My Life Update
I haven't written a blog post for a while. I've been preoccupied with posting stories on the Mighty, Unwritten, and most of all - editing and uploading videos for my youtube channel. If you're wondering where I am, what I'm doing... now is the time I tell you.
Rhi got a job with fisheries, and we moved to the mountains together. I haven't found a job yet. I've been looking for work for a while, yet living in the country isn't the best for job opportunities. Rhi was very lucky to land her job right after finishing our honours projects. That meant that we could search for a new house and move right when our lease was ending in Warrnambool, which was perfect timing. We didn't have to go back to our parents houses or anything, we just packed up and moved to the next place!
It feels as though our lives together have officially started, in terms of actually supporting ourselves and being independent. No more centrelink, no more studying. We are in charge of our lives now. Rhi makes enough to support the both of us, luckily, but I'm still looking for work. When we have two incomes we will probably be able to buy our first home. I don't feel bad about depending on Rhi for income, as we talked about it before. We had planned that if one of us found a job, the other would move there too and look for work there... even if it took a while. It's the sacrifice that we were both willing to make for the sake of living and being together. In terms of financial support, I did have a fair amount of money saved up after finishing my honours project. I saved this money specifically for our unknown future together. This came in handy when Rhi got a job, because before she started earning money, we had to rely on my savings to move, pay the first month of rent and the bond, and for any furniture we still had to get. We needed a new mattress, for example, so we were able to get one. We also needed a new lounge suite, so we were able to get that, too. We got rid of a lot of our old furniture before we moved. I was happy to pay for all this to support Rhi and her new found career. She now takes care of me, and I take care of the house.
We live on a large property in the mountains. Rent is $350 a week, and goes a lot further than anything you could get in Warrnambool for that price. Rent is much cheaper in the country. We have a 3 bedroom house, our first walk-in-wardrobe, 2 carports and a single garage. Oh! We finally have a bath, too! There is also a lovely deck/verandah area that overlooks the mountains. We have amazing views. I accept that we won't be here forever, as it's a rental property, but I'm enjoying it while we can. Until I find a job, we will probably be here for a while (as long as the place is still available!) To put it in perspective, the house next door to us is a holiday rental. The area is amazing. But it comes with a high bushfire risk. There's always a catch! I'm lucky enough to feed wild King Parrots every day. They're so friendly! We have so many birds. You can check out my youtube channel to see that! There's a house tour video, too, so you can check that out.
This might seem all well and good, like we've got our lives together and everything's perfect... But nothing is perfect. We've just prepared our fire-boxes for the bushfire season. The Black Saturday fires that came through the area in 2009 just missed our house! If there is a Code Red, we will leave early. We can only hope nothing like that happens. We won't be able to stay to defend this house. We've just recently got contents insurance through AAMI (highly recommend!) - but we don't need house insurance as we are tenants. If this house burns down, that automatically terminates the lease.
There are many pros and cons about country living, and maybe I'll make a video about it in the future. But I wouldn't change a thing. I'm so much happier here, it's so lovely. I love being away from the crowds of people and traffic. I love mowing the lawns on my ride-on mower and being able to sit outside on the deck, admiring the amazing mountain views with King Parrots sitting on my head. We may have got lucky, but we both worked very hard for a long time for this. We've both been through a lot. This place is our good karma.
As a side note, I recently changed the web address for my blog. The new address now matches my youtube channel name... but the real reason for the change was to stop the wrong people from accessing my blog. I only want people to be reading my blog if they genuinely care about me, or what I have to say. I don't want people to be reading my blog for the wrong reasons, as I don't need any negativity in my life. This is also why I haven't written any blog posts for a while. My blog is a place where I can write freely. It's like my public diary, where I write about my life and things that happen - whether or not they are good or bad. I'm not trying to pretend that my life is perfect, and I know that the right people will understand that. I want to share my experiences with people who are genuinely interested in them. My new blog address is displayed publicly on my Mighty profile. If you're here because of that, thank you for taking the time to read my stories and to support me. I like to share my knowledge and experiences with others in the hopes that it will help someone, even if it's just one person. Sometimes it helps to relate to someone... especially when you feel like you can't relate to anyone anymore.
Rhi got a job with fisheries, and we moved to the mountains together. I haven't found a job yet. I've been looking for work for a while, yet living in the country isn't the best for job opportunities. Rhi was very lucky to land her job right after finishing our honours projects. That meant that we could search for a new house and move right when our lease was ending in Warrnambool, which was perfect timing. We didn't have to go back to our parents houses or anything, we just packed up and moved to the next place!
It feels as though our lives together have officially started, in terms of actually supporting ourselves and being independent. No more centrelink, no more studying. We are in charge of our lives now. Rhi makes enough to support the both of us, luckily, but I'm still looking for work. When we have two incomes we will probably be able to buy our first home. I don't feel bad about depending on Rhi for income, as we talked about it before. We had planned that if one of us found a job, the other would move there too and look for work there... even if it took a while. It's the sacrifice that we were both willing to make for the sake of living and being together. In terms of financial support, I did have a fair amount of money saved up after finishing my honours project. I saved this money specifically for our unknown future together. This came in handy when Rhi got a job, because before she started earning money, we had to rely on my savings to move, pay the first month of rent and the bond, and for any furniture we still had to get. We needed a new mattress, for example, so we were able to get one. We also needed a new lounge suite, so we were able to get that, too. We got rid of a lot of our old furniture before we moved. I was happy to pay for all this to support Rhi and her new found career. She now takes care of me, and I take care of the house.
We live on a large property in the mountains. Rent is $350 a week, and goes a lot further than anything you could get in Warrnambool for that price. Rent is much cheaper in the country. We have a 3 bedroom house, our first walk-in-wardrobe, 2 carports and a single garage. Oh! We finally have a bath, too! There is also a lovely deck/verandah area that overlooks the mountains. We have amazing views. I accept that we won't be here forever, as it's a rental property, but I'm enjoying it while we can. Until I find a job, we will probably be here for a while (as long as the place is still available!) To put it in perspective, the house next door to us is a holiday rental. The area is amazing. But it comes with a high bushfire risk. There's always a catch! I'm lucky enough to feed wild King Parrots every day. They're so friendly! We have so many birds. You can check out my youtube channel to see that! There's a house tour video, too, so you can check that out.
This might seem all well and good, like we've got our lives together and everything's perfect... But nothing is perfect. We've just prepared our fire-boxes for the bushfire season. The Black Saturday fires that came through the area in 2009 just missed our house! If there is a Code Red, we will leave early. We can only hope nothing like that happens. We won't be able to stay to defend this house. We've just recently got contents insurance through AAMI (highly recommend!) - but we don't need house insurance as we are tenants. If this house burns down, that automatically terminates the lease.
There are many pros and cons about country living, and maybe I'll make a video about it in the future. But I wouldn't change a thing. I'm so much happier here, it's so lovely. I love being away from the crowds of people and traffic. I love mowing the lawns on my ride-on mower and being able to sit outside on the deck, admiring the amazing mountain views with King Parrots sitting on my head. We may have got lucky, but we both worked very hard for a long time for this. We've both been through a lot. This place is our good karma.
As a side note, I recently changed the web address for my blog. The new address now matches my youtube channel name... but the real reason for the change was to stop the wrong people from accessing my blog. I only want people to be reading my blog if they genuinely care about me, or what I have to say. I don't want people to be reading my blog for the wrong reasons, as I don't need any negativity in my life. This is also why I haven't written any blog posts for a while. My blog is a place where I can write freely. It's like my public diary, where I write about my life and things that happen - whether or not they are good or bad. I'm not trying to pretend that my life is perfect, and I know that the right people will understand that. I want to share my experiences with people who are genuinely interested in them. My new blog address is displayed publicly on my Mighty profile. If you're here because of that, thank you for taking the time to read my stories and to support me. I like to share my knowledge and experiences with others in the hopes that it will help someone, even if it's just one person. Sometimes it helps to relate to someone... especially when you feel like you can't relate to anyone anymore.
