Monday, 24 February 2014
Sunday, 23 February 2014
So it begins, new chapter in our life!!!
Quite some time ago Marcus and I started
thinking about buying a home. We wanted to have more space, a garden for Misia to run and maybe little veggy garden for us. We were getting sick of living in the city in the apartment.
We started looking around to check out what areas of Melbourne we like. Where would we like to live and own a property. We were changing our mind's every weekend. We had mixed feeling, we were excited about the idea of having our own place as well as being depressed about how expensive Melbourne is and how upsetting that we can not afford to live where we want.
My dream of living next to the beach turned out to be unreachable and I had to accept it. We were looking everywhere in Melbourne. We were considering all options from existing suborbs to newly establishing one. We were also thinking about buying a little terrace house as close to the city centre as possible.
The more we were looking around the more we were convinced that none of these options are really what we want.
We wanted a nice, modern, well built house in a nice area. We didn’t want to be surrounded by buildings anymore, we wanted to have a little bit of wildlife around us. Simply we wanted a pleasant place to come back to after a busy day at work.
My dream was always to have fireplace, garden and maybe a swimming pool. Having a swimming pool was always more a dream rather than anything else, I never thought that I would actually have a house with a swimming pool.
But back to my story about the house … the more we were looking for a house in Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs the more we realised that all these places don't have what we are looking for. Eventually we started considering Sunbury. I have to admit the fact that we have Marcus’s family there was and always is big advantage, not to mention that we probably wouldn’t even know about Sunbury if not for them. Yes, it is far away but actually not as far as I thought at first.
And so we started looking at houses in Sunbury.
The first house which we saw in Sunbury was “the red house” as I keep calling it. The house has got red doors, so I called it "the red house". When we saw this house we both fall in love with it. It wasn’t perfect but pretty damn close to being perfect. However we weren’t ready to buy a house then, not to mention that it was the first house which we saw in Sunbury. We thought to ourselves "Who is buying the first house which they have seen?" We kept looking at more and more houses and to our great disappointment we never saw anything even half as nice as "the red house". In the mean time somebody put a offer in for “the red house”. No wonder it is a really nice place. We started considering building our own place. We even managed to find some land and we started contacting building companies just to find out that building a house is huge, expensive commitment, hassle and it will cost us much more that we could afford. One afternoon Marcus called me to say “you wont believe what happened, I will tell you everything at home, just wait”. He came home and said that people who put the offer in for “the red house” didn’t get it, their finance didn’t go though. I was so surprised but the same time I always had the feeling that “the red house” was not gone from us yet and here you go it was on the market again. We went to see the house again and after a few discussions with estate agent we decided to put in a offer.
Everything happened so quick and we have so many different thoughts in our minds, from excitement to the fear. Buying a house and moving to the suburbs is a life changing decision, our life style will change dramatically, that is for sure however no matter how scary it is, it does feel right.
We are still waiting to find out what our settlement date is.
Everyday when I am coming back home from work I think to myself "I will deeply miss Docklands, our apartment and our life style".
I have these thoughts that maybe we rushed with the decision to buy a house, maybe we are not ready, maybe we should stay a few more years in Docklands.
However on the other hand I think, stay longer in Docklands?! How much longer? And what for? We do miss having our own space, garden where we can sit in the nice warm weather. A place which we can do our in own way, if we want to paint a wall we don’t have to ask for permission.
Changes are scary but good.
We started looking around to check out what areas of Melbourne we like. Where would we like to live and own a property. We were changing our mind's every weekend. We had mixed feeling, we were excited about the idea of having our own place as well as being depressed about how expensive Melbourne is and how upsetting that we can not afford to live where we want.
My dream of living next to the beach turned out to be unreachable and I had to accept it. We were looking everywhere in Melbourne. We were considering all options from existing suborbs to newly establishing one. We were also thinking about buying a little terrace house as close to the city centre as possible.
The more we were looking around the more we were convinced that none of these options are really what we want.
We wanted a nice, modern, well built house in a nice area. We didn’t want to be surrounded by buildings anymore, we wanted to have a little bit of wildlife around us. Simply we wanted a pleasant place to come back to after a busy day at work.
My dream was always to have fireplace, garden and maybe a swimming pool. Having a swimming pool was always more a dream rather than anything else, I never thought that I would actually have a house with a swimming pool.
But back to my story about the house … the more we were looking for a house in Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs the more we realised that all these places don't have what we are looking for. Eventually we started considering Sunbury. I have to admit the fact that we have Marcus’s family there was and always is big advantage, not to mention that we probably wouldn’t even know about Sunbury if not for them. Yes, it is far away but actually not as far as I thought at first.
And so we started looking at houses in Sunbury.
The first house which we saw in Sunbury was “the red house” as I keep calling it. The house has got red doors, so I called it "the red house". When we saw this house we both fall in love with it. It wasn’t perfect but pretty damn close to being perfect. However we weren’t ready to buy a house then, not to mention that it was the first house which we saw in Sunbury. We thought to ourselves "Who is buying the first house which they have seen?" We kept looking at more and more houses and to our great disappointment we never saw anything even half as nice as "the red house". In the mean time somebody put a offer in for “the red house”. No wonder it is a really nice place. We started considering building our own place. We even managed to find some land and we started contacting building companies just to find out that building a house is huge, expensive commitment, hassle and it will cost us much more that we could afford. One afternoon Marcus called me to say “you wont believe what happened, I will tell you everything at home, just wait”. He came home and said that people who put the offer in for “the red house” didn’t get it, their finance didn’t go though. I was so surprised but the same time I always had the feeling that “the red house” was not gone from us yet and here you go it was on the market again. We went to see the house again and after a few discussions with estate agent we decided to put in a offer.
Everything happened so quick and we have so many different thoughts in our minds, from excitement to the fear. Buying a house and moving to the suburbs is a life changing decision, our life style will change dramatically, that is for sure however no matter how scary it is, it does feel right.
We are still waiting to find out what our settlement date is.
Everyday when I am coming back home from work I think to myself "I will deeply miss Docklands, our apartment and our life style".
I have these thoughts that maybe we rushed with the decision to buy a house, maybe we are not ready, maybe we should stay a few more years in Docklands.
However on the other hand I think, stay longer in Docklands?! How much longer? And what for? We do miss having our own space, garden where we can sit in the nice warm weather. A place which we can do our in own way, if we want to paint a wall we don’t have to ask for permission.
Changes are scary but good.
This picture was taken in the winery in Sunbury. We went there for our Sunday explore to find out more about Sunbury by then we weren't convinced yet if we want to move to Sunbury.
Picture of the brochure for our new home :)
Random picture taken in Sunbury.
SOLD to us :) that's right TO US !!!
Friday, 21 February 2014
Myszka on the road Woohoo :)
This post I am dedicating to the best
driving teacher in the universe - Wayne Logan. Before I had my first driving
lesson with Wayne, Marcus told me, “If Wayne can not teach you how to drive,
nobody can” and I could not agree more.
The first few lessons I was terrifed while driving. I was so scared, it is impossible to describe, not to mention that I had no idea how a car works what so ever. It is not enough that Wayne has got an amazing knowledge about cars but he can also explain it in such a clear and understandable way. I quite quickly realized that cars is not magic and everything is possible to learn, understand and control. We tried to have two lessons a day over the Christmas break.
I was so proud of myself, especially when I managed not to panic or stall the car. Wayne was so patient with me, he never lost his temper or showed me that he was scared to be in the car with me. I felt so comfortable, safe and well... almost relaxed in the car.
For most of you its probably hard to understand why learning how to drive is such a big deal to me and more to the point why at my age I still don’t have a driving licence. For these or other reasons I simply had uncontrollable fear of driving. In Melbourne I realized that I have to learn how to drive. I thought I would give it a go but in the back of my mind I thought that if it doesn’t work and I will not be able to drive I simply have to live without a driving license, no matter how difficult it will be.
The first few lessons I was terrifed while driving. I was so scared, it is impossible to describe, not to mention that I had no idea how a car works what so ever. It is not enough that Wayne has got an amazing knowledge about cars but he can also explain it in such a clear and understandable way. I quite quickly realized that cars is not magic and everything is possible to learn, understand and control. We tried to have two lessons a day over the Christmas break.
I was so proud of myself, especially when I managed not to panic or stall the car. Wayne was so patient with me, he never lost his temper or showed me that he was scared to be in the car with me. I felt so comfortable, safe and well... almost relaxed in the car.
For most of you its probably hard to understand why learning how to drive is such a big deal to me and more to the point why at my age I still don’t have a driving licence. For these or other reasons I simply had uncontrollable fear of driving. In Melbourne I realized that I have to learn how to drive. I thought I would give it a go but in the back of my mind I thought that if it doesn’t work and I will not be able to drive I simply have to live without a driving license, no matter how difficult it will be.
Wayne Logan
After a quite few driving lessons, I think
it was our last lesson when I managed to drive home, on a very quiet road in
Docklands. There were a few traffic lights but nothing to crazy or busy. I was
so happy, excited and proud of myself.
Now since Wayne is gone Marcus took over the lessons. It was very difficult to get used to a new person in the car but I have done it and today I was driving from the port of Melbourne to Docklands. I was
on a very busy road (well it felt very busy to me). I had everything under
control, I wasn’t panicking, I was simply driving. I stalled once but started again and moved on, and again I was very proud of myself.
I have wanted to
drive for so many years, I envied other people who could drive but I was never brave enough to learn driving myself.
While I am doing
my driving lessons I have this incredible feeling that I am in control of my
life. I always wanted to drive and I decided to learn it.
It takes so much
time, so much energy and I am tired physically and emotionally but I am driving. Still not
very well but I am getting there. I know that there is long way before I
actually become a good, confident driver but I know that I am on a good way to achieve
it.
While I am driving I feel so independent, I feel I am improving myself,
achieving my goals, getting better with something, moving forward.
You could
think “ahh its just driving” but to me its creating new Sylwia. I don’t want to
sound to confident, don’t think I was perfect on the road, I
wasn’t unfortunately, as much as I would like to be. Even some young (STUPID boy)
tooted his horns at me because I wasn’t quick enough. Wrrrrr how stupid and inconsiderate some people can be. He saw letter L on my car, its obvious
that I am learning. Anyway I promise myself that I will be doing my best and
will try ignoring people like him.
One more update to this post. I am writing this update a few days later.
I had another incredible driving lesson. I drove this time from Docklands to Williamstown by myself and nobody toot at me J I had more patient drivers around me this time. Its so good to be able to practice finally on the road. Driving is more stressful but seems to be more … real. I still have lots to practice, like parking, parallel parking, reversing, hand break starts and changing lanes on the motorway. I have to learn much, much more about road rules. This is the things that I am aware I still don’t know and I am sure there is much more things that I don’t know.
And here I am driving for the first time on the motorway to Sunbury woohoo.
Don't ask me why I am so serious. You can imagine why, I was driving 110 km per hour.
I was driving like Speedy Gonzales :)
Saturday, 15 February 2014
Friday, 14 February 2014
Christmas & NYE 2013/2014
It was a special Christmas with so much joy and happy times.
Our first Christmas Tree.
When we were buying it I got a little bit emotional as a Christmas Tree is for me the symbol of family.
When we were looking for a Perfect Christmas Tree I thought to myself "this is my family, I am creating my family now" :)
Wendy and Wayne came to Melbourne for Christmas.
I got from Wayne these huge black pearls which he bought in Tahiti when he was there on his sailing trip.
His friend Anna Nalder - jewellery maker, made the most amazing earrings for me.
I totally LOVE them.
Big thank you Wayne :)
Misia and her Christmas outfit and more and more pics of the Christmas Tree :)
Marcus being silly again.
It was our first Christmas in Melbourne with Marcus’s parents.
We had Wigilia together, Marcus and Wendy helped me to prepare pierogi and uszka and to
my lovely Polish friends, are you proud of me for keeping up the Polish tradition?!
All this Christmas preparation it was a little bit exhausting for Misia :)
A little snack for Misia while waiting for Wigilia :)
A little dance while others are working hard!!! :)
We even had oplatek and we were listening to Polish carols.
PRESENTS !!!
I love this picture :)
What is it here on my finger?! Is it ring?! ha ha :)
Because you know what?!
I AM ENGAGED!!!
Barszcz i uszka :) !!!
Wigilia. Time to start :)
We opened presents, lots and lots of presents.
Xmas day we spent at Chris's and Emily's house.
It was their first Christmas in their new home.
I did Wendy's makeup as you can see.
Ehhhh sometime I really think I am wasting my talent and I should change my profession :)
O'Brian's Crossing - my favourite place ever :) !!!
Even Wayne couldn't resist from spoiling Misia :)
On New Years Eve Wendy announced her award. She was awarded a Queens Service Medal for her work with Early Childhood Education. Wayne made an amazing speech. Awww happy times.
Sharyn made Wendy and myself the most amazing birthday cake ever.
New years eve was fun with lots of people in our apartment. It was our last chance to see fireworks in Dockland from our apartment. But of course we didn’t know that yet.
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