Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Another Adjustment

It seems like life has been all about adjustments lately.

Some big, some not so big.

One of the not so big ones is this:


For the first time in my life I'm not hanging out washing on a Hills Hoist.

It's brought up all sorts of dilemmas. Where do I start hanging? Should I start at one end and work my way down one line line and then the next? Or should I start at one end and peg on each line?

Oh, these are indeed the big issues!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Just Something I Love


Some pretty flowers, a surprise from the boys when they went shopping with Daddy. 
A couple of cross stitches by my Mum. 


One of the clocks we received as a wedding present. 
Some op-shopped canisters. 
A teapot given to Matt by his late Grandma.

 
I love this wall in my kitchen.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

It Found Me!

As a Thank You for looking after their two dogs for a month while they were tripping around India my parents gave us two lovely chairs for the verandah. They are ever so comfy and a new favourite spot to have a quiet (or not so quiet) read in the afternoons. The only problem is that there are only two and the boys often claim them before I get a chance!

I've been scouring second hand, collectable and op shops for a suitable table to go with these chairs for a few weeks now (read this post) and finally the right piece found it's way home! We were driving through town, not planning to stop and it grabbed my eye in the window of a second hand shop! I quickly found a car park and got the boys out and into the shop to find it had a 'Sold' sticker on it. I was so disappointed, so bought myself a new marble rolling pin for my collection! :)

We continued wandering through the shop and as we were leaving I said to Elliot how disappointed I was that the little table was sold. We talked about the sticker and the word SOLD and he looked at it and said "No Mummy, it starts with a 'H'!" so I had another look and lo and behold it said "Hold"!!!!! I just glanced at it on the way past and misread it! So back to the lady we went and Elliot gave her our phone number so if the people changed their mind she could give us a ring. Later that afternoon she called and said they had changed their mind! Yay for us!

 A lovely place to while away the afternoon!

I'm so grateful for my little man and his fantastic pre-reading skills!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Monday Menu Planning

I truly do find menu planning so grounding. It is the one thing in my week I cannot go without. Floors not swept? Meh. Having to rifle through 3 baskets of washing to find one crumpled but clean outfit? Meh. Dinners and shopping not organised and planned, taking into account our busy days, home days, suiting everyone's tastes? Chaos ensues!!!!

After we've been away for a weekend at my parents, menu planning the coming week is the first thing I do on a Sunday night once the car is unpacked. It gets my mind back into home-mode, gets me thinking about what we have on through the week, what we've got in the pantry, fridge and freezer to use up, how I can extend the boys' tastes a bit without overdoing it. I love sitting with a blank page, days of the week ruled up and ready to be filled in. I love dividing our shopping up into our different stops through the week, markets for fresh fruit and veg, the butcher, the grocery, the bulk wholefoods shop in the next town if we're heading that way (which we are this week!!!!), the dairy.

Anyway, I know not everyone is a menu planner, I *ahem* even know some people that roll their eyes when I get my pen and ask the question "what will we have for dinners this week guys?" but, for little old me, it is truly my most favourite household chore.

If it can in fact be called a chore!

This week we're having:

Monday
Tuna Mornay Pasta Bake


Tuesday
Boys - boiled dippy eggs and wholemeal toast soldiers
Adults - Laksa

Wednesday
Lamb, Barley and Cinnamon Casserole from Maggie Beer's Maggie's Harvest p659 Random Recipe

Thursday
Homemade pizzas

Friday
Pork sausages with mashed potato and steamed veg

Saturday
Ratatouille with quinoa

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Lazy Days

I'm having trouble finding motivation to get stuff done at the moment, so this blog is very much reflecting my house at the moment.

All over the shop, forgotten about, needing more love and attention paid to it. The laundry is piling up, the floors are in desperate need of a sweep and as for cooking, well, let's just say I'm thankful for having a stock of yummy healthy meals in the freezer.

However, in all this humdrum-ness (if that even is a word!) I did see something this morning that made me smile as I cut watermelon for the boys.


I'm hoping that a weekend away will recharge me and have me return home refreshed and rejuvenated.

Wishing you all a happy and restful weekend! xx

Monday, September 27, 2010

Over The Weekend We ...

made a start on the chicken coop
continued edging the herb garden with recycled bricks

decided it was time to try out making a sourdough starter

watched new life springing up in the veg garden

played on the verandah


planted two more fruit trees in the orchard

A lovely quiet weekend pottering around the house.

Friday, August 20, 2010

5 Things I'm Grateful For Today

A verandah that is spatious enough for us to cook, eat, play, create, laugh and share on.


A skylight over my lovely kitchen that brightens my day.


An enormous sandpit that the boys adore and have already shared with visiting friends.

A scrummy dinner cooked for us last night by a wonderful friend.


Waking up to this stunning view every morning and realising that this is not a holiday!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

I'm In Love.

Utterly and absolutely in love with our new house and land! We have been here for just over a week and it is already feeling so much like home. It is so quiet and peaceful. At the moment I'm sitting on the verandah with a cuppa listening to the birds. Life doesn't get much better than this!

Elliot, who doesn't always take change well, has been having the time of his life. His favourite thing is showing visitors around and giving them the guided tour. He runs through the house "This is the bathroom ... this is Archie's room ...(and my favourite) this is a toilet for Mummy and Daddy when they're busting in the night time". Ah, three year olds! Elliot's room looks down the front towards the dam next door and out the back to the neighbouring horse paddock, so he can see the horses from his bed which he loves.

Archie, who has never been a good sleeper, has only been waking once or twice for a quick feed and then straight back to sleep.  His talking has also exploded in the past week or so and one of his favourite words at the moment is "duck" which he says (in that 17 month old way) over and over and over again at full volume on the verandah, calling our new duck that lives on the dam next door. His other favourite new word is "Pop" which he also repeated endlessly while following Pop around the house wanting cuddles.

Both boys are spending so much time outside, digging in the enormous sandpit, exploring in the jungle/forest/secret garden, running up the hill, rolling and tumbling back down again. I can only assume that they both love the house and are feeling very comfortable and happy here.

Matt and I have been unpacking and organising but thanks to the help of my wonderful parents we're pretty much done. They worked like Trojans and I'm sure were very much relieved to get home and away from boxes and heavy lifting! Now I'm just spending time enjoying the house and yard and fitting in organising around that. All the important stuff is done (ie the kitchen ;) ) everything else is just figuring out where to store things. I just got new curtains for all the bedrooms on Monday when a homewares shop had 20% off everything so I'm spending the next few days hanging curtains and installing a couple of rods that were missing.

The planning work in the garden has begun. We now have 2.5 acres! Yay for space! Yay for room for the boys to run and yell and yahoo and not wake the neighbours up at 6am! Yay for room to grow more of our own food! Yay for Matt mowing the 2.5 acres of grass that is here at the moment! Ha! Actually the ride on is a lot of fun to drive, the boys are loving going for rides too! There are three very young fruit trees already here a mango, an avocado and a citrus of unknown variety. We've got ideas for an orchard, veg garden, chook house and compost placement but just need the time, money and hard work to get it all done! But now we're here, we're not planning on going anywhere soon so we've got time. Well, Matt has until my birthday in October to get me chickens, but apart from that deadline, we've got all the time in the world!

A friend came around last week to check out the new place and as we were sitting in the sandpit with the kids she said "I bet you feel like you can just exhale". And it is so true. I can feel that all of us have 'exhaled'. We're home.