By my own hand

Round 36: February 2043 (Summer)

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Carmody-Halmi-Whitney 1 household profile

Daniel Halmi is 36, Susannah Carmody is 33 and Zac Whitney is 9. 

(Kimberly is 72, Sarah is 38, Declan is 22, Sylvia is 17, Levi and Will are 11 and Theo is 8)

Narrated by Susannah Carmody

Daniel and I are happy in our current building but we’d like to move eventually. If we have another kid or two, it’s going to be a tight squeeze in here.

Plus, it makes us feel a little old living here. Our neighbours are all nice guys but they are literally all recent college grads, so we don’t have a whole lot in common.

And I don’t think either of us ever thought we’d be the people banging on the walls to complain about loud music at 11.30 on a Saturday night, but here we are.

They always pipe down afterwards but we’re just a bit over having to deal with it at all now.

Zac will miss them if we do move though. He totally idolises Declan, one of the guys who lives in Number 3. He indulges Zac in all of his science talk, which was the same thing Zac ended up bonding over with Daniel.

Zac still spends his weekends with Sam but I really do love watching him with Daniel.

They’re such good buddies. I feel really lucky that they get along so well.

Before Daniel, Zac had me all to himself, so he could easily have become resentful but that hasn’t happened at all.

Zac just started Grade 4 and he’s really enjoying it. He’s the only boy in his class but he’s the sort of kid who makes friends with everybody, so that doesn’t bother him much.

He’s really good friends with the Draper twins, Levi and Will, who are two years ahead of him and he likes Theo a lot too, who is one year behind.

It’s been fantastic to not need a regular nanny at all this year for Zac. I come home at 3 on Monday and Friday and my days off are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so there’s always someone here when Zac gets home from school.

We still do get Sylvia to sit for us occasionally, so Daniel and I can go out.

She’ll be off to college next year, so I’ll probably need to rely on Mum a bit more then, not that she’ll mind.

On our last date, we went out to celebrate an amazing endorsement deal I just scored, which netted us a nice $20,000!

I don’t consider myself a celebrity by any means, so I was quite surprised to be asked to endorse a line of cutlery that I already use and love.

But it was a no brainer, really. There was no way I was going to turn down that kind of money, especially considering how little work the deal is for me.

Celebrating that would have been enough for me but Daniel was hoping we would have one more thing to celebrate!

It wasn’t a total surprise. We’ve talked about marriage and agreed that it was what we both wanted. We just hadn’t got around to getting engaged yet.

But now that we are finally engaged, I couldn’t be happier. The past six years together have just flown by!

Zac was asleep when we got home but we shared the news with him the next morning over breakfast.

We knew he’d be excited and he didn’t disappoint. He was so thrilled about Sam and Julia getting married and he loves Daniel, so there was no reason he wouldn’t be.

We had to make him promise not to say anything to his cousins at school, so we could tell Mum in person and not have Ryan or Catherine tell her before we could!

Mum has been bugging us about getting married for at least the past two years, so as far as she was concerned, it’s about time she finally had a wedding to look forward to.

We’re actually thinking of holding the wedding at Mum’s place. Sarah was the one who suggested it and she made it sound so appealing.

It’s a huge house (it has to be, with seven people living there), with a big backyard.

It would cut down on costs so much if we didn't have to worry about venue hire, which is a big draw. We can save that money for a house instead.

And anything that saves money appeals to Daniel, seeing he can be kind of cheap at times!

And aside from that, I really like the idea of having a wedding here, where my family lives. It feels very low pressure and relaxing, which I’ll probably appreciate on the big day!

We’re still thinking about it but it’s our number one contender at the moment. We should probably decide on a date first though and work from there!

Notes:

• Title is from By My Own Hand by You Am I.
• The noise is coming from Number 2, which is where Tim, Eddie and Mitchell live. Declan wouldn’t allow that business in his place, I’d imagine. ;) It’s funny the variety of sounds coming from next door that I heard in just one play session - music, voices, furniture being moved. I’d never noticed that before! They're very noisy neighbours, those boys!
• I took Daniel and Susannah off birth control this session and was wondering why they weren't trying. Yeah...had Unmarried TFB turned off! D'oh! Anyway, so I assume they'll try once they get married, which is fine with me.
• I'm looking at doing the wedding in January or February 2044. Exact date TBA!
• The $20000 bonus is from this chance card that Susannah passed. Apparently, there's a chance of succeeding with either option but a food processor/fax machine seems so absurd that I don't think I've ever chosen it! These days, a fax machine on its own is even kind of absurd, actually!