It's The Little Things

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make a big difference.

Take birthdays, for instance.

Balloons.  $2 per packet.

Favourite drink?  A couple of dollars.

A vivid is a very useful tool to turn an ordinary thing into a  special message!

Favourite chocolate bar (crunchie)?  $1 on special.

Favourite lollies on table at dinner time $5.  Roast chicken and veges for dinner.  Candles and tablecloth fished out of cupboards.  Did have a moment of panic when I wondered where on earth the matches were...very hard to light candles without them, and even harder to light the 'bonfire!'

The birthday 'boy' - a pretty typical pose (very rarely get serious ones out of him!)

Handmade card with printed voucher.  The voucher is the really expensive part of Boyo’s birthday – a fishing license come October.  Most of the family chipped in!  He is looking forward to using it, just has to relocate his assorted collection of fishing gear.  Grin.

Bonfire?  Borrowed brazier from my parents.  Wood from them too (thank you!!!).  Fished out wooden seat from under a few climbers in a corner of the garden.  Re-purposed a few old tomato stakes as roasting stakes.

Roasting marshmellows which were thoughtfully included in a present from my parents.

Damper: flour, water, and baking powder slow roasted on a stick then filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter filling.

First time to try damper for Munchkin - Mmmm Yum.  First time for Daddy and he liked it too!

Equals: a fun birthday that says, “You are special to us!”

Cost?  About $10 for the little extras.  Some time and thought, the use of a vivid, the car boot, and our love.  Like I said, sometimes little things can make a big difference and birthdays are one time when that is definitely so!

I’m finding too that it is the little things that are helping me feel more at home in our new place.  It’s a nice place.  But to be really honest, I’ve struggled with the enforced move, the changes, the trying-to-find-places-for-everything, the increased neighbourhood noise (thank GOD we didn’t have to move to a louder neighbourhood!).  I’ve struggled with the design flaws (more about that another time).  But mostly I think I’ve struggled because it was sudden.  Ten days is not a long time to get your head around the fact that you are moving.  We literally walked through this house, talked to the agent, and signed the paperwork once she’d checked our details.  So we moved in trying to remember where things were and what could fit where.  Then I headed out on teaching placement and everything just had to be at a standstill at home.  For someone who likes order, routine, and everything to be in it’s rightful place, that was a really hard thing to do.  I felt flustered.  I wanted to run round and set things to rights but I didn’t have the time or energy (or money!).  So now that placement is over, the two birthday celebrations duly celebrated, and I am in a mostly sane mind (hahaha!), I have been pottering away trying to organise my house. Boyo thinks I am just a little bit mad, but then Boyo hardly ever needs the glue, or the cardboard, or cares about whether the bag tubes are hanging or not, or whether the bathroom vanity looks pretty.  He’s pretty cruisy, which is probably a good thing.  Two of us like me, well, that would be insane!  Grin.

So here are a few of my little household things:

Pictures up.  I put them up and smiled.  I smiled nearly all day.  For me, a house simply isn’t home until there are pictures up.  We are privileged to be allowed up to 2 picture hooks per room…and we can choose where.  So I have chosen.  I’ve culled the pictures, and will store the rest (with those that are already stored), but managed to keep the family ones on display as well as a few treasured ones.  Enough to feel at home and really, that's all I needed.

Shells in the bathroom.  These were from our wedding cake, and some I have collected on our beaches.  Been in a box for years, but I just wanted to be able to see them.  One day they will have a nice basket or something but this is okay for now.

Downstairs.

Upstairs.

Bag tubes finally up on hooks in the cupboard.  Oven mitts hung beside oven (the kitchen seriously had no hooks and/or rails!).  Hand towel rail up in bathroom (after getting a new one from the landlords, we actually discovered the old one hanging up beside the hot water cylinder so I have put that back up instead!).

A garage that is organised well enough that we can get a cupboard in there to repair.  Yup, this is the ORGANISED and TIDY garage.  You don’t want to know what it looked like before I biffed, culled, rearranged, stacked, and sorted!  Loads of stuff to go on Trademe sometime soon.

The shelf I re-made in the kitchen. It’s more hickory than the old one (which wasn't exactly flash to start with but was too low and too long for this bench).   But regardless of looks, it's just what we need to turn a very overcrowded corner in a tiny kitchen into something usable.  Just need to paint it now so it is sealed from water damage.  I am VERY proud of my accomplishment.  Me and my drill, we get along fine. 

That my parsley plants survived being transplanted.  A little thing, but in a garden that has nothing much usable, that means a lot.

Kiwifruit that mysteriously appeared on our car while Boyo was working this week.  Yum, such a blessing!

Little things.  Little by little, I am slowly feeling more at home.

Amy