A long list of projects.

 

With Christmas and New Year over, it’s time to get to work. I have a never-ending monologue running through my mind of all the jobs and projects we have to do around the block.  It’s exciting because I just can’t stand being idle. I think we have many decades’ worth of work to do and I just wake up so pumped and ready for action.  My leather gloves are my new best friends.

 

At the moment we have the following projects on the go:

1. Thistle removal. 

One of the consequences of having trucks and foreign soil brought onto our property is the introduction of weeds.  We have a few types of weeds now, but I’ve been focusing on thistles.  These little bastards look pretty close up, but are NASTY!  They even spike you through leather gloves.  And those lovely, fine, feathery, flower fluff things which, as kids, we loved to catch as they floated on the breeze (We called Santa Clauses and made Christmas wishes on them!!!) are actually dried out thistle florets – a means of seed dispersal for this shitty, bloody weed! 

2. Non-chemical weed destruction. 

The builders, quite naughtily, left a big sheet of black plastic behind after they left. We have however put it to good use. We’re using it to cover up pulled-up weeds in order to kill the little buggers.

3. Bike track/ wheel barrow construction. 

 Moving weeds and rocks (see later) and things around the block is a lot easier since I created what will become part of our mountain biking trail network. Eventually we want to link this up to the track down to Roadie’s Rest (currently under construction also) and the boundary lines and various other trails across the block.

4. Construction of the wood shed.

Firstly I started collecting nice flat stones, then we marked out what will be the shed floor... then levelled it... and started work on the retaining wall... eventually we’ll pave the whole floor with the flat stones... Luckily (?) we have thousands and thousands and thousands of stones all over the property!

5. Whipper-snippering the cleared zone around the house to stop it from growing back up into bush again. (This is really important for bushfire control.)

 

 

 

6. Pruning eucalypts.

In the cleared zone a heap of baby gum trees have sprouted.I don’t want to get rid of them all but we can’t allow them to grow up into massive trees, again for bushfire control. So we’ll see how we go with just trying to keep them small and shrubby by pruning them. It might not work – but it’s worth a crack for now.

 

...And that is just some of the jobs we have on the go... I’d be here all night if made a complete list!

Christmas 2014 - What a cracker!

We have said for a long time that the first Christmas we are in our new house we’ll host the family do.  So we had less than a fortnight to prepare for the arrival of our families!  No problem!!!  Ahhhh!!!!  Actually, to be honest turned out not to be a problem at all... in fact it turned out to be a bloody ripper. 

This year marked the start of what I hope will become a tradition: The Uniting of the Clans.  We had Grammy, Nonna, Poppy, the Gurney-Calle-Akers Clan (Kristen, Bianca, Eva), the Calle-Service Clan (Benji, Gemma, Sebastian, Petra), the Calle-Davies Clan (Gillian and Richard) and the Davies Clan (Jane, John and Tim). 

It turned out to be a magical mix!  For a group of in-laws and out-laws (lame pun) I just can’t believe what a gorgeous time we spent together.

I decided to theme Christmas lunch – with so many people bringing a plate I thought it would be a way for the flavours to mesh in together.  So, having seen a Lebanese Christmas spread in Feast magazine that looked pretty tasty, suggested we go with Lebanese this year.  As it turned out we all sort of bastardised the theme and there were Turkish, Moroccan, Israeli, Lebanese and Greek dishes... but the general gist was Middle Eastern/Mediterranean/Arabesque and the food was absolutely delicious!   

So Christmas lunch, which turned out to be linner (yes Kristen! If you call the meal between breakfast and lunch brunch, then I am sure linner is the correct term for the meal between lunch and dinner) was created in a flurry of communal cooking and food preparation with everyone crowded around the kitchen island bench... and even some on the floor.  The result:  My ideal Christmas with everyone all in together, jostling for that last spare lemon, sharing recipes, tasting each other’s dishes, sharing (or fighting over!) the sharpest knife and chatting and laughing all the while.

And then we had board games (more laughing and paying out than actual playing I think!), muso jam sessions (ditto the laughing etc), rock-throwing competitions, bushwalking, swimming/kayaking at Lake Moogerah and even a synchronised swimming spectacular in the plunge pool!  I can’t stop buzzing at how everything went off so well.  Happy days.
 

We're in!

 

We had our first night in our new home on Thursday, December 11, 2014!

As it turned out, the move-in date was pretty weirdly timed – the day after our return from our family beach holiday.  I’ve never done so much packing, unpacking, repacking, unpacking and packing up again in such a small amount of time!!! 

So early that Thursday morning, the removalists arrived and shoved all our gear (most of it so old, second-hand, yet-to-be-repaired or yet-to-be-built, that the 2 guys must have been thinking “Really?! Move this? Are you serious?!”... In fact they actually DID ask a few times “is this REALLY going, you sure?!!”) into a big truck, bound for Mt French!  Nonna was there too, to help with the final clean.  And when I say help, I mean, I left her there to finish it all off on her own!!!!  The kids and I then loaded ourselves up into our already overloaded car and headed for our new home!  Benji all the while was at work, wondering how we were all faring.  Communication was out because Nonna had no phone and my phone had no range. And Poppy was in hospital having angiograms and other such tests for a suspect heart attack.  (Thankfully it turned out it was just a pulled chest muscle.)

By 5.30pm that afternoon, the removalists had gone and the kids and I were sitting down at the new kitchen island bench eating the closest thing junk food we’ve ever had as a family!  (Ravioli and pasta sauce from a packet!  Pretty gross.) But we were in!  All those weeks of packing boxes and bleaching walls and rooves at our old place (thank you Grammy!!!!!) could finally fade into the past!

By bedtime I had even managed to find enough towels, pyjamas, and bedding for everyone, and Benji even arrived home in time (he has a 90 minute commute!!!) to say goodnight to Sebastian.  I have this image of him (Benji) coming down our ridiculously long hallway (which was in darkness by the time he arrived home), high-vis work clothes glowing and facing beaming!  In true Benji form however, he just casually strolled down at turtle pace... and it wasn’t until he finally reached me - an ebullient, giggling, loon at the end of the hallway - that I realised he was just as excited as me... only more inwardly so.  We stood there grinning and laughing and hugging.  We’d done it!!!!  At last!!!!

Mt French's newest residents at the annual Boonah Christmas Parade.

 

 

 Those ugly shelves don't bother me anymore... too many other projects on my mind!

My op-shop pony fits in nicely.

2nd-hand couches and home-made cushions!

 

 Feels like home already!

Love our rammed earth wall.

Sebastian's already done a few laps of the verandah on his bike!

wooohoooo - hand-over is THIS friday!!!!

Ok... so by the 28th of this month we have to be out of good old Mara Place... which means suddenly we have to:

1. get a heap of packing boxes
2. actually pack all our stuff up... oh god we've doubled the human count of our family since we last moved!
3. manage to keep it packed without S unpacking it again
4. clean the house
5. manage to keep it clean without S fouling it up again!
6. pull all the alterations off the house: window safety bars, shade-cloth, fences, veggie gardens, kitchen cupboard doors (put back on), sky-light blockerouter, sandpit, a thousand picture hooks
7. de-scribble/de-paint/de-crayon/de-sticker/repaint (who would've thought stickytape could do so much damage to paint work!) the whole house
8. pray for rain to fill our 10 000L tank ...yeah, not gonna happen... so I guess we'll have to
9. buy a load of water
10. buy a bed (?)
11. paint our old bed
12. organise a removalist
13. redirect mail
14. begin our new lives in our little country town

.... and I'm sure that's just the beginning!!!!

Pool... Tiles... Cupboards etc...

Up until a few days ago, I hadn't been up to the block to see the house in aaaages... Benji has done all the visits and so I only had his photos to go on. Well! WOW! I am just so excited to all the progress that has been made.

It really is a house now! The internal paint is mostly complete and I am really happy with the colours. The pool arrived and is in position, the tiling is done, the dishwasher is in, the oven is in, the fireplace is in... oh I am just over the moon!

We went up last weekend to lay out the position of the living room tiles (in front of the fire place)... I wanted to make sure the tiles, which are individually patterned, were laid in an “artistically random” arrangement.  The tiles are absolutely gorgeous and once we set them down we decided (well I decided really, unfortunately for Benji) that two rows looked not quite right and that three rows would be better.  So poor Benj had to go into town and buy some tile underlay and nail a rather long strip of it down for the tiler. It took quite a while with a hammer and he now has a new appreciation for nail guns!  However, while we were waiting for him to finish, I had a moment, watching S playing in the dirt with his toy truck and wandering up and down the verandah with P asleep in the Baby Bjorn, where I could just feel what it will be like when were living there.  It really feels so right!  I just can’t wait!  The tiles, by the way, are now complete and look amazing.  I love them!

There really is only one thing I don’t love.  And I wish I would stop thinking about it – but I can’t.  (And I feel like a spoilt little brat!)  It’s the pantry and the open shelf in the kitchen.  I didn’t really notice it before but now that I have...aaaaauuuggghhhh!  The shelves are not solid but adjustable!  I didn’t realise in the planning stage that this is what we were getting.  So ugly!  So un-classy! So tacky and cheap and shit looking!  I feel like they'll break easily and get knocked out of position.  They just don't look like the result of good solid workmanship...like they belong in a crappy kit home and this is completely incongruous with the rest of the house, which is just pure class!  The pantry I can live with (maaaaaaybe), because at least I can shut the door... but the open shelf is visible ALL the time.  It’s too late to get the cabinet makers back (too costly) but I think I will change them at some stage...especially that shelf.  Damn!  I wonder if I could do it myself.... now that could go badly!

Anyway... I’ll just try to focus on all the good stuff.  It really is going to be a lovely home!

Not sure about sealing the tile to the vanity... don't know what the other option would have been... tiling the whole wall beside/behind the vanity?  Oh well I can live with it.

 

 

 

Here they are...the ugly adjustible shelves.  I have to get rid of these.  So ugly!

In the shape of a girl...

 

On 7 August 2014 our little family became complete with the arrival of our wonderful little daughter.

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The only other things to add now are animals... can't wait to move into our new home to start this exercise!