Grown-up stuff

Azreal and I had a very adult conversation on the weekend. It involved mortgages, marriage and *gulp* children.

It of course started with the fact that we’d been looking at properties in the area and the fact that perhaps we could really only afford a townhouse in our suburb. This wasn’t ideal as we had plans of one day having a family and you couldn’t raise a family in a three bedroom townhouse with no backyard, with a building that was potentially joined onto that of our neighbours. Or at least that wasn’t the way we wanted to do it. Azreal also felt that he didn’t want to buy a place that we’d only have to sell in a few years’ time once we’d outgrown it.

And that brought us to the question: when do we want to have kids? Now I’m 24 (soon to be 25) but Azreal is 28 (turning 29). I’d always thought I’d probably start to try having kids around 28, maybe fall pregnant around 29-30…however that’s three years away. Recently I’d thought, “kids…that’s five years away!” and that’s what I blurted out. I wasn’t exactly expecting the look on Azreal’s face. He replied, “well I’d always thought I’d start having kids around 30. And that’s only next year.”

Sooo..maybe I should have thought before I opened my mouth. But he admitted that 1-2 years away was sooner than we were ready for. But we both realised that we had to start thinking about our plans for kids, and that our age difference which had never presented a problem before was going to have to be something that needed to be negotiated. Obviously being the woman my time was a lot more restricted when it came to having kids. But I have epilepsy so we have to be 100% ready to have kids in terms of medications that I’m on and all sorts of vitamins in my system (since our conversation I’ve been popping folate at the maximum dose – although I’ve been taking the recommended dose for a while now). So perhaps it will be somewhere around the age of 27-28 that we start trying. Damn, that’s only two years away.

And of course, I stated that if we were going to have kids then I wanted to be married. He agreed but looked a bit concerned about this. I know the thought of marriage scares him. I don’t know if it’s marriage itself, or the stress and cost of the wedding. He worries about my very traditional, religious mother and how much she would push for us to do it the church way. I worry about that too! I also worry about all the things you have to do because it’s expected of you. I have thought about weddings a lot lately, with so many people around me having been married or engaged lately, and I think that eloping would be a much better way to go – mind you I think of all the people who would be so disappointed (but isn’t that the point of eloping…escaping the expectations of people?). I hated having to tell Azreal that I wanted to get married. I think every girl wants her boyfriend to pop the question out of the blue but I have realised that Azreal is a practical guy and will only do what is necessary.

Now if we’re going to be thinking ahead and having two kids, we need a house to accommodate us. So that means something like a four bedroom house. We can’t afford one of those in our suburb. We agreed we’d like to have a house before we started having kids (ideally). So we started thinking of places to live. One of those communities with parks and schools and bike paths already in place sounded great, where the people are there for a common interest – like Northlakes or Woodlands – we know a few people who live there and love it. The houses are practically brand new and quite cheap. I can’t drive because of my epilepsy so it needs to be near public transport and we talked about Azreal being the stay at home dad while I stayed at work to be the breadwinner (so he can drive the kids to school, soccer practice, doctor’s appointments). Being the main income earner I’d have to have a substantial income so maybe I should look at getting another job that earns more – perhaps closer to home as transport is an issue in the estates (they tend to be a long way out of town). Now all of a sudden I’m a working mother with two kids, the main income earner and I’m trying to find a new job close to home in the middle of nowhere.

Do you see where I’m going? I spent the next day, well, freaking. My next five years have been mapped out for me and by 30 I’m going to be married with two kids, paying off a mortgage in a house somewhere that’s cut off from the rest of the world, I have to find a job that I can catch public transport to that pays more than I earn here yet I need to come home happy every day because I’m playing happy family (and don’t forget it needs to give me maternity leave).

Now don’t get me wrong. I know Azreal loves me. In fact lately he’s been really affectionate and caring. But I’m enjoying things at the moment. I want to get married and enjoy things. And then have a baby and enjoy things. It’s good to plan, but it’s just scary to lump it all together. I really should grow up – I’m 24. I’m certainly capable of being an adult. By 26 my mother had 3 kids and my parents were running my Dad’s electrical business. It’s just a lot to process.

House Hunting

I've just started browsing the real estate websites in our suburb for houses/townhouses to look at whether we're ready to buy in the near future and things are still pretty expensive (or anything we could possibly afford is pretty crappy) but apparently prices are starting to drop because people are having to lower their prices due to people being able to afford less. Interest rates!! Of course, if people would stop living on credit so much then our economy might be very different...

We'd been dreaming of buying a house in our suburb but it looks like we might only be able to afford a townhouse for now. At least it's a foot in the door, and it's in the suburb we want - better than living somewhere we don't want to live. I’m not really earning all that much at the moment and have only just started saving this year after our trip to Europe last year so I don’t have a lot to contribute to a mortgage. Azreal earns more than twice as much as I do. He owns a townhouse in our suburb and a house out of town as investment properties but at this point in time has no intention of getting rid of these as they are part of his investment strategy. His plan is that if we were to buy a place, it would be on top of these. Of course if it really came down to it he might sell one in order to pay for our place.

We’ve looked at apartments in the city and just over the river, but would rather live in a more house-type place than in a box. And really our townhouse is perfect because it is a separate townhouse (ie. It’s not joined to anything else) so it’s like living in a house, but it’s small enough to not be so high maintenance as a house – and of course more affordable than a house in our suburb.

Our landlord got our place valuated last week so we're wondering if it meant they are considering selling due to the increasing interest rates, or simply reassessing how much rent they will be charging us! Either way, it has made us think about how long we will be living here.

Gadgets and Toys

I want the Asus Eee PC. I’ve been wanting a notebook for sometime now, but have never been able to justify the expense for just wanting a portable computer for messing around with while I’m lazing around the house. And there are the tradeoffs you have to make when buying a notebook (ie. performance) that made me either want an XPS (ie. such a massive, powerful laptop it might as well be a desktop PC), or realise I’m better off with my desktop anyway.

But this little notebook is perfect. It’s got some basic apps for a little bit of working – word processing, spreadsheet and of course emailing – plus the usual things you want in a computer – web surfing, music/media player and an in-built web cam for a bit of Skype action. Oh and did I mention the wifi? Hello wireless home. There have been some not so great reviews, but this thing isn’t supposed to be a workhorse. I can imagine plugging it in at night to charge next to my mobile phone, PSP and DS after using it for some light entertainment or taking it travelling. I’ve never used a Linux system before either, but I’m pretty curious about it. Millions of people can’t be wrong huh?

On another note, we may be getting a Wii afterall. After a disappointing few months of deciding to put our money together and buy a Wii for Christmas, Azreal and I have been unable to get one thanks to the complete lack of stock throughout Australia since mid December. Andrew’s brother has had once since they came out in 2006, and rarely uses it so mentioned he might sell it while he can get a good price. Sounds like a deal! Wii console plus four controllers, Wii Sports, Wii Play and Zelda – hardly used. All to a good home. It would probably be him (and others) that we’d invite around to play with us anyway.

Gee we live in a materialistic society, don’t we?

Saying Sorry

There’s a lot of opinion out there on on our Government’s apology to the Stolen Generation.

I think it was a well-worded speech (albeit politically correct and careful not to lead to controversy or avoid any potential lawsuits – but we will see what will be the result), and it absolutely needed to be done. The stolen generation is a very dark chapter in our nation’s history that I was horrified to learn of when I was young, particularly having grown up in Cairns and having many Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander friends and neighbours.

Of course most people see the apology as the action being the most symbolic thing, as the past cannot be undone. We can fix things so that it can’t happen again, and we can acknowledge that it was wrong, but we can’t undo it. I believe, it all boils down to one simple thing: Australia had to say sorry.

Game night

It’s game night tonight. I love playing Battlefield 2 with the clan, even if I feel like the weakest player in the squad. I’m the newest player of the clan and some of the guys have played together before but I’m definitely getting better. It’s also a matter of the clan being newly formed as well, so we’re learning to work together. I need to practice more but I have to admit that I find it hard to do after spending all week sitting at a computer (and most of that time, highly stressed). I’m still only part of the way through the COD4 single player story.

It’s funny, I spend most of my free time thinking about games, reading up on them, talking about them and yet when I actually get some free time I usually resign myself to playing Lumines or Medal of Honour on my PSP because sitting at the computer after work or on the weekend just reminds me of work. Mind you it would help if the computer room wasn’t so damn hot in summer and if I could get near Azreal’s mega computer (“Spartan” as he has named it) to play COD4 as it won’t run on my slow thing (Ronin). And of course there is cricket to be watched on the weekend…

I must apply myself if I am to be a true she-geek!