This morning I opened my email to find not one, but two emails from actual people. No blogs, spam or updates. Two emails that someone has sat down and taken the time to write. 

The first was an update from a friend of mine, who was explaining to me how he finally managed to beat the system (so to speak). He even wrote it in Comic Sans. 

The second was from someone who had been reading my blog and found a post that I had done regarding tattoos I wanted. I had posted a picture of an orchid tattoo and she asked if she could use the design, as she really liked it and it was something she really wanted for her first tattoo. Of course I sent a reply saying "of course!" - so I hope she gets it done and sends me a photo. 

Studying today. Yay.

I don't know if I ever posted about it, but there was this one time I was with my mum and my sister in Newtown. We were having lunch when I got a message on my phone from an unknown number.
From what I could gather, the person who sent me a message was apologising to 'Brooke' and her flatmate. He had been caught parading in front of his mirror wearing their underwear - straight from their laundry hamper. He had no idea they'd be home early, and pleaded with them to not tell anyone at University what they had discovered. 
I messaged back and let him know that he had the wrong number - and that he had in fact told one more person about his indiscretions. He again, apologised and told me how lucky I was to wear female underwear, because it was so lovely. I did not answer back and deleted the messages.
On a side note, I am wearing my Harry Potter t-shirt today. I radiate cool right now.

I am really annoyed with our real estate at the moment, and the whole renting concept (although,  it's not really that bad).

We've been in our current place for just over two years now. The plan was not to be here for so long, and save to buy a house. We were doing pretty well, but we got to a point where we wanted to do other things before getting into the whole debt thing again, so we traveled and eased up on the budget a bit. 

The landlord is a complete tight ass, and although we've never technically had a problem while being in the house, it can be frustrating trying to get repairs made to the property. The house is old, and needs work. It's not pretty on the eye but it does what it need to do for us. We had the toilet from the bathroom fall off the wall (yes, it fell off), the screen doors never latched, the wiring is shot, the stove top has stopped working and most recently the colourbond fence, which looks to be about 50 years old has rusted and fallen over. '

Neighbours from each side say she's a nightmare, and the house once belonged to her mother (hence the reason they believe she will not sell it). 

Anyways, the people who really drive me nuts are the real estate - or the property manager that we deal with. You can never get in touch with her, by email or phone, and they seem to completely disregard anything we try and do. We were supposed to have an inspection yesterday, and I changed it to today, because I would be home. Emailed, phoned, etc. No call back to confirm. I come home yesterday and the property manager's card was in the door. So, at 5.15pm, I left a VERY curt message on their answering machine and punched out an email. "Hello... how am I supposed to get in touch with you? Because I am at a loss how I am supposed to know you will be there at a certain time if you don't return ANY of my calls or emails, ever."

I am going down there today, to sort it out. But I can't think why anyone would do a job so badly! It drives me nuts.

So, the point of the blog. I was sitting there thinking how much I hate renting, and I wish we had our own house. Then I started looking around at the assets we have, which technically is where the money is tied up. A race ready 180sx, an alpha romeo, rooms full of junk and of course, up and coming tax return.

It's looking very likely in 12 weeks time* that we'll be moving... into our own place. Something really dodgy and small that we can renovate and sell off in another 18 months time. I don't care if it's a dive, because we could fix it. Different to living in a dive of a rental property that you can't even stick blu-tack to a wall (yes, that is in the lease agreement which is a laugh because the giprock is separating from the walls and ceiling, and paint is peeling everywhere). 

So if I've followed through with this, you can bet that I'll be inviting everyone down for Christmas!

*One of the prerequisites for obtaining a home loan is that you must have had your deposit and savings history for a minimum 3 months. So even if you won 3 million tomorrow, you'd have to have the money for this amount of time before the bank said yes, to show that you can make repayments and have good banking sense. 

A friend of mine asked me to update my blog properly with what I've been up to since I finished full time work. So, in a nutshell this is probably a snapshot of what is happening at the moment.

In regards to work, I am in a mixture of freelancing and working 2 days a week at a local business that does websites, hosting, etc. That two days, is actually really cool - they have developed their own CMS system, and I am learning a lot as the only people that work there are the owner, the developer and me. The business is brand new, and  I am being brought in to be heavily involved in the marketing and branding side of the company, the design of the CMS system and the website design (which is then handing to the developer to code). The money there is not fantastic, but what I am exposed to is really good.

One thing though - the guy I work with pronounces his "TH"s with "F". "Fink", "Fought" (thought) - he's a nice guy but it's like someone pokes me in the ribs every time I hear it. 

I have also decided to start studying again - I stopped while I figured out what I wanted to do about the work situation. The previous job was just depressing me out of my mind, and it was hard to go home to a course that had no creative outlet (especially when I didn't have one at work). I went over what I needed to do, and because I am a big fan of short course learning I wanted to start doing a Diploma of Business rather than a bachelor. I found a private college that allowed me to put the course on FEE-HELP and went from there. I was meant to start today, but the school is yet to deliver my study material - but in 40 weeks (not 6 years) I will have some kind of business education that I can actually say I have. From there, depending on how heavy the study load is I will possibly apply for either a diploma in management or a diploma in IT - both of these are listed with FEE-HELP, which means I don't pay a red cent from my pocket until I'm over the income threshold (which I'm not earning at the moment). I think the IT diploma will be much more of a sound investment and that may give me a chance to save money for courses that I have to pay for - namely a web course  update and possibly a marketing diploma. 

I'm enjoying the freedom of not working 5 days a week, and I don't know if I'd ever really be comfortable going back to it. But we'll see how we go with that. I received an email from the girl I used to work with - who's still at the same place. She's not happy, and typically they're doing all the things that they did when I was there. She's extremely frustrated and completely over what's going on. I feel fer her, but I love the fact that I left. It's a confirmation I made the right decision. 

My sister is moving back in with me in two weeks - she has just started studying again and is not earning enough to pay for the apartment she currently leases. It's looking like a 9 month stint, but she has lived with us before so we'll just go back to the system we had in place previously. Depending on how long we go in the place we're living in now, we may even try and find a slightly bigger place to live in for the time being. She's doing animation - something she's always wanted to do but never really knew how you got into it. I thought it better to live with us - poor - and do what she wants to do, than keep working as a designer for a fashion company and be unhappy. I think if she'd left it any longer, she'd never go back to what she wanted to do. 

I will be going back home to my parent's place in a week or so to catch up with family and some friends - one has just had a baby and I think it will be a while if I don't see her soon. I adore her kids, and her and I get along like sisters. I haven't seen them since NYs and I don't want it to be a whole year before I go back. I also am looking forward to hanging out with another friend, and take pictures with the telescope. 

I have resigned myself to the fact that I need to do some serious work in regards to my fitness and health. Overall, I'm not to bad - except for the extra weight I have piled on over the past year. I remember looking at myself before Hawaii, thinking "I really need to do something about this!" - well I am past that and more. Which is the stupid, because it means I need to do double the work I would have had to do a year ago. When I left my previous job, I thought I'd have more time to figure myself out. I do, but I think I've just needed to work out how life was going to go. The last week of work and the 3 weeks following it, I think I was too busy battling the breakout on face (stupid stress), and I didn't even think twice about my waistline (well, maybe a couple of times, when I realised PANTS WERE NOT FITTING). 

It's also past weight - I really need to do something about my flexibility and my strength in my back - both at ZERO. My physio really pushed me to start Pilates to get my back muscles to a point where I'd stop having back pain, but I never started. Slack. It comes down to laziness. None of this "I've been busy" stuff, just lazy. I was sitting on the floor the other night - other week I should say - with my legs crossed (which is no problems) for about half hour. My hip was killing me afterwards. Two weeks later, I still have a sore hip. It's really, really bad. You'd think I'd get motivated by looking in the mirror - but I just don't. 

And the funny thing is, for years I was never the one who had that "I'm fat" inner monologue. Sure my legs aren't long and my thighs have always been pretty round, but never "I'm fat". Well, now I'm thinking - "Look how fat I am!". You'd think that would get me off my ass.

Pretty happy about it being July, because that means TAX TIME. Tax time for us at the moment is like Christmas, because of what James earns and our investment property. It feels like it's the one time of year we can get ahead. We have money to dump onto the mortgage, pay out any outstanding debts (which at the moment is a car loan) and spend a couple of weeks relaxing the budget. It's usually just after Christmas, when I start looking at the mortgage, and the savings account and I feel like we're not getting anywhere. Tax time reverses it, and we realise that we're not doing too badly. 

Now... what else?

My brother and I are getting new camera lens', which I am really looking forward to. You'll probably see more photos up in the next couple of weeks. We'll be going snowboarding too, and I am itching to take photos there.

Thinking of looking at savings plans for a trip to South America, maybe Cambodia and would like to do the cheap-ass road trip with my two other friends that I mentioned.

My life hasn't really been that exciting over the past couple of weeks really. I don't think so anyways. Hubby just started his 6 months office stint, which means he went to work this morning in a shirt and suit pants. Bets on how long it will take him to get to the stage where he wants to rip it off? Then how long it will take him to get used to it and become one of the millions of lemmings that wear suits every single day to work? I can imagine he will be very excited to get back on the tools. 

The council workers outside of my house are doing some work on the road, and they're listening to the radio station that plays 70s and 80s rock and soft rock - which is cool, until you realise they play the same set list of about 40 songs over and over, every single day. Some of the songs I love, but not 6 times in the same day. You find yourself going, "This, AGAIN?".

Looks like some of my study material has been sent through, finally. Probably should shower and clean up my desk to get started. I just have to think, 40 weeks is NOT that long. Especially for a new piece of paper to put on my resume.