's fascination with death and dying lately - a stage I'm told - but all the more because of my cardiac arrest.... )
So Dave and I are sitting in her room playing trains. She lays two of the wooden people on the floor and says "they died". Dave and I look at each other in horror. Maybe they are just sleeping charli? "No they died-ed". Then she looks sad, hangs her head and pouts her lips. "What's up Charli?"
"I'm just so sad that they died"
"Charli, it's okay - they didn't really die, let's not play this game ok?"
Charli looks up with a big grin on her face:
"It's okay mummy, I'm not sad, I'm just pretending - they're not really dead you know, they're just toys".
Blimey.....I can't keep up with her.
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Me: Zie, don't bite Charli - it's very naughty!
Zie: No
Me: Zie, that's it, you need to move away from Charli please, you're being very naughty
Zie: Runs across the room, slaps me in the face or sometimes bites me if she's in the mood and then runs from the room into her room and sits in time out before I can even put her there. (sigh) - love how she gets one last naughty moment in before punishing herself.
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Charli on one of our many house-hunting trips of late. Walks in the door at a house - walks up to the agent and says "My name is Charlotte, I hope you're having a good day, we're going to buy this house ok?"..... every real estate agents' dream sale.
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I promise I'm going to do more of these snippet blogs. there's a 1000 more tales on a daily basis. I'll be more diligent I promise...
The House HuntingLet's see if I can condense this.
- We've been househunting a lot
- It hasn't been easy because even though I have all this time on my hands, I can't drive so I can't be doing any of it during the week - which means every Saturday we get to cart the kids around and listen to them whinge and whine the whole time. It's lots of fun
- We found a house they were listing as Gigantor!! It's ugly but it's huge. Here's a couple of pics:
It's on nearly 1200 square metres of sloping to flat land, there's odd structural issues like a pole in the centre of the lounge room (because it used to be the garage), there's shag pile carpets which HAVE to go and it's tiled floors instead of my preferred wood. There's no flow effect out to the entertaining areas and all in all it's a brick piece of lego that desperately needs to be prettied up. But having looked at a few houses now (to say the least), we've discovered if you buy a pretty house, then you're paying for someone else's hard work and the chances are it's either a) too expensive, b) too small or c) on a small lot which we've decided we don't want. *sigh*
- We offered 34K less than their asking price - a rude offer yes but one that sat well with us given what we wanted to do with the place. And the Brisbane market is falling so.....
- they said 'no' and didn't counter-offer
- we offered 9K more and said that was our limit (and meant it)
- They came back with an offer 12K more than that. I said no our offer was X and that's all we can offer. Goodbye
- Felt emotionally drained as yet another house passed us by but refused to wallow. This house hunting thing is a big game and there's no point getting stressed about it (or giving yourself a cardiac arrest ;)
- Yesterday (after a tiresome Hi-5 concert!!), we went to see another house at the same price as we were offering on the above house - prettier, all renovated, pool, same size block, good high fences to contain the children BUT we just didn't like it. Might have been prettier but it was smaller and still had lots of little structural things that you knew were going to cost money to re-do. AND there was moisture in the garage wall..... and above the garage on the lawn sat the pool..... we were suspicious!!
- Driving home we decided that for the extra 12K we may as well bow to the wishes of the vendors who own the home above and just buy it. It always helps to see comparably priced houses on the market so we planned to call on the way home and bow to their new asking price.
- The phone was in the back of the car and i couldn't reach it so planned to call when we got home.
- The phone rang and went thorugh to message bank.
- Turns out that it was the estate agent :)
- We called back (not mentioning that we were about to call him!!)
- He asked if there was any way that we could increase our offer (now if we hadn't just decided to call him, him calling would have PISSED ME OFF because I thought I'd made it quite clear we weren't going to offer more)
- But of course we offered 5K more because hell, we'd just been about to pick up the phone and offer 12K more but he didn't know that!!
- And as of 3 minutes ago (while I was blogging!!) our offer was accepted!!
WE ARE NOW THE PROUD OWNERS (subject to building and pest and finance!) of GIGANTOR!!! (and don't think I won't be getting a sign for that house that says that!! LOL
