HOME (days 26 and 27)

(Here we are sharing/counting UP Forty Days and Forty Nights of our lives, our last on the inner-west side of town and, eventually, some of our first on the other (far) side of town, where we envisage some big changes coming our way. Thanks for joining us as we remember, celebrate and experience gratitude for our time here, and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted by the changes underway!)

(This post was drafted last Friday but, due to computer issues, I haven't been able to post it until now. There are so many photos but, they seem to say it best) 

So much can change in a week. For one, our seedling trays are full of new sprouts, butternut pumpkin being the most impressive. We've been thinking up all kinds of planting options for the new place. Should the pumpkin go here or there, where's the zucchini patch and the herb garden? And so on. It's time for those and so many other plans to come to fruition.

In addition to our recent plantings, and so many other lovely things of Spring, we finally took possession of our new home. It's absolutely, financially, legally, (emotionally even) SETTLED!

We feel so completely and utterly blessed and grateful for all leading up to this point and look forward to sharing our news spaces with family, old and new and friends from near and far. And 'change' will continue to be a theme of the months to come as we paint, plant, play and grow in this home and garden.

There has been a growing longing within me for space and, preferrably expanses of it, ideally by the water (not asking much am I!?). While we'll be further from the ocean here, we're intent on exploring the creeks, rivers and waterholes nearby. The closest beach is half an hour away so, not too far and we have a few beach-camping trips planned along with a few weeks in Sydney at Christmas so, I'll survive!

For some time to come though I imagine you'll find us exploring our new spaces, in and out, sometimes with cousins, sometimes together, sometimes alone.

And for our little boy, these days are sure to focus on the chickens. He's mesmerised!

And last night after a lovely day in the Village and surrounds we drove east to open the doors of this new home for the first time (as it's owners at least!) and to share in a meal with family. With no chairs about, we took our places on the loungeroom floor and absorbed it all. Such will be our task for weeks to come!

Today, this 27th day of our celebration, was mostly spent in paint shops, with much success - phew! We'll start painting tomorrow but for now, how can I resist this picture taken yesterday at the new house. She has much to contemplate as these changes take place; so much change, so many new things to explore.

CLARITY (25 down)

 (Here we are sharing/counting UP Forty Days and Forty Nights of our lives, our last on the inner-west side of town and, eventually, some of our first on the other (far) side of town, where we envisage some big changes coming our way. Thanks for joining us as we remember, celebrate and experience gratitude for our time here, and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted by the changes underway!)

A little run-down of our 40 day stats:

• Days to possession of  new house - ONE;
• Days remaining in this house - NINE;
• Days to sale of this house - ZERO!!!!

Yesiree, we SOLD and are relieved to have one big stage behind us. By referring to this 'stage' I don't mean this stage of our lives, in this Village because, that's been overwhelmingly postive. No, I'm referring to constantly having the house in a state of show-worthiness (that's my word). Though, of course, we had lulls in readiness, the challenge of consistenly having a house ready for viewing by prospective purchasers, particularly with two small children, is not one I seek to repeat any time soon. It's over! Now that I've let go of that complaint, which in the scheme of life is hardly a complaint at all but just an inconvenience, let me move on to share more of our tale.

Last Friday, while I was in the hospital with Rafael ever-so-closely monitoring his breathing and general well-being, Dino was at home with Elsa preparing the house for it's LAST (!) showing though, at that stage, we didn't know it was almost over. By Saturday morning, we were happily accepting an offer and on our way home from the hospital signing paperwork (in a real-estate 'drive-though' kind of way) that has us officially signing away our financial interest in this Village, not to mention or home! Changes of this scale bring about mixed emotions in me but, generally, I feel completely relieved and excited about the next steps, which are well underway.

And to celebrate, we took some time off house-admin. to share in tea (and babychinos) with friends here. The table in the back courtyard provides the perfect way to incorporate some train-spotting into our day. And the view is much better if you leave the mothers to chat and move closer to the station - apparently.

And then, time in the garden where we discovered this, the first shoot from the many trays of seeds we've planted over the past week. I felt determined to get a head start on our new vegetable patch. A big storm is blowing in, the sky is beautiful and the breeze is cool for the first time today. I think I'll go and partake in some storm-watching with the kids!

OUT AND ABOUT (24 down)

 (Here we are sharing/counting UP Forty Days and Forty Nights of our lives, our last on the inner-west side of town and, eventually, some of our first on the other (far) side of town, where we envisage some big changes coming our way. Thanks for joining us as we remember, celebrate and experience gratitude for our time here, and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted by the changes underway!)

A funny day this one or, a busy one at least. I'm about to give you a run-down of our day but only because it happens to highlight a few of our favourite things about Melbourne's inner west.

• An early morning wake-up and lightening and thunder by 7.30am, which had the kids running about the house in that mixture of nervousness and excitement - a great opportunity for cuddles on the couch.

• A visit to the doctor as Rafael appears to have caught a second virus, probably at the hospital last week (urghhhh, such is the contradictory nature of such places) - the encouragement I needed make an appointment with a herbalist for some extra support for his little system;

• A brief, but enjoyable bit of window shopping here - such a great shop.

• After Elsa's swimming lesson, an early lunch at Grigons and Orr while we waited for the doctor's appointment - we always  enjoy this cafe with it's quirky retro feel including the box of crocheted blankets at the front door (handy on a cold Melbourne day), the mix-match of second-hand 'dinner-ware', teapots, cups and saucers etc etc and the milk bar feel in general - the dollar mixed lolly bags are always appreciated!

• Collected some packing boxes - slowly, slowly.

• Preparations for yet another house-showing, hopefully the last - more on that time come tomorrow (fingers crossed - and toes).

• A Dada home for dinner - a rare treat! (and not only home for dinner, home at 3pm - wooohoooo).

• After quickly heating up some of the fifty-million (okay, not that many) spanakopita I hastily made last night, we headed to our favourite local park for dinner while the house was on display - surpringly, the pies tasted good but the kids were mostly too busy having fun!

Looking at all of that, I wonder what I was thinking. But really, most of it was unavoidable and only possible because his temperature dropped and Raf perked up, thankfully. "Perked up" or not, I certainly would have preferred to stay home keeping him close by. Tomorrow will be much calmer. Tomorrow, tomorrow...I feel like breaking out into an Annie song...actually, in my head, I am! Inner thought Ange, inner thought...keep it to yourself!

To help retore some balance, tonight we read many a story from this book, which a sister-in-law of mine gave to Elsa when she was but a wee babe. It's always a great choice after a busy day; a good way to encourage calm. Around here, it always succeeds in providing inspiration for mediatation and general relaxation and tonight, both kids fell asleep to me reading from it's pages, Elsa with her head in my lap - true bliss.

POSSUMS, PAUSING AND PACKING (23 down)

(Here we are sharing/counting UP Forty Days and Forty Nights of our lives, our last on the inner-west side of town and, eventually, some of our first on the other (far) side of town, where we envisage some big changes coming our way. Thanks for joining us as we remember, celebrate and experience gratitude for our time here, and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted by the changes underway!)

The image is of no particular significance; I just happened to come across it today and wondered, exactly how many possums inhabit our new backyard? Mmmm, only time will tell. This little critter visited us frequently in the home our of pre-children days!

I inserted as many pauses into today as possible, mostly when the kids were close by, and when little ones were sleeping or at kinder or happily occupied in the garden, I packed and packed and p....exciting, no?

HEALING (20, 21, 22 down)

(Here we are sharing/counting UP Forty Days and Forty Nights of our lives, our last on the inner-west side of town and, eventually, some of our first on the other (far) side of town, where we envisage some big changes coming our way. Thanks for joining us as we remember, celebrate and experience gratitude for our time here, and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted by the changes underway!)

 This 'Festival of Forty' has experienced quite a lull over the past few days because Rafael has been unwell. With the gentleness and good-humour so characteristic of this little boy, he's being working through a virus that delievered a big bout of asthma, something new to our household.

To see him struggle to do anything physical, let alone breathing, was frightening (what an understatment!). After a few nights in hospital and plenty of rest at home, we hope to have seen the last of it but, watch ever-so closely. We also have a close eye on Elsa who was left shaken by the whole experince and needs equal amounts of love, gentlesness and quiet healing. And at points during the hospital stay, I couldn't help but wonder how parents and children cope when hospital visits are a regular occurance.

Murals on the wall of his hospital room

We are extremely grateful for the amazing services of this here place (and thankful that it's so close to home - for now). The nurses and doctors were wonderful and generous with their care, time and knowledge. We're also feeling very grateful for the care and concern of family and friends. Thank you.

The Children's Garden at the hospital - a wonderful mixture of plants, including many edible varieties.



SOWING NOT SEWING (18 and 19 down)

(Here we are sharing/counting UP Forty Days and Forty Nights of our lives, our last on the inner-west side of town and, eventually, some of our first on the other (far) side of town, where we envisage some big changes coming our way. Thanks for joining us as we remember, celebrate and experience gratitude for our time here, and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted by the changes underway!)

With Spring being as unpredictable as only Spring knows how to be, we've had plenty of opportunities for home-based activities. We so enjoy the warm, rainy days of Spring that encourage us to plan for our Summer garden and allow short spurts of planting/preparing (between rain showers!). Dada/D particularly loves the storms and the soft fall of Spring rain that we've experiened on and off over the past few days. He says it takes him back to the West Coast and I have to say that I often feel the same way. All this rain has us thinking about our next trip, which given we've just bought a new house, might not happen as quickly as we'd like but, that's okay (sort of!).

We're starting to reap the rewards of some early Spring planting with an abundance of rocket, celery and all manner of herbs filling the garden but this November, with the move fast approaching, there's not much point planting in the garden beds themselves. 

So, we've taken to sowing seeds in portable trays, thanks to the inpiration of friends who gave Rafael some butternut pumpkin seeds, some soil mixture, a spade and a seedling tray for his birthday. I've wanted to plant from seed for some time now but, with only a small area to work in and pesky blackbirds likely to eat the seeds, we've always opted for seedlings.  Our current garden beds that are soon to be dwarfed by more space than we've had in years so we expanded our seed stock and planted away! We're now watching and waiting excitedly for zucchini, corn, tomato (in addition to what we've already planted to pots), lettuce and butternut pumpkin. Wish us luck on our first adventure with seeds! (actually, we've never grown corn or butternut pumpkin from anything - not in our own yard anyhow, only in the big vegie gardens of our parent's homes).

At times over the past week, even the seed trays have needed to come inside for planting on the ground near the back door but it won't be long before Summer hits and we're constantly drawn outside, which we imagine that will be even more the case at the new place, or inside to escape the extreme heat. So really, we haven't minded these moments of indoor time and today, we were able to share it with friends!

FIVE ONES (17 down)

(Here we are sharing/counting UP Forty Days and Forty Nights of our lives, our last on the inner-west side of town and, eventually, some of our first on the other (far) side of town, where we envisage some big changes coming our way. Thanks for joining us as we remember, celebrate and experience gratitude for our time here, and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted by the changes underway!)

1/11/11 - the date...five ones...just thought I'd point that out!

Meet our pirate-witch (why not!) and pirate - feeling grateful for our dress-up drawers!

 We had great fun last night as we 'trick or treat-ed' our way around our (very) immediate nieghbourhood.  Given that Halloween is not particularly popular in this neck of the world (YET!), we took it upon ourselves to stash some lollies at the homes of a few friendly neighbours and requested that they play along with this part-Canadian family. Thankfully, they all agreed to do so and acted convincingly surprised and coincidentially, ready with some of our kids favourite lollies, and plenty new ones (we couldn't resist)! The kids were in heaven.

Afterwards, we came home to chat about all things confectionary, eat a little of it, drink warm milk and listen to Dada share stories of his favourite childhood Halloween costumes and experiences. Such a wonderful, fun-filled night. I dare say it will be repeated on an annual basis!



"Are you people kidding, yesterday you denied me some extra honey on my toast!"

And at bedtime, Elsa, still overwhelmingly happy with the events of the night, while hugging me said "Mama, I love you so much I could choke you" and then, "Mama, I love Dada and Rafael so much I could choke them too". Thankfully, I knew she didn't intend any harm! But she did hug me very tight!. And finally, a half asleep Elsa asked "Mama, can we trick or treat every Monday night?". I'll think about it.