Looking After My Love

I’ve been watching over my Joan for one year and one day now. I’ve been watching her struggle with my departure and it has really saddened me. I love her more than anything and watching her be in pain is the worst feeling in the world. When you love someone, you don’t want them to be sad. Even though I’m not around anymore, I am always with her. I’m the breeze in the air. I’m the thought that dings in her mind reminding her to turn the oven off. I’m the warm energy that surrounds her when she sleeps. I just love her more than anything and I will never truly leave her. 

I am the reason our children had the idea to get Joan into SDA housing in the Adelaide CBD. I watch over my kids every day too, although they don’t need as much attention as Joan does. That’s why I made sure my children thought of getting Joan some company and proper attention from nurses. She needed help, even if she didn’t realise it. 

I’ll admit, I am so much happier watching over her now that she is happy. She’s made some incredible friends and I know that they’re going to look out for her. She doesn’t realise that I watch over her every day, so I think she will feel more secure knowing that there are people out there who are physically there for her. 

My favourite people at the specialist disability accommodation are the nurses. They seem to live and breathe the ideals of professional community nursing. It makes me so happy to watch how well they look out for her. Everything they do is with the residents in mind. The way they care for my Joan mimics how I used to care for her. It makes me very happy.

I love Joan more than anything. I miss her every day and I can’t wait until I can hold her in my arms again. 

Awesome Car Rally

We are now six rounds into our car racing competition and it’s going to be great. My decision to only draft cars that had a really sound service and repair history has paid off. It was also a great decision on my behalf to check the roadworthy and car safety certificates that had been issued to each car. Raceview authorities are extremely adamant about drivers only driving cars that are roadworthy, which is why so many of my competitors have had to forfeit so far this season. A couple of drivers have even forfeited against me which has given me an instant win.

This is a prime example as to why thinking ahead and looking at things such as the date of when the most recent brake repair service was and reading the servicing records is so important. I know it’s not the most entertaining way to spend the off-season, but it’s a great way to make sure the actual season is so much fun.

Sometimes you just have to think ahead. There’s no point in choosing the best, most awesome looking car if it doesn’t run well. I guess that is kind of a metaphor for life really. You have to think things through and not judge a book by its cover, or in this case, not judge a car by its awesome rims or shiny new paint job.

I just want to take this opportunity to thank the expert mechanic driving distance to Raceview for doing such a great job checking over the vehicles that I ended up drafting. Each one of them is flawless to drive and purrs like a kitten. You can really tell that the mechanic who serviced and repaired the cars really cared about how they turned out. The mechanic definitely wanted the cars to run smoothly and they certainly do. They might not be the best looking or ‘coolest’ cars, but they are definitely the best quality thanks to the mechanic in Raceview.

Angry Car Driver

I’m in such a bad mood. If you didn’t see my last blog post you wouldn’t know why, and so I’ll fill you in. A not for profit association is trying to steal my money. Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? I wasn’t able to do anything about it yesterday when I found out because I didn’t have my car with me. My car was at the 4WD mechanic close to Toowoomba, the nearest suburb to my house with a decent mechanic. Thankfully, I’ve now got my car back and I can drive straight to the basketball stadium and give them a piece of my mind. 

I just really don’t like big corporations that take on the little guy and think they’ll win. You can’t take advantage of people just because you’re in a position of power. It makes me really mad that they think they can keep our money and then demand more money from us. It’s just not fair.

I’m about to drive to the stadium. I’m so filled with rage at the moment that I’m honestly a bit worried that I will drive erratically, not on purpose but because I’ll be overcome with rage and just want to get to my destination. I’m not going to tell my wife just how angry I am because she probably wouldn’t let me drive if that was the case. 

Why would she think that? Because the last time I drove when I was this mad, I ended up hitting a curb really badly and needing to get a tyre service. In the Toowoomba area, the curbs are really big and so they damaged my car really badly. I was speeding because I was angry, and it was just the perfect storm. I hope something like that doesn’t happen again.

Anyway, turns out I didn’t need to worry. I got to the stadium safely and now it’s time to give them a piece of my mind. I hope I’m calmer on the way home…

Best Office In Melbourne

Well, my office space looks absolutely fantastic. It’s crisp, sheek and very 2021. It has an expansive kitchen, multiple break out rooms and big collaborative spaces. It is the type of office that three years ago, people would’ve killed to work in. It just makes you feel cool to be there, especially seeing as there’s multiple recreation areas where employees can hang out or play games. It is probably the best commercial office design in the Melbourne CBD, and that’s not even me being biased.

Unfortunately, however, the incredible design hasn’t been enough to encourage my employees to come back to the office. Of the fifty emails that I sent out, only twelve of them said they’d be happy to come back to the office full time. That’s not enough to justify paying all my overheads. I’m in business to make a profit, not a loss. If I keep my office open for just twelve people, I would be making a bad business decision.

Fortunately, getting all these upgrades done to my office will help skyrocket the resale value of the space. I knew that when I decided to upgrade my space, it would be a win-win. Either the office fitouts in the Melbourne office would lure my employees back in, or they would make the space easier to sell if I decided to. I didn’t want to have to sell my office, but at least I’m going to make a lot of money for it.

I’m going to start listing all the features, fitouts and accessories of my office space on job ads so that I can sell my office. I’ll let my employees know that we’re going fully remote as of January 2022 and let them mentally prepare for that. I know that most of them will be happy with that, but for some, it will be a huge blow. Especially seeing as we have so many cool office features now.

4×4 Canopy Installation

If I’m being honest, life isn’t easy. There just seems to be so many hurdles to get through that it makes every day an absolute struggle. Don’t get me wrong; there are moments where life is great. I call those the moments between the hurdles, when you’re free and running forward. Another hurdle always comes up though, that you have to slow down for and get over to be able to run free again. My current hurdles are all centred around work.

Work is causing me a lot of pain for a number of reasons. Firstly my boss treats me pretty poorly because I’m an apprentice and apparently that’s how it has to go. I don’t really subscribe to the whole idea that the bottom of the work hierarchy has to be treated badly, but I haven’t kicked up a fuss until recently. The reason I kicked up a fuss is because I had just got a new 4×4 aluminium ute canopies installation on my truck and my boss came up to it on Monday morning and kicked the canopy in. He had steel cap boots on and obviously used a lot of force, which made him fully dent my canopy. I watched in disbelief. Getting the ute canopy installed cost me quite a bit of my savings and I got it done so that I’d be more efficient at work. Then my boss comes in and damages it. THEN, he laughed about it. I was extremely upset.

I think to get over this hurdle I’m going to start applying for jobs elsewhere. I still want to be a tradie, but I want to work for a boss who won’t destroy my new ute toolbox installed in Melbourne as soon as I rock up to the worksite. 

I’ll update you all on how the job search is going in the coming weeks. It’s a pretty hard time to get a job, unfortunately.

Trusting the Buyer’s Advocate

I convinced my friends to chat with a buyer’s agent! It took a couple of weeks of us really struggling with the housing market, but I did it. I brought it up when my friends were pretty down in the dumps. They were feeling the feelings that so many people just a bit older than us have felt – the betrayal of the Boomers as they ruined the property market for everyone younger than them. I didn’t want to take advantage of their hopelessness, but it was for the best. I’m happy to say that they believed me. 

Next week we will begin discussions with the local buyer’s agent in Malvern East. We’ve already sent over a list of everything we’re looking for in a home, which is rent of less than $200 each per month, an outdoor area, a dishwasher and ideally two bathrooms. The rest we’re pretty flexible on. We don’t necessarily care about having an ensuite or built-in robe.  

I hope that this sort of thing is easy enough for the buyer’s advocate to work with. We don’t want to be a pain but we really want to be settled into our house in three months time. 

I hope our conversation with the property advocates close to Melbourne goes well. It will make such a big difference to us if it does. The thought of getting to see my best friends every day makes me so happy. Instead of texting them about my boy drama, I’ll be able to just go into their rooms and flop on their beds. It’ll seriously be like a never-ending sleepover. It’s also perfect because they’re the type of people that I can sit in silence with for hours and not feel awkward at all. That’s when you know you’re best friends.

When we have another update on our house situation, I’ll let you know. Bye for now! Don’t forget to smile.

Kitchen Renovation Time

I’ve decided that I’ll have to talk to my husband about getting a kitchen renovation. He warned me all those years ago to not put the fridge where I put it, but ultimately he trusted my judgement. He hasn’t complained about it once in twenty years, but I think he’ll be very relieved that I’m bringing this up. What am I bringing up, I hear you ask? Well, if you read my last blog post you’d know that twenty years ago when I pretended to be a really professional kitchen designer (which I wasn’t – I had no experience in any sort of kitchen design), I decided to put the fridge in the dining room. 

It’s safe to say that this decision has haunted me ever since. I’ve regretted it for almost twenty years, and I have finally decided that we need to change it. I’m willing to give up a couple of years worth of holidays to finally have a functioning kitchen, but my husband and I are a team so I have to check with him. 

My husband is a great man and has never once made me feel bad about my regrettable decision, but it will be interesting to see what he has to say when I broach the topic with him. Will he be relieved that I’ve finally brought it up? I think so. 

I wonder if whilst we’re at it, we should also consider getting a couple of bathroom renovators located near Melbourne to check out our bathroom and make appropriate changes. I mean, we’re going to have to take out a loan for the kitchen renovation anyway, so we may as well take this opportunity to add some much-needed resale value to our home. That might be a bit too much for my husband to digest in one sitting.

I’ll update you on how my conversation with my husband goes once we’ve had it. I want to broach the topic in the right way, so it may take a while.

Hypothetic Mechanic Delay

I read that random person’s blog from Brighton this morning. It truly makes me feel so lucky to live in Hobart. We’ve hardly been touched by the deadly disease spreading across the world. Thank goodness, because if it had properly come to Hobart I’d be too scared to leave the house, let alone chat to the mechanic. Local to Hobart it’s not uncommon for people to have car troubles, and I’m no exception. I’d let my car go, that’s for sure.

That’s part of what makes this deadly disease so scary, other than the death thing. It is stopping life as we know it because people are too afraid to do things, which then causes more death. For example, if I decided to stop getting my car serviced and let my car go as I said, then I’d be opening myself up to my car breaking down, or worse when I was driving. This could lead to anything, which is terrifying. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if people all over Hobart stopped going to get a car service. In the Hobart area, we rely on our cars so much because of minimal public transportation. If we stopped getting services then we’d have cars breaking down left right and centre, which would cause accidents which would then cause deaths.

I know I’ve been harping on about this point for this entire blog post, but it’s just because it really scares me. I seriously thank my lucky stars every day that Hobart is such a remote city on a small Australian island. Otherwise, things could have been so scary. 

Anyway, I guess I just have to let my anxieties go. Talking and thinking about them as much as I do is not good for me. I swear it never ever gets mentioned in Hobart anymore. Everyone is just going on with their lives and I know that I should do the same.

Richie Destroying Tinting

Transcript from an interview with Richie at Office Offices—conducted by Schlock Homes and assisted by Jon Whatson.

Richie: I swear, I didn’t do it. I’ve heard the rumours going around and they’re all false. I can prove it! 

Schlock: Settle down, my friend. We’re just here to ask you some questions. If you’re innocent, we’ll know within about five minutes. Just be calm and tell us what you know. You aren’t in any trouble—yet. Now, why did you tell Harry that Office Offices should get frosted glass?

Richie: He’s a liar! I didn’t say we should get frosted glass! I said that we should consider getting decorative glass. And why wouldn’t I? Decorative glass is the best! Sure, it might be hard to get a business offering commercial decorative glass installation. Melbourne isn’t exactly the easiest place to get such services at the moment. But I thought it was at least worth mentioning. I’m not crazy, though. As if we’d get decorative glass for our office. Window tinting is completely necessary. No matter how many times the window is smashed, we’re never going to replace it with decorative glass. That plan would be simply stupid.

Jon: I think he might have a point, Schlock. This guy might just be innocent.

Schlock: Shut up, Whatson. I have more questions for our friend here. Now, you said that you could prove you weren’t behind this attack on a window with some mighty fine window tinting. What do you have to say for yourself?

Richie: I really don’t understand how it’s even gotten this far, because my proof can’t be questioned. The truth is that I wasn’t even in the office on the day of the first glass-smashing incident. I was on annual leave. I even have photos of my holiday. They’re on social media and everything. If you were half the detectives you claim to be, you would have known that already. Now, do you have any further questions?

Schlock: No. You’re free to go.

Property Purchase Interviews

Hello and welcome to this wonderful exploration of all things property purchasing in Melbourne. This project came about after we interviewed two young adults about their greatest concerns as they adapt to this new stage of their life. The overwhelming response (from 100% of respondents) was that they don’t know enough about buying property. What does the process entail? What pitfalls need to be avoided? So, we decided to make a series exploring the house buying process, interviewing nine individuals about this exciting journey. Shall we get started? I say we shall.

Tim: Buying a house doesn’t happen overnight. For me it was a long process of deciding where I wanted to live, finding the perfect house, and then getting a conveyancing firm local to Richmond to help me finalise the legal side of my purchase. My advice would be to take it slow and be patient. The perfect house for you will come up eventually. Like a snake in the grass, you just have to pounce and take it before someone else does. Snakes pounce, right? Oh well, you get my point.

Riley: Honestly, I thought I’d never be buying a house. The market is kind of messed up at the moment. But after years of hard work and one 95-leg multi that I lucked out on, here I am preparing to own my dream home. As I type this from the office of a recommended conveyancer in Brighton, I can’t quite believe it. How lucky am I? Very lucky. Is there any hope of you other gen z kids ever owning a house? Probably not.

Bentleigh: Conveyancing lawyers are pretty easy to find in my area, so I made the mistake of going straight to them in the house buying process. It turns out that conveyancers should not be your first port of call. You only need conveyancers once you actually have a house you want to buy! Let that be a lesson to all you young ones out there. The first place you should go to is actually a real estate agency. That’s where all the houses are at!