#mumlife...or is it just #life?

On paper, today sounds like a winner. I had a good sleep, the morning went well, lunchboxes were packed, everyone did what they were told, we've had kinder, a lovely catch up with my bestie (Let's call her #ME*), washing has been hung out, the sun is shining, I'm onto my third coffee, sharing texts with Mrs Appletree*,  everyone has eaten well and we have something fun on tonight up at kinder.
But...I feel blah. A bit flat. A bit tired. A bit grumpy. Don't really want to deal with anything. Just a bit over it. At first, I put it down to mumlife. The same old, same old routine, food, nappies, wipe this nose, pick up that toy, carseats and giant handbags and squabbles over trains.  But then...that's not mumlife, it's just part of my life. The same as coffee and kisses from my husband and wiping the bench and brushing my teeth (usually before I kiss my husband) and tying my shoelaces (Converse. White. or Nikes. Black)
At the moment, I'm a...a...an ummmm, I don't know what the correct term is. I don't do paid work, but I'm not a 'stay at home Mum', because I don't stay home all day. I'm not 'just a Mum' because I'm not 'just' anything - I'm a fun person, a good friend to some wonderful people, an excellent wife to a gorgeous husband, sister to an incredible girl, daughter to great parents, mother of 2 rad boys . I'm also a lover of food, of coffee, of Netflix, of interiors, of rain on the roof and trees and mountains and groovy strips of shops and denim and black and white and grey. And snow...that's my favorite thing, ever.
So having children is just part of me, it's not all of me. So it seems unreasonable to blame my blah day on that. People without children have those days too. Everyone does.
And that's what you can expect from me here. A bit of mumlife. A bit of food. A bit of denim. A bit of blah. A bit of YAY! And a whole lotta Rosie*

* #ME is My Everything. She's my bestie, it's a whole other post.
* Mrs Appletree, another bestie. Blonde, slim, gorgeous, just had her second babe, you know #nailingit
*Not to be confused with Whole Lotta Rosie by AC/DC - She ain't exactly pretty, Ain't exactly small, Fourt'two thirt'ninefiftysix

Updates and Testing

I guess this is a sign of things to come...maybe...

Instagram - how I love it!

Instagram. How I love it! When I first signed up, I really just wanted to be able to put filters on photos. I didn't know what else to expect. How could I have ever known the connections I would make through photos and short sentences alone. The inspiration I would get. The recipes I would discover. But mostly, the friends I would make. Real friends, that know just as much (sometimes more!) about me than my 'in real life' friends. Support, advice, ideas - all from just one little photo sharing app.

My first IG picture

I found my chinese herbalist and acupuncturist (Nat at The Pagoda Tree) through Instagram, and my husband and I both stand firm in our belief that her diet and lifestyle advice was ultimately what helped us conceive - I may have used the term 'Instagram got me pregnant' on more than one occasion!

We got ideas for green smoothie recipes

One of my most exciting pregnancy announcements was to my IG friends, and the excitement, joy, love and support I received from them meant the world.

My IG pregnancy announcement - that's Rawkus (now Otis!) at 13 weeks.

Our dog, Molly, has featured more times than I can count, our home, things I've cooked, places we've been, people I love, all shared with my Instagram friends. Who have become real friends. 2 in particular, one in Tasmania and one in the UK. We were already following each other when we all discovered we were pregnant. Our babies were born within weeks of each other. They are my 'other' mothers group, the ones I could 'chat' with during the early morning feeds, who offer me ideas and suggestions when I am struggling with something, and share my excitement when milestones pass.

I've signed my Mum up - she only follows me, but it means she gets regular updates on my life. She even shows the pics to my 95 year old grandmother. Can you imagine what Instagram must be like to someone who has lived the last 95 years? She is fascinated by the comments, wanting to know who the people are, where they live, and how I 'know' them.

In short, it's changed my life. For the better. Do you use Instagram? Find me under the username makinglimecello

Life

It happens that way, life, doesn't it? And mostly, the way it happens is just lovely. I have post, sitting here in my drafts folder, written on New Years Eve, 2011. About the year past, the people we lost, and the people we welcomed into our life. And about our journey.

So we look to 2012. Perhaps their will be less extremes this year. Perhaps their will be more. We have already scheduled 3 weddings and there are 4 new babies expected. We already know we have a journey ahead, down a well worn path, unfamiliar to us, but known to many others. We fear our first steps, the acceptance that this is our path, the road to the conception of our own child. Fertility is assumed. Considered your birthright as a woman. Until one day, you realise it may not be.

I think in the end, 2012 held more extremes. But different ones. Sadness, yes, that was there, especially at the start. Remembering those lost, and those not yet found. Then happiness, like I had never known, at the birth of my most beautiful niece, Harrie. She was, and still is, an absolute delight, and I treasure the time I spend with her. Then hope, in the form of specialists, appointments made with both medical and natural specialists in the field of fertility. Then sickness, so sick, for so long, and worry and fear and joy and delight and excitement, and most of all... Love. Because this is what New Years Eve 2012 looked like.

Our beautiful son was just 3 days old on New Years Eve 2012. Conceived naturally (though we had been following lots of advice from this website, and in fact had our first appointment with them the day before we found out we were pregnant. I continued with acupuncture throughout my pregnancy, and I highly recommend both Nat and Lucy at The Pagoda Tree.)

Otis will be 6 months next week, and all the cliches really are right, time flies when you're having fun.

I hope that blogging might become part of my life now, but hey...no promises!

Enough!

I couldn't bear to look at that old pic of the front of our house anymore! Admittedly, not much painting has happened on the outside since then, but the inside is looking a little different. Here's a quick pic from the couch!

Getting there!

Sorry, I didn't update earlier! Here's how it looked after one coat, just on the front. We have done a second coat now, but due to Melbourne's heatwave early last week, we have one section that bubbled, and has had to be scraped back to raw timber and patched...... Boooooo. Hopefully the third and final coat on the front will be done this weekend!

Ready

For the first coat. Here we go!

New York, New York

...and Disneyland!

I always knew we were going to travel overseas for my 30th birthday, but we hadn't decided where. A nasty fall and a fractured coccyx (snowboarding) meant a snow trip to Japan was out of the question, and right on time, flights to New York went on sale!

We had a 3 day stopover in LA, and spent our time in Santa Monica, which was lovely! If you are heading that way, I highly recommend the Holiday Inn Santa Monica - fabulously located (halfway between Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade -where all the good shops are) and quite economical too. We only decided to go to Disneyland at the last minute, but I felt like it was something I had to do...growing up, Disneyland was one of places you dreamed of, but never really thought you would see. So we went, and it was so much fun.

We then spent 10 days in New York. Sounds like a long time? It' a big city, and we only saw a very small part of it, despite spending every single day and night out in it having every possible experience. Heres a little checklist for you!

• Times Square


• Bike ride in Central Park


• Pretzel from a Street Vendor


• Ice Hockey (New York Rangers vs Toronto Maple Leafs)


• Broadway Show (Spiderman!)


• Empire State Building


• Huge pizza slices


• The subway (one of my favorite things)


• Brooklyn


• Wall St


• A purchase at Tiffany & Co


• Pastrami on rye from Katz Deli


• Halloween


• Statten Island Ferry


• Anthropologie


• Brooklyn Bridge


• Boat tour around the island of Manhattan


• FAO Schwartz


• The Flatiron building


• Kate Spade


• Hangin on the corner of 52nd and Broadway (its a line from a song, and what started this whole crazy plan)


• Starbucks


• Shopping


• Zeppoles


• Soho (we spent 5 nights in Soho, and I could have stayed forever)


• The High Line


• Chelsea Markets


• Hells Kitchen


• The Natural History Museum


• Dog run


• Mexican food


• A cupcake from Magnolia Bakery


• Guggenheim


• The Marimekko store

And many many moments, fleeting, but precious and never to be forgotten. In fact, there is a whole lot more, but I'm not sure reading a list for hours would fascinate you!

Tell you what - leave a comment on any one of the above (or anything else you can think of, New York related!) and I'll see if I have a picture of it to share!

Another hint?

Does this pic help?

Trinkets

These 2 boxes are currently residing on my bedside table! Can you guess what was in them? And the location of our recent holiday ... Where both of them were purchased?

Yikes!

Where did I go? I've just figured out how to blog from my phone, and use Instagram....find me under gentlemay... So hopefully I can return to this www community.

Front hallway

Way back, ages ago, I showed a moodboard for our front hallway. My wonderful Dad did all the work, as planned, and I have decorated it and redecorated over time, and this morning, I switched a few things around...again! I love this version, as it has a few significant touches.
Just in case you had forgotten - I am still learning to take decent photos. Judging by this photo, I still have a lot to learn!I painted the stripes ages ago...early last year I think, and I just love them. The cabinet is as planned, and stores our CD collection, board games and Molly's leash. The large empty frame has been sitting in the door to our spare room all week, and it adds some dimension here. The gold framed certificate is my husband's graduation certificate (Manufacturing Systems Engineering = nerd burger!), and I love the way the gold warms up the space. The morrocan lantern has been everywhere in this house, but this has been its longest standing location. We light candles in it which are always the last ones we blow out before bed. The light shade is this one and we have a matching one at the other end. I love the casual feel they add to the hallway - I think the chandeliers I originally wanted would have been too fancy for this house. The rug hides everything, and the little trunk with my handbag on it (which just happen to match the whole scene perfectly!) was my Mum's knitting box and sat in the living room of the house I grew up in for years. She just gave it to me recently, and I will love seeing it every time I walk in the front door.
The timber statue (can you see it against the dark stripe) was a wedding gift, and the yellow-y thing in front of it is actually the original light shade from when our house was built. They are too precious to throw away (I have a green one also!), because they are part of our homes history.
I took this photo sitting on our bed ( I am actually loving the unpainted, unstained, untreated timber of the doors we had installed as part of our major renovation recently. I am considering leaving them this way!) and you can see how well the stripes work with our dark charcoal carpet.

Happy Day!

Autumn came in to battle, and Summer went down without a fight! Its a happy day here in the Limecello househould, where Autumn and Winter are our favorite seasons. Today was a new sofa/ottoman bed in lovely linen and white velvet stripes, first soup of the season and a glass of red wine - bought for cooking but better for drinking! Oh, its such a happy day!

GingerBoy

Friday night I headed into the City (Melbourne) - via train, for a FANTASTIC meal at GingerBoy with some of my favorite girls, including these 2 - Alice, my sister and Katie, my gym/champagne/foodie buddy. This is a restuarant I highly recommend. We were warned that due to our group size (7 people), we would have to have the banquet, for $70 - including dessert, not including drinks. The big advantage to this method was that we didn;t have to make menu decisions - the wait staff just asked if there any dietry requirements (1 vegetarian and 2 no seafoodies), and proceeded to bring out course after course of deliciously flavoured, Asian hawker-style food. a couple of stand-outs for me were the green papaya salad, whic had me longing for another Vietnam adventure, and the pork belly curry, which was so rich - and right at the end of about 27 dishes, that I could manage one morsel! This dish whole fried Nemo (no, not really, but that's what we called it), looked amazing when served, and tasted even better. The lovely waiter stripped it off the bone for us, and the flesh was soft, silky and delicious, with a finishing crunch! Dessert...well, they say pictures speak louder than wordsWe received 2 of these platters between the 7 of us, and we all managed to find room in our full bellies to empty them! Delicious! Drinks weren't cheap (bottles of champagne were around $60), but really, it wasn't a 'drink-y' type meal. Focus was on the food and I'm so glad I could enjoy it all with a clean palate! We are already figuring out when we can go back! This is my first non housey foody type post. What did you think? I am hoping to improve my reviewing and word-y skills as part of my new 'must blog' plan. Help me out by being honest!

Good blog posts

As in...I need some. I think about things that would sound interesting/intelligent/funny, but when I sit down to blog, it comes out all convoluted and awkward and I end up soundling a 15 year old teenager who just drank their first gin. And I'm not - 15, that is, nor am I drinking my first gin. That was ages ago...I still love the stuff though. And often I see stores or things online that I think others would enjoy. Then...I just don't blog them. SO I think I may try and expand my thought process a little. Instead of focussing purely on my house, I am going to try and incororate other things into this blog. Other things I love, and maybe even take pictures of! For instance...

Food

...which I love. Passionately. Really. This was my lunch a few weeks ago, shared with my Mum and my sister (see below!) I love these snacky/deli/picky type meals. But I also love going out to eat. So I might try posting about that.

Family...

...I see mine a lot. I love them. A lot. And we do fun things together. Both of these pics were taken recently, on a trip to Lorne (with my Dad, Jeni, my sister, her husband and me. Mr Limecello couldn't come...sad., and then one to Daylesford (with my Mum and Sister. Girls weekend!). So I might share them with you.

Holidays... ...I am not well travelled. But I am working on it. We went to Hawaii for friends' wedding not long ago. Loved it. We went to Vietnam last year...I also loved it!

And all sorts of random thoughts along the way. Now, what do you think...are you still interested? Is there anybody out there?

P.S. I am also trying to take more photos...and better ones. Its a learning thing.

I'm back

Sunday evening at my place...a snapshot! Stuff on the dining table (that I promised pictures of about 4 months ago!), unpainted plasterboard behind the couch, church pew that needs sanding and staining. But there are so many things in this picture that I love, I can see past all of that. I think I have finally accepted that our home...wherever that may be...will always be a work in progress!

Yeah, so I'm a little slow!

Ok, so I have just made the most amazing discovery. I know everyone else discovered this ages ago, but for some reason its taken me until now.

Its called Ebay, and I am in love! I am supposed to be saving towards renovations (kitchen, bathroom, laundry, electrical, doors, roof...Promise to tell you all about it soon!), but I made a fabulous purchase just a few weeks ago, and won my second item today!

Item 1: This gorgeous 80 year old (approximately) dining table.

It doesn't look like much here, but with a good clean, it came up beautifully! I don't want to sand it or stain it, as I love its charater so much. It reminds me of the dining table we had in my family home, growing up, and we bought it from a family who had it while their children were growing up too! We love it. We sit down and eat our dinner at it most nights, and instead of sitting with guests in the lounge room, we often sit around the table and chat. I will post pics of it in the dining area just as soon as my camera battery is charged! It originally came from a farm in Tangambalanga, near Albury, and is made of Kauri Pine. Oh...and it cost me $133.50

Item 2: A church pew!!!

We currently have a bench on one side of our table, but it's a dark stained timber, and it doesn't look right next to the lighter colour of the table. I am happy to mix my timber finishes (a new acceptance!), but the bench is both modern AND dark, so there is too much contrast. I am going to move the bench to the sitting room (to be!) as a coffee table, and replace it with this! I will most likely paint it black, which will look great with our white floors and shutters, and dark grey walls. I love it...and even though it wasn;t as much of a bargain as the table, it was cheaper than the cost of 3 chairs!

On the other side of the table, I think we need something a little more retro, to work with the light, and prevent the whole area from getting too 'matchy matchy', so I am thinking of perhaps some Eames DSW side chairs in Black

Or the original plan...the Tolix A chair in galvanised

What I love about buying items off Ebay, is the personality they have. I felt that my home was becoming too plain, and beginning to appear a little like I had bought everything on the same day, from the same store. It wasn't welcoming...it didn't feel like a 'home'.

These pre-loved pieces are making a big difference!

Bar Open

Oh, where to start! There is so much going on in my head 'house-wise' at the moment, that I barely know where to begin.

Ok - dining area! All along, I have loved the Scandinavian aesthetic - hence the white on white on white!

Then, I found elements of this look didn't work so well in this house...since I don't live in a Scadinavian country, but instead in Melbourne, Australia! So I painted the dining room grey.But it still didn't feel right. We bought a new light...which we LOVED, but the rest of the room just felt bland. I have been playing with the house quite a bit over the last few days, instroducing some more 'neutrals', and lighter wood tones (a whole nother post!), and wanted to incorporate a little bamboo table my husband rescued when his parents cleaned out their office.

I had been intending to paint it, probably black (I am also introducing black...and loving it!) but I decided to leave in its natural bamboo finish for now. I added a few things we had around the house...and some that were still in a box, waiting for a home, from when we moved(!!!!), and now we have a little bar in the corner of our dining nook. You can also see our new light at the top there - it's retro style works really well with our bar. I just need to hang the print that is resting - it was a limited edition Dinosaur Designs one that came with Inside Out (I think!) a few years back, and I have never had a place for it. And now I do!

Oops...

...I went on a holiday and forgot to blog! Sorry!
I will return to regular programming (in other words, sporadic posting with occasional pictures of somewhat completed projects!) when I stop dreaming of Vietnam.

Vitaminer at Ikea

Have you seen this gorgeous range of fabrics and accessories at Ikea? I love the colours and the patterns. In fact, I am considering heading there this afternoon to pick up this blanket, to snuggle under in this chilly weather we have been having. Which I am loving, by the way!And the fabrics are only $14.99 for 1.2 x 3m. Very reasonable! Those hearts would make a cute headboard, especially if it was button tufted with a range of colourful buttons! I'm not sure my husband would go for it, but maybe for a child one day! In the mean time, I may have to make do with a cushion in my living room!


And these fun curtains! Not sure where I could hang them, but I think they would bring some cheer to your day!

They are hidden away in the children's fabric department! I would love to use them in my home...and I don't have any children (with the exception of my furchild of course!)