House Fever

image from livingetc.com
find the whole house here.

Hello again. I'm afraid to say i have a severe case of house fever. We have our house on the market and have unfortunately found somewhere that's a bit of a project that we'd like to buy. Only thing is we haven't sold ours and i'm already in a state of house fever.

For me this means constant scanning of new ideas, magazines, blogs to search for ways to create new and amazing rooms in my ahem...er new ( not yet house).

Bear with me on the image front as i'm having probs using images from other sites. They don't always copy due to copyright??? And i must find out how to do a flickr mosaic but until then!

I am in love with...

this table

this office space

this playhouse, which would all obviously look lush with my new walnut floors and pale walls!

More dreaming to come. It's all i do at the moment. That oh and watch the Rachel Zoe project. Gotta love it! Oh yeah...and look after my kiddies!

My photo has been published!

Yay! I was so excited to get a flickr message that one of my 'dummy' photos that i took in Stockholm last year had been chosen to appear in the new Schmap online travel guide.

Small things make me very happy!

Check it out!

My little runaway

Yes her. The not long turned 2 year old. Growing up so fast it makes me feel as if i'm in a constant state of fast forward. So fiercely independent. I honestly don't know where she gets it from.

Last week we visited a friend with some other friends who also have crazy 2 year olds. To cut it short. I thought she was playing in the garden. She wasn't. When i didn't see or hear her for a few minutes i went into the garden to search for her. It was a long garden and you can't see to the end. I was gone for 5 minutes or so. By the time i came back in the house my heart had started to race. I went to check upstairs and realised that the front door was ajar...

She was with one of the others little girls in a neighbours front garden down the road clutching toys in both hands. Two ladies were questioning them obviously trying to find out where they had come from. I bet she wouldn't even remember. It's not our house, would she remember what front door she came out of? They weren't taken aback by our dismay and horror but they didn't seem too worried either. They had just decided it was time for a little adventure of their own. Totally oblivious to danger and at the same time to fear.

After the initial anger, relief, shock...a whole whirlwind of emotion i guess i just felt sick. How our whole life could have changed in that one instant. Its a real busy road with lots of parked cars. They wouldn't have been seen. The image of her body lying in the road still comes to me at night but even worse what if they'd just disappeared without a trace? Never to be seen again?

I guess these things happen to give you a reality check. Don't take it for granted that your child can't open a front door or that someone else has locked it. Don't think they are playing in the garden, know they are. It would have been my fault and i can try ever harder to protect her under my wing but for how long i don't know.

Jeez i'm usually relaxed but now the thought of her going to the shops aged 12 on her own gives me shivers. Then again i can't be the one that aged 18 is still driving her to School because i don't want her to get a bus. When does your responsibility stop and theirs start? Not sure anyone really knows the answer but i guess one day i'm going to find out. Let's just hope there's no more adventure escapes for quite some time.

PS. Thank you God! You kept her safe. There's a chocolate brownie point waiting for you at my house. x

Happy Birthday Lulu!

Hoping i look as good at 37 as you do! Have a good year gorgeous! xx

This is your present. Just waiting for it to arrive! I think this says a lot about you at the moment!

I have a dream...and it involves BIG sunglasses

Loving these Dirty Dogs!
I'm so jealous. Nick went and had a consultation for laser eye surgery today and is booked in to have his eyes fixed later this month. I would love to be able to wear a big fat pair of these. My eyesight has been getting progressively worse and i seem to wear glasses all the time now. It doesn't bother me until the sun shines and then it makes me crazy! For some reason, my prescription and sun glasses don't mix, unless you like the teeny weeny styles that let in all the light and are totally useless anyway. Because even with the thinning my lenses remain big and heavy and bulbous and not suitable for large or rounded shapes. Darn fashion!

Anyway, I will continue with my dream to wear normal sunglasses until after i have finished feeding my babe (can't have surgery til after this time as your prescription changes after having a baby...hormones again!) Maybe i'll just take the plunge and get used to sticking my fingers in my eye and go ahead and try out those contacts everyone has been wearing for years!

Happiness is...

My favourite Emma Bridgewater cup. Oh so true!

I love my boy

I love this photo. He looks a bit annoyed, probably because i stripped him off and put him on a fluffy rug that got in his mouth so that me and my friend Erika could takes some cute pics of him at 8 weeks. This weekend he was 12 weeks old and i realised how much i love him. Takes a while to kick in and be real sometimes. But how could i resist?

Not that i was ever disappointed but surprised. He wasn't what i expected. I was sure he was a girl. Another girl. I had pictured 'her' and Kitty in the future, sisters just like me and mine. I had grown up with all girls, all girl cousins and had lived with me and my mum and my sister. I think the only thing i couldn't wrap my head around was that Kitty did not have a sister but i hadn't considered what she would gain from having a brother.

I'm so pleased he belongs to me, well really more that i belong to him. (If you have read Amy Bloom's novel 'Away' you'll understand why i put it like that.)

Sometimes great expectations can be better when they are not exactly what you are expecting.