NaBloPoMo Wrap Up!

Yes, today is the 31st of July - so the last day of my NaBloPoMo Pledge!

As I'm not one to make promises I can't keep, I knew I would stick with it, but I will admit that there were a few days when I simply did not want to even go near the computer...

I know that my blog is not one of the most exciting, interesting, intellectual or inspiring out there, and I'm certainly not a very eloquent author, but I do love to write - I always have and suspect I always will! So I have enjoyed this month overall. I was able to gain a few insights into my life simply by posting (ie why social interactions exhaust me so much!), and it was nice to just sit down and write every day.

In the future I will try and write a couple of times per week, but as I am trying to limit my internet usage, I wont be here everyday!

As for my initial excitement at being able to write about food, and work on my food photography... well, I didn't really get to do much photography at all did I?! Oh well, that's still something I'm sure I can work on in time!

But, I'm very thankful that Eilleen let me know about this and I have really enjoyed it - so Thank You E!!

And just for something completely unrelated, I thought that in response to Eilleen's question and my response to yesterday's post, I would actually put up the Pro's and Con's list relating to our house...

PRO's

• We LOVE the character of this house and would dearly love to see it restored to its former glory. We truly believe that our plans would have complemented the original theme but made it more liveable for our current era. Our vision would see it being a superb *inner city* (well as much as you can be up here!) townhouse with a lovely alfresco dining area outside taking in all the fragrances of the local restaurants!
  
• The location is so handy to everything! I am 1 block from our Doctor, 3.5klms from Kindy, and around the same to the local supermarket.
• As is, and with *regular* renovations, its an entirely affordable home for us - unlike the rest of our town/preferred areas to live.
• Moving does mean having to do a lot of research - we do at least know all the *devils* we are dealing with here.
• The additional costs of renting elsewhere and maintaining this house for tennants if we can't sell.
  

CON's

• The Indoor Air Quality issues - our Air Filter is run 24 hours per day 7 days per week and simply cannot filter our air so that it is relatively free of nasties.
• The need for Renovations - the house is run down, needs some maintenance and needs to be enlarged to happily house a family, but renovating is fraught with issues for a Chemically Sensitive Family.
• The proximity to neighbours - again, this is only a concern to a Chemically Sensitive Family - most would have no issues with the habits of our neighbours.
• The very busy street our house faces - again, not an issue for most people, but we are concerned about the vehicle emissions and their effect on our health.
• The cost of renovating using Low Volatile Organic Compound products and methods will add considerably to the project. There is also the concern that even using low VOC products and doing the project as slowly as possible and giving lots of off gassing time may not be enough and we may still react - this is an unknown.
  
• The school that we are now planning on sending our girls to, due to its Principal having dealt with Chemically Sensitive children before and being simply wonderful in helping me with my investigation, is out of town - its in a smaller location around 10 minutes out of town. So yes, it is still possible to drive them there daily, however I'd like not to increase our vehicle usage that much. (This is the area we would move to if we were to move).

So there you have it - the Pro's and Con's as to our current housing situation. Either way, we are up for additional costs than we had planned for - either by having to make up the shortfall here between rent received and repayments whilst renting elsewhere (unless we DO sell), or by doing the renovations as safely as we can...