KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

I spent the first day of 2021 visiting some of Boyfriend Pham's family. They moved just a couple hours outside Brisbane at the end of last year, so we went for an overnight stay on New Year's Day. It was Day 8 of my 11-day holiday, but felt like the first day I fully relaxed and enjoyed myself. Ecommerce life, hey?

We spent the day making and eating woodfired pizza, then got walked by their dog, before a night of playing board games all with lots of fun conversation. Seeing friends and hearing stories from outside my little Brisbane bubble is what I missed most from 2020. That, plus the amazing food at the now permanently closed Maria's Caribbean kitchen in Toowong - devastating. 

Being out of my house/Brisbane/regular surrounds let me properly chill out after being in high functioning mode for a lot of last year. It made me nostalgic for travel that we all took for granted, and planted the seed that I need to get out of my regular routine this year. Of course, it's easier said than done. As I write, a friend in Tassie and I were waiting for today's announcement as to whether Brisbane has been removed from Tasmania's naughty list so our Gold Coast getaway can go ahead as planned. And the update was that there'll be another update in 48-hours. But then the convention she was coming up for got canned so we cancelled our catch up. I still kept my annual leave days though, because I need the break.

Making travel plans is a bigger gamble than it used to be, but I'm going to jump at any opportunities that arise year. That, plus we have a $400 flight voucher that expires in October so we should probably use it. Unfortunately, everyone we're close with is a city-dweller and either their city is a hotspot, or their city thinks we're a hotspot. 

I’ve gone over what 2020 wasn’t. Now on New Years Eve, I’ve finally had a week of staycation to unwind and look back on the year that was. 

Boyfriend Pham and I started house hunting with 5 months left on our rental lease because all but one friend we know has had a horrible time finding a house. We thought we’d be looking for over a year like everyone else. Instead, it took us 2.5 months.

We didn’t know where to start at first. I had resigned to single life, and my single income could afford an apartment at best (or at worst, Dad’s granny flat once he passed). Boyfriend Pham had never even considered home ownership because he used to be part of Australia’s growing casual workforce and the income insecurities that come with some casual roles. Neither of us had considered buying a house. To make it trickier, we worked on opposite sides of Brisbane so any suburb would leave at least one of us with a bad commute. Neither of us grew up in Brisbane so didn't have a sentimental home suburb/area/region either.

So where did we start? With our budget to see what we could comfortably yet uncomfortably afford (we’re risk averse people who steer clear of any sort of debt). With our powers combined, we could (uncomfortably) afford:

• A house with some land very far north or south, and a horrible commute for one or both of us (this was before he changed jobs to a place near my work).
• A really old, run down house inner-city(ish) that would eat all our money in renovations.
• A decent sized townhouse with modest garage ‘cause most affordable townhouses near the city have a garage to house a city car, not a car and workshop.
• A large apartment with no garage space ‘cause modern apartments have car spaces, not lock-up garages.

Realestate.com.au price filters are handy, though their algorithm does sneak in options that are listed as ‘For sale’ without a price but will be $50K-$150K above your price range so watch out for that. If it looks too good to be true, then it is.

We tried to write a list of must-haves but we’re both very relaxed people so were flexible on nearly everything. Our mandatory items were quickly whittled down to:

1. Double garage Large single lock up garage ‘cause Boyfriend Pham is a car guy with lots of garage-filling crap that I call hoarding but he says 'will be useful one day.'
2. Three bedrooms so I could have a study that wasn’t the guest room.
3. Open plan kitchen/living with enough room for Boyfriend Pham’s desk so we could ‘hang out’ while doing our own thing. Very important.
4. Quiet(er) street - we lived on main roads the past 3 years and we wanted to be able to open our windows/doors.
5. No shared walls - added once we realised we didn’t want a house in the ‘burbs and started looking at townhouses.

Fortunately, picking a suburb became easier when Boyfriend Pham changed roles, and his new office is 7 whole minutes from my office. Eventually, we realised we didn’t want a house with land if it meant living in the ‘burbs. We opted for an inner-city townhouse instead.

My advice if you’re starting the house hunting journey is go to look at as many options and suburbs as possible. You’ll quickly find what you like and don’t like, and also decide what you’re willing or not willing to pay extra for. If you are buying in an area you've never been before then rent if you can. 6 month lease is plenty of time to get to know the area. 

B and V are my childhood besties. The kind of friends who you grew up with and even though you live in different parts of the country or world at times, when you come together it’s like you’ve never been apart? These two are my long distance, close friends.

Well, both of them are living their best COVID-19 impacted lives. While I was buying my first home and am now settling down during COVID-times, both B and V had fled their homes and haven’t been back since March.

B went on a holiday to Tasmania and when the first wave of Melbourne lockdowns began, decided it was safest to stay in Tassie for the sake of her elderly parents. So while the majority of my Melbourne friends have suffered through a second, long lockdown period, B has spent endless days hiking, biking and adventuring in nature, and eating amazing looking food. Lucky me gets to stalk her private Google Photos feed - she’s one of those peeps who doesn’t mobile phone let alone social media.

V has had nature adventures of a different kind. She’s been living on a boat the past 6 months. It sounds like a dream but she’s working remotely so spends her days ignoring the gorgeous sites outside, tapping away on her laptop in a tiny corner of an already small table on a boat. Still, I imagine finishing work and stepping outside to a sea breeze ain’t all that bad.

I caught up with V in Brisbane as soon as the QLD-NSW borders opened. It was fun to hear about her COVID-19 life, and what’s waiting for her back home. Mainly, a car with a flat battery and perhaps some neighbours who may think she’s dead because she didn’t tell anyone she was going and wasn’t expecting to be away for at least the rest of this year.

2020 has been a write-off in many ways, but it’s awesome to hear the silver lining people have found. If you have any positive outcomes from this wreck of a year, please do share - I’d love to hear it. Email blog@thephamly.com.au

I didn’t enjoy work from home life in a previous role. I got so lonely I started chatting to the spider that lived on my desk, and the two crows that came to perch on the fence. I was also single and didn’t have motivation to take breaks in the evenings, get out of my pyjamas or even shower for that matter. I became quite ill and depressed after six months, and resigned a few months after that.

I am thoroughly enjoying work from home life this time around. After nearly 5 years of long daily commutes, I’m enjoying not wasting hours of my life crawling through traffic. I’ve taken some lessons from my last experience working from home.

This time I make sure I get dressed every day like I would normally for work. In three months, there was one day where I was in gym gear because I did a workout and before I could shower and dress, work exploded in my face. And a second day where I did a morning of meetings in my PJs because I’d slept in, and didn’t get dressed until lunch time.

The gym gear day

Pretty much every older Asian lady in my life wears a jade bracelet, and I’ve come to the realisation that I am now that older Asian lady to my nieces. I broke the cheap jade bracelet Mum Pham gave me a couple of years ago, and I was reluctant to wear the high quality bracelet I inherited from Mum because, well, I broke my last one. Mum’s one is dense and has flecks of black and a swirl of brown on a dominantly green and white band. It’s definitely in a different league to the one I used to wear when it comes to quality.

Towards the end of her time, Mum Pham had become weak and lost blood flow. She stopped wearing her jade bracelet because it was too heavy and cold. She started to carry it around in her money pouch. You know the money pouches that you’re encouraged to use overseas so pickpockets can’t get at your goods while you’re vulnerable in a foreign land? Mum wore that all the time and it was stashed with cash, jewellery, . I’m trying to picture when I first noticed and I think she started wearing it after we got robbed in Australia, and she lost family heirlooms and other valuables.

Anyhoo, back to the bracelet that spent a year or so following Mum around in her money pouch. After she passed away, it spent over 5 years in Mum’s make up / jewellery box that I’d inherited. I recently decided it’s silly not to wear Mum’s bracelet out of fear of breaking it. I’m sure Mum would rather I wear it so I remember her whenever I glimpse it or clang it on something, or whenever I fall asleep on it funny and my wrist aches the next morning, or whenever I hug Boyfriend Pham too tight and it jabs him, and I’m reminded he’s never met Mum but if he did she probably would jab him and tell him to eat more of whatever delicious feast she’s served up. It now lives on my right wrist just like it used to live on Mum’s. This photo is from 2004 on Big Brother Pham's birthday - seafood stir fry noodles with a side of chicken soup.

The world is a weird place right now. Every now and then when I start to feel overwhelmed, I remind myself that my parents had their lives torn apart by war. Their worlds were turned upside down, they lost their homes, their family, friends and everything they’d ever known.

A pandemic where we’re asked to stay in the comfort of our home, and only venture out to buy groceries from supermarkets that would be fully stocked if people hadn’t panic bought supplies? If this is the worst event I’ve been through in my life then I am lucky.

I’ve learned two main things from the pandemic so far.

One: I didn’t need to stock up on any high-demand items because, as it turns out, I’ve been panic buying my whole life - I just didn’t know the official term for it so I called it ‘hoarding.’ You see, Mum Pham taught us to bulk buy items on sale to save money in the long-term. Buying full price is for chumps! I have at least 1-2 extra cans, bottles, packets, bags of… well, everything. When items started disappearing from shelves I still had at least a month’s supply of most things. Thanks Mum Pham.

Two: Humanity can work together to manage global issues. Sure, it has been hit and miss as governments and health experts figure out how best to respond to a super-infectious, fast-spreading virus. But entire countries are putting the economy and society on pause to save as many people’s lives as we can. Imagine what we can do when we work together to tackle other global issues like ocean plastic, air pollution, and destructive energy? That, of course, would require politicians to listen to other scientists the way they’ve listened to medical experts. While I don’t hold much hope that current governing powers will backflip on climate change, I have hope the future generations are seeing what we can do together, and when they’re in power they’ll make the tough decisions our current leaders aren’t making.