Practising being two July 28, 2008

The Young Man is now eighteen months old…. and as my Mum says he is practising being two as in the terrible twos.  Overnight my lovely natured baby has turned into a throwing things, having tantrums, not wanting to eat boy.  95% of the time he is still lovely but that other 5% of the time can be a real pain. 

The hardest thing is working out how best to deal with this new behaviour.  As much as I want to tell him ‘off’ when he throws things I know that he is really only doing it for attention so me telling him off is only giving him what he wants – albeit in a negative fashion.

Luckily Adman’s workload has dropped off and he has actually been at home for three weekends straight now and home every night.  Its been wonderful and really nice to be family again.

My Mum is housesitting for friends for the next 7 weeks which will be even nicer as we will be able to get into our little family  groove again. 

Our house plans have just been finalised and are off to Council for consent shortly so hopefully building will begin in the next month or too. 

Fingers crossed

Yesterday July 12, 2008

Yestereday was one of the worst days we have had for a while… so bad I don’t think I can even write about it yet… but lets just say it involved a court case, family escaping a violent domestic situation and us being stuck right in the middle of it both. 

Luckily Adman and I are of the ‘glass half full’ camp so we know that things will get better and we probably won’t (dear G*d) have another day like that for a while

The good, the bad and the unmentionable June 26, 2008

Its been six months since we moved home and moved (temporarily) in with my Mum.  It looks like its going to be at least another 6 months before we will be able to move into our own home.  Currently we are waiting for the plans to be finalised and then they need to be approved by our Council before building can even start.

Mostly living with Mum has been fine (although the Adman may have a differing opinion)  but there have been times when I have been tempted to start looking at rental properties – if it wasn’t for the fact that we are managing to save a whole heap of moohlah I am not sure if we would be able keep it up. 

But of course there are some benefits to staying with Mum including….

• She pretty much does all the washing (which is the bane of my life)
• If I need to work late she is able to pick up the young man and start getting his dinner etc sorted
• She does the dishes every night after dinner
• Adman and I are able to go out in the weekend and we have a built in babysitter
• When Adman is away for work Mum steps in and helps out with the Young man – Adman has been away for over 50% of the time for the last two months so it has been much appreciated

But then again there are some pretty annoying/bad things about staying here…

• Her constant nagging about the fact that we don’t make our bed
• she is obsessed with having a nicely mown lawn – which means Adman pretty much has to mow her lawn most weekends
• She constantly tries to keep the lounge tidy whereas Adman and I see no point in doing a tidy until the Young man goes to bed
• She is so noisy when she gets up in the morning to go for a walk that most days the Young Man gets woken by her door slamming

And of course there is the unmentionable…. well I don’t really need to go into too much detail but lets just say that a squeaky bed always seems louder than it really is!

 

Wood June 6, 2008

Life has escaped away on me lately.  I seem to be hanging on by a thread.  Not that there is anything majorly wrong or anything that I am unable to cope with but I just feel like if I don’t watch it – it could all just slip away.

Although in some ways our house/building is coming along nicely there has also been some dramas.  The previous owner is trying to take us to the small claims court because of some native timber on the site.  When we purchased the property we asked if the  timber would be removed  prior to settling.  We were told that the owner didn’t want it and didn’t have time to clear the timber or any of the other rubbish on the site.   Adman and I spoke to a friend who made flooring out of native timber and he recommended that we could use it for  flooring.  A week after we settled I had a phone call from another friend to say that someone was out at the land milling  the wood.   It turned out that it was the previous owner who had decided that he wanted the wood and he was milling it. The long and short of it is that we ended up having to trespass him and he has now decided that he will take us to court to get the wood -even though his lawyer who dealt with the property settlement has told him (and us) that he has no legal right to the wood.

Its frustrtaing and  is taking up alot of time and effort – something I don’t seem to have much of at the moment.

I feel like I need to take some time out and make sure I ( and we) are happy with how  our life is going but I also feel like we shouldn’t bother as in a few months things will be turned upside down when we shift into our new house.  But until then I guess we just have to keep on keeping on.

In one word…. May 9, 2008

I can describe my life at the moment….

BUSY.

My life is nonstop from the time I wake until the time I finally fall into bed.  And when I finally do get to sleep all I dream/think about is work.  I know that I am balancing on the point of just coping…  just a little push will see me toppling over into a mess of un-coping -ness. 

The Adman has been away duck shooting this week so I have had to do all the normal stuff as well as deal with laywers, real estate agents and banks.  Tonight I can rest safely knowing that until Monday there isn’t anything I need to do that’s  new land/ building related.  Once Monday comes around it will all be back on.  Oh well at least I will have two days of relaxation… oh wait I have a fifteen month old so relaxation doesn’t exist!!

finally April 23, 2008

After a week of to-ing and fro-ing we have finally come to an agreement over a revised price for the land.  YAY  now the fun starts!!  planning our dream house and building it!! scary!

 

 I have been addicted to googling  strange things again…. today’s latest one was “is 14 months too young to do forward rolls?”  Yep that’s right the Young Man is now successfully doing forward rolls ( or rolly polys as we call them in NZ – do they get called that any where else?)  He thinks its the most funniest thing and if I hadn’t packed the video camera away in one of the  several thousand boxes being stored in my Mum’s garage I would have recorded it for prosperity and attempted to post it up here ( that would be a full learning experience in itself).

Other googling  that has taken place has included searching for venison recipes that include beer (long story but the Adman was very pleased with himself for catching a wild deer and decided that he wanted to cook it in beer – who know why!?) remarkably there were several recipes and the one we ended up using was a success!!

 

TGIF April 11, 2008

Life seems to have been getting on top of me lately.   The last two weeks have sped by in the blink of an eye.   Although the purchase of our land is going through several problems have arisen around it.  Basically due to the unstable nature of the land ( which we were assured wasn’t the case) and the size of the power cables needed to be upgraded (despite what we were told – see the theme here?) we are looking at having to spend about another 30 grand than we expected  before we can even start building.    So basically now we are going back to the vendors and saying that they have misrepresented what they sold us and they need to drop the price significantly.  Its a rough time  as there may come a point where we will have to walk away from it…. Now that will be a hard thing to do as it basically meets all our criteria for what we wanted… close to town, close to the beach, no neighbours, water that attracts ducks… pretty much everything we want.  Adman and I try and live my the adage that what will be will be and we just have to let it  happen and the right  thing will happen.

On top of all the land issues I have also had a huge week at work – luckily Adman has been working from home as I have only been able to pick up the Young man  once this week.  I hate having to work late  and I hate not being able to pick the boy up and seeing his happy face.   It won’t be forever  but in the meantime its pretty crappy.  

Bring on the weekend I say

Sold March 18, 2008

Well it’s official – we are now debt and mortgage free – but not for long.  We have found a piece of land we like and will be putting an offer on it later this week.  I am feeling a bit nervous about and worried that building our house will be very stressful… but as a friend said this morning we just need to remind ourselves how lucky we are to be living out our dream.  Not many people can say that they are doing pretty much exactly what they would be to be doing!.

I will try and get some pictures of the land this weekend and post them.  It’s a really nice site and has some wonderful views.  I can already imagine our kids playing on the lawn and running around – just how we have always planned it.

You have got to be kidding… March 7, 2008

This week has been one of those weeks  when all the routines I thought we had in place have gone out the window.

Monday morning saw the Young Man waking as  usual at around 6.30 am.   Off he popped to care at 8 am and I went to work.  When I picked him up at 4.30 Diane told me that he had only had one  sleep so was a tad tired.  By the time dinner time came around he had hit the wall and was in the horrible stage when he wants a cuddle but doesn’t want to be held… where he wants to sit on your knee but wants to play with his toys – all the time while crying.  That night we put him to bed at 6.15 and he went straight to sleep.  The next morning he didn’t wake until 7am.  I can’t tell you how excited Adman and I were about this.   That day at care he had a great day and had his usual two sleeps.  But then came night time… he went to bed at 6.30 as usual and seemed content. Half an hour later he was crying and banging the sides of his cot (a sure sign he is uber grumpy).  Adman went in and settled him and he finally went to sleep at around 7.30.   The next morning he woke at 5am and would not go back to sleep.  At 5.30 I gave in and got up and gave him his bottle with the hope that he would settle back down but uh ah – no way.   So up we got and spent an extra hour of playing  (which was kind of nice really -despite his tiredness). That day at care he only had one hours sleep…. and it continues – a vicious cycle where lack of sleep creates a grumpy baby and the grumpy baby is so over tired he doesn’t want to sleep.  This morning when he woke at 5.30 I just rolled over to the Adman and sighed and said “You have got to be kidding”.   Luckily he was settled enough and was happy playing with his toys until 6am…. and of course  he only had one sleep today  at care.

I never realised it but sleep really is a cyclical thing.  When he has a good nights sleep he has 2 decent sleeps during the day.  When he doesn’t  sleep well at night ( or have his full 12 hours) his regular day sleeps go out the window.   I know that soon he will only need one sleep a day, but at the moment  he still needs his two sleeps and when he doesn’t have them everyone hears about it.

 In much more exciting news we think we may have found a piece of land to buy and build our ‘homestead’ on.  It is half an hectare and is about 15 minutes out of town.   We have decided that once we settle on our property next weekend we will make an offer on it and see how we can.  We will have to offer less than the asking price as we need all the funds we can get to actually build on.  Its an exciting time but very  nerve racking at the same time.

Six things I have forgotten to talk about… March 1, 2008

1. We have sold our house – we ended up selling it for a lot less than we wanted but its sold and now it means  we can move to the next stage – buying  a section and building  a house.  In two weeks time we will be debt free for the first time in our relationship.   Although we didn’t get as much as we wanted we  have ended up with enough to pay off our car loans and also pay back my Mum the money she lent up for our deposit when we brought our house.  Although it means  our deposit won’t be as big as we hoped it does mean that  our next mortgage will be our only debt.
2.  Although I haven’t officially made the decision to flag the charity bike ride I haven’t been able to train for the last two weeks so it kind of means that I am running out of time.  First of all my bikes gears gave up the ghost.  Of course it took over a week to get fixed and in the meantime I have done something to my hip which means if I try to rotate it I am in extreme pain.  My chiro is slowly making it better but biking is just out of the question.
3. Up until Tuesday of this week we hadn’t had any decent rain since late December.  Since Tuesday we have had constant rain.  Its been a g*d send as it means relief for  the garden as we were having water restrictions which meant I wasn’t able to water it so my lettuces, capsicums and  beetroot were beginning to gasp.
4. The Young Man has really taken a step up with his eating lately.  Now he wants to try and use a fork or spoon and his taste buds seem to be ever expanding.   The other night a gave him an olive  to see what he would do – well he scoffed it down and put out his hand for more.  Tonight he had homemade chicken fried rice and he ate probably about a cup of it – followed up with jelly and icecream for a special Saturday night treat.
5. The Adman is away this weekend  working.  I used to dread weekends when he would have to work out of the area but now that we are back home its  not a problem.    My Mum is here and she helps out so much and makes  all of our lives so much easier.  This morning  she even got up to the Young Man  and let me have a sleep in to 8am – bliss!
6. As a way to celebrate  selling our house  I am planning a night away for the Adman and my self.   We have never had a night of luxury before so I am planning a flash hotel and  some spa treatments for us as well as dinner at a very acclaimed restaurant.  Of course the Adman is working for the next 3 weekends so it won’t be happening for a while but it will happen.