Country Living

Well, I've been AWOL for over a month so decided it was time to post again.  We are now settled at Nana's house (although Nana has only been home for 10 days and is now working out of town for a while) with my sister in law and numerous animals.  We live with 4 dogs, 4 cats, 3 chickens and 3 alpacas, so mornings are even more hectic than they used to be!  The alpacas are actually looking for a new home, so if you know of one do let me know.

There are definitely positives and negatives in any situation, and this is no different.  I am really missing being walking distance to the village, and the ability to ride my bike to work and drop Mr 2 off at daycare on the way.  It's also a lot harder to make fire calls while we're living so far from the station.

But Mr 2 is loving it.  His bedroom is a converted double garage, and although it can be hard to heat and is currently painted pink, he is really enjoying having lots of space.

He's also taken a huge shine to the chickens.  He regularly checks for fresh eggs (thanking the chickens for each one) and is always there to let them out in the morning, shut them away at night and feed them.  He keeps telling me  how much he loves eggs, but that doesn't seem to translate into eating them all that well when they're served up!

It's a big adjustment not having our own space any more too, although there is a lot more space in general.  It's been a long time since Mr Neats and I had to share a house, so it is taking a bit of getting used to.  A huge outdoor area is wonderful though, especially coming into summer, and lots of fun toys at Nana's too:

We are not having to stress as much about money, although we are also yet to start building up any savings but that will come.  My sister in law is also a great cook (if a messy one), so that is a definite plus.

For the moment we are focussed on getting used to our new living arrangements and the rhythm of life here, toilet training with Mr 2 (number 2s!), getting him to stay in bed longer in the morning (with limited success due to the early light and noisy dawn chorus) and sorting out our finances.  Everything seems a little bit more manageable with some sunshine, so we are also loving the start of daylight savings and looking forward to summer.

Moving House Sucks!

Moving house is one of my least favourite activities of all time.  Couple that with a bit of renovation and multiple illness, and this move has been the worst we've ever done.

It began 2 weeks out from moving with Mr 2 getting the flu.  The proper, days off daycare, not just a cold version.  After 3 days on antibiotics he was as right as rain, but unfortunately Mr Neats had spent his days off hanging with sick child instead of preparing to move. Not ideal.

A week out from moving, I got the flu (thanks little dude!).  I spent a week not able to venture far from the couch, save to make myself a lemsip and slink back under my blanket.  Needless to say, evenings during that week were not spent doing the planned sorting and packing of our assorted possessions.  We did manage to move all of Mr 2's bedroom furniture and our clothing to Nana's house and begin sleeping there on the Sunday of that week.  Mr Neats had the following week off on Annual Leave, so we still had this shift under control.

Mr Neats worked long and hard by himself.  He sanded the most difficult, adhesive covered wooden floors I have ever seen.  He met electricians, plumbers etc at Nana's (she's having a new kitchen put in), he packed and tidied and generally made himself very useful.  But it took longer than we thought (doesn't it always?), so we resigned ourselves to working long nights the following week before our tenants moved in, while Mr Neats' sister looked after Mr 2.

Monday nights I'm busy, so nothing got done that night.  Tuesday night the power went off at Nana's, so Mr 2 was late to bed as the electrician needed to be in his room.  then 2 hours after he (finally) went to sleep, he woke up screaming and having trouble breathing.  To cut a long story short, after a couple of phonecalls we ended up in ED until 3:30am!!  Wednesday was a long day at work for me, and at home for Mr Neats and Mr 2. 

Hospital has fire trucks and funny mirrors.  Also iceblocks which he is convinced "fixed" him.

Wednesday we were far too tired to do anything at our house, but did manage a few hours on Thursday night.  Friday morning Mr 2 wakes at 4am with vomitting!  Another long day for his parents, followed by a very late night (12:30am), but the house was finally clean and tidy enough of the inside!!!  Mr Neats is going to do a bit more tidying outside and in the garage on his days off this week, but we are moved.  Now there is just a wee bit more sorting out to do before we can really say it's over.

Phew!

The cure for eczema, and moving house.

Maybe that's a wee bit ambitious, but since I've started using Wendyl's Laundry Liquid mine and Mr 2's eczema has improved dramatically.  I've also been a little more onto it with moisturising, but most winters that actually doesn't make much difference and I'm still cover in angry, red, burny scales.  So I'm a total convert and will be using my sludge fulltime now.   Even Mr Neats was squeezing a blob into the machine today instead of using our usual powder.

Those of you who know me IRL may remember how we accidentally bought our house almost 2 years ago.  I hated the house and was completely overwhelmed with the amount of work it needed.  I also hate moving with a passion, so couldn't believe we were putting ourselves through that ordeal to end up somewhere I didn't even really want to be!

Then, not long after moving in, I won an awesome kid's bedroom makeover competition for Mr 2.  I sent a room design (drawn in high-tech crayon with stuck-on pictures) to Little Treasures magazine and won $1500 worth of Resene paint and cash to make my vision a reality.  I LOVED the entire process, and everyone loves his room:

Since then I hate to admit it, but the house has kinda grown on me a little.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a tip - apart from his room all we have done is paint the lounge and get halfway through the bathroom (sigh), but I don't hate the place anymore.  I get attached to memories, and this place already holds a few for us.

Sadly, I got made redundant last year, and although I now have another job which I love (more on that another time), I am earning much less and financially we seem to be treading water.  So we're moving out.  But we're not giving the house up completely, instead we are moving in with Mr Neats' mum for a while.  "What???" I hear you scream.  "Are you mad - living with your mother in law?!".  Well no, at least I hope not.  I get on well with her, and since she recently lost her husband there is mutual benefit in us pooling resources for a while.  She'll have company, help with the bills and looking after the property and we'll have a chance to save some money to improve our house when we move back, at this stage in about 12 months.  And both Mr 2 and his Nana will have a wonderful opportunity to spend some very precious time together before he is a big school boy.

So I am a bit sad, a bit nervous and a bit stressed (afterall, we are moving again!), but I can see this being a really positive opportunity for us.  I'll keep you posted.

Look at me!

Here I am, blogging again.  Not that I think I have anything vaguely interesting to say, but a couple of people asked me to carry on with the Live Green for a Week blog.  I was flattered, but I think there's a limit to how much I can blather on about trying to be "green", so here's a modified version.

This is a place for me to get my thoughts out, hopefully in a manner that is somewhat coherent.  It'll be about me, my life as a community worker, wife, Mum, Volunteer Firefighter and Bellyful volunteer, as well as some of the other random stuff I get up to now and then.  And it'll be a bit about me trying to tread lighter on the planet, pay off a mortgage and still manage to have a bit of fun.  Phew. I've tired myself out already.

Since we last chatted, I've FINALLY had my heat pump prize installed.  It wasn't worth as much as they promised, and if I were paying for one I wouldn't choose that installer (they were terrible at keeping in contact and letting me know what was happening), but it's in and it's pretty great.  Mr 2 thinks so too:

Personally though, I still prefer the fire.  And Consumer's research found it to be one of the cheapest and, as long as the wood is dry and the fire efficient, one of the cleanest heating options too.  Nothing beats the warmth of a woodburner, but on those nights it's just too hard it is GREAT to have the lazy option of a heatpump.  And we have the timer set to come on 30 minutes before we're due to get up in the morning - bliss!

The Hastings branch of Bellyful has managed to complete our first cookathon too!  This means we have a freezer full of meals ready to be delivered to struggling new Mums or families dealing with serious illness. Wicked.

Check out some of the awesome Bellyful Hastings crew!

I've also done a bit more "cooking" - of cleaning products from Wendyl Nissen's recipes.  I made some laundry liquid (more of a sludge really), some more dish liquid and cleaned the oven with a mix of washing and baking sodas.  So far, so good.

I wasn't actually going to write this tonight.  I was going to have a nice hot bath and a glass of cider as Mr Neats is at work.  But Mr 2 decided sleep was over rated and has been out of bed 3 times since I tucked him in.  I think he's finally asleep, but I'm not going to jinx it by trying to run a bath now. Sigh.

Til next time.