Bye Bye Mookies

First time in nearly 11 years we've had no stock on the land.

The last couple of steers when off to the sale yards today. I keep panicking when I can't see them in the paddocks and then I remember they are gone.

We are definitely getting ready to put the house on the market and sell peeps! Wooooohoooooo

I looked out the window and saw this at one stage ... haha

Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes ...

As some of you may be aware The Fashionista is a "little bit" interested in dancing ... in fact even at 12, she can't stand still and can be found dancing around the house constantly. She always has and I thought maybe it was something she might grow out but of course it has only gotten stronger and faster and the leaps bigger.

At present she is dancing three times a week. Ballet 2 hours a week and contemporary on the third evening. It is a 95km round trip and we don't get home until 8pm one evening, 7pm the next and 6pm on another night. It is tiring and is costing us a fortune in petrol. With the Papa's shift work it means a lot of the time Agent Smelly has to come with us, which really is starting to get on her nerves as she is an early to bed girl and doesn't do well with the late nights.

TF has decided that she really wants to become a dancer (not necessarily a ballet dancer). She has even advised us that if she can't make it on the stage then she will be teach dance and either history or science in high school so she has really thought it through and is quite driven. At each class she always gives it her all. You would think she is trying out for a show at every class. She has her dad's competitiveness I think!  She has been online looking at dance academies in Australia as well as NZ  to attend when she is older. Of course she would like to take on extra classes now but obviously due to the distance that is not really an option at the moment.

Agent Smelly also wants to play basketball and would like to take some drama classes. She is quite the little actress I can tell you! So it will be better for both girls (and their taxi driving mama) for them to be closer to some other activities that they wish to do.

So what this boils down to, after much discussion, we decided that we are going to shift closer to a bigger city. The girls were not very happy at first but soon came around and are now quite excited at the impending move.  In the past two weeks we have been looking at homes and the area where we are interested in moving to.

But with the decision that we would move TF made a rather surprising request ... "would it be OK if I tried High School when we move?" ...

My Command Centre takes Off

I have been after a command centre for ages. I just love them and am hoping it will make me that little bit more organised ... dreams are free my friends!

For those that haven't seen them on Pinterest (that will be you my friend, Sue Elvis, but we will bring you around!)  here are a couple of examples ...

 

 

 

I decided to combine a couple of my loves in order to start my project, ie repurposing something old (I know how it is to start to being a bit older and feeling a bit useless hence my repurposing everything that I can!) and getting something snazzy for a real bargain.

 

Anyone remember these old spice racks? Well I picked this one up from the place I volunteer at for the princley sum of $2. People who know me will not be surprised that I always come home from there with some "find". I can't help myself.

Here she is again all snazzified with some black gloss test paint that I found in the garage. I wasn't going to go black but it seems to hide a multitude of sins (she was a bit yukkier in real life than the photo actually looks) and also will give a modern feel to my study, which should help with the house sale in due course, where the command centre will probably end up. I am not entirely sure what will go in it yet possibly some mail, invoices, receipts or such.

So that is my first piece for my command centre ... piece two is already on it's way peeps! Stay tuned.

The "Latest" study area!

I was reading the lovely Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus blog the other day on swoonworthy learning spaces / homeschool rooms and although we have had dedicated home school work spaces before somehow we've managed to end up back at the dining table. They haven't always worked for us. The study was too small and confined and the spare room, well it got very messy and cluttered as it was too big for just a school room for too so I ended up with crafts, toys etc.you name it in there. Needless to stay it ended up a mess and not a happy place!

Unfortunately Tina's "swoonworthy" pictures of homeschool rooms got me all motivated again and this time I decided to cut off part of my "parent's retreat" (obviously the architect who designed that room didn't have kids or hadn't met ours ... cause there's no retreating from them anywhere!) to make a little study area.

Things are on the move.

So I started pulling the shelves and other homeschooling things out of my study.

I then had to unload ALL the books (peeps there must be a cut off point for accumulating too many books!!!) so I could move some book shelves. This was exhausting! I had to take many a break to pop onto facebook to get some inspiration and motivation from my friend Kat. OK I was just sick of it after 15 minutes and decided to annoy her.

Now in it's new home in the retreat.

Once the new shelves are set up, I will redo these shelves as they are rather packed at the moment and not looking at all "swoonworthy"!

Looking from the lounge room (double doors) into the retreat.

Now what you can't see in this picture is on the left of me in the room are towers of books that wont fit back into the shelves. I had to bring some school books out of the study which has used up extra space. Fortunately I can purchase the same shelving unit as those other two and it will fit alongside them so I am rather pleased with that. Guess what I'll be doing Saturday .. shopping for my new unit ... yeah. That will be shelf set number 10 for our house! OK the one's in the girls rooms are filled with toys and ornaments so they don't count.

 

Two excited girls.

These two monkeys are loathe to leave the table, they love it so much ... they even asked to eat their lunch there! I said no, after all I had just vacuumed! This window and door leads to the back verandah. (It's was very foggy here this morning; OK the window / door does also really need a good cleaning!) Behind me are another set of windows and a door that lead to the direction of the lake so there's plenty of natural light in there. Teacher's lounge  (or should I say couch) is right behind me, once I can clear all those books out of the way to get to it.

Thanks for the inspiration (and very sore back) Tina xxx

My New Garden

Look at this lovely wee garden that The Papa made this week on his days off.

Cost ... nada; except for lots of grunt work.  We had the bark, sleepers and plants all lying around. The plants were all looking a bit worse for wear because of this nasty drought that we are experiencing in the North Island. so fingers crossed they'll be OK.

 

 
I am so pleased with it. The Papa is rather amused that I keep referring to it as "my" new garden.

A Pottery Bargain

I love grabbing a bargain and I don't even mind rummaging through second-hand shops. I feel that we tend to throw so much out these days that could be re-used or re-made into something or even re-used in a new and different way.

Today after grocery shopping I dropped into a Salvation Army shop and just happened to score three pieces of pottery for $3 a piece. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them.

This now sits beside my stove. How cute are those pots? Not bad for just $9

We Shall Come Rejoicing, Bringing in the Hay ...

Yup it's that time of year again. Today we "brung" in the hay on a perfect summer afternoon.

We all have our jobs, I am the driver the Papa throws the bales onto the trailer and then packs them in our shipping container.

The girls help wherever they can by pushing the bales into corners, climbing the bales (not sure how that helps ...) and generally having lots of fun riding on the back of the trailer amongst the bales. Even the Scruffiemeister gets into the act!

Whew, am glad that's over for another year but it's nice to know we have some fodder for our livestock when we need it and if this drought continues we will be needing it, that's for certain.

How Long Does it take to Plant a Hedge?

Well finally, after nine years, we got started on the hedge for the front of our property.

We popped out to the nursery this afternoon, spent a fortune (since when did plants become so expensive?) and came home with 50 odd plants.

They are all trees that shouldn't grow much taller than 3 metres (there are overhead power lines running along our side of the road) and they will be going in the garden that runs above the retaining wall and before the front fence. Yes, in all that wild bramble is a farm fence which surprisingly is still in very good condition. We want to remove all the bramble but if we do we will be exposed to all the car's passing by, hence we are putting in two rows of different trees. The Pig had previously killed off all the grass and weeds up there. He loves weed killer much to my annoyance and nagging him not to use it. Apparently it was easier than digging up 100metres of ground ... big wuss! 

We bought 3 different types of pittosporums, red robins, griselinias, ake ake and some other natives. We have staggered their planting a little and by planting over 9 different varieties we are hoping we will have more of a natural looking border. The nurseryman suggested we only do a bit at a time because of the effort involved in caring for them for their first few months, especially with summer looming. 
 

We planted about 30 metres along, so are a third of the way there. The Fashionista despite her slight frame always is ready to really get in and do the hard work. Here she is using a pole hole digger to make one of the 54 holes needed for the trees.  

The Pig did a great job getting them all planted and has even started thinning out some of the existing hedge with his chainsaw. Men and chainsaws!

Now if they'll just grow really thick and big quickly I'll be stoked. Maybe I need to go talk to them? Does anyone have any tips to get these little trees growing big and strong quickly?

Organising the Kitchen!

Aunty H has moved in with the mother-in-law and so very kindly offered us some book shelves, that she has no room for, as a thank you for helping her with her move. Now despite having six sets of  book shelves in our house already, those who homeschool know what I mean, you can never have too many bookshelves.

One of the shelving unit is small (like a half size) and funnily enough for the past few weeks I have been looking for something very similar to go on my kitchen bench to house our tea cups. The girls and I often set up a proper afternoon tea, and so they do get used quite a bit but, they do also take up a lot of space in my cupboards.

I really need to pop the breadmaker and toaster somewhere else now though ...

Conservation at The Little House on Lake Waikare

Last year we were approached by Environment Waikato (the local governing body who look after lakes, rivers, land, etc) who offered us some native plants, free of charge, as long as we were willing to plant them along our lake verge. Of course we accepted but, hadn't realised we'd have about 150 of them to plant!


When they arrived here, the land was really, really wet and boggy and there was no way we could get a car and trailer down there without becoming bogged so we put it off. We actually had a lot of rain right up until Christmas. So finally, after some nice weather, last weekend Iain and the girls packed all the plants onto the trailer and headed down to the lake to plant them out.

Agent Smelly in action.

The Fashionista doing her bit.

Here's part of the finished area.

In winter this area will be flooded so there are only two types of plants which they thought would survive those conditions.

At one stage when The Papa was pre-digging a pile of the holes, his little helpers got sidetracked and decided to immortalise our family in mud ...

Oh goodness I think I am the one on the right -

not sure about my hairstyle and I just knew I had to lose weight!

They went down at about 11am, came back up at 1pm for lunch, and an hour or so later headed back down til about 5pm. They got them all planted and I must admit I was really impressed with all their dedication and fortitude.

Reorganising the Girl's Bathroom

As with many homes these days we parents have an ensuite therefore leaving the main bathrooms for the kids. In our house the main bathroom, is very "girl orientated" with lots of girly stuff in the cupboards and drawers.

As it wasn't going to be a huge or expensive job I decided that the main bathroom would be my first "decluttering" project of 2012. Sadly I forgot the "before" pics but imagine everything simply shoved into a cupboard and hair ties, etc everywhere and you'll just about have it right!

The master bathroom has a big vanity, with double sinks, 2 sets of cupboards and a middle drawer with three internal drawers. It's funny when I was growing up I think we shared 1 cupboard between five of us and seemed to manage.

I purchased these little white baskets from the supermarket and they fit inside the top drawer perfectly.

Also these little plastic containers were from the supermarket so I used them in the second drawer to separate their clips, ties, etc (of which they have far too many).

The large bottom drawer has a couple of fabric holders from the two dollar shop to hold their fabric headbands and brushes in. The plastic and metal headbands are on the bench top sitting around some old baby milk powder tins (Milo tins work too). I did try covering the tins in adhesive book covering but they wrinkled and do not look so good. So I will be removing the plastic covering and spray painting them.  The headbands sit around the tins perfectly and you can remove the lid and pop the fabric headbands inside them!

I purchased a couple of large white baskets from the supermarket to go into their cupboards. One holds their various hair products, bubble baths, creams and lotions etc. Another little tray holds smaller items, like nail polish and play cosmetics. I did throw many  items out that were expired or nearly empty and anything that was really not of any use. I was rash and don't feel any guilt!

The other cupboard holds their personal towels, facecloths and bathmats and does usually look like this so there wasn't much to do to this one except give the shelves a wipe down.


It did not take me long to do this and cost around $20 for all the baskets for things to go into. I am really happy with my first decluttered room and can't wait to start on the next one ... which may be the laundry?

Getting the girls organised ...

I found last year that each morning I was forever asking my girls if they have brushed their teeth, their hair, made their beds etc. before we got on with schooling. And most of the time they hadn't. I think they thought where's the rush, it's not like they had to get ready to head off to school. They do know they have to be at the school table dressed though. Then again in the evening, same thing, I had to remind them to do what I would call basic things, plus clean up the mess they had made that day.




This year in order to save me from being a nag I came up with a Task Sheet. This includes some chores that they are expected to perform in order to earn their pocket money, such as unloading the dishwasher, putting out the rubbish and recycling daily, and so on. Also as the girls are getting older we felt that they could be a little more responsible and helpful. So this year they are supposed to vacuum, dust their rooms, change their linen and tidy their bathroom etc. They only have to do one thing a day and to be honest I am helping them a bit in order to teach them. We have had a couple of funnies trying to find Agent Smelly lost in her duvet (doonah) cover whilst trying to replace the clean one over the duvet. 

Front of Task Sheet

Back of Task Sheet

Both girls have different sheets and tasks, and in some cases if there's an X on one sheet then the other often has to do it and vice versa. Or they simply may have to do that task maybe once or twice a week or such. They go into the Personal Planners that they designed and that we made up and they simply tick them off as they go. So far they have been going really well with them. I think they just enjoy ticking off things as they go along.




We are still nutting the tasks out and seeing how long the chores take etc as I don't want to make them do "hard labour" just a quick clean. and learn to be helpful and tidy and clean!

Planners - they also have calenders and blank pages for notes and such in them

In case anyone is wondering the weekly allowance each girl receives is based on her age. i.e. Miss 7 gets $3.50 and Miss 9 gets $4.50. They seem happy with that and the only way they don't get their full allowance is if they do not complete the chores assigned to them (unless they are sick, or they didn't complete because of circumstance beyond their control). I do not take money away for bad or rude behaviour. To my way of thinking if they have completed a job then they should get paid for it. They have other punishments, IE loss of a favoured toy or activity for unacceptable behaviour.

2012 ; Our year of Organising and Decluttering Our Lives..

I realised last year that we have a LOT of unnecessary things in our house. Due to  homeschooling and the children's various activities and The Pig's shift work we really never seem to get on top of things.

Because of this a lot of the time we throw things into boxes (outgrown clothes, children's toys etc) and into the garage to be dealt with later ... and guess what ... later never seems to arrive does it!

So my New Years Resolution for 2012 is to clear out the things we don't need or use. No more just in case and no more out of sight, our of mind. This year this household will be making a conscious effort to declutter and place some organisation into our home ... wish me luck!

Walnuts are brilliant!

I received an email from someone full of tips and one of them was to rub a walnut over the scratches on your wooden furniture to disguise the dings and scrapes.

Before               and                 After

The leg was pretty scratched from certain pooch when he was a puppy and left in the house on his own but, one little walnut has made it look so much better!  Those that you can still see are very deep, so I am really happy with the result.