My So Called “Planned Holiday” | Andy Lay
Over the Christmas and New Year’s break, I had an amazing plan to get a few major things done in the 1 month I had off. First thing was to get my home loan ready in the anticipation of potentially purchasing my first home. Next, was to complete all outstanding errands and spend some quality time with my family (as I had my lovely nieces from interstate visit). In between all of this, there was Xmas parties, birthday parties and New Year’s celebrations. If I managed to get some spare time in between, I had plans for myself, to do absolutely nothing at all (the stuff dreams are made of).
How did I go? Let me tell you.
As a rule of thumb I always want to get the least enjoyable tasks out of the way first, so in the first week the goal was to get my finances ready which would leave me 3 weeks to search and find the perfect home for me and my family. Bearing in mind that the majority of the paperwork required for my home loan was submitted prior to my break, it still took until the last week of my holidays for the application to be completed. This was due to my slackness but we eventually got there. Anyway, 3 days to go and find for our perfect home. To make matters worse, I came down with a fever in the last week of my holiday. The end result was, even though I got the home loan sorted I am still currently looking for a home, not to worry because I got to spend some quality time with my family.
Each year, my God Daughters come down from Darwin and spend their summer holidays with us. I’ve always loved having them visit for several reasons. Firstly, I enjoy several activities only kids can enjoy, these being going to water parks, riding the rides all day, and eating ice cream when all the rides have been closed. Some may say I’m babysitting three 3 little girls, I’m secretly enjoying the water parks just as much as they are. The second reason is my son Leon, who is 1 and has endless amounts of energy and still wants to play even when we put him down to sleep. However after a full day of running around with his cousins, he sleeps like a dream. This leaves me a couple of hours to relax and watch a movie, hit the gym, or even head out with the boys (subject to permission from the wife).
In between sorting out my home loan, enjoying theme parks with the kids and getting sick, I managed to get all my errands completed including servicing both cars and painting my parent’s house.
So did I learn anything from my 1 month break? I learnt that my son sleeps a lot better after he spends all day playing with his cousins, I also learnt that maybe he needs a brother or sister so I can spend some more time with my wife (or the boys). Overall I managed to spend a lot of quality time with my friends and family, I completed all my errands and miraculously found time for myself. The question now is when’s my next holiday? Can’t wait!