Electric blanket on, check. Dishwasher turned on, check. Teeth brushed and makeup chiseled off, check, check. Now I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for my 5 year old and her sleep over pal to fall asleep so I can turn off the tele and hit the sack myself.
So I sit and wait and dangerously ponder just what I'm doing here. Did you see Austin Powers? The part where Dr Evil has his cronies gathered around him and he is maniacally laughing over his fiendish plan and the camera keeps rolling. Eventually the laugher subsides to an awkward silence. That is how I feel now, the excitement of the move to Australia and adjusting is over and now I'm looking around me feeling a tad bit awkward.
Maybe it is more like reaching the halfway point in your journey, when you know choosing to go onwards or backward entails the same distance to travel, just the destinations are different. It feels so weird to be back in the position, but now there is so much more at stake than just myself and a suitcase. Now I have to think about my family and their ability to adjust.
This goes as much for any geographical journey as it does about the journey of life. At 44 I will be very fortunate if I am now half way along, and I know I can't go back in time but I can choose to remain safe and stable doing what I've done successfully. Or I can choose to do something new and exciting and taking a risk and move forward. I think that is why I've chosen to apply to the Department of State for a position working in the US Embassies around the world.
Wish me luck, and I'll post any progress I make beyond managing to get the application lodged online.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
What's It All About, Alfie?
I've threatened to do this in the past, and I've finally broken down and created a blog. A place I can brain dump when I need to, or laud my latest thermomix efforts or whatever.
So why today? What spurred me to actually create my blog today? Two things, it is bloody cold and I'm waiting for the electric blanket to heat up my bed and a discussion today at work about the housing market in Australia.
The electric blanket should be self explanatory, so let's just jump right into the housing market. Having been back downunder for just over a year I am constantly looking at the housing ads, as like all Aussies brought up in this country I was taught to believe that renting is bad and I should own my own abode (and possibly a second one to rent out). Luckily logic now guides my actions, not these ideas from my childhood, but even I sometimes swoon over a house, and I am becoming immune to the sticker shock of half a million dollars for an average 4 bedroom house in the suburbs until I look at the mortgage calculator and gasp in shock at just what the repayment per month would be at the current interest rate. Let's not even look at 10% or, gasp, 17% as it was in the early 90's.
The cost of housing has increased so much since I left in 1995, and there seems to be this belief that the appreciation of property at roughly doubling every 8 years is sustainable. I think not. Having had the break from living here that I've had I now look around and what I see is pretty troubling. 20 to 30 years ago having 2 incomes in the household was a luxury that allowed some families to buy a lot of home for their money. Now I look around and 2 incomes is absolutely the minimum needed these days for a family to get into a home, and that isn't a luxury home either, that is a handyman's special. I personally think that the cost of housing is approaching the point where a two income family wont be able to make the repayments. All the potential increase in house prices has finally absorbed the additional income of the second income. Throw in a couple of children and daycare and that is pretty much breaking point. All for the sake of owning a home. The only income potential left now is to put the kids to work, either down a mine or serving fries and a coke. I guess there is always the potential for getting grandma and/or grandpa to move in and use their pension money, but then where is the paddle when they are no longer around?
I believe that there are more factors at play here than just two income families going head to head over a choice home in a desirable suburb, but the rant stops here. This is the kind of stuff I think about, this and cute fluffy, chubby puppies.
So why today? What spurred me to actually create my blog today? Two things, it is bloody cold and I'm waiting for the electric blanket to heat up my bed and a discussion today at work about the housing market in Australia.
The electric blanket should be self explanatory, so let's just jump right into the housing market. Having been back downunder for just over a year I am constantly looking at the housing ads, as like all Aussies brought up in this country I was taught to believe that renting is bad and I should own my own abode (and possibly a second one to rent out). Luckily logic now guides my actions, not these ideas from my childhood, but even I sometimes swoon over a house, and I am becoming immune to the sticker shock of half a million dollars for an average 4 bedroom house in the suburbs until I look at the mortgage calculator and gasp in shock at just what the repayment per month would be at the current interest rate. Let's not even look at 10% or, gasp, 17% as it was in the early 90's.
The cost of housing has increased so much since I left in 1995, and there seems to be this belief that the appreciation of property at roughly doubling every 8 years is sustainable. I think not. Having had the break from living here that I've had I now look around and what I see is pretty troubling. 20 to 30 years ago having 2 incomes in the household was a luxury that allowed some families to buy a lot of home for their money. Now I look around and 2 incomes is absolutely the minimum needed these days for a family to get into a home, and that isn't a luxury home either, that is a handyman's special. I personally think that the cost of housing is approaching the point where a two income family wont be able to make the repayments. All the potential increase in house prices has finally absorbed the additional income of the second income. Throw in a couple of children and daycare and that is pretty much breaking point. All for the sake of owning a home. The only income potential left now is to put the kids to work, either down a mine or serving fries and a coke. I guess there is always the potential for getting grandma and/or grandpa to move in and use their pension money, but then where is the paddle when they are no longer around?
I believe that there are more factors at play here than just two income families going head to head over a choice home in a desirable suburb, but the rant stops here. This is the kind of stuff I think about, this and cute fluffy, chubby puppies.
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