New Home, New Year

Hello!   I have (once again) very muchly missed sharing my thoughts with you!  Here's a re-cap of where I was last.... moving house.

So we moved on the 17th of December.  Advice:  Please PLEASE do not move house in December of any year if you can help it and if you value your sanity.

It's a far too long story to tell you how we found this rental, I plan to shorten it quite a lot.  Basically, we DID go and have a look through, but not a thorough-enough look through.  The current tenants were there, watching us, we couldn't really talk, was painfully awkward, wanted to get in and out way too quickly, didn't really look at close detail, but we figured it was sweet enough.  This house being the 11th or 12th house we had looked through, we were getting to the end of our line (of sanity) and so decided, yup, we'll take it.

I said to Roy (paraphrase), "Surely they will tidy up the yard, clean the kitchen, the bathroom, get rid of the shopping trolley and the old bed on the lawn..."

This is the part where you think, 'of course!'  Who wouldn't, right?  Right?

No.  Wrong.  Very, very wrong.

The day before we were due to move in, our property manager tells us the carpets are getting a steam clean because they hadn't cleaned them.  "Meh."  I thought that isn't a big deal.

Then on the day we move in, our property manager tells us that someone is coming to get rid of the rubbish they left behind which included (but most certianly not limited to) a dryer, broken computer chair, council bins that are so full they lids won't close at all, maggots in the recycling bin (stopping here or this will be a loooong post).  Also she tells us that she will organise a cleaner - the bathroom was nasty and the kitchen was nasty, and the laundry was nasty.  Oh my, how I didn't want to touch ANYTHING!

The kitchen bench... the grout in the tiles was, and still is, long beyond repairing.  It needed to be fully re-done.  An enormous THANK YOU to a dear friend who helped clean it - who am I kidding - she didn't help, she actually cleaned all of it for me.  Ma'am, you know who you are, and you know you are amazing!

The lawns were over-grown, much to the delight of my lovely Patrick....  She's not a tiny cat, yes, she's walking and not laying down, yes, the grass is that long.

And here, my cutie's little baby feet kicking in the grass.  He learnt to roll onto his tummy on the 20th of December, 2011.  Now he's unstoppable and rolls all over the place.  I am a proud Mama!

I can say now with confidence, as we tidy the house and lay our own things around, it feels more like home each day.  It has a lot of character and a lot of potential.  We're here for at least a year and I am going to make it comfortable and I'm going to make it our own for this time that we are here.  A place for my young family to thrive and grow.

We went away for Christmas, to the awesome company of both our families.  We came back feeling indescribably refreshed, and so ready to finish unpacking our house - with passion this time.

I trust all of you had a lovely Christmas and New Year?  I did!  Even though a lot of this post is sadly depressing, I certainly had a lovely Christmas and a relaxing New Year with my Babe and my Sweetie.

What was your happiest moment of 2011?