House

So, Dan and I bought a new house today.

It is bee-autiful. Great condition, three bedrooms, rumpus room, double garage, big lounge, big kitchen, outside deck, two separate toilets, spa bath — not bad for a first home! I know, technically Dan already owns his house so it's his second home — but it's my first. And man, I love it already.

The offer hasn't gone unconditional yet, but we've offered and they've counter-offered and we've accepted, so as long as the builder's report and LIM report don't show anything untoward, it's all go.

Settlement isn't till September, and in a way that makes me sad because, dammit, I want to move in to my beautiful new house already! But it's good really because I'm still studying until October, so until then Dan and I are a one-income couple (unless you count my student allowance, which is barely worth counting — certainly not able to maintain a mortgage).

We spent a lot more than we'd originally planned to, but I don't regret it. We were looking at another house, which could have been about $30,000 cheaper, but if we had bought it and spent $30,000 doing it up, there's still no way it would have been as nice as the house we have now.

So overall: happy. Still lots of stuff to sort out, moving to do, insurance to get, documents to check. But I have confidence it'll be fine. Now that the initial offer worry is over, I'm not concerned. September will no doubt be here before we know it, although the wait may feel interminable.

But none of that matters.

We have a new house.

In my mailbox (6)

OK, I didn't actually get any books this week. Nada. Not a one.

But I did get some the previous two weeks, and didn't get around to doing an In my mailbox then... so I figured this can be a combined one.

To be fair, I'm looking forward to Moon called a lot more than the other. Strike zone looks somewhat sportsy, which is not particularly me. But it'll be good to read something outside fantasy, a genre I don't normally read, so I'm still looking forward to both. I won both these books from about happy books.

I splurged on Mistwood by debut author Leah Cypess. Normally I wait for books to come out in paperback, but this one just sounded too good. The book begins with a prince capturing the heroine; she has no memory, and gradually finds out she is a supernatural creature and shape-shifter, bound to protect the prince of the land with her life. Already finished it; while it isn't fantastic, I definitely enjoyed it, and it had a few twists.

I won a copy of Play dirty by Sandra Brown from GoodReads; and when it turned up, I found they'd also enclosed a copy of 22 Indigo Place, first published in 1986, with a very Gone-with-the-wind, Mills&Boon-type cover on the edition they sent me.

Speaking of books I wait for in paperback... I've had my eye on The season by Sarah MacLean for a while. I enjoy good Regency-era romances, but many I've seen tend to be quite vapid and — what's worse — are simply modern heroines with modern world-views being put in a world which superficially resembles the Regency era, but doesn't reflect how people then actually talked and thought and acted. How do I know what it was really like? I time-travelled, of course.

Another one I waited for in paperback! I'm a little dubious about Unseen academicals, because it's meant to be about football or something. On the other hand, it's still Terry Pratchett, and his Discworld books are consistently funny, good-quality books (except for Monstrous regiment, which was just embarrassingly bad).

All in all, a good haul of books. I'm never going to get through all these books I keep buying....

In my mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren.

Guess what I found at the gym

I was at the gym a couple of days ago, doing a cable lat pulldown, when I rested my head briefly against my left arm and... you'll never guess what I felt. Muscle! Hard, flexed muscle!

It's like going to the gym pays off. No, that can't be right.

So I tried it again, with my right arm and you'll never guess what I felt.

Soft, flabby, fatty arm.

Wait, that didn't seem right.

Oh, maybe I should have flexed my right arm. Flexed it... and... muscle!

I have muscles! I'm already in the healthy range for my weight, so losing weight has never been my goal at the gym; I just want to get healthy, get fit, and maybe get a little toned as a nice side-result.

And, y'know, I look at my arms in the big wall mirror at the gym as I'm lifting weights, and I can definitely see my tiny little muscles straining out of my skinny little arms. I'm not anyone's strongwoman, but hey, I'm better than I used to be.

And even better, after starting to do crunches recently (I upped the weights this whole week, and from Tuesday on, my stomach has hurt every time I cough or laugh), Dan now reckons I have abs. Or at least, the beginning of ab definition.

It's nice when you've been going to the gym for a few months, to see some results. It makes me wish I'd started to do crunches earlier!

But lately, I'd started to get pretty slack with going to the gym... this just energises me all over again.

Muscles! Abs! Definition! It's such a good feeling.

The voyage of the Dawn Treader

Liked the first movie, although I didn't like a couple of liberties they took with the plot (yeah, I'm a purist); but have been looking forward to the next one since I saw The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Loving the look of this. I don't go much to the movies these days, but I'll make an exception for this one!

An awesome day

10am this morning:

8pm this evening:

Ye gods it's good having a new kitchen/oven/sink/cupboards/bench.

Dan did so much work today. There is no other word for it: he is Awesome.

I mean, really. Look at that new kitchen. Ee!