I signed a lease yesterday. And paid some rent and generally secured a house for myself and my girl. 

Let's start with the important stuff.

Here's where we will be walking the dog each evening (a 2 minute drive away or maybe 20 minute walk)

So it's in town, which will take some getting used to, but it is right near daughter's high school, a short walk to the train station for me to get the train back to the city for my uni classes next year, and a half hour drive back to the beach we had been living at previously, if we really crave proper beaches. For the moment I will have to make do with the bay on a daily basis. I'll live lol.

The house is pretty much perfect, old and a bit run down but still nice and freshly painted and tiled inside, polished floorboards throughout, high ceilings and big rooms, huge kitchen (lots of room for making soap!), space in the yard for a dog and a trampoline. Oh and a big old bath, yay The price is below the upper limit of what I can afford on my own too so I was excited when I found it (I had been looking at some really horrible dumps in awful druggie areas) and shocked when they called to say I have it. I didn't really believe it yesterday and was sort of flat and numb, I kept saying "oh I won't get excited, something bad will happen, the house will fall down in the wind tonight or a big sink-hole will open up and swallow the whole street or...." lol. Today I am excited, getting phone and internet and power and water etc connected and plotting what we need and how we will move. The house is available for us to move in the day before daughter starts high school. Somewhat serendipitous I'm sure you will agree.

So I now have 2 weeks at my mothers and it's not a problem in the slightest because I have a home of my own to move into, so it's just like a visit really. Remember they went away to the beach the day after I arrived, and they get back tomorrow night, and while they were gone i found a house and signed a lease so, now there's no reason for me to feel helpless and no ammunition for anyone to use against me, I can just enjoy 2 weeks in the city, organise my uni classes etc and visit my grandma and some friends, and I didn't have to endure one single day of living at my mothers and being told I am homeless and pathetic or any of that. AND I have 2 more weeks of not paying much rent so really everything has worked out just perfectly, I had completely given up hope as you guys know and was getting angry and bitter but here we are, all of a sudden, everything slotting into place just right and in ways that are advantageous to me even.

OK so here is the funny part. For a long time I have been on a wait list in my former town for local newspaper deliveries, just to make some extra cash, not a career choice or anything, but the jobs are hard to get and there is a long waiting list because the pay is actually surprisingly good. So finally today, I get an email, congratulating me on my new paper route. Back in the town I used to live in....the grid of streets I used to live in.... LOL! I'm going to do it anyway, its only 30 minutes away and even deducting the petrol cost to get back there it still works out to be very worthwhile. I like the added benefit of being paid to exercise plus entertaining the dog all at the same time. That's my kind of gig. So this is good news really but I can't help laughing at the timing, the day after I sign a lease miles away from that town I get work there....it's only a half day a week anyway, and I am interested to see if I can employ that electric bicycle that has been such a burden to me so far; I can see it finally becoming useful. $2,000 I have paid for it, and all of the drama of having it repaired after it arrived damaged and since getting it I have ridden it perhaps 5 times in total? I think it is about to make itself useful at last.

So I think that's all of my news, today I feel lighter, as if I have been carrying around a huge backpack full of rocks for the last month and I have finally put it down and realised i didn't need to carry it at all. A lesson I suspect I will learn over and over really.

So thanks all for the support and love and prayers over the past few months. Fingers crossed I can get back on my feet now and start rebuilding my life!!!