First, let's start off on a cute note. For Valentine's day the bonnie, bubbly, Bunny Lala painted his first picture for daddy after being well-smocked! Cute eh?

On the house-front: if something doesn't pop up within the next week or so, we have relatively few options. The two best, aside from the people miraculously calling up and tell us they changed their minds (a reoccuring fantasy) is that we could buy land and build, renting until it's finished OR we could buy an inexpensive house and put the balance into investments till we find a place we like, either selling or renting the smaller place after.

Buying land and building is an idea that I both like and dislike. It appeals on the level that I tend to have specific ideas of what I like and choosing everything from the ground up does have it's appeal. On the other hand it means renting while it's built, which is a big unknown. The idea of attempting to rent for A.) a shortish period of time and B.) with 3 dogs, 1 cat, 4 birds, 2 ferrets and a toddler sounds like a migraine in the making. I'm very worried about costs spiraling if estimates go over, things take longer than planned to complete, unknown/unplanned for/hidden costs arise etc. I'm also loathe to move only to move again in a few months and there's not a huge lot of blocks of land that are affordable in the areas we'd like. (To be precise, there is one.) So it'd be *possibly* more risky financially and is a daunting amount of research and legwork to do in a VERY short amount of time.

The other option would be buying an inexpensive place out there now and put the balance into investments till we find a place we like. Then we have the money for desposit available instantly, get a bridging loan (but then, those bloody things nail you for like 21% or something...) or standard house loan and could then either sell the first place or rent it out if we'd make enough to make it worthwhile and cover the monthly loan payments. Safer I suppose in some ways but still involves moving 2x which I really don't want to do and again more expensive than simply buying and moving 1x. The downside would be that if we opted to sell the first place we'd incur more fees from conveyancing etc. (It's cost us $26K into our profits to sell this place!) If we opted to rent, it'd have to cover fees rates, insurance, repairs and maintence of the property and the agents who'd manage it for us.

So to sum up: May the great god Murphy take a powder and the kinder gods of the universe bless us with an affordable dream house so we don't have to do either of those options and may they also ensure that I have the time/comprehension/connections to suss out how viable either of the alternative options are. ;-p


Random picture: My valentines day roses, aren't they purdy?!?

And after Nic gave them to me, little mister cupid holding them. All he needs is the wings.

Doggy Stuff - This pic just says it all!

(That's count 'em, one little white spirit cat and three hooligan dogs all flopped out!) We've just been hot and not really doing much. Have been working on Sierra's freestyle - doing circles around me, refining bows, backwards heeling. Hope is doing whatever catches my fancy on the spot, little bit of work on stacking and free stacking, need to start getting her to give attention on cue to the judges. (Last show, she maintained gave nice attention and eye contact but only to me... even when the judge was trying to elicit attention... which is exactly what we've trained for in *other* settings, DOH!) Cade is being a couch weight, his favorite passtime and one he does with great panache!

La Stuff:

Lots of new words. To wit - "CHOO CHOO!!!!!!" every time he hears a train. (His daddy jokes that Puffing Billy says "Choo Choo", the ones outside our home say, "...Connex appologises for any inconvience...")

And since we have sheep toys and statues aplenty..."La what's the sheep say?" "BAAAAA!!!"

He looks at the dogs who are hot and lounging, opens his mouth and *pant pant pant pant*

New word that's very appropriate: BUHON!!! (Button. As in, what he's always pushing...) ;-p

"Chews" and "chocs" (shoes and socks) and GEEN! (Green shoes and socks!)

When we went to pick up our dog food, the shop owner had one of her Standard Poodles (which I utterly adore her dogs) there and La was delighting in getting kisses from Teddy. "Sisi!" he chirped as he's trying to feed air-treats. "No honey, that's not Sisi, that's Teddy." "Teh-EE!" When we saw a black poodle on the street yesterday, he lit up and cried, "TEH-EH!!!" (Close kiddo...)

On the Aussie Shepherds list, one person sent through a photo of her 2 week old Aussie pup, La spied it and yelled "BEBE!" Then hopped up and chanted "Bis bis bis!" before giving the screen puppy a big kiss.

Last, as everyone knows the dogs all know various "spin" tricks for freestyle. Sierra, Hope and Cade learned single spins, multiples, off the left hand, off the right hand, we dabbled a little bit with getting Sierra and Hope to spin in unison and finally... inadvertantly... I've taught La to spin. ^_^' A few days ago I noticed whenever I cued the dogs to spin, La would twirl and grin at me. Heavens help us, this child turns more into a dog everyday!

Yucky moment tonight when we went out to get dinner. La was whinging so Nic took him out leaving me to wait for the order. The guy had something to ask, still not sure what... but asked the question 6x which I still couldn't hear/understand and had to keep asking, "Sorry, what was that?". The more I had to have him repeat himself and couldn't figure out what he was saying and the more impatient I saw him getting, the more I panicked. So instead of asking him to write the question down (which tends to get scowls anyhow) or explaining I'm HoH (which why should I have to explain to get a humane response... why shouldn't I receive equal patience if I had some sort of neurological deficit or didn't speak English or any of a thousand other reasons?!?) I panic and felt so embarassed. Five years on, I forget about my hearing until something rubs my nose in it. I don't mind explaining to people I know but I hate having to announce it to all and sundry every time I go shopping, make an order, have to make a phone call etc. HoH throws people. Some expect you're Deaf. Some expect you should be able to hear fine since you've got some hearing. I'm not Deaf of course but sometimes I think it'd be easier if I were. People know how to deal with Deaf somewhat better, it's easier to understand I guess. If you've got some hearing though, people don't understand how to treat you, you're not Hearing, you're not Deaf, they don't know how much you can or can't hear as one HoH person varies from the next. So they just get impatient and very often end up being demeaning or patronizing. They don't mean to, quite often they've got the best of intentions and don't even realize how insulting they're being but it just takes up more energy than I've got to deal with them sometimes yk? My thought of the day: It'd be nice if the world came with captions!