I Feel Old

The cupcakes I made for my birthday

It was my birthday on friday. I turned 28. Everyone keeps telling me that I'm still just a baby, but I tell you, I feel old at the moment. The weather is making my knees hurt, I just want to curl up in the corner and knit. Or die, that would stop the pain.

I'm not looking forward to next birthday, but I am looking forward to a few months time when the weather heats up and the pain recedes a little. Also, there should be FLOWERS!!

Until then I'm laying claim to the blankets and the asprin. And the chocolate.

Garden Prettification

One of the things* that excited me most about this house when we bought it was the garden potential. There are flower beds around the front of the house, filled with roses, irises, various protea, and a couple of natives - a grevillea and a lillypilly. The front of the yard, where a fence would go, is on an extremely steep angle, perfect for turning into terraced garden beds. The back year has garden beds around the edges, surrounding a yard large enough for a trampoline AND running around space, and theres a corner tucked away behind the garage** that's invisible from the house and therefor off limits to the children, but exactly the right size and position for a vegie patch. Sheltered on three sides by fences/trees/wall, but full sun most of the day. The eventual aim is to severely limit our reliance on the grocery store for vegies and herbs.

Unfortunately, the garden has not been top priority as far as expenses go. We had to buy furniture/kitchen things/laundry things. Then the oven died and we had to not only buy a new oven, but get an electrician and a plumber in to change it over from electric to gas. Then winter happened and this house is cooler than the other and we discovered we needed more bedding. Add that to the constant expenses of food, utilities, mortgage, car payment, clothes... The garden has been sorely neglected.

But recently things have started settling down. We found a new place to do our groceries, where a trolley containing 8kg of meat, 12kg of flour, 9kg of fruits/veg and various sundries only costs $130,*** and there is an Aldi right across the road from the market, so the weekend after hubby gets paid we stop in there as well and I stock up on the stuff they have super cheap - cheese which goes in the freezer until its needed, sultanas, canned tomatoes, cling wrap, etc. Combined with our new credit card****, we have a lot more wiggle room in our budget now, even with interest rates going up.

So we're prettifying the garden.

The easiest and cheapest prettification was the front garden beds. Pruning the roses, removing the agapanthas (they're everywhere, I hate them, and I think I might be allergic to them. They had to go), general weeding. It looks so much better, and cost absolutely nothing.

The biggest change was cutting down the trees in the back garden beds. Some moron planted a pine tree about 6 inches from the fence. Presumably the same person either planted, or at the least didn't remove, a camphor laurel. DUMB. Along with a couple of palm trees, and some other scraggly looking things, hubby removed 6 trees from the back yard, giving us (tiny) views of the lake, and space to eventually plant something attractive and useful - like citrus, or apples. And more than 6 inches from the fence.

The most exciting was discovering the banana tree is fruiting. Technically we didn't have anything to do with that, as it was here when we bought the place and they fruit on their own, but HOW COOL IS THAT??????

The most expensive thing has been the addition of some plants. In pots. Which made it even more expensive. But now we have 8 tomato plants, a lavender, a blueberry bush, and 2 pots which will have parsley and coriander planted in them as soon as it warms up a little bit. We also repotted the thyme and one of the basil plants that we already had.

We're not expert gardeners. I've managed to kill everything I've ever tried to grow, except the basil and the thyme. They just won't die. I can even kill lavender, and its supposed to be unstoppable. I suspect the tomatoes don't have enough space, and we discovered we'd bought the wrong soil for the blueberry, so its sitting forlornly on our deck waiting to be put in its pot. But the garden looks better, and if we kill the plants, we can always try again. Seeds are cheap, and we already have the pots.

But most of all, the children will get some experience in growing things, and hubby and I had a fun time tending our garden together. I think its the best date I've ever had.






* The others included the massive deck with potential views of the lake, an inside laundry, decent sized kitchen, 2 living areas, and a 2 minute walk to the local school. OH YES.

** Currently unusable due the third shed and massive amounts of junk/concrete/WEEDS, but hey. The space is there once we clear it up.

*** I know this is going to sound insanely high to Americans. But when you realise that COUPONS DO NOT EXIST, and the CHEAP price for chicken breast is $8/kg (about $4/#), well. Food is more expensive here. Shopping elsewhere, the meat alone could have cost that much.

**** My first ever. And yes, I know credit cards are generally a bad idea. But hubby sometimes has to go away for work, and he does NOT have a company credit card. Which means he has to spend our money. Which means I'm often left $300 short, with no chance of seeing it back for anywhere from 2-4 weeks. With the credit card, he can spend as much as he wants on customers without impacting on our ability to feed our children and pay for our house.

Bananas

In our backyard. Fruiting. Excellent.

P-a-l-n. Plan.

Today's plan, in not-necessarily-correct- order:

• eat breakfast (yes, I really do need to remind myself to eat breakfast) (done!)
• get the boy safely to school (done!)
• vacuum the whole house
• comfort Gosling because the vacuum is a scary hellbeast
• find something to do in the bathroom while Gosling sits on the loo for half an hour refusing to 'go'
• make applesauce
• sleep when Gosling sleeps
• laundry - kid clothes
• laundry - nappies
• knit more of Gosling's blanket (and possibly finish the last 2 fingers on the glove)
• get the boy safely home from school
• work on some maths with Critter
• bathe both children
• leftovers for dinner
• spicks&specks, 9pm, ABC2
• make the husband choclate cake for dessert (microwave mugcake)

I suspect they won't all happen. The main ones are vacuuming, laundry, and Critter-school related. You think bathing should be a priority? My kids have just as sensitive skin as I do, and if they (or I for that matter) bathe everyday, there is much dryness and itchiness and pain and rashing. Skipping a day for baths is not a problem. Bathing them too often IS a problem. They get washed everyday - hands, feet, faces (and backside for the girl because hello, nappy changes) - but they don't have a BATH everyday.

Tweet Tweet

There is a bird nesting in my garden.


She is small, not much bigger than a sparrow, but there's no mistaking her for such a drab bird. She is mostly balck and white, with splashes of brilliant yellow, and her eye is bright white.


Her nest is tucked in the back of the grevillea, squashed up against the house. At first I thought it was died-back branches, but she nestled down into it, and became almost invisble. The spiky plant will presumably help keep predators away, even though she is barely 2 feet of the ground.


The small bowl of twigs, when she vacates her hiding place, reveals an unexpected inside - a thick white wall of fluff, perfect for cradling delicate eggs, of which she appears to have a pair.


She spends a fair amound of time out of the nest, and I don't know if this is normal, or if she isn't really that into being a mother. I guess we'll find out in a week or so, when there will either be small tweety things in the nest, or it will become simply an abandoned bowl of twigs.



We get a lot of birds around here. On any given day, as well as my little nesting friend (a New Holland Honeyeater) and about a dozen of her kin, I am likely to see any or all of the following (and I'm sure I'm forgetting some, AND there are more than I don't see, and can't identify by song):

• Masked Lapwing


• Laughing Kookaburra


• Rainbow Lorikeet


• Crimson Rosella


• Magpie


• Willie Wagtail


• Black faced Cuckoo-shrike


• Red Wattlebird


• Some sort of honeyeater, probably a Litle Wattlebird, but its hard to get a good look


• Sparrows


• Magpie Lark


• Indian Myna


• Crested Pigeon


• Spotted Dove


• Pelicans


• Silver Gulls (the proper name for those annoying seagulls - the Australian ones at least)

There are also Black Swans and a variety of other water birds in the lake about 3 blocks away, and the neighbour has chickens. It is never quiet around here.

Pantry, as promised

A while back I told you about re-organising my pantry (pantries), and promised to show pictures. I've had problems getting everything working on the computer, but now its all playing nicely together, so here we go!

Click any of the pictures to see them bigger.

Like I mentioned, the biggest problem with using one of the extra cupboards as extra pantry space, is that the doors kept getting in the way. Every time I wanted to get anything out of the pantry, I had to move everything off the counter, out of the way so could open the doors. Which was annoying, because there was a decent amount of space there for me to use.


Because of the way the doors opened, I couldn't even just move things over to the side - they would still be in the way. I would have to either put everything on the stovetop - if it was off - or next to the sink, and then move it back again.


I mentioned to Hubby that maybe we could take the doors off, and then we wouldn't have to keep moving everything. He said it sounded like a good idea, and the clever man removed the doors just like that. I reorganised the pantries so that mostly only the 'nicer' looking things were there like my canisters and the old coffee jars I use to store herbs, spices, and other powdery things, along with other baking stuff - baking powder, gelatine etc. The few non 'nice' items don't bother me the way a whole shelf full of oils and sauces would have.


Finding the hooks under the bottom shelf was brilliant. I can never find my measures in the drawer, and this way, they're right there where I need them. I also don't have to go rummaging in the towel drawer for my oven mits - they're hanging on the hooks in the pantry too! The counter space is easier to use (and theres even a little more of it without the doors in the way), and I can grab a jar of spice, use it, and put it back, without having to plan ahead (a little difficult when you add stuff at random the way I do when I cook) or move everything constantly. Because it's now open, it gives me extra incentive to keep it tidy, too.

The other pantry is not such a dramatic difference, and has actually been reorganized slightly since these pictures were taken, but it still easier for me with all my sauces together, all the spreads together, all my foil/plastic/paper together. It also serves as generic 'extra' storage, with excess bottles and packages sitting in the back behind the more frequently used items. Pretty much every shelf has regular use item in the front, and bulk storage in the back, from oats, to sugar, to bicarb, to teriyaki sauce, to olive oil.


I don't have any pictures, but I have actually commandeered another cupboard as pantry space, as well. It's one of those annoying corner cupboards that you can never quite reach everything when you try to use it as storage for plates, or glasses, or pots and pans, so I'm using it for things that won't fit in the other pantries. Juice, cordial, and soft drinks, cereal and muesli, and all our cookbooks and spare placemats.

Knitwit

I'm teaching myself to knit.* My mother knits, in fact I think she even knitted a lot of my baby clothes, seeing as when I was born it was the tail end of winter and we lived in Melbourne (I know she didn't make any for my sister, born mid-summer in Darwin, that would probably have constituted child abuse). She tried teaching me when I was younger, and in fact I think I even made a scarf. But I am 27 now, and I can't have been much older than 8 then, and with nothing in the intervening years, I couldn't remember anything other than "two sticks, wrap the wool.. um.. help?" which isn't really that useful.

To be Absolutely Honest, mum showed me again last year when she was up for a weekend, and I wanted to make a blanket for Gosling (who so far has a beautiful Steve, and blue hand-me-downs from Critter). But, in true mum-manner, she cast on for me, then showed me how to make the stitches, believing that casting on would be too hard for me. Um, hello? I'm 27, make clothes without patterns, and have taught myself to sew and cook, but casting on is too difficult? Alrighty then.

Anyway.

The knitting went slowly for a while last year, a row here, a row there, whenever I had a free moment, but then summer came along and I got more interested in sewing. And stopped knitting until a couple of weeks ago. By which point I had forgotten everything and had to find instructional videos online. Which would have been easier if our internet hadn't decided to play up on the night I decided to pick up my knitting. Sigh.

I've discovered that I'm actually not too bad at it. I can in fact cast on -and off!! - by myself, and while I'm not a speed knitter by any stretch of the imagination, I don't feel like I'm going at an absolute snail's pace, either. So far I've limited myself to the knit-stitch. I know my tendencies to jump in at the deep end, but I don't want to confuse myself, get frustrated, and give up. So until I've finished at least 2 more blocks, there will be no purling for me.

I've also discovered that I can knit and watch TV at the same time. Not only does it give me something to occupy my hands with - something WARM to occupy my hands with on these cold, cold nights (we still don't have any heating), but I knit better when I'm slightly distracted and not paying full attention. As soon as I start thinking too hard about the stitches, my speed drops off, and my tension ends up all over the shop.

Gosling's blanket is not going to be a masterpiece. I haven't managed any major mess-ups so far, but my tension is still wonky, and I am, after all, a beginner. But I will have made it with love, with my own two hands, and by the time its finished, I should be a fairly accomplished knitter.




*Interesting note - I originally spelled this "teasing myself to knot". Which is just as appropriate. Knitting is a lot like one giant knot, and I'm almost certain I'm teasing myself as much as teaching.

I never thought I would be so excited about my pantry.

The kitchen in our new house is odd. Decent amount of counter space, though not as much as I would like, decent sized sink, huge fridge space, TINY PANTRY CUPBOARD. Its about a foot wide, and has nowhere near enough shelves to make good use of the available space. Fortunately, theres a lot of other cupboards in the kitchen. A LOT. so the oddly tall one in the middle of one of the counters has been designated pantry#2.

Hubby took the doors off for me a couple days ago. So now, I can work on the counter in front of it without constantly having to move everything to get stuff out. BIG YAY.

However, because its open, I had to do some reorganising. Only relatively 'nice looking' things are in it now - my cansiters and old coffee jars full of herbs and spices. And my recipe box.

Alos, whoever lived here before was very clever. The bottom shelf is fixed, unlike the rest, and is quite high up. Underneath it they've affixed some hooks, which allow me to hang my measuring cups&spoons, AND oven mits, so they're always handy and I don't have to go searching for them! WOOT! Easy access to utensils most likely to be used over there, and plenty of room underneath for my canisters.

My computer is still borked, and hubby's isn't accepting the memory card from the camera at the moment, but as soon as I get it sorted, rest assured, you WILL be bombarded with before and after shots of my food storage.

I still can't believe how excited I am about this.

Home, even in the cold.

It is mid April, and the weather has started to turn. The sky is bright and clear, amazingly blue today, and the sun is shining like crazy, but there is a definite chill in the air. Blankets have been put on beds (except Goslings - she still moves around so much that all it would accomplish is either a suffocated baby, or one who wakes all night crying because she is tangled), and I'm keeping my eye out for singlets (tanktops, wifebeaters, whatever you want to call them - sleeveless undershirts) for the kids every time go to the shops. Today is colder than yesterday, and summer clothes have been well and truly abandoned, even by the boy who runs so much I'm amazed he even notices the cold. Critter has tracksuit pants (his only pair) and long sleeves on, and Gosling is wearing tights that don't quite come up past her nappy. I would be sure to overheat if I were to wear a sweater, but I too have given in to long sleeves, and, for once, socks.

This might not seem that strange to anyone else, until you realise that I go barefoot most of the time - including outside in the middle of the night. I keep my feet bare if it is at all possible.

But my toes were slightly numb and looking a little oddly-coloured.

And we do not have a heat source in this house.

There are two gas outlets, one in each of the main rooms. The house however, did not come with gas heaters to go with the outlets, and they are rather expensive to buy. Oil column heaters are cheaper to buy, but they heat less efficiently, and are very expensive to run, especially as electricity prices are set to increase quite a bit.

Normally I would kill two birds with one stone at this time of year, and simply use the oven more. Roast dinners would become more frequent, providing us with good food, incidental heating, and abundant leftovers for quick dinners and lunches. Bread would be started in the morning so the heat from the oven would keep me warm while getting the rest of the day's work sorted. Cookies and muffins would appear on our menu with greater frequency.

But this year, our first cold season in our new very-own-all-ours house, our oven isn't working. The stovetop heats, though the temperature controls leave a lot to be desired (one burner appears to have two settings - veryextrasuperhot and lukewarm - and the other three will take upwards of half an hour to boil a small saucepan of water), and the grill (Americans may be unfamiliar with this term, I think my husband said it is referred to as a broiler?) seems to be in perfect working order (though with a never-stops-running 5 year old and a just-started-walking toddler in the house, I dislike the fact that the grill door has to be left open if it is on), but the heating element in the oven itself has decided to stop doing its job.

The fan and light are still functional, which tricked us the other morning and meant that our breakfast of biscuits and gravy was cooked at the last minute in the BBQ, after discovering that the oven, which should have been preheating for over 20minutes, was stone cold. I don't think we've ever used the BBQ before 10am before.

This house is less drafty than our previous residence, especially now my brilliant husband has boarded up the cracks in the floors of the children's rooms, but it is also only weatherboard and clad construction, not the hefty insulated double-brick of mum's house. The lower ceilings mean less space for hot air to disappear into, but the comparatively flowing openplan living areas, with only one door between front and back of house, mean it is harder to shut up a space and hold that heat where it is needed.

Tomorrow will be worse than today. Today, after a couple of days of slightly upset stomach on Gosling's part, I find I am almost out of nappies, and have tossed the clean, but unusably wet ones into the dryer (a practice I greatly dislike, but am terribly grateful for on days like today), instead of waiting for them to dry outside on the line. With only three left, and nappies taking at least a full day to dry on our line, the only other option was to let all hang loose and simply clean up messes - an option much better reserved for warm summer days, than chilly autumn ones.

A welcome side effect is the hot air being blasted into the house from the dryer - an experience we will have to do without, tomorrow. Tomorrow, everyone will be in long sleeves and wellcovered legs again, and I may even have to pull out a blanket to keep cosy on the couch as night falls and the chill deepens.

Our house is still lacking in many things that help to make a home. Heaters and a functional oven are the most obvious at the moment, but there are many other little things missing. Placemats for the table, paintings for the walls, shelves for Goslings room, shoe-racks for ours. A desk in a corner where I can keep my sewing things (instead of taking up half the dining table). Some sort of cupboard for the laundry-linen-closet, a coffee table and rug for the living room.

But even without these things, even without heat, and even with the curtains that grate on my nerves and sickly-lemon-yellow walls, with drab boring kitchen cupboards and bare lightbulbs, with leaking gutters and taps that only recognise the three annoying temperatures 'cold' 'lukewarm' and 'lava', I'm beginning to really like it here, in my white clad house with the green roof and rosebushes.

I'm beginning to feel at home.

Since Last We Spoke...

• We moved in to the holiday house. Which, by the way, was about 1 block from the beach. It took a few nights for me to get used to the sound of the ocean.
• Critter started school. (How can my baby be so big?)
• Gosling turned one. (Seriously! How can my babies be SO BIG!!!)
• We moved in to OUR HOUSE!!! Our very own house with ROSE BUSHES!!!
• Gosling's vocabulary consists of the usual baby babble, plus her brother's name, "hello", "nigh-nigh" (very occasionally), "dadadadad", and a brrrrrrrrrrrrrrm car noise, predominantly made when playing with a toy car.
• Critter can read. Not just "cat", "dad", "hit", but "where is my hat? this is my red shoe", and "the buffalo jumps in. let's have a swim". SMARTY PANTS!
• Gosling started to walk, and can now get herself halfway across the room without falling down.
• She is more likely to get up and walk if there is music playing.
• She is extraordinarily fast when she crab-crawls, and will do this if she REALLY wants to get somewhere fast.
• We somehow managed a 1.5hr drive with a 5yr old, a hungry 1yr old, and a terrified, blind, bigger-than-the-baby 13yr old cat, without anyone being injured or yelling.
• The cat has settled in fairly well. He didn't eat or drink for the first couple of days, but oddly, his blindness seems to have been a blessing. He can't SEE that everything is different, so because it all still smells like his people, he's just accepted that we've moved some things around and it's all fine.
• We bought a very expensive couch, which is balanced by the fact that we got another couch for the kid's area, AND a TV unit for less than $250. YAY SALVO'S!!!
• Our bedroom has a REMOTE CONTROL FAN AND LIGHT.
• There is one light in the house with NO off switch that we can find, so we're leaving it bulb-less.
• The walls of the house are all yellow, except the kid's area which is hideous 70s wood panelling.
• We can't afford paint at the moment, and don't have time to paint even if we could afford it, so I'm learning to live with yellow. I'm never going to love it though.
• We bought a wardrobe and toybox for critter's room, splashing out on custom stuff so it would match and he would have a decent looking room instead of the jumble he's been living with, and after getting the truck loaded up and driving for over an hour to get it home, getting it down the sloping front yard and into the house, miraculously without scratching the hardwood floors, WE DISCOVERED THEY'VE MESSED UP AND STAINED IT THE WRONG COLOUR. Yes, it looked paler than we were expecting when we picked it up, but we assumed it was to do with being in sunlight rather than a dark bedroom. So we took it back and it's being fixed.
• I have to learn to cook with a small oven. My cookie tray keeps the door open.
• We are also learning creative pantry-ing, as although we have a decent amount of counter and otherwise-cupboard space, the 'pantry' area is about 1/3 what I've previously lived with. Some of the other cupboards have been taken over.
• There is NO LINEN CLOSET. The enormous laundry is going to have cupboards installed, and part of our wardrobe is being taken over, because at the moment, there's no-where to put towels, sheets, or even toilet paper.
• I've discovered a laneway that turns the 5minute walk to Critter's school into a 2minute walk. Unfortunately this makes it tempting to leave Gosling asleep when I leave to pick him up at 2:40, and she's been asleep for less than half an hour after being awake since before 7am. I DIDN'T leave her, and never would, but the temptation is there, and I don't like it.

And lastly,

• My computer is borked. The battery life is approximately 7minutes, and the power cord has to be held at just the right angle and pressure or the machine thinks it isn't plugged in and turns off, so I've been using hubby's machine. THIS IS VERY ANNOYING, and means that I won't be around much, even though we actually have a decently working internet connection here, unlike the holiday house which had little to no reception and would cut out for no reason intermittently.

I Don't Know How to Use a Dishwasher

In about August my husband got a promotion. His company opened a new branch, and he applied for, and won, the position of branch manager at the new branch. This is Awesome (and the extra money is nice), but it does present a few difficulties.

The new branch is over an hour's drive south of where we currently live, and with hubby working 7am to 5pm, we don't get to see him much. He gets up at about 5am and leaves before 6am every morning, and he doesn't get home till well after 6pm. Some days he doesn't get home until nearly 8pm, if he's had to stay back for some reason and the traffic gets bad. He's also "on call" 24-7, meaning that if someone calls in the middle of the night and needs something, he has to go in and open the store to sell them stuff - not fun when the store is so far away.

Because of this, we decided to move down the coast. He's been desperate to get out of Sydney since we moved here, and this is the perfect opportunity. After a few setbacks we've found a house and the bank has agreed to throw money at us (contracts are exchanged, just waiting for the tenants to vacate in March and then we settle), and Critter is enrolled in school - which presents the other difficulty.

The house is due to settle mid-late March. Critter starts school at the beginning of February. That gives us about 6 weeks where we are living over an hour away from his school, and I don't even drive. Things were looking tricky. Hubby could take Critter down with him every morning, let him play in the warehouse for a couple hours, take him to school, pick him up after school, let him play in the warehouse for another couple hours and then come home. Except that I don't relish the idea of waking a 5year old at 5am every morning to get ready for school, and its hard enough spending 12 hours a day away from my husband. I don't think I could handle having the boy away for so long too.

So hubby came up with a good, if expensive, idea. We are renting a "holiday home" for 8 weeks. Its in the suburb we will be living in. Its 4 houses away from the beach. Its fully furnished, so all we need to take is clothes, food, and Gosling's cot. And we're moving next Sunday.

My parents bought this house in 1987. Other than 8 months up the coast when I was 5, and my not-quite-2-years in California, I've lived here since then. My husband has lived here since coming to Australia, my children have never lived anywhere else. I have 5 days left in this house.

I'm very excited, and I'll admit to being a little nervous. We only bought the very very basics in groceries this week, in order to use up as much of whats in the cupboards as possible. I'm trying to remember where our suitcases are, so I can pack up all our clothes. I'm also trying to figure out the best way to transport 2 pot plants, and how to take 2 cars down, when we only have one driver. But my biggest concern? I think the new house has a dishwasher, and I don't know how to use one.

Christmas is ovah

We had mostly successes with this years presents. My mum got Critter a Lego pirate ship, which he has completed, with hardly any help. Hubs' mum is sending another Lego pirate ship that was Hubs' when he was about 10... I suspect there will be pirate battles once both of them are here and made. He also got a LOT of clothes, a game of Trouble, and I can't remember what else right now. I'm in a turkey induced fog. Gosling got a dolly which she adores, some soft noise-making balls, which are kinda interesting, but not as much as the plastic carry case they came in (love babies), some awfully cute clothes, a couple of shape sorters, including the Tupperware ball, and again I can't remember. Hubs gave me the Stargate box set, bought at 6:30am on Christmas Eve, and probably spent far too much on it. He got Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii, the two Family Guy Star-Wars spoofs, and a radio transmitter for his Ipod for his truck (our car has an Ipod jack, but his work truck doesn't.) We got mum some CDs and DVDs, and tickets to go see the Gypsy Kings, which I made a cardboard rose as a clue for the envelope. We got my sister some VERY expensive towels. Mum gave us all money. The cat got turkey.

We all ate far too much turkey, except Critter who is allergic and had roast beef. We watched Elf, had a few altercations, and then dad and his wife came round and it got weird, 'cause what do you say to a pair of orthodox Jews at Christmas when theres ham on the table?

To top it all off, half of us had gastro, and then I gouged a chunk out of my toe on the rubbish bin, after putting on a load of the most horrendous nappies I've ever smelt. It hurts, and I'm not sure if the skin is still attached or not, as I taped it up with 3 bandaids immediately (I do not heal easily or cleanly, and it is entirely possible that it will STILL get infected despite being washed instantly and being covered with bandaids and antiseptic cream within a minute.)

Due to said gastro, we didn't get to go to church, so I feel weird and am greatly looking forward to tomorrow. The real point of yesterday was never lost sight of, and my heart sings with joy at the amazing gift of Life given by our most loving Lord, some two-thousand years ago.

Merry Christmas all! (again)

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Today is Wednesday. Christmas is on Friday. The tree went up on Monday.

Oh yeah, we leave things to the last minute here.

Presents are (mostly) bought - the man says he will buy mine tomorrow, on Christmas Eve. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

Turkey will be coming out of the freezer tomorrow to start defrosting, and we will go to the supermarket to get last minute food stuffs.

And best of all, the bank has agreed to give us a bunch of money, and we exchange contracts tomorrow.

Some two-thousand years ago there was a miracle that I am eternally grateful for, in the form of a squeaky miniature human, sent here to save us all, fully human, yet fully divine. A young girl, an honourable man, a miraculous new-born.

This year, we have our own miracle. This is the fourth or fifth house we've gone after, and we were beginning to think the bank was going to turn us down, again. Instead, this is the second best Christmas present ever. (The first, obviously, being Christ. Just in case you weren't paying attention.)

God gives in abundance. Not necessarily when or what you expect, but always what is best.

Merry Christmas!

noise in the small hours

slowly, awareness comes. it is cold, and dark, and i do not want to be awake. my furnace-hot husband is curled up in a ball behind me, our backs pressed together, the only part of me that is warm. vaguely i am aware that i should pull the blanket up, but today is technically the first day of summer, and i stubbornly refuse to give in, especially as up til now it has been so hot we've been forgoing even a sheet at night.

i roll over, determining to go back to sleep, ignoring the slightly distressed tiny noises the man makes whenever i move away from him. after six years, they hardly register, unless he is facing me and i have to disengage his suddenly vicelike arms and reassure him i am not going anywhere. with my face pressed against his back he relaxes, and i allow consciousness to leave me again. as i slowly drift, a noise jars me back to the cold - obviously the reason i was awake to begin with. insistent and annoyed, my daughter is awake, and only milk will satisfy her. i pull the blanket onto the bed as i leave the room, and my husband barely stirs.

in the dark and the cold, the creak of the floorboards is deafening, and i am sure i will wake everyone. miraculously, only the mini-one notices, and her insistent annoyance becomes fear and sadness when i do not materialise next to her bed the moment she hears my footsteps. her sobs of anguish are only quieted when tiny outstretched arms and feathery soft head find their resting place on my shoulder. in the heat of yesterday, the sleepsack was her only nightwear, but now, in the dark, her pudgy arms are cold to touch, and i reach for a tiny soft shirt to keep her warm, before we return to my bed to nurse.

my footsteps still creaking, suddenly i freeze. a voice, loud in the darkness, and baby's head startles off my shoulder - i have to make sure and get more chicken so we don't run out. silent laughter racking my body, i try not move, as her tiny head swings from side to side and she questions into the dark, not understanding. i just didn't know anymore so i went and did it. my son has inherited my sleeptalking, and i wonder, not for the first time, how sleeptalker and nightnurser do not constantly disturb each other.

eyes adjusted to the dark, i see the skinny body sprawled across the bed. one foot hangs off the side, his head is pressed against the wall, toy-puppy gripped firmly by the arm twisted behind his arched back. satisfied he is still sleeping, i pull pirate-covered blankets over my cold skinned boy - when do we get to go back to the zoo for burgers again? - and make my way back to my own bed with the now-warmer-girl. tired and hungry, she cries again when i lay her down, never remembering in her half-awake state that i will be joining her shortly and the milk will flow. as we adjust ourselves to more comfortable positions, a sleepy arm is thrown over me, and she startles off, squealing with delight as she feels daddy's hand. he is oblivious, lost in the sleep i crave, and she soon resumes nursing, the possibility of daddy superseded by the reality of milk.

comfortable between two warm bodies, i search out the clock in the dark before i let sleep claim me again. 3-4-9 i see in blurry green. almost 5am, as we don't change this clock for daylight savings. slowly the dark becomes complete as tired eyes close, and sleep cautiously returns. i drift, warm and dark, till again i am jarred awake, by the 5am alarm calling the man to get up and ready for work. he stirs, moving away to end the jarring alarm, my back suddenly cold without his bodyheat to warm me, and then, silence.

slowly sound and warmth return, wakeup call ignored in search of rest. small body in my arms warm and still, save for twitching fingers and breath-raised chest, husband behind me asleep almost instantly, his constantly-hot-body keeping my back warm in the cold, hand holding his daughter's, his sleep-steady breath beside my ear lulling me to my own sleep once more, and blocking out all other noises in the small hours.

Too much money

I want a new clothes dryer. The one we have is a good 20 years old, and is incredibly inefficient. The only time its worth using is when the clothes are so slightly damp you could almost mistake them for simply being cold. If I was to put half a load of wash in the dryer and push start, it would go for about 5 minutes and then stop, leaving me with hot wet clothes instead of cold wet clothes, or hot dry clothes.

Fortunately I live in a place where I can usually hang stuff to dry outside, and if I cant, it usually only takes 24-36 hours to dry inside.

There are times however when it rains. And rains. And rains. And then I wish we had a working dryer. The fact that the clothes line is broken and being held up with sticky-tape, and has a tendency to collapse if I put more than one load of wash on it, makes me want a new dryer too. Or at least a new clothesline.

Both those options cost money though. Money that we do have, but really don't want to spend. We have so far been living in my mother's house rent free (for a time with her, now as caretakers while she is interstate), but would really REALLY like to find a place of our own, which means we need to save. And save. And save. Housing prices may be down at the moment, but they are still incredibly high, and even with all the money I have saved up and invested from before I was married, we need A LOT to buy a house, and renting would mean we'd never be able to save, as rent is almost a much as mortgage payments.

Oh how I wish someone would just drop a bag full of cash in my lap.

Budget Budget Budget*

NOTE: numbers used in illustrative spreadsheets are random - you didn't think I'd let you see my actual income and expenditure did you? Due to this being a MADE UP budget, the numbers don't work as neatly as my real budget does. Use your imagination.

I'm still very much in post-baby fog, so this might not be the most coherent post on earth, though it looks OK to me. Please accept my apologies.

Also, click the picture for a bigger view.



Recently, a friend of mine asked me to show her how I use my budget (we still need to sit down one day so I can show her properly.. we keep getting distracted by things like op-shops and screaming children). She had gone to her bank account for some reason and couldn't figure out where all the money had gone. Now, I'm no expert, but I usually have a pretty good idea of how much there is in my account (and generally manage to save a fair amount). My husband generally does not.

He readily admits that he's not so great with money. If he needs to save for something, he can do it, no worries, but saving just because is a bit tricky. If he sees 'spare' money, he wants to spend it. What this means in a practical sense is that he's given me complete control over our finances, and rarely looks at the bank account. He doesn't want to know how much is there, so he can't be tempted to spend it. He knows in a general sense what he's allowed to spend - eg. he knows groceries should be around $200/week - but he leaves the specifics up to me.

This means that I need to keep a constant eye on where our money is going, since if we end up broke, ITS MY FAULT. The best way for me to do this is having it written down, and checking our spending frequently. Theres no point saying out loud "I will only spend $800/month on groceries" if you don't have it written anywhere to keep track. So I've drawn up a spreadsheet, with an 'estimate' and 'actual' column, and every thursday I open my bank account online and check whats been spent where, filling in the blanks in my budget as I go.

This helps for two reasons.

• Firstly, the estimate column is what our goal is - how much we should be spending in each area - and seeing how much we actually spend, compared to what we planned on spending lets me know if maybe we need to re-think our goals. Some things never change - for example our car payments are the same every month, and our phone bill should be, since we're on a plan and rarely go over our limit. Other things, like groceries, are less predictable, so the 'estimate' column is more of a guide, a number I'd rather not go over.

• Secondly, checking it every week lets me know if it was a one off blow-out - did we go over our grocery budget because we had one week where we had to buy toilet paper AND dish washing liquid AND laundry powder AND tissues AND restock our meat supply - or if we have been consistently going over by a little bit each week, perhaps meaning we haven't been paying as much attention to purchases as we ought.

My budget spreadsheet also carries over from month to month, with sections for the current month, the current quarter, and the whole year, so I can see at a glance how much we've spent over different periods of time, and if there are any trends - do we spend more on petrol at one time of year? More on groceries? More on eating out?

I have a monthly calendar at the bottom of each page, so I can see how many thursdays - when hubby gets paid - there are per month, so I know how many units of salary and groceries to put in. This also lets me know if I'm likely to need to transfer money from the savings account into our everyday account for things like insurance payments - if the payment is due monday, chances are I'll need to transfer some back, since there won't be the funds for it until thursday, and when thursday rolls round, I can simply transfer the extra back to the savings.

I've also set it up so that negative numbers show in red - every time we go over budget theres a big nasty red mark on my neat and tidy page, glaringly obvious, and begging not to happen again. I'm a shocker at keeping my house clean, but I like my computer to be ridiculously tidy, so having the glaring red really helps me try to keep things in check.

Absolutely THE most important thing in any budgeting is to make it work for you. This set-up worked for me, obviously, or I wouldn't still be using it 5 years after I first drew it up. It might not work for you. Your brain may not work the same way mine does. There are lots of different guidelines out there, find one that suite you. Also, don't be a slave to it. The budget is a guide, an indication of what you should be spending. Draw yourself in some wiggle room, and don't freak out if you go over a little. Maybe you need to rethink the numbers, but maybe it was a one off. If you are consistently going over budget, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, but don't beat yourself up about it.



If anyone is interested in more pictures and/or detailed explanations, or would like a blank copy to play with, let me know and I'll see what I can do.




*Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget MONEY MONEY!!
Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget MONEY MONEY!!
A Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget Budget SAVINGS SAVINGS! Savings, Savings, oooooooooooh Savings and Budget Budget Budget.....

(sorry, couldn't help myself, the badger songs gets in my head every time someone says budget)

I'm not TRYING to be vague...

• Spaceghost either sleeps for 8-9 hours at night, leaving me to wake up in pain with stiff nursing pads, or spends all night merely drowsing, and GRUNTING VERY LOUDLY, occasionally accompanied by very loud farts.
• She DOES NOT poo at night, so at about 7am I usually have to changer her nappy, and the cover, and her clothes, and the nappy she lies on (we use terry squares, and I keep one under her wherever she is because she is a very up-chucky little thing and its easier than changing her sheets 40 times a day)...
• She needs to burp at least twice each feed (midway through and after), or she just cries and cries because her tummy hurts.
• Critterbug wants to help. Which is sweet. But he keeps doing things I don't want him to do.. like shove soft toys in her face, or try to put her dummy in when she doesn't want it.
• I have far too much laundry to do.
• I need to finish making the bear.
• And the quilt.
• And the clothes.
• And the wraps.
• My cut is not healed yet. 7 weeks, and it's still scabby instead of scarred.
• The Very Old Cat has a thyroid problem... so now he has to have a pill twice a day, possibly for the rest of his life. Otherwise he will eventually die of: starvation, or heart failure, or liver problems. Luckily he is easily tricked by cheese (have you ever tried to force a 1m/3ft long cat to eat something it doesn't want to eat? not fun).
• All the little 0000 clothes are now too small. We've just done a clear out of Critter's old clothes, and I am NOT in a state to get rid of any of Spaceghost's clothes yet. They are going into a spacebag until I'm ready.
• Baby clothes are so CUTE!
• I am totally pre-occupied with baby things.
• I never thought I would be so drawn to pink frilly clothes.
• Not that I really have much choice. Have you tried buying baby girl clothes recently? PINK PINK PINK PINK PINK. And occasionally PURPLE.
  

adelaide was fun

on friday morning i got up FAR TOO EARLY and got ready to catch a plane to adelaide, where mum lives, from sydney, where i live. ive been to brisbane and canberra, and lived in melbourne and darwin, but ive never before set foot in SA, WA, or TAS, so a trip to adelaide to visit mum was exciting for 2 reasons - i get to see my mummy, AND i get to see a new place.

and boy was it different.

mum lives about 20min from the airport. we drove through THE HEART OF ADELAIDE to get to her apartment (she lives IN the city. who actually lives IN sydney-city?), and it looks like the suburbs of sydney. there are no tall buildings. there are no people frantically rushing to get places. the streets are a hundred miles wide. and THE WHOLE CITY is only about a mile across. the mind boggles.


friday consisted mostly of me trying to wrap my head around a city that really isnt a city. i slept a lot, the kid watched a movie, and hubby went for a walk. when mum got home we went around the corner to a pub for dinner - a first for my man. he's been in australia for over 4 years and it was the first time he's eaten pub food. he DIDNT have steak and chips, so i wasnt sure if it really counted, but chicken schnitzel and chips is the next best thing i guess.


saturday was a big day. we walked to the central markets, which were, again, mind boggling. there are markets in sydney, but not like that. flemington and paddington are NOT like the central markets. ive never seen so many green-grocer stalls in one place! and all of them had different prices. broccoli ranged from 1.99-4.50/kg, and everything else was similarly different.

from the central markets we went to the tram stop, where we waited for a tram (a first for me. never been on one before.. sydney light-rail doesnt really count), and hopped over to rundle mall (similar to sydney's pitt st mall) FOR FREE. travel terrace to terrace (one end of the city to the other), by tram, IS FREE. FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. as in not paying any money. to catch public transport.

rundle mall was, as i said, much like pitt st mall, for those who know sydney. one block of the street, paved and closed off, with shops on either side, stalls in the middle. it was fun. the fact that spotlight and lincraft are RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER made me twitch a little. (i cant even get to one by myself. its either 40minutes on public transport and buy food out, or find someone to take me. and i cant go to both. theres none near each other.) the two storey target (admittedly not QUITE in the mall proper) caught me off guard. (two storeys? what is it - myer? and ARGH! they have different clothes in different states! i only saw about 4 things they have in the target here!!!!) and harris scarfe.. ive never seen anything like it. (i want to live there. all the kitchen things.... mum bought me some stainless steel measuring cups and spoons, because the plastic ones we have keep breaking.)

we stopped at hungry jacks (burger king) for lunch, then continued our walk round to mum's work, at uniSA. which is right next to adelaide uni. the two universities, presumably rivals, are so close you cant tell where one stops and the next begins. i still cant quite comprehend that. after a quick look at her office, we went back outside and continued down the road, past the unis on one side and the hospital on the other, and walked down to the river. where we saw a duck crossing sign, which made me giggle, and then 4 ducks crossing the road in a line, which made my eyes fall out of my head. they reached the road, stopped, looked around for a second in unison, then jumped out into the street as the cars stopped for them.

we went all the way down to the river, and sat for a while in the shade, watching the ducks, and the swans, and the pelicans, and trying to avoid the seagulls. the ducks also watched me. it was a bit creepy. critterbug ran around a bit and came FAR too close to the waters edge for my liking a few times, but he had a great time trying to catch daddy by surprise and push him over. didnt work. daddy ended up catching the bug by surprise and tossing him in the air. many many times. he just didnt learn. there was MUCH delighted screaming and laughter. the ducks watched it all.

when my butt started to go numb from sitting still for too long, and my legs started itching, reminding me of my grass allergy (not grass seeds, GRASS. if it touches me i itch like mad), i enlisted my mum and husband to pull me upright, and we started to walk along the river towards king william street, taking more pictures of the interesting ducks along the way. one of which followed me for a while before hubby scared it off for me. at one point hubby ran up ahead for me, to catch up with the pelicans and take pictures, since they had been too far away to get clear shots, and spaceghost is making me very very slow and i couldnt catch up to them.

we also got to see a bunch of ducklings, and a couple of signets: there were two ducks with about 9 or so little fluffballs following them around, up on the banks; and trying to sleep in the shade of a boat, a few feet away from the two beautiful black swans who were presumably the parents, were two fuzzy grey signets. i love baby animals.

when we reached king william, the plan was to walk to the nearest tram stop, catch the tram back to rundle, and walk back to mums apartment, but after being out and about for nearly 5 hours, by the time we reached the street the tram was on, i was so exhausted (stopped to rest about a zillion times on the slight uphill walk from the river to the tram) that my pleas of "ill be fine in a minute, after all its 15 minutes of sitting before the tram gets here" were over-ridden, and we got a taxi back to mum's. where she showed me how to do silverside, and i promptly fell asleep until dinner time.


sunday was a lazier day. we were going to go church, but mum wasnt sure where the nearest one was, or what time services were on. she walked up to the nearest anglican while i got the kid and myself ready, but it had started by the time she got there and didnt have a second service, and it was further away than it looked. so she backtracked and checked out the two lutherans nearer to her place. both had services at 9 and 11. the 9 had already started, and if we went to the 11, we wouldnt have time to do much else for the rest of the day, before we had to leave. but now she knows where they are, and what time the services are, so hopefully she'll be going to church soon.

so after hubby got back from his walk around adelaide, we all headed out again. we went to tandanya, which was wonderful, and walked around the street market up by rundle mall for a little while, then we went to a cafe/restaurant for lunch. the food was good, when it came, but the waiter got two of our orders wrong. hubby was given fish instead of chicken (which he said was fine and ate anyway), and i was given pasta with some sort of tomato sauce (which normally would have been fine, but the pregnancy, it does weird things to me, and merely looking at it made me feel ill) instead of the bacon/mushroom/cream i'd ordered, so he had to go get it all over again. i dont think mum will be going back there. she was not impressed. like i said, the food was good, but the service.. not so much of the brilliant.

by this time it was about 3ish, so we headed back to mum's and after an icecream, predictably, i had a nap while the kid watched a movie. at about 5 we called a cab, and headed to the airport, where our flight was delayed by half an hour, because the plane we would be leaving on was delayed coming INTO adelaide from sydney. not to worry, it gave us time to eat at the airport, since virgin blue dont give you food unless you pay extra. mum looked close to tears by the time we boarded, but we'll be seeing her on 2 weeks when she comes up to sydney for a conference.


i liked adelaide.. the whole place FEELS different to sydney. there wasnt the constant rush, and it was nice to be able to see the sky. im not really a big city kind of person. i look forward to hubby getting a position somewhere a bit further out. and he doesnt want to live in sydney either. he's lived in a slow desert town in california most of his life, and i think working in LA didnt help much. i could do adelaide. where the city isnt a city. and theres green everywhere. definitely want to go back and visit mum again, though that wont be any time soon, i fear. not with the ever expanding sprog stopping me from flying.

ah well. the weekend was good.

and now i have a ton of washing to do, as soon as it stops looking drizzly.

groceries, addendum

we spent probably around $260 today. not bad considering we havent really bought meat for 2-3 weeks, so we stocked up (cheap steaks for stirfry, mince (ground beef) and sausages (chevapi) and chicken.. tommorrow im going to coles and getting a roast), and we had to buy razors, deodorant, and shampoo.. all of which are FAR TOO EXPENSIVE.

next week should be a bit lower, but we will have to buy more veg - i had enough this week to tide over, just needed to buy apples, pears and carrots.

hopefully now that my cold is going away ill be able to go back to normal amounts of orange juice, and apple-blackcurrant juce.. ive been going overboard in an effort to make the sore throat/horrible nose subside. and its worked, but weve been spending a LOT on juice.

bought bread, but i plan on this being the last week i buy it. tomorrow, time allowing, im going to get baking. (will post my recipes later.)

now if only the gas bill, hubby's tax owed, and kid's school fees didnt all need to be paid...

groceries, oh joy

today we're going grocery shopping. it usually takes a while. during the day, i write up a list of everything we need, and get the pile of green bags out (note for non-aussies - a lot of our grocery stores now sell re-usable bags you can use instead of using the plastic ones. theyre usually green, and are referred to by many as 'the green bags', even though they DO come in other colours - our 'cooler bags' - like a collapsible coolbox - are blue), and then when hubby gets home sometime before 6, we head to the stores and do the groceries.

there are 4 places we go in a normal week. woolworths first, because thats where the ATM is, then aldi, harris farm markets (green grocer) and the butcher. these last three are all next to each other, and woolworths is between them and our house, so it works well.

at woolies i pull out our weekly grocery money, and then we start to shop. which is fairly easy, despite the million different places we go, because i know what needs to be bought where, and write my list in 4 parts. some things arent set, we just get them wherever theyre cheapest, but i know which ones those are, and will buy them if theyre super cheap, even if they were written down in a different part of the list.

the only thing that bugs me is the cost. i budget $200/week (which will sound insane to any random americans who drop by, but what would your weekly grocery bill look like if there were NO COUPONS?) and usually we come in under. sometimes we go over, but anything that doesnt get spent stays in our grocery envelope, so i never have to pull more out of the machine. and every few weeks (usually around 5-6) we end up needing practicaly nothing (mainly milk and fresh veg), and just stay at woolies because the extra cost of petrol, though minimal (and the bother), wouldnt be worth it - we usually end up spending less than $80. one week it was about $40. this is also the week i usually ignore the green bags, so we have a stock of plastic for the small rubbish bins in the bathroom and bedrooms. why buy, when you can re-use the plastic grocery bags?

ive been trying to get our costs down, but i just cant see it happening. we waste hardly anything, often have leftovers for dinner - at least once a week, more for the child if hubby and i are having chicken - and i always check the catalogues first to make sure i stock up on cheap stuff, and avoid luxuries if theyre full price. now that my morning sickness is well and truly gone, and my energy seems to be increasing a little, oddly enough , i can get back to baking bread (yeast was SO BAD), but that will only save a couple dollars a week, and may have to stop again soon anyway if my wrists get any worse. kneading can get achy. we only buy name brands if theres no alternative, or the homebrand alternative tastes disgusting/flat out doesnt work (like the cheap toilet paper.. no thankyou. im sticking with my quilton. its not cheaper if you throw out the whole 8 rolls and have to buy new stuff.)

i guess im stuck at the magic $200.. ugh.