I'm back!

I have no good reason (excuse?) for not posting for so long. In fact I hadn't realised this many months had gone by until I logged onto tonight. I truly thought I had posted to my blog in February and March but I see that this is not the case. So this entry is a bit of a catch up on where I am at and a bit about what I've been up to.

The main thing is life is all good! My work life balance is spot on - I'm loving my job and also loving how I am spending my leisure time.

Firstly, my house is still on the market. Sigh. It's now listed with The Professionals and they are doing a great job but the buyer (for my house anyway) has not been identified yet. There have been quite a few people through but not the right match for the property unfortunately. I've had no quibbles about the price that's been advertised and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to the property to make it more appealing to potential buyers - unless I can increase the size of the bedrooms, add another bathroom and reduce the size of the section. So the waiting game continues for now. It's a little frustrating as I am ready to move on and I feel I'm being held back from doing that. My method of coping is to keep active and spend as little energy as possible fretting. That's working pretty darn well.

I'm still not eating meat and not missing it at all. I haven't managed to eliminate fish from my diet yet - I love eating fish! That is something I need to work on. I had thought that by cutting out meat I would naturally lose some weight but that hasn't happened. I am pretty sure that wine is the culprit there so for the past two weeks I haven't been drinking any alcohol - I will check my weight in another week or so and see whether that has made a difference or not. I'm not that bothered but I know I'm carrying a few extra kilos than is good for me.

Since I last posted there have been plenty of adventures in my life so I'll finish off this post with a couple of them. The post will be far too long if I try to cover them all off.

In February I spent a long weekend in Auckland. The main purpose for my trip was to spend some time with a very good friend. We spent the weekend at her family bach with her husband and sons. The bach is at a lovely seaside spot called Matapouri. We spent plenty of time at the beaches in the area. Here's a photo of my favourite beach - Whale Bay. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to the bay and is well worth the walk.


We had a fantastic weekend at Matapouri and I was already plotting a return trip by the time Sunday rolled round. Here's a photo of the beach at Matapouri itself.


In March I had a weekend trip to Lake Taupo to stay in another bach. This bach is owned by the directors of the company I work for. It's situated at the southern end of Lake Taupo in Kuratau. The weather for the weekend was rubbish but it was quite warm so we spent quite a bit of time in the water mucking around in kayaks. I think I need to do some serious training in how to paddle a kayak. The kayak I had a play in has so rudder so I would manage to do about 6 to 8 strokes before I would end up in a turn I couldn't stop until I would be facing back the way I came. Very frustrating but sort of amusing at the same time.

Also in March I had my birthday. This year I decided I wanted to head into the bush so I talked my sons and their girlfriends into coming along. We booked Oaks Hut in the Orongorongos through the Department of Conservation. The walk in there is quite short and easy with a river crossing at the end. We walked in after work on the Friday, stayed two nights and headed for home on the Sunday. Friday night was when the earthquake happened in Japan but we were blissfully unaware of the extent of it. Here's a picture of the crew outside the hut ready to head for home.

And a picture of the damage you can do if you slip on the track. Ouch.


I think that's enough for one post. There are a few more adventures I want to post about so keep an eye out and I will get onto that soon.

Big goal achieved!

Yes, my house is finally on the market. It has taken longer than expected to get everything finished and the house in a state I was happy with. I spent a few hours yesterday morning coming up with the words for the ad. Luckily the weather was shockingly bad so I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything by being tucked up inside with my laptop.

If you'd like to see the ad here is a link : http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-me-property/Residential-property/Houses-for-sale/auction-343491677.htm

Of course now the hard work begins - actually getting someone interested, working through negotiations on price, etc.

Again, I'd like to thank all who have helped me get this far. Being temporarily one-handed has not made the preparation for this easy at all. Without the kindness and hard work of friends and family I wouldn't have managed to get to this stage.

House work (no, not housework)

My focus currently is getting my house ready to sell. A while back I was starting to feel quite panicky (which is unusual for me) about how much work was needed to get the house in a decent state for sale. Someone suggested I have a working bee which I hadn't really considered. I am definitely not good at asking for help - am far too independent for my own good sometimes. But, I took the advice and set a date and asked friends and family if they would be able to come and help me.

Well, Saturday dawned wet, cold and miserable but I got myself sorted, did some baking and crossed my fingers. In the end I had 13 people come and lend a hand.

Three very hardy souls had a preference to working outside in the garden. I thought they were very brave as the conditions were pretty awful out there. They did a marvellous job pruning trees, clearing out garden beds and water-blasting the house and deck.

Everyone else helped inside. By the end of the day the lounge ceiling was painted, the walls were prepared and the first coat of paint on, the bathroom ceiling and walls were prepared and undercoated, the hallway topcoat was complete and my kitchen cupboards were cleaned out and organised.

The kitchen crew did a fantastic job getting lunch cooked and served. I couldn't quite believe the generosity of people giving up their time to help me out - it certainly gave me the warm fuzzies as well as a huge sense of relief that the bulk of the work was done.

On Sunday my sons, their girlfriends and one of their friends came back and continued to help. So, by the end of the day the lounge walls were finished, two coats of paint were on the skirting boards in the lounge, the bathroom ceiling and walls were complete and a whole pile of rubbish had disappeared to the tip. A soak in the spa at the end of the day and Chinese takeaways for dinner finished the day off quite nicely.

I still have a long list of things that need to be done but none of the tasks are huge. By the end of next weekend I reckon I'll have 90% of it finished so hopefully we'll be taking photos next week and advertising the house for sale.

As soon as the photos are done I'll put up another post of before and after photos.

Where things are at overall

As some of you are aware I've been working through a legal issue in recent times. While this caused anxiety and upset when it first came up I quickly came to terms with what I needed to do - namely focus on dealing with the legal aspect and ignore the questionable morals (or distinct lack of morals) involved.

The upshot of the saga is that a very good friend lent me some money to pay out my ex-husband. I'm extremely grateful for the financial assistance I have received from my friend as it meant I now have some breathing space and time to prepare my house for sale. I need to repay the loan by February so I am working hard to get the house tidied up ready for sale. Funnily enough I am ok with having to sell the house. I had planned to do this in the future anyway, although I would have preferred to be able to wait for the market to recover somewhat.

Today I have builders in renovating the bathroom. Months ago I had purchased everything needed for the renovation so it made sense to me to get that job done before putting the house on the market. I've also started painting the hallway so that job is more than half done. The other significant piece of work needed is to get the lounge ceiling and walls painted. My neck problems won't allow me to do that job by myself so I will be putting a call out to see if I can get some help from my friends. The only job I need to do is tidy the section up. It's pretty rough around the edges, a bit jungle-like so will need a bit of effort put in.

I've decided to market the house myself without using a real estate agent. This decision has been made from a pure financial perspective. There is so little equity left in the house I simply cannot afford to lose 3-4% of the sale price to an agent.

In a nutshell, that's where I am at. Anyone who is handy with a paintbrush / roller please let me know. :)