Music, Babies and Money

I hope you like this new song I'm playing. It's Neopolitan Dreams by Lisa Mitchell and those of you who know anything about my taste in music will hopefully agree that this song fits nicely into "my" genre. :) I love Lisa Mitchell. She's an Aussie artist and former Australian Idol contestant (when she was 16! made it to the final 6!) I've always loved her song Coin Laundry, it has a fun rhythm to it and I then fell in love with Neapolitan Dreams while doing an itunes store search to see if she'd done anything new recently. I hope y'all love it as much as me. I love the bell kit in it, the bells just tug on my heart strings after spending a good 7 years of my life playing them. It's on heavy rotation on my playlist as well as "Fingertip" by Aqualung. If you want to know. ;)

p.s. "The House That Built Me" makes me cry. I know it's not the same as my story because it's just my parents living in the house that built me and I'm not broken or anything. But I cry anyways. Because out here it kind of is like I'm someone else. I hope mom and dad never sell that house. It would feel like the final nail in the coffin of the life I had and who I was... am I getting too deep for blogger now? It just came on the radio then and I got a lil emotional. lol Just sharing. :)

Baby Brainstorming

I think I've had the Baby Moment. Shock and awe! I know, me. I think because I've been spending so much time with everyone elses babies lately...whoever said they aren't contagious LIED. Because I've definitely been clucky lately (as the aussies say.) I've decided I don't want to wait as long as I did before, even if there's no pitter patter of feet in the near future. I was thinking about it and the reason I got so freaked out by the idea of having more than 1 baby was because the idea of 2 small children was overwhelming. But I really like the idea of having about a 5 year gap so the oldest is in school most days and I'll have a lot of time to spend one-on-one with the youngest. I think I could manage that. That plan would be nicer if If I'm 25/26 for #1 and 30/31 for #2. Also, if we have any trouble conceiving, it would be REALLY convenient to find that out before my biological clock starts ticking on me to boot which is another good reason to start trying in 18-24 months from now instead of 5 years.

All of that said, logically speaking, it's not the logical time to have a baby. So we'll wait. And (I think) I'm okay with that. At the end of day we'll have to look at finances at that stage and see if we can afford to have a beebs. I know they are expensive! We'd need to have at least an extra $1000/month for a baby. We have about that now, but the only way to have that much excess comfortably is to be 100% debt free which would give us an extra 250/wk wiggle room.

Okay, money-wise...how would a baby effect our ability to purchase a home? It would push that back a few years, but how many years? We could afford to do both straight away, but after all the necessities there would be little to no room for any extras. I don't want to be living paycheck to paycheck...but Chris would really like to try to move up in the company and won't be in a position to have the level of promotion he'd like for another 6-10 years anyways. If we have a baby we get to move into a bigger house too. As Chris climbs his way up the ladder, we get nicer houses as well. Houses we only have to pay $50 a week to live in... so maybe having a little beebs before we have to pay a mortgage is a good idea? I don't know. It's so much to consider.

Okay, so what about me? What about getting an apprenticeship? Getting a degree? I don't know. The apprenticeship is only for 3 years, but I don't even have one yet. If I don't have an apprenticeship by October (they usually come up in September) I'm going to take it as an official door closed. I'm not going to spend life waiting around for something to happen. I can't really afford a degree right now without any financial aid, and won't be able to for 2 more years when the aid is available to me so I definitely won't be sitting around for that either. Apprenticeships, Degrees, babies, all of it will happen on God's time and I'm having full faith that all that timing will reveal itself without me needing to micromanage it any longer. So I'm just going to continue following the path that is laid out in front of me wherever it happens to lead, even if it's nowhere close to the plan I've created for myself, and trust that path laid in front of me is God's path. :) Faith is awesome that way.

Don't know what to blog about really! Let's see

I had some drama-rama the likes of which I haven't seen since I was 17. That was pretty damn annoying, for lack of a better descriptor. The pettiness and short-sightedness just boggles the mind. Really, it boggles. But whatever. Since I'm not 17, I don't have the energy or patience or emotion to waste trying to grovel with someone who I'm so obviously better off without so I'm just going to brush my shoulders off and move forward. :) I think I officially have an enemy or something now and it's a small town so I'll have to see them around...that's awkward. And even more annoying. UGH. I need a better word for "annoyed." Exasperated? Beleaguered?

Anyway.

We're going to New Zealand with Ashleigh (who has been renamed "Shlee" ;) ) and Turtle next year! Dunno if I've already shared that....But it's really happening. :) Beef is definitely coming too and I think maaaybe Tippet? Maybe? Or was it Jono? I don't know. Maybe Tim and Lizzy too. Kara seriously talked about saving to come, but hasn't talked about it since so who knows. Regardless, it's going to be a blast! I've never been skiing, so I'm excited. I'd also love to do a wine tour and maybe get a proper massage. If I'm at the level of fitness I want to be then, it'd also be great to go hiking or bike-riding...then again it might be too cold. Chris wants to go sky-dyving and bungee jumping which I am NOT interested in, but Beef is going to do it with him so I don't mind. We've also never taken a week long vacation like this before either, usually just little mini-trips to Brisbane so it should be really great :) I was getting a little teary thinking that I'm going to have my first hot Christmas this year, so I'm excited that I'll at least get to have a good cold and snowy holiday 7 months later. If I've already talked about New Zealand ( I think I have) I'm SORRY. I'm just excited. :P

My french cooking is still going really well. The house is no longer spotless, but it's still at a place that I could just do a quick 1 hr tidy-up and have it spotless again so at least there's that.

I'm going to start planning our garden for the spring. Next month is when we'd start planting so we have to start preparing now. We're going to put a gazebo on that 3mX3m block of concrete in the backyard where I *think* a shed must have stood at some point. This is my inspiration:




Of course it will be a cheapo version of that and, since I don't have nice furniture like that, REALLY cheapo version.... but once I put my twinkle lights up inside it and our table and chairs underneath it and put a path of pavers leading to it it should be really nice. :) I wish we could afford a Bali hut:





But they're like, $3000. lol Not happening. It's not really my style besides...but they just look so cool! The whole Polynesian trend is HUGE in Australia so it's always neat to see someone who's built one. :)

Also, I'm reading Oprah's biography. It's unauthorized by Oprah, but most of the stuff in it is pretty believable. Apparently she's a big fat liar and manipulator. Interesting. I got it for 50% off at B&N when I was in Texas, so I'm surprised it's been as good as it is. I'm not very far into it yet though, so we'll see.

I've been spending time with Elisha, a girl I met at the AOG church a couple years back, and I really like her! It's good because she's as needy as me when it comes to friendships so I don't have to worry about annoying her by being too clingy or texting too much or paying too much attention. I love that! She's the first fashionista I've met in Moranbah as well, she loves a lot of the same styles as me. Loves Gossip Girl. lol She has two little babies, but I'm starting to figure out how to be around kids now. She's older than me, but I'm not sure how much. I think she might be 28? Dunno. I love meeting people that I can unashamedly be 100% myself around without fear of judgement or jeering. Awesome. :)

We found out Petra's been escaping by pushing open the louvres (we'd mistakenly left unlocked) so she could look out the window. Only when she walked through the louvre vent, it would close behind her and she'd get stuck. So she pushed the screen out of the window to escape, and ended up outside. So sad! She would have fallen into the bushes once she pushed through. :( Poor kitten! Though I think she spent all day trying to figure out how to get back into the house rather than exploring, so at least there's that.

Tim and Lizzy's housewarming party is on Saturday this weekend. It should be good to catch up with everyone. :) I'll let y'all know how it goes.