A bit of colour

We've been looking for something to give the long family room wall a bit of zing, but our searching has turned up a big fat zero.

So my incredibly talented other half edited some photos from our Thailand trip of a few years ago and came up with this.  Officeworks printed it up on canvas, and Bob's your Uncle...

Which sits right here...

And the whole room looks like...

Might have to get Loz to work his magic on some more pics to fill the entire wall :)

3 month...

True to their word, Carlisle contacted us just before our 3 month house anniversary to arrange our maintenance inspection.  A really nice guy came out and gave the house a thorough look through, jotting down any of our concerns at the same time...and I'm pleased to say that we had less than half a page of defects and ALL of them incredibly minor;

• a little floor repair
• the expansion joint for the floating floor in the hallway
• a small plaster tear caused by the Jetmaster installer
• some minor cracking to be patched
• laundry door seal
• clips on the gutters

AND THAT'S IT!!!!!

All but the floor has been attended to, and as we came to expect from Carlisle tradies, they were completely respectful of our home and just generally nice, chatty guys. It helps when they ooh and ahh over your home too - but then, we're so proud of it we'd even drag the postie in for a look.

I can't imagine us ever wanting to move from here, but iiiiiiiiiif we did, I'd definitely build again and wouldn't hesitate to go with Carlisle again too. (just hope that whatever they are planning to replace the soon to be closed Monaco display with isn't too much of an improvement over what we have, or that day may come sooner than Loz is expecting...) (just jokes Loz) (???)

How does your garden grow?

Ours has gone crazy considering it's less than 3months old.

Here's some snippets from around the orange house;

The narrow bed beside our driveway has Dianella "Casa Blue" and Climbing Fig which has already started to stretch out on the fence.

The grasses that run either side of our entrance deck have begun to flower.

As has the Blueberry Ash that we have along our northern boundary. They now peep about a foot above the fence line.

I love the way the "Chinese Star Jasmine" has reached up to the first run of wire.

The mass planting of Dianella in front of the stacked stone wall has gone crazy. These little guys have doubled in size already.

So completely besotted with Kangaroo Paw right now.

Put it all together and it looks like this;

Knifed in the back

I've had a dodgy back for somewhere between 4 and 6 years - can't remember when it started coz these things don't always have an exact beginning.

Anyway - I thought I'd been doing a really good job of managing it, especially considering we moved 3 months ago.  So when it flared up again roughly 6 weeks ago, I was so incredibly pissed off as I couldn't see what had triggered it.  In true Reinsey style, instead of listening, I pushed through, ignoring the increasing numbness and then pain in my left leg.

To cut a looooooong story short, I actually went to the GP (rare for me) and he ordered an MRI on my lower back.  I had this done on Monday 31/10.  Mum and I had a quick look at the pics and thought holy crap, there's something in there. Go back to the GP on Wednesday morning and I'm sent immediately to Monash hospital.  By this time my left leg is completely useless and the sensation (or lack thereof) is spreading across my body as well.  Freak out meter = 5/10 but I still drive myself to hospital.  As you do!

See a neurosurgeon and I'm on the list for surgery first thing in the morning.  Riiiiiiight.  So can I go home now, promise I'll come back in the morning?  Nooooooooo.  Freak out meter = 7.5/10.

I was so unprepared for this I barely had any charge left on my phone and work - oh God - there was so much I had to get done!

So here I am 11 days post-op and feeling  better than I have in years.  I can't sit down for more than 3 x 20 minute sessions a day.  The rest of the time I have to be on my feet or flat on my back.  But not too long on my back or scar tissue will form.  Not too long on my feet either.  I've just begun working a few hours a day standing at my PC, but man o man am I dying to go out shopping for browny-greeny-white things!!

Turns out the nerves were completed compressed from a severely bulging disc and they performed a laminectomy on my L5/S1.

The best part...my tramp stamp is still virtually intact.

I've been so blessed to have been visited by some incredibly special people (you know who you are).  A HUGE thank you for keeping my spirits up (and for the grouse house mags Kylie). Mum & Loz - you're both amazing :)

Much love,
Reinsey
xxx

Enough already!

Have you ever seen anything like this endless, unrelenting rain? I think we now have Lake Cranbourne in our backyard.

If I can just work out how to teach the four-legged children to wipe their feet on their way inside...  :)

A cushy job

I've been collecting green & brown cushions for a couple of years now (I know Janine - why was I having an orange splashback???) and they're all sitting happily on the family room couch.  It's not that big a collection, coz it's gotta be juuuust the right green.  You know??

10 bonus points to anyone who noticed "Ramsay" in that last collage.  He fair dinkum poses for the camera.  Complete dag of a dog :)

Bit of a fan of this room.  Just need (to agree on) some artwork for above the couch and fix my own artwork on the fireplace wall (that painting tape NEVER gives me a clean edge) and it's done!
I love living here :)

Afternoon Tea recipe for the domestically challenged

Take 1 quick trip to the local bakery
Add 2 fellow chatterboxes
Plus 3 cups of coffee
and settle in for the afternoon

It just doesn't get much better I tells ya :)

Brown & green should never be seen

But I disagree!

Am l.o.v.i.n.g. all the greeny brown-ness at our place right about now.

I'm trying to  keep to the same tones; Jasper brown & Plantain green throughout.

We're about half way through painting the fences Jasper too.

So I think I've changed my mind about brown (but shhhhhh...don't tell Loz I said so)

p.s. those three tealights are on the fireplace wall.  Yep, it's Jasper!

Sheer yumminess

We had our sheers installed in our master bedroom a few weeks ago but with the weather being so blah of late they haven't really had a chance to show off.


Until today;

Mmmmm...they look all soft and romantic like.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE living here :)

You can stick it

I don't understand why every second car is sporting a set of these;

Clearly Dad has a mistress on the side but packs his clubs every Saturday to give him 4 hours of freedom. Mum has some form of online addiction. The daughter has a leg deformity. The son is wearing a scarf with shorts - clearly a poof! And they've got a dog.  Did I REALLY need to know this?


Some people have become a little clever...

Could be wrong, but I don't think these are their real names.

This one I approve of, except for the senseless violence!

If you have your family stuck to your window, please don't be offended - but can you explain to me WHY????   I just don't get it.

Sock? Errr.........

I'm lucky, lucky, lucky to have ducted vac in the orange house, which was supposed to come with a hose sock, but didn't.  Nooo...its not to keep the vac warm, it's to stop the hose leaving marks on every corner it gets dragged past.

To me, this was one of those do I REALLY care that much about a sock situations.  I'm sure, like me, you have them every day! But dammit, it was in the contract, so I want it.

Well today, after nine weeks of dogged perseverance, I welcome "sock" into the family. Has it been worth the twice (and sometimes more) weekly phone calls?  Probably not, but it had become a bit of a game to me, and I won.  Do you hear me Argus Technologies?  I WON!!!!!

Now I'm off to vacuum....

Cool places...part 2

This weekend the search was on for somewhere to take the furkids exploring, and we found;

HASTINGS FORESHORE PARK

It was a nice, albeit windy walk.  But the best part... an off-lead area for the puppies.

Ramsay gives this place a big panting, paws up :)

Cool places to go in Cranbourne

Confession time...
I WAS one of those people who thought that Cranny was full of bogans with 11 kids under 12, a front yard car kept for spare parts & dole queues longer than the line for a train after a Collingwood v Carlton game at the "G".

What we've found since we purchased a little slice of 3977 is that, sure, there may be tiny pockets like that, but it's a damn good place to live.  The people are seriously friendlier.  Everyone says hello or at least nods in your direction.  And shop people give much better customer service.  How I LOVE good customer service!

So now that we're here, we thought we might start exploring the area and finding some cool places in and around Cranny.

Although we've been here once before, this place is now free, FREE, FREEEEEEEEE. So first stop on the Loz and Reinsey 3977 discovery tour is...

CRANBOURNE BOTANIC GARDENS

Don't groan - it really IS cool.  And it's all native.  There's loads of ideas for those of us with new gardens to create;

Yeah, it's possibly an old person kind of thing (not that I'M old) (the "old boy" could be though), but it's under 10 minutes from home and did I mention it's FREE?

Tree mail

A few weeks ago I had to leave for work early on a Sunday morning and I was seriously pi$$ed that I had to drive to Geelong after a late one the night before.  By the time I arrived I was still completely feeling sorry for myself until I spied the most random workshop right there in front of the venue.  It was called iron and wood or something like that, and since our garden has a rustic flavour, I popped in on the off chance that they made letterboxes.  It must have been fate, coz they'd only JUST carved this massive hunk of redgum in half.

I reckon there's going to be people who share our love for it, people who point and laugh and people who are too polite to tell us we've lost the plot.  Are you brave enough to tell us which category you fit into?

Introducing our new mail box...

I know, right!  It's a freaking TREE!!!

View from the house

This is how she looked before becoming a mail box!

I leant a few lessons that day.  Sometimes you have to trust that you're in exactly the place you're meant to be & that a Holden Cruze is a lot roomier than it looks.

The daily commute

We now have a considerably longer trip to work every day.  I say "we" although Loz and I don't work together. The old boy drives my company car to his work and drops himself off.  Sexist...no!  Scared of me being behind the wheel...totally! Then I finish off the journey, so from door to door, on a good morning it's 1.5 hours. Not complaining, just saying it how it is.

I'm not the greatest of passengers (or drivers, obviously) so at about the hour mark I get really restless and just wanna GET OUT OF THE FREAKING CAR.  So Loz (he's so sweet) and I have been playing a few car games to mark time.  We've started playing "what's the person next door doing" and oh my god, you wouldn't believe what some people get up to in their cars. 

So far this week we've seen people;
Putting on mascara (it's okay, was a female) but not at traffic lights - at 80kph on Princes Highway
Reading a novel - also at 80k

A VERY short woman who seriously was looking between the steering wheel and dash
Several full on arguments
About 12 different versions of people being up to their elbows in their nose

But the MOST entertaining part of the morning drive is when we meet the peleton on St. Kilda Road.  When the sun's out there's literally 100's of cyclists that are supposed t stay in their lane.  It's hilarious to see what they wear, but even more hilarious to watch the jostling for position at the lights to take front position. Anyone would think there's a yellow jersey on offer, but no, just another set of lights 200m up the road.  So as to not offend anyone I won't call them wankers, but seriously.....

And if that chick in the little black Honda that cut me off majorly this morning happens to be reading this, get f@#*ed. I mean that in the politest way, of course!