Life in the new nest

It has been 154 days since we moved into our new nest. And yes, I still have things to unpack!

We are just loving our new home and have settled in well. The Klingons each have their own bedroom and the dogs (x3 now) have all the space in the world to run around like mad hounds.

I've been plodding around in the garden and Captain Awesome is busy putting in irrigation for me.

See, I inherited a lovely vegetable and herb garden when we bought The Nest, so my itchy green finger is finally getting a chance to make things bloom! Yay for me!!

I have a range of things growing at the moment, including:

• Broccoli
• Chives
• Frilly Lettuce
• Pepperdews
• Rocket
• Lemon Grass
• Mint (2 variants)
• Basil (3 variants)
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Patty Pans
• Baby Marrows
• Green and Purple mini cabbages
• Sage

Plus, bonus of all bonus'... I have a bay leaf tree! Nothing compares to having fresh bay leaves in food as apposed to the dried ones! LOVE IT!

My youngest Klingon loves carrots. So we devoted a whole bed for her to do her thing and she is growing her own carrots. It's terribly cute to watch her diligently water the bed. Now we just need to separate the seedlings because she was a little "heavy handed" when sowing and the poor things are not going to survive it.

My son learned how to replant and pot a plant the other day and is taking great pride in watching it grow bigger by the day.

Now, I am not an expert in the great world of gardening, but have learned a thing or two as I've gone along. I'm learning more each day too.

I'll share with you what I discover along the way. Oh and as you know me to be the Bargain Bessy that I am,  I will also share with you great bargains that I find along the way.

One thing that has saved us quite a bit of money (as we are frequent flyers at Stodels Somerset West) is the Stodels Club Card. I'm loving the discounts and free gifts each month! January was little sample bags of organic fertilizer ... well let me tell you, it didn't have a chance to hit the garden by my hand. It made its way into a patch of grass on the front lawn thanks to our boisterous 2 yr old Labrador, Sandy. She thought it was the best thing since coming to live with us and ate half a bag while rolling in the other. Max, our 5 yr old Chow also decided it was worth a roll too and matched that with much drool. Leaving us to deal with smelly, well fertilized dogs (who sleep in the house at night) and a rather vivacious patch of lawn. As well as the product works, it has unfortunately led us to believe that we have to go with a less smelly option to fertilize with around the garden - for our sanity and sense of smell at the very least.

I'm always trying to find ways of dealing with garden pests (and no I don't mean my "I-love-to-urinate-on-mommy's-lettuce" Chow) that won't affect my pets in any way. Snails have been a bit of an issue and my new friend, Tommy, at Stodels showed me a great organic snail repellent that works like a bomb! ... Note to self: sprinkle more snail repellent soon...
Many a plant has been saved thanks to the great advice I've received so far :)

So whats coming up for March I hear you ask???

I'm planning on planting some peas (amongst other things).... just need to find a spot to put them. These plants that need some form of support as they grow up and then produce fruit and fall over (yes this has happened to me with my very productive cherry tomatoes) are going to be getting a new form of support from me that I saw on one of my browsing sessions.

They look something like this:

The wire just needs to be big enough to put your hand through so you can harvest your tomatoes or whatever you've planted there. Pretty darn cool I think! And not too pricey to put together either! I shall post the progress on this when it happens :)

I also want to plant shallots. Will keep them a space next to the lettuce as its good to plant it with them (companion planting here we come). Must make sure to keep them far from the peas though as they are not friends while growing.

Anyway, I have much planning to do and will post again soon! If you want info on something, let me know and I'll post about it :)

xxx

M

7 days left!!

So we went over to the new nest last night to go see the paint colour in the main room (they're painting there first so that the carpet can be put in on Tuesday) and to see the finished product of the floor being sanded.

The paint looks so good and is going to work beautifully throughout the whole house!

The floor is just gorgeous. I tried to take some pics with my cell phone, but it doesn't do it justice:

I am so chuffed with how they've turned out and beyond glad that we don't have to do anything other than seal them now - saves a little bit of cash we can now use elsewhere if needs be :)

This weekend is going to be full of moving mom-in-law into her new abode, helping backstage with the littlest klingon's ballet concert, packing, purging and god-willing, sleeping and snuggling.

Oh and btw -  if you want to offer to help, rather feel free to just pitch up and help instead. I suck at asking for help. I think most people offer but seldom want to actually help - those that do, just generally pitch up and jump right in with the helping hands. How have you experienced that in the past?

xxx
M

10 days and counting...

Twelve paint samples later and we finally found the colour we’ve been looking for. Who knew it would be so frikken hard to find the right shade of a colour! Got every shade from grey to yellow and it was no where NEAR what I asked for. Finally went in and saw swatches of paint of actual colours … not the colour chart ones but of actual paint painted onto cardboard. Finally get the shade we want!

Now here’s hoping its going to look as amazing as I’m envisioning it. Captain Awesome has been giving me free range while also giving his welcomed opinions so its not all me doing this … promise!

Needless to say we were in for a nice surprise when they sanded the white washed parquet flooring. Turns out it’s the most beautiful Oregon pine! We’ve decided to keep it natural and not go the white wash route we were originally thinking of.  It’s coming together so nicely.

Here are some "before" photos:

 Lounge/Dining Room

 Lounge/Dining Room

Lounge/Dining Room 

View from dining room into back yard

25 days and counting

25 Days left to the impending move.

My house looks like the full force of a torrential storm has popped in for a cup of tea and left behind
massive mayhem and destruction. Ok, maybe not the whole house. Just the “study” currently looks
like an episode of Extreme Hoarders.

In my head I’ve already moved into our new place and my garage (which is totally awesome by the
way) looks so beautifully organised with some office space and all my arts and crafts things neatly
packed into their assigned places – something like this:

The study/man cave is well organised and looks like a room he’d want to spend time in.

The kitchen is an organised dream with everything in its right place.

…

Can you see the trend here? The word “organised” seems to be popping up all over the place. See I
would very much LIKE to be very organised in our new home. I would very much LIKE to have all the storage ideas I’ve seen put into place and being used. However the realist though, I’ve come to the
conclusion that my magic wand is totally broken and Mary Poppins I am not. Ladies and Gents, this is
definitely going to take some time and some planning.

I am going to be wishing that I was a stay at home mom with time on my hands to “organise” to
perfection. But this isn’t in the cards at this time and I will need to utilise many a weekend and
evening to get my voluptuous ass into gear.

My heart of hearts is aching to make sure that our new home is a safe haven for the family and for
friends. To make sure that Captain Awesome has his man cave and that he’s happy with his space.
That my three Klingons are well settled and happy in their new bedrooms. And that Mom’s Space is
well organised and doesn’t look like the inside of an overstocked junk yard. I would however like to
add at this moment that although it may look like a glorified mess to most, its “organised chaos”. I
have a pretty darn good idea of where something I’m looking for is. Unless someone moved it. Or
tidied up!

Right now, however, I have to slap myself into the present and stop living in a house we haven’t
moved into yet. We’ll never get in there if I don’t seriously start packing up the storm ravished areas
and throwing out much unnecessary things we have lying around. I’d LIKE to move into our new
home without excess baggage.

…I’m sure I don’t really need that extra craft stuff I’ve been saving for an eon. …. Although …

Pinterest - Part 1

I'm sure there are many of you out there that have discovered the joys of the Pinterest site.

Yes, I am one of them.

No, I haven't tried everything yet ... time and money are playing a horrid game against me there.

I am very keen to try a few things that I have seen on the site though. And this morning, I did just that.

I'm just too lazy to go look for the link to this particular thingi, but I did take pictures, so I figured I'd just put those on here to show you the making of my very own bacon and egg "cupcakes".

Step one, grease the muffin pan (or spray and cook it until its ghostly white instead ... much less messy than greasing a pan by hand, yes, but for the love of GOD leave a window open or do it outside before you gag and die on your muffin pan).

Step two, very creatively line the muffin pan with bacon .... (who doesn't LOVE bacon???)

Step three, mix up some "scrambled egg mix" (aka eggs and milk - i used about 8 large eggs for one muffin pan) and pour in the mixture (about half way or three quarter way .... it "rises")

Step four, pop the pan in a pre-heated oven (180 degrees C) for about 20 min.

Step five, eat 'em while they're hot!!!

These were super quick and easy to make and delicious!

Next time I'm going to add cheese and some other ingredients (company dependent) like chili, onion, peppers, etc. I figure you can really go moggy with this one and enjoy it any way you like ... kinda like a omelet cupcake of sorts.

So this one was definitely a "Pinterest WIN" in my books.

Try it and let me know how it goes!
xxx
M

Oh look, I still have a blog!

Yeah I know - it has been a while. And so much has been happening.

I'll admit, I'd have to go read my last post to see exactly how long and refresh my own memory. How bad is that!

Anyway, moving on swiftly. Much to share!

We're moving.

Again.

We've been in this current rental since 28 December 2011. Yup. Haven't even had a Christmas in this house yet. The owner upped and sold the place. This turned out to be quite the blessing in disguise. Because we ended up finding THE perfect spot and the awesomeness that is my husband upped and bought it (biiiiiiiiig happy grin).

So lots going on right now and much to tell.

I will be posting a few interesting things over the next few days and hope you enjoy them.

Yes yes, photo's will follow!

Love ya long time!
Meegs

Living with ADHD

My boy is 11 years old and was diagnosed (correctly before some of you go off about different methods of treating this) with ADHD a while ago. He is on meds (yes it's what he needs) and they work well.

I read this article posted on Parent24.com today and I want to share it with you.


So what's going on inside an ADHDer's brain, an ADHDers nervous system...?

I have never been diagnosed with ADHD, nor am I on any kind of treatment, but there is no doubt in my mind that I do indeed have ADHD, most likely the combined type, definitely with hyperactivity.

I have wished so many times that my darling knucklehead could explain to me what it feels like to be in his head, but he isn't able to do so. I have found a few adult ADHDer blogs and its an incredible eye-opener to read them because it gives me a little bit of insight into how my boy's mind works, and I am grateful for that...

But every now and then I catch myself doing something that I know I should make a note of for others to learn from... but I just don't get around to it!

Then last night, I was sitting in the kitchen working on my admin, and I had a blasted earworm! I honestly can't remember the song that was chomping its way through my brain, but I do remember having to consciously and repeatedly focus on repressing the insane urge to belt out the chorus at full volume there in my kitchen with my hubby watching TV and working on his laptop in the lounge behind me! He would have had a heart attack!

Now if I was battling (and I was successful but I had to really work at it) not to blurt out a song at the top of my voice, can you imagine how hard it is for a schoolchild who has not had years of learning impulse control like my 38 year old self has!??

Does it sound far-fetched?

If you think about it I am sure you can remember your own ADHDer suddenly yelling out some random string of words or a TV show battle cry or a song- completely out of context and completely inappropriately- and wondering where it came from or what brought it on!?

How about this one as food for thought. I will be sitting on the couch watching TV, or lying in bed reading, believing I am completely relaxed and calm, and I will get the weirdest sensation in my leg (or both legs) that will NOT go away unless I move. And not just move or change position, I have to make several repetitive movements- twitching, kicking, bouncing, anything- to stop the tingle. Its like my bone is vibrating and I have to move to stop  it.

Sound crazy?

Imagine a child feeling the same thing. How is a youngster going to stay in his seat or stand still in line when a feeling in his own legs is about to send him round the twist!!??

I'm not making excuses for bad or inappropriate behaviour, and with a little maturity and learning it can be "controlled", but perhaps the next time you're dealing with some strange outburst or unexplainable behaviour, you might remember this blog post and realise that they really can't always help themselves- their bodies sometimes do things before their brains have a chance to put the brakes on.





I so agree with this woman! I know there is lots of behaviour that happens that just can't be explained. My boy struggles to remember things and struggles to focus ... even with his meds. It's actually hard for me to explain this to other people who've never had to deal with an ADHD child. Most just don't understand and are convinced that the child is just rude or misbehaving. But that isn't the case. And no, I'm not trying to make excuses for my child either. He has to learn to control himself just like the rest of us had to. He is disciplined when I can see its not an ADHD thing. Social skills are taught not by words, but by actions .... and let me tell you something.... its hard to always show actions that teach the correct thing ... we are but human.

Anyway, thought it might make for interesting reading - look forward to your feedback if you have any :)

xxx
M