I know right, the title of this blog totally gets you in suspense .. you're all like .. "i wonder what this ones about" .. well let me tell you, it's titled "We bought a Bundy house" because ..
WE BOUGHT A BUNDY HOUSEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Forgive me for busting out with the caps lock, bold, italic writting AND the underline all at once, but i do feel it was necessary. We are SO fricken excited right now that it's hard to process what's actually happened. So, im going to start somewhere near the beginning ..
(although, if you want to read the short version and then head back to your egg nog .. we bought a house and we are excited. Thanks. Merry Christmas, now go and enjoy your egg nog)
Forgive me for busting out with the caps lock, bold, italic writting AND the underline all at once, but i do feel it was necessary. We are SO fricken excited right now that it's hard to process what's actually happened. So, im going to start somewhere near the beginning ..
(although, if you want to read the short version and then head back to your egg nog .. we bought a house and we are excited. Thanks. Merry Christmas, now go and enjoy your egg nog)
This will be the 3rd house which Gregg and i have bought together. The first house was before we had any children, it was 6 bed, 4 living areas, 3 bathrooms etc .. although it was called a house, it was probably more like a hotel! 6 bedrooms?!?! I mean, C'mon, wtf were we thinking?!?! We lived here for about 4 years and in that time we had 2 beautiful children, we got married, and we renovated the house, LOTS! .. it was a fair money maker in the end as we had bought it as a run down shack (albeit a HUGE shack) and sold it years later as a huge, renovated and modern house. In this 4 years, although we had our 2 beautiful children enter our lives, we both worked pretty much full time as the mortgage was too big for Gregg to cover alone. I did have some time off as each child was born, but it certainly wasn't enough time off to stop me feeling like i was missing out. At the end of the day the mortgage was huge, and we had to cover it.
Once that house sold, we came up to Bundaberg and tried to purchase a house to start our new life. It wasn't to be that time so we headed back to Melbourne and purchased another house. This was probably what i would have called my 'dream house' at the time. After our 'renovaators delight' we had a house which we didn't need to do any work to it, the kitchen was modern and gorgeous, the bathrooms were modern and didn't need work .. everything was complete in this house. And again, we both needed to work pretty much full time to pay this mortgage.
It was a daily struggle, although i was lucky enough to work in the childrens services field and i was 'taking my kids to work with me' .. it still didn't feel like we had enough quality time together. It was the daily struggle of coming home from work, with 2 grumpy and tired kids in the car, putting them in front of the telly so i could cook some dinner and get some housework done, we would eat (at different times as Gregg would be home late) and we would then go to bed early as we were all so exhausted. Only to get up and do it all again the next day. The weekends were used to get things organised for the next working week, like the food shopping, all the housework etc. It was a never ending battle to keep up with things and i was never happy with the little amount of time i had to give my most important things in my life - the kids.
There were a few times where i would finish up work, or cut down my days, but we couldn't make ends meet and the credit cards would start getting full so back to work it was. After about 1 year in this perfectly, modern and beautiful house we decided this life wasn't for us. We were going to sell up and make Bundaberg our home. The wish list was miles long .. although we would be leaving behind everyone and everything we ever knew, we were doing it all for the right reasons. We didn't need the perfect kitchen anymore, nor the modern bathrooms. We didn't need the perfectly spotless house. We needed a liveable house, with a great big old garden where we can have chickens, dogs and birds. We needed more family time together. I needed to feel like i had all the time in the world to be a Mum and a wife. We needed a more relaxed life. We needed a vegetable garden so we could teach the kids where the food all comes from. We needed a market stall where we could sell our fresh fruit and veg. We needed a little country school where the kids could get an education. We needed SO much more than the perfectly modern home with the suitably priced mortgage.
So .. to Bundaberg it was (to a rental first while we organised everything else)
When we first arrived here in August this year, we set a few of our goals into action. We chose the perfect little country school for Heath. We started making some new friends. We got the puppies and we started looking for houses. I said goodbye to things like my bleached hair, my acrylic nails. Gregg cut back on his smokes (well, that's debatable, he SAYS he's cut back!) .. i shop at Aldi, we don't have Foxtel, I don't cook the perfectly perfect meals anymore because let's face it, my kids don't appreciate 3 course meals, as long as they have some meat and veg, they're happy. We aren't foodies. I save my money wherever i can .. because at the end of the day, all these little savings mean we can live on the one wage and i can concentrate on being a Mum and wife.
And then .. we bought a house. This house is nothing to look at. It's not horrible, it's not even close to horrible, but it's certainly not what we used to want in a house. It's liveable. I love that the kitchen is missing some handles, i love that the bathroom isn't modern. I love that the yard is over an acre big, there's plenty of space to ride motorbikes, get a pony, have the chickens and put some birds in the aviary. It's everything that we wanted in this change. In the front garden, in the middle of an asphalt driveway we have a little grass roundabout, this is where im going to plant a vegetable patch and make up some street sign posts like 'carrot lane' .. 'alfalfa village' .. and 'potato drive' .. !! So people walk past and say .. "How unusual!" .. we are all about unusual. I say to people "this house is EVERYTHING we wanted in this move" .. im sure they just think .. "a house is a house!" but it's not to us, it's so much more than that. It's a house that lets us have more family time together. It's a house thats far from perfect. The only thing which is perfect about this house is the price. This house makes it all worthwhile leaving everyone and everything we knew back in Melbourne. It makes the past 5 years of full time work worth it because it has helped us to appreciate what we have now.
This house is our little piece of paradise. I don't care that the toilet seat is stained, we can replace it, one day. Whenever we get around to it. It's not a rush .. because nothing is. Not in this new life in Bundy.
So, bottoms up, let's have a drink to a new lease in life. An easier, more family friendly life. A life where the postie is one of your best mates because she helps you source stolen drive way ramps (probably a blog in it's own though) ..
Cheers Bundaberg, thanks for letting us call you home.
Once that house sold, we came up to Bundaberg and tried to purchase a house to start our new life. It wasn't to be that time so we headed back to Melbourne and purchased another house. This was probably what i would have called my 'dream house' at the time. After our 'renovaators delight' we had a house which we didn't need to do any work to it, the kitchen was modern and gorgeous, the bathrooms were modern and didn't need work .. everything was complete in this house. And again, we both needed to work pretty much full time to pay this mortgage.
It was a daily struggle, although i was lucky enough to work in the childrens services field and i was 'taking my kids to work with me' .. it still didn't feel like we had enough quality time together. It was the daily struggle of coming home from work, with 2 grumpy and tired kids in the car, putting them in front of the telly so i could cook some dinner and get some housework done, we would eat (at different times as Gregg would be home late) and we would then go to bed early as we were all so exhausted. Only to get up and do it all again the next day. The weekends were used to get things organised for the next working week, like the food shopping, all the housework etc. It was a never ending battle to keep up with things and i was never happy with the little amount of time i had to give my most important things in my life - the kids.
There were a few times where i would finish up work, or cut down my days, but we couldn't make ends meet and the credit cards would start getting full so back to work it was. After about 1 year in this perfectly, modern and beautiful house we decided this life wasn't for us. We were going to sell up and make Bundaberg our home. The wish list was miles long .. although we would be leaving behind everyone and everything we ever knew, we were doing it all for the right reasons. We didn't need the perfect kitchen anymore, nor the modern bathrooms. We didn't need the perfectly spotless house. We needed a liveable house, with a great big old garden where we can have chickens, dogs and birds. We needed more family time together. I needed to feel like i had all the time in the world to be a Mum and a wife. We needed a more relaxed life. We needed a vegetable garden so we could teach the kids where the food all comes from. We needed a market stall where we could sell our fresh fruit and veg. We needed a little country school where the kids could get an education. We needed SO much more than the perfectly modern home with the suitably priced mortgage.
So .. to Bundaberg it was (to a rental first while we organised everything else)
When we first arrived here in August this year, we set a few of our goals into action. We chose the perfect little country school for Heath. We started making some new friends. We got the puppies and we started looking for houses. I said goodbye to things like my bleached hair, my acrylic nails. Gregg cut back on his smokes (well, that's debatable, he SAYS he's cut back!) .. i shop at Aldi, we don't have Foxtel, I don't cook the perfectly perfect meals anymore because let's face it, my kids don't appreciate 3 course meals, as long as they have some meat and veg, they're happy. We aren't foodies. I save my money wherever i can .. because at the end of the day, all these little savings mean we can live on the one wage and i can concentrate on being a Mum and wife.
And then .. we bought a house. This house is nothing to look at. It's not horrible, it's not even close to horrible, but it's certainly not what we used to want in a house. It's liveable. I love that the kitchen is missing some handles, i love that the bathroom isn't modern. I love that the yard is over an acre big, there's plenty of space to ride motorbikes, get a pony, have the chickens and put some birds in the aviary. It's everything that we wanted in this change. In the front garden, in the middle of an asphalt driveway we have a little grass roundabout, this is where im going to plant a vegetable patch and make up some street sign posts like 'carrot lane' .. 'alfalfa village' .. and 'potato drive' .. !! So people walk past and say .. "How unusual!" .. we are all about unusual. I say to people "this house is EVERYTHING we wanted in this move" .. im sure they just think .. "a house is a house!" but it's not to us, it's so much more than that. It's a house that lets us have more family time together. It's a house thats far from perfect. The only thing which is perfect about this house is the price. This house makes it all worthwhile leaving everyone and everything we knew back in Melbourne. It makes the past 5 years of full time work worth it because it has helped us to appreciate what we have now.
This house is our little piece of paradise. I don't care that the toilet seat is stained, we can replace it, one day. Whenever we get around to it. It's not a rush .. because nothing is. Not in this new life in Bundy.
So, bottoms up, let's have a drink to a new lease in life. An easier, more family friendly life. A life where the postie is one of your best mates because she helps you source stolen drive way ramps (probably a blog in it's own though) ..
Cheers Bundaberg, thanks for letting us call you home.
1 comment:
Oh, I wrote a big, long comment yesterday - but must have done something wrong!
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