Crumpled Home

(arriving home after going to the shops)

RJ: Whoah. Where is everyone?

Dad: No idea. I guess they aren’t back yet.

RJ: No. That can’t be right. They WERE back and then something went wrong…

RJ: … It was a fire! A huge fire! Smoke EVERYWHERE, filling the house! The alarms went off, and they ran outside!

RJ: … BUT THEY FORGOT THEIR PHONES! They must be driving, on the way to the fire station to let them know!

Dad: That must be it… And meanwhile, here we are, standing in a blazing building as the walls crumble down around us.

RJ: I know… It’s…. Terrible…

LR happily went on her way to Year 3 school camp yesterday. While many kids required their parents to go, and other children permitted theirs, LR absolutely refused to consider either her mum or dad coming along. It just wasn’t going to happen.

We’re not particularly surprised. After all, she did the same last year and the year before. I suspect we’ve only got a few months before she moves out into her own apartment.

LR enjoys a quiet moment after checking that everything is packed and ready to go (twice).

On Sunday, we took our last trip to the old house (before ownership transferred to the new owners on Monday). We wandered around, admired the veggie patch (now overflowing with food ready to eat), and gave the kids’ trees a farewell climb. We were all sad to go.

In 2005, when they resurfaced the street and redid the curbs, we took the chance to leave our mark!

RJ says goodbye to his tree.

LR and RJ have one last climb as they say goodbye to LR's tree.

Mum reaches to switch off the lights for the last time. Goodbye house!

Near the kids play room,
There was a frog pond,
And a swingset too,
And a piano,
That had never, ever been tuned.

And there were three gum trees,
For climbing and feeding bees,

And two veggie patches,
And a pool that splashes,

And rooms full of light,
And no palms in sight,

And a study with a desk, always covered in mess,
And a street full of neighbours who were the absolute best.

Goodnight house.

The day has finally arrived for us to move out. So many things have been packed away that day-to-day living involves battling our way through a cubic cardboard jungle. Things like eating breakfast and dinner, having baths, and building giant robots have become pretty much impossible. We’re spending the night at Grammy’s house, then we move out tomorrow!

Our world is filled with boxes, boxes and more boxes.

Last bath at the old house!

We had breakfast in throw-away, plastic bowls. All the real dishes were already packed!

Goodbye old house!

Sorry to everyone for falling behind on the updates! It’s been a bit of a perfect storm with moving, cleaning and selling our old house, RJ’s birthday party, and the actual perfect storm that rolled through last week and destroyed the city.

The good news is that the house has sold, which is a huge relief. Mad props to Mum who has spent day and night cleaning, tidying, scrubbing, gardening, dusting, disinfecting, digging, planting, licking, painting, herding, preening, fluffing, tending, washing and generally preparing the house for the hordes of potential buyers that we expected to come through. In typical was-it-all-really-worth-it-I-can’t-believe-we-just-wasted-two-weeks style, the house sold on the first day it was shown, to one of the first four couples who came to see it.

This is incredibly annoying. It’s as if we had prepared an amazing five-course meal, selected the perfect wines to go with it and they’ve wandered in, picked at the salad and left. They didn’t even see it during the daytime! I feel like we need to call them up and point out all the fantastic stuff that we’ve done to the place in the past month. After all, if we’re not going to be able to enjoy it, I want to make damn sure that someone out there appreciates it.

And yet, after all that, we are incredibly relieved and thankful to these wonderful people who have, with a few simple scribbles with their pen, saved us from the horrible world of stress, endless negotiation and financial anxiety associated with not being able to sell.

Thank you mystery people. We’re glad you like our house. We’re going to miss it a lot.

P.S. You had better be nice to our neighbours.

We made an offer on a house… The owners accepted… Settlement is in 40 days… PANIC!

In the meantime, here it is. Purdy lil’ thang, aint it!

Hmmm... Those rose bushes may have to go...

The kids love the look of it even more than we do. They’ve decided to call it, “The Cow House.”

Is it time to moooove in yet?

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas to everyone from all of us!

(LR had an emergency services officer visit her school yesterday)

LR: I know when to call the emergency number.

Dad: Oh yeah? How about a test?

LR: Okay!

Dad: If someone gets hit by a car?

LR: Call them!

Dad: If we can’t find your bike helmet?

LR: Don’t call them!

Dad: If there’s a tree falling on the house?

LR: Call them!

Dad: If the house is on fire?

LR: Call them!

Dad: If there’s a cat stuck in the tree?

LR: Don’t call them…

Unless the tree is falling on the house!

(Dad & LR adding location ‘Pins’ in Google Earth)

Dad: Okay, so here’s our house. I’ll add a marker here.

LR: Good. Now make it green.

Dad: Goodbye yellow marker!

LR: Great. But I think we have to go out front and check the front garden.

Dad: Huh? What for?

LR: Because there’s a giant green pin out there.
I hope we didn’t hit the swing set.