Trying to find my old Mojo

Since moving to Victoria I have found I almost don't know myself any more lol,,,,,let me explain.

In my "old life" back in Adelaide I was a pretty organised kind of person.  Not that I ever had a spotless house or a house where everything had a home and everything was in its place, no, I was more of a chaotic organised kind of person.  My house would never make the pages of Home Beautiful and my kids are far from perfect little angels but my life was organised.  I knew where things were even if clutter ruled our lives.  I knew what was coming up in the kids lives, I knew what was coming up in mine and Hubby's life and I knew that my cupboards and freezers were full of food "in case" it was needed.

Since moving here, my life isn't quite so smooth sailing.  While trying to find our place, I feel we have all become a little lost.  Hubby is settling in at work but I am struggling with it due to the amount of travel he has had and the last minute nature.  Out of 5 trips he has had so far, 4 of them have been the kind where he arrives home from work to inform me that he will be leaving at 4am the following morning and will be gone for 2 days and the other was his trip to Germany where he basically had 6 days notice that he would be gone for 8 days.  These trips tend to create chaos in my head.  I often sit here and wonder how I would have dealt with it if we had all 6 kids here to contend with.  With just the two kids, it is an inconvenience but not a major deal (well it is but you know what I mean lol).  These two kids don't do any extra curricular activities as yet so it is just school things to handle.  If I had all 6 kids here, I would have to deal with part time jobs, soccer training and games and if it was the same as in Adelaide, swimming lessons as well.  This job has changed us and it was something that I wasn't prepared for as this job supposedly wasn't going to have alot of travel.

The house here is a nice one, more modern than our old one but also considerably smaller.  Therefore we are still in the process of trying to find homes for things and working out what will stay and what we will get rid of.  Right now it is looking cluttered and I find myself cleaning around things all the time as it is just too time consuming to move everything.  This isn't how I wanted it to be and I am trying to address this problem as rapidly as I can.

The garden, well I should say the weedy grass, is something that is getting to me too.  I miss our veggie garden even though it was only small and basic.  Last week I purchased 4 small raised garden beds - you know the type that just consist of 4 bits of wood joined together.  I really want to start getting some things in the ground but they are sitting in the shed in pieces as we need the budget available to fill them with dirt/compost etc.

We have plans, so many plans but not the time nor the budget to get it done.  I have the time but sadly my back has been creating havoc for me and it is hard enough to get through the general housework at the moment without worrying about the gardening too.

Another problem is my food storage that I had painstakingly built up in Adelaide has gone.  I have a chest freezer and extra fridge that were always full in the old house, sitting here doing nothing.  I am operating with just the one fridge/freezer which is a first for me since my eldest boys were tiny little tackers.

We did manage to get solar panels installed on our roof, yay!!!  We have 16 panels (a 4KW system).  They got installed 2 weeks ago and were turned on last week by the inspection guy.  Now we just have to wait for the power company to come and reconfigure our meter so that the power we produce will actually feed back into the grid.  We missed out by two days.....2 days!!!....of getting paid 25 cents/kwhour for the power we produce and are now only going to get a measly 8 cents.  I'm not impressed but at least I do have the advantage that since I do stay at home that I can get my washing and main power consuming jobs done during the day and be operating on some free power!

So I have resorted to making lists of things that I want to achieve and get done.  I know this house can look good.  I have painting on the agenda and a verandah to get installed along the side of the house and some fence extensions.  First and foremost though has to be getting the clutter under control!!!

On a happier note......

My nephew and his wife had their second baby on Tuesday, another little girl.  They now have the beautiful Emasyn and cute little Jorja.  I can't wait until I can have a cuddle at Christmas time!!

Yesterday I crocheted up a little cardigan for her for when she is a little older.  I need to go shopping and find some cute little buttons for it but here is a sneak peak....

This was such an easy one to whip up.  I was amazed that I could successfully produce something that actually looks like it may be wearable lol and all in the space of about 3 hours!!!  Its far from perfect but I am pretty pleased with the way it has turned out.  I may actually try to make one for Emasyn too and see how I go.  The inspiration for this little creation came from Helen and if you follow her link you will find the pattern on Ravelry. I only discovered Helen's blog yesterday and she does some gorgeous crochet work.  Today I am spending a little time exploring her blog a little more :)

I have never made anything clothing related before and the fact that this cute little cardigan is crocheted up in just one piece gave me the confidence to just give it a try.  I have a feeling these two little great nieces of mine may well be going to get a little spoilt by me lol.  I only have boys and a tomboy for a girl so being able to spoil some little girls with crocheted items is a real novelty and I have so many ideas.......I just hope their mum doesn't mind crocheted/handmade things for her girls!!