La Mammina

A favoured spot

As I was reading this post at SouleMama about her children's favourite parts of their home I started wondering which spots are my kids' favourites.

I can't ask Feather, but I can only assume his favourite spot is wherever I am at the time. He is at that age where he just crawls around the house following me wherever I go. It's sweet, but sometimes frustrating. It is particularly bad when I am doing something that takes me from each end of the house to the other. He only just manages to find me at the laundry when I turn around and head back to the kids room whence forth he has just trekked. Poor little thing. He gets a bit upset.

But I did ask Tilly and I wasn't at all sure what her answer would be. It's pretty obvious though. Mummy and Daddy's room. More precisely, Mummy's side of the bed. Well, I've got to say, I think it is my favourite place too. I just love sliding in between the sheets at the end of the day. Nothing really compares to it.

It's particularly enjoyable when the sheets are freshly washed. Oooh, that is the best. I can remember once when I was a poor student, it was exam time and I hadn't spent a lot of time studying. It was the night before one of the exams and I had probably been procrastinating all day, doing useful things like laundry. I was very tired and starting to worry about the exam and fearing for my chances of getting ahead in life. But as I slipped between the beautifully crisp sheets I consoled myself, saying that as long as I was always in a position to have freshly washed sheets on my bed, it didn't matter what result I got in the exam.

I have no idea how I went in the exam. Managed to scrape a pass through probably. But I never did much with that degree anyway. Still, I've done well enough to maintain my clean sheet measure of success.

New rooms

We spent the weekend rearranging the rooms of our house and it has made such a positive change.

The house seems bigger and I think we are all sleeping better.

I should have taken some time to set up the photo better, cleared some of the escess clutter, but that is pretty hard to do with the two little ones underfoot. Anyway, I really love the kids room, it feels so warm and happy and now that it is in a bigger space I think they will be much happier.

We've moved into the old lounge room, and I've got to say it makes a much better bedroom. And the other rooms are much more suitable in our new formation. I was feeling really grumpy with the house and the change is like a breath of fresh air. I can thoroughly recommend it if you are feeling tired of your house are longing for somethin new.

Neglect

Here is a sad sight. Our lovely Christmas tree has been lying outside our house since the 16th of January, which was the day the council said they were going to pick up trees. There are a few others lurking around our neighbourhood, all going brown and looking neglected.

For the first week, it did let off a lovely smell each time we walked past. Now it's just miserable.

Obviously, I could ring the council to see when they are going to come and pick it up, or to ask what else I should do with it. But I am a little lazy. Perhaps I am the neglectful one.

And speaking of neglect. Just look at that child's hair! She really needs a haircut. It looks ok when it is tied up, but she hates that, so most of the time she looks like a poor, neglected urchin. Not that she is, of course.

Homemaker

We have recently moved out of a two bedroom apartment to a free standing three bedroom house. We've only been here a week, and already my life has changed.

Alright, we are still renting, it's not our own, but it feels more like home than I could have imagined. Tilly loves it, and I love seeing her so happy. I feel good when I can look out the window and see green.

We have been tentatively looking for a bigger place for a little while now. Our budget is pretty small, so it was a bit of a struggle. When I saw this place, I knew it wasn't perfect, it has many flaws, but we seem to fit in so well. Because the rent is "relatively" low for Sydney, there were a lot of people inspecting it, and I didn't know how our application would go. I was so thrilled when we actually got it, but I'm also very relieved, because I had started to imagine us living here and I think I would have fallen pretty flat had we not been successful.

On the application form it asks for each tenant's occupation. Since stopping paid employment and staying home with Tilly I have always struggled with this on forms. I just don't know what to write. I could say "mother" but there are engineer mothers, doctor mothers teacher mothers etc. The pre-fixes are all occupations, I just don't see mother as being an occupation as such. I don't actually have one. Would a big N/A suffice. Anyway, on the rental application I had no trouble coming up with an answer. I put "homemaker" in the hope that the owners would want someone who was home to take care of the place. I'm sure that answer wasn't the one that got us the tenancy, but it is a title I'm starting to quite like.

I really want to make this place our home. I want to do all the little things to make it feel like our special place. I'm no gardner, but I am having a ball getting out there and planning and watering. We have pretty severe water restrictions going on in Sydney, but you can water with a hose on Wednesdays and Sundays before 10am and after 4pm. It's Sunday today and I was out there this morning watering our front lawn, and the neighbours were out there too, doing the same. It gave me such a buzz! Who knew an act so simple could be so satisfying?

My grandparents gave me a tomato plant and a parsley plant for the new place. Tilly has decided that the tomato is mine and the parsley is hers, we take out respective watering cans out each morning and give them a drink. Tilly with the little orange watering can above, and me with my green gardening one. The image I have in my head of us doing this little thing together really melts my heart.

There is a lot of work to be done. The back lawn for one is pretty dug up, the previous tenants had a dog. But already with the little care I have given it (I load up the watering can with the water from Tilly's paddling pool at the end of each day and spread it around the garden), I think it is showing some improvement.

I'd like to plant some lavander and other things, and there is already a plot where I can plant some veggies. I'm so excited.

There are things to do on the inside too, like making curtains and cushions and getting new lamp shades. All little things, that will make a rented house a home. Stay tuned for further developements.

Oh and here is the afternoon tea that Tilly and I sat down to in the garden yesterday.

I whipped them up while Tilly was having a rare afternoon sleep. We had virtually no food in the house, but there was some flour, an egg, a splash of milk and a lemon. All you need really.

They didn't rise quite as well as they should have, because Tilly had been into the pantry (I have a pantry!!!!!) and mixed plain flour with self-raising. Also, I misread the dial on the oven and had them cooking at far too low a temperature. All the same, they were yummy.