7 Quick Takes Friday about a house, a job and lots of love

I procrastinate. Always have, probably always will. If something is important or if I want to do it well, I procrastinate. And I want to write, I want to document this phase of my life and I want to do it well. So: I procrastinate. Tonight, I decided enough is enough. Either I never write anything, or I just write at least some words or a picture when I think about posting on this blog (and I think about it almost daily!). So here goes!

— 1 —

About twenty years ago, I was playing in our garden and found a ring. It was a small,  gold ring and – as we had no idea how it got in the garden – it was mine to keep. I never wore it, but didn’t get rid of it either. Every now and then, little ten year old me would pick up the ring and marvel at the fact that I had real gold in my hands. Real gold! The ring moved houses with me several times and I almost forgot about it. This week, I heard on the radio that the price of gold is the highest in many years and I thought about the ring in the jewelry box. It hadn’t left the box in years and probably never would, so I decided to sell it to a jeweller. After twenty years, it’s now getting a new life and I got some nice cash. It’s not a huge amount, but I started calculating and realized it is about the same amount of money as the pocket-money I received as a kid in a whole year. Yep, a year! I wish I could go back in time and tell little me that I found a year’s worth of pocket-money!

— 2 —

After six months of marriage, I can say it’s awesome. Mr. fantastic is as fantastic as ever and I love being married. I could write a book about how wonderful married live is, but I’m not going to write about it here.
What I do want to write about, is that it was a surprise to me how easy, natural and good being married is. “Oh, but you’ve only been married for six months! Just wait!” Yes, yes, I know. But you know what? I don’t care. You see, I cared too much before getting married (and before meeting Mr. Fantastic). I read every book I could get my hands on, we went to several premarriage courses and I read blogs of newlyweds fervently. I knew all about the dangers and the big, dark troubles that “every” newlywed faces: getting used to each other, getting used to living together, cultural differences, different expectations, in-laws … Often, they would write that the first year is incredibly hard, so I prepared for the worst. At the same time, I just couldn’t believe it could be hard to be married to Mr. Fantastic.
And after six months, I can tell you it’s not hard. In fact, it’s one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. We can do everything together and it feels as if we’ve always been married.
Looking back, it was a waste of time and energy to worry about how things could be in the future. So I’m not going to care about what could go wrong in our relationship in the future. For now, we talk, we laugh, we make time for, care for and support each other and that’s enough.

— 3 —

Right before our wedding we had to get rid of our chickens, as they were too loud for the neighbours. The chicken coop stood deserted for months, but two weeks ago, we got two cute little Wyandotte chickens. They’re so nice and cuddly, but nowhere near as social as our other two hens. I would like to make them more social, but that would require me to be outside a lot and, well, it’s just too cold for that!

Our three new chickens, Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje. (Picture, names etc. courtesy of Mr; Fantastic.)

— 4 —

Our house is a nice 1930’s home. It’s perfectly located, but (as with all older houses) it needs a lot of work. We’re planning to do a little bit here and a little bit there, as we save money for each project. The first big project is the back door. It’s an old, unsafe door, with single glass and a 5 by 5 inch hole in the bottom part (yes, really). We’re getting a nice merbau door and windows and I’m really looking forward to it! The next big project is the foundation of our back kitchen. The concrete is starting to degrade, so we have to get that fixed before it becomes a real problem. As soon as there’s no more chance of freezing, they’ll start working on it. I wanted to take before and after pictures of everything in the house, but it already looks so different inside the house, that I can’t get proper before pictures. And as I’m a tad perfectionist: if I can’t get decent before pictures, it’s no use to make after pictures.

— 5 —

Since moving here this summer, I’ve been job hunting. I didn’t like it (so much stress!). There weren’t a lot of jobs I qualified for or liked and I didn’t have a lot of success applying. It was pretty frustrating to only see one interesting job every few weeks and then hear there were 300 other candidates for that job. So I decided to do it differently. I stopped job hunting and started my own company. I love it! I correct, edit and write. It’s wonderful to decide when to work or which jobs to take. It’s less wonderful to do the administration and to decide when to turn a job down. I’ll have to get used to that!

— 6 —

We’re having a busy birthday weekend. Princess, my god-daughter, turned five and she’s having a party. I’m especially looking forward to the awesome cuddles she gives.
Also, my little brother, Knight, turned nine last week. NINE. I still can’t believe it. We’re giving him the first Harry Potter book. He’s already seen the first few movies and claims  he doesn’t need to read the books anymore. Tss.

— 7 —

Speaking about Harry Potter, Mr. Fantastic (finally!) started reading the books. It all started with the death of Alan Rickman. I decided it was about time Mr. Fantastic saw all the movies. A week (and eight movies) later, he started reading the books. He’s halfway through book 5 and I’m wondering if I should start reading them again (for the umpteenth time). It’s a tough choice, as I’ve just discovered the library app and thousands of new books await me …

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