Day 26 - 27

Okay. So the good thing about having an open home is that - even if nobody visits - you end up with a tidy house. And that has to be a bonus! We do have someone very interested in buying, but they have to sell first. So, if you need a house in Cambridge, let me know! Cambridge, New Zealand that is.

Day 24 - 25

Last night we had some evening visitors to view our house. It turned out that the mother of the family and I went to the same school. So that was an interesting talking point. It was also interesting showing our property at night time. We all had torches and my daughter demonstrated the flying fox in the dark! The visit was great and I hope to hear from them again, but you never know. The swimming pool thermometer said the temperature of the water was 20 degrees, which it was about a week ago. We put the cover on to get the temperature up a couple of degrees and maybe some of us will be brave enough to have a swim this weekend! Here's a photo I took this morning of the cover on the pool.

Day 22 - 23

The house sale journey continues, even if I'm too busy writing elsewhere to remember to write here! I put the open home signs out for 3 hours yesterday to see what a week day would be like and I didn't have any visitors. I might try it another day. One of the other things that we did at our open homes at the weekend was to encourage the children who visited to use the flying fox. Here's a picture of that. Today I was putting out the washing and had a visit from a heron. I'm not sure if it's the same heron that visited us very regularly a few months ago. This one just landed in our tree long enough for me to take a photo for the blog. Our previous visitor stalked around the swimming pool on a regular basis - never going in though. Or it would sit on the swimming pool fence looking like an ornament. Perhaps it's back!

Day 20 - 21

We have had some visitors to our open home this weekend. It's interesting to meet people and find out how our house fits or doesn't fit their needs. Most people are still waiting to sell a house before they can buy. Others are just browsing. Everyone seems very impressed - especially with the property. Two of the children that visited today even had a swim! It's been gorgeous weather here and quite hot. Now all I need is someone to arrive, fall in love with the house and not have to sell before they buy!

Day 19

We had another good cricket win today. It's gorgeous sunny weather at last, and due to stay that way for the next two days of our long weekend. I have lots to achieve, including preparing for open homes on Sunday and Monday. Lots of writing deadlines too, so I don't think I'll be outside enjoying the sun. It's just good to know that there is actually a sun in this universe! I was busy with teaching again yesterday and very tired in the evening, so I inadvertently missed a blogging day. Never mind. And I also haven't prepared any photographs for this post. Maybe tomorrow I'll get snap happy in the sunshine. Enjoy your weekend!

Day 18

It's been another very busy teaching day. I also had some writing assignments to finish so the day felt like one huge rush from one thing to the next, interspersed with several important phone calls. I didn't get some things done that should have been done but there's always tomorrow. I still have a house sale sign on my van window so I'm doing some low key advertising on my travels. The noticeable thing of today was the strong and blustery winds. Of all the weather choices, wind is one of my least favourite. Let's hope the weekend weather is calmer, sunnier and warmer.

Day 17

I've been busy teaching today so I haven't had time to think much about house buying and selling - which is probably a good thing in some ways. Tonight I've been looking at some of our old photos of the house the way it used to be when we came here 11 years ago. Unbelieveable would be a serious understatement! I am reluctant to let anyone see the evidence. Words like overgrown wouldn't be an exaggeration. I can't remember it being like that at all - but the photos tell the true story I'm sure. The miraculous change has been brought about by my very hard working and long suffering husband. He has transformed the property - and that explains why his emotional connection to it is greater than mine. Some lucky person will reap the benefit, I'm sure.

Speaking of lucky, I found my lucky Japanese coin today when I tidied the van slightly. It had been lost for a few months and I have certainly missed it. Then, coincidentally, when I was looking through my photos to see what I could add to illustrate this post, I came across this photo of a four leafed clover (also lucky) that we had growing here for some time.
My friend Margaret had a patch of them in her garden and she kindly gave me one of the plants which I grew here for a time. It doesn't seem to have duplicated itself though. All I have left is the photographic proof! Here it is. So I'm feeling lucky and that's all I'll say about that!

Day 16

All things are quiet on the house front. I think we should have another open home over the weekend, probably on Sunday again. Monday is a holiday so that might be good too. The picture I'm adding today is of a mosaic I made many moons ago for the front of our property. I fully intended it to be part of a flash new brick pillar/letter box but that hasn't eventuated. At the time we also made similar mosaics for our close neighbours and snuck them under their letterboxes on Christmas Eve. They were very surprised and pleased to see what Father Christmas had left.

Day 15

We have had more than 1000 views on the website advertising our house. Imagine if that translated into 1000 open home visitors! Overwhelming to say the least. Today I thought I would photograph two parts of the house that haven't appeared in other photographs. They're both to do with fabulous storage solutions. Our house is great for storage. One is our walk in storage cupboard, designed by my husband. It's the most wonderful thing and I am ever grateful for such a large and efficient way to keep things in their place. Now, whenever I look at other houses, I notice the lack of storage space compared to ours. The other photo shows what we call our bathroom pantry. It stays as part of the house when we leave because it's a very tight fit next to the shower. When we redesigned our bathroom a few years ago I desired a pedestal basin. That meant we needed a cupboard - so we went the whole hog and got a big one. It's quite handy since our place is the closest thing to a pharmacy that you're likely to come across. You name the ailment, I have a cure. Anyway, I digress. The bathroom pantry also holds the towels in the actual bathroom which I have always thought was a good plan.

Day 14

Here is the sign that our daughter made for our open home today. The ones I bought online worked well in directing people here and, despite the very inclement weather, we had two families come to visit us for the open home. I was really pleased and the day helped my confidence immensely. Both families had the same comment about our property - Brilliant! The first family had a lovely little 4 year old daughter - Nearly 5! The second family had three lovely children and my husband enjoyed giving them a turn on the flying fox - even though it was raining. I have also included a picture here of the new entrance my husband and father in law have been making.
It's not finished yet, but was used by both families quite happily. So, all in all, I am very pleased with progress.

Day 13

Today was the first day of the new cricket season so I wasn't at home much until this evening. I enjoy cricket very much and love being a scorekeeper for my son's team. He opened the batting and scored an excellent 39 runs. I was a proud mum indeed. The team won, which was a bonus. It was a long day in the sun and a nice change. My wonderful husband came straight home from umpiring and mowed the lawn to make it look extra special for the open home tomorrow. This is a photo of his much loved ride on mower, taken on a previous lawn mowing occasion.
I cooked dinner and imagined all the jobs I want to complete before tomorrow. One good piece of news was that we have perfectly timed our open home to coincide (by accident) with another open home in a nearby street. Hopefully the flow on effect will come into play with that. I was pleased with the advertisement my friend Rhonda helped me to organise in our local paper. Now I just need people to see the advertisement and feel compelled to come and have a look for themselves. I would love to have some feedback from them too. No doubt I'll write all about it in my next blog post.

Day 12

I had a busy day which included meeting some writing deadlines and looking at a house in Hillcrest with my father in law who's been a builder and building inspector so knows what to look for in that department. After that I talked to someone about a writing opportunity. It sounds very promising and I'm looking forward to doing some work with them. I should have done some housework in preparation for our open home on Sunday but it didn't happen, unfortunately. If only I was as diligent with housework as my son is with his homework! I also talked to some more people about our house and distributed some more fliers. It's called the scattergun approach, apparently. I couldn't think of a picture to add so I looked through my files and found this one of the day a few years ago when we put in our swimming pool. It was very exciting to have a huge crane here lifting the pool over the garage and into its final position. The men all loved wearing hard hats and sounding important as they called out instructions. I just hoped and prayed that it wouldn't bang into the house or land on the garage! Fortunately, it found its way perfectly into the slot that had been dug out for it. I can heartily recommend having a pool. It makes summer a breeze.

Day 11

I spent the day in Auckland, celebrating my dear friend Lynley's birthday. We had a lovely Italian lunch together and enjoyed a well overdue catch up. While I was away, we had a torrential downpour in Te Awamutu and then another one about dinner time. Not much happening on the house sale front today, just working on being ready for all our visitors at the Open Home on Sunday! Here are some more of the great photos of the outside areas on our property which were taken by our photographer friend Pele.

Day Ten

Today I'm showing you some of the wonderful array of fruit that grows on our property. These lovely photos were taken by my friend Pele. They show our grapefruit, lemon and orange trees. We also have a lemonade tree, mandarin tree, tangelo tree, feijoa tree, golden delicious apple tree and passionfruit vine. I think that covers the fruit trees. And there's plenty of room for more to be planted if the next owner has a hankering for that.

Day Nine

Well, today was all very exciting, from the mention of our house on tv this morning (see Breaking News below) to the sad event of hitting a neighbour's cat with our car this evening on the way home from a squash tournament. It was sad and just couldn't be avoided. The cat ran straight under our car and we hit it almost without realising. I stayed with the cat while my husband went to find the owner. When we arrived home after this very sad episode, our own cats were waiting at the door. We were all sobered by how quickly a beloved pet could be taken.

However, back to the day, which was busy. I spent a good part of it working on my publicity ideas for the house sale - buoyed by the brief excerpt on television which featured our now famous laundry chute.

Funnily enough, the laundry chute was used for something other than laundry on the very day it got a mention on national television. I was sitting in my office and I heard strange noises coming from the pantry where the chute goes into the kitchen area. After a while, out pops the head of our cat Dora! She had obviously wanted to come inside and, finding the laundry door open, decided to scramble up the laundry chute to make an entrance through the pantry into the kitchen. Fortunately the pantry door was open and she was able to find her way inside the house. I guess she thinks it's a cat door. I photographed the laundry chute while the cat took her place at the highest spot possible. She leapt onto my computer table, up to one level of shelving and then up to the top tier of shelving, just centimetres from the ceiling. Here she is, surveying her domain!

Breaking News

Our house sale has just been mentioned on Breakfast TV!

Here's the exciting link: (you need to go to about half way through when the male reporter reads out the text I wrote in response to their roving reporter/weather man Tamati Coffey visiting a multi-million $ mansion with a lift!)

Now here's the link - really this time!I got our house advertised on tv!
At the moment I'm having trouble making this activate on the blog.
However, if you highlight the link and put it up into your browser, it should start playing. It's about half way through where they mention our house. Good luck.

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/breakfast-tuesday-october-12-3831637/video?vid=3831888

Day Eight

Oh, happy day! I have just realised that I have a "follower". Not to sound too much like some religious crank, it's just that's what they call it in the blogosphere if someone tags your blog as one they want to follow. So welcome to you "Susan". Nice picture.
Today was freezing. I heard there was even a dusting of snow on a nearby mountain which is very peculiar since we're halfway through Spring. The children are back at school after their two week holiday and I managed to get some concentrated writing time at last. Not much happening in the world of house sales, sadly. We are surprised that so far no one has wanted a closer look, but there you go. You never can tell what might happen tomorrow! I haven't been photographing anything much today, so I thought I'd show you what it's like to enjoy our swimming pool on a day that's significantly warmer than today!

Day Seven

Our week long anniversary of being on the market is up today. I was happy to see that 700people have viewed the ad on the website. Now all we need is some of them to come along and view the real house, not just the photos! I know people who come here will fall in love with our lovely property - especially if it's a sunny day and the birds are singing. But I'm a positive person and I know it's all about timing. So I trust that timing and I feel relaxed about it all (most of the time!). We are talking about the possibility of holding an open home some time next weekend, which will be great.

Today on Trade Me I bought some open home signs to stick in the ground and lead people to our house - a bit like the way Hansel and Gretel dropped pieces of bread to mark their way back home.

Day Six

I'd love to say someone came and looked at our house and fell in love with it today. However, today wasn't that day. I am believing it will happen, and feeling positive though. The other family members looked at the house I liked yesterday and they liked it too, which is a good sign. Now I have to wait for my father in law to look at it and give his considered builder-type opinion. It feels good to be making some progress in one part of the journey anyway.

It's been very windy and not so warm and sunny today, so I haven't spent much time outside. Today I thought I'd feature two indoor pictures. Earlier this year, just before we decided to put our house on the market(!), I was very inspired by Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. On his advice, we gave the children permission to paint their bedrooms themselves. They had a lot of fun and we were all pretty pleased with the results. Our son's room has one feature wall showing his sporting passions. Our daughter has painted a bit on each wall, but this one pictured is my favourite. We realise it may not be everyone's cup of tea to buy a house with pictures painted on the walls, but it's not to hard to paint over them. Who knows, it could be considered a unique selling point!

Day Five

I had an exciting day in the house journey today.
1. I collected the new sign to put outside. (photo coming soon)
2. A man in a bobcat (small bulldozer) did some work on part of our lawn which had been waiting to be done for a while. (photo here now)
3. I looked at a house in Hamilton which has potential for us.


After three days at cricket camp, our son came home and played cricket with his friend on our large front lawn. We'll certainly miss having such a big flat piece of land for "family games", but we hope to find a house near a park, so that will have to suffice.

Day Four

I was busy doing dinner at sunset so didn't get a photo. However, I've included one here of a sunset picture we took from our driveway a while ago. Amazing colours and so beautiful over the farmland.

I've also used another photo taken on a previous occasion. One of the benefits of living on half an acre is that the children have been able to have lots of pets. Every year they had lambs or goats for pet day at school. We always chose animals that could go back to the farm once pet day had passed. These little goats hold many happy memories for the children. They named them Buddy and Poppy. They were cute for a while but when they had earned their ribbons and grown bigger, I was glad they could go back to their farm.

Day Three

We've enjoyed another beautiful evening in paradise tonight. My husband frequently relaxes in the evening with a warm spa (with the lid half closed to retain heat). He's a private person so I was actually surprised when he allowed me to photograph him for the blog - as long it was from the back! It's certainly a wonderful place to relax from the stresses of the day and it's a great cure for aching muscles after heavy outdoor work or gardening. We've loved having a spa and are really pleased we put it in. Just another bonus for the lucky buyer of our home!

It's also great living next to a farm. We get these gorgeous rural views every night and the most glorious sunsets. No doubt I'll be posting one on this blog soon enough. When we moved here the children were toddlers and I heard one of them telling a visitor that the farm outside our window belonged to us! It doesn't, but in a child's mind, the world was as far as the eye could see I guess!

Day Two

The tui have been revelling in the long awaited sunny weather. This picture is the best I can get of one of the tui that has been singing in our huge oak tree for the last few days. For those non-NZrs out there, the tui is a native NZ bird with a lovely song. I think it's only the male that sings though. If I'm really clever, perhaps I can get a recording/video and put it on her tomorrow. That's if Mr Tui performs on schedule.

Apart from that, it's been a day of drumming up some more advertising for the house. We made a big sign for the front of the property, to use until the professionally made one arrives in a few days. I've photographed it here, more for the sake of making the blog look pretty - not to show off my artistic signage skills! And I've deliberately obscured the phone number for privacy purposes - just in case you think it looks a bit weird that way. But you can see that we live at the end of a no exit street with a lovely mountain in the distance. That's Mt Kakepuku.

I also emailed lots of people I know about the house being on the market. Just trying to keep the word out there! A woman from Auckland visited about a writing matter and was amazed at the price comparison. Her little place on "a handkerchief sized section" cost them half a million. She was amazed at what we have here for just over $300,000. Sadly, I didn't turn her into a buyer. Yet.

Day One

That's our wonderful home for 11 years. We've put it on the market so we can move closer to the city where our children are both going to school next year. Sounds mad, I know. But we've had a lovely time here and it feels right to make the move. I just hope another family falls in love with the property as we have done.

Because we're semi-rural, there are some fabulous starlit nights. Sadly, tonight's display is not done any justice by my small digital camera. However, I did try. We were using the telescope to look at Venus (very bright) and Jupiter (with moons). Sorry I couldn't do any better than this. Maybe next time when it's not so dark out.