I simply want everything I do to be an act of worship to God. ********************EVERYTHING******************** like a spider's web, intricately woven, the threads of our lives are entwined, making us who we are, where we are, at this time in history.... here's a small record of one family's journey to love God

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

so let's just call this a craft blog


never mind provocative statements or musings about life or records of adventures....this blog is turning into a *what's-on-my-needles* piece!!

so here we go again......


hat for K9 to put away in her backpack for when we go travelling....maybe I'll blog about that later.....

...or how about now?

it's hardly a secret any more......Leighton Smith read out my email on NewstalkZB this morning......hey I could post it here...then you'd know I do things other than knit;-)

This was prompted by a series of sob stories in the media at large about how noone can afford houses today...Leighton happened to be discussing it so I had my say:

Dear Leighton,

Do NOT let anyone tell you it is impossible to buy a first home.
My husband and I returned from 2 1/2 years in Eastern Europe 14 years ago and had $30 to our name. We worked our butts off, lived in a tiny flat, ate simply, saved every penny and managed to finish our degrees and get postgrad diplomas within two years with NO debt. We continued saving and when we had a deposit, worked out we could afford a $100,000 house so we went to the real estate agent and asked what they had. They just laughed at us! So we bought a section and built a house. Cost us $96,000.
We sold that house and built another, swapped that one and then built one more. In less than a decade we were mortgage-free in a house worth at least three times as much as our first one is *now*. And don't think it's because we were double-income-no-kids. My husband is in education (ie hardly high paying) and I have been home with the children - over the past twelve years we have had eight of them. Yes that's right. Eight kids, single income, no mortgage.
And my hubby got his masters while working aswell - you do what is important to you.

What are we up to now? Looking at taking the kids to see the *real* needs in the world - China, Mongolia, Tanzania, Great Britian (OK that bit's a holiday!) and then settling to work again in Poland or volunteer at an orphanage in Romania - these are our current dreams we are working towards.

And *that* is why we need woolly hats!!

9 comments:

Sharonnz said...

Love you Rach! Love the hat, the young lady under it and the email!

Jen and family said...

love the hat
your an inspiration to me
jen at http://jenz.wordpress.com/

MamaMonk said...

go for it! it sounds amazing AND i love the story about your first home. i can't wait to hear how God orchestrates the details to fulfill this dream.

skatey katie said...

too bust chatting about all this on email to comment here, but just to say
And *that* is why we need woolly hats!!
that flower is gaw-juss. X

skatey katie said...

yes well i was *bust* today.
busy too.

Rach said...

Kate I was going to knit a flower like that to go on *your* stripey hat and let you attach it if you wanted to.....but not now you want hearts! They just don't go together. I could try a smilar-style heart though to attach over one of the ones I knit into the pattern....if there's spare wool.

skatey katie said...

hearts and flowers.....
hmmmmmmmmmmm.....
maybe i'll make you *two* necklaces and we can do *two* swap cities...???
lol...
and then again, let's just see how the first one goes !!!!!!!!!
mwah X

Kris said...

I love the hat Rachael and I love your story - have heard it before.

We are a family who feel we will never get into our own home. All I can think is that you got in to the market at a good time and managed to snag a cheap section and build a cheap house and then made money selling property. The cheapest 3 bedroom house anywhere in Christchurch is no less than $200,000 and that is for a scody run-down dump. If we were to buy a section the minimum cost would be $150,000 and for $50,000 we could probably build a basic home with a company like Skyline Garages. But we couldn't afford to pay rent while we built.
I feel that we are stuck renting and I do not see how we are to get out of this rut.
It really is difficult to get into the housing market.

I think you have done amazingly well and it is wonderful that you are mortgage free and now planning to head off on a world trip with your family.

Louise

Rach said...

Louise, you're right that we built a cheap house - coz we did absolutely every bit of the work that we *could* ourselves, and did things like paint it white coz it cost $3 to have a tin of paint tinted!! And we only had carpet in the lounge. We painted the MDF cupboards in the kitchen - no fancy laminate doors for us!!! The section was not particularly cheap at the time (just average) and was in the definitely-not-best part of town. Could you get a section and put a caravan on it while you built? We have friends doing that ATM.

Kate - how about fluffy flowers? I saw choccy and pink in fluff when I was looking for your chunky yesterday! Or would you want purple? ;-)