For sure this time!

Back in March I posted this:

Decision has been made (I think LOL) as of today that we will stay here for at least the next year and put the finishing touches on the house and section to get it into a sellable state. That way, if the right property does come up – then we are ready for it. The possibility is there that once the house is sorted, we may well sell it then anyway and effectively become cash buyers. I feel a lot more settled now. We have a plan. Plans are good!!!

Since then we've been dithering again about selling/buying/getting some land . . . well it's all come to a head this week, and we now know that we just cannot afford the land we want. Not without going deeper into debt, and that's just something I will not consider. OK, if it was just $10,000 or $20,000 then maybe - but it's much more than that and I can't do it.

So - our house is going to be getting that deck that we've been putting off for three years (with money that has already been saved for it). I can carry on with the vegie gardens with confidence that we will eat the vegies that grow in them. I can potter around creating flower gardens and making the house the home that it should be.

(This is not to say that something cheaper will not jump out of the real estate pages at me and set me off again . . .) ;-)

Let the gardening begin

A pile of old grape half rounds and some pea straw:

A man with a power tool and an attentive audience:

The finished product:

All that's needed now is a bit more compost and some vegie plants:

A nice rustic, cheap raised garden (with maybe one more layer of half rounds eventually).

Catching up:

This is from the week before we went away - forgot to post it!

Tuesday
I’m not well. I’ve got man flu – well at least I’m complaining like it’s man flu LOL.

I’ve got lots of little bits and pieces to do before we fly out to Gold Coast on Saturday. Borrow suitcases, make sure all clothes we want to take are clean, return library books, buy ribbons (or something) to put on suitcases for easy identification; make sure house is clean (or relatively so) for the house/pet sitter.

I’ve written a list so far. That’s it. A list. Don’t feel inclined to actually action said list . . .

We have a bank appointment tomorrow – our business loan is falling due for renewal so we need to go in and discuss that. Dallas wants to buy another mower, so it could be an interesting discussion!

Wednesday
Am about to cancel the bank appointment. Dallas has come down with it now as well. I’m feeling marginally better – enough to get up and tidy the kitchen bench and fold a couple of days worth of washing whilst sitting on a chair!

Yesterday I did manage to take Josh out to get his hair cut, returned books to library and picked up suitcases (Dallas picked up ones from MIL). Now if I can get some ironing done at least we can start packing.

Josh is going out to the local airforce base today to look at their avionics department. That is what he is thinking of doing in the future. Hope it goes well as it would be nice to have at lease ONE boy with some direction in his life.

A mixed month . . .

Another month has flown by. It's only 10 days until we fly out to the Gold Coast for our family holiday. I have to say I'm starting to get a wee bit excited about it, and I know the boys are too. It's the first time flying for Liam and Josh. First time overseas for L, J and Karl, so lots of new experiences to be had.

The budget has flown out the window this past month. When the holiday is over I'm really going to knuckle down and get some savings made. The groceries mainly - need to go back to using cash and not spending more than I've allowed. Also need to get more on the mortgage. Had a call from the bank yesterday regarding fixing our mortgage - Dallas wants to wait a bit longer. He has plans to make a ridiculously low offer for a piece of land when we come home and doesn't want to do any fixing before that - which does make sense!

Poor Jessie has had an exciting time since moving in with us. First he was in the local Rockquest concert/competition and won the best male musician award. Here they are warming up for the concert . . .

Then the following week he was mugged while getting some money out of an ATM! Newspaper article here . . .
We spent most of that evening first at the Police Station, then at A&E at the Hospital getting his face patched up.

Both boys have left NZ for the school holidays - Jessie has gone home to Thailand and Alan has gone to his grandparents home in the Gold Coast . . . and he'll still be there when we go over, so we will meet up with him there and meet his family.

Sadness has come in the form of losing Cleo. She didn't come for breakfast one morning - after phoning around local vets a few days later we discovered that she had been hit by a car. I went into the vet to check that it was her - and it was. Stood stroking her for a while, then said goodbye. She had passed quickly after the accident and thankfully she did look peaceful.

And so the family grows.

Things have changed at our home lately. We have two new family members . . Jessie and Alan. They are international students – Jessie is from Thailand and Alan from Hong Kong. They are very pleasant boys, in year 11 at College. Our home had been feeling a bit empty for a while, and we had discussed having Home Stays often, just never did anything about it. Then we learnt that the school hostel they were living at was closing down. So that sealed it for us. There are still about 15 students requiring homes, but I don’t think we can fit any more in LOL.

We turned the office into a bedroom for Josh, so Jessie and Alan both have their own rooms, too. Liam gets to stay in his, with no changes.

The past month hasn’t been very money saving as I’ve had to buy more sheets, buy new curtains for one of the rooms, pillows, clothes hangers etc. And the grocery bill!!! I had just got the groceries down to a respectable amount for the four of us . . . now with six it’s shot straight back up again. I know things will settle down so I’m not panicking too much.

I’m finding I’m spending much of my weekend baking, or cooking meals in preparation for the following week – especially if I have to work that week as well. My upright freezer is full, we may have to bring the purchasing of a chest freezer forward. Will see how things stand when The Warehouse next have freezers on special. Have been cooking up lots of pumpkin to freeze for later making into pumpkin loaf & muffins. Got some 99 cents/kg apples and stewed them up, ready for puddings or pies. We have meatloaves, bolognaise, chilli con carne, spaghetti, choc chip biccies, muffins and much more squeezed in.

I now just need to catch up with some housework. Had an up and down week with work – thought I’d have the week off, but got called in to both jobs, plus Dal wanted help as well.

Think I’ll be having a nanny nap tomorrow afternoon :-)

What to do?

Since our mortgage interest rate has come down, and we’ve changed it from fixed to variable, we have been making lots of extra little payments on to. It’s great to see it coming down so much quicker. Just upping the payments and changing them to fortnightly has reduced the loan by eight years. I now feel somewhat in CONTROL!!!

But, as interest rates start to rise again, I think it is time to put the bulk of it back onto fixed, but for what term? Maybe we will cap some of it, maybe leave some of it variable – I’m not sure yet, but I DO know that I love being able to make those extra payments.

RIP Uncle Jim

Uncle Jim - a great man. He will be missed by many.

Flying and settling

Tickets are now booked for our families Gold Coast holiday. I have been so unsure about spending all that money, but everyone has been telling me to just do it. I know it makes sense - probably last holiday as a family, etc etc etc. Bought the flights online and I didn't want to push that final 'make payment' button! Argh - it nearly physically hurt to do it.

We are still checking out properties too. Went to an open home today that ticked a lot of boxes. It had two chook houses (with chooks), a pig sty (sans pigs - they, apparently, have moved to the freezer), quite a bit of garden area that needs almost totally clearing, one paddock and a huge shed for the mowers. But the house needs alot of work done on it that we couldn't afford to do so I don't think we will be following it up.

Revisited a 13 acre bit of land that we have looked at before. It's still not sold and we might go in and make a ridiculous offer on it and see what happens. They can only say no.

But the strange thing is that I feel quite settled about it all now. The holiday is booked - no going back. Yes, we are still wanting to move, but I don't feel stressed about it now. For some reason the pressure is not there to have to do it "now". I'm reading a book written by a "middle aged, crippled, old woman" about her moving onto a farm, on her own, and the adventures shes had. It's hilarious, and shows me that there is hope for this old girl yet!

Slaving over a hot stove

I tried something new last weekend . . . making tomato relish and tomato sauce. Where as my mother was a great bottler and preserver – I never inherited that gene. But with the world like it is, and money becoming a scarce commodity around here, the vegie garden went in. It is just a strip along the fence with tomatoes, and a wheelbarrow of lettuces to start off with, but we all have to start somewhere. The watermelon never came to anything – that was really disappointing! The pumpkin that appeared from the compost is going great guns – three pumpkins on it – and I have no idea how to tell when they are ready LOL

We have an abundant supply of tomatoes – so many that my freezer is full of them as I haven’t had the time to do things straight away with them – I’ve just picked and frozen them so they don’t go to waste.

I picked the ripe ones off the vines and used them straight away last weekend, though. It was one of those “if you feel like doing it, then do it straight away or it won’t get done” sort of moments.

I have to say that I was a wee bit disappointed at how much it all reduced down while cooking. I was thinking I was going to have a shelf full of jars, when in reality I got only five jars in total. A miserable little amount for the work that went into it! But the bottles do look nice!

Friday 13th March

Friday the 13th. Sends shivers down a lot of spines and is very unlucky for some.

Some interesting facts and superstitions about the number 13:

*Italians don’t use the number 13 in their national lottery.

*It’s bad luck to fly on Friday the 13th.

* The 13 ball is the least likely number to come up in the UK lottery, since it’s inception in 1994.

* It has been suggested that if 13 people all sit down at a table together at once, that they will all will die within a year.

* Beware of naming your children anything with 13 letters, example, Charles Manson.

* There are 13 witches in a coven.

* We have 3 Friday the 13ths in 2009, February, March and again in November!

* The British Navy is notoriously afraid of Friday the 13th. Nonetheless, it built a ship named Friday the 13th. On its maiden voyage, the vessel left dock on a Friday the 13th and was never heard from again.

* If you were born on a Friday the 13th then today is your LUCKY day!

* Many tall buildings do not have a 13th Floor, because if they did, no one would want to stay on them.

* Most hospitals do not have a room 13.

* A baker’s dozen is described by a dozen loaves of bread with the 13th being an offering to the devil so he would not spoil the other 12.

* More than 60 million people do not go to work, drive or leave their house on this unlucky day.

* The seals on the back of a United States dollar bill include 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 stars above the eagle’s head, 13 war arrows in the eagle’s claw and 13 leaves on the olive branch.

* President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal.

* The ill-fated Apollo 13 launched at 13:13 CST on 4/11/70. The sum of the date’s digits is 13. The explosion that crippled the spacecraft occurred on April 13th.

* According to the British Medical Journal the risk of a car accident in the UK increases by more than 50% on Friday the 13th.