How I Got Here

When my husband and I first got married, I saw his "country home" as

nothing more than a dump left over from a previous relationship. I

wanted to see it gone. On my first visit, we we were not yet married,

and I saw a huge mess. The house had been used as a storage facility

for four years. At the time, I had no idea how bad it actually was, but

what stood out to me the most was the fact that the guys were keeping

a tractor in the kitchen/dining room.

My husband talked me into having a barbecue/sleepover. When I saw

my first Huntsman spider, I promptly got drunk. I am not exaggerating

when I say it was the size of my hand, and I already had a major

phobia of spiders. I was astonished that no one at the party

wanted to kill it, as they are considered good spiders down here

in Australia.

Fast forward three years. We were living in Melton, and it was hell. We

lived in one of the center units of a six unit square. A sidewalk divided

the units in half, so we had neighbors on either side of paper thin walls.

On one side, we got to listen to the misadventures of a single father

and his sons. On the other side, we got to listen to the constant

fighting of a couple of alcoholics. Across from us, we got treated

to the soap opera of a young couple addicted to drama and

marijuana. I had never experienced anything like it. Cops being

called was a regular occasion. I watched my husband break up

one knife fight and heard about others. The worst part was how

often we were awakened in the middle of the night by loud music

that didn't get started until around 2:00 or 3:00AM. I spent many

a night stressing about whether my husband would finally snap

and give them all the beatings they deserved.

Husband ended up leaving his place of employment, and we realized

there was nothing keeping us there any longer. We discussed it,

at length, and came to the conclusion that the Flowerdale home

would never get finished as long as we lived an hour and a half

away from it. Thus, on my third anniversary, I found myself packing

boxes to move from one dump to another. What kept my spirits

up was the knowledge that we owned half of the dump we were

moving to, and we had the power to make it into something other

than a dump. Plus, it was located in the country which I will

always prefer to the city. And the neighbor situation would be a huge

improvement.

Our plan was simple - take the two weeks from before Christmas to

after New Year's, plaster the three bedrooms, paint them, level the

floors with cement, put laminate flooring down, finish the plaster in

the hallway and the toilet, fix the tub, build up a floor in the bathroom

and tile the toilet, hallway and bathroom. I thought it would be

impossible, but the engineers insisted if we worked hard enough,

it could be done. And after all, they do stuff like this on The

Learning Channel all the time. Well, we learned alright...