House-sitting!

As the title suggests, I am currently house-sitting :D

I started on Saturday July 10, and I'll be going back home tomorrow - Thursday July 22. So, I will have had nearly two weeks of house-sitting. It's awesome!

I began at Gawler East, in a beautiful, huge, two-storey house - by myself (although I had Kim sleepover on my first two nights there). I had to look after two cats and one massive, active dog. Remind me never to buy a huge dog if I live in a small house-yard. It's pointless, really. I took the dog for runs nearly every day, to try and expel some of his energy, but unfortunately each day I'd come home from work and find the newly laid lawn dug up :(
I [miraculously] had a few nights at home!!! This very rarely happens! I enjoyed watching TV, which was especially momentous because they had Foxtel :P

On Thursday July 15, I moved houses, to Blakeview. I have house-sat at this place before, with Elyse, over New Year's in the summer school holidays (2009-2010). They have two cats, about six birds, one rabbit and two guinea pigs, so there's a fair few things to take care of! Julia and Elyse are staying with me, so for the most part we all just do a bit, and it's not too bad.

I've really been enjoying the extra independence having my own house brings - although, it is really hard to coordinate everything around work. Things like cooking proper meals, doing the washing and feeding the animals. That's certainly a challenge!!

I mentioned to a lady at work that I'm house-sitting, and she asked how often I do it. She said that she's getting married next year, and she has two dogs, and doesn't really want to send them to kennels or anything (she's getting married in Fiji!). She asked if I'd be interested in looking after her place... Of course I said yes :) It's a long time away, but still!! - The more contacts, the better!
She also gave me the telephone number of friends of hers who are going away for about two months, from August or so, this year. She said they're looking for a house-sitter, and they live in Gawler East as well, so it's nice and close, too.

I went to the shops one day to buy some groceries, and was talking to the girl at the check-out. She was saying how she'd been working all day, and she was tired, etc... Then I told her I was house-sitting and everything, and she became really interested and wanted to know how to find places to house-sit! As she asked me, I realized (and told her) that I really just house-sat once, and then as you mention to people that you're house-sitting at that time, they think of you later on when they're going away; or the people you house-sat for tell their friends... It's really just word of mouth! Pretty cool, really!

So, if you want to get into house-sitting... It just takes one time to get your career started! ;)

~Rachel

One Year Later

Hi!! :)

So... I have had a blog for just over 1 year. It actually feels like I've had a blog for a lot longer than that! I don't know why, since I haven't been blogging much lately :S My apologies for that! There has been a lot going on; a lot to think about--and to be honest, blogging hasn't really entered my mind!


A lot has happened this year, so far. Want to know some of them??

2010 SO FAR

• New Year's Eve celebration at my church with church friends and family--it was an awesome night of fun, with very dear people!!!
• My best friend started a courtship... More later :)
• Kim's cousin Kaylin visited over the summer holidays, from South Africa :D It was great getting to know even just one person from her extended family
• Met Alicia and started planning for Girls of Grace (more on that later as well)
• As an aside... At the end of 2009, I finished working at Flow FM. My traineeship finished in October '09, but I kept working until the end of the year. I wasn't too concerned about not having work--I figured something would come up soon enough! I took January off, and in February started looking for work
• Played in the Gawler Tennis Tournament, and won the doubles trophy for my division :D Woohoooo!
• House-sat with Elyse--watched movies, went for walks, went to the beach...
• Had a beautiful girl, Bec, stay with my family. She is from Switzerland, and a lady from my church organised for us to meet. She is the one person I know that is the most like me in every way! It was crazy how much we were alike!
• Youth Camp in Sydney: DARE 2010. What a great camp! I was a small group leader and a team leader, and LOVED it! I have never been a "leader" at camp before, and I think the timing was perfect. I learned a lot from the other leaders, which was awesome
• Had picnics, BBQ's, and time with family friends (summer holidays are GREAT! And it was awesome not to be working in January and be free to do lots of things with family and friends)
• Waitressed at a wedding with Jewelz, Elyse and Josie
• Started working in the office at Simply Elegant. I have been working on marketing our products, and my boss is very happy with what I've done so far :P
• Have entered a new phase with one of my closest friends... It's so exciting how we have both opened up to each other and are learning more about each other
• Started giving Amy and Jarryd piano lessons (for a few extra $$ ;P)
• You may remember me posting about my dream of starting a girls group. Well, that dream is now reality, and I am so thankful for God's timing and for the last more-than-a-year of waiting and praying!!! Girls of Grace started at the end of February
• Went ballroom dancing for the first time in my life, and I am determined to go again!!!! :D
• Visited Northside Baptist Church
• Had a job interview at Adelaide College of Ministries--aka ACM (not successful)
• Youth Group started back for 2010. We now have a leadership team of 5--Peter, Brad, Alex, Kim and myself. Term 1 went really well, and I'm looking forward to Term 2. As leaders, we are all learning, which can be interesting!
• Started netball training and coached and umpired the younger girls
• Slept over my grandparent's place for the first time in AGES!!! Such a lovely time spent with them :) We went out and ate Indian food... mmmmm!!!
• Had an interview and tests at Hays Recruitment... That was very successful!!! More on that later, as well
• Had a wonderful birthday week, from April 5-10 :P It was so awesome having a whole week of different, interesting things :) On Easter Monday April 5, I had a "family" birthday party; about 60 people would have been there, and it was so lovely! On the 10th, I had another party at home, with about 20 friends, which was also an absolutely beautiful time :) If I can figure out how to post photos on here, I might upload a couple. But they will definitely be on Facebook eventually :P

I know that is a huge list, but all of these things (no matter how small they may seem) are all significant things to me. They all involve things and people that are very dear to me and close to my heart.

I will be blogging more just over the next couple of days, so you will get a little bit more of a glimpse into what is happening in my life right now--and hopefully some more details on a few of the things that have happened this year :)

Many blessings

~Rachel

House-sitting!!!!!

Since Saturday afternoon at approximately 12:47pm, Elyse and I have officially been house-sitting!! (okay, scrap that "12.47pm" part if you struggle with details such as these :P Thought I'd try and be specific!!)
The house we're "sitting" is in Craigmore, so it's extra time to get to work... but work is only 2 days a week, and I DEFINITELY don't mind the extra drive for the sake of having my (our) own house!
About an hour after we arrived on Saturday, we had friends over (yep, already!! :P hehe) and watched National Treasure 1 & 2. Really good movies, although the smartness of the guy in the movie was kind of depressing :(
It's SO good to be independent for a little while... But it does have a lot more responsibility than I'm used to, so I hope this will be a good learning curve :)
Have a great week!
~Rachel