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Today I found a feather from one of the three cute chubby tawny owls that have been hanging out in our gorgeously giant tree.
Last week Mr You discovered a nest cradling baby birds in our gorgeously giant tree.
Normally this would delight me. But right now it mortifies me. Why?
Because tomorrow we have to have our beloved gorgeous giant tree cut down. Sob.
One recent stormy night, a quarter of our tree tore off and fell to the ground. It completely crushed our fence, all but one of the other trees in our yard, and our brand new (built by a gardener only 3 days earlier) garden bed with lovely little stone wall, as it stretched across our yard and half way across the neighbours. Unlucky as this sounds, we were all very lucky that it fell where and when it did. A little this way or the other and it could have crushed our studio, or Millipede's bedroom, or had it been during the day it could have crushed the neighbours children.
We consulted lots of specialists, hoping desperately they would tell us all the tree needed was a little lop and it would be fine. But each and every one took one look at the tree and all said it is too dangerous to stay... at all.
This, the tree that (along with our studio) was the reason I fell in love with this house. The tree that everyone comments is beautiful. The tree that shades our yard in Summer, turns red in Autumn, becomes a sculpture in Winter, and feeds the bees in Spring. The tree that I had imagined we'd have Millipede's birthday parties underneath, hang his swing from, build a tree house in, and encourage him to climb.
The tree we buried Millipede's bellybutton stump under as a spiritual gesture on his 6 month birthday.
I have cried again and again that we have to lose our beautiful tree. That we are the ones who have to have to end it's long long life. That losing a tree isn't like when you lose a car, and are able to replace it with an even better one. That you can't put a tree out to pasture, letting it live out the rest of its days in a lovely field somewhere.
I really am in agony thinking about it. I don't think I can be here when it happens. I'm sure I will hear it moan and weep. How do you say goodbye to something so proud?
I've returned from our month away, (we've been in Sydney) all keen and eager to get back onboard the home renovation train. We don't really have the skills, time, or money to do anything major at the moment, so I'm directing my ambitions to smaller corners.
Our front door has bad yellow 1970's glass panels in it, but it's otherwise a pretty nice door. So I'm thinking of replacing the 6 yellow glass panels. Mr You was thinking of normal clear frosted glass. I, on the other hand, am thinking colours. Mr You said I'd need to sell the idea to him, so here goes...
Image sources: Historic House Parts, Wallpaper for Windows, DIY Designs, Mama's Happy, and ezl.com. Thank-you.
The first time we took our Millipede into the backyard we were greeted by an adorable inquisitive koala. I've only ever seen a koala in the wild once before. That was about a year ago in a park, a long way away, very high in a tree. So THIS was very special.
The koala seemed as interested in us as we were of it. Then after some time of checking each other out, it lost interest, climbed down the tree, leaped onto another one, and was gone.
We couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the joys of the back yard.
Thismorning I woke up very early; bright-eyed, perky and excited beyond control.
You see today Mr You's brother-in-law arrived to paint the walls of our bedrooms! And to a nesting pregnant woman, that's like Santa arriving at Christmas!!!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! :D
Breath of Spring is the name of the paint colour we are in the middle of painting on our kitchen walls. The name, unlike some paint colours, describes it pretty well I think; a warm citrusy yellowish green.
We've almost finished that bit, and have now moved onto the dark grey feature wall that frames the window. After that it's onto floating shelves me thinks. I've always wanted floating shelves in the kitchen. Although, I hear it creates alot of dusting, but who cares about sticky kitchen dust when there's pretty kitcheny things on shelves for all to see.
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(The picture above is not our kitchen, but the colour is pretty much identical. Our kitchen is, at this moment, dismantled and shrouded in plastic cover sheets... which is making the task of preparing food all sorts of tricky.)
Sorry I can't remember where I nabbed that kitchen picture from. Thanks to the source all the same.
I am in love with our giant tree. Each week it completely changes. Just the other week it was covered in some kind of flower, and all you could hear was the gentle hummm of a mass of bees, happily going about their important business, way above our heads.
As we settle into our new house, and discover lots of broken things, we've also found lots of very nice surprises. A paw-paw tree. A small mango tree. A baby lemon tree (which will hopefully fruit one day). And a yellow passionfruit vine absolutely dripping with fruit!  Yesterday I made passionfruit muffins, with our own passionfruit! Hehehe, I can't believe this is who I am now. I mean, who knew food could come from a garden and not just out of a can or box? Anyway, you'll be happy to hear the muffins were spllllllendid! I can't wait for the day the vine flowers. But in the meantime I intend to explore lots of passionfruit foodtypes. Anyone got any good recipes?
If I wasn't already spoken for, I may want to marry our new studio... marry it and have it's babies.
It's a granny flat at the back of our house. We've both set up our work spaces in it, which means inside our house we have a few unused rooms. Once we unpack properly we think one may be a sewing room, and the other a music room. In the meantime our kitty has her very own bedroom, she loves it, and thinks she's very important now. Which of course she is.
Yes, yes, we're all settling into our new abode nicely.
Up until this weekend, my only contribution to the renovation/redecoration of our new house was this moss bunny. Delightful, no?
As sweet as she is, I had been feeling like I was letting the home team down a little. So this weekend, I cleared my schedule, rolled up my sleeves and ... I ... weeded. Yup, weeded. All weekend. That goes to show how neglected the gardens were. I still haven't got to the front of the house yet. But the rest is looking much less like a haunted house.
Mr You decided to mow the lawn, and curious about a nearby house who's garden edging looks like its been lazer-cut (it is un-naturally sharp and straight), he attempted to do ours too. Only every mowing, snipping, slashing machine that he had lilted with the trauma of our overgrown lawn, so out came the saw! HAHAHAHA, I didn't see it, but apparently he got down on all fours and sawed that grass into shape. 10 points for effort and neighbourly entertainment!
Meanwhile I was out at the hardware store purchasing a tin of paint to spruce up the insides of some musty old cupboards, some pretty coloured paint samples, and a silver handle.
Those items are no real indication of the work we still need to do to this house. I'm talking cracks in the roof that leak rain, collapsed drains, an awful lot of fencing, and all sorts of stuff. Things that one of my dandy skip-alongs down the aisles of the local hardware will not fix. But by gosh, do I have fun on those dandy skip-alongs all the same. :)
 When I mentioned getting the keys to the kingdom, I was being metaphorical... I didn't expect to get enough keys to support an entire kingdom! I'm new to this, but surely 37 keys is a little on the excessive side for the 3 bedroom house... No? ;) I'm about to pack away my computer, and those last few things... We start moving house tomorrow. I'll be offline for about a week while we set back up in our new house. See you from a different aspect soon.
 If everything goes according to plan, this time next week we will have the keys to our new house! We're peeing our pants with excitement!!! ... But we're pooing our pants a bit too. Fear of a mortgage, fear of being entirely responsible for something so costly, fear of what we've gotten ourselves into in terms of how much work we will have to do to it. (That'd be, ah... LOTS!).We looked at it last week and discovered lots of things we didn't notice before. Ceiling fans, for example! The spot for the dishwasher has no plumbing or electricity, and is therefore nothing but a kitchen cave. Aaaand plenty more things too... But there is a toilet! I double checked. (A friend of mine bought and moved into their house before they even realised there was no toilet!) ;) The house is butt-ugly actually, but we'd hoped to be able to beautify it. Turns out we'll need to spend the "beautification" money on fixing things instead. Things you can't even see! Arhh, that's going to be so so hard. Nevertheless, regardless of the fact we will be surviving entirely on sausage sandwiches from Bunnings for the next 10 years, I'm getting pret-ty, very, lotsly excited! A week! A week! :D
A collection of five favourite things I've seen this week... ( Playing along with Pip )1. Aether-Art Discovering a dear friend of mine now has a blog! And it's a beautiful one too... 2. The SeaPelt When Mr You gave me a slanket for my birthday last year I thought it was the best thing ever. Surely the best in the category of lounge-wear! But ladies and gentlemen, I think The SEAPELT may give it a damn good run for it's money!!! (mostly because it's got FEET!!!) HOW GOOD ARE THEY!!???? (Found via Handmade Romance)3. Popcorn Pincushion There's a handmade pincushion swap circulating at the moment, and lots of crafty gals are out there sewing up some pincushion wonders. But when I spotted Kootoyoo's entry this week, I was blown away!!!! She even made pins to match!!! I don't know, I haven't seen them all, and I know, I know, this type of thing isn't meant to be competitive in anyway... but surely hers pops the pants off the rest! C'mon! 4. Smart Move Tape Yup, we've started packing, and surely I don't have to remind you how seriously un-fun it is. Nevertheless, this smart move tape caught my eye this week. Every mundane task can be made more fun by some bright supplies! (a-hem, excuse the Martha-ness of that last sentence).5. Walls, white or bright? To keep myself motivated whilst packing, I'm dreaming of painting walls. I've been thinking of white. Clean white, warmed up by the pale wooden floors our new house has. Light, sunny, clean, open and airy. But then I popped into Jan's house very quickly for the first time last weekend, and was enamoured by the bright colourful walls in her gorgeous house. Bold, saturated, fulfilling and arty. Now I'm tossing up between white or bright... Or maybe a bit of both... 
 A . H O U S E ! ! ! ! A whole life sized, real bricks and mortar, mother-lovin' house! Our first... We will no longer be renters. We will be able to paint the walls whatever colour we like, and positively litter the walls with picture hooks. We will be able to rip things out and tack things on, and even plant a garden! Our pot plants have done us well over all these years, but they deserve to stretch their roots and live as they should, with their toes in the earth. We move in a month. W e . A r e . V e r y . E x c i t e d .    Images from Etsy:
Letterpress Paper Pop-Up Houses, by 1canoe2
1. Balloon Factory, by Pearson Maron
2. Bird House Cabin, by Barkin Mad
3. Yellow House Print, by Swallowfield
4. Little Houses Zipper Pouch, by Moon Tea Artwork
5. Pop-up Patchwork Doll House, by Sarabande Press
6. Tiny Porcelain Clay Houses, by Shoda
7. Avenue Screenprinted Fabric, by Summersville
8. Carriage House 2, by Artworm
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