Looking forward

I had a really crappy couple of weeks recently. A nasty incident

re opened a dusty old suitcase of memories that had been packed away & marked

DO NOT OPEN.

Life is like that I guess.

Sometimes, when you least expect it, something brings you unstuck.

Anyway, I got through the worst of it and I hope it's made me stronger. I used some tools I've found helpful before when I've been down or feeling anxious. Nothing new or amazing, but some simple things that really did help. Such as: exercising..boy does that help! Now the weather is better it's so much easier and more fun.

And reminding myself of the many things & people I am blessed to have in my life. My family, who make me laugh every day. Who cuddle me and tell me they love me. Who make every day a good day.

Our garden, our home, our friends, our community. I love where we live and the people we share our lives with. I have the BEST friends and I love every one of them.

Ducks and chickens..yes! They are super fabulous and make me happy. They are just the most gorgeous creatures. Here they are on their first tour of the garden. Worms! Bugs! Grass!

Spring time! I'm so grateful for the flowers, the sunny days, and that the worst of the cold and grey is over.

Of course there is so much more that I am lucky to have in my life. But these few things are high on the list.

Looking forward also helped me focus on the future, not the past. I'm excited about our renovations, about the changes.

Today Tom started separating the little house from the main house.

Hopefully by next week it will be ready to be craned into it's new position! Oh god I hope it doesn't fall apart...!

And guess what? I'm looking forward SO much to picking up my beautiful eldest daughter from the airport on Friday! She is flying back from Europe and it's her 20th birthday on Sunday! We are having a birthday tea party for her and the whole family is so excited. It seems such a long time since we saw her.

I'm looking forward to more sunny days, hanging out with friends, making a new quilt & some new bunnies, being in the garden, a trip to Melbourne and the school production this Thursday night.

Finally I'm really, really looking forward to Casa Dolce Casa, an Instagram exhibition which opens this Saturday here in Daylesford!! Five local artist's, including myself, have contributed and the exhibition will run for a month at St Mels Cyclery. If you are in the area do pop in and check it out.

Instagram is so much fun! I love it. Are you on Instagram?

Leave a comment and I'll come find you.

Or you can find me ...dandelion66

How are things in your neck of the woods? Have you had any flat patches lately? I wonder what you do that helps you get back on track. 

Take care lovelies..see you soon xo

Changes

Have told you that we are planning to renovate our house? We have been thinking about it for a few years  now and have finally come up with a plan that we hope works. So exciting!! To get things underway we need to do some tweaking in our garden. This has also been an opportunity to make a beautiful new chook/duck house. I'm pretty excited about that too! Our yard has been eerily quiet lately.

So far we have pulled down the small side tool shed that rested up against our garage. It has left such a big space in the yard as we also took down a small chook fence, and the little red cubby where our ducks once lived. I love the exposed wood & the way everything now looks so different. I didn't at first though, it took me a few days to adjust, that's for sure.

The little out house, above, has been here since our house was built, around 1900. It was used as a bedroom by us and the original family. We 'joined' it onto the side of the house with a little alcove but with our new plans it really has to go. It would have been cheaper and easier to demolish it, but I really wanted to find a way to keep it. It's such a charming and sweet little building.



So here's the plan. A nice bloke called Col is going to back his crane down our driveway and lift the little house onto stumps between the tree, above right, next to the shed/garage.  It will sit towards the back with it's door facing the house. I hope to have a little path leading towards it. Lucy tells me it's to be a 'club house', which sounds fun. I can't wait to see it in place.

This is what remains of our chook/duck house and yard. Before Tom began to pull it apart I said a little thank you to it for giving us many years of happy chickens and ducks. Many years of eggs, ducklings, baby chicks and the lovely sound of clucking and quacking. I am such a nostalgic girl, too sentimental for this world at times I think.  Anyway, all good things must come to an end and really, it was time to rebuild after losing all our lovely birds to foxes recently. You can only patch up an old pen so much.

I'm super excited about our new yard and pen which will look quite different and be FOX PROOF!

We are going to orientate it a different way and have the open yard facing the washing line and house. It will be so lovely to see the chooks while I'm hanging out the washing this summer. Of course they will be free ranging most of the time. I can't wait!  I've been thinking about what type of chooks to get. Isa Browns are such good layers but I'd love to get a couple of fancy chooks too. Any suggestions?

 With all this pulling down of sheds and coops comes a lot of rubbish. Luckily we are able to re use quite a bit of material from the shed etc which is great but this lot above is heading for the tip asap.

We have such a beautiful big garden, it's one of the things that I fell in love with when I first saw our house, back in 2004.

While it looks a bit bare and messy right now I'm seeing past that and dreaming of what it will become.

On my wish list is a pond, maybe a creek (!), frogs, veggies, hidden corners, grass to run on, swings and lovely spots to sit and just..be.

Over the next little while I'll be documenting the changes. I haven't even told you what we are planning for the inside! This is the back of our house at the moment, with the little shed and it's green roof. Imagine the day the crane comes to swing it into it's new spot..wow!

How are things in your world? Are you planning anything new, fun or exciting? Are you glad it's almost Spring or are you heading into autumn? Changes happen whether we like it or not, don't they?

I guess it makes life interesting. See you soon, lovely ones xo

Monday

Morning! Before I launch into a photo story of the last few days let me thank you all for your generous comments on my last post about mothering. I really enjoyed reading your comments, I love the way we can share our own experiences & thoughts about this important part of our lives.

It's a topic that will come up again I'm sure, and I hope we can

continue to support each other and share our stories

of ups & downs,

and the joy & fun & challenges

of being a mum.

Now..are you a fan of chocolate mousse?

Mmmmm....

You really ought to try making it with Toblerone...delicious! I made it for the gang after promising I would for ages. If you would like the recipe just let me know. It's super easy and looked to pretty in tea cups! Not that it lasted long.

We had a fun weekend, the weather was spectacular & we spent a lot of time outside.  I always love this time of year when the leaves return to our two big trees out the back. When the sun shines through the new leaves it creates a beautiful green canopy and it feels like we are in paradise. After a grey, cold winter we are finally defrosting and enjoying some sunshine.

The kids played outside, under the quince tree which is in full bloom. Bees buzzed from flower to flower,

and the chooks feasted on the blossom petals that had fallen from the branches.

Bill climbed the big birch tree, can you see him up there?

Here he is, pretending not to hear his mother calling out...'be careful!'

It was a relief to get him outside and away from his new book about pranks. Oh my goodness. He really tested my patience! He poked tiny holes in the toothpaste, filled his sisters shoes with wet toilet paper, put notes on Dad's car, stuffed socks in Sunday's bed to make it lumpy, put sprinkles in the cereal and the worst one...he glued the Vegemite lid on! Ahhh! Boys!!

I made him go and buy a new jar of Vegemite, cheeky boy. All pretty harmless but a bit dementing! He does come from a long line of serial pranksters...I wonder who bought him the book?? Hmmm..

Whilst trying to avoid being pranked Mark & I worked on our new vegie patch.

The chooks helped too!

Guess what? Freddie lives to see another day! Yep, he & the girls have formed a tight bond and can be seen marching around the yard every day on their quest for snails, slugs & worms & all things duck. They really are an adorable gang, and Freddie is no longer the unbalanced stalker duck he was.It's so fun watching them all

waddling around the garden, yay!

Oh how lovely it was being outside!

Are you a fan of Paul Kelly? I'm thrilled to be reading his long awaited book, if you can get hold of a copy it's brilliant. Now I just need to find my Paul Kelly cd...

 Well lovelies, better run. It's time to pick up Rosie from dancing. What are you up to this week? Hope it's a fun one, see you soon xo

Goodbye lovely tree...

Yesterday was a nasty, windy day... the wind was so powerful that many trees fell and bushfires were scattered all around our lovely region. It was quite scary driving through the red dust and flying leaves - I kept worrying that a tree would fall on the car. (Misty, from our creche, told me it's best, if possible, to try and drive in the centre of the road in these kind of conditions.)

Anyway, on our return from Ballarat (saw Bride Wars with the girls) a big, beautiful gum tree in our street had split in the wind. Sadly this morning the Emergency Blokes arrived and pulled the rest of it down. We sat and watched as they struggled to push over the last remaining part of the tree - it was quite emotional watching the tree hanging on to life. Sunday wondered who planted the tree and I wondered too... such a huge tree must have been planted long ago.

The girls found the whole thing fascinating, Rosie was quite amazed by it all. I am a real softie and I did find it difficult to watch the tree being destroyed. We will miss it's lovely shade and it's beautiful shape. The local birds will miss it too.

This week has been hot, hot, hot and we have taken to going to the lake for a swim. The local pool is great but oh so LOUD with kids yelling, cavorting and having fun. The lake is much more mellow and picturesque. My photo's don't do it justice really.

Lake Daylesford was created on land that was once market gardens - I would love to see photo's from that time. Now it is such a beautiful place to visit, walk around & swim in. We are lucky to have such a great expanse of water in our town. (It kind of makes up for not having a beach!)

Our garden is enjoying the hot weather and the vegies are growing happily. Not a great vegie patch this year, damn snails ate alot, but we will have lots of tomatoes! Also our apple and quince trees are booming, heavily laden with fruit.

While out the back we often hear the clang-scrape-clang of the goats from behind our yard banging on the fence for food. They are gorgeous...and hungry!

This week I have been sorting through the piles of things that seven people have accumulated over time as the kids have been moving rooms. It's partly fun and partly dementing. Each part of the house seems to have mounds of unsorted bits and when we are all home together the combination of kids & chaos is mind boggling. Sigh.

But I am getting through it and it's quite rewarding. Bill's new room is painted a lovely shade of green and it's almost ready for him to move in. His old room, which is a quaint little shed we kind of 'attached' to the house, will become...my new sewing room!!!!! Excitement. I haven't made anything for ages now, what with holidays etc, and am looking forward to getting into my new space and creating.

Hope you are all having a lovely week - thanks for popping by x.