What we bought

I can't quite remember when I came across COZAMIA's art, but I've loved it since then and have always wanted to own a piece. I was following her blog, but she is currently moving it so I signed up for her newsletter. Today I got an e-mail about her art being on sale in Australia. I showed James, we decided we loved this piece and order one. We're going to put it in the bedroom, I think the colours are gorgeous and calm. We're pretty excited. :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

I'm not an all out Valentine's day person, but I do love an excuse to spoil loved ones. That said, I've not done much spoiling of James today. We did get ourselves some yummy gin and some steaks. Yum yum, we're spoiling ourselves rather than each other. :)
I also received a package from a good friend of mine today, with the shirt I'm wearing in the photos in it. It's a gorgeous shirt.
We've also had a wonderful day at working, baking all sorts of goods and having an afternoon tea with the parents.
All in all, today has been fabulous for me so far, and I hope your day will be just as fab!

What's Up in My Life?

38/365 - What our bedroom looks like at the moment. There's not much there, but we love it. 

39/365 - We went out that night, not much time for a photo. I love my colourful tape though!

40/365 - I bought some gorgeous fabric from Ikea to make some cute room decorations for work. 

41/365 - We also bought the little side table we wanted from Ikea, and I spruced it up a bit with some fabric. Then today I got a cute Koala USB stick for work related things.

What's up in my life?
I've been getting into work early this week so that I can do some laminating and decorating for our room. The flower mural is coming along nicely.

I came up with the super cheesy idea of adding roots to our flowers. We will then put photos of the children's families in the roots as part of our whole 'belonging' thing. You know, because their roots are with their families and now they are belonging to a new group, our Nursery room/our centre.

James' dad started his new job, which means he was in Sydney so he came round to see our new apartment, and then took us out for dinner. Apparently his office is bigger than our apartment. We're 22 and have one income, he is in his 50's and a CEO, I am not too bothered by this.

The Toddler roomleader is annoying us in our room at the moment. We're trying to sort it out.

James surprised me with a bubble bath and candles this week. Was very sweet, and very relaxing. :)

We have two new babies starting in our room next week. They are babies, and not tiny tots, so not on solids, not walking, all that jazz. This means we will have three babies, thankfully, we'll only ever have two on the same day. One of them is allergic to dairy and soy, and has also not been switched to a bottle yet...so it will be interesting.

We went shopping! I have missed shopping so much, been not buying things for quite some time because they aren't super necessities. I got more shampoo, and extra deodorant so I have one for work and one for home, sunscreen because it's sunny when I walk to work, face cream, face wipes, nail varnish (just because), two SUPER comfy pairs of black trousers for work (seriously the most comfy trousers I have ever worn, they are so easy to move in too!), a bubble gun, the cute USB stick above, a new To Do list pad, cute A5 notebooks for me and my colleague to write notes about our focus children in, cute pens to write said notes with (cute stationary makes work WAY more fun in my opinion, and this stuff is strictly for our room!), and some whiteboard markers and crayons for our day of the week clouds where we will be displaying photos of what the children did that day (means we can write the date on them in fun colours!). There was quite a bit bought for work, but most of it was for me to use at work...although walking through the kids section of Ikea I was so tempted to buy LOADS of toys for the children...I resisted!

We have a massive TV. After getting the bond, the first thing James wanted to do was buy a new TV. I let him. We now own a 42" TV. It's HUGE, like 4 times the size of the one we had before. Haha. It's pretty cool though.

That's been my week. :)

Another 365 Update

35/365 - Lime and strawberries. Yummo!

36/365 - I got paid AND we got the bond back. Yays!

37/365 - Prep for our flower wall. :)

I finally got paid. Apparently I wrote my bank details wrong, but it's all been sorted now, yay! We also got our bond back from our old place, so we currently feel like we're swimming in money compared to the $30 we had in our bank accounts. So, we're pretty excited! 

Other than that life has been pretty normal. :)

Videos I am Currently Loving

These two are absolutely adorable! AND there are more videos. So super cute! I may have spent half an hour today watching them dance...time not wasted, in my opinion.

On my lonesome

34/365 - not overly colourful, but it is golds/coppers/creams, pretty colours.

James has gone back to Canberra, for the Super Bowl, so I am alone for a couple of nights since I have work. :) Whilst I do love James' company, it is nice to have time to myself. I don't get much alone time, I'm either at work or at home with James. Walking to and from work is the only time I kind of 'truly' get to myself. So, I am enjoying time on my own. I've done some tidying, had a nap, made dinner, done the dishes and enjoyed some TV. I enjoy the quiet and calmness that comes with my own company.

Tomorrow I'm thinking of having a nice bath when I get back from work, and maybe painting my nails. It's nice having some time to myself. :)

More 365

29/365 - The results of the painting I did on my day off.  

30/365 - lots of hugs from the kids at work makes me feel pretty loved.

31/365 - Technically not my photo, James took it, but with my camera and to show me, so counts enough for me. He did have some 'better' photos, but I love this one.

32/365 - It rained a LOT yesterday.

33/365 - A little insight into whats on our bookshelf. 

In life related news this week has been a bit...odd. I loved my day off, and been really enjoying being back at work. My Nursery colleague and I have been making a lot of progress in finding a routine that works with all the children and their sleep and eating needs, we've also got some exciting ideas for decorations and holiday arts and crafts that are coming along nicely, so it's been feeling very positive at work. However, I've got issues to sort out with work. Wednesday was supposed to be pay day, but I have yet to receive any pay, which kind of sucks since we were relying on it. Apparently everyone actually gets paid on the Wednesday, rather than the money going out that day, so it's quite concerning, and a little frustrating that I have to sort it all out. Otherwise, lovely week. :) 

This photo stuff is proving to be a challenge...I really struggled to get photos this week. I may find myself doing a whole bunch of colourful pictures to photograph as photos for the day, which isn't all bad, but not quite what I had in mind. 

The Best Bits About Work

I am loving work at the moment, and these are some of the reasons why. 

Getting the tightest hugs ever from some of the kids. It's not just any hug, it's a super-tight-i-love-you kind of hug.

When the babies learn how to blow kisses, and will do so whenever you blow them a kiss. Melts my heart.

Smiles from babies who are still unsure of this new place they are being left.

Giggles. I love children's giggles.

The general amazingness of children. They are so much smarter than I ever gave them credit for, and it is amazing watching them discover the world and grow. 

Painting

28/365

Today is my first ever paid public holiday. I am getting paid to have the day off. I am sure the novelty will wear off by the next public holiday, but today I am very excited. :)

That said, it's been a miserable day. Non-stop rain. We've barely been able to see the city because it's been hidden behind clouds most of the day. Dismal. Needless to say, we've stayed in today. I've done some painting for 'prototypes' of the decorations I want to make with the kids art in our room. I'm going very much along the lines of Eric Carle's kind of art, I think it will work best with the kind of paintings 10-18month olds can make. I've also had a bubble bath and a nap. So, despite the weather it has been a very nice day off. :)

27/365

27/365

Today has been a very relaxed day. The rain that has been forecast for the last week finally arrived, so we took it as a welcome invitation to stay indoors and do indoorsy things. During the morning we got a visit from the little guy above. He was sitting on our balcony for a while, but decided to move to our neighbour's balcony when I got my camera out. He looks very wet, bless him. I've spent the day sorting out my half of our wardrobe, and making ladybirds and spiders for work. Our room is called 'In the Garden', my kids are the ladybirds and my colleague's kids are the spiders, we're making one of our walls into a garden mural on which we'll have photos of the kids as ladybirds and spiders, everyones birthdays in flowers, and clouds for each day of the week in which to put a little summary of what the kids have done during the day. James has made ice-cream. Yum! :)

I'm enjoying that tomorrow is a day off, AND I'm getting paid for it. Tomorrow will be awesome.

Australia Day Fireworks

We were pretty excited about the Australia Day Fireworks, because we knew this would be our chance to see if we could actually see fireworks in the city from our balcony. We can! These fireworks were at Darling Harbour, and we could see them! No more "Is that fireworks?", "It sounds like fireworks.", "We can't see them though, probably in the city.", now it'll be "Come look! Fireworks!". It's a small thing, but it makes us pretty excited! There were also some fire works out by Circular Quay last night, which we could also see. So very awesome!

I hope those of you who celebrated Australia Day yesterday had a fab time!

Happy Australia Day

Today is Australia Day. We haven't exactly done much, but it has been a lovely day. In honour of Australia Day I thought I would draw things that I now relate to Australia after a year of living here. :)

We're now going to watch the cricket, and then later watch the fireworks at Darling Harbour from our balcony. :) Hope you've had a fab day!

Homemade Pizza

 

26/365

I found this recipe on pinterest, and thought it was worth a try. It's been sitting on my food board for a while now, and today I thought it was about time I tried it. It's a pretty awesome pizza dough recipe that requires only 2 ingredients: Greek Yoghurt and Self Raising Flour. The recipe calls for 1 cup of each, but we needed quite a bit more flour than that. Next time I'm going to try 1.5 cups of flour and 1 cup of the yoghurt and see how that works. 

The pizza turned out super yum, so it's definitely a recipe we're going to keep. :) Homemade pizzas are yum. 

EDIT 27/01/13: We tried making the dough with the ratio of 1 cup of greek yoghurt to 1.5 cups of self raising flour, and it worked MUCH better. We also experimented with seasoning the dough, we used mexican seasoning since it was a mexican inspired pizza, and it was yum. :)

Another 365 Update

24/365 - taken on my phone, so it doesn't quite capture the gorgeousness of this building next to a blue sky. It makes me think of Mexico. I don't know why, it just does. 

25/365 - I was seriously unwell. Thankfully, I only had a 6 hour day at work. I ended up having a 3 hour nap once I got home. I was not a happy bunny. 

Ally McBeal - Best Part

Did anyone else watch and love Ally McBeal? I loved that show. I thought I would grow up to be like Ally, and I was perfectly happy with that. My favourite character, however, was John Cage. Who doesn't love John Cage and his adorable Barry White dance. It is by far my favourite part about the whole show. Never fails to make me smile.

23/365

23/365

We like making fruit infused water. I love the colour of the strawberry and lime infused water, it's a lovely peachy colour. :)

I'm feeling like my colour photos are becoming less colourful compared to the beginning of the year. I am going to try and work on this...but it's proving a challenge now that I'm working again, and it feels awkward taking photos at work. But I shall try! It is called a challenge after all!

365 Update

20/365 - In our kitchen

21/365 - funky purple plant near our place

22/365 - our new curtain

Inside my Head

Yesterday, whilst we were going to sleep I could have sworn I heard the TARDIS. You know, that whoosh whoosh-ing noise. I got pretty excited. I am British and a redhead, it was only inevitable that I would eventually become the Doctors companion some day. He never showed. I was disappointed.

Last night James and I were also discussing why things get serious when the gloves come off.
J: "Why does it get serious?"
K: "Isn't it something to do with..."
J: "It's taking your glove off to slap someone for a duel."
K: "Yeah, exactly."
...silence...
K:"Do you only know that because of a Simpsons episode?"
J:"...yeah."

Needless to say, inside my head is pretty awesome.

19/365

19/365

Today has been long. Our wardrobe and bookshelf was delivered around 10 in the morning. We were pretty happy with how early they came, we were waiting a lot longer for the mattress. We kind of got a complaint from our downstairs neighbour whilst putting the bookshelf together. I say 'kind of', because we had made next to no noise putting it together and had been careful not to make too loud a noise. About three tiny nails hammered in the backboard (at about 11am) our downstairs neighbour was already at our door to explain the noise comes down through the flooring because there is no underlay or something. We tried to keep the noise down from then on by doing everything on top of lots of cardboard, but seriously, by the third nail she had left her place gone up the stairs and knocked on our door...she got annoyed pretty quick. We don't want to be inconsiderate though, so we are trying to do our best to be quiet.

Anyhoo, we've also made one 'shell' for our wardrobe. Got another to go, and the door. The mirrors for the door are SUPER heavy, and we're a little concerned about the wardrobe staying upright given that the only wall we can anchor it to is actually an air-duct, so that's a no go. It's pretty sturdy though, and I've read a lot of people saying their wardrobe isn't anchored and has been standing for many years. So I'm hoping it's not a problem. :)

Other than our DIY, today has been very chilled out. Lots of lemon water (hence todays photo), music and chatting. I'm looking forward to going back to work next week, but I'm going to miss these chilled out days with James. :)

Ribbon Banner

Yesterday I made some banners out of bits of fabric from Ikea. We handed in the keys to our old places yesterday, and spent the rest of the day chilling, tidying and making pretty banners. :D I am very happy with the outcome, they bring a bit of colour and happiness into our little unfurnished home. One of the above photos will be my photo for today...I just haven't decided which yet, I love them all.

Today, was hot. Apparently the hottest day in history for Sydney. So much for my avoiding the heat. We did limit our exposure to the heat by spending 3 hours at the air-conditioned IKEA. We got ourselves a wardrobe whilst they were on sale, and a few other bits and bobs that we have realised we need but do not have. We also saved $30 using our little $10 off vouchers that have been coming through the post. It's supposed to be one per household, but a lot of our apartment neighbours have been just dumping theirs on a shelf with no interest, so we have slowly been accumulating them. We had 12, we now have 9. We sort of tag teamed today to make our 3 different purchases. We also giggled a lot at what we consider to be extreme sneakiness. 

We didn't manage to avoid the heat altogether, as it was in the 40's when we were waiting for the bus. We were in the shade, and it still felt HOT. There was a breeze, but it was a hot breeze. We decided it felt a lot like sitting in front of a fire. It has now just tipped it down with rain, I don't think the weather knows what it's doing. 

All in all, it's been a pretty awesome day.

We get a wardrobe tomorrow! It's has fancy mirror doors! Eeee!