6 posts tagged “moving”

I'm so flat out at work the last few days and I can tell I'm starting to panic about what I might be missing. I'm trying to keep up but it just isn't happening, and I'm worried that I'm not as good at this as I should be.

And for the first time in my life, I think I'm feeling competitive. A new lawyer starts in a few weeks, and I've heard that she is very capable and amazing and has been working for about the same period of time as me, and I'm feeling a bit like I need to compete. It is silly - I'm so looking forward to her coming on and lending us, particularly my supervisor, a hand - but I've been the only person at my level for so long and I've become used to sort of being the go-to-girl. I like feeling needed, and unfortunately most of my life revolves around my work so I rely upon being seen as good at my job for a lot of my self confidence and self worth. I know that isn't necessarily particularly healthy, but that is who I am. In fact that is who most of my family are; clearly work-aholism is something I can blame on genetics.

Anyway, I need to get back to the grindstone. 5.30pm and still miles to go before I sleep, unfortunately. Oh well! I knew it would be a bit like this. And I absolutely AM going to the pool tonight, no matter how tired I am. They're open til 8, so I just have to suck it up and leave work by 7.15pm. I'm probably going to have to be here on the weekend, and although generally that is horrifying, I think being alone in the office to get some things done might calm me down a bit. Soldiering on it is then.

Below are a few pics from the new house - they are boring and crappy quality because I took them on my phone; my damn camera is STILL in the shop and I just cannot get anyone from Canon to call me back! Mostly I am just incredibly proud of my ability to pack so much stuff into my car, particularly as I was breakage free!

So I'm in the new house! Huzzah!

Friday morning I packed up my car, said sayonara to the holiday house I'd been staying in and went to the real estate agents. Predictably, they made a fuss about my bringing in a bank cheque, but frankly there is NO WAY I was going to walk around G-town carrying $1500 in cash. Also, it was a bank cheque, so they knew they were getting the money, so what was the fuss about? Anyhoo... I got the keys (all 6 of them!) and trundled off in my car to the new place.

I unloaded the (very full and expertly packed) car and then proceeded to wait for the removalists with my stuff from storage, who were due in 20 minutes. 4 HOURS LATER they finally arrived. Admittedly, the delay wasn't really their fault, but it would have been nice if I'd been called. I could have gone and run errands instead of sitting in an empty house on the floor reading Cosmo (*shame*), calling half of my friends out of boredom, and dying of hunger as I had no food I could prepare without the stuff in my boxes.

Anyway, the stuff arrived eventually. Huzzah again! The house is stupidly empty - I have, like, NO furniture, but I do have my very own bed, which I love, and all my books and a functioning kitchen. The removalists damaged one of my bed side tables, which is a bit of a pain, but they were very old and crappy and this gives me an excuse to get new ones (if I can ever afford to buy furniture given my rent is $300 per week!). I have also purchased a brand, spanking new fridge. It was officially the cheapest one I could get, and given that most of the secondhand ones were going for $200 I figured it was worth it, because at least the new one comes with a warranty.

The only glitch in the moving process, apart from the incredible drain on my resources, is the fact that I have no hot water. I am a generally handy person, but for the love of God I cannot get the water heater going. The damn freakin pilot light just will not light. My options are as follows: (1) wait for my supervisor's darling and oh so helpful hubby to return from The City and beg him to try; (2) ask one of my neighbours, who I don't know, to give it a go; (3) shamefully call the real estate agent; or (5) never have hot water. I'm thinking option (1) is a go-er, but I will owe him big time, as he already lent me a temporary fridge.

Anyway, I took some random pics of the moving with my phone, and I'll upload them eventually. I want want want my digital camera to be back from the stupid camera fixers. They've had it for about 5-6 weeks now, and haven't called me once, despite my requests for some information about what is going on. Bastards, I say!

So anyway, today is Sunday and I'm at work. Mostly to use the internet, but partly to do a small amount of file reading. I generally make it a rule not to work on Sundays, so I will be here for an hour tops, but hey, I don't have a huge else to do. I may swing by the public library to check out whether they have wireless, and I think I will do the movie-alone-thing again tonight. (Saw Juno last week, which totally rocked my world.) 

This has generally been a pretty boring post. I should start blogging about other things now that I have conquered the hurdle of rental accomodation... next up, life drawing classes?

[As in, dumping a lot of disparate thoughts in the one post... thanks to the West Wing for the name.]

(1) It finally rained! After about 3 weeks of 38 - 40 degree heat (approx 100 farenheit), the humidity has broken and it is raining in The City. I'm so excited... partly because I wasn't able to get my air-con fixed for tomorrow's drive so if the humidity and heat hadn't subsided I would have been screwed, but mostly because summer storms are probably my favourite thing about summer. I love the fresh smell of newly-rained gardens, and the way the rain washes away all of the sweatiness. I love the way all of the dry, seemingly dead, native plants perk up and go green over night from soaking up all the yummy rainy goodness.  I even love the blackouts caused by rain hitting dust-covered power lines. I didn't love not being able to find an umbrella this morning, thanks to item (2), and so now I am sitting at work very damp. But apart from that, the weather today is truly joyous.

(2) I am almost done with packing. My room still looks a fright because there is stuff strewn everywhere, but I'm doing a mercy dash to my parents tonight with stuff that I will "come back for later", ie probably never remove from my old room ever, so that should ameliorate the situation. Also, no matter how effectively you pack (and this is my 5th time in 6 years) you always end up with one of those "random shit" boxes full of whatever was left behind after you neatly categorised, wrapped and packed everything else. Mine will probably be made up of dirty washing, bobby pins, and various electrical cords.

(3) I'm procrastinating at work today, even though the sooner I get my office packed the sooner I can go home and finish the house packing. Maybe I've just become habitual procrastinator. Maybe I'm just in denial. Who knows? I've decided I'm going to write a nice email to the members of The City office, because after all I've been working in this office for 18 months now and I've grown very fond of many of them. Not all, because then I wouldn't be me, but many. I certainly won't miss having to deal with Senor Grumpypants on a regular basis... at least not in person anyway.

(4) I'm out and about most of the next week - moving to G-town, working most of the weekend, and going on a work-related road trip to have a meeting with one of our groups and to collect affidavit evidence from members of another. I've made a concerted effort to blog at least once a day since I started this thing and it will be weird for me not to blog for a little while. Am I an addict already?

(5) I'm driving to G-town tomorrow. And still don't 100% know how to get there. I mean I think I remember from the last time I drove up (albeit as a passenger) but that was over a year ago now. I'm sure it is one road all the way, but I need to double check which one. I should probably get a map book.

Panic

So still no packing boxes, and what has me really worried is that I am realising that I have ordered about half as many packing boxes as I will need. I am soooo rooted! I was already packing a bunch of stuff into my car for Friday, but now I think I am going to have to leave a whole pile of stuff with my parents to be picked up in a few months. Grrr...

...said the crazy lady to her stuff. The move is officially organised for Friday. They will indeed come and pick up my stuff. Now hopefully I can convince them to come in the morning so that I can drive up to G-town before it gets too dark. Although my aircon isn't working, so maybe driving at midday at 38 degrees is not the most sensible thing to do. Waaaah... decisions decisions.

I've often thought about starting a blog, partly because my personality means that I tend to 'dump' and 'vent' to those around me and I thought that a blog may assist in relieving the burden this imposes on my nearest and dearest. It wasn't until recently, though, that I seriously entertained the possibility, and it wasn't until yesterday that I decided to take the plunge. Why? I'm moving. I'm leaving The City for a regional town, let's call it G-town, and I've realised that, in just two weeks, I will no longer be surrounded by loving people to listen, ad nauseum, to a running commentary of the frustrating, strange, wonderful, infuriating, bizarre things that are happening as a result of the move. 

The reasons for moving are largely professional - my organisation has a number of offices, and has been pushing me to move from The City to our G-town office for a while, partly because it is hard to get people to move to regional areas. There are definite advantages to being in the G-town office, however I had been resisting because of the potential for the move to be personally disastrous. And then, in the last few months of 2007, I was struck down with a serious case of life ennui, and decided that it was time to make a drastic change. I was in serious danger of getting permanently stuck in a rut, and had gotten a little too comfortable with my small little life. So being the nerd that I am, I did a pro/con list, had a chat to my parents, and made the decision to move.

I can't deny that I keep changing my mind about whether the decision was the right one or not. In many ways, I love my life in The City; I live in a great sharehouse in a great area, have fantastic friends, and a fabulous family. I already have tendencies towards being a hermit, and moving to a place where I know almost no-one could well exacerbate these. I'm currently up in G-town for the week looking for housing, and the terrible rental market is also making me very nervous about ending up living in a caravan park. I'm also realising what it is going to be like having the people I love at the end of the telephone, and not coming home every night to my housemates anymore. G-town doesn't seem to have many "young people" in it, and there don't seem to be many people who share my interests. It is a fairly insular sort of place, and I suspect it is going to take a lot of pushing on my part to find a social circle I'll like.

But part of the reason I decided to move was because it is time for me to be brave with my personal life - I never take personal risks if I can avoid them, and I live in fear of rejection. And there are great things about G-town - the beaches, the sun, the fact that basically everywhere in town is 15 minutes from everywhere else, and I've already found a cafe which will function as my slice of cosmopolitan city life. Plus, when it comes down to it, The City is only a 4.5 hour drive away. So fingers crossed!