Six months, huh!?!
I've been taking a sabbatical, or rather a semester-ical, from this blog in completely accidental manner. It was necessitated by a lot of things changing in my life over the last six months. I've barely been able to take a ten second breather in nearly all that time.
My Mum came back from Sydney for three months, my Brother turned 18, my Gran moved into a higher care facility in her retirement home, full-time study (although I dropped Jap because it was taking up too much of my workload), changing university to UQ and the big almighty decision to move out of 414./the coop. It doesn't sound much in a little list like that, but wow it's been hectic.
King of Brisbane
Mum's return and Pan's eighteenth meant lots of planning for his party. We know that it was probably just as much Atratus and I wanting it as Puck but we put on our planning hats and held it at the Bowls club across the road from our place: how suburban! The actual night was a lot of fun, semi-impromptu dress up party with a suburban Goth theme - my SO and I went steam punk, which entailed making a period skirt and making steampunk jewellery from scratch. Puck was prescribed the task of putting music together to pump through the sound system and we ordered pizzas, made sushi and popcorn and put on a tab for soft drinks.
The bowling club is such a different environment to our usual venues, a lot more laid back, even though we weren't allowed to go out onto the green. It's nestled into the hills facing the train lines and surrounded by bush, all good.
Pan was coronated as the King of Brisbane with the regency being handed over and a crowing ceremony. Speeches were made and Pan's harem surrounded him and hung on his every word. He even got them all to do aerobics, at least that's what it looked like they were doing. We did have an incident where some of the guests nearly burnt the place down by reheating pizza on a plastic dish in the microwave and not watching. The guys who owned the place were super friendly and didn't seem to worry too much but we were all a little annoyed after the two boys came in, saw the smoke, and then bolted into the park and away. We ended the night with a crew of us dancing to J-Rock, and Atratus and I teaching they young 'uns to Gothic two-step to my SO's impromptu DJ'ing. Everyone had a ball.
And then... the moving
We decided by March (and it took months of heart searching) that my SO and I would move out of the house that we've been living in for the past six or so years (except when we were in the UK, which doesn't count). This is the first time I've looked for a place in over eight years and it's been scary. We broached Yaln about moving in together when his lease came up in July (which is now) and all decided it'd be a lot of fun to live together. Of course this meant deciding exactly what we want in a house and where.
There are rules. It has to be within zone 2, although realisitically it has to be in within the first half of zone 2. It has to have enough space for Yaln to have a study and bedroom and for SO and I to have space not to kill each other in. There needs to be a library, a big library. There needs to be a good kitchen and entertaining rooms, Ideally there's a room that the boys can game in spearate to the room that we watch slash, uh, TV. It needs to be easy access to SO's work, my uni and Yaln's work. We'd like green and parks. I'd like accessible views of the city (one of my indicators that I'm still an urban rather than suburban girl). And we need to be able to afford it on two wages and my utterly non-existent Austudy (oh wait, that implies I'm even eligible, which I'm not).
The first round of hunting, courtesy of my SO's little brother entailed a list of houses to look at that Yaln and I had been looking over on the net for the week before we physically started. We went and peeked at the most likely and then started to ring to see if we can get keys and go look inside. Of course they don't give out keys at most of the places any more and we'd have to arrange appointments. We managed to run around, pick up lists and peek at a few places. The second trip out was Yaln and I with my littlest sister who currently caretakes George our car. We'd arranged to see two places on a Tuesday afternoon. The following Saturday, Yaln borrowed his Mum's car and we arranged four appointments and went looking.
There are some highlights.
One of the places we went to look at in Indooroopilly, which SO and his brother climbed in and peeked around, had an indoor mini-golf course and a bar/theatre downstairs. It was a massive Sicilian-style place and got resounding no's because of it's very erratic styling, the distance from transport and the massive 50 degree slope that needed to be circumnavigated/driven to get out of the street.
Our Favourite from the internet was a house we referred to as 'The Manor', mostly because that's how it was referred to in their advert. We drove up through some twists from the closest station to the top of a hill in Newmarket where there was the most amazing view, directly opposite 'The Manor'. The picture on the net made it look like it had a turret and a garage underneath (anybody scream Batcave?) and the description had a whole pile of rooms. But when we got there, after my pointed remarks about the fact that I wasn't walking up those hills everyday and I didn't know anyone without excess testosterone who would, it was a little disappointing. The camera never lies, but the photographer can sure pitch it differently. The front was so much smaller. There was another group viewing so we checked with the agents and they said if the others were ok, they were ok with us looking around. So we traipse around the house and I find them out the back and check if it'd be ok but they said no because they'd been looking so long. Honestly I was relieved. I was so disappointed that it wasn't what I was expecting, but, rude much?
'The Bungalow' in Newmarket was a three bedroom house with an outdoor entertaining area and it was shiny, as in the floors. We checked this place out a couple of times, as it was our favourite of the first round. It was just a little small for all our stuff.
The Bardon house rocked, well if you could buy it and do it up and get rid of the carpet upstairs (I became really adamant about shiny floors by halfway through the hunt), and make internal stairs and a verandah for the amazing view. It was an old house with a flat thing underneath and a shed in the garden. There was a 'cave' underneath the house that you had to go under the stairs to get to. Unfortunately it was filled with lots of old furniture but they were going to clean that out. It was big enough for us but just a little too awkward with its spaces. Really close to public transport too. I'm not even sure if I can describe it properly but it was like a labyrinthine house with lots of different spaces, indoors and out, and not internally connected. All the downstairs was concrete floors and there was this amazing,undefinable mural mural painted on the side of the house. The house was a little frayed at the edges, but if my SO had seen it he'd have probably convinced us to take it just because it was so erratic. It only had two upstairs bedrooms and one of them would have to be a study because of the air con and the cool. view. It would have been wrong to do anything else with it.
We did finally find a place, and in that beautiful Brisbane way, Yaln's mum knew the person who was living in it. This meant we could go and peek even though no one else had managed to do an inspection because the agency hadn't arranged any with the tenant still there. It's fantastic. Two large bedrooms with sleepouts, an extra room for the library and a decent sized media room, a dining room with fire, a big deck, a downstairs dungeon space for gamers or crafters and an 'erotic' kitchedn (ask the boys). It's about 3 minutes from the train station which put some of the other people off but we're like, train noise, piff.
We're moving in next weekend and are eratically packing at the moment. We don't have enough boxes and we still need to organise a truck and more importantly the internet but it's happening and it's exciting!
My Mum came back from Sydney for three months, my Brother turned 18, my Gran moved into a higher care facility in her retirement home, full-time study (although I dropped Jap because it was taking up too much of my workload), changing university to UQ and the big almighty decision to move out of 414./the coop. It doesn't sound much in a little list like that, but wow it's been hectic.
King of Brisbane
Mum's return and Pan's eighteenth meant lots of planning for his party. We know that it was probably just as much Atratus and I wanting it as Puck but we put on our planning hats and held it at the Bowls club across the road from our place: how suburban! The actual night was a lot of fun, semi-impromptu dress up party with a suburban Goth theme - my SO and I went steam punk, which entailed making a period skirt and making steampunk jewellery from scratch. Puck was prescribed the task of putting music together to pump through the sound system and we ordered pizzas, made sushi and popcorn and put on a tab for soft drinks.
The bowling club is such a different environment to our usual venues, a lot more laid back, even though we weren't allowed to go out onto the green. It's nestled into the hills facing the train lines and surrounded by bush, all good.
Pan was coronated as the King of Brisbane with the regency being handed over and a crowing ceremony. Speeches were made and Pan's harem surrounded him and hung on his every word. He even got them all to do aerobics, at least that's what it looked like they were doing. We did have an incident where some of the guests nearly burnt the place down by reheating pizza on a plastic dish in the microwave and not watching. The guys who owned the place were super friendly and didn't seem to worry too much but we were all a little annoyed after the two boys came in, saw the smoke, and then bolted into the park and away. We ended the night with a crew of us dancing to J-Rock, and Atratus and I teaching they young 'uns to Gothic two-step to my SO's impromptu DJ'ing. Everyone had a ball.
And then... the moving
We decided by March (and it took months of heart searching) that my SO and I would move out of the house that we've been living in for the past six or so years (except when we were in the UK, which doesn't count). This is the first time I've looked for a place in over eight years and it's been scary. We broached Yaln about moving in together when his lease came up in July (which is now) and all decided it'd be a lot of fun to live together. Of course this meant deciding exactly what we want in a house and where.
There are rules. It has to be within zone 2, although realisitically it has to be in within the first half of zone 2. It has to have enough space for Yaln to have a study and bedroom and for SO and I to have space not to kill each other in. There needs to be a library, a big library. There needs to be a good kitchen and entertaining rooms, Ideally there's a room that the boys can game in spearate to the room that we watch slash, uh, TV. It needs to be easy access to SO's work, my uni and Yaln's work. We'd like green and parks. I'd like accessible views of the city (one of my indicators that I'm still an urban rather than suburban girl). And we need to be able to afford it on two wages and my utterly non-existent Austudy (oh wait, that implies I'm even eligible, which I'm not).
The first round of hunting, courtesy of my SO's little brother entailed a list of houses to look at that Yaln and I had been looking over on the net for the week before we physically started. We went and peeked at the most likely and then started to ring to see if we can get keys and go look inside. Of course they don't give out keys at most of the places any more and we'd have to arrange appointments. We managed to run around, pick up lists and peek at a few places. The second trip out was Yaln and I with my littlest sister who currently caretakes George our car. We'd arranged to see two places on a Tuesday afternoon. The following Saturday, Yaln borrowed his Mum's car and we arranged four appointments and went looking.
There are some highlights.
One of the places we went to look at in Indooroopilly, which SO and his brother climbed in and peeked around, had an indoor mini-golf course and a bar/theatre downstairs. It was a massive Sicilian-style place and got resounding no's because of it's very erratic styling, the distance from transport and the massive 50 degree slope that needed to be circumnavigated/driven to get out of the street.
Our Favourite from the internet was a house we referred to as 'The Manor', mostly because that's how it was referred to in their advert. We drove up through some twists from the closest station to the top of a hill in Newmarket where there was the most amazing view, directly opposite 'The Manor'. The picture on the net made it look like it had a turret and a garage underneath (anybody scream Batcave?) and the description had a whole pile of rooms. But when we got there, after my pointed remarks about the fact that I wasn't walking up those hills everyday and I didn't know anyone without excess testosterone who would, it was a little disappointing. The camera never lies, but the photographer can sure pitch it differently. The front was so much smaller. There was another group viewing so we checked with the agents and they said if the others were ok, they were ok with us looking around. So we traipse around the house and I find them out the back and check if it'd be ok but they said no because they'd been looking so long. Honestly I was relieved. I was so disappointed that it wasn't what I was expecting, but, rude much?
'The Bungalow' in Newmarket was a three bedroom house with an outdoor entertaining area and it was shiny, as in the floors. We checked this place out a couple of times, as it was our favourite of the first round. It was just a little small for all our stuff.
The Bardon house rocked, well if you could buy it and do it up and get rid of the carpet upstairs (I became really adamant about shiny floors by halfway through the hunt), and make internal stairs and a verandah for the amazing view. It was an old house with a flat thing underneath and a shed in the garden. There was a 'cave' underneath the house that you had to go under the stairs to get to. Unfortunately it was filled with lots of old furniture but they were going to clean that out. It was big enough for us but just a little too awkward with its spaces. Really close to public transport too. I'm not even sure if I can describe it properly but it was like a labyrinthine house with lots of different spaces, indoors and out, and not internally connected. All the downstairs was concrete floors and there was this amazing,undefinable mural mural painted on the side of the house. The house was a little frayed at the edges, but if my SO had seen it he'd have probably convinced us to take it just because it was so erratic. It only had two upstairs bedrooms and one of them would have to be a study because of the air con and the cool. view. It would have been wrong to do anything else with it.
We did finally find a place, and in that beautiful Brisbane way, Yaln's mum knew the person who was living in it. This meant we could go and peek even though no one else had managed to do an inspection because the agency hadn't arranged any with the tenant still there. It's fantastic. Two large bedrooms with sleepouts, an extra room for the library and a decent sized media room, a dining room with fire, a big deck, a downstairs dungeon space for gamers or crafters and an 'erotic' kitchedn (ask the boys). It's about 3 minutes from the train station which put some of the other people off but we're like, train noise, piff.
We're moving in next weekend and are eratically packing at the moment. We don't have enough boxes and we still need to organise a truck and more importantly the internet but it's happening and it's exciting!
posted by Chani Asha at 11:34 am
1 Comments:
Hi Jamie here. We just moved and have a bunch of boxes we can give you, and a fan heater if you want, and some more stuff if you need... What suburb is your house in? You didn't say... Good luck anyway, let me know if there is anything you need from us. -J.
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