The first special person is Mr A – my hubby (that was a little journey in itself but I will leave that for another day). The wonderful Mr A had the insight some 14 years ago to spot this little red brick run down home in a cul-de-sac on the edge of a golf course with a for sale sign out the front! Lucky for us his great judgement all those years ago gave us this amazing location – the house was rented out for 12 years while we went about our business in another house – his father would say to me that he had purchased the best block of land in Sydney to which I would smile and roll my eyes – to me it was a nice spot but was it really that great?
The second special person in my life is my dad – my dad was a very inspiring man. A quite and humble man who had an alcoholic dad, that divorced his mum when he was just 7 years of age. Dad became the man of the house and by the age of 14 had left school and was out in the work force. My dad however had an incredible determination to be successful. By 18 he owned his first business. By 22 he had married my mum and a year later I arrived. My dad also had wonderful insight and guts. Over the years he would put his heart and sole into various business all of which were incredibly successful – he would see something different and give it a go because he thought if you didn’t try it you would never know – he had his ups and downs and even a heart attack at 33 because of stress but he never gave up but went on to bigger and better things.
My dad had a love for nice houses and went about building the first of many homes when I was 8. He got into the property developing business. He gathered as much knowledge he could from other builders and would do some parts himself and finally when he was 55 he decided to get his builders licence (a not so easy undertaking for an uneducated man in his 50's) so he could do it all himself . It was at this time that I started working beside my dad – I did everything from his ordering, to bookkeeping, to driving the truck to the tip to picking up supplies to picking the kitchens and paint colours. We were a great team and he taught me that if you don’t know the answer you find it. Thankfully he taught me about never giving up as it was just 3 short years after starting work with my dad that our family suffered the worst year of our life – in March 2003 I lost my much wanted and loved first born daughter Laura after a difficult pregnancy followed 7 short weeks later by the loss of my beautiful dad to bowel cancer at age 58.
I did consider falling in a heap but my dad had other plans – he had set it up so that there was no time for me consider such things – we were in the middle of building 4 brand new homes and I had to finish them. So it was with my dad’s spirit that I set to work completing these homes. My dad also was one of the kindest people I ever knew. He would go out of his way to help others and never expect things in return. Well dad I am pleased to say that the kindness you showed others came back three fold while I was building those houses – my dads friends and colleagues were there whenever I needed it. I could ring one of dad’s builder mates and ask advice about exactly where a pipe should go in the ground and they would be there to help!
So here we are now in 2010, after numerous years of planning, the spirit of my dad, the memory of beautiful Laura, the insight of my husband and the determination to realise a dream that I am now proud to have the lovely home I live in today.
While to some the kitchen may look to be the most boring they have ever seen to me it is very much a place of joy filled with the laughter of my 3 georgous girls and husband and the numerous family and friends that have shared a meal around in it in the 5 months we have been living here. I am pleased to say we are just a normal family who leads a simple life in the suburbs but is fortunate enough to have a lovely home to live our simple life in (I have discovered that simplicity is the key to happiness!)
It is the also proof that a little bit of kindness can go a long way in someone's life so to my fairy blogmother Simone and all the lovely visitors in blogland I say thank you for all the kindness today. May today be a fabulous Friday for you where you make someone smile and they return the favor to you.
