We saw many adorable kittens (unfortunately too high maintenance and not for us with our werk enslaved lifestyles) and made friends with some rather lovely non-kittenish katze.

We were rather keen on two of them – one utterly and completely mad and one utterly affectionate, but utterly sheddy (sneeze much) and were considering how we could home both, but then the staff brought in a replacement for an adopted kitty and Bessie was completely bedazzled and could not wait for replacement to be transferred from her carrier.

After an interminable wait, the replacement was released, and then much patting and snuggling ensued.

And then we returned home to consider options …

And despite the “WE WILL NOT BUY KITTIES TODAY” rule, we were back less than an hour later to adopt our gorgeous girl:

kitty at our feets and we want to touch her

Our beloved new baby was originally called Penny (co-incidently the name of the puppy I received after surviving almost death at age 9²), but Bessie is completely opposed to kitties with People Names, so we were forced to something else.

We briefly considered “Clin-ton” (note pause), “Babe-bra-ham”³ and Hibbicus⁴ and many other things.

And then in a flash of inspiration, we decided on on Enmore – from whence she came, a fave venue and the diminutive of which is almost her original name.

Huzzah!

Enny has a very nice land all of her own in the ground floor bathroom until she acclimates and we are taking turns with patting duties.

And we are all utterly and completely smitten!

A kitty!

¹ read: hungover … yes, I know.
² A story for Another Time
³ In an attempt to go with the Presidents of the USA: kitty theme.
⁴ Invented by Joe/Frank when he was but a wee boy – we’ve incorporated it into her Proper Name (which is much longer).

And to my extreme surprise All The Babies are also aboard the “Yes! Kitties!” train!

And so we are thinking of paying a wee visit to the Cat Protection Society tomorrow to scope out and pat some kitties, with the intention of possibly, maybe, thinking of considering ownership in the future.

We have a tiny, wee (much smaller than those in the adjoining terraces) rubbish bin which is emptied weekly. This is fine with us as we don’t produce a lot of actual rubbish.

And we have a very large recycling bin, which, unfortunately, is collected fortnightly.

This is particularly problematic when we have an over-full bin and then have Heather, Hilary and Hilarie¹ over for a wee tipple and a tour of The Palace (Of Love)². Which is the same night as bin night and then after all the wee tippling, you forget that it is bin night and when you remember and run down very early in the morning you miss the recycling truck. And you are very pleased that you have a double garage to become a recycling staging centre.

Unfortunately I’ve not quite sorted a suitable regular blogging location. But I will try to carve out a wee space for a more lengthy update over the long weekend.

I am amazed at how delighted, thrilled, besotted I am with our new VeryOwnHaus.

Despite our ruthless culling, I am also amazed at how much stuff we possess. We have resolved to be moar ruthless in the not-too-distant future.

More later.

Consider yourselves warned that I am about to become a Tedious Haus-Owner Bore.

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We had the final walk through of OurVeryOwnHaus this morning!

I was horribly nervous beforehand, all nightmares and full of shakes, because it had been more than 8 weeks since I had seen the place and then for only about 10 minutes.

So much money! What if we had made a horrible mistake?

Fortunately it was just as fabulously wonderful as I remembered and I am so excited about tomorrow when we get the keys!

ZOMG! We have bought a haus!!

This evening was one for lasts:

The last trip on the worst bus route in Sydney

Last pizza delivery from our fave pizza shop

Ermmmm …. slightly less clouds: 5 May 2012: 14:40

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My lovely first born has delighted in reminding me that today was my twenty fifth mothers day.

This was surprisingly more unsettling than any of my birthdays. What an old woman I am!

She treated us to a perfectly gorgeous morning tea at the QVB Team Rooms and a delightful time was had by all. Truly, she has the most perfect event planning sk1llz.

Thanks lovely Joan!

More, but different, clouds: 5 May 2012: 13:00

Heather and I hooked up with DisneyPrincess for drinks last evening and we had an Ace! time.

I did discover that my beer drinking powers have become much reduced: four beers and I was feeling it. I had a troubled sleep and carried about a hangover (and extreme grumpitude) for a good bit of the morning.

Just. What?

Fortunately my winely powers appear to remain intact.

While Heather was in the bathroom DisneyPrincess asked for the blog URL (having been on the road trip to the Nation’s Capital, she knew about my meetup with this most excellent person and was intrigued).

Initially, after extracting promises of 3xtr3m3 secrecy, I drunkenly agreed, but when it came time to type the URL into her phone, I baulked and made my excuses.

Not sure that I am willing to share this with any Real Life people – once given, one can never get it back.

Cumulus: 5 May: 12:00

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We (for not much longer) live on a very small street which is quite narrow and traffic can only drive one-way. There is very little footpath to speak of and no-parking signs abound.

Occasionally people will abuse the one-way rule (because it is clearly dreadfully inconvenient to drive an extra 500m around the one-way circuit) and occasionally people will abuse the no parking rule.

And on very rare occasions, particularly unpleasant people will do both.

I’ve been saving a “State Debt Recovery Office” envelope (such as those accompanying parking fines) for a month or so because I was planning to place it under the windshield wiper of the next car I saw illegally parked, to give the particularly unpleasant person a wee fright and maybe cause a wee rethink of their scofflaw ways.

Over the weekend Don and I had noticed a car parked the wrong way in a quite inconvenient spot and I was considering busting out my precious envelope (there are only 13 days left to use it! new street is wide and parking appears plentiful).

When I walked to the bus stop this morning though, I saw someone beat me to sending a message:

For the very rude uncensored version, click here

Though an A4-sized sticker affixed to the driver’s side of the front windshield is perhaps ever-so-slightly-less subtle than the envelope I was planning.

I’ve tried to ramp up the photographering over the weekend so that I might have some non-sunrise-sunset bloggering fodder for the coming week/s until we move.

Just … how could you leave this?: 5 May: 11:00

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In very positive news Bessie finally completed the coat from hell, just in time for the assignment due date.

It will forever be known as the the Coat From Hell because the instructions for Simplicity¹ patterns are written in some sort of hellish cipher which is ridiculously challenging to translate. I am at a loss to know how the novice sew-er manages. As it was, it was forced to annotate the instructions in English as best I could so Bessie could follow along.

The results though, they were particularly pleasing!

We’d been been searching high and low for appropriate sized buttons. After much torn-out hair we repaired to by button box, where we happened upon the perfect thing … the perfect thing that I have held close for around 15 years.

Proof that you should reconsider your minimalistising / decluttering.