First Morning . . . | . . .
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Content Warning: bad parents. Mention of cockroaches, spiders and a snake
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(Note: although this was posted on 7.9.2024, the text describes events that took place on 6.9.2024)
It really is a beautiful house. The curtains are lovely, there's this lovely white lace one with two gorgeous red curtains on top of it, and there's a short floral curtain decorating the top. And it opens to such a beautiful front yard. I suppose there's nothing too special about it, but do you know how long it's been since we've had a front yard? With grass? It even has a little stone walkway bordering the house. There's this green archway that I think is for climbing plants, but could be purely decoration.
When I woke up, I heard bird songs that I hadn't heard in years. It made me realise I hadn't woken up to any bird song in years. This sounds like early morning to me. It all sounds so beautiful. I like the magpies best :) (Edit: and kookaburras, although I can't recall if I heard them that morning). All the birds are just lovely to listen to.
Papi had left last night before I went to bed, so I had hoped he would not be here this morning. No dice. I left my room to collect my phone from my siblings' room (I couldn't find an outlet in my and mami's room, so I used theirs. I played rain noise for them to sleep to in return/since my phone was already there), and that was when I heard him. So for now, I am confined to my room.
I really want to explore the house, since I only did so briefly last night in order to spend as little time around him as possible, and since things will be clearer in the morning anyhow. I suppose I'll have to wait for when he leaves.
Whenever that is. He's been living here* for the last two months. He still has his apartment (or an apartment? I suppose it might not be the same one), but he's renting it out. Would that discourage him from being there? He and mami could never live together for long, so maybe he's only here to acclimate us to the house. Hopefully this is the case.
*(Edit: I assume, but technically all I know is that he's had this house for two months, and that he's spent at least some amount of time here.)
Last night papi said we'd have to go to centrelink first thing in the morning to start receiving government aid. At first he said we would go at 7am, but I woke up at around 7:17am, and it's 7:56am. So we're not leaving right now. But unlike my mum, our dad really doesn't dally much, so we probably will actually be going soon.
That's a good thing. We should apply for aid. I'm 18 now so I could rake in some aid as well. I forgot about that.
I tried to use the hot spot, but I can't connect to the internet, despite saying it's connected. My vpn doesn't have servers that are very strongly connected in australia, so perhaps that is it.
I want to research what libraries are close to here, and what the bus routes look like. Also, use a colour-from-image picker and colour/luminescence contrast tool for this blog post. I suppose I'll have to stop using my vpn for a moment and see if that fixes anything.
Ah, it's working now... I guess that was it. I'll need to sort that out later, I do still want to use riseup vpn.
(Edit: I haven't been able to access the internet at the house since this. The name is different, so it's probably a different hotspot now (we don't have wifi set up yet).)
Okay, so I took a shower and got ready for centrelink and everything, but my siblings (except for my yougest sibling) and papi left for his apartment. I'm relieved. We'll be leaving when he gets back. This leaves a prime opportunity for me to explore! And eat breakfast.
Afterwards, I'm going to unpack. I'm actually excited because I know where everything will go! When I stayed on my grandparents' side of the house in the us, that room wasn't actually mine, and there was already stuff there. So I tried to take as little space as possible with my possessions. I didn't spread them out and sort them to my liking.
And before that, on my mum's side? Impossible. There was nowhere safe to put your stuff. Many, many times your things will get destroyed or lost, and all of your things will get dirty. If you put your stuff in a place seperated from the open/generally undisturbed day-to-day (eg: a drawer), it'd find itself becoming a roach nest.
There's only one time that I remember where I've been able to sort away all my stuff in an empty room. It was in the house we lived at before our most recent stint in the us, after a long period of papi staying there. He must have cleared the room before only placing his stuff in it, 'cus there was a lot of stuff in it before, like with all of those rooms. And most of the stuff in those rooms didn't even belong to whoever occupied the room.
When he left — 'cus my parents had a weird on-and-off again relationship instead of admitting they would always end up hating each other again — he took all his stuff with him. The room was totally empty, except for a bed. It was the only empty room.
It was awesome that I was able to have that room and be able to actually think about where to put all of my things. It was also the only room with a lock, sans the bathroom and toilet*. The room didn't originally come with it, he had to install it himself. Which I find frustrating, because he said that we weren't allowed to have locks (so we couldn't install them ourselves, either), because it's "against fire safety regulations" (???), and that we were lucky we had locks in the bathroom and toilet (I think the house came with them).
*In australia, the toilet is in a separate room than the sink, bathtub and shower.
It's funny 'cus despite all that, my mum was actually worse about locking doors. (I wonder if she's still like that? It's not like there's been much opportunity to lock myself from her in recent times.)
Anyway, the room was a blank slate, which I couldn't remember having before! It was real great to be able to sort and place my things however I liked. It also proved to myself that I wasn't making things up about being able to keep my space clean (in retrospect, it definitely could've been cleaner, but it wasn't a mess. And I know better now!).
So, I'm real excited to begin unpacking. Even if I'm sharing this room, I still have plenty of space for my things. It'll be easy figuring out where everything goes!
Okay, so, back to what I was saying before. Now that papi's gone, I had time to look around! First of all, the bedrooms we were assigned are the only bedrooms, so it seems papi will definitely not be sleeping here! Phew! Soon enough he will leave and we will be left alone, sans occasional visits (which I might be able to avoid if I'm told beforehand when he's expected to come). Just gotta hold on.
The house is very, very beautiful. This may be the fanciest house we've gotten ahold of, I don't know how papi (and my oldest sibling?) did it. I can't let this house fall to mess. It happens every time. First of all, I really can't go back to living in that mess, so I'll have to do my best to clean the whole house, and not just my room. Second of all, I just think this house is too great to let it fall to ruin like that.
Easier said than done, though, especially with baby around. For example, when I was looking around a bit, he actually came into my and mami's room. When I came back I found him there, looking through the window. I was fine with this. But then I noticed he had torn through part of the lace curtain. Less than a day here and already some part of the house has been damaged. Oh well.
I had some tea and cinnamon donuts outside on the patio. I thought the handle of the spoon was very pretty. It has these textured black diamonds (not really, but it's the closest shape) all up the handle, which to me makes it look like it's mimicing a woven pattern (Edit: Turns out most of the silverware is like this! Cool!). Did you know that if you microwave a cinnamon donut for 15-30 seconds, it gets ten times better? I don't think I even like them normally, but as soon as it's microwaved, it tastes amazing!
The patio's awesome, I don't think we've ever had a house this fancy. Ah, although, I suppose the backyard has seen better days. The part of the patio farthest from the house is in a bit of disrepair, there's a random corrugated metal sheet over there, the whole thing needs to be sweeped, and there's disorganised bricks where there might've been steps from the patio to the ground one day.
The rest of the backyard seems to be in a state of disrepair, too. There's a shed, but the door is off its hinges and has rust. There's a random rusty shovel leaning against it. There's a wheelbarrow outside, too. I think there's a broken stone grill? There's a broken table (lots of splintered wood). There's a broken table on the patio, too, although not that broken (the table has cardboard with holographic plastic, but the sides are falling off and the top feels like I could peel it off, too). The big table on the patio is fine (perfect for sewing!), albeit dirty (definitely feels like there's a spider under it. Especially with the cobwebs on the chairs). And overall the backyard just seems to be cluttered?
But like. You gotta believe me when I say it's great. It's awesome. Did you know the railings are green and brownish-red? I love that colour combination! And the wood doors of the garage(! gotta check it out later) are green and brown, which I also love. And it has a big hammock which is awesome! I'm gonna be spending soo much time there. And the backyard drops down into a foresty area (which I suppose could be a safety hazard given there is no fence or railing, but it looks cool)!
(Edit: A snake has been discovered while I took a nap. Perhaps the backyard is a bit of a hazard for Baby, he could get cut or fall or get bitten by snakes aparrently. Or by spiders, which I have seen. But if I lived alone here, I wouldn't mind it.)
(Edit again: Turns out the snake was discovered two months ago by papi when he first moved into(?) the house.)
I also really like all the plants, and I see a lot of potential for a garden! There's also some pots screwed to the wall, and some are filled, but some are empty! What potential! And as I've alluded to before, the large table would be just perfect for sewing! Or reading, or drawing, or anything else! It was very pleasant to have breakfast there. The table's large enough, and there are enough chairs, that all of us could sit there at once. And what a view we'd have!
I had the doors* open to the backyard while I was eating, and baby watched me the whole time. I forgot what he said exactly, but he kept repeating something about going outside. So, after I put away my dishes to wash later, I took him outside!
*Two sliding doors on top of each other. The one on the outside is a screen door, and the one on the inside is glass.
I had to change from pants to shorts first, though. It was real cold in the morning, but it warmed up considerably. Makes sense, everyone was saying to prepare for cold weather, but it'll be summer here soon. The same thing happened when we moved to the us from australia, actually, which I find funny. Papi said that it had been very hot a few days prior to our arrival, but on the day-of there was a cold snap. So I wonder if it'll be that cold in the morning again.
I took baby outside and we looked all around the backyard! He really liked it :). He was running around everywhere.
When everyone returned, he ran through the front door to look outside over there, too. But of course mami had to take him back; he went beyond the house. I think he might like to go on walks with me. I believe I might've spotted a trail close to our house.
After that, we went to centrelink. And so ended the first morning here.
Thank you for reading everybody! Hope you have a good day :).
P.S., you know that game "anomaly watch" on Roblox? Just like I thought, the patio is sooo anomaly watch at night, what with the lights and all. You can stare out the doors while flipping the switch next to it. Can't see anything one minute, and illuminated the next! Perfect for a jumpscare.