state of the nation iii

Following the visit to the in-laws' freshly renovated property and in the scramble to get ready for my parents' impending visit, I have started mentally charting all the ways in which my house is defective and needs work.  This has apparently taken precedence over the actual conduct of any preparatory work: the bedsheets remain unchanged, the floor remains unvacuumed, cupboards are empty and the shower curtain is a sight.  But I have mentally catalogued that the living room window is a horrific mess held together with putty, that the garden needs weeding, and that there's actual daylight coming into the kitchen cupboards from outside the house.  Say it with me now: you paid how much for what?!

This is clearly playing on my mind just now, as the first licks of autumn are curling around and through all the crevices of the purple palace.  (They're also howling straight through the permanently tied open cat flap as well.  Timothy has shown a marked resistance to having to actually push the perspex to facilitate entry and exit and I'm nothing if not a pandering mother.)  I've started hovering over design websites again, planning the lovely subway tile bathroom of my dreams, furnishing the refinished bedrooms with plush linen. 

I think this gentle dissatisfaction is more symptomatic of requiring something to look forward to.  P and I toyed with the idea of visiting Cambodia over the extended Easter break this year but have decided to save the pennies for the mortgage instead, given the extravagant holiday spending we indulged in over Christmas this year.  We've got no plans for trips greater than a weekend in the works.  Nothing enormous is happening at work at the moment.  This is the first time in a very long time I've felt that there wasn't something on the horizon to plan for or look forward to.  I think I'm projecting my need for excitement onto the property. 

I don't think this is a bad thing, necessarily.  We knew moving back to New Zealand meant that we both needed to focus for a while on our careers; in particular, I've moved about a bit and need to prove that I can work in a role for longer than five consecutive minutes.  We're at the stage of our careers where we're pushing for the next step and setting up long term plans (or at least, we should be considering what to do next).  But I think I need something else going on in my personal life to relieve the humdrum of the daily work routine.  I think I ought to plan a low key holiday perhaps.  Or start posting cat videos on YouTube.