House proud

I really should have put these pictures up sooner (sorry Mum!), but here they are now.

We wanted to redo the deck from the minute we bought this place. However, the fact that the interior needed a lot of love meant it kept being pushed back, then we fell pregnant, the outside needed to be painted, the baby was born meant that this has been a long time coming.

So, after much backbreaking work and many helping hands lent, we have a deck! It is amazing because it is 1/3 of the house (so you can imagine how small it is inside!). We ended up being able to recycle all of the wood from the old deck as well as the wood from the inlaw's deck when they had theirs redone. Once it was sanded and oiled it blended seamlessly with the new decking we had to buy because none of the recycle places had decking.

Now we are entertaining like we have never entertained before! All of our friends' kids love the sandpit. Fortunately David's parents kept all of his Tonka trucks, which makes for hours of fun. Every evening after work, David is in the sandpit with Bel playing with the trucks and making sandcastles. It's so sweet!


Our marvelous deck with Bel's sandpit (or 'sharbap' according to her!) at the end, which was probably more hassle than the rest of the deck!

This is Bel's princess tent. I saw one in a boutique shop and fell in love with it, but it was over $200. This was *much* less than that! Bel loves it too. She hides in it, especially when she doesn't want to eat dinner.

Small things

It has been a few weeks of discouragement. Obviously as a single income family, we were going to struggle, but the practical is always more difficult than the theory! I feel bad that David stresses so much about the finances that I decided to help. People always tell me I should sell my sewing, so I started there. I went online and googled all of the markets in our local area. I soon discovered that as well as paying for a stall (which I expected) I also had to have $20, 000, 000 of public liability insurance. Which was over $600 per year. So I went to plan B: selling online. I found a site that you can advertise on for free and they only charge you if you sell something. Awesome! If you live in the US, UK or Canada. So then, plan C: tutoring. I rang the school I worked at and asked if I could put an ad in the newsletter. I soon found out I cannot tutor anyone from the school or in short the diocese without being a bit shifty.

Needless to say I felt completely flat. Bel has decided to grow out of the shoes she has as well as all of her tights that I was relying on to keep her warm because she cannot abide being covered by a blanket at night because it restricts her tossing and turning. I went out an bought tights, I couldn't see a way around it. But shoes for kids are so expensive! Bel is also at one of those stages where she is not in baby shoes, but not in child shoes either. I had planned to make them, but the sole component is a bit tricky. Long story short, a friend had told me that a local thrift shop had truckloads of patterns, so I went to check it out. They did have loads of patterns - for 20c each! While I was there I checked out shoes, just in case there was something. There was! Designer label shoes, in Bel's size, for $1. I snapped them up and she has not taken them off since! We went to visit a friend's brand new bubba and Bel was more interested in having people notice her shoes than look at the baby!

Such a small blessing has made me feel better. We read in the 40 Days of Purpose the other day that life isn't meant to be comfortable or easy. We are definitely finding that, but want to do the right thing by Bel by raising her ourselves.

On a different note, my 10 year reunion is this weekend and I have made a new dress for me and a tie for David. We blend, not match ;)


Bel waving to the gardener in her new shoes (the complex gardener, not our own personal one!)