The day I thought would never arrive has arrived - tomorrow I get to go pick up my girlies! It's the first thing I do, before we've done anything else is go get them!

I haven't said anything to La because I don't want him to start looking for them prematurely but he knows something is up because I'm so excited about it! We're packing up most of the stuff we brought with us tonight.

We'd also started to think about the animals we're going to have, most of which won't be right away as I need to improve pasture etc. Chooks will probably be first because they're easy to set up and I've kept them before... some for laying... Favorelles maybe or another French breed. A pair or trio of Alyesbery ducks perhaps and I'd wanted another cat so I'd gotten a paper intending to find a cat that needed a home in a few days.

As it happens we were at a food market (one I'll be returning to as there was some to DIE for cheeses - yummo!) we saw a very small, very rusty bird cage held together with wooden laundry clips. It's eyes were still bluey-green, so maybe 6-7 weeks? Tiny enough to sit in a teacup. Black, fluffy. Panting and flopped on it's side. And a sign that said free. The cage was barely bigger than the kitten and we had to take it apart to get it out.

Apparently their neighbor had taken the rest of them to the pound early on but somehow missed this one who'd been hidden for the past several weeks. They finally spotted him and managed to capture him, giving her the instructions to find him a home or take him to be put down because they weren't going to drive all the way out to the pound again.

Well anyone who reads here knows me enough to guess how this ends. I looked at Nic, Nic looked at me, La chirped "miaow, kitty kitty" and into the car goes the panting, stressed out, thirsty tiny kitten and a cell phone call to the vet later, we're heading down the road. He was dubbed on the spot as "Noir". He went straight to my vet - who good naturedly rolled her eyes, pointed out I have a neon "softie" sign on my forehead and chided me now she wasn't going to be able to get her staff to work since they'd be kitten watching - where he got weighed, wormed, examined, hydrated and fed. He's a tiny little waif but seems to have a determined attitude.

So. Thus begins and ends my search for another cat. Nic, La and I are charmed. Cade thinks he's a mother cat so he's happy as a lark with a kitten. Sierra and Hope will be horrified at the prospect of a bossy cat.

And did I mention I get my babies back TOMORROW?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

*happy happy joy joy dances*

Not a huge lot to report. Last week we moved out of the hotel because even with the extended stay costs it was just too expensive and I was going nuts without my animals. We ended up moving in with Jayne's ex-partner where at least I can have Cade again. (Who was a rotten little scoundrel the whole time from the sound of it.) Cade is being my little lap fungus.

I think Jayne will find that Frank regards taking care of Liam and Sienna MUCH easier now that he's lived the experience that is Laurent. *WEG* La is a tornado of a child, who often fervently makes me wish he had a pause button. He's into e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, afraid of nothing, persistant, insistant and he never ever ever stops. Ever. Those traits will serve him well as an adult but are a real pill at 19 months!

Poor Frank keeps looking just a bit overwhelmed and muttering, "Doesn't he STOP?"... "I'm sure Liam and Sienna never did that."... "Geeze, doesn't anything slow him down?"

Laurent is in the midst of major tanty territory. Teething (molar). Off balance from seeing the only home he's ever known torn apart, moved into the motel, then again to here. He's also missing Hope tons... I'm sure he missed Cade and misses Sierra too but while they all like him, they're my dogs. Hope is HIS dog though, or he's her kid or something like that. Either way there's a special bond and he misses her like crazy. Not a day goes by without him asking for her repeatedly. He's taken to cuddling my coffee mug with a black tri Aussie picture on it and the other day found the spray bottle I use to mist her coat down at shows and came RUNNING over to me, shoved it in my face and bounced chanting, "MUM!!!!! HOPIE!!! HOPIE!!!! MUM HOPIE!!!!" He was so excited and upset when she didn't magically reappear... must have thought he'd found where she'd been packed away too like everything else. It made me smile and broke my heart at the same time.

Hope and Sierra are by all reports fine. The kennel (and y'all can gasp with me) is shocked that for an in-tact bitch she's not aggressive at all and they've been able to let her stay with Sierra without fights. *rolls my eyes so far back into my head they get stuck*

One week to go.

Two bits of news today... I'll get the first out of the way. Moving date is in 14 days.

The other news is that this morning we had to make an emergency run to the vets for Ana, Nic's ferret. (We have two, Ana is Nic's and only likes him; Cino is mine and only likes me.) Nic went to get her out of the cage before goign to work and brought her to me crying and saying she was ill. One look at her and I told him that he needed to call the vet because she wasn't just not feeling well, she was obviously dying.

She was rising ten years old, which is fairly ancient for a ferret, when the average is between six and eight years with many of them dying younger from adrenal disease or the like. So he called his boss to let her know and we went in to the vets. The vet was a substitute (not the guy I didn't like at Dr. K's, this is the ferrets vet and a different clinic all together) and was actually a lot more up to date on ferrets than the normal vet. She confirmed what I'd guessed and figured that with the suddenness of the decline it was probably a brain tumor that had been there for awhile impinging on vital areas and causing the sudden problems. She said she looked healthy otherwise aside from the obvious and said that it showed she was confortable since she had no bedsores or pressure marks (they always had hammocks and thick layers of bedding) and recomended Nic send her to the Rainbow Bridge.

So we're wishing gods-speed to her. Ana was definitely not "my" pet... she was her daddys girl through and through. Nic could do anything with her and she was docile as you please but would nip me no matter how kind I was to her. (Cino is her opposite, a big dopey male I can do anything with but who figures Nic is tasty.) She was a character though, a shrimp and a scrapper and like most ferrets a tornado into everything. She was also a bit of the end of an era. As well as being his pet of nine years, she was also the last link to part of his life... his mum and grand-father having passed away, the dove last year and Charlotte (his mum and grandfathers red-heeler) a year after his mum. All in all a rather melancholy day.

Would very much appreciate it if everyone would send good thoughts our way regarding the rental situation. We'd applied for every place we could find that was A.) available and B.) allowed pets and of those only one hasn't gotten back to us yet.

The others have all responded and needless to say were all negative. It is looking like a very real possibility that we'll have to board the animals and stay at a motel, which freaks the living daylights out of me. I do NOT want to put them in kennels and heavens help me but Hope is also entered in a bunch of shows since I thought we were going to negotiate the other place down... and the cost for boarding 3 dogs, 1 cat, 2 ferrets and 4 small birds until we get a rental that accepts animals is just under $1000 per week at the least expensive place. Not including what it'd cost to stay at a motel and store our stuff at a storage place. We've applied to a bunch more places but not sure what will happen with that so crossing fingers and trying not to just give way to the nervous breakdown that's half impending.

Meanwhile our buyers agent is looking for stuff but has found bupkiss. We decided to branch out into other areas besides the Dandenongs, looking out towards Pakenham. I have to go see the areas as I don't know what they're like except that I've vaguely heard they're near other places that erm... are of a very different atmosphere than I'd want. I love the alternative lifestyle vibe of Belgrave area. Lots of yoga places, homeopathic/wholistic places, healthfoods, eco-aware stuff etc, new Montessori place opening up and many of the people are very alternativey as well. I've only been to Packenham a few times and never went further than the scrapbook store that's maybe 100 meters off the train station but it has a very different feel from what little I saw. Cranbourne itself is not what we're looking for I think. We did look at a house in Cranbourne South which I have to say the atmosphere in the two places we looked at (right next to eachother) wasn't what we'd consider. So on one hand it'd be nice to be near a lot of dog stuff but on the other hand it's much further from L's school, possibly too far, which is tearing me to pieces.

That said, much as I'm tempted to dismiss the idea outright, our Buyers Agent found a place in Packenham Upper which is actually quite nice. Beautiful late Victorian farmhouse, sympathetically renovated, big mature gardens, 3 bedrooms, study, big kitchen/family living area, formal loungeroom, bathroom, laundry and 40x30 shed with electricity etc on 5 acres cleared FLAT pasture. It's a fair whack more expensive than we'd wanted... probably somewhere in the $670,000-680,000.00 or so when you add up stamp tax, GST etc. when we wanted to spend no more than $550,000 and avoid having to take out a loan. So we'd have to take out a loan which I don't even know if we can do because Nic has only been working at this job for a relatively short time. I feel like I'm tip toeing onto thin ice... it's unknown territory as I've always lived without having loans over my head, excepting a few relatively mild student loans. (Was mostly covered by scholarships...)

We're also packing everything into boxes and getting ready for the removalist. More money. I'm wishing we'd never have sold at this point. Okay, so not REALLY but I will miss this place as there's a tremendous amount of history in this house and better this place and secure than facing this. And yes, I'm also aware the blame for it lands squarely on my head for not beating Nic with a common sense stick harder, stuborn mule of a man that he is he has to learn everything the hard way refusing to listen to me until he's in up to his ears before admitting perhaps my several years more of experience mean I might just have a clue or two.

To make things even more impossible, L had a high fever the other day and night so NO ONE is getting any sleep except him. He spent (literally) the whole day and whole night curled up in my arms, hot and miserable, dozing but not able to get into a good sleep. Makes getting anything done impossible! He's better now, just looks like he has circles under his eyes big time but now *I* need the sleep!!!

Dear God(s, desse(s) and other powerful supreme beings),

If you can't find a twin of the previous home I mentioned closer to Richmond, could you please consider just scootching the town of Neerim North closer so I can get THIS ONE?

Sincerely yours,
Moi

Can someone please explain to me why it is that when I look in the country-that's-accessible (ie Belgrave surrounds) it's next to IMPOSSIBLE to find houses that are cute to me but when I hit a random hoo-boy-that's-FAR country search, I instantly find a dozen houses in the style I like? Honest, I wasn't even looking at the land, though as it happens, they've all got land too... just cute-factor of the houses. My fav is in Neerim North but I've seen a bunch surrounding Warrangul and Wongthaggi. All affordable. All great land for grazing and dogs. (Hey Nic, howdya feel about V-line???) And the one in the link above reminds me SO much of the place I lived in Fowlerville, which I grew up visiting when it was my great-uncles and begging my parents to build a house on the adjoining land before my great uncle passed away and I was lucky enough to live in the original home. Go figure!

New Link: Long-Term Health Risks and Benefits Associated with Spay/Neuter in
Dogs by Laura J Sanborn (April 2007)

Okay, so I made my decision to terminate the Sulkie-Whinies because it's solving nothing and I'm getting on my own nerves. Getting on your own nerves is just never a good thing really!

SO, in light of being done with the S-W's I asked Nic to take Thursday off work, we rang Archicenter (for the 4th time!) and got the reports, signed papers for our lawyers, then talked to a buyers agent I found who is also an architect. If he can't negotiate it, then we'll have him source a place that suits what I'm looking for. As much as Nic loves this place and I could deal with it, it's not what I'm looking for. Last but not least finishing touches for Easter including bunny pj's for La! (Photos tonight!)

Instead I'm amusing myself by thinking of a name for the farm names. Half toying with the idea of something Herriot-ish, half toying with the idea of something French but mostly I'm loving the idea of calling it "Wits End". It's where I'm heading, we're more than half-way there already and it appeals to my sense of humor!

I *think* I've sussed out the places I want to do my livestock/sustainable farming/pasture managment and improvement stuff... I've been looking around for a few months now, churning the ideas over and forming up a plan of sorts. Since short of weather reports in hell taking a drastic turn towards the freezing and Nic deciding the BackOBurkes, Gippsland, 15-minutes-from-Woodend or Epping-and-keep-going (ironically both places I've found houses I like...) is a great idea... we'll be on -very- small acerage (yes this place is 5 acres but only 1 is usable) I'm know I'm going to have to have a very niche market to garner any profit and diversify to prevent the land from getting overtaxed and maintain profitablity in times when weather such may bring a poorer season. I want to stay profitable so I can justify staying at home with the kids (yes, plural, we're thinking we may start TTC#2 early/mid next year) and aim toward the market for organic, locally-grown produce sold under an environmental label. (Similar to what I said before but more specific.) I have a little bit of agriculture background because of where I grew up and because when I did my vet stuff at MSU, part of it included agricultural and livestock classes but they were pretty basic ones. The school itself is in Epping and looks quite reasonable, the course is a 2 year (or PT equiv) diploma course with focus on real life experience. Plus this place also has a sheep program with certs II-IV or a diploma in sheep/wool production if I wanted to go further in that arena. So I'm going to contact them to find out more and target starting for after we've moved and (if we've moved to the fixer-upper) after basic repairs have been done adn we're settled.

Likewise, I've also had a good chance to suss out a program I heard of that might be sort of kind of what I'm looking for with regards to training education. It's not a diploma program like the one I really want but could (possibly) be a stepping stone to further education in that direction. Need to find our more though because the idea is no more developed than "someone mentioned this and it sounded like it might not be completely redundant and a waste of time" atm.

Also sussed out several breeders I may end up buying my sheep from. I'd tossed around trying to decide which of the breeds I like to go with. All three are good for handspinning, good staple, micron count not too fine to handspin/too coarse to be against the skin and all are thrifty, good lambers and good mums, highly vigourous as lambs, good mobbing instincts, sound feet and no merino wrinkly skin to make sheering a "pro only" job. Since whatever place we get, we'll end up improving the pastures for a good while before we actually GET sheep, I figure I'm going to be attending several sheep shows and visiting those who breed/spin with them to decide ultimately which ones to get. This is actually turning into a nice little plan! So excited! ^_^

As an aside on Real Estate Dude... he is brassing me off! All along he'd pegged Nic as the easier to get to agree to things, chiefly because I ask lots (and lots) of pointed questions and insist on things like inspections and running the fine print by my legal advisor before signing anything.

Ex. with the electricity: there is no electricity on the property after a tree knocked it out a year or few back. We were told by RED they'd been arguing with the company about putting it underground which the elec co wants but is more expensive or not. This made it look as if they had a choice. I did a bit of light reading and lo and behold the electricity company says, "tough crap, it's not safe, you HAVE to have it underground" and they are contractually obligated to install it underground. So we make our offer contingent upon inspection and with the provision THEY install electricity. They agreed, then co-owner balks and says "I didn't know it was with us putting in electricity, we want more money!" Or at least, so says RED.

He called and told Nic he'd been talking with the people alllll day, arguing with them, the best he'd been able to get them to agree to was going in on halves. Nic heaved a sigh of relief and agreed without even asking me because he didn't think he had a choice. I rolled my eyes, restrained myself from indulging in the more colourful side of my vocabularly. Nic said, "But he told me he argued all day for us! He tried to get them to pay it themselves or lower the price!" I said, "Yeah. RIGHT. More likely he's saying that to make you think he's on your side and make you feel grateful for -only- paying half, when in fact he's just trying to bilk extra money out of you for something they are contractually obligated to pay. Just like our RE agent told you if our top bidder was just above the reserve, he was going to take them back, tell them they were just below reserve and squeeze a few more thousand out of them! He's a salesman, not your buddy! You can't take everything he says as truth! His job is to get them as much as he can, he'd be a lousy agent if he didn't!"

And not only did Nic agree without question to pay electricity, he was happy to agree to an open ended contract. I had a hissy fit - how could he agree to anything without talking to me... didn't he realize he wasn't obligated to agree to anything just because someone told him to etc. And as for the payment, "No WAY are we doing anything open ended! Suppose during digging they hit rock or the weather turns, we could end up paying thousands of dollars more! IF we do this, which I don't agree to...but as devils advocate, IF - we wait till they get written quotes from the digger and electrician AND it is drawn up as a seperate contract to the purchase contract so it doesn't incur stamp duty AND we only agree to pay half the amount on the mutually selected contractors estimate - if it goes over, they eat the cost, if it goes under, we pay half of real costs." (See, this is why they like dealing with him instead of me! LOL Open ended is much easier for them than dealing with my Cover-My-Ass stipulations!)

At any rate, I finally convinced Nic he was being played (it only took a month!) and knew RED was going to call Nic up and try to downplay the inspection situation. Shore 'nuff he called and tried to downplay the troubles, surely it couldn't be as bad as the little woman portrayed things etc. Nic, having finally cottoned on, said the reports begged to differ and stopped playing buddy-buddy with him. RED apparently got a bit shirty that Nic wasn't playing nicely into his hand.

I don't mind admitting I feel quite vindicated after foolish and wondering if I wasn't crazy because I was the only one with reservations, when everyone else was saying (even well intentionedly) "Don't worry so much, just go for it!" I was right about not trusting RED's "assessment" of what needed fixing. I *knew* they were hiding stuff! Nic was happy to go with it because surely RED wasn't hiding anything when he'd been so open about the stuff that needed fixing! I was right about there being serious issues hidden! Hoo boy, was I right! And I was right about it being far more expensive than we'd thought! If we'd payed $510K and then found out how much needed doing, we'd have been toast! Seriously, we'd have spent every last cent we had and been up to our eyes in loans for 30 years!

So that's that and for now we wait till we talk to Buyers Agent Dude and look for rental properties that accept 3 dogs, 1 cat, 4 birds, 2 ferrets and oh yes... us. And um, congrats if you made it to the end of this. This is what happens when I don't update for a few days! My gibberish stockpiles!

A Request

Dear God (Goddess, Buddah, Great Spirit, Zeus, Allah, Krishna, Deva, and anyone else listening... I'm *very* open-minded at this point!)

Please find me THIS house but in a location suitably closer to Richmond where my husband works so that my husband won't have a heart attack and die if I asked him to consider moving here. I kind of need him since he good at opening jars I can't, squishes spiders so I don't have to go near them and is instrumental in making future cute babies for me to cuddle. Plus I have put 4 years of hard work into training him, so I'm reluctant to try and replace him.

If you would do this, I would be ever so grateful!

Yours truly,
Moi (You know who...)

PS As long as you're granting wild fantasies, I want a pony and sheep and that super cute bag I saw at the mall last year. Or the winning Tatt's ticket. (I don't mind sharing.)

All my reservations aside, we went ahead and had Archicenter do a full inspection and a pest inspection. We *knew* a lot had to be done to the place... hey, any place no one has lived for 15 years is going to be a fixer-upper! That's a giant, "DUH!"

The owners estimates were $30K for basics to get it livable. Having looked over the place, my bullshitometer was pinging that that t'weren't quite the full picture and I quickly tallied up it up to somewhere more in the range of mid $50,000 based just on what I could see. I refused to put in an offer till we had a full inspection and pest inspection done. Normally you put in the offer, pay a small amount of the deposit so they can start putting things through and somewhere in the offer is the terms that go, "pending inspection showing no major structural damages." If major structural damages are found, you get out of the contract scott free. The trick with that is, if they find something and it doesn't qualify you're still in a contract. Nice eh? So, having had a look and a functioning braincell, I refused to put anything in writing till the inspections were done.

Well. The inspection was slated for today. And my... oh my.... was that ever enlightening!

We KNEW it would need: replacement of the back porch, main verandah, lower side whole wall including two windows, two story weatherboard wall and windows, front door, balustrading and timbers in eaves, back verandah, deadbolts on all doors, several interior doors, total recarpeting of the house, retiling of two areas, entire house needing repainting etc. etc.

Here's a partial list of the top of my head of issues we didn't know about but which were discovered yesterday:

* roof is rusted out and needs full replacement with water damaged assessed and fixed

* verandahs and wood floors have an aggressive wood borer infestation - we knew the verandahs had rotted out and the top planks needed removing/replacing but the understructures are also rotted and bore filled and in the interior the joists and bearers are trouble as well. Non affected boards are still very loose, lumpy/bumpy indicating patch jobs and not even GOOD patch jobs at that.

* trap-door toilet (no, that's not a typo. It's a trap-door to a small WC) is leaking, has caused water damage and the pipes they've used are non-compliant and need correcting

* the 'trap door' is non-compliant, dangerous (what a shock!) and needs to be sealed off and a new staircase constructed to be used to access that level of the house.

* the garage/shed thingie is non-compliant and needs tearing down

* the deck coming out from the kitchen which we were told 'just needed wood tiles put back over it' is non-compliant and needs tearing down - no idea what the strata under it looks like as it wasn't accessable

* one side of the house is rotted and needs replacing

* a few of the windows need safety glass to be safe because they are below waist level

* the plumbing isn't actually hooked up and is non-compliant, the one pipe the guy showed me on the side of the house actually is wide open and spills out onto the ground, it all needs re-working and a water tank needs to be installed

* guttering? what guttering...

* several stumps have been replaced but several more are well and truly rotted out and need replacing

* electricity is still blackwiring and not safe

* insulation needs to be better and may not be existant in part of the house

* several walls and doors are skewed due to sinking stumps

* kitchen needs to be completely reworked... the architect asked how much they'd estimated and when I told him had a nice laugh, saying "well you know, you could spend $20K just in the kitchen alone..."

* trees are in serious, serious need of tending to which means permits!

* carpet in the bathroom, means the flooring underneath has sustained water damage

* laundry, sink and utility room are completely unhooked up and not workable condition

* the powerboard is outdated and needs replacing

Oy. Vey. Can anyone say "ka-CHING!"? (I knew you could!) Game plan is to do a tally as to how much it'd all be tomorrow and put it across to the owners, asking them if they're willing to come down substantially in price.

So Inspection Dudes 1 & 2 leave and Real Estate Dude is supposed to be there, like, 10 minutes ago to lock things back up. I decided to sit for a minute and just absorb. It is a pretty place and underneath all the crap is a lot of potential. I don't mind fixing, if it's not going to bankrupt us and we end up with a nice place in the end. It's a matter of if they'll sell at a reasonable price. First thing I spot a beautiful kookaburra singing and watching me. I *love* them, they're my Favorite Australian Animal and I spent a moment absently wondering if it was a good sign or a bad one since he was laughing at me.

L charges off, loving the space to run (so gorgeous to see his face light up as he tore about exploring) and clambers around on some tree stumps.

I walk him over to the little fairy pond - good photo op right? He looks at the water and before I can nab him goes to splash his foot in it. Now he's used to this little tiny reservoir under our garden tap we've got at home. (The one Bryn was splashing his shoes in Sif.) So he expected the water to be maybe an inch deep or so. Er... whoops? In he went, forward he fell head first, went completely under, came up sputtering, shivering and covered in 15 years of muck, looking like Swamp Thing and bawling bloody blue murder.

I had to strip him neckid, use half a packet of wipes to get him clean and bundle him in the car. Meantime, R.E.D arrives. Bugger. I was hoping to be out of there before he arrived! So he asks how it went and I told him his clients weren't going to like to hear what we found. He starts song-n-dancing around a bit and tries to minimize. I told him flat out, we'd look at the repair costs and see... if the owners wanted to reduce the price suitably, we'd talk. If not, oh well. He spun his line a bit, it's a special property, we've sourced it for you but of course you have to do what's right for you etc. So I repeated, if we could do it at a decent price we would but if not there was nothing we could do to make money magically appear that we didn't have. He said he had a feeling that when these people heard this they wouldn't bother. I'm not entirely sure if he means they'll walk rather than negotiate (that's my opinion) or if he thinks they won't argue too hard (doubt it - they've been Grade 'A' PITAs so far...)

So that's where we sit.

I'm more confused than ever. I'm wondering if it's too late to contact a buyers agent. Maybe they have more research than we can do, could negotate better or better yet... find a great place we don't know about because it's not on official books etc.

I do however feel rather validated - my gut instinct that something was fishy was quite on the money. RED, who'd been playing the conspiratorial best buddy to that point tipped his hand a bit. Before this I hadn't been able to convinced Nic the guys word shouldn't be taken as gospel because he's y'know, a SALESMAN, and his job is to SELL and seeing as he's getting a tidy sum for doing so, it's in his best interests to tell you the house is worth more than it is, pressure you to think you'll never find another one that's better, try to make you think he's your buddy and going to bat for you or whatever else it takes so he can nudge you towards signing the papers.

We've got to move somewhere on the 20th of April and it's now the 2nd. I have absolutely no freaking idea what we're going to do aside from continue to pursue this IF they lower the price or look for a place to rent. (With 3 dogs, 1 cat, 4 birds, 2 ferrets and a feral child. Aren't I a comedian?) Even if we do secure this place though, the guy is on vacation from the 4th so we won't be able to move in on the 20th. So we're either looking then at boarding the dogs while renting or just renting till renovated or ????

I've also got a crapload of paperwork to take care of with regards to our bills, L's vaccination papers (I lost the little blue book I had the papers from Dr. Lucas in! WAH! Tearing the place apart looking for that!) and to boot we've also got to jump through 434,609,324 more hoops for my permanent residency because while the Dept. of Immigration should have realized they needed to review my application like... you know, 6 months ago in October... despite our contacting them and going, "Um guys??? 'S up?" they now realize they've overlooked me and need to review if I'm still genuinely married and in a relationship with my husband or just faking it all to get a greencard. I have a dozen forms, health checks, request an Aust Federal Police check to confirm I don't run an organized crime mob or something, round up various proofs we ain't faking a relationship and locate two victi...er... friends to write up Stat Decs that they see us on a regular basis and know we're genuinely, legitimately NOT faking a marriage, pregnancy and child. PS. It's a 60 day deadline to get this done.

Y'know. Cuz those things are so damn easy to fake.

Melbourne Int'l Flower & Garden Show

We went to the Melbourne Garden & Flower show today and had a great time! We've gone every year and it's (technically) the 3rd year L's gone even if the 1st year he was just a mid-sized bump in my tummy. I had to restrain myself from buying a lot of things because I know I'll need time to design a garden for where we end up if I want it to really look nice and that'd mean that buying a lot of little delicate tubes would result in dead plants. I indulged (quite a bit actually) instead in bulbs and tubers for plants I wanted to bring with us from this place but couldn't and in child-hood favorites that grew around my home and I have a lot of fond memories of. The downside is that my wallet is firmly lodged in ICU on life-support! ~_~'

Here's the haul:
Tempo Two Iris ('Natch... cuz we couldn't go and NOT come back with some TTI!)
Tall Bearded - Owyhee Desert (white top, speckled tan falls), Classic Suede (rusty-brown and honey-gold), Coffee Whispers (white top, coffee pink falls edged white), Santa (cream and salmon-buff), Milk on Apricots (white top, pink-apricot falls); Median Bearded - Mania (apricot tan, rose tan signal on falls), Furioso (bright mid pink and orange apricot); Dwarf Bearded - Spicery (tan brown stitching on lemon)
Daffodils - Yellow Trumpet (x45!), Potluck (x25), Erlicheer (x20)
Fressias (x80, classic whites!)
Lily of the Valley (x12)
Chinese Peony 'Double Combination' - outer pale pink, inner cream

Tiger Lily

Queen of the Night Tulips x10

Anemone De Caen (x50)

Orange Asiatic Lilium (v. Golf... hideous name for a pretty flower, x3)

Chocolate Cosmos

Coreopsis tinctoria "Mahogany Midget"

Since we quickly filled up the prams carry-rack and L was not loving sitting in the pram, he rode in the sling most of the day... muuuuucchhhh better! Thank gods for slings!

Some of the beautiful flowers...

Yummy orchid... I've photographed this variety 3 years in a row... I ought to just BUY it!

Loved the colours on this! My fav colours for flowers are red, yellow and orange!

Randome pretty orchid!

And at the end of the day, we still thank the gods for slings! L completely zonked and when Nic went to get his hair cut, Mary had to ask, 'Is he comfortable in there?'... 'Gee... dunno, what do you think?' (*blinks innocently*)

I also got the ace news that L's new pants were ready annnnd Sif, being the ace person she is, also made a matching hat to go with them that is just TOO cute! I'd commissioned her to knit up a set of soakers (okay, so we're just using them as pants) for L with the request that we really wanted GREEN ones! She told me the other day to go check her blog and this is what we found!

Now here's the insane part - she knitted these up in a day all up! X_X I started a hat for L on the same day she did... except mine is about 20 rows in, instead of finished!

I've got all these feelings churning about as well, chiefly about moving but I feel like such a whiner and like everyone must surely be sick hearing it, secretly thinking, 'OMG... would she just MOVE and SHUT UP about it already!?!' Okay, so my friends are too polite to say it but really... I've been angsting over it for how long now? It's nuts, it really is!

I want a crystal ball to show me I'm wrong and this is the right choice despite how I feel. I want Nic's mum to have tea with me and be the voice of widsom and experience. I want anything but to make a choice that goes against my instinct by myself. I think ultimately that is my problem... from the second my foot hit the dirt stepping out of the car I felt very iffy about this place and I haven't been able to shake it... but I'm being pressured on every side to just ignore that. Everyone is sort of saying, 'look you don't have options, this place is decent even if it's not what you wanted, so what if it's too expensive and doesn't have enough bedrooms, you should just buy this place and be happy - what more can you want, you're not being realistic!' I even tried meditating and asking the land and my guardian angels to send me a sign if it was the right place for us because I didn't 'click' with it, I just felt a sense of sadness from visiting it and thought maybe I was picking up residual energy/emotions from the owners. Not only hasn't that happened (funky arse dream yes but none that make any sense! anyone want to intrepret my weird arse dream?) but that knot in my stomach won't go away.

I mean, I decided to move from one COUNTRY to another on the 3rd day visiting, got engaged the next day to a guy I'd first met in person 4 days prior (though I'd known him online before that!) and never batted an eyelash or questioned myself. It felt 100% right and while I've had challenges, I've never doubted it was the correct choice. I've made 6 other moves, never questioned them. And I'd have signed the document to the other house in a moment because it felt right. This though? I just can't seem to get rid of the nagging feeling... especially with regards to how much it'll cost to fix properly and I waver between feeling like I should obey it and feeling like it's just my damn nerves and I should stop being so silly. I'm absolutely, mortally terrified that buying this house will result in our money all being sucked up, leaving us in debt, preventing us from doing the things we want to and ultimately the bills and stress will end up causing us to fight until our family just disintigrates from it. I know it sounds irrational but I just can't shake it from my head.

I ended up panicing about the move the other night and also thinking how damn lucky I really am to have the beautiful family I do... a loving husband and a beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful bubba who makes me laugh from the center of my soul... my gorgeous dogs, my little white spirit cat... I am more lucky than any one person deserves. Nic has said (with this rather put upon and pained voice but genuinely meaning it all the same) 'if you feel that bad about this place we'll just pull out' and I'm stuck with, 'but then what will we do.... what if we can't find a place to rent; if we rent, how long; if we can't find it in a year, do we keep going until we've spent all our money on rent; what if the only thing we can find is even worse and this would have been the right choice; maybe my dream place doesn't exist etc.

See? Whiney. I'm being the kind of person who generally annoys the crap out of me, so I'm getting it all out so I can shake off the fear and be me again.

I really do want that crystal ball and a cuppa with Nic's mum though. *sigh*

So the other day I decided to try my hand at dyeing... hey, I'm going to have sheep and I want to spin their wool (hey, dog hair too!) and I try to knit (even if I'm not so good at it atm) so I figured dyeing was really pretty logical extension and Sif said it was easy after all. I pondered over what colours I wanted, looked at pictures for inspiration and then looked at the dyes I HAD and revised my plans. We're not broke but we do have to be careful and not invest a lot of money in something I might not want to do again. So I promised myself I'd do this IF I could do it with materials I already had. I also do cake decorating on a hobby level so that meant Wilton icing dyes.

I decided to go with one that was firey, one that was more subdued autumn leaf colours and one that was muted moss colours like the dappled growth under the canopy because knitting and wool always reminds me of the autumn. I wanted to go real blendy so the colours would softly segue into the next instead of clear colourways. Here's the results!

Hank 1: 8 Ply 100% Merino (NZ) This is my sunset one - shades of pink, orange and yellow-gold. It came out less intense than I wanted and have seen Wilton dyes turn out nicer on the web but since it was the first one I didn't know how much to use to get intense colour.

Skein 2: Handspun Merino Silk blend. Dyed with Tea and mixes of Wilton in reds, coppery oranges and hints of soft yellow with golden-brown overtones. Ohhhhh this turned out pretty! This is the autumn leaves one!

Skein 3: 8 Ply 100% Merino (NZ) Dyed with Tea and mixes of Wilton. My forest floor one, various shades of green, yellow, blue-green and brown.

Now I've got to figure out something to make with them! Probably I'll go with something simple for myself.

Having success in this, I also decided to try working on the "problem" I'd had with knitting. Last year I really wanted to have a go at making stuff for La because I liked the idea making stuff that was sweet (vs. the "boys must only wear blue things with trucks or other macho crap on it" variety) and I really loved the idea of him "wearing" the love and thoughts I've put into making it wherever he went. That said I'm not very good and got stuck. Every few months, I'd pick it back up, reread the book attempting to figure where I was going wrong, get frusterated and put it back down.

I *knew* it was something SO super simple I'd kick myself once I figured it but darn it I was doing everything my Very Expensive Pattern Book (Debbie Bliss) said step by step, word for word and it just didn't WORK. So at any rate, I finally figured it out and yeah... it's so SIMPLE and OBVIOUS! Der! I'd gotten the individual steps correct but put them together as every other STITCH instead of every other ROW. To be fair, my darn book didn't actually specify that - just that the steps were alternating. *SIGH*

So. Onto pics! I have heaps!

Comfy critters... you don't think they like each other or anything, do you?

Hugs all around!

Riding out...

... and rounding 'em up! ("I got 'em boss!" says Hope!) La's steed is Bijou, who incidentally used to belong to his daddy when he was knee high.

We're pretending the bread basket is a car. "Brrooooooooommmmm!!!"

Why co-sleeping is the best... waking up to a happy giggling bubba, playing hide and seek!

More pics coming tomorrow. We're also down to our final day or two where we have to decide to leave the offer on the table for the Tremont house or not. My biggest concern at this point is the cost... we got $620,000 for this house, of which $20,000 went to the agents/lawyers/advertizing, leaving us with $600,000. Now $10,000 of that needed to go back to La's school investment fund because we'd borrowed out of it to fix this house up to sell. Then we needed to have money for the house and some left over to invest for ourselves and buy some furniture because what we have, aside from a few nice pieces Nic and I have got together, is very old (30 yrs+) and not terribly sturdy stuff we've inherited from his grandfather and mom. Doing the math on this house...

$510,000.00 for the house

$ 26,260.00 stamp duty

$ 3,756.00 electric

$ 50,000.00 fixing up, fencing etc.

$ 20,000.00 for add'l bedroom

--------------------------------------

$610,016.00

So we're over what we have available without even being able to put the money back into La's account, invest some for ourselves or get any furniture to put in the house. Now granted we don't NEED the 3rd bedroom straight away - not for another year or two but it's still money that would go to that instead of to investments for school or such. Both Nic and I want to go back to school, want La to be able to go to a good school and want to be able to occasionally afford to take trips to see family in France etc. Nic has sort of gone, "Yeah, yeah..." and figured I'm exadgerating and worrying over money excessively, surly it's not that bad and I'm exadgerating when I say we won't have ANY left over etc. But figures don't lie really. And even without the 3rd bedroom right away that's still $590,016.00 which means the only thing of the rest of our plans would be to pay back La's account.

OTOH it's one of the only houses with land on the market, Nic likes it (which I have to give weight considering he's even willing to move out this far at all), it's close enough for La's schools etc. and there's the question of how much we'll spend renting before we find another place and IF we can even find a place to rent. I need a crystal ball to see the future!

We got a text from RE Dude the other day saying the family are considering our offer and he'll get back to us. He knows where our maximum is, so if he accepts it, we'll sign the contract and if not... oh well, we'll keep looking. Feeling really philosophical about it all at the moment and moving ahead with my plans for what we'll do with the place we get in terms of animals. Having been researching breeds for the past 2.5 years, now it's a matter of researching where I want to get mine from, so I've been doing that lately, as well.

Saturday, we went to see some Anglo Nubian goats.

This is mum with two kids (one on either side) having a sip. Mum and kids are the colour/markings I like best on these guys! Brown, black and white with white spotting on the coloured bits.

This is one La liked.

It IS eatting a rose. Eyes don't decieve on this one!

Now how can anyone resist this charming invite? After getting a lot of enjoyment out of feeding the goats and watching La interact with them, he was tuckered and we went home quite happy with the day.

Then today (Saturday) was the ASCV's newly instituted herding! I was really looking forward to it but wish these things didn't start so early! Thankfully Sir Lala seems to be feeling better and actually slept the night through, after a week of tossing, turning and being miserable!

(The hairy hooligans waiting and watching the sheep.)

Sierra got another lesson of sorts, which she didn't do as nicely as she has in the past imo. There is a clicker-herding list I reallllyy want to get onto as I think that'd work great for her! I know from experience when she doesn't know what you're asking of her (ie asking a behaviour that's not yet taught) she gets very stressed and worries about getting it 'wrong' or takes it as a correction (no, don't do that it's wrong!) instead of a cue for a different behaviour (that was great, now do this!). She is way more sensitive to approval or disapproval than either Cade or Hope, so even though she's never been punished she stuggles when put in situations like this and I feel a bit unfair asking it of her when I know she does have a hard time with it. (Asking her to stopping or turn hasn't been taught, so instead of looking like another behaviour that's being asked for after she did the first bit perfectly well, it looks like I'm upset/correcting her/telling her the first bit was wrong. When the first bit was moving the sheep, she stops moving the sheep which kind of makes herding difficult! Instead I need to be able to explain "moving them that way is great, can you now move THIS way? Thanks! Good girl!") I have a distinct feeling if I do break the behaviours down, teach them and use access to the sheep as the reward, I'd have a lot more success and that's what I'm hoping to do with my own sheep when I get them. She's SHOWN me this is a pattern in the past (she did the same at agility, freestyle etc but was brilliant once she knew what the cues/behaviours were) and that she has natural talent, eye, ability to assess etc. At any rate, here's a few of the nicer shots of Sierra from today:

This is my favorite shot. :-)

Nubby bums all around!

My good girl at the end.

Now for Hope!

It was also Miss Hope's first time seeing sheep and she got her first two introductions. The first round, after watching the sheep very intently from outside the pen, she alternated between moving after them when they moved and looking rather baffled how she was supposed to get the buggers MOVING in the first place because they ploinked themselves on the side of the fence and did not want to move for love, money or my attempts to haul them off the fence.

The second round she seemed to settle in a bit better and was starting to get it a lot nicer. Started to take a couple of directions, turning, starting to get some idea of balance and not rushing up to them... working at a bit of a distance, instead of straight up the sheeps bums! Was probably most happy with the last part, since I don't like it when they run right up on the sheep and jam them into my knees! ;-) She's more confident overall than Sierra and is able to stay back and assesss things a bit better because of it.

I'd been really wondering how she'd do as I've seen her do things that our pups growing up would do that we had to channel their instinct so it didn't get out of control (eg bumping legs, herding cats, feinting/heeling when you run) and they were working farm bred dogs (NOT trial dogs) that were always mixes with Aussies. (All were Aussie/Blueheelers except one who was Aussie/BC, which was prefered in our area as they were all over. They were great dogs!) At any rate, I think with a bit more training she will probably be my useful chore dog I'm looking for and am really happy with that!

I also got to spend much of the time cuddling a cute little bubba who is much tinier than my own right now! So gorgeous! When I wasn't cuddling (or chasing...) La of course! (Thank gods for slings!) There was also a gorgeous little chocolate Border Collie that was stunning on the sheep... wow-o-wow... not normally a BC fan but that one was a pretty sight to see - keen but not over the top, nice balance, rating, responsiveness etc. So, that said, here's Hope's photos!

Walking up together. Showing nice control but also attention!

My favorite of the lot, just because it's a cute shot!

(Moving the sheep but far enough back they're NOT jamming up my knees!!! LOL Ahhh!)

I don't have a reliable distance down on her yet (haven't taught it) so we simply used a bit of body blocking and firm, "stop!" to halt her. Then when she stopped sent her back the other way.

Good girl, you stop when I ask and I let you go work them again! Yay Hopie Puppy! Again, very nice, moving at a good pace - not too fast, not too slow, enough pressure the sheep were going with me (walking backwards fast is hard!) but not rushing! All in all I was delighted with the little booger! For a 6 month old hooligan girlie she is such a little sweetheart!

We're finishing out the night with a big treat of a movie, Red Rooster and then having Nic's friend Justin over as it's his birthday! That and we haven't seen him in foooorreeeevvverrr!!!

Well as expected, our offer was flatly refused. The real estate agent said he has a feeling they're not willing to move for anything less than their asking price and gosh but wasn't that a huge shock. (Not!) My vote was to simply give them a reasonable offer ($485 simply isn't...) instead of doing a dummy-opener we all knew they were going to turn down but apparently, according to both RE Dude and Nic, this is simply my Midwestern sensibilites arcing up and this is just how business is done here. *rolls eyes*

Be that as it may, I am what I am and this back-n-forth business in an attempt for each party to screw each other over as best they can simply leaves a bad taste in my mouth. An offer you and everyone know is unacceptable seems just plain insulting to everyone involved. If that's because I'm a small town Midwesterner and as the steriotype goes tend toward straight-up, plain-spoken pragmaticness, disdaining beating around the bush, I'm sure I can think of worse cultural traits to have. So I asked Nic to call him (RE Dude) up and tell him that I really didn't want to play games with anyone and would he please just tell the people we'd like the house, here's our best offer (which the guy knew as our best from the previous house, to see if it'd change their minds after they took it off the market) and if it's acceptable great, if not, there's nothing for it and we'll keep looking. Simple eh? Nic still managed to take that single sentence and turn it into a 7 minute spiel. Can you hear me rolling my eyes?

I've also been thinking a lot about courses as this has been something I've wanted to pursue since I came over here and had targeted myself to start when La is old enough that he can stay alone with Nic for more than a few hours. (So I have time to go to classes and time to study.) He is coming up on that age, several more months yet but enough that I've got the itch to start my planning again. Still no joy in finding a place that offers a program like what I'm looking for. The land we'll be able to get will be too small to do a full scale opperation but I am looking into niche markets with small amounts of handspun wool, roving and fleece cuttings for various purposes (knitting, felting, stuffing, arts and crafts), lambs seasonally for sale and possibly using the milk for soaps as I knew someone who made *the* most gorgeous soaps out of excess ewe and goats milk! I also need to avail myself of the in's and out's of pasture improvement/management for Australia since I'm sure it's different, especially with different native vegetation and the drought going on. For that, there is an online/coorespondance course I might take but I'm not sure if it's worth the money or just stuff I could learn indepedantly you know?

This will be something that starts off very small, very slowly but hopefully turns into a nice little cottage industry at some point, probably over 5-6 years or so. Looking at the land as I did the other day, I think we're also set on having a goat to take care of the bracken. Hey, the goat can help with milk soap too! ;-)

I have to say that looking back into this stuff usually gets me feeling a little bit unsettled because most people my age have already done the serious-college-student bit if they intend to go after certain types of careers. Me? I'd be basically starting at scratch again. I'd have to build my GPA up because right now it's crap, which was my own doing since I signed onto a ASL course after loosing my hearing and decided I was too sick to keep going and risking the next car wreck I was inviting taking more than just my hearing. This was of course midway into the term, as I'm too darn stubborn to give up when I probalby should have, so it was either take an incomplete (which trounced my GPA) or keep going. Bllllleeehhhh. So long term goals but I can only really worry about the small, immediate steps I can actually control in getting them I suppose. I amuse myself picturing me doing my homework and fretting over my teachers while La is sitting there doing the same. Lends a new image to "study buddies"! *snerk*

While I was busy doing all this sooking over the fact that I've left this till "late" to do (yeah, I know, not really... indulge me in my dramatics, it feels later than I'd have liked anyhow) and maybe I should pick a smaller goal instead of something quite so lofty. As I was mulling that over, I was flipping through the newspaper (which I normally don't get but it had an article on a place we visit frequently) and here is my horoscope:

"You can't be what you are not, any more than you can stop being what you are. You can, though, stop being what you only ever thought you were supposed to be and you can be, instead, what you have always wanted to be. And you have to be very careful about defining what it is that you were not born to be. All too often, we restrict ourselves unnecessarily. We tell ourselves that this or that can never be because it was simply never meant to be. Your future is soon due to be much better than you ever thought it would be."

Hm. Interestingly applicable!

And at some point in all this, I *am* going to get my vacation! Me, Nic, La, three dogs for a nice long weekend at some small town with interesting stuff to do, antique shops to poke my nose through and a big farm where I can run around in circles with La, take in the sights, meander about and enjoy it all. Now I just need to find out where...

First though, this sleeplessness needs dealing with. Sir Bubby Lala is finally feeling close to well again after getting into some dairy last week. He manifested this by being clingy, whingy, unsettled and not sleeping a bloody wink, while nursing 24-7 to the point I'm reealllyyyy rather sore and over it at the moment!

Anyhow. Sounds like Nic has him rocked down, so it's off to bed for me!

House News

Yesterday we were supposed to go and see the property that we'd looked at a few days before. It didn't pan out so we ended up going out there today after picking Nic up from work. Since it'd been rainy and the dogs had been inside mostly, they were itching to romp - especially Sierra and I opted to take her along with me as she adores going for rides. As it turns out I'd left my round/barrel brush in the car on the back seat and when she got out, I noticed she had a "tail". Closer inspection revealed the brush was thoroughly caught and had to be scissored (*cringes*) out carefully. Hope thought this was a great new toy though and had a good chew on the end sticking out. It occurs to me this isn't something that happens to normal people!

At any rate, we got to go see the property again and I walked all over the land, up the bushy bit, down the backlot, around the pasture, and then carefully through the house. The first time I'd been there I hadn't really got a good sense of the lay of the land since it was rather rushed. While Nic was talking to Joe (aka Real Estate Dude) I wandered off and spent a moment just sitting and absorbing the place. I picked up a few leaves, a rock, a feather and a flower and dipped my fingers in the little springs of water in the fairy grove, mentally asking the house and land if it was the right place for us and wanted us to buy it and if so then helping us to do so. I have this feeling like such old places have a sense of life of their own, their own energy and echos of the people who have lived there... all of it adding up to a unique feel of the place or however you want to put it, that we need to respect for it to really be a home.

While wandered I also got a good idea of what would need replacing and was doing a mental tally in my head of what it'll cost to repair, restore and refurbish. I'm conservatively estimating an easy $40K but I expect I'll see that raise a good bit higher. Still... it is a nice property, pretty views, more grazable land than I'd originally thought (it's got 15 years of overgrown jungle, so it's hard to tell!) and a lot of rather charming rockwork and major structures in place that I think I could make this a real showpiece garden... something you'd see in a magazine! (Albeit it'd take a LOT of work to get it to reveal it's full potential.) We opted to leave a verbal offer for the owners putting the electricity in and doing so underground -and- pending a positive outcome of a Archicenter inspection, pest inspection and termite inspection. I fully expect they'll turn the offer we made tonight down and we'll work up to maybe $510-515 or so. The other good bit is that, electricity aside, since they haven't been living there in 15+ years, once we get in an industrial cleaning team (eep!) they wouldn't have a settlement date of their own, so we could move straight in rather than having to rent!

So... all in all I'm allowing myself to feel cautiously optimistic!

Cross-roads

I've been doing a lot of drawing within lately, becoming somewhat introverted while thinking over a lot of things. It's rather all encompassing, as I've been thinking about where I am, where I'm heading, what I want from the future, how the choices made now will affect the direction of the rest of our lives. Part of this is the time of year... at the beginning of the year we were going through the major change of adapting to life with a baby, my dogs were recently arrived from quarantine, Charlotte passing away, we lost Nic's grandfather on almost the same day after a lot of emotional decisions to place him in full-time care as his memory and mobility were degrading to the point he couldn't be unattended safely. I felt the weight of my choice to move to a foreign country, marry and have a baby settle on me and fully realized that so many of the things which had made up my life previously were now gone or different. Rather naeively, I hadn't thought the country would be very differently structured in some ways... discovering that I would have to choose between city and country was one of those, as many places in the US have farms right next to the city and intermingled even. So many of the things I took for granted as simply being part of how the world worked were different here, sometimes unavailable, sometimes just unaccessable because I didn't know how to find them in this place. I felt like I was starting all over again as I had to relearn what was involved in virtually everything, because while some things were similar, some were quite different and I had no way of knowing which was which until I landed knee-deep in it... a most disconcerting experience to be sure! As much as a culture shock, there was also the huge difference of going from a place which was supremely rural and which I deeply loved, to living in the inner suburbs and having to adapt to a fashion-concious cafe culture where what label you were wearing and the cut of your hair were much more important than previous. Looking back, it's been a huge amount of changes in such a whirlwind, short time. It's daunting to look back on and realize how monumental it's all been.

At the start of the year, I'd made a list of New Years Goals. Some of them I've achieved, some of them I haven't. Some still seem important, others not so much. Other things have happened that I didn't plan on, both bad and good, that have made me reassess a lot.

Another part of this is that this is Nic's mum's birthday and the anniversary of her death. The fourth birthday, the fourth Christmas, the fourth year she won't be able to spend with us and we feel her loss so keenly. Gods, it still seems like such a short time ago and at the same time, ages and ages ago. Her loss at such a young age, when she still had so much to live for and so much she wanted to do highlights for me the reasons why I feel your dreams should be pursued. She spent her whole life wanting to move to the country, to pursue her interests, to live her dreams... and kept telling herself that the time wasn't right, she needed to do this or that first, she'd have it "someday". She lost that when we lost her to a reoccurance of cancer. I've seen my uncle pass away still with so much to do. I've seen too many others wait until it was too late as well. I don't want that for myself. I've always been that way and other things that have happened have highlighted the importance of pursuing your goals avidly and not waiting... almost 10 years I've been waiting to show dogs and actively trial and time after time I let things get in the way. I do regret that, I regret not pursuing those dreams more actively, working to make them happen instead of telling myself there was always time to do it later, time to do it when I didn't have so many other obligations, when "the time was right" and conditions were ideal. Life thus far has shown me that conditions are never ideal and they don't need to be to go after what you want and be successful.

I suppose also, my time in college comes into this, as I really wish I'd been able to complete my veterinary degree. I do understand that at the time it would have been darn near impossible, just too many other things stacked against me and I wasn't in the right place for it to happen. I still toy with the dream from time to time, taking it out and cherishing it, imaging what it would be like, though I do also feel that it's no longer something perfectly suited in that it would mean a huge amount of time taken away from my family, the stress involved in attaining the degree and I do have other interests I'd like to pursue as well. But a part of me wishes the idealistic dream had happened and I had that diploma to my credit, something to show that I'd gone after and fought for and won. The not-so-mature part of me would like to throw it back in the face of my father for every time he told me I was stupid, worthless, a waste of time and would never amount to anything. The more mature part of me knows I've accomplished more than he ever will and that the most maginificent achievement in my life and my number one priority is my beautiful child and my family. But that immature side giggles manically at the idea of thumbing my nose at him still. ;-)

The last part of it is that we're almost about to move. After waiting to sell this house for 2 years, we've only got a few days till auction on the 16th. I'm insanely nervous. What if we don't get a good offer? What if this drags on for months? What if we run up thousands of dollars in advertizing? What if it's not enough to get us the house we want? What if it IS? What if.... what if! Such an uncertain feeling, as if the floor might drop out from under me but I can't be sure of it. And then there's still the question of where to move.

I dearly want to move to the country. I want acerage, I want peace, I want to be able to have dogs, do agility, herd... eventually breed and start my own kennel. I want a huge vegetable garden. I want quiet walks down country lanes. I want the place I left when I moved from the US.

I also want a school which uses a particular educational philosophy for Laurent as education is such a hugely important thing for me. I also am concerned that it's decently ranked because such things do count when it comes to college and I want him to have that opportunity if that's what he wants. Unfortunately the school for that is about a 5 minute walk from where we live in suburbia. I'm no fan of suburbia, it's clausterphobic and noisy and I hate having neighbors piled on top of you. I don't like that the only trees are ones that are carefully pruned and neatly tended in fancy gardens instead of just growing wild and free and not made to conform. Anthropmorphizing? Why, yes! But no less true for it. It's not that I mind the shops and the cafes, that I don't like the fashion or the food... it's that I want those things near where I have my nice acerage and can have the lifestyle I want.

I also have to consider work. Work is in the city. It's where the vast majority of jobs are and if I move to the country and drag Nic along, that means finding a new job or a way to commute, which for a person who doesn't drive is a big obstical. And if he looses a job, then it's that much harder to find a new one in the country.

I also have to consider what the area is like. Unlike the US where country doesn't necessarily mean the people are backwards, feral bogans... here it often seems to. That's not the type of community I want Laurent to grow up in or the values that I want him to come up with.

I very much also feel the need to settle. I'm tired of everything shifting and being up in the air. I've moved from place to place and been as rootless as a gypsy wanderer since I was 18 and moved wherever school and work were. I don't want more major changes. I want to settle, to put down roots and not budge. I want a house isn't just a house but a HOME... one that I'm going to stay in till I'm old and wrinkly and surrounded by fat, happy grandchildren.

So it feels like whatever path I choose at this point, it will really define the majority of my life.

I can choose to stay in the suburbs, which I really don't like and won't be able to realize my dreams in. I can set up my life here, have a few dogs but never breed. I can reconcile myself to the fact that this is what's right for Nic and best for Laurent's education. But it won't change the fact that that's ALL it will ever be - me reconciling myself, settling for what's "right" despite what my heart and soul tells me. The idea of staying in the suburbs for the rest of my life makes me physically queasy. From as early as I can remember, I always hated living in them and loved living in the country, loved the small townness, loved the quiet and solitude. I suppose it can be said that when I'm ready to "retire" then I could go out to the country and live my dream but that goes back to what I said about how I feel about waiting for "someday" to come... I'm only too aware that it might not and that would be something I regreted forever. It also goes back to what I said about not wanting to uproot myself and my whole life again to move from the city to the country someday, leaving behind everything I've established here for myself, leaving the lifestyle that Laurent will have grown up in, the one that Nic will then have another 30-40+ years in.

On the other hand, I could move to the country but that would be a very permanent move because there's no way that once I set up my life there, started a kennel, invested my everything into that... no way could I give that up. As absurd as it sounds, I really didn't know I was giving it up the first time when I moved here. I decided to move here 3 days after arriving, knowing virtually nothing about the place and only having Nic's word that we'd sell and find a place more suited to us. I assumed at the time this meant that we'd be able to find an acre or two on teh outskirts of a major town because this is how the US is laid out. Had I been told I'd be stuck in suburbia for the rest of my life by moving here, I'm not sure I would have moved here.

This isn't to say I regret my choice to move here. I've gained several wonderful things, not the least of which is my family, my child, my cat and my beautiful new puppy who is in a way the furfillment of a long-time dream. I've grown into myself in so many ways. I've definitely changed. Some of that has to do with becoming a mum I suppose but a lot of it I think is just plain old personal growth.

I feel like I'm casting about trying to understand it all and find a direction and something solid to stand on but I feel completely certain and calm too. I'm not sure there's really a point to this... or maybe that is the point: that there is no point because I feel like I'm lacking one at the moment. Just trying to sort this all out in my head! If you've made it this far you deserve a medal... I'm not sure I made it this far and I wrote it!!!

So... first inspection. EEEP!!!!

EEEPPP and may I repeat EEEEEPPPP!!!! Basically we (cough) worked most of the night and all morning and afternoon to get things ready. I know it prolly sounds like our house is a federal disaster zone given how long I've been saying "I've still got heaps of cleaning!" The trick is 1.) cleaning with a 1 year old is painfully slow due to the "helpful help" and b.) a lot of it is repetative cleaning. IOW I get it clean and by the next day (if it lasts that long...) it's quite generally a disaster again courtesy of Nic, Laurent, Cade, Sierra and Hope.

Laurent is definitely the biggest messmaker... quite often, he'll be directly to my side pulling things back out as fast (or faster!) than I can tidy them or causing me to pause and remove him from or remove from him. Bless him, he now RUNS with his booty as well. Nic is definitely a close second though, the only thing that Laurent has on him is that L drools and is generally has sticky fingers from it... otherwise I'm pretty sure it'd be an even tie. Although, come to think of it, Nic does have height on Laurent... Hmmm... *ponders*

At any rate, we did as much as we could by 2pm and while there was still stuff I'd like to look more posh to appeal to those nice dinks with deep pockets or at least a big loan, it was clean and neat and there was only 1 drooly handprint on the windows.

We got 7 people over 45 minutes, several phone calls planning to check it out next inspection and one person registering their interest. Not great but not bad. I'm chalking it up to voting day. So that's that... right now I'm just tired, after having run on adrenaline most of the past few days. Tonight I'm spoiling myself. We went to a patesserie for a severely indulgent Chai tea and nibbly and I'm going to have my nails painted, a nice massage, a long hot oil infused bath in the evening and just relaaaaxxxxx into a blissful puddle of goo!

Dog training notes: been dabbling here and there with the advice Jan gave me. Not sure how that is going as it just feels really, really uncoordinated at this point on my part. Working with Miss Hope as well. She is just too clever by half! She is a very INSISTANT little thing about these automatic sits! I stop, she ploinks and stares holes in my head till I move! Walked to town today and took her, she got to see policemen in full uniform, a display of ceiling fans blowing sideways with ribbons, a flittery banner, a lady with two obnoxious pulling schnoodles, a bunch of screaming kids, several clueless adults who were bluntly told they ought to ASK permission before reaching to pat her (GRRRRR.... major pet peeve for me!!!), walk over two types of sewer vents (open slats and the solid clattery kind) and see a big noisy motor bike.

For non-dog people, this is part of trying to expose her to all manner of weird, bizzare things we take for granted but which from a puppy POV look intensely weird and kind of scarey. I'm convincing her that weird stuff is not only NOT scarey but very probably intensely rewarding to be brave around! ;-)

Another neat thing, I found a picture of her sibling, Cuebiyar Body N Soul aka Floyd on his new owners website! Too cute! Reminds me I need to get a photo of Hope stacking and work on her webpage... usually too busy with child, dogs and moving to do so!