New Home Tour - The Finale

There are many more things I could show you around my new home, but I'll leave you with this final picture. I know as I blog about our daily lives you will see lots more of it anyway. :) And maybe some pics with people in them again!

A perfect spot to sit and have a cuppa. I love the open layout of the front verandah, it's very welcoming and inviting. I'm standing by the front door to take this photo. Just to the right of the cane setting is the front stairs.

We really are loving this home. It's a challenging time we're going through as a family, and I'm so thankful to have been provided with this house - it has such a lovely feel. Everyone who visits agrees.

The children are all doing well. The weekend has arrived! We had a simple dinner of bacon and eggs tonight, and I allowed the children to stay up for extra stories and to watch "Masterchef" which is always a treat for them. :) And I got some extra cuddles in with them....

Tomorrow I am heading to the city to see the new musical "Doctor Zhivago" starring Anthony Warlow. For those of you overseas who may not have heard of him, he's a very talented Aussie tenor and one of my favourite singers. I'm rather lucky to have a friend who now works at the Lyric Theatre and can purchase cheap tickets! Then tomorrow night I am also seeing an amateur production of "Beauty and the Beast" (free ticket this time!), so it will be a very cultural day. Then Sunday morning I drive the 3 hours back up here to sing in a local Choral Society concert that afternoon! I feel tired just thinking about it. In fact it may just be time for a warm shower and bed. :) Night all.

New Home Tour - Saraya's Bedroom

She will be 9 in October. Already I am noticing little changes - wanting her own space a bit more, seeking play times with her friends, sitting quietly at her desk doing her homework instead of tearing around with her little brothers. I am glad she has her own bedroom in this house. But glad also that it is 'joined' by an open doorway to their room. ;)

But with all these changes Saraya Catherine is still my little girl. She is Mama's helper, she still shadows me whenever we are home together. She still comes in for a cuddle in the middle of the night. She can still fit in my lap. I hope she will always come to me for a cuddle and a chat when she needs one.

She loves her bedroom and so do I! It's snuggly and cosy and has 2 walls of windows which see out into the back garden. Her bedroom is filled with dolls and teddies and of course, books. It speaks of Saraya in all her girlhood wonder. :)

New Home Tour - My Boys' Room

My two beautiful, rumbustious, noisy, loving boys share this bedroom. It has an open doorway into Saraya's bedroom which makes night time settling very easy - I can sit on the mat between the two rooms and pray with / sing to all 3 children at once! It also means one CD player (in Saraya's room) for sleepy music plays to all 3 children.

Elijah Samuel's bed

And William David's toddler bed

The rooms are quite small but certainly big enough for them at their ages for the moment.

I really love how the boys room turned out. :) It has the vibe of a little boys room! Lots of cheeky giggles and play times in here. Oh, and sleeping. :)

Hope you're enjoying seeing my new home. I'm looking forward to getting this tour done so I can blog about some other things!

New Home Tour - My Sanctuary

My bedroom really is my sanctuary. I am now parenting on my own 5 days each week and it is exhausting at times. I love having my own space I can retreat to. I really love this big airy room. There are no curtains, and a street lamp right outside, so it's pretty bright during the night. :) But not so bad in this current winter weather with the sun rising a little later. Summer may be a different story!

And I've fallen in love with my beautiful big bay window. :) Hoping to make it even comfier with lots of cushions at some stage.

Thankful for this little sanctuary!

New Home Tour - Back Garden

Hmmm, not too many photos to show you unfortunately! A few I took the other day are 'up and down' shots, and I can't seem to get them to upload the right way up! They're all on their side.

But here are two little glimpses for you of my back garden.

Just the right amount of grass for me to take care of. Lots of shade, shrubbery and a nice garden wall. Oh, and a climbing tree! And swings. :) I hope to add a sandpit and cubby house at some stage.

Until then, the children have claimed the old (though freshly painted) shed/garage as their Clubhouse, and have spent many hours adventuring out there. Not sure what the adventuring entails, but they always come inside completely grubby and exhausted so it must be fun!

Probably the most exciting thing about our back garden is that right in the back corner is a big mound of dirt. The children put on their 'work boots' this morning, took up their gardening tools and went digging for treasure. :) I swear it must have been the resident's rubbish heap 50 years ago - they have found all manner of bottle tops and miniature glass bottles, tiny chipped pieces of china plates (which Saraya is painstakingly piecing back together) and who knows what else. Each item gets doted over and discussed as to it's identity- then gets a wash under the garden tap, and placed in the special 'collection box' they are using to present their finds. Filled in the entire morning today!

And after all that treasure hunting and pancakes and baths to freshen up, the back yard archaeologists enjoyed some cosy time indoors watching a movie. It is winter after all! A lovely Sunday.

New Home Tour - My Kitchen

It's where I spend most of my time (even the laptop lives on the kitchen bench!), so I was so thrilled to discover this house had a brand new kitchen. Yup. Never been used by anyone before me. :)

It's practical, has heaps of cupboard space, an electric cook top, a one drawer dishwasher (yay), and it's the warmest room in the house on these cold winter mornings (double yay!).

I love this feature. It's meant for pretty plates, but since I don't collect those, I've used it to display my favourite cook books!

The view outside my kitchen into the backyard where the children play. It's the one clear glass panel in the house, and I'm thankful for it! I like being able to see out. :) There is a fabulous climbing tree (mango) in the back corner, and the one covered in pink blossoms is a peach tree. Hoping to get some fruit off it in the summer. More of the backyard tomorrow!

Home

When God is in your heart, love is in your home.

A good friend gave us this reminder (along with some strawberry and tomato seedlings - oh, and chocolate) as a housewarming gift. I love the little stone so much I've added a picture of it to my sidebar.

This is the outside of my new home. It has a cottagey feel. I really love the front verandah area, the lead light features throughout, the sculpted ceilings and the front garden beds. Just enough to potter in, but not too much to take care of. Since taking this picture William and I have weeded out those baby beds (leaving the Petunias and the daisy we planted the week we moved in), and have added some lavender, strawberries and tomatoes, parsely and rosemary. Just enough. :)

Thank you for your encouraging comments on my last post.

Melanie said "I don't believe you have been anyone but who you are in your blog" - she is right. I have never deliberately tried to be something I'm not - but I have put this pressure on myself at times. It's a personal thing, hard to explain. :) But thank you Melanie, and everyone, for sticking with me!

More photos of our new home to come, promise.

God's Grace. And Changes.

I sit here in this house, this gift of a house, on my gifted - borrowed - laptop from a dear friend, and I'm overwhelmed by Grace. Why Lord? Why do you care for us the way you do? We are so undeserving. I for one know I keep stuffing up. In my parenting. In the way I care (or rather, don't care) for others when I should. In my personal life.

Yet He persists with us.

Thank God, literally. Because I wouldn't want to be walking this life road without His protection and grace. I simply wouldn't get very far.

I have just finished a book, once again gifted to me by grace, from a dear friend who apparently saw the book online and thought of me, having it posted right to my home ("why again Lord? I haven't been the friend to her that she deserved, yet still, grace....) - and it has brought both challenge and joy to my heart.

"Somewhere More Holy" by Tony Woodlief. Tony also has a blog I visited this morning, and I know I'll be back. :) Challenge - that I need to be more authentically ME in my writing. Forget any signs of false perfection in my blogging friends, for what you will be receiving (I hope) is honesty, the raw truth, and authentic, bare-souled me. For that is what I found in Tony's writing, and I so appreciated it! Joy - that I can see this parenting season, while my little ones are little, as more precious than I have ever seen it before. I got that from Tony too. He and his wife Celeste lost a child, see - so their perspective, their life experience, is somewhat different to mine. A little girl whom they lost to cancer - and what that did to Tony, his relationship with God and with his wife and the whole of humanity. Four little boys followed that little girl. He too has been shown grace in the wake of tragedy and sin (his own). Get hold of the book and read it, I insist. ;)

So, a blog overhaul is about to occur. It will still be me, yes, but a more honest me. A less "must make my blog look as beautiful as possible" me. I hope you'll still visit.

Please read my revised "about me" profile bit. If you're a new reader..... well, it tells you a bit about what's going on for me right now. If you're an old bloggy friend.... well, you know how much I love you all and I hope and trust you will hang in here with me through this life season I'm in. I used to think so much about me was defined by the choices I make - babywearing, homebirthing, homeschooling, country living, cloth nappy using, etc. etc. And yes, our choices do define us to a degree. But guess what? I was then, and am still, Saminda. I no longer homeschool and my marriage has broken down. But here inside, I am still me. I still cry, and laugh, and sleep, and eat, and love my children so much it hurts, and cook meals for them, and read, and sing, and blog.

I reached a point sometime last year where I was just plain exhausted. Like, really really exhausted. And I got sick, and spent numerous hours in hospital, and had tests, and was told I had a minor condition with my heart for which I needed medication and some lifestyle changes. A few months later, our children were enrolled in the local Christian school. And now, I find myself here. Instead of looking out the window and seeing trees, I see houses. I can still hear the wind in the trees, and the birds whistling, but I hear cars too. Lots of them. I can walk with the children to town to visit the library, or friends. Or walk the other direction and you get to the parkland / lagoon / walking track. It's a different kind of nice.

I am getting used to this new "normal", for us. My children's own resilience and trust and acceptance of this both overwhelms and challenges my own thinking. They are, truly, amazing little people. They have this trust of us - their parents - and if we say this is the best thing for our family at the moment, and tell them it's an adventure, and that it's fun and exciting having two homes (and we have done all of that, and more - we have never conveyed this change as a 'tragedy' to them) - than that's what they believe. And they are amazingly settled and at peace with it all.

I worry about them, and all of this, which I suppose is natural. But alongside my worry there is sunshine and children's giggles and music and friends popping over often and walks in the mornings and cosy dinners together at night.

God's grace abounds. I thank Him. And I thank you (in advance) for your acceptance of me. Writing is a release for me, and I look forward to doing more of it and being the most authentic me I can be.

Oh my...

So tired tonight, but I simply must blog something!

I took photographs of my new home the other day, but I'm having issues loading them up. Hope to share them with you soon.

Things are going pretty well, the children have returned to school for term 3, and I am basically now all finished setting up home here. It's feeling very homey and cosy now and I feel blessed with the way God has taken care of all the little details for us.

This is a recent photo of Saraya meeting the lead from Mary Poppins, Verity Hunt-Ballard. :) As you can see she was very excited!

We lost our beautiful Molly cat this week. :( She got a paralysis tick and we didn't find out until she was in the final stages. She died at the vets just this afternoon. It has been a very sad day. I'm thankful the children are handling it all very well - they really do amaze me, they're so resilient and so understanding. My heart has broken for them today though.

That's all. Just wanted to touch base with you all and say "I'm still here"! I do still pop in on your blogs. And I'll try to blog more regularly, though I can't promise anything. ;)

Beautiful Moments

Life is so full of beautiful moments. I've had a blessed few days with my Mum visiting.

She brought a puppy dog cake, it was adorable!

The children planted a daisy plant into the front garden yesterday morning, all by themselves.

And I had the special honour of spending last Sunday afternoon at a high tea, as part of my town's annual "Mary Poppins" festival. Maryborough is the birth place of Mary Poppins author P L Travers, and our special guest at this year's festival was Verity Hunt-Ballard, star of the current Mary Poppins musical in Sydney!!

I sung a solo piece at the high tea, and the singing group I'm part of ("The Sisters") sung two songs as well. Singing for Verity was a little overwhelming to say the least!

But she was incredibly down to earth, friendly and encouraging. :) And she happily signed a poster for my three children. She shared her musical theatre journey with the 100 or so people who attended the high tea and it was a wonderful afternoon.

My Big News

The big news in my little world is that circumstances have led me to move out of our acreage home (which still hasn't sold) and into a little cottage in town. It's a rental but after a week of moving and unpacking and pottering about this little house, it's already starting to feel like home.

It's our personal journey and I have hesitated to share this part of it with you, for fear of being reprimanded / criticised / discouraged. I'm not going to go into the details of how and why we have made this choice as part of our journey of separating, but we have. And yes, there have been tears and moments of fear and doubt, but I do truly believe that this step is an important one for both Stuart and I - the chance, for the first time in our adult lives, to live as separate, individual people. I know God is with us through this, and He will not leave us or forsake us. I hang on to that hope.

My beautiful children are all doing very well. I missed them terribly these past few days, as I was busy setting up this home for them and Stuart was spending the weekend with them. They came this morning, and it was so wonderful to have them arrive and soak in everything. I cherish them so much, and treasure my time with them now more than ever before.

My Mum arrives tomorrow to spend a few days with us, and the kids are so excited to show her everything. It's kind of exciting living in town again after 18 months out on the land. The kids and I even walked to town late this afternoon (an easy 10 minute stroll), had dinner (I'm still without saucepans until tomorrow!) and popped into Bunnings to buy a bath plug and some little brightly coloured kid chairs my children have had their eyes on for awhile. We walked home with the chairs stacked on top of the stroller, in the semi-darkness. They thought it was a great adventure!

I appreciate your prayers and ask for your support at this time. I look forward to sharing some photos of my new home once I've finished the unpacking.