Queenslander!

The first time I have had to sit down at night, before I am completely zonked, to write a little update.

Let's get straight to our news. Consider this instalment one...

We bought a house! 

That's it up there! Not the most flattering photo, but you get the drift.

After months and months of getting disheartened, thinking we would never find or be able to afford something that was even remotely 'us', we have signed a contract on a cute little Queenslander in a beautiful neighbourhood by the sea.

Think high ceilings, VJs, breezeway thingies over the doors, floorboards (to be discovered). Think unrenovated, 80-year-old, fixer-uperer that is very liveable now. With plenty of storage space. At the end of a cul-de-sac, a walk to the train (for city commutes - hello mortgage), shops, parks and the beach.

We managed to find ourselves in a very salubrious neighbourhood thanks to our capacity for putting up with (for some of us it will be less of a trial) trains. Yes, we are right next to the train line, but it's a small concession for what we are gaining.

After two-plus years of transporting our travelling circus to (and imposing on the unswerving hospitality of) Keiran's mum's place every fortnight, we now have a place of our own for our city visits! And it's still close enough for Nana to swing by - to visit us!

We are absolutely thrilled. Although it means inhabiting two houses, and all the costs that go along with that luxury, it will give us a home for our frequent city visits. And more flexibility to do stuff in the city.

And somewhere to park the bus! And fix up the bus! And dust off our dreams of one day doing some slow road tripping in the bus!

Ye grand plans are coming together.

All things going swimmingly, we pick up the keys in four weeks!

we live here

Now I have that off my chest, to share the ridiculously amazing station we find ourselves in. It is nothing short of stupendous. This place, here... 

I've mentioned it before here, and here. Thanks to an amazing stroke of luck/karma/patience/brilliance, and after battling for nearly a year to find work to complement his solo web design, K landed a ranger posting. On Moreton Island. It is so perfectly him. I've never seen a job fit anyone as well as this fits him. It's as though some godly hand reached down from the sky and granted him his lifetime's wish - though I'm sure he remembers the interview somewhat differently.

And it was all so perfectly timed. Fast forward a month from the job offer. We had a baby. Needed family-sized lodgings. And now, find ourselves in the assistant lighthouse keeper's cottage ('cottage' reflecting the heritage value of our lodgings, not the size). 

And the location? So perfectly us (though only in our wildest dreams). Living on a windswept sunny Cape, a prime whale-watching spot. On the world's third-largest sand island, all but a whisker of it national park. Remote, salty, thick with coastal heath. We'd wondered aloud before, how one goes about finding a posting at a lighthouse. In the end, it found us.

It's like I blinked and life changed. Baby. Lighthouse. I know not what, next. And it sort of doesn't matter. Life is grand :)

theme of the week: cups

Had I posted this last week, it would have made a lot more sense. So. Humour me. Pleeease. And pretend you’re reading this during Melbourne Cup week…

This time last year, someone with wisdom beyond the urban bind baffled me with a Taoist parable about cups and the value of their contents. The moral being that a whiff of possibility is far more valuable than any precious stone, sweet intoxicant, nay, anything that can be held/measured by the cupful.

Upon recently re-reading this post, the story made a lot more sense. At the time I barely realised that my cup was empty. (I guess that’s the whole point though: fullness is relative.) I had no fixed address, no next calling. I'd spent more than a year being pulled along by a fluffy dream cloud on a string.

Now my cup overfloweth. With fizz and delight. (But also fair amounts of spillage, stained tablecloths, and working it out as we go etc. Ahem.)

After a long-ish stint of independent living, the house on the ‘Hill welcomed another member. K officially moved in after several months of unofficial cohabitation where we pretended to have separate abodes and he would duck home (to his beautiful motorhome bus) once or twice a week to water plants and pay rent.

So his arrival, with the rest of his worldly belongings not already at my/our place, was not the huge merge of stuff I’d expected (sort of stupidly, knowing his possessions are restricted by the confines of the bus). He came with computer, a few clothes, four indoor plants and an obligatory man-box of power tools. My long neglected spare room is morphing into The Creative Space (the one I have always dreamed of but somehow put up with a dining table instead... though it now more closely resembles a bank manager's office, with big wooden desk from The Salvos and a big-wig type reclining chair... we'll work on the ambience thing.) 


Anyway, back to cups. I came out a dollar ahead in the workplace sweeps. I’ve been scouring the local op shops for vessels of all sorts of late. Last week I picked up another old-school glass sugar dispenser.

A dollar, a sugar jar and a whole lotta love. Glass half full indeed.

4101

It’s official: I live in the best neighbourhood in the 4000s. Yes, this is a dorky ode to my new hood, because we have:

1. The best video store (think Black Books but with moving images and social skills, staffed by film students who let you keep stuff if you haven’t quite managed to watch it by the due date).

2. The best markets. I have probably raved enough. So you'd think I'd be over it after about five non-continuous years of patronage. Nup.

3. The best felafels and the competitors yet to try.

4. The best Tibetan, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Greek...

5. The coolest apartment block (mine!) which has a water tank, compost bin, resident blue tongue lizard, and a rooster down the road who is not really mine to claim but makes me feel like I’m back in rural Laos every morning! And the girl upstairs who plays a sweet guitar and the boy next door who makes honey.

6. The Greeks across the way have perfected the art of sitting on the balcony watching the world go by.

7. Furniture gifts by the roadside. Hello new cane deck chairs and lounge.

8. Walking to and from work. Who needs the bus?! iPod, backpack, hotshoe over the Goodwill (pedo bridge), through the botanical gardens, along the river, look at the boats and pick one to take out for the day, shower, desk, brekky. LOVE IT!

9. Getting round on two wheels, a VERY exciting prospect. Coming soon.

10. The local thrift shop. Reverse Garbage. The Green Grocer. Mick's Nuts. The Rumpus Room, Lychee Lounge, wamble home. Neighbourhood lolly bag of the good stuff.

I am planning on moving anytime soon WHY?

a home on the hill

After two years of boarding, backpacking, house-sitting, couchsurfing and sailing, I have finally found a place to call home. For at least the next six months. Yippee!! I am giddy with the thrill of all the new nest offers, because:

1. There will be no more living out of bags. And no more chronic disorganisation, as I begin to consolidate my worldy things currently dispersed along the eastern seaboard. While the commitment is sort of scary, there are loads of reasons it is good to know where you'll be next week/month. Like signing up to herdshare.

2. I have inhabited other people’s spaces for what seems like a very long time now. I’ve cared for needy poodles, post-traumatic german shepherds, crazy cockatiels and various cats that a) leave surprise puddles outside your bedroom door in the morning and b) wail like a muezzin at 4am, 4.15am, 4.30am, 4.50am, 4.59am, 5.19am and 5.30am daily, thereby inducing learned insomnia, a haggard appearance and general functional paralysis. It’s time to reclaim my sanctuary.

3. Sanctuary is an apt description of the new digs, which were acquired in hasty fashion. As in, I went out yesterday to look for lodgings, saw two places and negotiated a lease on the spot for the second place. Very unlike the girl prone to prolonged opportunity-cost deliberation of sandwich fillings etc. And very out of character, given the one big flaw of the place is an extreme lack of kitchen bench and cupboard space!

But… this concession may prove worthy for the improved space-time continuum I hope the apartment will bestow. It has big light rooms with high art deco ceilings, kick-ass breezes, and a big deck AND courtyard with killer views. And I can ride to work (and the markets and the local cheapie flicks), thereby reclaiming my commute time (and cultural engagement). Which also leads to a karmic side-story about how I stupidly gave away my bike two years ago during the material cleanse, and now look set to inherit a surplus bike from a friend... at the risk of numbering a chicken, I believe ‘woohoo!’ is in order. I figure I can scour Vinnies for a stand-alone pantry and outdoor table for the deck, which can double as a food prep bench... though those breezes may foil my creative vision.

Photos will be posted with due fanfare once the cocktail glasses are unpacked.