Happy Anniversary House!

This week is the first anniversay of moving into our house. It seems to have gone so fast, but at the same time, I feel like we've lived here forever.
Often Cam and I get overwhelmed with how much we have to do to the house and around the house, but thinking about all we have done in only ONE YEAR puts things into perspective. We have achieved a lot over the past year, if this rate continues we'll have no problems whipping our 17 acres into shape.
Here is a summary of year one:

• Settlement occured on June 6th, and we had a moving in working bee with mum, dad and some of Cam's friends doing the heavy lifting.
• We bought a shiny new fridge to celebrate. It is an upside fridge which opens to the left and I love it a lot.
• We bought a water tank, which filled (and overflowed) quite quickly. So far we've had no problems with running low on water, which is nice not to have to worry about
• We bought a quad bike to play with! We do have plans to buy a rake to attach to the back so we can use it to clear up undergrowth, but have had trouble finding one, so for the moment, the bike is purely for fun!
• We built a chook house. The open fronted shed was already there, but we fixed a door to the front and fenced in a yard for the chooks, who then met utimely deaths. At the moment we have peacocks living in the shed, and every day they brighten my life by being so beautiful.
• We built a pig pen and bought a pig! Hamilton is so funny and really quite sweet, just on the weekend I was potting plants and he just came and rested his head on my shoe and then nuzzled me like a cat. He loves scratches and will just slowly relax, then fall to the ground in a heap.
• We had trees removed to make a backyard area. This is still a work in progress, we've had the trees removed, now we just need to somehow turn the wasteland of woodchips and weeds into a grassy knoll
• We've bought a chainsaw and have been cutting our own wood and clearing some land. Again, a work in progress in progress, possibly we'll never be finished this job
• We built a fence. Yay! Now we have a proper backyard for pigs, dogs, and kids eventually. It means we'll be able to think about a garden and start making a nice place for ourselves.
• We've built a path. It was one of our earliest projects and I love our rustic, slightly uneven path. I've learnt not to run along it in the dark because it is uneven. Nut with good high steps, I've not tripped and broken anything yet.
• We got engaged and are planning a wedding! House plans and improvements have subsequently come to a bit of a halt as we save up for our wedding

So we've done a lot of things and we've got a lot we want to do. So far most things we have done have all been outside things. We've got lots of plans for inside, I can't wait to get started on things next year after the wedding is not taking up every spare moment of time.

We have had a really happy year in our house. Living with Cam has been wonderful and we are learning more about each other and growing together each day. I love going to sleep with him and waking up with him and I find now that I can't get to sleep easily if he is not home. I miss having him next to me at night when he is away. We help each other around the house and I think we're pretty fair about chores - bt maybe ask Cam and he'd disagree and say he does more than I do! We love spending time at home and being together. I can't wait to marry him.

One Sentence A Day

Today I was reading the paper and came across a article about "how to make your life better". Most of the ideas were complete crap, but one that I thought was good was to keep a journal -- but just to write one sentence a day. That way it is something that takes up no time at all and can be a record of what you found important during that day! What a fun idea! Each day summed up in a sentence!
It actually sounds hard, how would you choose the most important thing each day that you would record?? I guess I'm missing the point a bit. The whole point of the one sentence is that it is an easy thing to do, not something you need to think about.
So today... what would my sentence be? I guess it could be about what I did today, which was work at PINARC doing a youth group - we did craft and made cupcakes. So my sentence could be "Bossed kids and staff around all day and spent time cleaning cupcake mix off bowls without any dishwashing liquid". Not very punchy, is it?
Maybe it could be about what I'm going to do tonight... order Elle's bridesmaid dress over the internet - "Beautiful dress coming my way, unfortunately it's not for me to wear."
Or it could sum up my evening at home "Girl stays home alone on the couch, flanked by poodles while a pig snorts in the background"... hey, I like that one!
Maybe I could just write a long conjoined sentence each day "today I did this and this and this and this and then I did this and then this happened and then I felt this and so I did this and this". I guess that counts as one sentence, right?
Ok, here is my final sentence, which pretty much covers me for today, yesterday and most of the days left of this year...
"WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING I LOVE WEDDING WEDDING I LOVE WEDDING!!!"

Domestics

This afternoon Cam is at work, so I am at home alone. I plan on being very domestic and cleaning the house, and cooking a lasagne and sticky date pudding for friends who are coming over for tea.
We spent the morning making piles of logs and leaves in one of the paddocks. Since buying Cam his new chainsaw, he has been having a field day chopping trees down everywhere in sight - but since he hasn't just cut one tree down, then cut it into manageable pieces then stacked it, we now have an apocalyptic wasteland of three paddocks worth of trees to chop and pick up, so the task is just overwhelming me. I know it will look good when it's finished, and will give us a chance at growing some grass in the paddocks, at the moment I just feel despair at having to spend every moment that we are not at work outside working to clear up all this mess.
What I find most annoying is that Cam complained the other day of having so much to do and so little time, then has created this giant task, rather than do a small section and clear up as we go. I am feeling frustrated. And I shouldn't complain really, because I know that Cam will keep going with the job until it's done, but there are a few other jobs that still haven't been quite finished, so I am apprehensive. And because the fun job is actually using the chainsaw to chop down the trees, now we have heaps of boring job to clear up after all the fun. And the chainsaw is so heavy that I cant even use it to do the fun bit, I just get to help with the boring bit!
It's probably not as bad as it seems, even the hour or so of work we did this morning has improved things, so maybe the job wont be so big, it just looks big because there are so many trees lying on the ground and leaves everywhere.
Ahh, domestic bliss.

A big decision

So the darndest thing happened -- after waiting months for Livejournal to fix itself, I gave up and started a new blog, so imagine my surprise (and annoyance) when it spontaneously fixed itself over the weekend, just a week after I'd created a new blog! Grrrrrrrrrr, very frustrating, but also fairly funny, I guess. So now I am faced with a dilemma - do I continue this blog, or go back to Livejournal? Such a decision, I just dont know what to do! I check livejournal every day to see my sister's posts, and I know they check frequntly too, whereas I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this at all.
It's these small decisions in life that leave me in a lather. I can't ever choose between the small things, but large things, lately I have been very decisive - My engagement ring, wedding dress and wedding ring have been chosen without a fuss, and I'm really happy with what I've chosen. But ask me to choose a chocolate bar to eat and I'm lost. A meal at a restaurant - an agonising decision! But rings that I have to wear every day to symbolise the greatest committment I will ever make?? A piece of cake!

In other news, I just talked to a friend who has just moved to Tasmania, started a new job and now has a new boyfriend! Wheeeee! So lovely to hear how happy she is and all her good news - compared to that, my wedding plans seemed almost boring!
We have booked our flights to Vietnam for our honeymoon!!! We are going for almost three weeks, which seems like an eternity,but I'm sure it will fly. I have never been on a holiday longer than a week, so this will just be amazing!! We dont have any other details yet, but just have our flights booked for the 4th Jan - 22nd Jan. Joy!