Category: Wang

Inconceivable

/ Renae / 1 Comment

I love The Princess Bride. And I LOVE how Vizzini says “inconceivable” all the time. And then Inigo Montoya says “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” My friend recently bought a copy of the DVD because it came with a key ring that says “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father. Prepare to DIE.” when you press a button. (More memorable quotes can be found here.)

Believe it or not, this post is not about my love for The Princess Bride, though I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that. This post is about moving to Wangaratta. Tomorrow. I mean, we’ve known for 8 months (just think about that for a moment – 8 MONTHS!) that this move was coming. In no way should we have been caught unaware. But here we are, with 24 hours to go, our place filled with packed and to-be-packed boxes, our wardrobe has thrown up all over our room, and we pretty much know the kombi needs a push-start each time we want to start the engine. Fun, oui? Well at least we have a home to go to (yay!) and we have a plan. You gotta have a plan my friends.

Exactly 2 years to the day, we moved to college. And exactly 2 years and 1 day after we moved in, we’ll be leaving. I’ve been looking forward to a bit of a change, but leaving here is filling me with sadness. We have met the most incredible people, been shown the most gracious hospitality, and had some of the best times.

But now it’s time for new adventures to begin; for new friends to be made, and for more good times to be had. I know that it was God’s plan for us to be here at Newman for this time, and I thank him for his great idea often. As I sit writing this, Littlefoot is kicking away (the coolest thing I’ve ever felt in my LIFE) and I know he/she is looking forward to what is to come.

Unnecessarily painful, but a satisfactory result

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As my Mama always says “it’s not what you know, but who you know.”

I’m mostly okay with that. Truly. I understand the way things work. What I resent is not being approved for a property on our own merit, with no good reason whatsoever, but as soon as they find out we know the owner of the business (a.k.a. I give-in out of sheer desperation and ring the owner of the business who we dealt with when we were looking to buy, and tell him what’s been going on for the last 2 weeks) we get a phone call within half an hour saying our application has been successful.

But here’s the clincher. She actually says to me:

“I wish you had told me earlier that you knew Gerald*.”

I was ropeable. My response:

“That should not have mattered. We had a good application with everything you needed, and knowing the owner of the business should not have made a difference.”

I just couldn’t believe she said that to me!! I had considered a week ago to ring the owner, but I didn’t want to involve him. I didn’t want to look like I was using him to get a place. Apparently this would have been quite acceptable, nay, MANDATORY if we wanted to be spared this whole rigmarole.

I’m not going to go in to it any further, other than to say we’re very happy it has been resolved in our favour, and that the owner of the business will be receiving a 4 page letter outlining the goings-on over the last 2 weeks. I just think he would want to know.

Oh, and I have an interview for some casual admin work in Wang on Monday. See? I told you everything would work out.

*name has been changed to protect the awesome.

I don’t need this!

/ Renae / 1 Comment

Drama drama drama. I remember the days when things were simple. When ice cream cones from McDonalds cost 30c, when previews for movies only went for 30 seconds instead of practically showing the whole movie, and when you applied for a rental property and the Real Estate Agents actually returned your calls.

I’m not going to go into it right now, but all I can say is NOT. HAPPY. JAN!! And the people I’m dealing with had better come through with the goods, otherwise they’ll be hearing from me.

Renting it is…

/ Renae / 2 Comments

So Hubs and I didn’t get the home loan we were hoping for 🙁 Oh well. You win some you lose some. The Dean of the college told me that her brother always says “I don’t catch every boat but I’ve never been left behind.” I like that saying. We know that there’s something out there for us, and we know we’ll find it.

So here we go with the rentals!!

Goodbye Woolies

/ Renae / 1 Comment

I had always been a Coles shopper – the closest Coles to where I grew up was always nicer than the Woolworths – which was just across the road – and parking was easier as well. So I got to know the products and was happy to be a Coles shopper. Even when I moved houses, I would always look for the nearest Coles and choose it over Woolies. Then we moved to Melbourne and the closest supermarket was a Woolworths (or “Safeway” as they call it down here!!!!) so I switched. It wasn’t easy to do, but I made the transition and was quite happy about it. I got to know their products and days when things would go on special etc, and was a convert. I started looking for Woolworths/Safeway when I needed to do a shop. And the funny thing is, the Coles and Woolies near my parents house (the ones previously mentioned) did a bit of a switcheroo on me; the Coles is now dodgy and rubbish and the Woolies has been renovated and is totally awesome.

So I figured, that was it. I was a convert. I figured when we moved to Wang I’d find the nearest Woolies and continue being content. Alas, this will not happen. I will no longer be shopping at Woolworths. The reason? Woolworths is no longer accepting our CommSec Credit/Debit card. It has to be a savings account. Our card won’t work. I went to pay for my purchases and they told me I had to press the “savings” button, even though I told them it wouldn’t work. And what happened? It didn’t work. They said it was the bank that had changed, so I called the bank ready to give them a piece of my mind (albeit, a small piece!) but they assured me the change had come from Woolies.

So I went back to Woolies (the dirty, filthy liars) and asked the check-out chick about it and she told me the truth – that the powers that be at Woolies had decided it cost them too much to process the Credit/Debit card as a credit card, and so they had stopped accepting them. She also thought it was ridiculous. I can’t even change our account to a savings account, so now we’re stuck with a card that won’t work at Woolies.

So they’ve lost a customer. I know I know, I can get money out and pay cash, but it’s the principle. Why should I give them my business if they’re not going to make it convenient for me to pay? So now I have to convert back to Coles; I have to get to know their products and specials and the way they operate. And hope that they accept my card.

Actually, I’m hoping to do all my fruit and veg shopping at markets, and getting meat from a local butcher, and just odds and ends from Woolies Coles. Or maybe Aldi. Hee hee!

Has anyone else been inconvenienced by this?

And away we go!

/ Renae / 4 Comments

He called! They accepted our offer!! 🙂 We are now waiting for the contract for the house to come through and are in the midst of applying for a loan. We got pre-approval from one place, but that really doesn’t mean that much. This is the real deal now. And we are hoping and praying like crazy that we get the loan and it all comes together. It’s a very exciting time, and it should be more stressful than we’re finding it, I’m sure! But we know we’re in good hands, in so many ways, so there seems to be more of a peace surrounding our situation which is really lovely. We should know in the next couple of weeks how the loan application goes, and if all goes according to plan, we might be home owners by the end of June!

WOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Not that we’re getting our hopes up or anything… HA!

I just feel so damn grown up.

The waiting game…

/ Renae / 1 Comment

We put an offer in on a house in Wang yesterday and we’re just waiting to hear if it got accepted. It’s so nerve-wracking. It’s like when you just start seeing someone and you’re waiting on their call or text, but all the while trying to play it cool.

“Why won’t he caaaaaaaaaaalllll???”

How did this song get in my head?

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Here I am, sitting at my desk, minding my own business, looking at real estate in Wang, and all of a sudden I realise I have “Diamonds on the soles of her shoes” but Paul Simon in my head, and I could NOT figure out why that was??

And then it hit me.

One of the houses I was looking at was on Kanana st, which sounds like “ta na na, ta na na na, she got diamonds on the soles of her shoes (a-wa, a-wa)”

BINGO!

It’s like when I was living in Edinburgh, and every time I’d get home from doing the shopping I’d have the song “Edelweiss“, from The Sound of Music in my head and it took me weeks to realise it was because of the bread I bought. You see, the bread was “whole and white”, which leads me directly to: “clean and bright, you look happy to meeeeeeeet meeeee!”

Gosh my brain provides me with hours of entertainment! And now I have edelweiss in my head… 🙂

(And yes, I’m putting it under the “mondegreen” tag just cos I can.

House-hunting

/ Renae / 2 Comments

So as you may know, Hubs and I are moving to Wangaratta in July, and we headed up last weekend to have a look around the town and get a feel for the place. And thankfully and fortunately, we love it! It has a lovely feel to it and I can really see us being happy there. We also did a bit of house hunting, as we are keen to buy there instead of renting. Why, you ask? Well, the rental prices per week are comparable to mortgage repayments on a small-ish loan. There are some houses in Wangaratta under the $200,000 mark, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to get into this “market” that I hear grown-ups talking about.

Plus, it’d be REALLY cool to have a place of our own.

Our visit gave us more of an idea of the type of house we are looking for, the areas of Wangaratta we’re interested in living in, and an idea of how we’d get around. So we’re currently looking at a few different options, doing the sums, and will hopefully come up with something in the next month or 2. It’s all very grown up and exciting!

Oh, and we’re looking at 3 bedroom homes so we can have house guests! Ever wanted to visit Wang?

Take the long way home

/ Renae / 2 Comments

Myself, Hubs and Nate will be starting our road trip back to Brisbane tomorrow night and we’re excited!! This is where we’ll be for the next few days:


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Once we hit Brisbane, we’ll be pretty busy leading up to Christmas, and then of course we’ll be heading to South Africa and doing something like this:


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So as you can see, we have a LOT of fun to get through the next few weeks! Then it’s my 30th birthday! YAY!!! And then we’ll be attending Hubs’ brother’s wedding (double YAY!) and then flying back to Melbs for our last 5 months here before we head to Wangaratta (or to the locals, Wang!) which is here:


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Looking forward to seeing so many of you soon! And some of you not soon enough!
(You can drag and zoom in and out on the maps! Go nuts!)