The Misadventures of Carmy and Jeff!

Home Owners!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:02:00 +0000

Last Tuesday the 6th December 2011, Jeffrey and I officially became home owners for the first time ever! Our house was finished and was handed over to us, all ready to start making it our own. This week has been a blur of packing, moving, unpacking, shopping and cleaning. Our furniture, fridge/freezer and washing machine arrived too!

My parents and Jeff’s parent have helped me move, unpack and build our furniture as Jeffrey has been busy working each day! I am absolutely exhausted and it’s by no means finished yet! Tomorrow we move all of our clothes, bed, computer etc into the house and actually start living in it. How excited!!!!!

I think it’s going to take quite a while before we are actually settled in the house and now that it’s school holidays, I have plenty of time to arrange and re-arrange everything until I’m happy with it! I could probably sleep for a week too!

Merry Christmas to us, we are so very blessed!

First load!

The Dad's putting together the outdoor table!

Shiny new fridge and Freezer!

Keep an eye out for photos of our new house once everything is in it's place! I can't wait to share!

A Place to Call Home

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:26:00 +0000

House progress is going great at the moment! Settlement date is now set for the end of next week, though it maybe change a little bit if anything gets held up. Really all that is left to do is have the carpets installed, painting finished, electrical finished, shower/door screens installed, plumbing finished and deck finished off. And most of that is pretty close to being done!

I couldn’t be happier with how all of our colours have turned out. It’s pretty hard to get everything matching perfectly from little colour samples but we’re both pretty happy with the outcome. It’s a nice, bright and airy house, which is exactly what we’ve both wanted all along!

On the weekend just gone, we spent almost every waking moment at the house painting. Our team of Jeffrey, myself, my parents and Jeff’s parents managed to get a HUGE amount done! We’re very proud of ourselves and it even looks great. The main reason that we managed to get so much done was because of a friend of ours lending us his spray gun! We are very blessed!

So come Christmas holidays (just under 3 weeks) we should be moving into our brand new, first ever house! We’ve got all our furniture ordered and our fridge/freezer and washing machine is all ready to be delivered. Today we spend the afternoon wandering around bunnings looking at things we still need (and things we don’t need). We bought some door mats and picked out a few other bits and bobs to buy later!

We are two very happy people, all ready to move into our first EVER house! Now I’m off to continue the exciting packing! Wooooo!

Snuggles enjoying her first walk on our deck!

My most favourite part of the house! Isn't it lovely?

Our tiles! At first we were disappointed because they put the wrong ones in, now we love them!

Running water at last!

Coffee for the hard working painters!

Preparing to start our painting weekend!

Hard working painter

Another hard working painter!

Following instruction to start using the spray gun!

Jeffrey spraying the bedroom.

Painting is messy business!

Decision Making

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:13:00 +0000

Are you a good decision maker? I’m not, if I have to make a decision I like a good solid week to think, research, talk, think some more and totally change my mind a thousand times. In fact, I’d go as far as saying, I hate making decisions!

No one tells you just how many decisions there is to make when your building a house. It sounds like common sense but you don’t expect there to be quite so many! Today alone we had to make decisions on, exterior paint, deck paint, cupboards, lounge chair colour, shape, size, outdoor setting, railings and I’m sure there was more. My brain is seriously frazzled and I think it might take a few months after this house is finished to regain my sanity and feel okay about making decisions.

Probably the worst part is having to make choices so quickly and hope they are the correct ones. Once the house is painted there is no way I’m shelling out more money to re-paint it if we don’t like it!

So that’s how everything is going at the moment. We are really very close to the end now and things are crazy. Our deck started getting build today along with tiling, bathroom and painting. We start painting the inside in just over a week as well!

Hand Over

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:05:00 +0000

We found out this week that our hand over date for the house has been set for 28th November, which is just over 3 weeks time from now! Of course this is if everything goes to plan with the builder and delivery of everything. I’m thinking it will be a little bit longer than that because we still have to paint the house.

Today I got to have another walk through and the plastering is finished, flooring has been laid and the interior doors are on. It’s looking more and more like a house each time I see it. The undercoat of paint has now gone on the outside and we’re having some test colours painted next week so we can choose an exterior colour.

The really exciting stuff happens next week as they are installing the kitchen, tiling the whole house and starting the deck. I cannot wait to see these things finished! Also tomorrow, Mum and Dad are taking Jeffrey and I down to Ikea to look at furniture. We’re pretty sure of what we are going to get but are looking at Ikea for ideas. On Sunday we will hopefully be ordering all of our furniture! Seriously so excited about that! I’m pretty sure Jeff is even more excited than I am haha!

And finally, this week I started packing our stuff ready for the new house. Not the day to day things we use but all of our house things that I’ve collected over the years! Packing making it all the more real to be honest!

Lock Up Stage

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:43:00 +0000

Today the builder told us that our house is now at Lock Up Stage! It can’t have been more than 4 weeks since they started building! It’s insane how fast they can put up a house, though ours isn’t actually complicated or big.

I’m most looking forward to seeing the kitchen go in and see our deck built out the back! I’ve now started searching high and low online for decorating and landscaping ideas. We’re going for the minimalistic look I think which is good because our budge too is minimalistic!

House Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:04:00 +0000

If you’re my friend on facebook then you will see I’ve got a photo album with our house progress. I just love looking at the photos of the land than flicking through to see our house slowly but surely going up. Jeff and I drive past every day that we can to see what has been happening and are very excited at each new thing we see! Today the roof was going on… but it rained! But there is still plenty of time this week for it to go on and I can’t wait!

It’s all very exciting but reality is really beginning to hit home with me that we will be moving into our first home soon! Scary stuff! We had our first walk through of the house at frame stage on the weekend just gone and now my mind is in overdriving thinking about where I want to put everything and whether we’re going to have enough room for everything we own so far! For only being married 1 year, we had A LOT of stuff!

The next thing we get to do is go into the house and choose where we’d like power points, phone plugs and TV ports! It’s not as easy as I first thought it would be!!!!!!

In other news we sold our Polo for the price we wanted and I just finished a 2 week contract with a not so lovely class. So I’m enjoying a little bit of well earned rest before getting back into relief and my tafe course! (And I got my first Cluster of Assignments back which I pass woohoo!)

1 Week later

So I wrote this post about a week ago and all of a sudden life got busy and I didn’t get a chance to post it up. In that time I’ve had some relief work, the roof has gone on our house, windows in and power points installed!

Our Wedding Journal - Printed

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:43:00 +0000

Way back when Jeff and I were planning our wedding, you may have seen or read Our Wedding Journal. This was a blog I wrote in often to keep a record of our wedding planning and to keep our friends and family who were interested up to date on our wedding and all those special little moments we had along the way. I absolutely loved writing posts about what was going on in our lives as we planned our wedding and I also even now love reading back over those things and remembering how excited I felt.

When the wedding planning was coming to an end, Jeff suggested that I might like to somehow keep the wedding blog so that in years to come I could look back on it or even share it with family and friends. So with his blessing I spent hours transforming our online blog into book form using the Photobook Australia software.

And this morning it arrived in the mail!!! To say that I love it would be an understatement. I purchased it in the cheapest form possible because it needed so many pages but it is still amazing quality and looks great! This must be how an author feels when they receive their 1st published book which they've pained over for many long hours. So here it is, Our Wedding Journal!!!!

Our New Car

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:23:00 +0000

Everything seems to be changing for us all at once! Today we bought a new car (well new to us but not brand new). It’s actually my parent’s old car which they sold to us for a really good price! It’s exactly the kind of car we were looking to buy for the next stage of our lives together and is Jeff’s favourite colour.

We spent all afternoon washing and polishing it so it looked brand new and shiny! It’s come up looking really good and hopefully it might just stay that way but I don’t like our chances.

We’ve now got our Red Volkswagen Polo 1998 (Hatchback) up for sale – unregistered. If you know somebody who might be interested point them in our direction. It needs a good home and we don’t want a whole lot for it!

The Driveway

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 03:12:00 +0000

Today Jeff and I very excitedly drove over to our block of land because earlier in the morning work had been happening to cut out our driveway (well mainly just cutting out the cement gutter and laying down a bit of gravel.) It’s not very fancy and hopefully in the future we’ll be able to lay down a proper driveway but for now, this is how it’s going to stay.

Fencing is up, driveway cut out so once the council approved plans come back, the building will begin! I cannot wait! Seeing it all set out on the block of land makes our house look TINY! I’m a bit worried it won’t be big enough but I guess for the time being it’s big enough for just the two of us and our little snug dog! Maybe when I’m standing in it I’ll feel differently!

I do however believe that this house is a gift from God and is therefore the right size and right place for us right now. We have a loan but it’s nowhere near the amount that some people borrow (still a lot though) and we’re going to have our very own, brand new (very little) house! This is our first house and not our forever house and I cannot wait to be standing in it!

In other news, things around here are hectic! I’m on holidays (Praise the Lord) but I’ve got tafe assignments, placement at a childcare centre (starting tomorrow), we’re buying another car, selling our current car, looking at things we need for the house and keeping up with house building things. I’ve also got a 2 weeks contract at the beginning of next term that I need to prepare for (like that’s happened yet haha.)

Construction is About to Begin

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 04:12:00 +0000

After church today I asked Jeff to drive past our block of land in hope that something might be different. We both agreed that probably nothing would have happened yet, we only paid the deposit on Friday. When we got close we could see big shiny council fencing all around our block of land. Woohoo something was different! We jumped out of the car excitedly and took loads of photos of the fencing and council signs!

It might not seem like much to any passerby but this means our house is about to start getting built!!!!!!!!!! The council has to approve the plans and issue the building permit but hopefully in a couple of weeks they will start digging the footings! I cannot wait!!!!!!

A Case of the Clumsies!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:01:00 +0000

It’s been another hectic week around here with lots of jobs to get done. New car tyres, birthdays, Father’s Day, Jeff went to a bucks party, I had some work and Jeff’s sister flew down for the weekend. No news on the house front though other than our loan being approved! Paperwork has got to be the slowest and most frustrating part of building a house. I just wish it would end so we can get started!

On Thursday night I came down with a serious case of the clumsies and fell down the steps at my Father and Mother in laws. Ouch! An x-ray confirmed that nothing was broken, just a very badly sprained and bruised ankle and BOY DID IT HURT! I never imaged a sprained ankle to hurt so much but it certainly does. Unfortunately we’ve had quite a lot on so all I could do was strap it, take nurofen and hobble around. I got some work today so I had to hobble around teaching as well. Hopefully it will recover quickly with no long term problems because limping is such a slow way to get around.

In other news, Jeffrey and I are upgrading to another car in the month ahead so we will be putting our much loved Polo up for sale. If you know anyone who’s looking for a cheap, run around car then let them know to get in contact with us!

Signing On the Dotted Line!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:41:00 +0000

It's been weeks since I last posted but thats because I've been on a contract teaching Year 7 and it's been hectic. I've been so busy and too tired to write any posts lately but this is my last week on contract and I have a public holiday and pupil free! Only 3 teaching days and so much to fit into them!

This post is really about our house. We've been emailing HBAS for the past few months sorting out the plans and today, in about 1 and half hours, we find out at last exactlly how much our house will cost to build. Really this will be a make or break appointment. We'll either be all systems ahead for building or we'll be back to saving. I hope and pray we can start building very soon!
(Note: I wrote this part of the post last Wednesday.)

Our prayers have been answered and on Sunday afternoon we signed our building contract! We also picked out our house colours on Wednesday and went through all of the inclusions. It really was very exciting! We're now waiting to receive an email with our building contracts to forward to the bank and once all of the finance is approved and building permits have come through the council, we are all systems go for our house being built! They say 3 or 4 weeks from now before it will start however I wouldn't be surprised if it was a little bit longer!

However as long as the rain holds off and there are no real problems, we should be in our very first, brand spanking new house by Christmas time! What an amazing Christmas present that would be!

We also bought a Fridge/Freezer and washing machine on Saturday and they are being held until our house is all finished! Exciting times are not ahead of us anymore, they are here and I can't wait to step foot in our very own house!!!!!!!!!!

A Day that Ended Up Being Exciting!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:51:00 +0000

Without even realising it, today ended up being quite an exciting day. My lovely husband came to pick me up from school at 4pm and brought with him the side elevation plans for our future house! So far we've only seen the floor layout whilst making all of the relevant changes but today we got to see what it will look like from the outside.

It's not exactly what I imagined (nothing ever is) but someday soon it will be ours to live in! Our first real home as Mr and Mrs! Exciting stuff hey? It's not fancy and it's not big, but it will be ours! I'm super busy with work, planning and study at the moment but I think that slowly I'm beginning to fully realise just how big and important this is. Not long and it will be time to start packing all of our things and for me, moving for the first time EVER!

Just thought I'd give you a little update on the house. We're now waiting very patiently for the final pricing to come in, so please pray for us that it will be within our budget... or at least somewhere close to!

I Love Fridays

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:41:00 +0000

Sometimes I forget just how much I LOVE Fridays!!!!! When you’re only working casual hours, day to day, it’s easy to forget how nice a Friday afternoon feels. Freedom for the weekend and a sleep in! Right now while I’m on contract teaching Year 7, I FULLY appreciate my Fridays… especially from 3pm on!

Especially today I was watching that second hand on the clock very carefully until we hit 3pm and some weekend rest! This has been my first full week on contract in a while and along with teaching, this week has been nuts. We’ve had to make building decisions, get the car fixed (again), appointments, chasing up tax stuff, planning work for this week, planning extension work and today planning for next week too and generally just settling into a new school, class and routine! Tiring indeed!

I am so incredibly gratefully to God for giving me work at the moment. His timing is always perfect and if there is any time that we could do with some extra saving funds, it’s right now! Hopefully a few more emails flicked off to our builder and we should be almost at the building permit stage! Boy does that sound nice!

So now I’m off to have a sleep in and enjoy doing nothing for two whole days, Bliss!!!!!! Have a wonderful weekend bloggers!

Term 3 – Goodbye Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:54:00 +0000

Goodbye holidays and welcome Term 3! Today was the first day back at school and I have a 3 week contract teaching Year 7. It’s great to be working and putting money towards our house but I’m not a huge fan of teaching older children. Hopefully this will be a nice class and they all have laptops, which is something I’m looking forward too!

I must say it was an absolutely blissful 2 weeks off and Jeff even had one week off with me too! So sit back, relax and check out some happy snaps from our holidays!

Lots of beach visits with the pups!

Peaceful afternoon tea at the dam

Two of my favourites!!!

My lovely husband preached one Sunday

Byron Soy Chai's at Envy!

Broadbeach at the Gold Coast

View from our Gold Coast appartment

Our HUGE appartment

Ready for a night out!

At the Outback Spectatular!

Looking very 'outback' like!

Max Brenners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yum yum!!!!

Chocolately coffee! Soooo good!

Pancakes in Paradise for breakfast! (That makes it a REAL holiday!)

Lazer lights at Ripley's Believe it or not!

Coffee with the boys!!!

We were so busy having a wonderful 2 weeks off that I really didn't take all that many happy snaps! Bring on the next school holidays!!!!

End of Term 2!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:42:00 +0000

YAY it’s officially the end of Term 2 and time for 2 blissful weeks of holidays! This term has been SUPER busy for relief and I’ve also had a contract teaching a Year 1 class for a little while! The start of term 2 was pretty cruisey, a day or two per week with a few weeks of nothing but towards the end I’ve been flat out busy!!!!!

It’s been nothing compared to full time teaching but having plenty of relief days along with studying my Early childhood Diploma, sorting through things all related to our future house and keeping up with the cooking, washing, cleaning etc! I’ve fallen into bed most nights!

So now it’s time for all of those hard working teachers to have 2 wonderful weeks of rest and recovery from Term 2 (and for me some Tafe study as well)!

Term 3
Next term I have a contract teaching a Year 7 class for 3 weeks. They are a laptop class so most of their work in done online or is computer generated. It should be a lot of fun to teach using online resources and a new learning experience for me teaching Year 7 for quite some time!

A Busy Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:17:00 +0000

Not a whole lot of blogging happening over here because things are hectic right now!

- - I’m teaching on contract for the next 6 days

- - Keeping up with house hold stuff – cleaning, cooking, washing etc

- - Enrolling in my Early childhood course

- - Applying for my full teachers registration – folios of work, paper work etc

- - Confirming building plans

- - Juggling finances and savings

- - Keeping up with our church jobs – bulletins, blog, website, log books etc

- - 30 Day photography Challenge (not so much a job, just a bit of fun)

- - Jeff’s job and websites

- - Lots of sorting out of our belongings before moving into our house in the future

Lots of things happening and on our minds right at the moment, a tad stressful but exciting as well! I hope you’ll keep popping back now and again because I can’t wait to update you on house progress in the coming months… it’s certainly not far off now!!!!!

Today’s Photography Challenge Photo is one of my favourites. Check it out!

Day 14: Eyes

My wonderful husband has got the most incredible eyes. They look like opal!

30 Day Photography Challenge

Shutterbug!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:04:00 +0000

I hope your following along with my 30 Day Photography Challenge photos! I’m quite proud of the one I took tonight so I thought I would share it over here at the Misadventures blog! Might I add, this mandarin tastes amazing! I’ve never really been into them until recently and now I just think they are so sweet and tasty!

In other news we’ve been nice and busy today with appointments. Hopefully in the next week or so we’ll be signing off on the final house plan to have it priced. It’s nothing special, very little and no garage which I’m a tad disappointed about but it’s a brand new house that we can afford to pay off and THAT is the most important thing! We’re leaving room for a garage in the future so that makes me happy!

I’m looking forward to the day they start building!!!!! Won’t be too long now I hope!!!!

Arithmetic

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 08:55:00 +0000

I am absolutely in love with this song at the moment. It's called Arithmetic by Brooke Fraser! I just wish I could sing like this and play the piano so beautifully! Makes me inspired to at least try!!! I hope you enjoy and it's best listened too really loud! Will totally overwhelm your ears!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D23sjATRmQw

30 Day Photography Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 05:46:00 +0000

I came across the 30 Day Photography Challenge whilst reading along at Hellow and decided to join in on the fun! Lately I’ve been re-discovering my passion for taking photos so I hope this is lots of fun and pushes my skills a little further!

White Peach Photography

Feel free to join in as well and to view my daily photo please head over to my facebook! I might feature some on here once in a while!

Let’s kick it off with the first days challenge… a day late but here we go!

Day 1: Self-portrait

My pretty purple bedroom wall, won't be my bedroom for much longer!

Winter!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:45:00 +0000

Winter is upon us and what better way to start it than a Mocha at Montville with my bestie!!!!

PS: Do you like the new blog design? Please vote off to the right!

Vegetable Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Thu, 26 May 2011 08:14:00 +0000

Tonight in our house we are having a HUGE pot of vegetable soup for dinner! Well I might save some for another nights dinner too but it looks so good that I thought I'd share! Hope your having something Delicious and warm for dinner tonight!

Chipped!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Tue, 24 May 2011 11:13:00 +0000

I absolutely love Tuesdays! Tuesday is Jeff’s roster day off every week and as long as I don’t get a call in, we get to spend it together. Mostly we use this day off together to get jobs done but we usually go out for lunch together or with his family.

Playing!

Misty (Left) and Snuggles (Right)

Today we had a lovely picnic lunch down at the dam near our house with the in laws and Misty their little pup. We took snuggles and the two girls had a lovely time chasing the birds and enjoying the fresh air. I think it might just become a regular Tuesday activity!

Off to get Chipped!

It’s taken us a little while (mainly because of Snugs having 2 surgeries) but in the afternoon both Snugs and Puss got micro chipped at the vets so that I can finish getting them properly registered with the council. That job should be done and dusted by the end of the week! They were both such brave girls getting such a big needle! They didn’t make a sound and I’m so very proud of them both!

In other news I’m almost completely enrolled now to my course to add early childhood teaching onto my degree so in the weeks ahead I’ll be a student again… boo, assignments, study, yuck! Never mind, it should be worth it in the long run!

Baking Bliss - Raspberry Sponge Cake!

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Sun, 22 May 2011 12:32:00 +0000

I’m a big cheater because I didn’t bake this lovely cake but I did put it together and whip up the cream so it sort of counts. It tasted DELICIOUS though!!!! I made this raspberry and cream sponge cake for my brother’s birthday. The raspberries were a really nice touch and took away from the sweetness a little bit!

Ingredients
- Double sponge from IGA
- Pure Cream (whipped)
- Raspberry jam
- Fresh Raspberries

Method
- Cut each of the sponge cakes in half to make the layers
- Microwave the jam for 10 seconds to make it easier to spread and spread it over the first sponge
- Spread a thick layer of cream on top of the jam
- Sandwich together with the next piece of sponge cake and continue until your cake it all together
- Spread the rest of the cream on top and cover with the fresh raspberries
- Eat me!!!!!!!!!

Beautiful Creation

noreply@blogger.com (Carmy) — Sun, 15 May 2011 09:17:00 +0000

This post is not really for any particular reason other than to tell you what an absolutely glorious and beautiful weekend it has been! The sun has been shining, the sky has been the most vibrant blue with hardly any clouds at all which has been accompanied by this unusually cold weather we’ve had. Somehow this cold but beautiful weather has really complimented one another and made for just the perfect weekend!

We spent Saturday morning at the Eumundi Markets watching my brother in laws band ‘Kindread’ play and after church today we went to the park to celebrate my wonderful best friend’s birthday with a BBQ and delicious cake!

On the way home I couldn’t help but admire God’s amazing creation and thank Him for such a beautiful weekend and world that we live in. I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world that couldn’t have just ‘evolved’ over time but has been handcrafted with great care and detail by my Saviour!

It is put so perfectly by one of my favourite songwriters Chris Tomlin in his song Indescribable

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming

Check out this amazing song here

Eumundi Markets, sitting on the hill

Watching Kindread play

Rachel and Kathryn at the park

Jeff and I at the park

Birthday cake for the birthday girl!

For more May photos visit my facebook