Make it Home

Hi everyone, we’re going through such an exciting time here so I haven’t been on the blog much. This year has been crazy, it’s made me crazy, and I’m only half way through it. So far we have unpacked half the boxes after the move as we only got heat a couple of days before Christmas (we still have loads of stuff in boxes). We battled through snow that eventually ended up coming up to my waist (sliding off the road is never how I want to start my day). We had power cuts and broken ovens, broken showers and disconnections, a wrecked garden and a bump to the car.

TH and I have been to the Doctors over stress and infertility. I took over the budgeting, stressed some more and then got things in order. We started to save, and boy have we saved (on average 60% of our take home pay!) but this has been hard.

My goal was to get out of the place we were renting. We wanted an actual contract and to feel safe and secure. We started to like where we lived more. It was about freedom to move about the beautiful countryside which we are surrounded by. I felt so alone not having neighbours, but I started to enjoy our home in a different way. We started to deal with stress and we felt better that we had medical professionals to help us through the infertility. We planned ahead. I booked a weekend away in Edinburgh for Christmas, we started to make more money by selling things and doing odd jobs. TH has taken up a bit of photography and I have a second job with getting And now it’s all change again.

I am changing the blog title to ‘Make it Home’. This is going to reflect the change that I’m no longer a homemaker full time and as a result I have less time to do the homemaking things I used to take for granted. It will also reflect the change to the type of home we will have in the near future. We have lived in a flat, a coastal cottage and a little house in the middle of a field in the time that I’ve been writing this blog. Now we’re moving again. I want every house we have to feel like home, to make it our home. I want this blog to chronicle our journey to our eventual home.

What I want this space to convey is the journey to the place you feel safe, I want this space to be about making things that make me feel like I have a proper home.

I said that we are moving, and we should be leaving our current house within the next three months. We are leaving the UK as The Husband has been told he has the job in Singapore. They want us out there for the beginning of November. We are getting a relocation agent to help us get organised and we will either get a house out there that is already owned or we will have to find a place to rent ourselves. TH will be working in the D10 area, so we are hoping to live around there. So far we have looked into taking Daisy Dog over, but that seems like a long process because of the wait to get air conditioned carriage for her.

So we are having an even bigger ebay clearout and more car boot sales, things are starting to get put back into boxes and packaged up. I am starting to get my CV organised and find out about banks and credit cards abroad. We have a super busy 3 months ahead of us, but we will get there.

Little Friends

The sun is extraordinarily sunny. The breeze is deliciously warm and sweet and I am so looking forward to the weekend. We’ve had seven weeks of sunshine and it’s just so wonderful to wake up to a clear blue sky. The garden has never been so used and I have been spending plenty of time laying on the grass reading my books.

The Husband loves the bigger garden for all of the ‘man jobs’ he can do out there and is in the process of making a garden bench from an old bed. Daisy Dog has also been spending her time luxuriously propped on an old duvet that we’ve dragged onto the patio where the sun spends most of the day. She intermittently wonders back into the house to cool off, but it’s so sweet to see another little soul doing what I wish I could do.

On a wee bit of a sadder note we are having our friends little girl to stay for the weekend as her parents are separating and need to get on with some of the stuff that just needs to get done. It is very lovely that we can take care of her for a little while or give her some TLC when she is down, but we know that there is an awful lot that must be going on in her head. We know that we can’t make the world a better place all at once, but we can make the little part of the world we inhabit better by trying to make lots of tiny little changes.

So, although I can’t give her what she wants the most, I can give her a bit of a break from thinking about what’s been pulling her down.

The Snow Outside

What an exciting couple of days of snow.  It started here on Sunday and didn’t stop in our neck of the woods until yesterday…there has been no snow since so I think it is just going away slowly now.  There are patches of grass in the garden, mostly around the shrubs and trees, but even more exciting than that is the fact that I can see little shoots of plants coming up!  This house was in an awful state when we moved here and the garden was so neglected in general that I didn’t believe I’d have any pleasant surprises.  How wrong can I be?  It’s wonderful and that bout of snow didn’t put me off my spring time prep!

Save the Pennies

The move at the end of last year pushed and pushed us. We humphed and hauled box after box of ‘stuff’ from one place to another day in and day out.


It showed up how much rubbish we keep and what a waste of money and time it was getting people to drag it from one location to another. I have way too many ball gowns and fancy clothes that I am never, ever going to wear again. TH’s last job meant that there was always a dining in night or ball to head to which I obviously needed a new outfit for each time. (oh my gosh…think back to the days before bills!)

I also have loads of china and tea sets which I have collected, but I have way too much of these things and need to get rid of them.  I will use ebay to get rid of the majority of things and then hit a car boot sale when the weather (hopefully) is nicer. We don’t need these things and I haven’t used them for so long I may very well sell them for buttons…quite literally!

The ebay thing was starting to cause a bit of a problem as I didn’t want to send things away too expensively, but im not a company and couldn’t really send them cheaper than I was. My friend put me onto this website http://www.anyvan.com which has been a life saver. I managed to get somebody to take items across the country for a really good price-which meant I wasn’t put at a disadvantage when bidders came a’lookin’. I understand it from both sides of the coin as I think I was actually addicted to ebay for a while when Jessica Simpson started selling her line of cosmetics. http://www.anyvan.com also say they can do house moves-which I wish was something I knew when we moved house. I really love that people can submit there prices which cuts out loads of the hard work at a time when you really don’t need to be bothered with searching through lots of sites that recommend people. Unless you know of someone that can do it, I can’t think of a better way. It also gives you a bit of power really as sometimes I just don’t have a clue of pricing structures for things that don’t get used on a day to day basis.

Hopefully it will be a help to you if you are struggling to find someone to help with a move or package, it certainly is helping me get ebay things out of the door and getting pennies in my pocket!

Everywhere I Look Around

The Husbands Birthday is very soon and I can't help but plan and organise it along with all of my Easter ideas.

Spring has sprung and I couldn't be more egg-cited...ok cheesey, but I told you I couldn't contain it!

Blue Sky Thinking

I love waking up to bright uninterrupted sunshine through my window. We go to bed when it’s dark and rarely use the curtains, so while the sun is rising at a reasonable time I am more than happy to let it wake me gently. The skies are so massive right now with no clouds in the way making things seem gloomy. I hope that March is as good to us as February was. I’m slowly putting more and more thick bottom pans away, I think there are fewer and fewer casseroles being served up and things are beginning to get their bite back in the kitchen, we will soon we crunching our food instead of having so many nursery teas!


I love this weather!

Step Back and Count to Ten

Although the move started in early December we have still got a lot of things at the old house. We had one trip with a man and a van, and many more in the car. We still have garden things in the garden, a big heavy chest of drawers and lots more little things that take up much more room than you would ever think they did or should.

Our friend is moving house quite soon, and although she is going to be moving a far greater distance than us and has done it a couple of times before I still feel like any advice would be helpful. Even more than that is another set of hands. We luckily had plenty of sticky tape and storage boxes left over and we’re loaning some big plastic crates. She had a good look around at some self storage prices and that will take the pressure off her too. The fact that we’ve been able to keep things securely in one place while we organized the new one has been invaluable. I

I know moving can be so stressful and she has three little ones-so I really couldn’t run away and put my fingers in my ears as soon as she mentioned a move; even though I wanted to. Her partner is a farmer and they have lived in beautiful areas in the past, and she is so kind and always invites us to her gorgeous country houses they move to. I definitely get house envy when I spot her aga, various open fires and plethora of spare rooms she inevitably has! Then I remember I cant exactly stay in a farm house like that and travel into town for work most days…oh well, I don’t think I could survive another move anyway-especially as we haven’t finished this one yet!

Geez Louise

The new heating should be going by Christmas (or so we’ve been told) and our new (to us) dining table should be here as soon as we’ve got the dining room walls sorted.

Its been crazy busy here what with the big move taking place, Christmas round the corner and hanging doors, wallpaper etc…

So that’s where we are. No Christmassy post, in fact NO Christmassy things at work and sadly only a few at home. I adore Christmas, but when we have to choose between putting a few decorations for a little while and using the energy to decorate the house for real I have to choose the latter.

On Friday we are downing tools and sprinkling tinsel over anything not moving in a bid to hide these boxes, so bah humbug until then! (eeek only joking, I’m really, really not like that at all!!)

I was lucky enough to head off to Edinburgh earlier in the month, so my very sorry contribution to all of the pretty pics in Bloggyland are here, hurriedly loaded up and all!!

Moving the Stress

Moving is super stressful…(for me)FACT. Christmas is (sometimes) stressful…FACT. What makes these two things less stressful? Prep! Failing to prepare is preparing to run around the house shouting at people who are trying to help then falling into a corner and crying.

I can’t magic any of this to be less stressful, but we’re trying to do everything we can to make the new house as homely as possible in December. I do not want to be stuck in a rut at Christmas of all times.

We do have the new house to ourselves as we try to get the worst of it sorted. There is an awful lot that is to be considered under the banner “the worst of it” which we are trying to get our teeth into now. This means that technically we can move some possessions over in the run up to move in day, but we really have to get the whole place painted, bits of it papered and then get some carpets down too.

Our hope is that I can tidy away the last tenant’s belongings (part of the reason this is working out to be a good deal is the time involved) and move some things that I wouldn’t normally need.

When it has not been stressful, and when we feel that we have done an awful lot and sit down for a wee rest we look into the crackling fire or take our cup of tea out to the garden to get a better view of the forest.  This picture is at the houses quite near to us, so although just about a mile away...they'll be our closest neighbors! We walk around and breathe. We don’t just breathe to survive, we take great gulps of fresh air. We sigh and stamp our feet in the cold. And we can’t wait to be in for real.

We are Moving

We have had an awful lot of going back and forth, but we have finally decided that we are going to move house. I am someone who is totally averse to change and as we don’t hate the place we’re in, that’s a good enough reason for me to want to stay. We have, however, been given an amazing opportunity and the chance to live in an area that I’ve been in love with since I found it.

There is going to be a little bit more stress attached to this move, as we only have the month of November to sort out two houses. The new one needs the walls to be plastered and skimmed throughout, sanded down and painted, there needs to be carpets put on floors and other floors buffed and polished. There are various cupboards that need fixing and an awful lot of tidying. The old house-where we live now-needs to be put back the way we found it which isn’t really a lot, but its an awful lot that needs packed up.

AND BREATHE….

TH has holidays to use up and so will use plenty of those to get everything in order. I have half a day to last me until the end of the year and so will not be following suit.

I can’t wait to get my laptop sorted and share some pictures with you. Its been broken for so long its really annoying as I have so many already, but time marches on and they become less relevant all the time!

Anyway-lots of change and impending stress soon….hope things are brighter where you are!

November is…

November is for hot pots and slow cookers, it is for roasts after long walks and good warm filling soups. November is for looking out of the window and seeing harsh frost and rain.

November is for Remembrance Day, Guy Fawkes Night, and when I will stir up the Christmas cake. For me it is also when the girls in the family are heading to Edinburgh for some Christmas shopping.

November is for wearing two coats and scarves, big hats and boots for stomping around the countryside to tire the dog and stay warm. It is for jumpers. Jumpers of cable knit and snug soft materials. It is for finding sparkle for parties. Glittering and sequined garments which will shimmer and dazzle in the fairy lights.

November is for being surrounded by books, cushions and mugs of hot cocoa.

 It is for visits to the library and books bags overflowing with recently requested items full of ideas for Christmas bakes and makes.

November is for throws and eiderdowns, porridge for breakfast and travel mugs for the long journey to work. 

November is for long nights spent watching period dramas, for playing scrabble and finding Christmas movies at the weekend with warm fresh popcorn.  November is for squirreling away presents and hiding them in a new location each and every weekend.