trill- how is P going now? she is one tough cookie xox
too much to catch up on in one go so just a quick update from us. L going really well at school. has settled in really well and seems to enjoy it. he hasn't really clicked with one best friend yet, like he did at kinder, but i think maybe that's a good thing for now. we are amazed at how much he has progressed in terms of his letters and numbers etc.
J is doing speech therapy with an awesome therapist who he loves. the results so far have been remarkable and we are really aiming for him to start mainstream 4 year old kinder next year. he is on the wait list to start state based early intervention, which looks like it will start in january. so next year will be a huge year for him! i was planning on returning to work next year but it just won't be possible with all J's therapy etc. so my aim at the moment is for him to start prep at L's school in 2015 and me return to work part time that year. we are really pushing and aiming for him to go the mainstream route.
we have mainly just been spending heaps of time working on our house. we did have plans to renovate and move (sydney again!), but have decided that the best thing for all of us as a family is to stay in melbourne and stay in this run-down old house lol, so we are trying to make it as nice as possible. we really love L's school, and feel that J would be super settled and supported there so it is the best place for us all. so no doubt you'll all have to put up with me whinging all winter long about how freezing it is for another 20 years or so!
Ginger: yay for staying! i love your house! it is so open and the views!! definitely worth staying for and i guess renovating if needed...does it need it? I thought it all looked really nice?! what are you guys wanting to do with it? we are thinking of painting this place and redoing the bathroom. but then i think of the money and the work and pass out hahahahaha.
Trill: yeah how is P??
MD: *snap* i too have been cupboard sorting...bought an old trunk off ebay for the girls to put their dress ups in and then OF COURSE I had to then sort the rest of their room hahaha. I am totally boring for the girls when i get going as i get a *little* bit manic about the whole affair and cannot be interrupted lol.
Arte: whoot on the second place! what did you win?
No prizes for second place! MD, I think that the addition of the dentist to our team made all the difference - she is quiet, but apparently has a competitive streak and is very knowledgeable. The J that I first asked didn't have a babysitter but then she got one too late so she made her own team. In the book round (first lines of well known books), her team got a special prize "because, well, we just think you should read more" lmao. (I definitely felt your presence in that round - shame you provided no inspiration in the cuts of beef!)
G, I am glad that the school is working out well for your boys.
E is well and truly at the tantrum stage now. I hope she doesn't get as extreme as W did I don't really want to think of the next couple of years being ruled by meltdowns. Today she said "I wuv mummy and brother" She is such a sweet girl, those tantrums don't suit her.
P is doing OK. A bit peeved she missed her first netball game yesterday, but they have two weeks off now due to the next team we play having no junior sides so she'll be back on deck for the next game.
Trill: that seems good that it will heal so quick! does P have to do any follow-up phsyio or anything like that (can you tell that so far i havent broken a bone )?
Arte: what?? no second prize?!! darn it! we used to have as first prize a crap bottle of wine and as second prize an undrinkable bottle of wine and third prize was a jug of beer...so everyone wanted to come third PMSL.
All good here. off for a night away in castlemaine. trying to convince DH of a tree-change lol.
I was going to suggest woodend to you! I absolutely love it there. Totally beautiful, and imagine what you could buy with the money you would get from selling your place!!!
There's not much growth in real estate around here. Has been stagnant for about 5 years. DH is eyeing off a block that is on the market for less than it sold 4 years ago.
How would moving out that way affect work for your DH Cass - lots of travelling? Have little idea of the areas around Melbourne.
Must say, I loved Wollongong - but that was from a uni student POV, moving out of home for the first time. I have some academic friends there now that work at the uni - they're up in the northern area, always looks so nice on their shots of the beach.
i totally LOVE woodend...we are looking at a really idyllic place there on thursday....just to convince DH lol.
Cally: the commute is Ok. has a train that runs quite often and takes about an hour to get to the city. DH would go in 3 days a week.
that is crazy town about the block of land! would you guys build on it i presume?? that would be cool...get exactly the house you want!
Ginger: move to woodend too. that would totally seal the deal for me hahahaha! if you are curious we are looking at 8 romsey road...soooo cute!
BUT, i am concerned about caring for 1 acre (trill, feel free to LOL at me hahahahaha!). sooo many of my friends are telling me that it will be too much work. i know that there will be work involved, but that's kinda why i want to go there ITMS.
I was going to post earlier but I've only just stopped reeling at the price of that house!!!!!!!!!!! Far out, people have more money than sense don't they? that's just an insane amount to pay for a house like that. 1 acre isn't all that big really, I don't see why it would be hard to care for? If you're not the flower-gardening type you keep it low maintenance and just have lots of grass or large paved areas. But think of the vege patch you could have if you had a block that size...
I totally understand how it would make you feel a little depressed about the whole situation. I don't know how people in cities can manage to do it. It just seems so much easier out here. You see a house you like and you buy it. I reckon 95% of houses out here are sold without an auction. auctions just aren't the done thing and if they do have one, there is never a bidding war kwim?
Oh Cass, that place is just gorgeous! Love the flowers in the garden. Doesn't look that hard to look after to me, get a ride on mower and you're set. So much space for the girls to run around and Trill's idea of a vegie garden sounds awesome. My boss has a block about that size and he's got chickens, vegies and an orchard with all sorts of fruit and nut trees.
Trill - you probably can't imagine this, but the block DH is looking at is $546k. 1700m2 with views over the water...
We have an investment place that the long term plan is to knock down and rebuild a dream home unless something else pops up in the meantime.
Omg Cass! That house is totally amazing! Right up my ally. Love character houses, and the garden looks quite established, and the block is flat!! Do it!
We are stuck here for the long run, but the school L is at is so cool that it makes it all worth it. I love going for a drive to woodend though and checking out all the little shops and cafes
haha, i am so glad you girls like it too. it does need some updating but seriously, compared to what you get here for that price, well, let's just say that having something beyond a roof and four walls is a good thing lol.
Trill: see, this is what I was thinking re: the size of the land. it seems to have established gardens around the house and I am figuring that we will go hard on some serious vegie patches (the majority of the usuable land is north facing (yay) and have chickens that can rotate around the place and help us dig up and destroy the old, used up vegie patches as we rotate them...i figure it can work. it will take getting used to as it has been a really really long time that i have lived inner city but i kinda want that. i am a bit lost here in the city, not sure what i am doing ITMS. i relish the idea of having a home that is also my place to do my thang and a community that has similar outlooks and so forth.
Cally: man, no wonder your DH is looking at the block...views over water...nice! sell your investments and buy it and build baby lol! i am betting there would be lovely sea breezes too...oohhhhh!
MD: how are you going lovely?
Ginger: the school thing is so so important. we have such a luxury of choice were we live right now, so that is one of the reasons why i would be hesitant to move further out IYKWIM. i have checked out some schools in the areas just north of here and they are OK, but not commuity enough ITMS. i like a bit of relaxed free learning etc...BUT again, woodend would be perfect as i would be sending them to John Marsden's school (yes, i have been doing serious daydreaming hahahahaha).
back to school back to school! i forgot how hectic it all is. are you guys doing that mathletics thingy? Miss L loves it but TBH i find it really out of step with the rest of the school. I dont know, as long as she is liking it i guess we will do it, but i am so not going to insist lol.
What? Where is this place everyone is commenting on?
Sorry Cass I should apologise. I laughed so hard the other day when I got to the bit about no room in the kitchen for the fridge that I couldn't intelligently read the rest of your post. We don't have room for a fridge here either. How long have we been here? 12 years of schlepping into the laundry everytime you want something
BTW I totally get the inadequate-housing dilemma. Our house is on the small side, in ways we didn't really imagine when we bought it. The cost of stepping up to the next bracket of housing is more out of reach for us than it was when we first purchased. so its looking like this is it for the foreseeable future. We could probably make some changes but in our case it's a humble little place at the end of known civilization so we need to be really careful not to spend more on it than we could recoup selling it. I don't think you would have that problem where you are - any improvements will pay off because of location,location, location. Use that to your advantage if you can
ETA - thought some of you will be interested to hear I am being "re-timered". I had a massive headache/nausea event after I used it the first time so that's evidence IMO that its doing something to the ole brain chemistry.
Last edited by AnyDream; April 17th, 2013 at 10:45 AM.
Cally, mathletics is an online maths program - where the kids can do exercises and play games. H did Mathletics in grade 5 - she loved it - you can compete against students in the same class or around the world. Our school used to set it as homework and the kids were quite happy to do it. I don't know what grade it starts though? I would've thought it would be to most advantage in the middle-upper primary, not with the littlies. But that's because our school really concentrates on concrete maths representations at this age. Apparently there's a spelling version too (spellodrome or something).
Cally, we've had readers since week 2 - they send FIVE home every week (!!). And I realised at the end of the term we've been doing it wrong. We're supposed to read 1 on the first day, then introduce another on the second day (ie read 2), and then so on until on the 5th day you're reading all 5. Le SIGH. We've just been reading 1-3 each night in no particular order.
Trill, yep all ok here. Sorry didn't mean to alarm you. I just thought it was pretty amazing that your brain could respond to something like 45 minutes of LIGHT in such a noticeable way. Anyway, I've cut back on the intensity and length and it seems to be improving my sense of wakefulness. I reckon it will be an AWESOME lifestyle tool, especially in winter.
Cass - what did the architect say? BTW your cake sounds YUMMMM. I have heard of lemon and olive oil cakes before - people always rave about them being legendary!! BTW I have friends who live in Woll (mother's an academic there) and it's kind of a strange place perched along the escarpment, but a lot of people love it with a passion... provided you are in the right burb, area near the uni's good.
Re the "life nourishing" concept - you should make a list - the things that you *know* stimulate wellbeing, and then mind-map out all the millions of permutations of ways that you can connect with those energies/things (like, actual, real do-able ways). TBH I think our urban environments are all fundamentally "broken" - but it's how we adapt and fill those broken spaces that makes the difference in the quality of life lived there. (Just my own rambly thoughts...)
Arte, I've been to Albury. Can't say it made a huge impression, except it's prolly a bit closer to civilisation than where you are now. I LOL'd just a tiny bit about your ungraceful moment, it's not the first arse-up story you've told us. I hope you're not too sore now.
AFM - school hols pottering along here - have farmed miss E out for a couple of days of vacation care, which she is loving. They went iceskating yesterday and it's a zoo excursion next week (which is great value because it costs a bomb to go as a family). DH thinks he might be home a couple of days early, which is just as well because they have turned the showers off as a $$$ saving measure . Did I mention he's in northern qld where you might expect you would need to pay higher-than-normal attention to your personal hygiene?
it *might* also of been heavily influenced by the fact that it was/is a home of two writers...and their son is that aussie actor, noah someone...yes, i know, crap with recalling names...he is the tall dude, big nose dark hair sorta lispy voice...argh! why can i NEVER remember names...gosh. anyway, the house was just adorable. no mansion (that's ok) but set on a beautiful acre with gorgeous cottage gardens a small vegie patch out the back door (for convenience lol) and then the grounds beyond are already tilled and ready for more patches and comes with a huge coop for chooks. I LOVED it. the fireplace in the lounge was just delectable. it was even prettier in real life....
MD: we have to totally do a mind map. we will sit down in a couple of days and really discuss it all. we saw 3 houses today all were beautiful but also different...so really need to now sit down and begin to see what it is that we really want to achieve for our family happiness and emotional growth IYKWIM. i love the urban city and what it can offer, but i do resent the lack of real community (great neighbours, great cafe culture and some friendly family held businesses etc). but i do feel that the dynamics are necessarily changing...as are we. urgh. so much to think about. but it totally felt right to be in 2 out of the three houses....(one was pretty but already i could see not for us).
sorry for hijacking the thread PMSL.
Cally: we have had readers every day from day one making slaves of us down here lol.
Sherie: yeah i am thinking that it is not crucial for them to do...but they do give 'certificates' to the kids that complete and Miss L is hanging out for that...
I don't really want to think of the next couple of years being ruled by meltdowns. Today she said "I wuv mummy and brother" 
She is such a sweet girl, those tantrums don't suit her.
)?
making slaves of us down here lol. 
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