Green Thumb'd Gal

Walking around my block on the weekend I was actually quite surprised at just how much outdoor space I have .... Its kind of amazing that I am going to have space for a pool and a little bit of grassed area as well as a bloody big vegetable patch.

The thing is the more space you have the more green you have to fill it with ....

I want to use espaliated fruit trees against the wall I am building blocking out the neighbors from hell....

I am also going to have two olive trees near the alfresco and the pool area is going to have a lovely frangipani and pebbles.

I know I'm going to have a lovely grey paver done in almost like a polish concrete... the pool is either going to be black or a green so I'm definitely getting there.

Here are some of my other inspiration photo's

Progress - Baby Steps

So today its about the house .... My house! YAY - I just love saying that. Anyways so not alot is happening on the house front but they are taking baby steps.

My pantry has finally been fixed!

For those who dont read regularly the pantry was too small. This is my only real screw up in terms of layout and I wanted it fixed. Builders said it wasnt possible ... then after arguing it was but it was going to cost us $3,000 dollars! Heart attack right there but we said fine, its important to me so we signed over our loves for one teeny tiny little wall and door move..... and then we waited.

Well they have finally done it, they moved my wall and it took them less than a day but at least its done.

Looking at that lovely 2.6m of space I now how opens up so many possibilities. Here is what I have decided on.

I am having two floor to ceiling cabinet units like the ones below and then im going to have half units around the corner and then overheads as well. I am going to have a plain white benchtop for all my lovely glass canisters and then im going to paint the wall between benchtop and overhead units with blackboard paint a bit like below?

What do you think? Will it work? Have i got enough storage .... final question, am I obsessing over a pantry.... hell yeah!

The Romance Is Dead

Not long after I wrote the ridiculously mushy email about how much I miss my husband he has to go ahead and ruin it.

Oh yes, hubby managed not only to destroy all the lovely romantic feelings I had but even managed to replace them with a sense if rage and injustice at his unfair and perhaps even brutal comments over the phone.

You see - he called me frivolous. He said I had a way of always finding something to spend money on. Obviously you can imagine at the end of his little lecture I was seeing red and it isn't fair because when he is away he can just hang up the phone and I'm left there, angry and upset and I cant even give him the silent treatment!

So obviously not only do I vent to you on here but I decided to write him an email to set it straight. Now usually I would say ... wait till you calm down before you do anything stupid but to be honest... if someone called you frivolous you would want to kick them in the shins too right????

So this is what I wrote.

"To My Darling Husband

From our recent conversation it seems you may be unaware of the value of living. Obviously not cheaply but comfortably and definitely not excessively.

I feel that if you become aware of what things cost you may not lash out verbally every time you see a figure that involves more than two digits!

So here we go – the value of money in 10 easy steps

Number 1 - A Soft Serve Cone from MacDonald’s $0.50c

Number 2 - 2 Litres of Milk $4.87

Number 3 - A basic office takeway lunch $10.00

Number 4 - Basic Surf Tshirt $40.00 approx

Number 5 - 60L’s of petrol $80.00 approx

Number 6 - Dinner for 2 somewhere nice $120.00 approx (in Perth)

Number 7 - A flight to Melbourne $320.00

Number 8 - Shire Land Rates for a year $1200.00

Number 9 - An overseas Holiday  $10,000 - $15,000 not including spending

Number 10 - The cost of upsetting your wife 50% of everything! "

Obviously this is just a tongue in cheek way of me telling him how displeased I was with his obviously unjust treatment of me .... and it worked. I received a very nice apology and I'm getting taken out to dinner next week.

Moral of the story .... Words hurt.... even if they may be slightly true, not that I'm saying I am frivolous but I will admit its a possiblity .... oh yes and the other moral ... unhappy wife, unhappy life even from 12 hours away! 

I Think Im A Closet Romantic

Ha - that title is funny in so many ways!

Firstly I should say, I adore my husband and cant imagine anyone better to spend the rest of my life with ... (except perhaps George Clooney but lets not go there on the off chance he does read this) however let me make this clear. I don't believe that relationships are all flowers and kisses and teddy bears. On occasion I don't particularly like my husband and I'm brave enough to say .... I'm sure there are times when he doesn't particularly like me.

HOWEVER - I think either I'm still drunk from the weekend or perhaps hiding somewhere is a closet romantic.

Now let me tell you where I'm going with this. So still focusing on my dressing room my original plan was to have a series of fashion plates displayed on one wall like these below.

 I love this idea and have wanted to do it forever .... BUT - and this is where the closet (get it dressing room / closet) romantic bit comes into it. What if instead of fashion plates I use pictures ... and yes it get worse. What if I use famous kissing photos.

Ok now you get where I'm going. I just really love these photo's. I can imagine the spontaneity that would go into these photos and maybe I should be bringing a little bit of that into my bedroom ... obviously not in plain view but what do you prefer ..... fashion plates or pictures of love!

Trying Harder To Get It Right....

Ok - Personally for me I think its important to make sure your house reflects you. It shouldn't be a display home looking perfect, but having very little relevance to your life or who you are .... People should be able to look at your house and say .... I get that, I understand how this is significant to them.

As you may have guessed hubby happens to work in an industry where things get built. I'm not talking houses, I'm talking bridges and mine sites where its very raw and everything is exposed. So when he sent me a website that showed Corten Steel Cladding (Rusty looking metal to those like me who just looked at that name dumbly) it seemed to just fit. We have both worked in the Pilbara, we have both cursed the red dust and although I don't particularly want to go back (my hair just wouldn't cope) when I looked at the images it instantly resonated with me ... this is us, this is part of who we are, silly as that sounds.

Although the idea of using lovely laser cut screens on that curved wall sounds amazing are we just getting something because it looks nice instead of trying harder to look at what suits us.

Corten is definitely not as pretty, probably a bit more earthy, a bit more raw looking and although the house is  in no way / shape or form going to be rough looking I think this might provide a nice contrast... oh and can you imagine how well it will look with the green / grey colours I have used on my external walls???

Just Go Away - Whoever You Are!

So for the last 24 hours I have heard the saying "these things are sent to test us" about sixteen times. Fine but when I find out who the hell sends these "things" I am going to tell them to go away and leave me alone!

Let me start at the beginning. It seems when it comes to booking a holiday to Europe I am cursed. Strong words I know but wait and you will understand. So almost 3 years ago we got married and our honeymoon was going to be Europe. It was all booked and we were so excited and then disaster struck. A couple of weeks before the wedding Hubby got offered a full time position with the company he was contracting for ... brilliant opportunity - the icing on the cake as far as we were concerned ... except, he needed to fly out 2 days after the wedding. Holiday Cancelled.

This time, I booked early, paid everything in advance .... nothing was going to go wrong. I actually remember saying to friends that this time its really going to work... we got down to 7 weeks and things were still going to plan .... and then yesterday I got a phone call. The main section of our holiday - 2 weeks out of the six was a tour.... was cancelled.

Oh bugger. So last night we had to frantically try and sort out an alternate itinerary. To be honest I didn't even have time to feel sorry for myself. I just had to get something sorted because the idea of just showing up and not having everything set into stone makes me break out in hives.

So there you have it - so far we are still going however I'm not going to say that anything else wont happen because no doubt it will.... but this time - I will be prepared.

Thought I would share my itinerary with you in photos.... because its so much more interesting than me just babbling on. If anyone has visited anywhere or has any great ideas on what to do please let me know your thoughts.... as I said, until about 1 in the morning I was slightly lost!

Stop 1 - Seven days in London

Stop 2 - Four days in Paris

Stop 3 - Four days in Berlin

Stop 4 - Four days in Warsaw

Stop 5 - Five days in Prague

Stop 6 - Five days in Rome

Stop 7 - Three days in Venice

After another two days in Paris and two more days in London

Stop 8 - Five days in Dubai

Just Plain Cool

Ok so I am desperately in love with this clock - Its called a Qlock Two and it actually spells out the time.

As soon as a saw it I went ... I want it like yesterday ... so I spent a good hour searching for the damn thing.... I was so determined to buy it - I just had to have it .... until I found out the price.

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS for a clock ... I think not!

See honey, Even I have a button in my head that says ... to much!

So I will be admiring from a distance .... It is pretty damn cool though isn't it?