So having left university with plans to get a temporary job to save and go travelling I joined some agencies in Norwich and soon found myself with an admin job at The Money Centre, a Buy-to-Let and Commercial Brokers based in Norwich. It wasn't a career I was after but having always been keen on numbers it was definitely of interest to me, so working here for a few months to save some money to go away again looked to be fine. I started the same day as another girl, Hanna, who I am still really good friends with today. Hanna had an Estate Agency background so during the training knew a lot more than I did about property etc. but I got through it ok and was keen to learn. The small team that was then The Money Centre were a friendly bunch and I liked it. I was still a little unsettled at this point in my life and coming home had brought my memories of what happened in Australia to the forefront of my mind so I was definitely having up and down days with a diet of sleeping pills and about 6 cans of red-bull a day to get me through work! After several sick days I was pulled aside by one of the Directors and my line-manager and told that I needed to up my game to stay working for them. One thing you will learn about me is that I hate letting people down and I can't stand failing, so this was enough for me to turn things around. I suppose I felt like I had something to prove to them and myself and it's safe to say I did it.
Soon after I'd decided to give it a go at The Money Centre my plans for travelling were postponed and I planned to stay at The Money Centre long-term. I'd started dating James in April 2002 which was going really well and then in the August of that year a friend and I bought a house together to get on the property ladder. I was 21 at this point so really pleased to be making an investment for my future already. My life had changed, with my days of being a drunken reckless student behind me, and I was pleased. Don't for one second imagine I was T-total now though! Come on I was 21 and in my partying prime, I just did it two nights a week instead of six and held down a job that I was prospering at as well as a boyfriend that it was safe to say I had fallen for (HUGE thing for me in itself!!). I'd switched from administration to sales at The Money Centre by the end of the first year I worked there, where I did pretty well if I do say so myself. I absolutely loved the thrill of selling and the commission structure was so exciting for me, before I knew it my hard work had paid off and I was earning near to a six figure wage at the age of 22!! This was like a dream come true for me and really helped me to be able to set-up my life well. With my student paid off quicker than I ever imagined I had more money than I knew what to do with, so we lived very well whilst this lasted and why not indeed!
Unfortunately my friend decided a few months after we'd bought the house together that it wasn't for her and she didn't in fact want the commitment at that point in her life, which was totally fair enough. This was sad though and a bit of a headache as we were tied into the mortgage for a while yet but out of a bad situation came good and James kindly offered to move in and pay for her half, even though his name was not put on the Deeds until we were no longer tied into the initial mortgage - a big risk on his part and could have ended in tears for our relationship as we'd only been together for about 7 months. Luckily though it brought us closer rather than drove us apart and we soon outgrew that little house and found a dream project of a barn conversion in a village between Norwich and the North Norfolk Coast. Having been living and breathing Buy-to-Let investments we decided to keep the initial house as a rental property and buy this new project to convert and live in.
We turned the two-bed cottage into a five bed house and we're still here today enjoying all of James' hard work! The Buy-to-Let bug had well and truly got us hooked and by 2006 we had three rental properties of which we were looking at as long-term investments.
Between 2002 and 2006 some very exciting things happened as well as the work and property investing, so don't worry it wasn't all work no play! In February 2003, James and I went to Amsterdam for valentines weekend and after only 10 months of us being together James proposed!! Me married, this was a strange prospect for me as I had said I'd probably never get married (a bit like I'll never have kids! ;-)) but with James everything just felt right and I loved him with all my heart. He was the rock I needed in my life after losing Debs and I couldn't imagine life without him, plus it has to be said that he's pretty easy on the eye (don't tell him I said that as he'll get a big head!) so why would I NOT marry this man!! We had quite a long engagement and got married in August 2005 - a fantastic day that I will never forget so thank you to all who were there to share it with us and for those that weren't we can promise you that you were missed. Before we got married we got ourselves a new addition to the family - a chocolate labrador puppy who we named Woody and is with us today and the grand age of 6 and a half and get soppier by the day and unfortunately more poorly but I won't go into that now.
Although I'd put the travelling thing on hold we certainly got about a lot with various weekend breaks in Europe and plenty of holidays. Some of the places that we visited in those four years were Amsterdam, Rhodes, Lanzarote, Seville, Egypt, Venice, Paris, New York, Tanzania for a fabulous safari and then Zanzibar for some R&R at the beach for our honeymoon, Dubai and Australia. I also went back to Australia without James in 2005 as my friend Jody had just moved there and her sister Lou was heading over in the February . . . Lou made that fatal mistake of asking me if I wanted to go? Never put seeds like that in my head, it's dangerous! So anyway, I wanted to go to put some things emotionally to bed before we got married and James was more than happy for me to do it, so I went over for about a week (although 8 nights away from the UK with travelling) to get it out of my system. Great to catch up with Jody and her new friends and I went back to Coogee where we'd lived in Sydney, which was strange. I don't think I particularly liked being back there - I had the first night on my own and just sat on the beach thinking for a few hours. It had changed, of course - no backpacking friends, no sand-fly infested flat and mainly no Debs. I don't know what I thought it would be like but to this day I can't really explain whether it did me any good or not. I suppose it was good to go back on my own before taking James back so I was prepared when we went together the next year and it was a much better trip then.
Plus we went with a load of the girls I'd met in Australia originally so it was great to share the memories together and for James to be part of it. One of my goals from 2003 or 2004 was to visit at least three countries a year, so although I hadn't been on one specific travelling journey I made sure I was getting plenty of tasters. Poor James, he's petrified of flying and there's me dragging him around the World! I think he realised early on this was a big dream of mine and now I'm pleased to say he shares that dream with me and are always chatting about the next trip we'll take. There will be plenty more trips I'll cover from 2007 to date on the next blog if you're interested . . .
So what's been happening since last week in the life of Kaori . . .
Well firstly I've got to be honest and say that I've been feeling a little more emotional than normal - on the verge of tears on several occasions for situations that I would ordinarily not be phased by. I'm guessing this is my hormones as it's pretty unlike me, particularly over the last couple of months when I've felt calm as a cucumber about everything. Whilst on the pregnancy subject I don't suppose much else has changed apart from the continuing growth of my bump - it is now there for all to see with no hiding it if I tried! Aside from that the only weird thing was a worrying day and a half when I couldn't feel her move. Now, this is something quite strange as going from never feeling her to feeling her everyday and then suddenly nothing again does make you concerned - perhaps I'm being paranoid? Anyway, it was probably because I had super busy days Monday and Tuesday and was pre-occupied or something, but thankfully when I was on the way to my second late shift in a row at the council Tuesday what started off feeling like a pain in my stomach turned out to be the little one wriggling around and before long she was moving about as energetically as she had been before - phew! The only other symptoms that I'm having is headaches in the morning and nose bleeds, nothing uncontrollable on the bleeding front and no idea why it happens but I've heard it's common in pregnancy - nice!
It's been a crazy week work-wise and because of that I haven't caught up with any friends all week! I did however have a fabulous evening out with my Mum and Yazmin on Friday - we went for something to eat in Norwich at Pulse (a vegetarian restaurant that Yaz was particularly un-keen on going to as she is a meat fiend through and through, however they have a variety of gluten free meals on their menu so we wanted Mum to try it as she has problems with what she eats). Unfortunately, I can't rave about the meal we had there which is a real shame as the place is lovely and I would have loved for it to be somewhere that we could take Mum for a regular gluten free fix. However, the company was great and on from there went to the theatre where we saw Derren Brown in action, which was as entertaining as I'd expected - brilliant show and amazing how he does what he does, even if it does frustrate the hell out of me not knowing the answers of how, why etc etc!! Amazingly I didn't get involved in the show either, which I have a habit of doing at these kind of things - at Paul McKenna I ended up on stage then when James and I saw David Copperfield in Vegas I ended up getting us roped into being part of the show - we had to pretend to be late and to James' disgust we had to walk in with these huge spotlights following us and a close up of us on the big screen on stage so that DC could make a joke about us missing much, when it was just after a massive entrance trick that he'd done! I love this kind of thing and we got to sit on DC's favourite table adjoining the stage when we'd only paid for budget tickets at the back - result!
Anyway, I digress (as usual)! On the Saturday James and I both worked and then that evening had a BBQ at Mum and Bryan's as my step-brother Daniel was staying for the weekend and Bryan's Nephew and Sister-in-Law came over to join us too. It was lovely to get together as Bryan's poor Brother Trevor is very ill with Cancer at the moment, so it's an extremely tough time for everyone (particularly his wife and kids) at the moment. Another reason for us all to thank our lucky stars that we've got our health and we're living! We must always make sure we don't take it for-granted, as I always say 'life is short, so make the most of it'. . . That just leaves Sunday of the weekend, where James was doing his best to finish our new bathroom, which looks fantastic by the way! Then we took Yaz out for a lovely late lunch in Norwich as a little 'good luck' for her revision and exams etc as she's got her GCSE's at the moment and she deserves a little TLC as she works hard bless her.
This week has just been eaten up with work - a couple of late shifts at the council and heaps of cramming to get my own business work done so that I can attempt to have a lovely four day weekend with James. I've worked harder than ever over the past four days but sadly all came to a grinding holt today as the platform I use to organise my Social Media hasn't been working all day so it's created heaps more work and means that I'll definitely have to continue tomorrow (Good Friday) and perhaps some of the other days too. Fingers crossed all will be resolved in the morning though and I'll try and get everything done by early afternoon as then my Auntie Jacqui and Stephen will be arriving to stay for the night, and I've got plans to take them to the World Village Market in Norwich as well as Holt and somewhere on the North Norfolk Coast for a look . . .
On the upside, my website is coming on leaps and bounds and I've got my company emails sorted along with a new phone and number for the business. Also my business cards are almost ready to order so I can crack on with some major networking in a few weeks time to start boosting business - I'm really excited about it all and have had some great feedback from the people that have had a look at my website so far, as well as some lovely morale boosting comments from my existing clients in the last few days - must be doing something right then! ;-)
I hope you've all had a fab week and that you all have a tremendous Easter weekend, I'm sure you deserve it!
Soon after I'd decided to give it a go at The Money Centre my plans for travelling were postponed and I planned to stay at The Money Centre long-term. I'd started dating James in April 2002 which was going really well and then in the August of that year a friend and I bought a house together to get on the property ladder. I was 21 at this point so really pleased to be making an investment for my future already. My life had changed, with my days of being a drunken reckless student behind me, and I was pleased. Don't for one second imagine I was T-total now though! Come on I was 21 and in my partying prime, I just did it two nights a week instead of six and held down a job that I was prospering at as well as a boyfriend that it was safe to say I had fallen for (HUGE thing for me in itself!!). I'd switched from administration to sales at The Money Centre by the end of the first year I worked there, where I did pretty well if I do say so myself. I absolutely loved the thrill of selling and the commission structure was so exciting for me, before I knew it my hard work had paid off and I was earning near to a six figure wage at the age of 22!! This was like a dream come true for me and really helped me to be able to set-up my life well. With my student paid off quicker than I ever imagined I had more money than I knew what to do with, so we lived very well whilst this lasted and why not indeed!
Unfortunately my friend decided a few months after we'd bought the house together that it wasn't for her and she didn't in fact want the commitment at that point in her life, which was totally fair enough. This was sad though and a bit of a headache as we were tied into the mortgage for a while yet but out of a bad situation came good and James kindly offered to move in and pay for her half, even though his name was not put on the Deeds until we were no longer tied into the initial mortgage - a big risk on his part and could have ended in tears for our relationship as we'd only been together for about 7 months. Luckily though it brought us closer rather than drove us apart and we soon outgrew that little house and found a dream project of a barn conversion in a village between Norwich and the North Norfolk Coast. Having been living and breathing Buy-to-Let investments we decided to keep the initial house as a rental property and buy this new project to convert and live in.
We turned the two-bed cottage into a five bed house and we're still here today enjoying all of James' hard work! The Buy-to-Let bug had well and truly got us hooked and by 2006 we had three rental properties of which we were looking at as long-term investments.
 |
| Our wedding day |
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| Woody |
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| Me & James at Coogee Beach - 2006 |
So what's been happening since last week in the life of Kaori . . .
Well firstly I've got to be honest and say that I've been feeling a little more emotional than normal - on the verge of tears on several occasions for situations that I would ordinarily not be phased by. I'm guessing this is my hormones as it's pretty unlike me, particularly over the last couple of months when I've felt calm as a cucumber about everything. Whilst on the pregnancy subject I don't suppose much else has changed apart from the continuing growth of my bump - it is now there for all to see with no hiding it if I tried! Aside from that the only weird thing was a worrying day and a half when I couldn't feel her move. Now, this is something quite strange as going from never feeling her to feeling her everyday and then suddenly nothing again does make you concerned - perhaps I'm being paranoid? Anyway, it was probably because I had super busy days Monday and Tuesday and was pre-occupied or something, but thankfully when I was on the way to my second late shift in a row at the council Tuesday what started off feeling like a pain in my stomach turned out to be the little one wriggling around and before long she was moving about as energetically as she had been before - phew! The only other symptoms that I'm having is headaches in the morning and nose bleeds, nothing uncontrollable on the bleeding front and no idea why it happens but I've heard it's common in pregnancy - nice!
It's been a crazy week work-wise and because of that I haven't caught up with any friends all week! I did however have a fabulous evening out with my Mum and Yazmin on Friday - we went for something to eat in Norwich at Pulse (a vegetarian restaurant that Yaz was particularly un-keen on going to as she is a meat fiend through and through, however they have a variety of gluten free meals on their menu so we wanted Mum to try it as she has problems with what she eats). Unfortunately, I can't rave about the meal we had there which is a real shame as the place is lovely and I would have loved for it to be somewhere that we could take Mum for a regular gluten free fix. However, the company was great and on from there went to the theatre where we saw Derren Brown in action, which was as entertaining as I'd expected - brilliant show and amazing how he does what he does, even if it does frustrate the hell out of me not knowing the answers of how, why etc etc!! Amazingly I didn't get involved in the show either, which I have a habit of doing at these kind of things - at Paul McKenna I ended up on stage then when James and I saw David Copperfield in Vegas I ended up getting us roped into being part of the show - we had to pretend to be late and to James' disgust we had to walk in with these huge spotlights following us and a close up of us on the big screen on stage so that DC could make a joke about us missing much, when it was just after a massive entrance trick that he'd done! I love this kind of thing and we got to sit on DC's favourite table adjoining the stage when we'd only paid for budget tickets at the back - result!
Anyway, I digress (as usual)! On the Saturday James and I both worked and then that evening had a BBQ at Mum and Bryan's as my step-brother Daniel was staying for the weekend and Bryan's Nephew and Sister-in-Law came over to join us too. It was lovely to get together as Bryan's poor Brother Trevor is very ill with Cancer at the moment, so it's an extremely tough time for everyone (particularly his wife and kids) at the moment. Another reason for us all to thank our lucky stars that we've got our health and we're living! We must always make sure we don't take it for-granted, as I always say 'life is short, so make the most of it'. . . That just leaves Sunday of the weekend, where James was doing his best to finish our new bathroom, which looks fantastic by the way! Then we took Yaz out for a lovely late lunch in Norwich as a little 'good luck' for her revision and exams etc as she's got her GCSE's at the moment and she deserves a little TLC as she works hard bless her.
This week has just been eaten up with work - a couple of late shifts at the council and heaps of cramming to get my own business work done so that I can attempt to have a lovely four day weekend with James. I've worked harder than ever over the past four days but sadly all came to a grinding holt today as the platform I use to organise my Social Media hasn't been working all day so it's created heaps more work and means that I'll definitely have to continue tomorrow (Good Friday) and perhaps some of the other days too. Fingers crossed all will be resolved in the morning though and I'll try and get everything done by early afternoon as then my Auntie Jacqui and Stephen will be arriving to stay for the night, and I've got plans to take them to the World Village Market in Norwich as well as Holt and somewhere on the North Norfolk Coast for a look . . .
On the upside, my website is coming on leaps and bounds and I've got my company emails sorted along with a new phone and number for the business. Also my business cards are almost ready to order so I can crack on with some major networking in a few weeks time to start boosting business - I'm really excited about it all and have had some great feedback from the people that have had a look at my website so far, as well as some lovely morale boosting comments from my existing clients in the last few days - must be doing something right then! ;-)
I hope you've all had a fab week and that you all have a tremendous Easter weekend, I'm sure you deserve it!
It's so lovely to read your blogs Kaori, better than any library book I must say. Your relationship with James comes across so well, makes us 'loners' very envious. I hope your unwell days are over now and you can sail through your time until Miss King arrives. Try not to overdo things on the work front though. Take care of yourselves, Love to you both. Nanna XX
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