Monday 23 November 2009

NOV 2009 UPDATE

Well, much has happened since I last blogged.

Rhiannan was screwed over by the manager of Gloria Jeans! She worked for them for 4 weeks. A cuppla weeks ago she went to get her hours for the following week and had none. The manager told her that their regular casuals had now finished their HSC and therefore there was no more hours for Rhiannan. Quote from the bitch boss herself...'you're not sacked but u should look for another job'...unquote. How do these types of people run their business? Gloria Jeans at Westfields Kotara and also in the Kotara Borders Bookshop; if you work there then I feel sorry for you.

Rhiannan has a trial at a Warners Bay cafe tomorrow, so hopefully this will come thru for her. Good luck darlin'.

Lachlan took off to Canberra last weekend for his mate Matts' birthday. He is home in one piece now. He has a job interview at an electrical wholesale warehouse coming up. Fingers crossed; it is exactly what he is looking for.

Kasey is settling in nicely and went snorkelling the other day with one of the guys from Woolworths. She is hooked I think!

Kim n I have been sorting out stuff from the kitchen. Our new kitchen is in now. All complete except for the glass splashbacks and rangehood. Gettin measured for the splashbacks tomorrow so hopefully they will be in within the next fortnight. (fingers crossed) It's lookin great!. Heaps more cupboard space and much more practical design.

Once the kitchen is finished it's on with the painting!. We have chosen colours for the inside of the house and cant wait to get started (and then finished!!)

Ceiling fans going into the bedrooms this Friday. That should make a heap of difference on those hot nights (and days for me!) when it is difficult to sleep.

Had a fantastic social night on Saturday with the mobs from work. It was great to mix socially rather than the interrupted conversations we have at work.

My Mum will be down in about 3 weeks time. She arrives on the 18th and is staying with us til the 22 or 23rd Nov (cant remember) and then is staying with Leo at Medowie (I have to work over Christmas.....DOH!)

We are settling in really well and loving the place heaps!

Lurv to all

Jordy

P.S. Kaiser the wonderdog is doin really well now after being very crook when we first got here. We had to part with some greenbacks but he is worth it. He now only has 3 teeth in his head; the others had gone rotten and that is possibly what made him sick. Funny thing is, his tongue always sticks out now when he sleeps!! It's so funny. I snuck in a photo of him the other night......CLASSIC!

Friday 30 October 2009

Finally...............

Bloody Hell......it has been ages since I posted sumfing on my blog.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED?? ....Well..... believe it or not.....everything appears to be running smoothly. We are feeling very settled up here and very much at home.

Rhiannan has won herself a job thru her diligence and patience. She did a resume handout a cuppla weeks ago to businesses in the Kotara Shopping Centre. She handed one in to Gloria Jeans and after leaving there got a phone call from them asking her to come back. Raz has done her Cert III in Hospitality Operations and when they saw that they phoned her back straight away and asked her to return. Another 5 mins later and she had a job. Only part time at present but there are 2 staff members leaving after the new year and it appears she will fill one of those full time positions. The shop owners own the Gloria Jeans cafe in the main thoroughfare of Kotara and also another in the huge Borders book shop in the same shopping centre. Raz works at both places and it is great to see her working somewhere that she won thru her perserverance and pro-activeness.

Lachlan & Kasey got their transfers to Woolworths, although Lachlans hours suck big time! He is working mostly nights in the perishables section doing night fill. His hours are all over the place and it is leaving him with not much free time for himself. He has been doing the resume handing out thing also. One of my work colleagues mentioned him to her brother in law who is the manager of an electrical wholesaler warehouse in Cardiff. He asked Lachlan to bring in his resume (which Lachlan did). Havent heard back yet but the manager still has to advertize the position and wait for the go ahead from the head office to do so. We are crossing our fingers that Lachlan gets this because it is 7am - 3.30pm Mon to Fri hours. Brilliant.

Kasey is doing well at Woolies and we have actually heard from her supervisors that she has been getting excellent feedback from her customers there!! They also like the fact that she is flexible and can help out at nearly every time they are short.

Kim & I have been busy car hunting. We want to trade in the Impreza and get something will a little more guts from a standing start and also has the guts to tackle some of the very big hills in the Newcastle area. An auto will also be easier to negotiate the myriads of traffic lights up here in the traffic. We have narrowed it down to either a Holden Captiva or VW Tiguan. We like the Tiguan best BUT everything on it is an optional extra (e.g. fog lights are not standard!?) It is 46,500 on the road whereas, the Captiva comes with heaps of extras and is about 3,000 cheaper. Tiguan offers a 2 litre diesel or petrol turbo chargedengine and the Captive is a 2 litre turbo diesel or 3.2 litre 6 cyl. We are stuck between what we like and what we can get for our money!!

The Impreza is currently is in the panel beaters gettin fixed after a pushbike or similar crashed into it whilst it was parked at work one day. Red paint ground into the silver and 2 dings near the side intrusion bar make it a bigger job than what we thort!

Our old kitchen in the house has been ripped out and the new one is being installed tomorrow. We will actually be without a kitchen proper for about 2 weeks because we have to wait for the stone bench top to be measured and cut to size. We are also having glass splashbacks which cant be done til the benchtops are on. It should look great once it is all finished and I will post photos when it is finally completed.

I just realized that I will have to change the header to my blog!! We are no longer in Wagga Wagga eh?!

We have had great weather up here. It rains regularly so we dont have to worry about watering the gardens ourselves. I will take some photos of the place and put them on so everyone can get a look.

That's about it for now. Life goes on. We are missing our Wagga friends and familiar faces when we go out.

Take care everyone.

Love

Jordy :)

Friday 4 September 2009

About 90% settled....................

HI FOLKS!!

Well......we had the Garage Sale last weekend...gave away what didn't sell to St Vincent de Paul and just need to re-arrange the leftovers in the garage. We are still awaiting a new lounge, have some pictures up on the wall and, we appear to be settling in very well....

We have been getting quotes for our new kitchen and hopefully will have a decision reached soon; with any luck it will be in by Christmas! All that is left to do after that is to paint the inside and we will have definitely put our individual mark on this place.

I've managed to get back onto Flickr this morning and post a new photo; it's been a while sinceI was able to pay any attention to my photography.

I guess the next thing to do will be to design a new header for my blog; one that reflects our new location with updated photos!

Hope everyone is well as we are.

Lurv

Jordy

Saturday 8 August 2009

MOVED IN, SWITCHED ON, UNPACKED.......

Yes Folks,

After months of HUGE stress and frustration we have finally moved into our home
in Cameron Park (Lake Macquarie City Council area).

Although we have unpacked the majority of our stuff, it still lies around the house
awaiting a final destination!!! Some of if it will not be unpacked; much more economical for storage!

It has been great here thus far....I keep boasting of the weather; 21 degrees today! No way in hell I am gonna miss those freezing Wagga winters OR the stinkin hot summers!

Lachlan and Kasey have got their transfers to Woolworths at the Glendale shopping centre and have started work already. Poor Lachlan has had a relapse of his Tonsilitis however and has not been too good. Rhiannan is a lady of leisure for a little while until we can get her used to the different driving conditions up here (she has only had her P's for 6 months).

Kim n I are well and busy sorting out places for the furniture to go and then the next project will be a new kitchen. The kitchen we have is ok but doesnt feel very functional so we have decided to gut it and start again. We will also be repainting at some stage; something that suits our style and will put our touch to this house.

Work is really great! Although very similar to Wagga, it is busier and I welcome the challenge of learning new areas and some new practices. The people at work are good and have been patient and friendly with the 'newbie' from the country!! LOL !!

Well, that's it for now. I can't wait to get back into my photography and upload some stuff to Flickr from our new location.

Luv to all

Jordy

Monday 13 July 2009

The Final Countdown!!!




Well folks, the guys are here for the pre-pack and things are moving very smoothly thus far!!! Our removal is on the 15th, but we will be in Wagga til the 19th so we can celebrate my 50th birthday with our Wagga friends.

We move in convoy type style up to Newcastle on the 19th where we will be staying in holiday accommodation until the 31st.

By the way, did I mention that we have brought a house in Newcastle? YEP!! 5 bedrooms + study, formal lounge, formal dining, large family meals area, rumpus room etc etc. We got it for an excellent price (about 120,000 LESS than what we thort we might have to pay!) It is in a new estate and is only about 4-5 years old!! Great established water wise gardens with sandstone rock retaining walls. We move in on the 31st July.

Our house here in Wagga settles on the 17th July (yep, my birthday!!) and all is on track for that.

We cant wait to move in and unpack.....finish this period of our lives when we were in limbo simply waiting for something to happen.

Here are a cuppla photos of the new joint.

Wednesday 17 June 2009

The Jordan Express to Newcastle departs on the 19 July!!

THE LATEST UPDATE.....

We are due to sign our contracts today....HOORAY!!

The dates we are looking at are...if we sign today then exchange of contracts will take place either this afternoon or Monday. This has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks of the whole sale; our Solicitors associate only works Mon, Tues and Wed. It has been ssooooooooooo frustrating when we want to move ahead. Not only for us but also for our purchaser and the Real Estate agent who has been trying hard to keep things moving along despite the hold ups.

Our removal date will be the 15th of July, keys handed over on the 17th (my 50th birthday too by the way!!) and we will leave for Newcastle on the 19th of July.

We have been approved by Transfers Unit to have our stuff put into storage for a period of 10 weeks and then moved from storage to our house.

Kim & I are going to Salamander Bay this Friday for about 2 weeks for some well deserved R&R and also to do some house hunting.

I think that the whole process has been made worse by the fact that we were apart for some weeks; I had to go to work at Newcastle and Kim had to face the Legal Beagles here by herself. Not only that, but the whole process is just a high profile game of Chinese Whispers, getting info 2nd and 3rd hand, one solicitor not liking the way the real estate agent was handling things, fingers pointed to appoint blame etc etc. I understand that Legal Experts are required to ensure protection of sellers and buyers alike but think that some of the backwards and forwards decisions needs to be made at a round table discussion so that buyers can meet purchasers and things can be then sorted in a much more relaxed environment.

Anyway, the upshot of this is that we now have dates to look forward to after 8 months of living our lives in limbo.

Luv to all

JORDY

Saturday 23 May 2009

We're split up - temporarily!!!

Well......who would've thought it would come to this. The arse has fallen out
of the housing market and we can't seem to get any interested parties to buy our
house. We did have an offer of 380,000 about a week ago (down from our January advertisement of 445,000 - but I mean we always thought we might get 420,000 for cryin out loud!!) Our estate agent says he is still in negotiations with these people BUT, how long will it take them to make up their frakkin minds??? If u want to buy a house and u make an offer then surely you should know how far you want to take it when the negotiations start?? Or are they just imbeciles? Why is it taking so long?

SO......the upshot of it all is that I have been in Newcastle without the family for the past 2 weeks. Miss 'em like crazy whilst up there. I am in Wagga Wagga now (came back for my 6 day stand down) and it's great to be back but will be heading north on Tuesday to go back to work.

The new workplace is great. The people there have been very patient and friendly. I love the whole Newcastle & Lake Macquarie area; there is so much more to do and see up there in comparison to Wagga Wagga. I think our decision to transfer up there was the best but, I cant wait for the whole family to join me in a new house so we can finally move on from all this stress and angst that was forced upon us over 6 months ago!

Love to all

Jordy

Friday 10 April 2009

Status Update

Hi everyone!

Well.....where to start?

Kim & I, along with Lachlan and Kasey, took another trip up to Newcastle. We werent looking at houses with a view to buy, specifically, but wanted to confirm the suburbs we thought were the best to buy in.

We did take in some open houses that we had bookmarked on the internet, and glad we did. Photos on the net are so deceiving sometimes!

One particular suburb, Cameron Park, had caught our eye. Houses looked the same as anything you would get in Tatton or Bourkelands here in Wagga even though prices were just a little higher. Anyway, we got there and was surprised to find sooo much grafitti on every second light pole, every sign and even houses that had retaining walls or small garden walls out the front had not escaped. It turns out that the area we were looking at borders on a suburb called Edgeworth, which is a housing commission suburb; not that there is anything wrong with that but it does come with its bigger share of hoodlums and hooliganism, which is taken to the nicer suburb next door. Scratch that one!!

We had confirmed that our fav suburbs are on the eastern shores of Lake Macquarie from Belmont up to Speers Point, including Valentine, Croudace Bay, Eleebana and Warners Bay. These suburbs are a little more expensive again, but we are determined not to sacrifice our quiet, leafy lifestyle we enjoy in Wagga. These suburbs are only 2 mins from the lake shores and 15 mins away from the nearest beach, so we are nicely positioned between huge salt water lake and beaches! The air up there is wonderful, it's not dry and dusty like Wagga. You can drink the moisture on the morning air and smell the freshness.

It rains a lot more up there, but the good thing about that is; no water restrictions and the place looks wonderfully GREEN!!

We had a very good open house on Saturday. 8 groups came through and 1 group came back for a second look yesterday (Thurs). I think fate stepped in because, we weren't due to return from Newcastle til Thurs, but came back on the Wednesday because we had basically achieved what we had set out to do. At 1pm on Thurs the Real Estate agent phoned to say that someone wanted a second look before Easter so, we cancelled all plans and got to work. There were still suitcases everywhere, washing piled up in the laundry etc etc (u know what it's like when u just get back from a week away) I have to say though that it wasnt all that bad. Rhiannan had stayed here by herself while the rest of us were up north and had kept the place looking good. We were very proud of her, it was the first time she had stayed at home by herself for a length of time. She kept the place looking good and baked biscuits and tarts for us all!

Speaking of Rhiannan, she has finished her traineeship and now is the proud recipient of a Cert III in Hospitality Operations.

Getting back to the people who came thru the house again......it is looking very promising, they love the place!! He has said to the agent that they dont have to sell their place (which is also on the market) to buy ours but, if they can sell first then that is the way they would like to do it. We are hoping for a 4-6 week settlement if things start to move.

We are so over all this crap!! It's really draining to have your life in limbo waiting waiting waiting, the constant anticipation that each day might see us finally move on.

It will be great to finally settle into our new place, put our feet up and pour that celebratory glass of wine and toast our new beginning.

Luv to all

Jordy

Friday 2 January 2009

RHIANNANS' BIRTHDAY TODAY



Happy 17th birthday darlin'

17 is not that old, but so much has happened in that time.

This photo taken when Raz was about 1 day old. Kasey is holding her
and big bro Lachlan looks on.

Catching up.

 Well it has been a couple of months since I posted a Blog article.   I don't have any Project or roll of film in particular to share wi...