Cannington, Beckenham, Glendalough, Padbury, Doubleview, Rockingham, Stirling, Pithara, Karrinyup, Huntingdale, South Hedland, Dixon’s Caravan Park, Bunbury, one of the “yup”s down south, Rivervale, Tuart Hill, West Perth, City Beach….Seattle.
I love moving. I hate moving.
I have moved getting close to twenty times in my life. It is certainly getting up there.
Early years I don’t remember so much, going from south to north Western Australia. I lived in a caravan park in a chalet for awhile. That was the coolest thing. As a twelve year old, it was super fun to be in this little community of long term residents. My mum was a manager at the service station there. We got to “order” our lunch for school everyday. (Unfortunately, at 6am, for some reason I only ever wanted a cheese sandwich…)
I’ve lived in a place with a pool (awesome!), a place with a hot tub, a place with upstairs and downstairs…a duplex, a couple of apartments, a bunch of share houses and even in a renovated garage. In Perth I have lived North, South, East and West of the River. There was a point where over the course of five years, I didn’t stay anywhere more then roughly six months! I can’t recommend that, moving isn’t cheap and it is nice to spend a bit longer in different places.
After I met W, we moved in together into a once-in-lifetime kind of rental deal. It was a beach house in City Beach, Perth. It was old, leaky and overgrown. It was also stuffed to the gills with the former resident’s gear still! It was great though. Like really great. You could see the ocean from the back room. You could fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing. It had old wooden doors out the front that looked like something straight out of Labyrinth.
We also lived in a cute duplex half in West Perth, also old, also quirky. It was located close to the city and a lovely array of local eateries. It still managed to be on a quiet street. My cat had half the local walking population trained to stroll past and give her pats. We were there just over two years. At that point, that was the longest I had stayed anywhere for ages.
Then came the chance to go to Seattle, USA.
You know, I never thought not going was a real option. I thought it was such a cool opportunity. I definitely did not expect to as homesick as I have been. I didn’t realize how, even with all the moves… I had really settled into Perth. I was really getting to know the city and and all the little nooks and crannies. I was really comfortable.
That being said, Seattle is great. I am starting to get comfy here too. There are some great people in and about the place. The neighborhoods are all really interesting. I don’t think we will ever run out of new places to eat. (Eating is incredibly important!) Very close by there are MOUNTAINS and NATURE…islands and all sorts…We will get out there more.
We lived in Capital Hill the first few weeks we were here, then Queen Anne up until this point. It was kind of in-between upper and lower Queen Anne. The apartment had pros and cons. It was stupidly close to the city – us being without wheels meant that was super important! It had great views of the city and Rainier when she was out. Lake Union slowly became more visible as winter came and the leaves dropped. It was an apartment though and we’ve had some heavy footed neighbors upstairs. (Also, ask W about the thumb story).
Just in the last week we have moved again! To a house! And it’s ours! Or the debt is ours anyway. We looked and drove around with our agent for months and months. We got outbid several times. We ended up giving a short sale place a shot. It went mostly smoothly, with some interesting bumps. But we got it and we moved in with some help from some awesome people… it’s really great 🙂
It is located in Ravenna or Roosevelt technically. It is a 1920’s house with some interesting leaks and a very large list of things that need to be fixed! It has a couple of bedrooms up top and some that need some work downstairs. It has a dining nook with a booth in the kitchen. This is really cool and lovely. Please come have a cup of tea with me in it sometime and I will show you 😉 Our house is the Sideways House – so called due to a fabulous technical filming area. We looked at at LEAST 60 or 70 properties…the contenders for the day would usually get a video. For some reason, this house I buggered it up… 9 minutes of Sideways glory!
In the last year. I have struggled with some other kinds of moving. I’ve slowed down so much I almost stopped. Then things have spun out of control so quickly I’ve come to and not been able to remember big chunks of time. I’ve also done things that I’ve called sideways moves. I wasn’t letting myself see things for the value they had. But moving sideways is just moving forward in a different direction. So that is OK.