Gift for a Baby

A few months ago I told my sister that I wanted to make something for the baby. There wasn't much point in my buying the usual baby clothes and toys, as I'm sure if my sister wanted any of those, she'd just go out and buy them. I figured something handmade would have more significance than anything I could buy, and luckily I think my sister agrees wtih me.

But I wanted it to be something she would use, rather than something I thought would be good. She asked for a teddy bear, a green one. I had planned to have it finished before the baby was born, but since she decided to come 9 days early, I didn't manage that one. (Yes, I like to cut things fine, I always work best under pressure.)

So here she is. Made with mint green fleece, from a pattern I bought at Spotlight. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. The original pattern was for a jointed bear with glass eyes, not really suitable for a baby, so I made a few modifications. Right now it's bigger than the baby is, but she'll grow. I can only hope that she still has this one when she grows up, as I still have the teddy I was given as a child.

Rainy Day Fun

After watching the skies for any sign of moisture for the last few weeks (and seeing lots of grey, overcast days, but no rain), we woke up this morning to showers, which have settled into a nice steady rain throughout the day, which is doing a good job of filling our tanks, as you can see. Just in time too, because our automatic water switch pump switched us to mains water just yesterday. Of course, I went straight out and changed the level of the sensor so that we were still running on tank water. There were still 3 rungs of water left, which on our tank is around 2500L. That would have lasted us a few more weeks probably, although thankfully now we won't have to test that theory.

While it was filling our tanks, it was also backing up around the lower part of the house at the back. This is the view from the back door. Even the stepping stones were under water! Seems like we might have to do something about this area sooner rather than later.

It wasn't just our area that was flooded though, this was the roadside drain out our front gate. And it wasn't even raining that heavily! I think the problem is that when they dug under the road to connect our mains water, they didn't go deeply enough through this area, and it creates a bit of a blockage in the drain. It goes down just as quickly as it comes up though, and has never so far actually gone across our driveway.

DD didn't seem to mind though and was asking me all day "Can I go out and play in the rain?" I finally let her right before bath time, and she had a ball.

Luckily we had plenty to keep us occupied other than splashing in puddles all day. Last night we made the pilgrimage down to Ikea. I say pilgrimage because it is about 90 minutes each way, although we did break it up with a visit to my sister to ohh and ahh over her baby again. What was I talking about again? Oh yes, Ikea. Long trip. But well worth it. The very cobbled together picture above is DD's playroom. Lots of space, but very little storage space, so usually everything ends up all over the floor in very short order. We planned to do something about it. So after spending about $300 at Ikea, we piled our purchases into the car (I love having a hatchback!), and came home.

DD and I spent the morning putting together her new shelves and table. And of course, a fair bit of cleaning and sorting, with a little bit of shoving into boxes to sort tomorrow thrown in. Looks much better doesn't it? In fact, it almost looks like a room in someone else's house!

This is the area near the window, with a little table (that was actually a coffee table, but is exactly the size I wanted for her) for drawing and eventually schoolwork. The curtains are recycled from an old doona cover that I bought at a garage sale.

And, inspired by Playschool, DD drew these giant dinosaurs on the leftover Ikea packaging. The one on the left is an apatosaurus, and the one on the right is a tyrannosaurus. But he's a friendly tyrannosaurus, that's why he has a smile. It's hard to see unless you click on the picture to get the larger pic, but he actually has little hands complete with claws.

And as if that wasn't enough to do for one day, I got inspired to try dyeing some wool with food colouring. I had about 10 balls of cream wool that I posted about here. Cream is not my favourite colour, not to mention not being practical with a 4yo in the house, and it was really cheap, so I figured I'd give it a go. After searching around the web, I found some instructions here, and got to it. It was pretty simple really. Soak the wool in half vinegar half water for half an hour, dip it in diluted food colouring, then steam for 45 minutes.

Inspired by DD's beautiful rainbow puzzles, I did some in rainbow colours, and am really impressed with how the colours turned out. I think I'm going to use these to crochet a throw for DD's playroom.

Then I got a little creative, and tried some variegated colours. Very citrusy colours, I'm really enjoying these colours lately. Not sure what I'll use these for yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

So that was my day. (And I'm really tired, which is why this last bit of the post is so dull and why I'm waffling so much.) Much better than a rainy day was in the shed, where we all felt wet and closed in. It's amazing how much more room there is in the house, and how much lighter everything feels, even when it's all wet outside.

The Next Level?

As you may or may not have noticed, posts have been few and far between lately. This is both because I haven't been inspired/had time to write, and because I feel that little of what I've been doing has been noteworthy. We've been spending a lot of time organising, or doing little projects and bits and pieces here and there. Though these add up, most of them haven't really been worthy of a blog post. Still, there have been things I haven't written about that I could have, often because I don't have a picture (why do I think every blog post needs a picture?), or are too lazy to go take one. I was half wondering if maybe this blog was coming to a close, something I wasn't too happy about, because I have gained a lot from blogging. I find that writing down what we're doing here keeps me motivated, and helps me to realise what we are achieving, the bits that would otherwise pass unnoticed. It also helps me to think about the greater picture, and where we are going with all of it.

Then last night I had a bit of a revelation. Up until now, just about everything we've been doing, all our energy, had been focused on getting the house built. It's occupied all our thoughts, and most of our spare time, and now it's done.

So I guess to some extent we've had a well deserved rest (if you can call all the moving and organising we've done over the last month 'resting'), and an adjustment period, settling into the new house. And now, we're left wondering what we do now...

Sure, there are plenty of things still waiting on the list, like organising DD's playroom, planning for starting official homeschooling next year, working on the gardens, making curtains etc etc. The list is endless. And that will continue on, and hopefully always will.

But there is another side of this simple living that is starting to gain a bit of a focus in my mind lately. It's no secret to those that know him that DH isn't happy where he works. It's a high stress environment, with little recognition of the effort he puts in, and constant concerns about his job role changing to one he's not happy with. On top of that, with our move to the outskirts of the city, a couple of extra hours a day are lost in travel time. I'm starting to feel that this is the next issue we need to address.

The obvious solution is to find a new job, one where DH is happier, less stressed, and if at all possible, is working closer to home with less travel time. We're working on this now, with DH writing up his resume, and getting ready to apply for a few positions that are coming up.

But this is only a temporary solution. It will improve things, but it isn't what we eventually want as a family. I guess it's my sister's fault. She's shown us a different way of life to the 9-5 slog that most people are a slave to. She's managed to build up a successful portfolio of photos, and earn enough that her husband was able to quit work, and both of them are staying home to care for their new baby. Is there any better way to organise things?

Of course, this has taken her several years, and a LOT of hard work to achieve, and I don't know if I can ever get to that stage (she managed to do this before having children, which was a big benefit), but it does give us something to aim for. Perhaps one day, when we've paid off the mortgage (will that day every come? Seems so far off in these early days), if I can make even a little money from my photographs, and we get our gardens and orchard well enough established to provide a large amount of our food, DH will be able to work part time, and spend a lot more time here at home with DD and I, growing things, caring for the animals, and enjoying life. I think 2 days a week would be good, don't you?

So, along with all our usual things that we're doing and working on, this is probably the larger goal that we're aiming for. Yes, it's a dream at this stage, and perhaps something we will never achieve, but without dreams, where would we be?

First Spring Harvest

No time for long posts tonight, so I'll just leave this picture of today's harvest for your enjoyment. Not bad huh? There were also about 8-10 mulberries that didn't make it to the picture...

I have lots more garden photos that hopefully I'll have time to post tomorrow. Hope everyone is enjoying the first day of spring.

Spring is in the Air!

There has been a definite change in the weather in the last week or so. We're pulling jumpers off by 10am, and changing into shorts at 10pm! Nights are cooler, but nothing like what they were a mere few weeks ago. I swear that the sunshine even LOOKS different, and it just FEELS like spring.

A few days ago, the wood ducks that live on the neighbours dam bought their 3 tiny ducklings for a wander across our paddock, and the flowers are covered in bees.

In the spirit of this seasonal change, we've had a very relaxing weekend. After a somewhat rocky start, we spent Saturday at the beach on Bribie Island. The water was still cold, but that didn't stop DD getting as soaking wet as she could without actually immersing herself. We collected shells and rocks worn smooth by the waves, and even managed to get the kite in the air. We were all pleasantly relaxed and exhausted after that, so we came home, had a barbeque dinner, and had an early night.

This morning spring grabbed me at the markets, and I bought up big on fruit trees to add to the orchard. I bought a peachcot (cross between an apricot and a peach, never tasted one before), a yellow Dorset apple (different to the apple I have now), and a Eureka Lemon. I also bought another passionfruit vine to plant in the front garden. This brings my fruit tree total to 20 (I think, I'll have to count them again to be sure!) I've also ordered a pair of kiwi fruit vines, which should arrive in the next few weeks. I'll have to figure out where I'm going to put them though!

We also bought another 30m of hose, and ran it up the back, as watering the garden and fruit trees has become a nightmare. I'm afraid to say that for the most part my garden takes it's chances with water. I water when planting, and sporadically here and there, but mostly my plants have to make do with the rainfall. Unfortunately it's hasn't really 'rained' above a 2 minute sprinkle for a month or more now, so the poor garden is feeling it. Everything is miraculously still growing, but I'm sure it'd be doing better for a little water.

So this afternoon, with DH's help, I watered every tree in the orchard! DH sat on a stool and filled buckets for me (the hose only just reaches the orchard, it won't reach most of the actual trees, and with water restrictions it's supposed to be bucket watering only anyway) while I delivered them to all the trees. It was quite a job, but hopefully we'll see some results in the trees. In reality, we should do it again in a week if it doesn't rain.

I've had a half dozen mulberries off the mulberry tree though, and the peaches are growing and look so cute! We also have a half a dozen baby nectarines, and the citrus trees have all been flowering for the last few weeks. The passionfruit has buds on it (only the black one, not the yellow one yet), and the loofah vine, far from dying, is putting out new shoots and flowers.

Growing things is so exciting! I go up often just to see what our trees are doing, and each new fruit or flower, no matter how small, gives me a real thrill. I can't wait until the orchard is really productive, and we're picking enough fruit to really make a contribution to our meals.

Flying Along

DD came up to me today with this picture she had drawn, and told me they were balloons. She solemnly explained that 'those ones are a long long way away, and these are closer', and that the balloons were really all the same size. I was totally blown away by her grasp of perspective, as although we've probably mentioned it to her before, I didn't really expect her to take in what I think is quite a complex concept.

Sometimes I think we defeat ourselves with our own expectations. We expect a child to be able to do certain things at a certain age, and that is all we see. If we don't listen carefully, we will miss these little moments that show us that a child's mind is amazing, and not something you should ever underestimate.

I have no idea when children normally develop this concept, DD could be right on track with it for all I know, but none the less I am amazed at how her brain develops. It's a privilege to have the experience of watching it as it happens.

And it's so obvious right now, she's jumping ahead in leaps and bounds. Along with her drawing ability (which is sketchy and intermittent!), she's really into constructing things out of blocks, boxes, paper, anything she can get her hands on. We cleaned up these 'pop-onz' the other day in one of our decluttering races (will have to post about those some day, they're fun!), and she's had a wonderful time making all sorts of structures out of them, and putting them together in ways that wouldn't even occur to me. She immediately decided one of the blocks was a window box, and has added flowers to decorate it.

It has also been amazing the last week watching her interacting with her new baby cousin. She's already besotted with her, and when she had a cuddle today, the expression on her face was akin to the expression on my sisters when she first held her too, simple wonder and love. It was beautiful to watch. And she is so gentle and patient with her too, quite different to our usual bouncy, excitable child. I am really looking forward to watching their relationship develop over the next few years.

As for formal homeschooling, we're waiting for next year, when hopefully we'll all be settled into our new home properly, to start. I have lots of plans, but right now we're so busy still, with decluttering, organising, and of course, cuddling the new baby, to really be thinking about schooling. And of course, we're learning so much every day that who has time to stop and do worksheets. Well, aside from mazes, which DD enjoyed the other day, and a few dot-to-dots...

Welcome to a new Baby

Sorry for the recent lack of posting, but I've been otherwise occupied. On Sunday morning, my sister gave birth to a baby girl. My mother, DD and I stayed near the hospital in a motel, and attended the birth. DD slept the night away in an empty birthing room while I got to privilege of seeing my first real birth. Yes, I've given birth myself, but you don't quite get to see that, you're so caught up in doing it.

My sister was amazing. She was planning on using the gas, but it made her feel sick, so she went totally natural, and did a wonderful job 'singing' her baby out.

While I hope to find more time to get back to posting now, it might be a few more days before we have pictures, as I lent my camera to my sister when hers broke in the heat of the moment. I did get some beautiful pictures for her though, that I'm sure she'll treasure for years to come.