We're buying our first home; not a house or a property but, a home. It took us 4 days to go from discovery to signing the S & P (Sales & Purchase) Agreement.

WHAT??? SO FAST???? YOU GOT THINK FIRST OR NOT OR JUST LANTAK ONLY????? (translation from Kuching speak: That was quick. Have you given any thought to the seriousness of purchasing a property and the financial consequences which comes with it? note: lantak=knock or rush into).

FYI, we have been thinking (and dreaming!) of getting a place of our own. The only problem was that the properties we liked were either (1) too close to busy roads (2) situated in (over)developed areas or (3) too darn expensive. So, we gave up looking. I had come to a point where i said to God,"I give up!"

Last Thursday, i volunteered to give Linda a ride down to work. She, of course, appreciated it very much. Traffic was nonexistent - it was the tail-end of Hari Raya (Aidilfitri/Eidl Fit'r/Eid Mubarak) and lots of folks must have taken the opportunity to NOT go to work (your's truly included!). I stopped for a lovely bowl of Beef noodles at Green Hill Corner (ah! the memories for some of you...). Lying on an adjacent chair at the table was a copy of the day's Borneo Post. Habits die hard, i read the papers while waiting for my grub - matter of fact, i read the papers while sucking down my grub! A small real estate ad caught my attention - it was simple and of the non-flashy variety - yet i had this urge to see it. Did it mention that it was only 5 minutes away from where i work???

So, drive i did, and wow... it blew me away.

The house checked all the boxes in Linda's list of "What Our Home Should Be" and most of mine - sadly, it left the "Pet elephant in backyard" box unchecked (sob!).
It's a single level semi-detached house sitting on 13.5 points of land. It's got the adjoining house on one side and a small hill on the other.

Lovely.

Linda's 100% low interest rated Federal Government Housing Loan will take care of the payments ( Ah, the perks of working for the G - it's pretty much the only decent perk left!). We just have to deal with the accompanying fees.

What a week it has been. We're on our way to becoming home-owners and being saddled with a RM219,000 debt. We love it.

Oh, it started raining heavily this morning and the smell of clean, ionised air was just heavenly. How was your day?