Room Reveal

A while back I told you that we were in the process of beginning the changes to our country home.  It's only a small change at this point, certainly not the finished room reveal that the post title touts (but it got you here, didn't it?)  I do promise to do more down the track but at the moment all spare money is being saved towards our trip to Europe which is coming up in 3 weeks and 5 days.  And, argh! that is creating it's own stresses writing that here because that is really NOT LONG AT ALL.  More on that another time though.

So we've painted the main living area of the country house.  It's a big backwards L shape and we've painted the long sides.  The short sides are the kitchen and we still need to get to that.  We have the paint (it's going to be the same white that the wall on the left side of the finished photo is) but the main thing we're lacking there is the time.  MR is currently busy promoting the family business at the country field days around WA and I'm only there about once a month for two nights and relaxing, spending time together and socialising seem to take up all of that time!  We'll get there.

The house is the one MR spent most of his childhood in.  His parents were still in it until last year when they retired to the coast.  Their colours are a lot different to ours, as you can see from the pictures below...

The room's original colours

We sanded all of the walls, I actually did about half of it *proud moment*

First undercoat of white on.  We ended up with two undercoats and two topcoats.  I did most of the cutting in and MR did the rolling.

Finished!

We were so amazed by how different it looks.  Even looking at it now in the photos, I'm astounded by how much of a different vibe I get from the room.  The turquoise was quite hard to photograph, it's more of the greeny colour down near the chairs than the blue up near the sun shining in through the skylights.  The colour is Tempted Turquoise from British Paints if you want to see the real deal. (6th across from the bottom right of the colour panel).  The white is from Dulux and is called Peplum Quarter.

This was our first experience of painting walls ourselves (other than helping out others) so it's certainly not perfect.  The paint tape didn't stick down very well (even though we bought the good blue scotch stuff) so unfortunately a bit of turquoise paint has seeped under it onto the lino floor.  Any tips on how to get the tape to stick properly would be greatly appreciated experienced painters!

As you can see, this house has amazing, wonderful, glorious amounts of natural light.  Up above that wooden paneling is a raked ceiling with windows running the entire length of the dining and kitchen area which lets the light into the south facing side of the main living areas.  MR's parents designed and built this house so they were definitely well ahead of the typical type of house built twenty odd years ago.  I'm really looking forward to moving in to it, which is going to be at the end of this year! I've told my principal and put in my transfer with the Education Department last week, so it is fairly official!  

I think having such a beautiful home to move into is really helping my excitement levels about being back in the country away from the clothes shops and the shops with large varieties of food and the cafes and pilates.  That and it will be the first time in our seven year (almost eight by the time I move) relationship that MR and I will be living together, properly.  That is the part I am looking forward to the most.

Home regrets

Back when we were looking for a house to buy for the very first time, I did a bit of research about what to keep in mind while looking. You know, check faucets, mould, reticulation etc. We already knew we wanted a quiet street or cul de sac, a garage and a shed, space for a veggie garden and at least 3 bedrooms. 

What we didn't know to look for, and I didn't come across anything about this in my research, was north facing houses. 

Our house is west facing, and obviously, you can't always have north facing but the house could be designed to fit the block. In our house the master bedroom is on the south west corner so gets a bit of afternoon sun. The main living area and kitchen are on the east side, and the east and south sides of the house have a big verandah running around them so they get absolutely no sunlight and are always quite dark, even though there are a lot of windows. The main bathroom, one spare room and the laundry are on the north side and get beautiful natural light and warm sunshine. Totally useless! 

It really is my biggest regret about buying this place. It's like we live in a igloo all Winter. 

Thankfully, MR pruned the big bush outside our bedroom window yesterday so the afternoon sun can get in and warm it up and I'm lying on my bed typing this at 4pm without the need to be in pyjamas, uggies and a dressing gown, my usual household attire. 

Luckily, at the end of the year I'll (hopefully) be moving to a house that is filled with beautiful natural light and warmth and is a big long north facing rectangle. Thank goodness!

What's your biggest regret about your home purchase? 

Goodbye old car...

 

You've treated me well over the past eight years.  I've loved you well and washed you little.  I'm sorry.  You've never broken down on me in 218,000 km.  You may have hit three kangaroos on separate occasions and left me stranded with a rather stoved in front half in the middle of nowhere at about 8pm one night but it wasn't your fault you were a roo magnet.

Note to self, when you hit a kangaroo and notice that your car temperature level is increasing dramatically, make sure you take note of approximately where you are so that when you call friends to come and rescue you and they ask that all important question, your answer is not a high pitched "On the side of the road next to a really big tree."  So helpful.

And hello new (to me) shiny sporty car!

 

Happily, mine and MR's idea of a good car for me matched up perfectly, right down to the colour.  Working three days a week does not create a budget allowing for sports car purchases so we bought it together.  Our first joint big joint purchase/loan! 

It's been a bit of an exciting week hooning driving this baby around.  It's a 2011 Subaru WRX.  It has leather seats and sat nav and cruise control and bluetooth phone hands free things.  I thought the air con was on crack because it kept stopping being cold but MR informs me it is actually just rather clever and has climate control so when it thinks the car has reached that temperature it stops cooling it.  

It's been on one trip out to country town home and it has got some quite powerful acceleration happening.  Overtaking is very easy and quick.  There wasn't really any speeding because of the double demerits I'm a responsible driver but I did have fun slowing right down and then speeding up to the speed limit on some straight empty country roads.  I took my sister for a drive and there may have been some mad cackling from both of us while on those straight country roads.  Mum declined a test drive...   

 

Buns in the oven

Happy Easter everyone!

This Easter I had my first two attempts at making hot cross buns.  The first lot I baked as a test run on Thursday and they were rather rock-ish so I ate (the inside of) one and threw the rest in the bin.  I think I just cooked them a bit too long.  The recipe did 30-35 minutes and I cooked mine for 30 but I think 20 would have done it to be honest.

My second attempt was on Sunday when MR was down to help me eat them.  I used a different recipe, this one from The Bookery Cook, after a recommendation from Nicole on IG except I just used powdered cinnamon and all spice, not all that lovely fresh stuff and I didn't have time to steep them in the milk so I just heated it up a bit and then let it cool off.  We had a bit of a time limit, we were due for afternoon tea with MR's parents who have retired and moved to Yanchep, a 40 minute drive from our house in Perth.

This time I watched my hot cross buns baking like a hawk and as soon as they looked like they might be browned enough I pulled them out and did the tap-tap-do-they-sound-hollow test and they did - cooked enough for me!  This recipe said 20 - 30 minutes and I pulled mine out at 17 minutes. 

Hot cross rocks in the top six and nice soft crumb filled hot cross buns in the bottom six

The recipe made twenty which really is a bit of an overkill, so we took some over to our next door neighbour (and returned with a slab on homegrown watermelon), some to MR's parents and ate the rest ourselves this morning for breakfast.

While up in Yanchep, we went for a little walk along the beach just as the sun was beginning to set.  After living in the country for 35 or so years, MR's Mum is so happy to be back by the coast (she grew up near the coast in New Zealand) and was excited to show off their little beach.  Their house is across the road and over a sand dune from the beach and there are lots of ocean views from their house.

After getting back from our visit we headed out for dinner and to see the new Captain America movie.  We went Gold Class and when we were given our tickets we were told we would be receiving a complimentary Easter sundae for dessert during the movie to celebrate Easter Sunday.  How lovely is that? 



I hope your Easter weekend was just as lovely as mine :)

 

The Next New Beginning

At the end of the year / beginning of next year (all things going to plan health-wise) I will be moving back out to the country.  Three hours east of Perth. 

MR's parents have retired and moved to the coast and he is currently back at home running the business with his brothers.  And we are renting his parent's house from them until I move back at which point we will buy the place off them.  Yes, that means we are currently running two households and yes it is a terrible, terrible idea.

Our new home is such a well thought out building.  MR's dad built it 20 years or so ago and they designed it themselves.  It is north facing so lots of beautiful natural light (unlike our current home which has the north side featuring the laundry, bathroom and one of the spare rooms and has verandahs on all the other sides of the house so is so dark inside) and it has an elevation in the ceiling with windows all along it into the kitchen and dining area which is on the south side so that it has just as much natural light as the north side.  It has a super huge kitchen with a walk in pantry.  It is very open throughout the kitchen, informal dining area and living room.  They were very ahead of their time.  It really is a beautiful home.

And home is the key word.  This house we are in currently was never going to be home.  I knew we would be moving back to the country eventually, although it is sooner than I imagined, and I just didn't know enough about house choosing to be aware of high on the list of importance natural light is to me.  I like bright, airy spaces. And they are in abundance in our new place.

Even though we're renting, we have the green light to start changing things we want.  MR's parents haven't really updated anything from the original style so there is a lot of 80's style bathroom things happening and the kitchen could use a new oven and new benchtops.  Bathrooms and kitchen renos are a  bit out of our price range at the moment though so we need to start small.  A lick of paint throughout the house and some new curtains in the master bedroom (which is currently featuring some lovely peachy floral numbers, eek).

Ideally, I would love to paint the master bedroom or a feature wall in the living room this Easter long weekend but we have left it a bit late I think.  I'm in Perth and have just got some paint cards to look through.  MR is not in Perth, is actually in the middle of driving a truck back from Port Hedland with his Dad and then will be out bush and I don't know that me emailing paint colour ideas to him and him choosing them online and me not seeing how they look in the natural light of the home is really going to work.  So I'm thinking maybe we I just need to ease back a bit from this full throttle urge to do all of the things right now and maybe just get MR to pick a couple of colours and get some sample pots to take up and explore with.  A little bit more sensible, right?

And while we are deciding there are an awful lot of wallpaper border strips on the bedroom walls that need removing...



 
What are your tips for painting and freshening up a room on a small budget?

New Zealand ::South Island::

Continuing on from here.

From Wellington we got a flight down to Queenstown.  We decided to do it this way because by now we only had 4 nights left before we flew out!  Time goes so quickly on holidays.  The view coming in to land in Queenstown was just beautiful, even though we were apparently on the wrong side of the plane for the really big mountain views.

Snow!

We had two nights in Queenstown, the first place we stopped at properly since visiting family.  We stayed at the Pounamu Apartments which I would definitely recommend.  I made sure we booked somewhere with a washing machine so we could clean all our dirty things and there was even complimentary washing detergent next to the washing machine.  Although we had a back apartment because we just booked a studio room, there were one bedroom and two bedroom apartments at the front of the complex which had absolutely amazing views of the lake and mountains behind it.

The ski fields were already closed but we took a drive up to see some snow (which was very icy because of melting) and we just missed a freak Spring snowstorm the day after we left which left people trapped where they were and unable to get through the mountain passes.  While it would have been pretty awesome to see snow falling, we were glad not to have to change our holiday plans.  While up at the snow fields, I was captured by an discarded, unmelted icy pole which must have been there for a few days at least as the place had been closed for almost a week.  You would never see anything like that in Western Australia!  The view up there was pretty amazing as well.

We also went up the mountain/hill on the Gondola and down via flying fox, or as they call it, zip lines.  I'd done a flying fox in Dwellingup (south WA) on a school camp and loved it so I was really the drive behind doing this.  It was the only adrenaline style thing I was really interested in doing.  It was so much fun.  There were 6 zip lines in total, zigzagging down the hill front.  Unfortunately, we completely forgot to go to the store to see the photos of us on the tour that we could buy and we didn't take very many while doing it.  We were about an hour out of Queenstown when I remembered we were supposed to go and look at the photos.  I did get a couple of us turning upside down in our harnesses but because they were taken from behind all you can see is bums.

The gondola ride up and the view from the top

Ziplining and the amazing view between the trees

Queenstown is such a gorgeous place, I could easily have spent a week or two there.  There were rugs draped over the back of the chairs in the outside seating area of the cafes and pubs to keep warm.  So cute.  There were daffodils growing wild on the banks of the river and the side of the road.  It would have been lovely to hire bikes and go for a ride around (part) of the lake but we just ran out of time, as we did everywhere.

Following Queenstown, we drove to Dunedin.  On the way there we stopped at a cheese and winery and bought some picnic supplies.  We found a beautiful little spot by the side of the river with a little waterfall to sit and picnic next to.  We were so lucky with the weather, it continued to be sunny and even though it was cold, sitting in the sun was just glorious.

We were only in Dunedin for one day and spent most of it just wandering around until our flight which was in the evening.  We went to the Otago Museum and (more minibeasts alert) went to the Butterfly area in the Discovery World Tropical Forest.  The new butterflies were released at 10:30am and I was like a little kid rushing through the museum to make it in time (our breakfast took a bit longer to come out than we thought it would).  Because the new butterflies were still a bit dozy and their wings were still drying off, they were quite happy to be placed on the hand of a person and just chill out there until they were ready for flying.  So exciting!  I had one butterfly land on my nose but was too slow to take a photo.  There used to be a butterfly enclosure at the Zoo here in Perth but it closed down many years ago and now there are no butterfly places around.  Whenever I travel I always check for butterfly places. The tropical forest had three levels, ground, mezzanine and sky.  Down the bottom there were some tortoises in a pond which were pretty cute as well.

From Dunedin we flew to Auckland where we stayed the night just outside the airport and flew out the next day.  MR secretly upgraded out tickets to business class on the way back as well and because it was a newer plane we got the Skybed seats.  So amazing!  I read an entire book and watched a movie in comfort with my feet propped on the ottoman or stretched out on my bed.  Definitely the way to fly if you can!


Currently, it is seven weeks before we head over to New Zealand again for Christmas and while we won't get a chance to go to the South Island again as MR's family is in the North Island, I really cannot wait to do some more exploring.  Number 1 on my list is to have a bit of a soak in a nice warm geothermal stream somewhere, one of the things we ran out of time to do this trip. 

Do you have any other suggestions of places to go or things to do in the North Island?  We will be around the Te Puke region and I'd welcome any ideas, particularly good shops to hunt down!

 

New Zealand ::North Island::

I finally uploaded my photos from our New Zealand holiday to the computer last night (mainly because I needed to show a friend the shots today) so now I can do my holiday wrap up post.

Our trip started off well, we were upgraded to business class because the plane was an older one and didn't have premium economy seats (the ones we did book).  This meant we got to hang in the lounge while waiting for our flight!  MR is well and truly immune to the excitement of lounges as he used to be a regular attendee when flying up to work.  Mine workers are more prevalent than business men in gold class lounges here in Western Australia.  I however was not at all immune.  It was my first lounge visit (and business class flight) and I was like a little girl in a lolly shop.  Trying all the free things, checking out what was available.  Trying more of the food.  And some more.  There was free alcohol as well but I didn't try any of that.

Coming in to land was amazing.  The landscape looking like a blanket of lush green carpet.  No brown or red to be seen.  If you haven't been before, think florist foam dark green.  It looked like every hill had been sprayed with that.

We were also really lucky that the only day of rain we had was on the last day.  All other days were sunny and while we were in the North Island it was short sleeves, hats and sunscreen sort of weather.

We started off our holiday visiting MR's family.  They took us to see glow worms on our first night on what they called "about a half an hour walk" to the local waterfall.  Of course, that walk involved 20 minutes of walking down steps by torch light into the gully where the waterfall was and then about 30 minutes back up again.  On three hours sleep.  As you can imagine I was the last back to the top.  I kept stopping to look at glow worms on the way back up (or so I told myself).  The next day I was pretty stoked to see some bumble bees and spent a good twenty minutes alternating between galloping around the garden chasing them with the camera and squatting down trying to get a good photo, much to the amusement of the rellies.

However, the holiday was about more than just minibeasts (although they do feature again later).  We learnt about growing kiwi fruit on the family farm and the troubles they have had with disease in the past few years.  We went for a visit to the Tamaki Maori Village and learnt about Maori culture and had a tradition hangi meal for dinner.  It was really interesting to hear about the Maori history.  I'd never thought about how little I knew about it.  We also went to the Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland and walked through the stinky rotten egg sulpher steam clouds, (which we dubbed 'poo clouds') looking at all the different geothermal pools and boiling mud pools.  These were not ones you could get in to, there were many signs warning of the temperature being 100`C and no touching.*

After visiting with family we spent a couple of days driving down to Wellington to visit one of MR's cousins before flying over to the South Island.  We stayed in this restored old home which is now a bed and breakfast while in Wellington.

Unfortunately we were only in New Zealand for ten days and we wanted to see Everything so it was quite rushed.  We only spent one night in Wellington and flew out early the next morning.  This was probably a good thing for MR because as soon as we were somewhere for longer than just a night I wanted to go shopping!  We are lucky enough to be heading back to the North Island at Christmas time to spend Christmas with the family over there.  MR's parents are paying for us, his two brothers, their partners and one grandchild to come over which is just so generous.  So we are very much looking forward to heading over there for another ten days in a bit under eight weeks.


I'll fly us down to South Island and fill you in on our adventures there (hopefully tomorrow) but for now, unfortunately school work is calling me.



  

*Can you guess who was the five year old who read the sign and then spent the rest of the walk wanting to stick her finger into all of the pools 'just to see'?

Two sleeps

Just two sleeps til MR and I head off to NZ for 11 days.  It is finally starting to feel real. 

Today I looked up the weather in NZ and it is forecast for between 14-20 maximums.  Good thing we have been out and bought some thermals and nice thick merino jackets. 

I have finished making a beanie for MR to wear and I am about half way through a beanie for myself.  I finally bit the bullet and gave circular knitting a try and it is actually incredibly much easier than it looks.  Both beanies have been/are being circular knitted.  Unfortunately I am not at all very fast at this knitting business and that means I am going to have to work hard to get mine all finished in time.  Of course, I am making myself a slouch beanie which means a bigger area of knitting to be done.  Silly!

We've booked all of our accommodation bar one night where we're going to be on the road and not sure how far we're going to make it.  Our car hire is booked and we've borrowed a tom tom off a friend who has the New Zealand maps downloaded to it, saving us about $100 from if we were to hire one with the car so that's nice.

We haven't booked any activities yet, we'll wait til we're over there and make some decisions there.  I have a big list of things I would like to do/see though.

I've got all our documents photocopied twice to put in the carry on and suitcases.  MR got a case for himself and it just happened that we were in Myer on a day they had 40% off luggage so that was a big score as well!  However, both of our cases are still sitting in the lounge room completely empty.  My next job for today is to start doing some outfit planning now that I have all the washing just about up to date.  I am a terrible packer but I've been reading some tips from Jarrah Jungle and Jacana and I'm determined to make a better go of it this time.  I want to have lots of space for shopping, even though MR thinks shopping is not a necessary thing to schedule in to our holiday!

NZ Baby!

You may remember me mentioning a couple of months ago that MR and I were thinking about planning a holiday to New Zealand.

Well, that thinking has turned into action!  I got my letters from the specialists, found out that I could get travel insurance and now we've booked!  We're going in October for 11 days and I am quite beside myself with excitement.  That's only five and a bit weeks away!

For those who are interested, it was only an extra $100 to have my Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia and Liver Transplant covered during the trip.  I was expecting a lot more that that!  I guess it does depend on your age, status of your condition and where you are travelling though.  NZ and Australia have a reciprocal health agreement which makes things more friendly.

Of course, after we booked, I was driving home one day making up lists of what to take in my head and into my mind (thankfully) popped the passport aspect.  Mine had expired.  Argh!  After having a big stress about not being able to go because my passport wouldn't arrive in time, I found out it only takes about 2 weeks for a new one to arrive so off I went for new photos and to fork over a ridiculous amount of money.

Look what old age steroids have done to my jaw line.

We've even planned a bit of an itinerary.  We're flying in to Auckland at about 6am so the plan is to jump into a hire car and drive to Te Puke (MR has family there) where we will visit for a couple of days and do things like glow worm caves, waterfalls, a big flying fox and hot pools.  Then we're off to Rotorua, Taupo and Masterton on the way to Wellington.  We're going to stop in at some cheese farms to indulge in lots of yummy cheese.

Following that we're flying to Queenstown where we'll stay for a couple of nights and then head over to Dunedin before flying back to Auckland and flying out.

For the south island we have planned:

• snow
• maybe Milford Sound
• Arrowtown
• some famous burger joint in Queenstown
• Butterfly Experience at the Otago Museum
• maybe a penguin experience

Of course, there is still lots to be planned, where to stay, what else to see, hire a car and so forth.  So I'm very open to suggestions of great places to go (or stay).  Particularly cool crafty shops or nice galleries.  We've been saving up for some art for our walls and are thinking about buying something while we're over there to remember the trip by.  So have you been to NZ or are you a local?  Please, please share your expertise!

15,467

That's the number of pages I have read so far this year. 30 books.

6 of them in the past 11 days. 

I finish one, faff around the house for a while doing odds and ends but not really committing to anything of real importance. 

And then start another. 

My bedside stack has dwindled to just one. 

Mass reading, while a definite holiday pleasure, is also a sign of mine. A sign of lack of coping. Of attempting to escape from something. 

In this case it's the empty house. My 'just weekends' now with MR are taking more adjustment than anticipated. It feels too much like a step backwards. It's not. But the less time together leaves an ache in my heart. I feel lost. 

The end of next year feels a very long way away. There are things to be done in that time. And then we can finally, after seven and a half years, live together full time. 

Properly. 

Many Good Things

Today is the first day of school holidays.

Need I say more about good things when the above is the case?

Not really, but I shall.

Not only was it the first day of school holidays but I also woke up to rain on the roof.  How good is rain of the roof when you get to stay in bed?

I am still in my pyjamas and it is 3:15pm.

I got to have yummy banana bread that I baked yesterday for breakfast.

The house is relatively clean because MR vacuumed yesterday.

I managed to find the energy to do a double batch of baking yesterday as well as go to Brown Owls, (amazing what you can get done when you don't need to conserve energy for a week of work) and so MR has headed back to work this morning with two containers of ANZAC biscuits to snack on (his favourite).  

I went to Brown Owls yesterday and had fun chatting and stitching away at this.

I have a $100 reward shopper voucher from Picnic/Hobbs and a $20 one from Myer burning a hole in my wallet for some retail therapy later in the week.

I have a massage booked for Friday.

I have a lovely stack of books from the library just waiting to be read.

My cold seems to be getting better.

MR and I went to Cirque du Soleil's Ovo show during the week and it was just as amazing as expected.  And the bouncing lizards?  Even more amazing!

My baking cupboard has been reorganised as well as finding enough space to have a dedicated pots, pans and frying pans cupboard.  (Today's job is to reorganise the plastics cupboard and tomorrow's job is the pantry)

We got our soil tested on the weekend and have started the steps to improve it so things will actually grow.

In the small area of the garden where things do actually grow, there are buds on my loquat tree for the first time which will hopefully turn into fruit.

And best of all, Summer seems to have finally ended, leaving Autumn a chance to shine (and pour, as it did all night and morning).




  


What is good in your world at the moment?

 

Falling by the wayside

A lot of things have been neglected in my world of late.  The blog, the kitchen, the tidiness of the house, friends and poor MR.

In fact, the only thing that hasn't been neglected has been my bed.  No more are the nights awake until 2 or 3am.  Now I am in bed and asleep by 11 most nights.  Sometimes even 10 or 9pm!  Unheard of, I know.  There has also been afternoon napping which hasn't at all affected my night time sleeping.

Starting back at work has been partly to blame, we're up to Week 8 of an 11 week term and Term 1 with Kindy kids is pretty full on.  I must admit though, I've got a really lovely group who are pretty independent and self sufficient for 3 and 4 year olds.  Three days of work a week is Most Definitely enough for me though, even with having a three day weekend and a day off on Tuesday I'm finding that if I do too much on the weekend I barely cope for the week.

Along with that I've had a week in hospital with a particularly nasty tummy bug back in Week 2 of term and I had Monday off this week with another one which was thankfully only a smidgeon as bad and managed to go away by itself. 

In much better and fun news, there has also been two weddings in the last two weekends.  MR's brother last weekend and the one before than his cousin (which also included a quick weekend holiday to Dunsborough for the event).  They have most definitely contributed to all the aforementioned neglected-ness.

Possibly the biggest culprit, although it is very hard to measure, is the increase of my Leukaemia medication five weeks ago.  It wasn't working as well as it should be and seeing as I was only on half of the recommended dose due to some issues with medication interactions and differing heart rhythms on ECG checks, they decided to put it up a bit higher.  I'm now on an almost 3/4 dose - 70mg of the recommended 100mg.  It's interesting how (in my mind anyhow), when I say I'm tired it somehow seems more lazy and slack than if I was to say I suffer from fatigue as a side effect from medication.  "Tired" is such a hard thing to measure.  I know that I am more tired than I was last year however, as I wasn't working this is not a good comparison.  I also know I wasn't this tired when I wasn't ill and was working full time and playing netball on weekends so therefore in my books that becomes "fatigue". 

After having a big sook the other night about how slack I have been at doing anything at all around the house lately and how everything is messy, how I am practically existing on fish fingers and a bit of salad for dinner when MR is away and when he is home he is in charge of all kitchen duties, how I am possibly the worst girlfriend ever and how MR should move on to happier and healthier pastures, I realised I needed to get over myself and sort my shit out.

I decided to reinstate my Twenty Minute Tidy sessions.  Once each day I do work and twice on days I don't will give me 2 hours and 40 minutes per week in which to tidy, clean and organise the house and garden.  My big goal right now is to do a bit more than than on the Easter weekend and get the house tidied up enough that I can get a new cleaner (our last one finished late last year), which will then decrease my stressing over a dirty house at least, if not a messy unorganised one. 

I've had two sessions so far.  The oven timer goes on for 20 minutes and off I go to work until it beeps.  After it beeps I dismiss all feelings of guilt over the state of the house and my lack of housewife skills.  I've unpacked and put away my case from my Dunsborough weekend a fortnight ago, picked up and put away all the clothes and other associated crap dumped on the bedroom floor, tidied out one drawer of my tallboy and tidied up and cleaned the bathroom basin.  Not bad for 40 minutes.  Today being a non work day, I'm doing 40 minutes - most likely in two 20 minute sessions.  I'm feeling better about it all already. 

Now I just need to work out some really quick and easy meals that do not involve fish fingers...

Transformations

from the left... loquat, apricot, white peach, nectarine

I think that sometimes transformations creep up on you a bit.  You think that not much has really happened/been done/changed when in fact quite a bit has (particularly when you look back at photos).  The photo above is our backyard side garden now and the one below is the same from when we first moved in a year and a half ago.  MR has been super busy with the chainsaw, the axe and the shovel.  While it is certainly not finished by any means, all the moaning I do about how not-very-pretty and bare and unfinished our garden looks is a little bit of an exaggeration perhaps.  Because our fruit trees are thriving.

So I thought I'd make up some little collages of our fruit trees progression. 

Apricot tree - September 2011, November 2011, December 2011, October 2012

The apricot tree has gone mad ever since we planted it.  It grows so fast that MR and I often have conversations about how the apricot tree is going when he is away for two weeks.  So far is has blossomed twice but not yet had any fruit.. fingers crossed for next year!

Orange tree - September 2011, October 2012

Unfortunately, the orange did not go the same way.  We actually planted the orange out the front, in a section of garden that I have not had any luck in keeping anything I plant there alive.  We transplanted it this October as it had not only not grown at all, but the leaves were starting to yellow.  Since we moved it the leaves have gone green again and new leaves have sprouted as well as about five blossoms have appeared, the first time there has been any signs of blossoms on it.  It seems to like its new home much better and on the other side of the fence in the neighbours yard in the same spot they have a mandarin tree so I thought maybe they might like to be friends?

White peach tree - April 2012, October 2012

The white peach tree was a present from a lady I work with, a self sown one from their own peach tree which yields delicious peaches.  It's only been in the ground at our place six months now and seems to be leafy all the way up.  I'm wondering whether I should remove the leaves from lower down? 

Nectarine - April 2012, October 2012

The nectarine we bought and planted at the same time as the peach.  There's been a bit of growth and plumping out so far.  This one got a lot of blossoms at the end of Winter/beginning of Spring and actually had about ten little fruit appear which we pulled off so it could grow more.  Nice to know it will fruit though!

Unfortunately, I don't really have many good shots of the loquat from when we first planted it to show the growth but while it is going a bit slower it is still coming along well.  That one is a cutting from Mum's tree.  No sign of any blossoms or fruit on it yet either.

Gooseberry - December 2011, October 2012, the first gooseberry!

Now, I know this isn't a fruit tree but it is the only thing we have gotten any fruit off so far.  Three gooseberries in fact!  I'm hoping it will thrive and we will get heaps more next season because I do love gooseberries.  There are still heaps on the bush but they take ages to ripen.  As you can see, I picked the first one a little bit early because I just couldn't wait any longer!  When I was in junior primary we had a gooseberry bush in our back garden next to the pool and I have fond memories of jumping into the pool and then out and gobbling gooseberries and then back in again.  This bush took off when we planted it at the end of last year but the all of a sudden it started to die off.  Not sure what I did wrong but thankfully it stopped dying and started to regrow again. 


So there you go, some actual garden stuff is happening after all.  The next thing to do is get rid of that horrible red curbing edging business that we have happening (you can see it in the top picture) and edge it with some big rocks out the back and limestone blocks out the front.  After that we can get all soil level and then put in a proper veggie path and start really getting a bit more of a pretty looking garden happening. 


What's been happening in your garden lately?

Finally...

... the holiday happened.  It wasn't a trip to Cairns in the end but a trip down south to Dunsborough.  Possibly my favourite holiday destination ever simply due to the world's best hot chocolate shop in town.  Would you believe I didn't get a photo of it?  Dear me.  Seriously though, if you are ever in Dunsborough, Western Australia, you realllllllllllly really must go to Hot Chocolatte and have a hot chocolate.  In the three days we were there I had three.  I would have had four but we didn't get back to town in time on Saturday afternoon before it closed.  I think this is possibly the forty fifth time I have mentioned this place on here, it truly is that awesome!

We stayed at our favourite bed and breakfast place, Newberry Manor, and did a few new things.  There is so much to do in the area and it's nice to try some different stuff out.  We went for a visit to a lighthouse in the area and went for a 2km walk out to a whale watching lookout where we didn't see whales but we did see and hear seals.  We checked out the local beach and of course I had to have a little paddle, only ankle deep though because my jeans wouldn't roll up any higher!  We ate loads of delicious food, had lunch at a brewery in the sunshine (the weather was just divine) visited Margaret River Wool Company, tried to go and have a race to the finish attempt at a hedge maze only to find it shut for garden maintenance.  Not to worry, we'll be back in the area in November for a wedding so it's on the list for that visit!  I managed some car knitting (for some reason I can knit and crochet in the car but I can't read without feeling sick?) And I got a few cute purchases, one of which was this cute little mints tin, just the right size for bobby pins or as Jenni mentioned, stitch markers (when I buy some!) 

I need to find my camera charger so I can take photos of my other purchases.  For the first time I didn't take my camera down south with me, relying instead on my iphone and instagram.  The iphone isn't the best for good quality close ups though.  Tomorrow may be charger hunting day.

I've been a little bit quiet on the blog front lately, mainly because stupid blogger told me I couldn't upload any more images without paying for more storage and when I tried to pay for more storage it wouldn't let me.  So I signed up with photobucket eventually and now I can put images up again.  Posts without images are just not so interesting.  Have you encountered this problem?  What did you do to get around it?  I just got the free photobucket account but I like to upload large images too sometimes and I'm not sure how good a quality they will be.  So I'm very interested in hearing your stories!

In other news, it was my birthday yesterday, MR flew out at 5am back to work and I have a cold.  Not the best birthday recipe, but I didn't mind too much.  Last year I was all aflutter about being OLD (30) but now I am firmly in this mindset ....

I found this quote on Sally's blog a while ago and after my completely shitty year of bad health last year I have taken it to heart and hopefully will never again complain about being old.  (Although I did moan a bit when I found three grey hairs when doing my hair last night and then when I went hunting I found three more...)

So apart from being a bit sick, I had already organised to go out last night with my sister to the Hilltop Hoods concert which was entirely fantastic, those guys are born performers.  Great way to spend a birthday evening. 

We were nice and close!

Of course, I did pay for it today, waking up feeling all kinds of dreadful and I have since spent the entire day in bed, apart from getting up to get food, my laptop and a good book.  The Meow has kept me company and spent the whole day in bed too.  We are lazy tarts today!

Not to worry, there's always tomorrow...

He loves me...

I'm sure we all played the daisy love game as kids and teenagers. There's always (with me anyhow) been that doubt in relationships. That thought of 'but does he really?' Even with MR. He is six years younger than me, we've been together since he was 19. So that little niggle of doubt has hung around over the years.

Until last year. It's a pretty big thing, supporting your partner through finding out they have leukaemia and then 6 months later embarking on a liver transplant and recovery with them. Not to mention the supporting of said partner for the next ten months financially while they are off work. It's a fair amount for a 23-24 year old to take on board.

Of course, when things were starting to look pretty shit in hospital I did give him a free pass with my full permission to run screaming for the hills if he wasn't coping. He declined. (Thank god!) So now the doubting dust motes are gone. No longer tempting me to become fascinated by their glowing sparkle in the light.

I've been having some loving moments these last few days. The type where I sit in the glorious Winter sun and reflect on just how lucky I am. And seeing as the man himself is currently at work and not here to listen to me sing his praises I thought I might just do it here. He's on night shift at the moment and I know he reads my blog (hi honey x) when he has a quiet night so I thought it might be a nice surprise when he next pays a visit.

So it doesn't get all sickly sweet for the rest of you I thought I'd limit myself to ten things I love about him. When we first got together I prompted a bit of list making out of him, one of which was 5 things that make you feel treasured but I don't remember ever doing a things we love list. So here goes. Feel free to scroll past if you're not MR. But maybe it'll inspire you to make a list of your own. Because after all, we all like to be told how special we are sometimes.



Ten things I love about my amazing man

He is my solid, calm, strong rock who has supported me through so much and who makes me feel stronger and calmer.

He is a wonderful listener and talker. If there's one thing long distance relationships teach you, it's the value of a good conversation.

He has possibly the most gorgeous set of shoulders and arms in the world ever. (there may be some bias here)

He holds my hand whenever we're out, he tells me he loves me every day and he blows me kisses in front of his friends.

He loves the Meow as much as I do.

He puts up with my dreadful sleeping habits, even when I keep him awake til past 1am talking.

He likes to cook and he is good at it. No need to say more!

He is very clever. If I ask him a question about any old thing he almost always knows the answer and he is super clever with his hands as well. He can fix and make all sorts of stuff!

He hugs his mum and dad and tells them he loves them.

He pretends he's tough and rough and certainly does a good job at presenting that image but really he's just a big softy with a huge heart who is willing to help out friends any way needed. And who smiles at babies in the checkouts at the supermarket. Ok, he's not really fooling anyone.

I love you honey.




I could so easily keep going! I'd love to read your lists if your do the same...

Child acquisition

Next week, providing I have kicked the cold I currently have in the butt, MR and I are going to have his five year old nephew over to stay for a couple of nights, or as MR said on the phone to his brother "When can we acquire B for a couple of nights?".  I'm pretty excited.  B is an awesome little boy and I love doing fun kid stuff.  This will be the second time he's stayed at our place but the first time he's stayed when MR is home too.  Last time he stayed we were going to make gingerbread men but we spent too long at the aquatic centre going down the water slide so we ran out of time.  So gingerbread men are definitely on the cards for this time. 

I have all these ideas of stuff we can do.  MR is liking the idea of him staying but this will also be his first ever experience of 'parenting'.  He's spent time with B before but never looked after him.  So I think he's a bit wary of just what it will involve and how much time to himself he's going to get... (none).  I suggested we go to see the new Ice Age movie.  B lives in the country so doesn't get to go to the movies very often.  That idea was jumped on by MR because (just like me) he loves cartoon movies.  Only thing is, MR is anti regular seating in the movies so decided he will be quite happy to fork out for a gold class ticket for B just so he can have the comfty big recliner seats, a cheese platter and a couple of scotch and cokes.

We're going to have him for two nights so there's plenty of time to do lots of stuff.  My other ideas were the zoo and make a softie with him from one of his drawings (he is going through a big drawing phase at the moment).  I have a cool set of colour changing textas to give him as a little present as well.  My house is overflowing with picture books so there will be plenty of stories to read before bed but we need to buy some bath toys because last time he stayed he was quite astounded that we didn't have any.  I've been thinking of what other things we could do with him.  City things that aren't available in the country.  Like the museum or AQWA or ice skating. 

And I'm more than open to ideas - what fun stuff are you doing with your kids these holidays?

 

Big hopes

Do you have big hopes for something? Something big? Or even big hopes for something little?

At the moment, my big hopes revolve around a trip down south this weekend with MR.  We haven't been away anywhere since January last year (not that long I know) before I got ill.  But a Whole Lot Of Shit has happened since then so it really feels like For-Eeeeeeeee-Ver.  And a weekend away is really just what we need.

Unfortunately, my liver is being a Super Poohead.  It seriously has some whinging issues.  Noooo, I don't want those drugs, I'm going to sulk seems to be its fairly constant cry.  They had to take me off the antifungal drugs a few months early because my liver just wasn't coping.  And now I've started on my leukaemia drugs and it is having quite a similar whinge.  Now, I know I really shouldn't complain because my liver is doing enough for both of us this liver saved my life.  I know.  I am Really Truly Grateful.  Even though I do sound a bit ungrateful, I'm not.  Just venting.  But I would just like a bit of a break from elevated liver function tests and blood tests.  In the past 4 weeks I have had 16 blood tests.  Two weeks of Mon-Fri tests and two weeks of three times a week tests.  I am tired of blood tests.  My veins are Very Tired of blood tests.  I managed to convince the doctors that this week I only needed tests three times rather than five, even though my ALT (which for those of you not in the know yet is part of the liver function tests and should be below 35) doubled over the weekend from 71 to 141.  Doubling is not good.  I am nervous about tomorrow's blood test results.

The lack of stability and forward planning options are starting to get to me.  I want to book our favourite bed and breakfast place in Dunsborough, Newberry Manor, but on the weekend I thought, no I should just wait and see what the doctors say on Monday at my appointments and see what the blood test results are.  And then after talking to them on Monday, now I have to wait and see what Wednesday's results are before booking.  And then depending on what they say then I will have to wait until Friday's and we want to go down south on Friday straight after my morning blood test.

*sigh*



In good news however, because life is not all woe is me, my income protection money finally kicked in, only 7 months after I stopped working (but we won't go there), and I got a big lump sum back pay.  Lovely.  I also got told I could finish up on two of my medications so now I am down to 8 tablets in the morning and 7 at night, seems like so few - oh how times change!  I got free tickets to the West Australia Ballet for tomorrow through the Leukaemia Foundation, although it is a lunchtime show so I am going solo as I couldn't find anyone interested and free at that time.  And in particularly good news, my new leukaemia meds haven't caused any nausea (touch wood) and while I have been waking up with a headache every morning and puffy eyes, those side effects are manageable and the fatigue side of things hasn't been too bad either.  I've also started doing a bit of babysitting/tutoring once a week for a few hours with a 3 year old boy who has some speech delays.  Right up my alley! So it has been nice hanging with kids again and planning some ideas and using my brain in a workish sort of way.  Providing everything is stable I'll be heading back to work next term, just one day a week to start off with and then if I feel up to it I'll put my name down for relief.  


So fingers crossed for tomorrow's blood test results.  Big hopes there too.

Framed

I love having a productive man around the house.  Even though he is only home every two weeks, when he is home, after a bit of a rest, he is a weapon of 'doing stuff'.  The lawns get mowed, he washes his ute (I'm still working on him washing my car *hint hint*)*, he chops down ugly palm trees and digs out stumps, other gardening stuff gets done, he makes me breakfast in bed, cooks me dinner a few nights and also any odd jobs get done too.  Like putting a hook in the wall so I could hang up my framed poppies drawing in the guest room.

I'm really happy with how it looks on the wall, all framed up and pretty.  I got the frame from Ikea but the matting was too small so I attacked it with a stanley knife and thankfully it doesn't look too uneven.  Why do they not make standard paper sized frames and/or matting???? I'm sure it is some sort of ploy to try and get us to get things framed professionally. 

I've had a bit of an obsession with poppies lately, I keep pinning them on pinterest and favouriting them on etsy.  There were some beautiful poppy fabric patterns in the recent fabric8 contest on spoonflower as well.

I made another couple of ATCs recently to send off to a couple of people and of course, one of them had to be poppies.  These were done with watercolours, on my carpet.  I also seem to have a thing about sitting on the carpetted floor and painting.  Painting at a table just doesn't work for me for some reason.  This can only lead to bad things, although thankfully it has not yet...

I've decided these little mini art works are quite fun, although I really have no idea what to do with them.  Putting them in plastic pouches in a folder just seems a bit of a waste really...





* MR has taken to occasionally reading my blog on a quiet night shift at work (hi honey x)

Autumn planting

What to do on a delightful rainy day? Gardening of course!

Yesterday, MR and I spent a lovely two hours of the afternoon, gardening in the drizzly rainy weather.  It was so lovely, I wanted to stay outside all night.

I did the front part of the garden, planting tulip bulbs in amongst my roses as well as some ground cover annuals that I would love to tell you the name of except the seed packets got all soggy in the rain so I threw them out and now I can't remember what they are called. 

 I also planted these two Mona Lavendar bushes.  Apparently they spread to 60cm so they should line that wall under the window nicely.

They have beautiful dark foresty green leaves and the underside is a deep purple.

MR looked after the back yard, having more fun with his chainsaw, chopping down another tree (one more to chop down in the back yard plus two in the front) and putting in the white peach tree we got as a housewarming present from a lady I worked with last year as well as the nectarine tree we bought at bunnings yesterday.

This is what it looked like when we moved in

And this is what it looks like now!

 Loquat and apricot

White peach and nectarine

I even managed to get in a bit of crochet in front of the tv last night, finishing off this little dude.

Meet Kevin the koala.  Seeing as we have no eucalyptus trees he's chowing down on nectarine leaves.  Surely they are super sweet and juicy too?  He's going to be jetting off to America for an amigurumi swap.

 

 Linking up