Bliss

South East

And North East from our balcony.

I was up for about 10 minutes before the kids woke up this morning. This was the view. Just stunning. I totally, totally love living up high on the hill. Just gotta remember to stop and look at the view! It's an antedote to all the lurgies around here this week.

Sometimes it feels like a retreat up here, you can hardly even see the city with all the trees in front and you can't hear it.

One of my favourite things is when it's sunny but the air still has a tiny bit of a chill and the bell from the Carmelite monastery nearby is tolling. It feels like the Dordogne in France did. It does make me desperate to go there again though!

Food explosion

I'd forgotten just how messy mealtimes can be. Lucky I have Cinderella living with me.

Market finds

I'm copying Gemma and showing off some of my recent Esk Market finds. Chloe and I had some girl time last Sunday. We treated ourselves to pain au chocolats (somewhat perversely Chloe pulled out the chocolate and refused to eat it. Strange girl!) and cinos of choice and then went to the market. Chloe loves to go to the French Bakery stall where she can sample the bread and also to the balloon man. She usually gets him to make her a flower but branched out and went for a fish this time. I got enough bread for the week - they have the best olive bread - the three tiered tin above and the jug. The jug is Arabia from Finland and I love it. My mother-in-law has a couple with different animals. I got down to my last $2 and used it for a bumch of coriander.

The canisters were from a previous Esk market trip.

There is a very small amount of craftiness going on here (not for the shop yet Jen!) which mostly consists of buying stuff for new projects and maybe beginning them if I'm lucky before I move on to the next idea. I'm aiming to finish a few things before I buy anything else. The fabric in the photo above is the Wee Play range by American Jane chooped up ready for the beginnings of a quilt or maybe picnic blanket.

Shopping

Meet Seagull. He goes absolutely everywhere with us and has done since Arj's birth. He was always a firm favourite but now he's the one and only. He's a goose or some insist a duck but around here he is most definitely called Seagull. Now when we see white ducks Chloe calls them Seagull ducks. This photo was taken yesterday when he was fresh from a little visit to the Seagull salon in our laundry. He could do with another visit already.

I recently hunted down a reserve Seagull online just in case. Needless to say the reserve is so white and plump he doesn't even look like the same species.



Slightly optimistic fabric buy. Quite a few yards from Joel Dewberry's new range. Deer Valley I think it's called. I love them but may have been kidding myself thinking I had time to do anything with them. And this is not all! I'm still waiting for another plump package to arrive. Not to mention the lovely goodies I've been snapping up locally.


Some letters for Arj's door or maybe a shelf. I'm desperate to get started on his room. The poor little bub is surrounded by our framed prints that haven't yet been given a home, a beautiful old huon pine chest I bought years ago for Sam to store his (annoyingly cluttering) piles of maps in and a few other small furniture items that we're yet to decide where to put. I wanted to get started on painting the old built ins in his room this weekend but it wasn't to be.

Is it just me or...

... do husbands stop taking photos of you once they have a pretty daughter? Hence this woefully fuzzy and unprofessional shot from about two weeks ago is the only one I have of me in my big bellied state. I've been meaning to blog since I took it but procrastination and slothishness has been winning.

The photo is taken in the soon to be nursery and the unpacking hasn't progressed much since then. It's starting to worry me but I'm sure the babe won't mind the odd packing box.

This is our messy new kitchen and one of our living areas. We've just had the floors in the other one polished so all the furniture is in here and the nursery. There's a lot to do still but we're having to just relax and put things off. Chloe was quite sick for a while so with that and me being too tired now to do much it's just how it is.







Sam and Chloe made this cake for me. We had planned a little gathering to try out the pizza oven but with Chloe sick and Sam doing house removals for the entire two days before we had to cancel. I hope the queen had a more successful birthday. I had a lovely brekkie out but things got rapidly less exciting and culminated with first Chloe, then me, having melt downs. Ah, well, we'll try to celebrate after the baby instead. The cake was very good!

I'm still here...

...just very tired and waiting until my camera cable thingo reappears in the mess that is our current existence.

I've been meaning to personally thank all of you who left lovely, supportive messages in response to my mother's day worries. I do hope to do so eventually but just in case - Thank you so much. It really made me feel better.

The house move is going well. Chloe loves the new house and doesn't even want to go back to the old one. We had removalists do all the books and furniture so have only had to do the small stuff (of which there is a hell of a lot) ourselves. Sam, of course, has had to do most of it and his lovely brother is coming to help him finish it off this weekend.

There's still a lot of sorting and unpacking to do but I think it will have to wait. I have a desperate urge to get the nursery sorted now so we'll do that first. I wanted to paint Chloe's room and the new babes room (amongst others) but am forcing myself to be realistic. We may just manage to paint the old sixties built in in the nursery. That would be enough to brighten the room up I think.

Photos as soon as I manage to find the aforementioned cable.

House update

Got the keys. Yay! Lot's of people have been through our old house - let's hope one of them like it!

We had a birthday dinner for my Mum at the new place last night. Very simple but nice. We haven't moved much into the new place yet. Just enough to manage a very simple dinner and enough to camp if we feel like it. I resorted to a packet tea cake so I didn't have to go back to the other house to cook. I put apple slices on top and we had good vanilla yoghurt with it. Remarkably good!

Nostalgia

More on Niche soon. I'd like to show you some of the other stallholders but didn't get a chance to get photos so I'll try to show some examples of their designs soon.

First though, I wanted to post a couple of photos of our current house. It's so tidy at the moment and it's the perfect time to show you! Even my work room is tidy - totally unheard of. I'll get a photo of it to show you tomorrow.

These are some of the photos the agent took of our house and they're making me the tiniest bit sad to be leaving. We've put so much work and love into this house. It's crazy to be nostalgic before we even leave!



We built this deck when I was pregnant with Chloe. There are some huge beams underneath that I had to help lift and hold in place for Sam. We have some photos of a huge bellied me banging nails into the decking. I get so much satisfaction out of making things - be it dresses or decks!


Chloe's room is perhaps my favourite in the house. It is a calm, restful room and sometimes I feel like going to have a little afternoon nap in her bed.


This red laminex table is a favourite thing. It has been a multi-purpose dining, cutting and miscellaneous stuff storage spot here so unfortunately that meant it could often be almost hidden! In the new house it may become a dedicated work table or it may get pride of place on the covered verandah - I'm leaning towards this option. That red needs to be seen.


This is our lovely sunny lounge room. I love the paint colour and am keeping the name stored in my head for the new place.

Yikes

Things here at the "House of Black Eyed Susie" are what you might call, in a charitable mood, chaotic. If I let you see into the work room you may feel your charitable mood slipping away and you may feel compelled to call it a disaster area.

We have less than three weeks untils settlement date for our new house (Yay, yay, yay!), we need to get this house on the market asap and it's only a week until Niche Market. I'm desperately sewing but finding myself procrastinating with cleaning walls and packing boxes both of which need done so maybe it's not true procrastination, just a very ineffective way to get everything done. Sam (and I when I need another break from sewing) is painting some window frames that I started stripping a very long time ago and never finished. We also some finishing off to do on the verandah that we replaced about a year ago and have to paint the lounge room as the wall behind a heater we had removed wasn't painted. Nevermind the garden - cutting the grass will be as good as it gets. Poor Chloe is stuck in the middle of all this thinking "What on earth is going on?" She's so obsessed with Maisy at the moment that we've been resorting to the TV quite a lot. I just tell myslef it's OK, it's just a couple of weeks until she has a great new garden and house to explore. I'm sure that'll break the TV habit.

I did have some photos to show you but my camera has currently taken itself into hiding and I don't blame it really. I bet it's found a nice cosy spot under some of my fabric piles.



I'll be taking whatever clothing I have ready, including a range of dresses, pants and skirts (and the two new cord dresses pictured - perfect for winter), to Niche. I'll also have a bunch of belts, some in new fabrics. I had a little fun at Seworld yesterday (when I should have been sewing or cleaning or painting) and if I had the camera I'd show you my haul. Just gorgeous. There will be a few purses for the grown ups (photos will come one day) and a big bunch of hair ties and clips in new fabrics. Maybe some badges too if I get that far. Fun!

I've realised recently that my ideas and plans are always far, far ahead of my current capabilities so I reserve the right to go back in these promises at any moment!

Soon, soon....

Soon to be our house. I can't wait - am just bursting with excitement - although this is slightly tempered by the stress of banks, money, house selling or not and all the other things that make moving complicated. This house is so much more a family house than our current one and it has a great space for my work area - I may even feel I can call it a studio!!



I'm looking forward to having a new baby and being allowed a small glass of wine on the back verandah soaking in some winter sun and the views.

This

Renovate? Are you crazy?

As I said in a previous post, we're finding it difficult to find a larger house. There seems to be a few really crappy larger ones and a few really beautiful, really expensive ones and nothing in the middle price range. I'm finding more and more that I want to buy a cheaper one and do a full renovation. I'm 25 weeks pregnant now and what I want to know is, is this a serious desire or is this a fairly extreme form of nesting?

Is it even a possibility to renovate with a 2 year old and a baby?

Am I loosing my grip on reality???

Nesting

I think my nesting instinct has set in, unfortunately not in a glamorous, excting way. More in a practical, sensible way. I've made Sam rearrange our laundry and have been painting the window frame. It's given us a lot more space - or at least the feeling of more space.

We're trying to find a new, larger house before this baby comes along but I'm starting to think it's not going to happen. There isn't much around at the moment. Hence the need to start making the most of what we have. I do love our house but it is very small and my work things are taking over well and truly.


Style Collective has a competition on at the moment to win a $500 kids gear spending spree. Sounds perfect for this time when a lot of people are starting to tighten their belts. I'm off to enter.

The BIG BED

What a milestone! This is maybe odd but for some reason I feel more excited about this than a lot of the other milestones we've had. Perhaps it's because Chloe can communicate verbally so much more now. She's thrilled about being a "big girl."

I love Chloe's room. It is so restful and calming. I'm a little tempted to take over her bed some quiet afternoons.