What Simply Works!

Barely five days after our move, we have unpacked all the boxes and the apartment now is now in a “livable” state. It was a big effort to clear everything that fast but my motivation is to finish unpacking so I can move on to do other things. I have a little over three weeks left to complete my Christmas shopping, packing for the holidays and my mini-personal project. I need more hands!

Thankfully, our friends referred a really good mover (could be somewhat similar to services mover NYC offers in the US) who were so nice and helpful. But I hope we stay in this apartment a wee bit longer for us not to go through this challenging phase again soon!

We finally bought a new vacuum cleaner.  Yep, it is a Dyson! Wee!!!  My carpet cleaning hours are now significantly lower because of a better, more powerful tool.  Goodbye to our good old Philips vacuum.  We’ve seen better days.

When I first heard about energy deregulation, I didn’t know what it means and how it will impact us as consumers. Then I learned that deregulation addresses the issue of monopoly when it comes to providing services. This means that consumers are empowered to choose the company and specific services they need and want.

For example, Cirro Energy is just one of the many electricity providers in Texas. They provide cheap and reliable electricity for residential areas. There is also an energy alternative that is environment-friendly because its pollution free and it’s called Green Mountain Energy. However, there is a premium in switching to this service. Gexa Energy, on the other hand, is one of the most competitive electric companies in the same state. They compete very well with Cirro Energy and Green Mountain Energy.

It is surprising to know why there are so many electric companies in one state alone. I wondered what makes one different from the other. Well, the way they ‘package’ their services are different. One company offers low rates but with usage limits (or quota). Another provider charges more at certain times of the day. That’s why it is very important to study the services through Texas Electric Rate before signing up or switching to another company.

We didn’t hear from the property agent today, which could likely mean that we didn’t get the apartment unit we applied for over the weekend. Would you believe that I even had a dream about it last night? I guess my subconscious was on overdrive and it shows how much I want to move to a different rental property.

With this development, I started checking for available rental properties online again. I saw this nice house up for rent but with no viewing schedule posted yet. The garden is well trimmed and the veranda has antique wood patio furniture. If we end up renting the place, I would likely follow the theme of having outdoor wooden furniture. Because I’m not expert when it comes to buying quality home furnishings, it is good that there are websites that provide buyer and manufacturers’ reviews as well as related articles. These websites will come in handy once our move is finalized.

Hopefully something good turns out this weekend. Otherwise, we’ll resume the house/apartment hunting next year.

Apart from the junk emails we receive everyday, we also get at least five junk mails every week. The usual ones we receive are brochures for properties, house cleaning, car cleaning services and auto insurance quotes. For us, more often than not, those mails go straight to the trash bin.

Instead of spending a good sum of advertising money for that, those companies should advertise on the paper or Internet instead. I think it is more cost effective.

After our house viewing over the weekend, we realized that we might end up renting an apartment again. The process of looking for the “right” house is tedious. We had to check every nook and cranny, floors, fixtures, lighting and its overall “look”. Of course, we try as much to be practical given that we’re just renting but we can’t give up some things that we want in order to make the place “livable”.

It goes without saying that buying your own house will be triple the effort if not more than that. Imagine deciding for the paint, flooring and even the roofing just to make everything “perfect”. But thanks to the Internet, we can easily surf for possible options on a whole gamut of home building and decoration items available these days.

Let’s take lighting as an example. There are tons of fine art lamps that suit any type of home or theme. Look at this forecast lighting, isn’t it pretty? It’s an indoor lamp that’s perfect for a living room or the receiving area of the house.  The options never end.

No wonder some homes take years to be built.  Probably the owners are that meticulous when it comes to details.  Anyway, it’s the little things that matter.

A new friend suggested to me that I use candles with fragrance oil while taking a bath. She said that it is an effective method to de-stress at the end of a long day. I do love nice scents and before we had a baby, I always used air fresheners at home.

I think I will take up her idea. Many stores these days sell candles in various shapes, shades and colors that are nicely placed in cute jars. If only I have the knack in making them myself.

I know that candle making supplies are sold everywhere now but unfortunately, aside from not having the artistic talent to make them, I also don’t have the patience. I just might come up with ludicrous looking candles in odd shapes.

Cranberry Marmalade is a popular fragrance oil scent.

How do you take care of your mattresses? For me, I just vacuum it regularly, that is, before I replace the sheets. However, I’ve read an online article which says that vacuuming alone is not enough. To treat bed bugs, there are options such as steam cleaning and exposing mattress covers in extreme heat or cold. Steam cleaning proves to be the most efficient way though.

With my photography class out of the way, I can now focus on my other house-related to-dos. I’m in the process of creating a shortlist of apartments or houses that we hope to view this coming weekend. Also, I need to ask our friends for mover referrals so that I can prepare the quotes later on.

We also need to buy boxes for the stuff that we want to put away, permanently that is. We have yet to decide whether to send them back home or donate them here in Sydney. All these tasks are pretty easy if only my daughter would me finish them. Hee.

Spring signals the arrival of flies into the neighborhood. Here in Australia, I’ve never seen flies as “daring” and huge. Yep, it’s my first time to see a fly as big as a piece of raisin. Yikes. Thankfully, we didn’t encounter ants during the latter part of summer early this year. And I hope it will be the same this time around. Otherwise, I would check out controlfireants.com to learn about its prevention.

After our first attempt to do our apartment hunting online, we realized how taxing this will be for us. One property we checked out is situated in an area that we really like but looking at the apartment details from the photos, it looked like the place is not properly maintained. There is a stainless steel mailbox located just outside the apartment and even the safety of your mails seems doubtful with its very old design and built.

Of course, we know that higher standards mean higher rent. But definitely, we are not looking for a place with blomus stainless steel fireplace accessories or sleek stainless steel dining trimmings. All we want is a neat and comfortable place within reasonable rental fees.

With barely four weeks left for apartment search, we might end up renewing our current lease. We’ll see in a couple of weeks if our online hunt and viewing activities will progress. Ah, the thrills and challenges of rental living.

Now that we’re living much farther from our families and friends back home, it has become a challenge to maintain constant communication. The costs of overseas calls can be a real drag and being in different time zones doesn’t help. Yes there are free Internet calls available but it’s different when you can speak with your loved one anytime, anywhere you want.

So good thing there are international phone cards! With low calling rates, fixed time limit and because it’s prepaid make it an ideal solution to homesickness.  Calling from the US to anywhere in the world is made affordable by getmecallingcards.com.  The rates of calls to Sydney are really cheap!

With our impending apartment move, another item on our to-do list is the home moving companies. I will get quotes from at least three companies and decide from there. A website called MovingCompaniesOnline.com allows you to do just that. There is a feature called Quick & Free Moving Quote that lets you select moving companies based on your location and preferred moving date.

Also, there is an option to rent a truck instead. In my opinion, this will entail more work since there’ll be no professional movers to assist. If there are big furniture and appliances to be relocated, there is also the danger of damaging them. In effect it may not be worth the money saved.

The company also caters for international shipping of personal effects. With so many people being uprooted or expatriated to different countries, this business is definitely booming these days. The website has quick quote links that will give the required information in a few clicks.

We are toying with the idea of pushing our planned move to early next year. That is because of our busy weekends planned from this month until we leave for vacation by end November. Oh well, we’ll see how favorable the rental market is for us and we’ll decide on the rest of the details thereafter.

In 2006, when we were planning to buy a condo unit, we consulted our friends who are in the construction and architecture industries. They know better when it comes to sustainable buildings design and prefabricated buildings (or modular homes).

Our friends went with us during the ocular inspection and checked the critical areas where my husband and I would normally just bypass. They are familiar with the building structure, when it was made and whether the developer is reputable or not.

Since it was a condo that we’re looking at, cool roofing options didn’t become a problem for us. It really benefited us that we have very helpful and knowledgeable friends in that line of business.

My cousin, who is getting married this year, bought a condominium unit together with his fiancée. We were all excited for them since the news of the engagement and when the property purchase pulled through, we were just ecstatic.

He consulted his mom for recommendations on the appliances and modern furniture for his three bedroom unit. His fiancée took the role of designing the color schemes and decorations for all the rooms. It has been a year since they started furnishing their home, which gave them enough time to prepare for their wedding that is happening in two months.

I’m sure it was a challenge for them to do all the necessary logistics after the engagement. For furniture shopping alone, unless the store has in-stock items and delivery is reliable, it can be pain to deal with. There are shops like modernlinefurniture.com that offer in-stock items at flat-free shipping cost. I do hope that my cousin and her wife to be had a hassle-free furniture shopping experience.

Up to this point, we haven’t bought a replacement for our trusty Philips vacuum cleaner. We’re supposed to buy a Dyson unit a few months ago but other things on our shopping list were given priority.

Hopefully the list clears up after Christmas so we can start to scout for a Dyson. There are so many cheap vacuum cleaners out there but this time around we want to buy a really good brand.

I have lost count of how many times a telemarketer has called our home phone to offer telecommunication services. Some are polite and some are rude. Either way, getting those calls a few times a day is just annoying. At one point, I had to hang-up the phone because the caller won’t stop ringing our line. How nasty is that?

Currently, we don’t have a caller ID feature and maybe when we renew our contract (we’re looking at changing carriers), we should consider having that feature. It might be a good idea to take note of the caller’s number and see whether they call us frequently on purpose. I understand the pressures that telemarketers go through to reach their sales quota. But I believe that it should not be done at the expense of other people.

In the US and Canada, there is a look-up service provided by WhoOwnsThisPhone.com. It is a reverse phone look-up that can help to trace numbers of unknown callers.

The next exciting thing that comes after purchasing your own home is shopping for furniture. There is definitely a type of antique or modern furniture that would suit any theme chosen for each room in the house.

I would love our lounge area to-be to be a bit colorful, with bright wall paintings, comfy sofas and lots of pillows. The living room will have less modern furniture but more antique pieces. The colors will be neutral yet not the dull shades. Most of the decorations will be cool to eyes and will bring a homey feeling.

The other rooms in the house will have different themes, too. Our family room to-be will have a mix of casual and modern furniture. Since this room will hold most of the simple get-togethers like DVD nights or when you just want to listen to music, the ambiance should definitely be easy-going.

It is very expensive to furnish a home so there should be a good balance between must-haves and nice-to-haves.

A good conversation we had with friends two weeks ago made us re-think of our plans to move to a landed property. We were told that depending on our budget, we could end up getting a house, which may not be properly maintained thus leaving us to do a lot of work. Or worse, having us bear a life with pests or insects that will be just too much of a burden.

Based on their experience, there was a lot of work-around done just to make their apartment livable. The neighborhood although quiet and safe is pretty old and that requires more maintenance efforts on the tenants’ part. The spaces in between the kitchen cabinets had to be taped to discourage roaches to get inside. They have an ample stock of sprays and what not to prevent ants from roaming in the kitchen corners.

Good thing though, that the interior basement waterproofing seems to be working well that they never had problems with it for almost two years now. Given that, it will be a challenge for us to look for a house to rent. We remain positive though that we will end up renting a place that’s meant for us.

Happiness can be found in the simplest things. Like being able to sleep on a warm and comfortable bed. That’s why when we were scouting around for a good bedroom furniture, we made sure that we will not scrimp and save too much yet not go to the extreme of blowing our budget.

It is important that the mattress is of very good quality. When we get a good night’s sleep, our bodies are well prepared for the stress that we’ll encounter the following day. No wonder many companies nowadays sell special gadgets that compliment bedroom sets in aide of a good shuteye.

Someday, when our daughter’s big enough to sleep in her own room and that means we’ll have the bedroom to ourselves, I would like to re-organize it. I would like to add in a dresser, a new drawer and probably replace our mattress frame. This is how cozy I want our room to be. Just looking at it makes me want to stay in it all day. Hee.

[Photo source: www.spacify.com]