No Right To Feel This Way

There are kids dying of starvation every day.

There are atrocities of major kinds occuring in far off places, and probably just around the corner too.

Plenty of people in the world today have found out that they have a terminal illness.

Mothers are getting visits from policemen to tell them their son/daughter has died in a car crash.

Women are being beaten by their so called protectors every night.

So who the fuck am I to feel so shit about my lot??

It is a horrible feeling to feel like everything is shit and you have no direction in life.

My kids are healthy, my family is safe and sound but things just seem to be hurtling down a black hole faster and faster.

Our move to Aussie is off, we had to analytically look at the figures and it just didn't make sense when Blair was on good money here for us to go, especially with interest rates and rents donig the massive leap over there as well.

So where does that leave us?

The house build opportunity has come and gone.

The house we live in was supposed to be a 6 month temporary abode whilst building! It is small, too small for us.

My weight is climbing.

My self esteem doesn't exist.

My husband and I are at war all the time. Not out and out war but the sort of little commando missions that break down the enemy forces and after a good year will shatter everything.

Blair is never happy.

I am always taking everything he says personally, then again "you're a fucking lazy slob" and "you're a fucking idiot" have tendancies to feel rather personal.

We have sex maybe once a month.

This has been going on for a couple of years.

I have no doubt he loves me but I think he doesn't fancy me anymore.

I think he hasn't since I first put on weight 8 years ago, we've been together 9 next month.

He is not happy with his lot.

I am not happy with my lot.

But this is the thing, I don't feel I have the right to feel this way when you look at all the poor souls out there dealing with much bigger crap.

We have decided to ride the market out and spend the next three years renting while we save a hefty deposit, if the impending Aussie move taught us anything it was that we could save if wanted to and set our minds to it.

We have also decided we need another rental property, a long termer that we love.

We found one.

Well I did, it's in Loburn, out country and it has huge grounds, four bedrooms and a rumpus room. Oh and a dishwasher and an ensuite.

Blair wanted it too.

Then he didn't want to move the kids to the country school so I pulled out of the running.

Then he changed his mind and said let's go for it.

So I reapplied and did all of the application, references etc today.

Then he got home from work and is freaking out that we are overcommiting ourselves because what if the building boom dies right off and Dad can't supply him with work and he has to work elsewhere??

So I just deleted all my photos of my ideal situation. Deck looking out to two paddocks that lead to the river.

A pony paddock.

A chook shed.

Huge trees and adventures and fun to be had everywhere.

So I'm going to pull out of the running again in the morning because if track records have taught me anything they have taught me that if we make this move and things go pear shaped then who will bear the blame for it all?? Moi of course!!

I have made and broke fifty different ideas in the last week since we made the Aussie is Off decision and I am just feeling flat and like I am at a point in my life where I have suddenly time warped to and have no idea how I got here and why I chose to come in the first place.

Life takes different turns, twists and you encounter many forks in the road. I feel like I am at a twenty road intersection and I have no idea which one to take, or even if there is a path to follow at all.

So that is why the lack of blogging (oh and the photos will come!!)

It's Official

Aussie

Blair leaves on 8th June.

We follow two weeks later on the 23rd.

All tickets are booked and paid for.

We already have a dining suite, a lounge suite and an entertainment unit waiting for us.

It's all a bit real now.

In five months we will be living in Australia.

I am so fired up.

Yoga

This morning I did yoga for the first time.

I have always been inspired by my darling friend Mary, she has lost a shit load of weight and changed her whole outlook on life and is now a yoga genius and is studying to become a nutritionist. I hearts her!!

I was going to start doing yoga at the local dance studio, where Peta goes, but the woman has decided to cut all her classes (including her dance ones - poor Peta!) and I have had to resort to a basic video.

Did my first blast this morning. Loved it but found the old flabby bits stopped some of the poses working to their true potential. But, never fear, in a couple of months I'll be able to reach further as those bits will be gone.

Good Fortune

Remember me saying that Dad broke his rib??

Him and Mum build houses and sell them, that is their income source.

Dad was a top consultant enginneer for TransPower (the power grid company in NZ) but got sick of the politics and bullshit and threw it in to build. What him and Mum do is buy a section, either do up the house on it, subdivide and build another on the back or, what they are doing now, build an upscale house on 10acres. Ramble ramble.

With broken rib Dad couldn't work so he had Blair working for him during his holidays and after one day has offered Blair work until we leave, and it is all based opposite them, 12 min drive from here, and at our section that we can no longer build on, which is two blocks from here!! All for a $6 an hour payrise. We couldn't be in a better position to head to Aussie.

Life is great.

Just have to get the A OK on the vadge and life will be real great.

Find out Thursday.

Tits are Go!!

Went for mammogram,
got felt up by wierd chick,
got breasts squashed and squeezed until they looked like big platters,
right (suspect) breast discharged (gross!!) and was fucken agonising,
waited in waiting room where I read the Pink magazine including three stories about women who had their cancer missed by mammogram and ultrasound and only through persistence did they get diagnosed (reassuring much??),
had ultrasound and told all was clear and if I had any further concerns would get referred to breast specialist,
and that was that.

So went for celebratory iced chocolate and gluten free orange and almond friand at Under the Red Verandah with best buddy Kim.

Was divine, sat out in garden and had a lovely spot under a tree in the sun.

Life is good.

Booked and paid for our tickets to Aussie, leave 23rd June!!

Time to knuckle down.

On another note, need an outfit to wear to brother in laws wedding on Feb 2nd. What the fuck can I wear??

I'll post photos at Gluten Free Geisha tonight and then I need advice on what will suit me.

Come on fashion divas, get your brains into "help Jules look sexy" mode.

Who me?

Nah I'm not stressing about tomorrow.

Course not.

Not a bit.

Well maybe a smidgen.

Maybe a wee bit nervous.

Quietly confident but smearing me knickers with poobutter at the same time.

I'll be right, I'm moving to Aussie in 5.5 months.

Hands up who wants to meet me tits or no tits?

Come on you Aussie citizens, let me know how excited ya are!!

Update to "The Price of Milk"

Okay.

I haven't made this decision lightly, we have been mulling it over for a couple of years and with the ability to own a home out of our reach here now until the kids go to school, we think why the hell not have an adventure?

We will be moving to the Sunshine Coast, probably Nambour or surrounding districts. We have friends living in Nambour, one in Maroochydore, two in Mooloolaba, and about 8 in Brisbane, not to mention my brother who is living in Brisbane with his girlfriend and my other brother and his fiance are moving there in 6 months from Perth.

Blair is a carpenter and they are in high demand in Queensland.

We have been in contact with Centrelink and if Blair was on $25 an hour we would be entitled to nearly $750 a fortnight in family assistance, not to mention the subsidised childcare, whether I'm working or not. He is hoping to be on more but you still get rebates and family assistance at much higher incomes than you do here. We have seen all our friends who have left for Queensland go ahead in leaps and bounds since they departed our fair land.

Couple in Nambour have gone from nothing to owning their own joinery company, building and selling three homes, investment properties and now are living on 3/4 acre on their dream home - nearly freehold by the way, property being worth in the vicinity of half a million.

Other couple have set up business and both are earning double they could here.

Mate in Brisbane left here with not a cent, now he has bought a home in north side of Brisbane, this is a guy who struggled to get enough for the pub most weeks. As a builder here was earning $25 an hour, over there is getting $40 an hour with vehicle and phone to build stairs!!!

Those of you who got into the property market before the boom are sitting pretty. EG my sister and husband, one income, bought a three bedroom home in Christchurch worth $123,000. Mortgage $177 a week. Five years later, post boom, their property is worth $350,000 and they are on a fixed mortgage for next five years only paying $265 a week and at 7.8%. So yeah, sweet if you got in before prices shot through the roof.

I definitely want you to all know that there is no way I do anything without weighing up the pros and cons, doing the figures and mapping it out way in advance. Australia may seem like it has faults to those of you that live there, and granted the cities are diabolically priced, but for us, there is no comparison purely from a financial point of view.

And then there is lifestyle factors. Blair has shocking psoriasis and whenever we have visited Sunshine Coast his skin clears up due to the moisture in the air. My nose is sweet, usually have dried up nose that becomes booger infested every night due to a swelling in my turbinates (nose lining). When in Sunshine Coast that goes. And three of my kids get asthma and my doctor has told me we are living in the worst place for it, being polluted in winter and windy in summer. He told me about four years ago that the best place in the world we could go for asthma would be the Sunshine Coast of Australia.

And at the end of the day, as darling Becks says, home will always be there.

The Price of Milk

What the fuck is going on in this country??

We constantly hear how flippin great the dairying industry is doing and how great some little towns are doing with the boom on due to milking their cows yet .....

the price of milk keeps going up.

We are now looking at around $2 a litre!! For fucken milk. You can buy a 2.25L of coke for bloody cheaper!!

and then I saw the price of cheese ..... one 1kg block was $12.25!! WTF!!!

And butter about $3.60 for a 500g block.

I'm over it. This fucken country is doing my head in.

And we hear that once again the government has over $8 billion in surplus. Yet they keep shutting country schools, old men keep waiting for cataract operations and the average household now needs to earn $1300 a week to afford an average mortgage!!

The point to all this waffling??

We can no longer afford to build our house. Our own home, which can be built on our $132,000 section for a cost of absolutely no more than $130,000. A mortgage of $260K and we can't afford to do it. We can get into it but we can't afford to service the mortgage, we could in November when we bought the section but nearly a year later the interest rates are so fucken high that a couple with four kids may as well kiss goodbye to ever owning a home. And it's not like we're going over the top in the amount we spend on it. The average two bedroom flat in the lower socio economic suburbs of Christchurch are now selling for about the same cost as we can build a brand new home here in Rangiora for. But .... we literally wouldn't be able to afford to live. The mortgage repayments a fortnight would be nearly $1000 and that isn't including rates, insurances and other unforeseens.

So.... what do I propose to do about this??

We are jumping ship.

We have fucken had it with this government and their lack of any action over anything other than outlawing the ability for a parent to discipline their own child. Oh that and digging into each other's personal lifes. And every now and then they pass a new dog law. Get a fucken grip New Zealand. It's time to stand up and be counted in the world.

Some of you may say, why don't you go to work??

If I go back to work we will be paying $80 a day for the two little ones to go to daycare, that and the $20 or so a day it would cost for the older two to be in after school care. I have the ability to earn about $500 in the hand a week as a PA! You do the figures. I would be paying just as much in childcare as i could earn. But, I hear you cry, the government would give you a childcare subsidy, surely? No they wouldn't because we EARN too much if I go back to work. What sort of country classes their citizens in the wealthy bracket at $85,000 a year but also has the bullshit housing market that demands that you bring home in excess of $1300 in the hand a week just to afford the average mortgage??

See ya NZ, we are off to the greener pastures of Aussie where their government encourages you to have children, gives you a helping hand of $7,000 to get into your first home and subsidises your childcare if you do go back to work.