Post apocalypse living

I have spent the last three days living in upheaval.  We are having new floors laid and while I am absolutely delighted that it is finally being done, I am not enjoying having to live around the work.

For two days I had to move the fridge if I wanted to access the dishwasher, then again to access the washing machine, then again to get out the back door.

It was annoying.

The kitchen is finished (hurrah!) and the fridge is back where it belongs.  However we don’t have a dining table or any lounge room furniture while those two areas are being done. It’s a tad inconvenient. Add to that I have had the care of FOUR children for the past three days* and have been trying to feed and water them from a skeleton kitchen (with movable fridge) you can imagine I’m a tad frazzled. All I want to do is stick a DVD on and sit them in front of it.  Except we have no TV or DVD player currently hooked up so that can’t happen. 

So up until now I have been a firm believer that I will be a survivor of the zombie apocalypse – I even did the Facebook quiz on that topic (and scored very well).  I’m now beginning to doubt my post apocalyptic abilities.  I think I’ll just let the zombies get me.

*Yes I do recognise the appalling lack of planning that teamed up four children with floors being laid.  But thanks for noticing.

Every cloud…

 One of the few benefits of being home from work sick is that there is little to do but rest and read blogs (and Kindles).  And eventually, when feeling up to it, write a long overdue blog post.

So here it is.  In my last post I mentioned ‘change’.  You may be wondering if there has been any change, and if so, what was the nature of that change. You’ll be thinking it obviously wasn’t a change to the regularity of my posts that’s for sure.

Well, there has been some change but so far it’s been pretty subtle.  I feel like I’m starting to settle into myself a bit.  I’m not feeling so angsty and a lot of the questions I’ve been asking over the past couple of years I’m finally managing to answer.  I’ve always known that I had the answers, but for a while now I’ve had a lot of trouble accessing that inner wisdom.  More on all that another time.

Other changes have been obvious, we’ve actually managed to find some time to move forward with some of the home renovations and painting etc.  That’s been good and I’ve been gratified at how much something as simple as a coat of paint can change the energy in a place.  I have a few furniture projects I’m working on and we have new flooring going down, hopefully before Christmas.  There will be photos.

I’m doing some things for myself which is nice including a couple of online courses, one is a Soulcollage® course through ‘Daily Om ‘.   I’ve only just started so haven’t created anything yet, but I’ll post a picture when I do.

So I feel as if I’m gradually  moving into a much saner headspace than I‘ve been in for a while.  I hope it continues.

On my desk or watching paint dry

I'm bringing you a quick 'on my desk' while I wait for the first coat to dry. As you can imagine the desk isn't getting a look in at the moment, it's all about the painting and the planning. So on my desk you'll find...

....paint charts....for obvious reasons.....

.....and magazines - a couple of well worn examples from my enormous collection of Country Living and Country Homes....I have House Beautifuls too. Inspiration (or 'house p0rn'* as a friend of mine used to call it).

Tom came home last night to alarming questions like 'can you reinstall that air conditioner somewhere else?' and 'how do I move kitchen units?'.

He looked a little frightened - especially as he's on holiday next week, in theory to have a rest before starting his new job on the 25th, but I think he knew I was making a mental list of jobs for him to do (that's a list in my head not a list that's mental....although.....).

I was going to tell you about his new job wasn't I? Well, not today.

Back to it.

*Yes I've disguised that word to fool the spiders, don't want to encourage anyone over here when they're clearly looking for something else. They'd be very disappointed to find pictures of paint charts.

Just call me Sandy

We moved into our current house about 3 years ago. We'd been looking for a while and couldn't find anything we liked (or could at least tolerate) within our budget. Lots of tiny, beige, boxes on blocks of land so small that we could have reached out the window and brought in the neighbours washing for them (not that we would do such a thing but I'm making a point). Horrible. All of them. Then we saw this one advertised, the price had been reduced by $50,000 (they were dreaming, trust me on that) but it was still slightly out of our budget. We decided to have a look anyway.

We arrived on a rainy August afternoon, the sky was black and the house looked pretty bleak. We came inside and tried not cry out in anguish at the sight that met our eyes. Brown. Everything was brown. With 1970s fixtures and fittings and the smell of cats. As we walked through (didn't take long, it's tiny) I kept hissing at Tom (so the estate agent wouldn't hear) 'no way, it's hideous!' and 'I'm not living here!'. Then we stepped out of the back door and I liked the garden, it was big with lots of trees and a couple of large outbuildings. The estate agent invited us to come down and look at the creek so we wandered down and stepped under the weeping branches of the willow trees, looked at the meandering winter creek and I sighed.....and smiled.....and said 'we'll take it'.

And we did. We did all the sums and we were still about $12,000 short of the asking price. So we decided to take a chance and offered them what we had and they accepted.

It needed a lot of work, first we had to pull up all the carpets, they were stained and smelly from the previous owner's cats. We did that, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed the floors, painted the bedrooms and cleaned the whole place from top to bottom and moved in. We had plans to paint the rest of the place, do something with the floors and generally brighten and lighten the place up. Then things got really hectic, work, uni, the business etc. Time passed, not much was done. Most of our furniture and books and bookcases are in the shed, waiting for some rooms to be finished so that we can bring them in. We've been pretty much camping here for 3 years. I'm tired of the awful brown walls (hideous dark wood veneer panelling - it just doesn't work in a place so small) and the bare floors and the brown palm frond wallpaper in the toilet and green palm frond wallpaper in the laundry and half finished everything else. So, now that I can no longer use busy-ness as an excuse it's time to get on with it. Today, I dragged the table out of the dining area, put down some dust sheets and started sanding the walls. It's done and tomorrow I'll paint it.

I don't know that it will ever be a house I love, I doubt it, but there are many things about living here that make up for it. Especially my willows, I do love them. And for now we're just trying to make the house into something we can at least be happy to come home to. So be prepared for ongoing updates and discussions about home decor.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm all dusty from sanding all day so must away hoover myself.

Here I sit.....

....in my office. Yep, you read that right....my office. I have whined blogged endlessly about the lack of progress on our renovations and told how we actually moved a load of stuff into the office in preparation for it becoming a real office. Well, yeah....it didn't. Now, don't get all excited and admiring or anything because....well....it still isn't. However, it is now set out exactly as it shall be after it is painted and new flooring is done.

This is my theory. I have been saying for some time that I find it difficult to work without a designated space that pleases me. I did not use the room that was going to be an office because it wasn't 'finished'. Then I realised that it can still be a pleasing environment to work in temporarily and when the painting and new flooring are ready to be done it will only take an hour or so to move everything out again. Tom agreed, so we did it and I am now sitting at my desk looking out of the window at some big old gum trees, a few cows and the windmill (ok, I'm actually looking at the computer screen but that sounds less poetic and I only have to move my head the tiniest fraction and I can see all that other stuff).

It is a pleasing room. Not least because it is not just any old office. It is our office/gompa or offpa or gompice. We always have a part of the house that is used as our meditation space and as this house is lacking in extra rooms we needed to create a hybrid and this is it. One third of the room is separated by a bookcase and behind that bookcase are our mats and cushions and other meditation paraphenalia. I always tell my meditation students that you don't need paraphenalia to meditate - and you don't - but you can if it helps. I find it helps. So that the room maintains a feeling of warmth I have deliberately avoided furnishing it in a professional officey style. I've stuck to old wooden furniture (desk, drawers, bookcase) and soft lamps and even a few textiles.

The result is a warm and gentle place to work, infused with the scent of Tibetan meditation incense and that peace that develops in the places people meditate. It gets the morning sun and there's nothing more inspiring than being drenched in that kind of fresh new sunlight - it feels like anything is possible. So here I sit, engulfed in the sounds of Deva Premal and watched over by Tara. What could be better?

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha

What have I been doing?

It's been a few days and I hadn't even realised how many days until I looked at today's date. I've had that weird 'loss of time' thing again. Maybe I'm a drunk or a serial killer, who knows what I'm up to when I lose time like that.

I jest.

However, time has passed very quickly and I am surprised that it's been 5 days since I posted but I have been busy during that time. On the weekend we had a MASSIVE declutter of our shed. The background here is that the shed currently stores a lot of our belongings and furniture. When we moved into this house we decided to leave as much of our stuff as possible in the shed while we renovated and decorated. Then once the place was looking lovely we'd move the furniture in, unpack the books and fill the bookcases, find all of our long lost kitchen stuff and fill our cupboards in preparation for all the entertaining we could now do. That was the plan - two years ago. In that two years our time and attention was taken up with work, study and general busy-ness. Now that work and study have finished for me we can no longer avoid the renovating and decorating that must be done on the house. Except we decided to avoid it just a little bit longer while we sorted out the shed and decided if we really did still want all that stuff.

We started to drag stuff out on Saturday and after about two hours I was ready to shove it all back in, throw in a match after it and shut the door. Tom insisted we couldn't do that. So - long story shortened considerably - we decluttered, chucked out and donated a shit-load of stuff. There is something very liberating about getting rid of stuff. I enjoyed it. The end.

Now we have to start working on the house and I'm quite sure that will be fabulous blog fodder.

The other thing that kept us busy was a two day visit from Tom's parents. They arrived on Monday afternoon and left this morning. I love my in-laws. They are the easiest of guests, they provide meals, look after children, read stories (to the children not me, but I'm sure if I asked them to they'd read to me as well) do shopping and generally take care of themselves and all of us. They are also funny, great story-tellers and just generally interesting people (and no, they don't read this blog so I'm not sucking up). Anyway, we had a couple of days of great company, nice meals, a few drinks and late nights. I'm sorry they've gone.

So there you have it, my last 5 days in 500 words or less. I could say a lot more and I wish I had some photos for you, but I won't and I don't. Sorry.

Oh except this gratuitous photo of the beginnings of our abundant crop of tomatoes. How about that? They grew!

Concert number 4

What I thought was our final concert for the year took place yesterday. This one was from Hannah's dance/singing/drama class. It was held in a real theatre....

I don't think Hannah realised the scale of the production and when she arrived on stage she spent quite some time absent-mindedly doing her routine, totally out of time with the rest, and staring in amazement out into the audience. It was hilarious. Then she spotted me and waved which they'd been told not to do, so of course she immediately looked guilty. Unfortunately I cannot provide pictures of this concert ('thank goodness' I hear you cry) because we were forbidden from taking them because they were filming it for a DVD that they will be selling us. Of course.

I can show you the very naff professional photo that was taken prior to the performance and then....you guessed it....sold to us. I'm sure I'm breaching some kind of copyright by displaying it but that's too bad. Bite me photographer.

In other news our old hot water system was replaced today. This required the presence of several tradesmen. This always makes me uncomfortable because as much as I don't want to say 'dealing with tradesmen is Tom's job' in actual fact I want dealing with tradesmen to be his job. I don't mean that in a sexist way, I know I'm quite capable of understanding the idiosyncracies of plumbing and electrics if necessary, the trouble is I don't want to. Not interested. Tom, on the other hand, really likes that kind of thing and would gladly give up his job to become a plumber. I'd have no problem with that given the current earning capacity of plumbers.

Anyway, the new tank went in, the pipes were all joined up and the electrician messed around in the ceiling for a while and pronounced it all in order. The hot water from our old tank had to be emptied. It was slightly distressing to watch several hundred litres of hot water pouring off the roof and being wasted while we are in drought. I wasn't quick enough to gather it in buckets to at least use it to water the tomatoes (once it had cooled down of course). Ah well.

So you may have noticed that I said at the beginning 'what I thought was our last concert'....this is because it has now come to pass that the girls will be playing angels in the Christmas Eve Mass nativity. Not exactly a concert, granted, but still requiring some costume making and performing in front of an audience. Yay. Would you be surprised to know that I have had quite enough with the concerts, costumes and performances? No? No. Dear God in heaven make it stop.

For want of a possum box.....

...you know the rhyme don't you? Here it is in case you don't. Of course you'll notice the original version is about a nail but it amounts to the same thing. You see we have our own version of this going on right now.

It all began a few months ago when Tom and I had a discussion about all the work we still have to do on the house. We moved into this house 2 years ago and there was a flurry activity before life got incredibly busy and it was all put on hold. With my impending freedom from Uni we are planning to get back into the decorating and renovating. Anyway, during this discussion I suggested we make a start on the easiest job, that is painting the office and laying new flooring in there. The conversation went something like this....

Tom: Good idea, we'll have to move everything out of there.

Me: Yes, where will we put it?

Tom: We could put it in the shed while we paint.

Me: But what about the possum?

Ok, slight diversion here....we have a possum living in our shed. This is a slight problem because we are already storing most of our furniture and several dozen boxes of books out there and the possum has no respect for our belongings, if he wants to sleep, pooh or pee on them he does. But he's cute. Cute and protected (and I mean legally) despite the fact some people find it entertaining to shoot them off roofs and so on (you know who are). So we have to show some consideration. Tom grew up on a farm and has some experience of possums (and trust me it didn't involve building them mansions). However, he now works beside the people that enforce that protection. They are his workmates, it would be embarrassing to evict a possum and something terrible happens and we are discovered and charged with possum cruelty...or whatever. And of course we like the possum, he's cute and funny and finds strange places to sleep in the shed and doesn't care when we find him and stare at him and talk loudly and take photos. Here he is sleeping in a strange spot...see his ear sticking up? Cute eh?

So back to the conversation...

Tom: Well, there's nothing for it, we'll have to evict him.

Me: Oh no! Where will he live?

Tom: I'll make a possum box, leave it in the shed with some fruit so he can get used to it then I'll get the possum trap from the farm, catch him in it and move the box -then him - to a tree.

Me: Ok. Off you go then.

..........some months time later.....

.........and later still..

.......and last weekend.....

This possum box is a sight to behold, it is luxury possum accommodation, it even has a porch. I go out to the shed and look at the possum box and come inside and look at my house and fantasise about living in the possum box.

So getting back to the point, the continuation of our entire decorating and renovating activity is reliant upon the successful eviction and rehousing of the possum, which was reliant upon the building of adequate accommodation for him.

Crazy isn't it (oh and I'll post photos of the penthouse when it's finished)?

Office progress

Over the weekend I took steps to resolve my messy desk issue. We have a room that is to be used as an office, however we haven't yet made it into an office as we are still trying to get around to painting it. So as a 'temporary' measure I have my desk and laptop in the lounge room - that is 'temporarily' for the last 18 months!!! Last Friday after looking at the piles of paper on my desk, on the floor and on top of the bookcase, and then blogging about it, I decided that we should just make the office an office and worry about the painting at a later stage when we have more time. So on Saturday we moved into the office. It's not quite finished there is still stuff to put away but my books are now on a bookcase (oh joy!!) my files are, well......filed, my papers are pretty much sorted and my desk is clear. Guess what? I can find stuff. If I want something I can reach out and get it...straight away! My coffee cup, this morning, is sitting in a sea of empty space. It has at least a foot square all to itself.

One thing I'm learning this year is acceptance. I so want to move forward with the painting and renovating but we have committed to my finishing Uni as well as working part time and continuing with workshops and coaching and I have just had to accept that at this stage the removations will have to wait. In about 7 months (!) time I will be finished Uni and then we are home free!! So what if it means I have to take everything back out of the office to paint it? So what if it means a little bit longer with bare floors and hideous wallpaper in the laundry and toilet. Let's face it, it's not going anywhere! I'm sure I'll still have days that it all frustrates me but I know that 7 months will pass in no time and then look out....I'm going nuts with the paint brush!