Surviving august.

Since my last post I have made it over the hump day of August. Evening church weekend away at Tahlee happened, which was great. The rain and cold made it feel a bit claustrophobic but there was a fire going the whole time and the talks were great and I got to know some people a bit better.

I've done some house buying jobs (and so has dad) and as a result, we exchanged contracts on Wednesday, which is rather a relief. There are more jobs to do but at least now I can relax and start anticipating and all that.

August is still busy. On Saturday I'll go down to Sydney and help clean my old unit, bring up the last few things, and collect my parrot! Sunday will be my one day off for the month, ie, my one day I don't have to go out. Except church. Then another week of work. Then I'll take Friday off and go to Katoomba for Engage with AM.

AM visited this month and left a stack of great DVDs to watch and her favourite has proved to be my favourite. Our Mutual Friend. I am addicted to it. Conveniently, I discovered the BBC has their audio drama version online at the moment, only the first few eps had expired, it's about ten hours worth and it's very good, so I'm listening to that at work. Obsessed.

My other obsession is thinking ahead a bit about what I could do with my future back yard, which is a small strip of grass. I would like to have no grass, no lawn mower. I think I will put some pavers in, big ones, and have garden around the edge. I don't want it to look too neat and sterile, I am obsessed with moss actually so I'd like moss between the pavers. And I'd have a 1m square or so veggie garden. A worm farm. I'd like to grow poppies, sweet peas, and I forget what else. Open to suggestions. I have a Pinterest board for it. I'm excited that it's a small area that I should be able to manage and still do a lot with. But I'll leave it for next year I guess.

Once I've moved in, I'm going to see how my cash flow works out. My aim will be obviously paying the mortgage repayments, but firstly saving a buffer as well in the offset account, of maybe 10k. A buffer and a bed and maybe a computer. That's my plan for the rest of the year. 

And I think there will be more time for fun things in the last quarter of the year. I want to visit JB in Armidale in the September holidays, I would like to organise to do a fabric printing class with a lady I met at the olive tree markets (Bec?) and when all my stuff is unpacked I will have more ability to sew and stuff again.

Spring-like weather, magnolia tree at the library, calves on lunchtime walk:

 

My facebook.

I don't watch the news or listen to the news or go to news websites. I don't like the news, it's always depressing. I don't need depressing things.

I appreciate that I should be somewhat aware of bad things so that I can pray about them, I realise that, and I am aware and I do pray. But it's still something I want to be in control of, how much (bad) news I am exposed to. Every so often, and particularly now, facebook (which I like to use to see things my friends are doing) gets swamped with bad news. I don't need more bad news, if I want bad news I will go to a news website. I just want to see what normal people are doing. I want to see babies, cups of coffee with cats drawn in the froth, and general sort of daily status updates about the weather and the trains and so on. That's what I like about facebook, and right now it's the tiny minority of fb content. This is what my facebook looks like today after a celebrity died and while ISIS is a thing and probably other depressing things which are all taking up about 80% of my news feed. I'm trying to force the fb algorithm robots to make it happy again. Baby photo, hide, hide, hide, hide, hide.

Pictures of Frugality.

Old shoes.

Work salad.

 Library book with bad typography.

 When I accidentally brought 2 veggie burgers to work and nothing else. I put some capsicum dip and sweet chilli sauce on them.

Lunchtime walk.

OFFER ACCEPTED!!!

My 2nd offer out of the three came good! I had a small amount of hope (being the 2nd highest offer but with fast settlement skillz), but the longer you don't hear back the smaller the hope gets and I was slightly weary of the emotional roller coaster of offers so I was trying to move on. Anyway I heard back! Accepted! The most expensive of my offers, and although I would have been happy living in the cheap one or the middle one too, this is the best place, I'm getting more for the extra money, and when I sell it I'll get the extra money back, and it's still an amount I can afford to repay in a worst case scenario like losing job and renting it out. Also I didn't get the other two, so there's no comparing. Glad to be spared the choice between two if my offer on Saturday had been accepted. I'd probably have gone with that instead cos cheaper.

I've only seen it for ten minutes. Kinda weird to buy something so big on such a glancing inspection. But that's ok cos they are pretty same-same, these modern villas. Built in wardrobes, garage, beigey colour scheme, etc etc. Not much to stand one apart from the other as far as personality. You just sort of see how big the rooms are and is there air con. And with this place, the points of difference which I like are that it is blue on the outside, and I like the street. In Sydney I really liked living walking-distance from the shops and enjoying the posh houses all around my unit. This is the same kind of thing, it's a unit, but I can walk to the shops, and on this block there are some really nice houses that I can enjoy looking at.

I feel really lucky. There are new worries to come I expect, like now I'll have a mortgage, and what if I'm lonely on my own, and what if the neighbours don't like me, and also I think I have a toothache. But I hope it's going to be great, or at least, I am really excited to unpack my stuff in a new house, and have people come and stay with me!

Minimalism again.

Excuse me but I am still interested in minimalism.

I sometimes call myself a minimalist to people, although I don't think it works because it's not a very well understood word, like "evangelical". What people think that is, and what I am, possibly different. But when someone says to me "when you get your own place you can decorate it" implying that after you buy a house you go to Harvey Norman and buy a dining suite and a TV unit and an ottoman and so on, I say, I'm a minimalist and I'm going to try not to buy anything for the first year in case I have to move again. "I'm a minimalist" sounds weird though.

I never liked minimalism because I thought it was too bland and spartan. I don't want everything to be square and white. E was into minimalism, I didn't get it.

But I had occasional decluttering purges, because overflowing storage areas annoy me. And, after a few years of living in small rented places, I stopped resenting the limitations, and got the hang of it. I also started to get rid of some stuff that I had been storing for sentimental reasons. That was a big change for me. Decluttering forces you to be realistic about your life. Everybody has stuff they are storing for a potential future, and sometimes it's sad to let that future go. It's as hard as letting the past go, I think.

Then at some point recently when researching a decluttering obsession I discovered minimalism, realised that is was quite anti-consumerist and counter cultural, which appeals to me, and there are serious efficiencies to be had in owning less, and actually it wasn't just about everything being white and square. Just... Own less. If you live in an apartment, you are halfway there already, and there is a strong motivation to consider the implications of owning stuff. You kind of have to choose, you might not be able to fit book cases AND bikes AND a dining suite into your apartment. You're forced to ration space, so minimalism, or at least considering owning fewer things, has instant benefits. Minimalists often advocate living in a small place.

The extreme form is to know the exact number of your possessions, ie, you own 10 pieces of clothing. The high priests own 100 things in total apparently. That sounds like really no fun at all. I don't want to have only 10 pieces of clothing that all match each other efficiently, that would be boring. I want whimsical things like my blanket cape. And what do you do when people come over, go out and buy paper plates? That kind of extremity is not friendly. BUT, I really don't want redundancies. Clothes that guilt me out, so I'm applying a bit of 1 in 1 out law at the moment. Same with books. A minimAlist would have no books, just some ebooks. I have the books that I love, like my Austen books, Anne books, discworld books, and some Xn books that i really should read. I try and keep myself from buying cookbooks and so on just for nice things to own. Cookbooks really are beautiful. Rachel Khoo. 

Anyway, my tendency, the deeply ingrained tendency of humans I think, is to keep stuff. Our survival and basic comfort in a slum or a jungle may depend on having a useful strip of cloth stashed away. In the first world, for me, that ain't so, so I need to work against that hoarding tendency so that I don't add new clothes to my wardrobe and never get rid of anything and get another wardrobe and fill that too. I'm using minimalism as a circuit breaker. 

As a middling minimalist, my life won't be 100 possessions. I'll have a much longer and more complicated set of rules. For example, I don't buy fabric for the future. I buy fabric as I need it, in the length I need, and with any luck there will be none left over. I sometimes find lovely fabric that I want to buy and it would be very nice for something, but if I can't think of a precise purpose and an exact length, I walk away.  With books, I usually by audiobooks. Music, usually download as well. DVDs, only a couple a year and mainly ones that I think I can lend to people, so Hart of Dixie was my most recent purchase. Clothes, I set up long periods of no shopping when I decide I don't need anything. There are things I don't need to worry about, like shoes or kitchen things, I don't feel drawn to collect them so I need no framework to moderate it.

I'm pondering my next stage of life from a minimalist point of view. I'm currently living in a bedroom at my parents and have my stuff packed and piled in various areas of this house and some still in randwick. So it's a bit rich to be calling myself a minimalist while, actually, I have stuff that I don't need all boxed up and I'm benefitting from the surplus space my parents own in a non-minimalist way. But I think it's more economical to store for a while than cull and rebuy/scavenge 6months later. I'm preparing myself though for when I have my next place, probably larger than my past homes, to resist the temptation to fill it. One of the agents at an inspection asked me "nest or invest?" And the concept of nesting irks me, although it's not wicked, I just think I want to restrain myself, at least until I see if I'm staying here long term or not. It would be a little devo actually, to get a place, paint it, buy things from vintage shops etc, just to lose my job, move out again, rent the place, and go back to flat sharing in a city again. So minimalism is going to guard me from nesting too excitedly/expensively. I'm going to try and just enjoy having my own space and sharing it with my parrot and very little else.

Update on house shopping: Taking a break. Will look again in September. If nothing comes up before my loan pre-approval expires, I'll let it go until next year I think, probably after my work contract ends so that I know if I'm staying on here or not. Cos it's not really worth it to move into a place for a couple of months, if I end up looking for a new job. Anyway that's then; right now, on the one hand I'm getting a bit tired of living "temporarily". I'm starting to accumulate a mental list of things I can do when I unpack such-and-such, or when I have my own whatever. But on the other hand I'm also tired of looking at places, working out if I want to live there, working out my offer, waiting to hear back, and thinking about it all the time. I will try and get on with other things, whatever they may be. Also, once I've paid my car off I will be able to save my monies again. I think that will make me feel like I'm doing some thing useful.

Another offer, more markets, parrot!

I decided on my next house to try and buy. I looked at one a month ago, and thought, oh well hmmmm, I'd prefer two large bedrooms to three small ones, it's a bit on the pricey end at 349, and quite a few old people were looking at it so I thought they'd beat me to it. A month later, it was still there so I went back with dad and AM who was visiting me from Sydney, the price was down a little to 345, so I offered 335 right there at the inspection, the nice agent lady said she'd get back to me via text after telling the vendor.

So I went to the olive tree market with AM, and get a text from agent saying the vendor would consider 340 if I could offer that, which I said I'd think about. Pretty much expected to go up to that. So 2 hours later I replied yes 340. In the evening, agent texts sorry, the vendor has decided not to go below 345, would I raise my offer? I said no, it was not reasonable for the vendor to say he'd consider meeting me half way and then not, it's his right to wait for an offer he's happy with, but I'm not going higher than my limit. The agent was understanding cos she agreed with me and said she'd try to convince him. Agents have to represent sellers, not buyers, but they know how it works and what the market is like and I think she thought she'd made a deal, getting us to meet halfway, only to be thwarted by the guy she's working for. In Sydney, the asking price is the minimum, but up here, it can be more like optimism, and a place to negotiate from. If you don't want to negotiate, after your property has been for sale for several months, basically--you don't want to sell your house. Maybe he thought I was desperate, but that's his mistake. That's fine. I'm not disappointed at all. I feel like I played it right and didn't lose, just walked away and left my offer on the table. It might get accepted after all, who knows. If it does, it will add to the busyness of the month, but I might be able to get all my furniture moving out of the way in one go. If not, I can live with my parents INDEFINITELY!!!!!!!!


The exciting news from last week is that I've been given a parrot, little Milos. Makes me happy to anticipate being a parrot lady. I'll bring him up from Sydney when we do a furniture collection this month.



Also, work wise, I've got books for sale in iBooks Store now. Yay! I want to start pumping them out a bit faster now.
https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/healthy-bees/id904522918?mt=11
https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/bee-agskills/id899109570?mt=11

I'm feeling particularly aware of how blessed I am by friendship. I have quite a few amazing friends. People who come up to visit me for a weekend, and people who I can stay with in Sydney, and people I can swap prayer points with. I know does not always going to feel like this, but I lack nothing in terms of feeling loved right now. Singleness is no issue at all... There are good times and dry times, just like marriage is for better and worse. Friends are a big part of those good times. I do still stand by my theory that distance is the end of most friendships in any practical sense. Without proximity, I have lost a lot of friends when I left Sydney, and I now have proximity to a different group of people. With the inner circle, though, that doesn't depend so completely on proximity. I guess some of those ties will loosen eventually. Who knows.

Thinking of getting these glasses. Or maybe some standard black ray bans.