Home ownership 3 months in

Well we haven’t got blogging regularly off to a good start have we? Where have the last 3 months gone? In a blurr it seems! I feel like I am struggling to find enough hours in the day with my big commute every day. Some days it feels easy and other days it feels really challenging. I hope it becomes easier as more time passes. 

We have been so busy since buying the house. I think we have had 2 weekends in 3 months were no one visited us. I feel a little burnt out. I have loved everyone visiting but it’s brought up all these emotions for me that I am not used to. I’ve never really been able to have friends visit before – not where I felt comfortable anyway so it’s a whole new experience playing host all the time. I have really enjoyed it but I feel like I hardly get any time for myself anymore or proper quality time for my relationship.  Now that winter is just a few weeks away the pool has become less desirable so hopefully everything will start to slow down. Since my last post it was my birthday and T’s birthday. Mine was low key, I didn’t really do much other than a surprise that T had organised which was Thai cooking class in Sydney. For T’s birthday I organised an epic surprise party. I love putting effort into things like that and got a real kick out of it when he came to the house with his friends bestest friends – some from far away (Wagga Wagga & Canberra). It was an awesome time and I was stoked that I pulled it off without him finding out. I had to buy things and hide them through the house!

My dad finally visited the house to see it for the first time over the Anazc day weekend. He visited with his partner and my brother, wife and 2 kids also visited but I absolutely adored that visit! I haven’t had my family visit and stay before so it was wonderful to have that time with them, especially the joy you get from a 5 & 7 year old! 

We have done a number of jobs around the house. There was a great big gap from our fence down into our neighbours yard so we filled the hole up with some sleepers from bunnings and a few spare bricks that were laying around the house. We have ripped out all the roses out the back and a passionfruit vine that was near the pool as the leaves continued to get in the pool and make more work. I’ve been doing a fair bit of research on plants that don’t attract bees as T is allergic to them which is why the roses had to go. We have some more plants to take out which I haven’t got to yet.

We’ve also cleaned out all the gutters and put in some gutter guard on part of the house before we ran out. I still need to get some more and finish it off! We’ve taken down all the lace curtains everywhere, hung almost all the pictures on the wall, built a heap of furniture (4 bar stools, an office desk, a cubed wall unit cabinet, a bed side table shelf for the spare room & our outdoor furniture.) One weekend my hand was so sore from using the screw driver all weekend it had bruised the palm of my hand! LOL. I’ve got a few more things I’d like to get finished fairly soon. I need to oil our wooden table out the back and also make a headboard for the spare room. I have bought the materials for those 2 projects and hope to get started soon. 

The house looks good to a visitor but I still have so much to sort through. I haven’t unpacked any of my paperwork/study stuff, all the boxes are just shoved in the cupboard so the house looks neat. Along with probably 50% of my clothes and shoes that are still in bags waiting to be unpacked. I haven’t unpacked a lot of my personal stuff like earrings, necklaces, perfume etc. We have boxes of chords and boxes of things I am not sure really where to put that all need to be sorted through. We’ll get there, I just haven’t had time to do it yet. I also need to work out a proper budget for us because we don’t have one at the moment. I have a few spreadsheets started and have listed when regular direct payments come out of my account and the dates but that’s about as far as I have got. And I really need to be more organised with that. I also changed my loan over so part of it is now variable and I have an equity account. I didn’t understand about all that stuff when I bought the house and I have a much better idea now. I was also lucky to not be charged with the changeover because the interest rate is very low at the moment. 

Amongst all of the above on a personal level I have felt quite anxious and stressed the last 3 months and not really myself. I decided it would be good to go to the doctor about a month and a half ago because I had constant heart burn/chest pain that wouldn’t go away. Turns out it’s more than likely anxiety/stress/panic causing the pain. So I got a care plan from the Doc and have been seeing a psychologist to talk about some stuff. I’ve been 3 times now and it’s helped quite a bit. I really want to go on a journey with her and also talk about my current stress and also stuff from my past and how to heal from it and not let it affect me and my life now. I mean the big stuff (being overweight since I was a child and where a lot of my core beliefs come from.) I feel like it’s going to be a really good thing for me in the long run and finally allow me to love myself and be more self-confident. Although probably for the last 4 weeks I’ve had bouts of time where I have been unable to stop being itchy on my skin which I also think is related. Some nights I’ve sat up until 3am because I can’t sleep because I can’t stop scratching. It was stressing me that I was so itchy which I think makes it worse. The itchiness has eased off the last few weeks so I am hoping that it is going for good because it’s been really unpleasant and something I’ve never experienced before. 

I feel like everything I have just said is 1^st world problems really but that’s what’s been going on. I just wish I could take some time off or go on a holiday but I know that that won’t solve these problems and just distract me from them so I’m going to keep facing it head on until I sort it out. I know I am fine and everything will be slower soon. With all of this going on I feel like I haven’t had a lot of time to sit and enjoy and be proud of achieving one of my biggest dreams in life (buying a house). It still doesn’t feel like it’s really mine! Maybe when I have a different pair of earrings to wear once I’ve unpacked them and a bit of perfume it will make all the difference! ;-)