Entries from December 1, 2007 - January 1, 2008
Happy New Year!
It's 2008 baby! At this precise moment I'm probably nursing the mother of all hangovers, so in the absence of profoundness I leave you with a song to kick start your New Year!
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Goodbye 2007
January
we packed up our apartment in Florida, sold the Pontiac Sunbire and book a farewell cruise round the Caribbean. The last month of our 19 month stay, we were ready to come home but sad to leave all the friends we'd made behind. Our final gig in Orlando was to go see The Red Hot Chili Peppers at the TD Waterhouse centre, one of favourite bands ever!
February
we enjoyed a week long vacation around the Caribbean, especially as we nearly didn't get through immigration! Our final goodbyes were said and we boarded the MCO - LGW plane on February 14th. A sad time, but also exciting as we had no idea what was to come. On 20th Fraser, me, Dad and Cathleen spent the day in London and we went to the Seth Lakeman gig, very drunk and very brilliant day!
March
after a couple of weeks temping at Komfort Workspace I was ready to move into a permanent role. Enter the Escape Committee. I began a 3 month contract as a Project Manager on 25th. March was also the month that I saw my brother, sister-in-law and niece for the first time in 18 months and also the first time I met my beautiful nephew. Poor Yoda passed away after suffering a doggy stroke, he was 17 years old.
April
Celebrated Cathleens 26th birthday with her and caught up with Mel. Della passed away on April 11th following the decline of her spinal cord, she was 10 years old. Dad has his op to fix his knee, we were all glad he pulled through ok. A minor op but we were major worried x The month ended with a long weekend in the Isle Of Wight.
May
Jack the rescue puppy came into our lives and is so gorgeous! Fraser and I started browsing the housing market and put an offer in on a 1 bed bungalow. Things were looking up and we felt good about our future, although we were missing America. Dani, Toby, Fraser and I saw Newton Faulkner perform at Brighton Joogleberry venue. It was intimate and lovely, glad we saw him before he got huge! (successful, not fat! lol). My nephew Joshua is 1 year old!
June
Cathleen and I bought Dad an iPod for Fathers day and he was made up! We seemed to spend a lot of this month in La Tasca! I was made permanent at Escape Committee following the 3 month contract. Dave and Amy were over from Australia for a while so got to catch up with them at their family BBQ.
July
after six weeks the owners of the bungalow took another offer and we were out of the running for buying that house. I turned 25 and we spent the weekend down in Cornwall which ended up being a disaster! End July we set sail on a med cruise, one week of sailing around Italy, Spain and France was lovely and a much needed rest. Cathleen also graduated her PGCE programme and is now officially a teacher. She started her post at De Stafford.
August
second time around on the housing market we found another property in Tollgate Hill, a 2 bed mid terrace. After £600 on a full structural survey and things moving forward we were feeling positive about moving. Paul, Chloe, Emily and Joshua came to spend the week in Worthing so Cathleen, Lee, Fraser and I got to spend the day with them.
September
the bastards at the second house took it off the market, we lost all our money. On 15th however we stumbled upon another little gem and put the offer in. 3rd time lucky we hope! Cathleen and I went to see Ricky Gervais doing his FAME show live, brilliant! Fraser, me and the gang also went to see Jimmy Carr at The Hawth, really funny bloke. We ended our American Adventures blog and www.selinawragg.co.uk was born!
October
Mark and Frankie went on a 3 week holiday to the orient so Fraser and I had the place to ourselves. He turned 29 on the 17th and so we celebrated with balloons, burgers and then a surprise meal at Bengal Spices with 20 of his friends. I began planning the fundraiser for Children In Need.
November
Frankie, Fraser and I went to see Lee Mead as Joseph on 2nd. Brilliant show and he's an amazing performer! Fraser went to see 50 Cent on 10th, that was his birthday pressie. On 16th I attempted to hold a fundraiser for Children In Need, it wasn't a success :-( Mel text everyone to tell us she was pregnant with twins!
December
On 6th we went to see Kings of Leon perform at The Brighton Centre. They are amazing and we're really into them at the moment. I spent a long weekend in Ireland visiting the Lavoies and we all got sick! We officially exchanged contracts on our house on 19th December and completion date has been set for January 4th 2008. Normal family Christmas and we're now looking forward to the new Year.
The Next JK Rowling?
Fighting A Battle...
...or so it seems! I just feel like everyone around me has an opinion on how and when we should decorate the house. Yes I'm keen to do most of it right away and no I don't see a problem in doing it myself.
Fraser just listens to those around him and agrees against me all the time, which leaves me feeling like there's something wrong in being excited and wanting to get in there.
I'm sorry to all of you who have forgotten what buying your first house is like, but stop ruining my experience and leave me the hell alone!
When he's looking online for TV's, and recliner sofas I am supportive to Fraser and try to pay an interest. When I start looking at paint samples, talking about laminating the floor in ONE room and start calculating the cost of a bit of lino the whole world stops and puts their 2p in, normally sounding something like "why not wait until you get in there, just hang on". Ok, I'll hang on for the sales to be over shall I? I know, I'll wait for all the stuff I've seen and like to be out of stock then make do without for 2 months while I wait for something else to come along, that ok by you? How about I live in someone else's decor, which I don't like, and pretend I'm all happy and gay about it, that suit you does it? Ahhh, piss off!
ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!! I'm getting really fucking pissed off with it all and you know what, it's not your house, your not paying for it so butt the hell out of my business. Until C day I suppose I'm in for another week of being disagreed with and made to feel like I'm rushing in and wanting to do too much at once. Even if that's the case, just leave me be! If I'm happy then what's your problem?
Selina Wragg
Following my rant about the house I sat down with Fraser and let it all out. I basically told him everything I'd written in the blog (as I felt I raised some good points).
All is good, and we're going to press on as we want. Next time someone chirps up I'm sure he will be on my side x
Packing Up A Storm!
My goodness I still have so much stuff, despite being ruthless and chucking most of it out! It must be a remnant of my past years as a hoarder. After moving twice in 6 months (circa 1999) I realised that I didn't need, or in fact want, most of the stuff I was sweating my ass off moving from one humble abode to the other.
But in saying this I do want to keep things which still make me squeal "awww, I remember that" when I see them. I'm down from 6 "childhood and misc" boxes to just 3, which is not bad going. About four years ago I had about 10! I was keeping stuff that I couldn't even remember if it was mine let alone tell you what it was or what relevance it had in my life.
We've had a nightmare trying to come to an agreement about decor and what we should and shouldn't do on moving in. This isn't helped by the fact that Fraser can't remember what anything looks like inside the house, whereas I have an almost photographic memory of the layout in each room, the tiles, the wall colours, the dado rails, the size and shape of everything I like and dislike.
At first I wanted to rip all the tiles of the wall, then re-tile around the sink and the bath. Fraser thought this sounded like a lot of work and most likely would end up expensive if I took the walls down with the tiles! We then agreed to paint the tiles, but I wanted to re-grout the entire bathroom to make it look better. This is a very time consuming job and will take hours. We've now decided on putting masking tape round each tile we paint, when we paint it and then with a grouting pen refilling in the grout. Much quicker, a lot less hassle and cost effective.
Why bother? You don't have to do it all when you first move in! Why not wait a bit first, move in then see how you feel? Calm down, don't get ahead of yourself!
These are all comments I've heard when talking about the painting of the walls, the removal of the dado rail, the tiling of the bathroom. To be honest with you I'm sick of hearing everyone saying that. No I don't have to do it all when we first move in, but I want to. I'm the kind of person that has to have my stamp on things before I can relax and enjoy it. If its what I want to do and am prepared to slog it out in order to redecorate the entire house then that is what I shall do. It's our first house for Christs sake so stop pissing on my parade!
Fraser understands and wants for us to do it all together, which is of course fine by me (1/2 the work then). I think a lot of people don't realise we're only talking about 4 rooms here, the house is teeny tiny!
It's a shame however that the carpets are green! We can't afford to re-carpet the living room, dining room, stairs and landing so will have to put up with the green for now. We'll probably buy an off cut, but if we don't get it delivered and fitted by them then perhaps we could get it done... all things to look into! The kitchen floor is being left as is but we do want to rip up the carpet in the bathroom and put vinyl down, but that's charged too! Has anyone reading this ever laid vinyl themselves and is it easy?
Only 6 more days to go before we can collect the keys to our new house and I'm so excited. This is the start of a new era, a new life and I'm going to embrace it.