Happy Monday – 25/01/10

I was reflecting earlier today that I cannot remember the last time I suffered a serious bout of Mondayitus. In fact, my number of depressed, blah, can't be stuffed days have decreased dramatically in general. Huzzah! This has been thanks to a lot of time invested in some self assessment and self improvement, including a totally new outlook on life, a process that has been ongoing for the last 2 years. Interested in reducing those dnasty days, but don't want to spend two years doing it? The first entry for this weeks Happy Monday round up might be for you then!



Make Your Life Amazing – Megan at Charadestyle.com has been running a series this month, called "31 Days to Make Your Life Amazing", or MYLA for short, and it's now on the home stretch. I've been reading Megan's blog for quite a while now, and love her inspirational writing and her sense of style. The MYLA series encourages readers to take a good look at themselves, their lives, and encourages you to be the best you possible, the "illustrator of your own existence"! Each day she has been posting a piece that outlines the idea or thrust of the day, a three point summary for direction, and a piece of homework. The exercises are great, the concept is well thought out, and the whole is beautifully executed. MYLA has been great for me, helping me focus on my goals, where I want to be, and who I want to be, and from the looks of the comments, I'm not alone, so please, head over to Charade, and give it a read. If it doesn't help Make Your Life Amazing, I will eat my hat.



Buying New Furniture – Mum and I went furniture shopping for the new digs the other day. We were only supposed to be looking for a bed/day bed/comfy sofa for the spare bedroom, and ended up finding not only the perfect day bed from Bev Marks (I can't find a photo, will post one ASAP!), but also a cute small dining table for the kitchen/living area. I fell in love with a round one (Mustang by the same company), but it would have been impractical, as you can't push a circle table up against the wall when you're not using it. Last Monday I also bought a couple of deer wall decals from Typo, and picked up my amazing new sheets. This, combined with organising to get the power/gas connected (on a green plan of course) makes it feel like moving in is soooo close. Wednesday next week, the keys are in my hot little hands, and I can start taking more photos, and decorating, and unpacking, and blogging the goodness of having my own lair! Are you excited? I'm excited.



Loving My Job – I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I am insanely blessed to have my current job. I've had a bit of a rough week from a personal/family prospective, but everyone at work did everything in their power to help me through, and even covered one of my shifts when I had to go meet up with my Mum. Add to that awesome hours, great workmates, and a good environment, right next to the beach, with school holidays coming to a close and conference season about to start, and I don't really want to go back to uni come March! If you're in Lorne, drop in to say hi, and I'll whip you up a latte or a toblerone!



Upmarket – This new shop in Lorne is amazing! It's got a great mix of vintage clothes (including re-works), second-hand random goodies, gorgeous new designer frocks, local artwork, coffee, a huge selection of wall decals (on my shopping list!)



Honourable mentions – Discovering toeless pantyhose (!), writing at Cocco Lounge in Geelong, having more than 1 pair of heels in my room, being allowed to wear black jeans to work, Barry Hall leaving a goodly sized tip even after a stuffed wine order, my brother not becoming the latest case study for this year's forensics students, having my first official follower, arranging furniture in my head, making a good pina colada/toblerone, watching kids watching their parents throwing a tantrum, getting to see the family, the prospect of public holiday pay rates, black nail polish.



Well darlings, I need to go pull my clothes out of the wash, but what is keeping you smiling this week?
Have a wonderful Australia Day tomorrow!

Happy Monday - 18/01/10

After a few weeks without it, Happy Monday is back! Why?

I got a house! – Yes, after 16 inspections, over 100 emails to agents, 8 applications and 7 rejections, I finally got offered a rental! It's a gorgeous little place in South Geelong, a federation house split into two units. Two bedrooms, beautiful leadlight windows, good natural light, a kitchen! Don't laugh, I've been living without a kitchen since November, I want to be able to cook again! It's just incredibly me. I sign the lease and pay the bond today, and get the keys on the third. Since this is the first place that I've had that will be 'mine' as opposed to sharing with other people, I'm pretty darned excited! Ok, so I'll be sharing with my mum a bit, but it's still my space, and going to be filled with my gear, and it's something I'm really looking forward to. I've already started rearranging the furniture in my head, and have a heap of ideas that I'd love to try out, including this cute butterfly project from LollyChops, and perhaps trying to make my own canopy for my bed. Only 16 days to go!!! I promise more photos when I get the keys!

More Photos Here!

New Years Celebrations – Yes, it's taken me 3 weeks, but it was the best New Years Eve I've ever had! The Muso took me to the New Years on the Waterfront party in Geelong, and even with the rain, it was amazing. Watched Sound Relief with a few beverages before we went, bussed it to town, got caught in the rain as soon as we got there, found some mates to hang out will, danced the night away, got an airbrush tattoo of Maidre, rang in the new year watching Eskimo Joe and firework lit kisses, some more Eskimo Joe, and then hit up Lamby's where we caught up with some more friends. The rain only made things that much better, not only the cool change, but the entertainment provided by girls who hadn't thought ahead complaining about ruined hair, running makeup, and muddy shoes. As for myself, it had been far too hot when we were getting ready to put on make up, it would have just melted, and as my hair was refusing to cooperate due to humidity, I had just pinned it up and not gone overboard. Add to that the fact it looked like rain so I wore my new Ipanema Gisele Bundchen sandals, and I was dancing in the rain, not running from it! Of course, I forgot to take photos!The night finished up with a record breaking 40 min wait for a taxi (we've waited longer on a uni night), an interesting cab ride home, me not doing a backflip in the front yard, freaking out about leaving my handbag in the taxi only to discover I'd put it around the Muso's neck while not doing backflips, and watching the end of Sound Relief whilst plotting a trip to Brazil (!!!). Best. New. Years. Ever.

Butterfly heels – I saw these beautiful shoes just before Christmas, but didn't buy them, because I couldn't afford both them and my brother's Christmas present. Went back on New Year's Eve, and there they were, on sale, half price. Meant to be. I had to take a pair back, because I actually initially bought the wrong size (despite trying them on first, who knows what happened there?), but these ones fit perfectly, and I've been wearing them all over the place. To be honest, I never want to take them off, but thanks to some nasty weather, and their satin finish, they've not been going outside, for their own good. This purchase has also reawaken my desire to wear heels all the time, so some more pairs are finding their way out of storage today!

Taken @ Jan Juc

 

Honourable mentions – Jupiter hits Pisces today, let the good times roll! Avatar in 3D, Sherrie @ Maxwell Collins (Poor woman showed me through so many houses she must have thought I was stalking her!), getting awesome ideas from Apartment Therapy, The 'purple-headed yoghurt slasher' cocktail by Tony @ work, sticking to new years resolutions, having high heels out of storage, rediscovering why I love SoulGarden.tv, House & SYTYCD Australia are coming back!


So my readers, what is making you smile this week?

The Student Guide - 5 Tips for Househunters

Whoops, it's the first week of 2010, and I'm already behind in my New Years resolutions! Unfortunately, between work and travelling to house hunt everyday, I have largely neglected the Diatribe this week. Yes, still that famed hunt for the new digs. Things are, thankfully, looking up in that area. Not only are there some really great properties popping up in my price range, my mum has come to the party and is signing onto the lease with me, which will hopefully make things a lot smoother going in terms of getting applications approved. At present, the tally now stands at:

• 12 inspections
  
• 6 application submitted & 4 rejected
  
• I've lost count of how many email enquiries (it was 15 today alone!)
  

Now, as soon as you say the word 'student', a lot of landlord's go running. Add to that the words 'casual work', and no matter what you make a week (or if you have a parent willing to pay a large chunk of the rent), there is probably not a chance in hell that you're going to be given a place over that middle-aged suit with a stable, full-time job. This has been my problem so far, it's not that I'm a bad applicant, it's just that there are BETTER applicants. It's not because agents are nasty, it's because they're being practical. Of course, students have a reputation, albeit somewhat undeserved, of being bad tenants, of trashing houses, being late with rent, throwing loud parties that annoy the neighbours, you name the trait, chances are it's attributable to the student stereotype (In all honesty, I have yet to meet a student who is like this, or that can afford to lose the bond!)

So, how do you increase your chances of making a good impression on the agent and landlord, and of getting the lease for your dream house?

1. Know your limits – It's no good finding the house of your dreams, and then discovering that it is out of your price range. Really, it's just not worth the heartache. Do some budget calculations, figure out what your absolute upper limit is, and then stick to your guns. Don't be tempted to go for that property that is just $20 a week more, because you will quickly find yourself in dire straits. If you want something outside your price range, consider the idea of sharing with friends or other students, as this can halve your rent and your bills, and gives you scope for a bigger property. Know how many bedrooms you need, what features you want in the living areas and the kitchen, and figure out is having a yard is a priority. Also know what areas you are interested in and how far you are willing to travel to get to work, uni, the supermarket, buses or the pub. To start off with, you might think that hour commute from your new place is well worth it, but that fuel bill is going to add up quickly, and consider how much earlier you have to get up to get organised and to classes, work or appointments compared to living a suburb or two away.
   
   
2. Presentation – How many people do you see rocking up to an inspection looking like they're just thrown on whatever was in the laundry hamper? Unless it's for a swank, inner city property, I'd bet there'd be quite a few. Ditch the old t-shirt, baggy jeans and sneakers. At the very least, dress neat casual. If it's for somewhere where you know there will be a lot of applicants, dress up a bit, try to stand out! Think of this like a job interview, and dress accordingly. After all, that's exactly what it is, it is the first chance for the agent to suss you out! Having a pen and notebook in hand will also help, not only giving you somewhere to take notes like rent, bond, and existing contents, but it looks like you mean business. I always take my laptop/briefcase, looks a lot more professional than my bright purple handbag, or my much-loved rucksack.
    
3. Show up on time – If you're going to a house inspection, make sure you're there bang-smack on time, if not a few minutes before. If you're late, what's to stop the agent thinking that you're unreliable or unorganised, even that you're not going to pay your rent on time? It also means that you have the maximum amount of time to look through the property, poke around in cupboards, make note of any issues, and find out if your bed is going to fit in that tiny bedroom. Unfortunately, many agents fail to ascribe to this, and are often late for these appointments, leaving applicants standing around in the sun for 10 minutes or more. I've had this happen quite a few times, and it's infuriating, but try not to lose your cool about it. Remember, this is an interview. Just let them know that you've been inconvenienced, then move on. It may also pay off to ring up the agent the day of the inspection to ask that the inspection is still on. Many a prospective tenant has turned up to an inspection, only to discover that it is no longer available. I learnt the hard way, after standing around on a sunny, 30^oC day waiting for an agent for 30 mins, who had already leased the property, had decided not to turn up for the inspection time, and hadn't bothered to tell any of the 12 other prospective tenants that the property was no longer available. It pays to double check!
    
4. Ask questions – Engage the agent, get them to answer some questions about the property. Not only does this help you, it gives the definite impression that you're interested in the lease. Ideas include rent and bond amounts, when it's available, if pets are allowed, what the utilities costs are like, if the neighbours are noisy, if the landlord has plans to fix the leaky taps, where the fuse box is, if there's been much interest in the property, when the application should be in by, etc. Make sure you write everything down for later reference, don't expect to be able to remember every detail 3 days and several properties later.
   
   
5. Be prepared – Be ready to get an application in early! Many properties are practically leased before the inspection even takes place, in many instances making it merely a formality for the right applicant. If you can, download the forms and submit them to the agent prior to the inspection with a note saying subject to inspection, or if that's not possible, hand them to the agent at the inspection if you decide you like the property. If you can't get the forms beforehand, take copies of your supporting documentation to the inspection with you, and fill out the application on the spot (that pen you bought along comes in handy). You'll usually need 100pts of ID (Drivers Licence, Passport, Medicare or healthcare cards, bills, etc), payslips or bank statements as proof of income, and the contact details of 3 people to act as referees. If you can't fill it out on the spot, try to have it in within 24 hours! A lot of the time, it's first in, first reference checked, so getting your forms in ASAP can put you near the top of the pile, and hopefully approved before the others even get theirs in!
   

Now I'm turning it over to you guys! What are your tips for having the best shot at getting that awesome house? Have you had any shocking run-ins with estate agents?


Image Credit -  Tina Kugler @ The Tina Show: Post-it Note Theatre. I love her drawings!

We’re Going on a Lair Hunt

• 18 email enquiries lodged to agents
  
• 6 inspections
  
• 2 application submitted & rejected
  

It's a very good thing that I don't need to move into a place right this very moment. A) There are barely any properties on the rental market in my price range, and B) those that are either get snapped up before inspection, or get applied for by people that don't have the word 'student' somewhere on their application. Still, hope remains! After a week of nothing, a new property came up, in an excellent location, within my financial limits. Now it's just a case of hoping that the inspection isn't before I get back from the interstate family trek!

And of course, now that I'm in house-hunting mode, I'm also in the mindset of planning how I'd like my lair to look and feel. Your home is your sanctuary, your escape from the cruel world beyond its walls. If you're anything like me, you want there to be very little related to your work or university work where it can be helped (obviously for a student, the massive stacks of textbooks, papers, etc is unavoidable, but I try to limit its encroachment on my space). So I've been sticking my head in homeware stores, reading random blogs on decorating, and generally trying to get a picture in my head of how I could lay out any place I end up getting. Thankfully, I already have a lot of furniture that fits with my personality – A beautiful wood and iron bed with a good quality mattress, a bookcase, desk and side-table all in white and cherry finish (from the Piedmont Collection from UBiz, how I'd love the rest of it!), a chest of drawers halfway through being stained the same as the Piedmont stuff, and two massive, second/third-hand dark green club chairs that are perfect for curling up in with a book. So, of course, everything is being planned around these pieces.

My style varies with my mood, so anything I have needs to be able to chop and change at a whim. For example, I have bright, jewel colours in a Byzantine colour scheme, or soft, natural greens for a more forested look. I find changing a quilt-cover is the fastest way to change the mood of your bedroom, and with that in mind, I have several sets of sheets in different colours. Recently though, I found this beautiful set in Adairs, and fell in love at once. I resisted temptation to blow my whole paycheck on the set, and instead put it on lay-by. Come mid-January, that set is all mine!! It perfectly matches a quilt I have been meaning to finish, and contains a blue that I absolutely love, so I can see myself decorating everything around them! Shame that landlords tend to frown upon painting murals all over their clean white walls…

Have you got a favourite room, a space where you retreat to? Did you decorate it yourself? Share your thoughts and photos!

(Picture from Linen House, pretty much my dream bedroom if only I had the money, room and climate!)

Hunting continued, and a new passion

• 16 email enquiries lodged to agents
  
• 5 inspections
  
• 2 application submitted
  

Yes, I'm keeping track! Another house inspection yesterday, beautiful little unit, freshly painted and carpeted, lots of natural light, good location, and a tiny yard big enough for the clothes line and not much else (low maintenance! Put in an application on the spot, and as they checked my references yesterday, I'm hoping to hear back in the next day or two. *crosses fingers, toes, arms, eyes* Also got to drop in on the Porter Av. boys for a few hours, and have lunch with the muso, yay for people in the real world!

In the mean time, I've decided to start something of a new blogging project. After many months of reading my favourite blogs (links in My Inspirations -->), I've decided to start a regular segment aimed at new university students. Many a time my friends and I have sat talking about uni, wishing that someone had told us this or that when we started. As my own brother is starting uni in the new year, and I'm anticipating all sorts of questions from him, I figured why not share with everyone else too? So, every Wednesday from the 4^th January, I will be attempting to blog something helpful for those living as students, be it academic advice, budgeting tips, or the best spot for a cheap beer! If you have any suggestions, or questions you'd like answered, feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line!

As well as the "Been There, Done That" Guide (I'm still working on a name =P), Friday is foodie day! I love cooking, and am rather languishing at the moment without a proper kitchen to play in. Figuring out what to do with the meagre pickings of a uni student's pantry has always been a challenge, and over the years, my friends and I came up with many ways to make your dollar go further. So I'll be blogging some of my favourite recipes, as well as those that got me through those months where I had stuff-all other than rice in my cupboard! Might also throw in a blog or two on good places to eat out, for those weeks when money magically remains in the bank account!

So, my readers! What would you like to see me blog about? Any burning questions you want answered?

The Hunt Begins…

Today marks the end of my first week of hunting for the new lair for 2010. After the dramas of housemates in early 2009, and 3.5 years on residences, I've decided that it is time for me to have a bit of my own space, and so the search is on for a nice, cheap one or two bedroom unit in Geelong.

Anyone who has house hunted before recognises that this can be harder than it sounds. Unlike last time I was house hunting (in which I actually had very little say thanks to the other two housemates), I'm on a very tight budget, but I only have to be sure that one person is happy with the place. The other problem is that I'm not currently living in Geelong, meaning I have to catch the bus from Lorne every time there is an inspection I want to go to. The plus side is that I've managed to get most of my Christmas shopping done on these trips!

So far, there's been

• 15 email enquiries lodged to agents
• 5 properties leased prior to inspection
• 4 inspections (3 by me, and one that I coaxed The Muso to go to for me <3)
• 1 application submitted and subsequently rejected

Of the 6 other properties, I have 1 inspection tomorrow (another trip to G-Town!), and the other 5 were either out of my price range or I couldn't make the inspection time due to work. So why did I only apply for one out of four properties inspected?

The first inspection Matt did for me, and I probably would have applied for the place if, when I went past a few days later, I hadn't discovered that the neighbours were having a violent domestic. Yeah, I've lived next door to that in the past, and I'm not wanting to do it again anytime soon.

Inspection two was at an apartment block on Roslyn Road. It also might have been a chance, even though it was basically two bedrooms (the agent assured me one was the living room, but couldn't tell me which one), both with sliding doors onto the external hallway/balcony/stairs, a tiny bathroom, and an even smaller kitchen. Yes, I'd have submitted an application for an apartment that would fit in my mum's living room (or two downstairs Evatt's bedrooms, for those from res), but for the massively sagging, water-damaged ceiling in the kitchen that looked like it was about to disintegrate on my head, and the discovery that the landlord had no plan to fix it, ever. Fail.

Inspection three was the dream unit! One massive bedroom, open kitchen/living, hardwood floors, huge combined bathroom/laundry, fenced courtyard, lots of natural light, one block from High Street shops, 130 p/w. Application submitted and rejected within 24 hours. =(

Inspection four was in the same apartment block as inspection two, actually the unit next door, and I was sceptical going in, but pleasantly surprised. Newly renovated, big lounge, two decent bedrooms, bathroom with actual bath, nice kitchen. However, at $260 p/w, slightly above my price range, and given the location, size and lack of outdoor area, probably over priced by about $30-$60. Only really went to check it out because the agent rang and asked if I was interested in inspecting and failed to tell me the price before I rocked up.

So after a week of trawling real estate web pages, and the paper, and ringing/emailing agents, I've had little luck, but it's still an interesting experience. I won't say always fun, but interesting.