Rachael's Happy Life!: A blog post a week 6/52

Yes this is me

This week has been a pretty stock standard week - we are now getting back into normal life.

Work was a bit crazy for me, as is the first 4 weeks of term. Lots of new students in the library (I love it). I will quieten down over then next couple of weeks.

The boys are settling well into school and our therapies/skills development is about to all start up. Greg will start helping out at school and afternoons will be busy with me completing homework etc.

I admit, we have quite strict routines and we run our house like a bit of a military camp. But you know what, it works for us and the boys. They don't really do relaxed, easygoing parenting. The meltdowns are epic and I don't recommend them to anyone. We prep the boys for everything so they know and there are no surprises. We have a VERY busy house with everyone coming and going. I know in the long term the work that we are putting in now will benefit them in the future.

I think back to the days with my girls. OMG it was so easy and I was so ignorant. How times have changed!

Anyway, back to life.

We celebrated Mum's birthday. Greg and I took Mum and Dad to Aussie World Pub to try it out. It was really nice. I forgot to take photos until after we had finished eating *sigh*, but Mum was still going as she is a slow eater LOL. My sister came along too which was great.

The food was very nice, the service was wonderful and it was lovely to sit on the balcony. The noise from the Bruce Highway was "there" as a constant background noise. I would have thought they would have tried to block it in some way but they haven't.

They have renovated - or are in the process of renovating the place. Hmmmm, my honest opinion is that they have really missed the mark unfortunately. It's clear they have spend an awful lot of money on it, but it looks cheap and nasty and gaudy. It could have been classy and classic - with a bit of funky fun, but it just screams run down carnival to me (really bright distressed paintwork), with a bit of cheap pub tropical (grass thatched roof look). Each to their own I suppose, but it really didn't look very nice to my eyes. It will be interesting to see what happens to it in the future.

I got myself a new handbag from the op shop for $3.25! (they were having a sale LOL). It is a Forever New brand. I was looking for a big black bag and this fit the bill. I couldn't complain for the $$. New it's about $60.

I'm still revamping the bedroom furniture. I finished my second bedside table this past week and it looks great. Unfortunately the bed frame was going to be an issue, due to the colour not matching and it being difficult to paint etc.

I bought that bed frame many years ago off Ebay (before Gumtree was even around I think) and when we came here and set it up, Greg went to move it and accidentally cracked the frame. So, I decided it was time for a new bed frame.

I found this very cool iron bed on Gumtree and fell in love (I think a number of people did actually as she had a waiting list of 4 people). It was located in North Brisbane - about 1 hours away, so we loaded up the kids and the trailer on Saturday and headed down. The lady I bought it off said she paid quite a lot of money for it (and I believe her) and had it shipped up from Sydney. She is an interior designer and was downsizing so needed to sell it. I'm very happy with it (and I saved a lot of $$ getting it second hand). It's not a chunky as the wood bed and it makes the bedroom look more spacious.

Loving the new bed frame

We have had a week of on and off good rain and the plants are all looking fantastic. We desperately needed the rain so it was very welcome.

Front of house looking good - these are the little standards that I got for $10 ea on the half dead plant stand. They are going great guns now.

I decided I would do a project crochet blanket this year and the pattern and yarn came all the way from the UK. This will be my biggest project to date. I may have bitten off more than I can chew (hopefully not) but I started the first bit of it and am a little confused. I contacted the writer of the pattern to see if she could video herself making the square (so I could follow - I'm a visual learner), but she said she wasn't allowed due to copyright to the magazine (OH NO) 😞😢. However, she asked me to send her a photo and she will let me know where/if I am going wrong (YAY) 😍. I hope to be able to get through it with her assistance. I'll show you progress 😊 I still have to finish my other blanket, so will show that too once completed (not enough hours in the day!!),

Have you ever tried a Dragon Fruit? How cool do they look. They are in season up here and I hadn't tried one, so Greg brought me one home.

It tastes fairly bland really - no real strong taste of anything. Apparently they have lots of anti-oxidants so I am putting some in my smoothies. Very yummy.

Greg is busy painting the outside of the house (mainly down pipes) and doing little fiddly jobs around the place - that's all he could do with the rain this week.

In more exciting news - we are getting some visitors for 2 weeks and I can't wait.