Christmas Day is just over a week away. It’s hard to believe that this year has gone so quickly, and it seems that the bustle of the average Christmas season has passed us by. For various reasons, and in various ways, this Christmas will be quite muted for us. We wait. In stillness. In silence. For our hearts to light, and the flame to brighten.
Usually, I love all the glitz and glitter of the trees and presents, the jingle of the bells and carols. Sometimes, though, it’s just the right time to sit, and remember, the coming of the baby King – the beginning of the story that culminates in death, redemption, and resurrection.
And so – we hold on to faith, and we wait. For God, in His love, will not tarry.
We’ve decided not to put the big Christmas tree up this year. Doesn’t seem much sense in unpacking boxes at the moment! I’m still feeling a bit neutral about it all right now, but feel like I might regret not decorating in some way…I put some lights and other bits up today, although I forgot the batteries!
Gingerbread, reindeer, and a couple of gnomes. The boxes make a handy background!
I also found a tiny tinsel Christmas tree at the charity shop today. It even came with teensy teddy ornaments 🙂
I might start playing some of my Christmas CDs soon. I haven’t got the CD this came from, and I initially didn’t think I would like it anyway, but I had a listen. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever heard 😆
There’s something about Jimmy Barnes yelling at me to have some pumpkin pie that cheers me right up!
Or maybe you’re feeling a bit down and you’d rather something about what Christmas really means…
Anybody got a house to spare? Another knoockback, on a house we really wanted, on a grey, rainy, cold-for-summer day. We applied as four adults on the app, so the “sorry, but…” emails came four times, one after the other. I suppose there’s a reason we didn’t get it, but we’re feeling a bit flat about it all. Maybe even a bit like this!
😆
We are trusting that God has a place in mind for us, but we’re taking a bit of a break on hunting and viewing. I’ll still look at the real estate site, but only look at places that are just what we want. Hopefully things will be clearer after Christmas. Until then…
Still a bit down. Ever had those times when everything just seems to go wrong – not in any way that’s easily fixable, just…not right? We’ve had different things in different spheres go a bit awry in some way or another lately. You end up questioning if you’ve turned the wrong corner somewhere and are somehow lost on the wrong road out of town… Turned up to look at a place today. Seems we got the wrong day, which would explain why nobody else was there. 😆 Two more viewings tomorrow. We talked to a neighbour who has just moved from this complex. She was saying that they paid the money on the app the agents use to apply for places. It says that the fee is not compulsory (and technically it isn’t), but you seem to have to pay it to get anywhere – we have four stars out of a possible five star rating as tenants. Paying the fee (for some sort of “verification”?) would get us the last star. It’s for each adult on the application, though, which means at least $80 all up for us, probably $120 to be sure. Still, I’ve been packing a bit more. Looking at listings each day. Listening to YouTube to cheer me up 🙂 Here’s a couple of songs I’ve been enjoying lately. The first one is from an album I’ve just bought, although it’s coming to me from the U.S. so I’m not sure when it’ll get here.
…and this one is an a capella version of one of my favourite Beatles songs.
I’m going to listen to some more music before reading a bit, then bed. After all…tomorrow is another day, and another chance to arise. And shine. ❤
Another round of house viewings… Yesterday my Babe missed one of his classes to view a place, only to find when we got there that it would have to be rescheduled. Not the agent’s fault – the tenant wasn’t contactable, and there was a dog shut in the house. I quite enjoy looking at other people’s houses – not because I’m nosy (you never look in cupboards etc if there’s someone living there), but because I find it interesting to see how other houses are put together. Some can be quite puzzling, especially the older ones where it looks like rooms have been randomly stuck on at intervals. Most of the places we’ve looked at have been newer builds and often quite small, even if there are technically four bedrooms/two bathrooms. I think we’re getting past the thrill of looking around. We just want to be home.
Coming back from the viewing-that-wasn’t yesterday was a bit dispiriting, but I cheered up when I got my mail. I’d ordered a DVD of John Farnham’s Live Tour with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and it arrived yesterday. Watched it while eating dinner, and felt proudly Australian.
We’re starting to see some of the same faces at different viewings. One of the boys jokingly called them our “rivals”, but of course we’re all just trying to find somewhere we belong… The two places we looked at today were different. The second place we saw was no better than where we are now, at a higher rent. The first place, though, was beautiful! We’ve put in our application, prayed over it, and are just waiting to see what the answer is.
😆
There are more viewings next week…time to rest for a bit now.
I have finally got around to putting my tax return in! It’s one of those things that kept crossing my mind…except when I was online, where I could fill out the form and lodge it. In the end, it was easy, and I have avoided the fine I would have got if it was after October 31st. Sometimes the easy things are harder than they seem…
Well, we’re still looking for a house – we get to the final stage, but then go no further. From what we can find out, it’s nothing to do with us personally, it’s just that there are too many people for too few places. Still, I’m enjoying dreaming of how we would fit into each house we look at.
What with this, that, and the other (houses, taxes, Centrelink…) it’s sometimes hard to keep calm and carry on. Sometimes it’s a bit more like this –
Ok, maybe not quite like that.
My inner screaming is not that melodic.
We’ll get there, wherever there is meant to be. In the meantime…
Unfortunately, we didn’t get the house we liked, even though our application got through some of the stages. We’ve heard that there are apparently too many applications of a high standard for each rental, so someone has to miss out 😦 I was quite disappointed when we heard yesterday, but at least we can look at more listings – we’re going to see a place on Saturday. I’m just at the stage where I want to be moved and done, certainly before it starts getting too hot. We’re sort of partially packed, with boxes in odd places. When I’m feeling a bit blah, good music helps to calm me. Today was a bit more like this…
🙂 I’d still like to be settling into a new place, though.
The rain today has made me think of this song – I’ll have to get the album!
…although I don’t really know where we are in this “movie”! 😆
We’ve had a look at three places so far – the first is still being decided, the second we were quickly told our “application has not been successful”…don’t know why. The third, we saw today. It looked promising online (4 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, separate living areas), but reality was disappointing. Sometimes I “feel” a place when I enter it – this one felt unsettling to me, and even faintly distressing. I felt locked in, like a prison. I’m not sure why. It was a weird sort of place – the downstairs had been built in to create “bedrooms”, but one of those had no powerpoints at all – just an extension cord dangling from the ceiling, through the hole in the floor above. There was a “kitchen” and a “kitchenette”, which included a sink and worktop in each. Apart from that, the “kitchen” had a stovetop, and some sort of toaster oven. It all felt quite industrial and institutional. There was no air conditioning at all, which is not uncommon in a lot of places I’ve seen online – some only have air conditioning in the living room and/or the main bedroom. This place didn’t even have fans, in any room or living space. The doors to the outside required a key, so we couldn’t just go out to see what was out there… we didn’t put in an application, and the estate agent didn’t seem to expect us to.
We’ll wait and see what happens with the place we saw yesterday. It’s got the number of rooms and bathrooms we wanted, but it’s overall a bit smaller than it looked online (I wish they wouldn’t stretch the photos out so much!). I liked the feel of it, though. 🙂
We’ve been taking photos and scans of a multitude of documents for applications, which all seem to take hours, so here are some photos I took of the flowers in my garden. A little bit of sweetness and colour amongst all the paperwork!
These little pigfaces again – they’re putting on quite a show for me this year!
My sage is flowering 🙂
I don’t know what these are called, but they turn up bright and cheerful each year, whether I remember to water them or not.
As for the popcorn… I needed a giggle this evening.
Had a lovely time today, going through boxes in preparation for our eventual move. I felt great that I had the ability to achieve as much as I did, but it was perhaps more than I should have done 😆 We shall see tomorrow! I’ve been packing bits and pieces for a while, but we’ve finally breached the dreaded CupboardUnderTheStairs. After (14…15…who knows?) years of homeschooling, there are boxes and boxes of paper. Sweet Bean finished his schooling at a distance ed school, but up until then we were flying under the radar with the education authorities, and got into the habit of saving schoolwork just in case we were called to account somewhere along the line. It’s been interesting seeing some of the early attempts again (and there’s still lots to look through!) but it takes ages to sort out the keep/throwaway piles. Part of my packing strategy involves using as much “dead” space as I can – anything with any space to spare gets something shoved into it! This included all my Tardises (Tardisi?) at one point. At least one of them seems bigger on the inside!
There’s still room! 😆
Rest day tomorrow, then I’ll get stuck in again. We still don’t really know where we’re going yet, but it should be interesting. And there’s one thing I do know –
Possibly linens? We’ve been married 28 years today. I thought I’d look up the traditional gift…the 28th year doesn’t really feature in most lists. The ones I did find were the above options (lavender is the “colour” for this anniversary, apparently). Otherwise, we’re somewhere between silver and pearl 🙂
Anniversary selfie! I haven’t edited this at all (apart from a bit of cropping). Something about the lighting in the cafe makes it seem like we both have make-up on…or at least that we’re a lot younger than we are 😀
We went off for a coffee and cake (or chocolate slice…) together, then celebrated further with a lovely steak dinner. Spent a large part of the evening sharing YouTube clips of songs and bands/singers we’ve each been enjoying lately. It’s been very busy in various ways, with not a lot of time to sit together and talk. We enjoyed taking the time to talk, and also snuggle on the couch, listening to good songs. Here’s one that seemed appropriate for today!
a bit of creativity, a bit of eco consciousness, a bit of inspiration.... hopefully not a lot of pompousness and blathering :D
i'm not entirely sure what's going on here... let's travel along and see...
1000 Fields of Roses 