Frankie's Travels: ancestral homeland

I finally made the list of invitees to go visit the office based in the UK for Work. Officially I am going for training and business development. Secretly I am going to prove to the people there that our office has young engineers and to allow me to make a few friends so I can call them up for help later.

I am 50/50 split on my feelings about this trip. I am stupidly excited to be going to see a new country - especially one with so many preconceived notions in my head thanks to too much fiction and tv. It might be a fun (if expensive thanks to the 14:1 exchange rate) Trip. It will be nice to see how things operate in another office and nice to change the work schedule a bit. It is also good to stretch your self a bit contemplating making it through one 11 hour flight, getting the next connecting flight in a different terminal, getting a taxi, finding the hotel, checking in, cleaning up and getting a taxi to the office all over the next 25 hours and all on my own. Married life makes you too comfortable about never having to do things alone and despite having flown to foreign countries for several years now, this is still a bit daunting. Whoot for adventures!! 

HOWEVER.... This trip also means leaving my beloved husband alone for a week. We fight a fair bit because we are both stubborn and independent but it only takes an extra few hours without him to make me clingy and lonely and needy. I'm like a limpet trying to get Eben to wear me like a backpack. If it was me staying home and Eben travelling, I would be climbing the walls with anxiety and loneliness and quietness before Monday morning. But Eben is too strong and manly to admit to anything like that. Perhaps he will bury his time in work things and make the week zoom past. Secondly, I really wish I could take Eben with me on a trip like this. Months because I afraid t go alone but because I want to share the excitement and newness of things with him.

I'll try keep things updated with my adventures in the land of eternal mud and rain (so I hear) but I suspect the trip story will be a lot of sleep-eat-work-eat-sleep with sprinklings of snow and icy winds. 

First adventure will be praying to the fairies of aeroplane seat allocations for a rare sweet empty seat next to me. Followed closely by attempting to sleep in a cramped leg room position. 

Yaaay! Let the Travels commence!

New Travel Blog

I am getting married tomorrow! I can't believe I am finally able to say this. I'll be blogging my travels from a new blogger spot at mrsfrankiestravels.blogspot.com Feeling all excited to depart on my new adventure on Sunday morning with my new husband in tow. Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!

No good byes until we say adiós

So yeah, if you have noticed, this blog has ground to a solid halt.

I think that maybe I am not longer the bloggy angst ridden person I was a year or two or three ago. I no longer need to discuss all the confusing ideas swirling around my head. Or else perhaps I no longer need to be passive-aggressive over the internet at random strangers and non-strangers. 

I have transferred all my "Frankies Travels" to a new blog which will go live in a few months at the very start of my Mrs-Frankie days in time for my next very big adventure. 

And, without spoiling the surprise, I can tell you it will be one heck of an adventure. :)

New Month - New 2012 fun times

New Month - New 2012 fun times

Last Month was insane. To start with, MrT and I purchased a house, we ordered our wedding bands, we booked our wedding photographer and Almost had our freebie engagement shoot (sadly postponed due to the rain). We started our wedding preparation course and are now half way through it. We did some serious financial planning and started the legal agreements around co-owning the house.

We have been solidly busy since the start of the year and I am exhausted. But I am proud of us for making so much progress. Proud that we are motoring ahead towards our new life and the Big Day that celebrates the start of it all.

In the course of being engaged these past seven months I have had some pretty low days where I have really wondered what I am doing with his ring on my finger and considered the ramifications of breaking the agreements and running for the single hood hills. But now lately I am feeling that everyday we inch closer to the wedding day, I am more certain that MrT and I are making a great decision to be together. I am no longer dreaming for a wedding and now dreaming about a marriage. This is a Huge step for me because I have been massively afraid that My head was only absorbed in the wedding and ignoring all else. I am actually looking forward to the days of being His Only One for the rest of my days and the days of him being My Only One.

So February is now here and I think MrT and I may slow down a little and enjoy the scenery. (and try get into the swing of working for a 5 day week uninterrupted)

Best of all this Month is wishing Happy Happy 30th Birthday to my older brothers. Gonna have a fun time celebrating it this weekend. It is generally going to be a good year for celebrating family. My grandmother passed the big 9-0 last month and my splendid Father is crossing 60 at the end of the year. Heck Yeah!

Regaining my enthusiasm

It has been a busy few days in terms of wedding planning and house buying. The banks have responded to our home loan applications. Some of the replies were hopeful and some were not at all. (what is a first time home buyer supposed to do with a 60% offer from the bank? Only purchase and live in 60% of the house?)

We have been waiting with baited breath for the final official response from the banks which have made nicer provisional offers.

It is agreed that as I have a nest egg investment, that I would be taking care of the transfer duties. Now I plan to stand by this agreement even though I am very sad to have to dissolve these investments. But I die a little bit more inside every time the transfer duties are mentioned at a higher and higher price.

So I was feeling pretty low this past week after writing up an expected expenses list for the next six months. Low low low and poooooooooor.

But this isn't a sad story :)
I have had a first meeting with the lady who is going to design and make my wedding dress for me. And the dress is gonna so great. So great in fact that my enthusiasm and excitement is driven only by the 30 second sketch she drew based on my requests. And I have a LOT of excitement. Anyway she gave me an estimated price to do the job and she is well within the budget which is a massive bonus. (getting exactly what I want without having to break the budget - can I get a Heck Yeah?!)

The strong independent woman in me is giving the wedding obsessed part of me long looks of deep disdain that a wedding dress is enough to turn my money blues around.

In any case, the optimist in me sees the money blues as a good time to get started on that wedding diet...

Home loans and other Adult behaviour

We submitted an offer to purchase on a house. We are planning on buying a house to live in. We will be home owners... Like owning a house like other adults.

I am just waiting for someone to pop out and say "Hey, you lot are too young for this! You can't own a house!" Sadly I expect the response from the bank will be more like "You want a house and a car and a wedding? Sure, just pay your salary directly to us for the next 12 months. No need to fiddle faddle with having any food or money or new clothes or petrol for that new car."

We are currently sitting at my bank to apply for a home loan. We have already applied at MrT's bank and will be heading off to the Estate Agents bond originator next. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be allowed to get off to work some time close to the end of lunch time so I can make an effort to meet my really important Friday deadline for a draft design report. (sounds fancier than it is, it's more like a draft report thingy).

At the same time this week while chasing a 10 working day deadline to get this home loan thing secured, we also have appointments set for several wedding service providers. Clergy today, wedding dress on Thursday, florist this week, Rings soon. Then we need to find a legal advisor to assemble our marriage contract as well as a will and a property agreement. (one persons bond and two salary earning contributors).

I'll be honest all the big money numbers being thrown around I am feeling a shade of distress about my wallet for the next few months. Sure we have picked a place we can definitely afford but the bond costs and deposit and transfer costs ON TOP OF paying our part of the wedding and honeymoon is going to make for a very tight squeeze.

And Then!! Bloody MrT wants to pop out and replace his car. I have no idea when he found time to nurture that idea. This idea irks me specifically because I am DYING to replace my Tazz but as I bought my car cash, making a new vehicle finance debit order is a lot more work than MrT swapping one car installment for a different flavour.

So all in all the future is hopeful but we are looking at it through a haze of an imminent money drought. Any body got a couple spare hundred k lying around that we could use for the next 6 months and replace in a little while?

Sent from my iPad

2012: the bumper crop of happy days

As I mentioned before, as the year 2011 was rounding down, I was desperately wishing the year would just bloody tick over already. This 2012 year may just be one of those really momentous ones.

To start with my grandmother is turning Ninety. Not only that, but my father is turning Sixty and my brothers are turning Thirty. Now we all age at exactly the same speed (to be precise, we age at sixty seconds per minute exactly). But four milestones in a year is pretty awesome.

In addition, other than MrT and my Big Day, we have four friends weddings lined up. By funny coincidence, two weddings two months before us and two weddings two months after us. Specifically, the Best Friend Engineer is getting married and I am gonna be her right hand maiden to make sure she has the special day she deserves. Also one of the weddings is going to be in Mossel Bay. It just happens to co-incide with the same month that I'll be moving house back to my parents as well as the BF's wedding.... We need the holiday but traveling to Mossel Bay and back kinda goes against the while plan of saving money for Our Own Wedding.

Then I might just around to replacing my trusty old Toyota with something a little smarter. Currently the options are a three way tie between the Italians, the Japanese and the Koreans. Either way, I look forward to driving with a functional radio and aircon as well as not having to pray hard every time I have to stop suddenly in morning traffic.

MrT and I are considering buying a house for Mr&MrsB-to-be. It is both stressful and thrilling spending weekends house browsing. We have a couple of really good options ahead which I really look forward to furnishing and, after June is here, playing House House -the Married Edition. I have fantasies of arriving home from work and putting down my briefcase and pronouncing to MrT "honey I am hooo-oome"... Of course because it is my fantasy, MrT is cooking dinner and has the slippers and news paper ready next to my comfy chair.

If I am proactive and really pull myself together, I could manage to finish writing up my ECSA reports this year and achieve PrEng status. I say this as if it is achievable because I have only written 10%of the required reports so far. but maybe just maybe if I manage, despite all past habits of being un-pro-active, to write up and submit my ECSA documents and they really like what I have spent the past three years doing, I will join the exclusive club of engineering coolness as well as gain the pay rise that goes with it. (yeah I admit I am motivated by money here)

Finally, this is the Year I Get Married (a year and a half ahead of schedule in the 5 year plan but ... Meh.) We have a venue and a nominated photographer and a ring maker and a wedding dress maker and a theme and a color scheme and the honeymoon is booked and so many more plans and we really are trying to be really pro active about making the special day be everything we imagine it to be. And even if we don't get exactly what we envisioned, I am beginning to get a really good feeling about how nice the whole day may just be. I am a cool and calm bride-in-the-making... There is however still 6 months to go.

And so this 2012 year looks to be a real bumper crop of happy days... The only huge question to ask is How on Earth we will pay for it all...

Sent from my iPad