Thursday, July 31, 2008

10 reasons why I love living here

We've been having lovely sunny weather outside at the moment. It's too nice to stay inside for long. Chicken no.1 has been out there making mud pies (I don't think she'll ever grow out of this!). I've been drooling over my two latest books: The Creative Family by Amanda Soule, and A is for Apron by Nathalie Mornu. In fact, my other knitting and sewing projects have been flung aside while I try out the amoeba apron - it's so cute! This photo appropriately shows chicken no.3's feet, as she's the one who pushed my book off the lounge and stomped on it - putting that large crease in the cover....


I've been thinking about how much I enjoy where we live, and so thought I'd share 10 of my thoughts on the topic:


1. We have an acre for the kids to run around in. And we have plans to make the land productive - fruit trees, chickens (the real ones, as opposed to the children ones..), etc.

2. We are out of town, but not too far out. Convenient for shopping, but out far enough for fresh air. And we can hear the cows moo-ing sometimes in the mornings. And far enough out not to get all the junk mail catalogues (apart from the odd farming one).

3. We can see the stars at night! Definitely worth noting, after having lived in the city for a while.

4. We had quite a bit of say in the design of our house, so it has some lovely passive solar features which keeps the house nice and warm in winter, but keeps the sun out in summer. You would think it's a fairly basic thing to orient your house to catch & avoid the sun at the right time, but so few people seem to do it. Not enough awareness? I don't know.

5. We have a study, and I can close the gate to keep the children out and my sewing safe! Very important. Perhaps I should have put that at number 1! ;)

6. We have a Spotlight store nearby (that's fabric & craft for those overseas). Very handy. Bunnings (hardware) is quite close too, which is good as we seem to go there on a semi-regular basis. Guess that's a new house thing. (By the way, toolboxes make great sewing boxes!)

7. There's a few nice quiet streets nearby for riding bikes. Hmmm, perhaps one day I'll dust off my bike and have a ride too...

8. Don has been able to hone his DIY skills - he's building our shed. Although perhaps present tense is not appropriate as he hasn't actually worked on it for a while. It got to that critical usable point then seemed to stall... I'm not criticising - trust me - I've got an embarrassing quantity of half finished sewing projects!

9. Don has a 5 minute trip into work. Very, very nice after his hour trip when we lived in the city. It means he's home early - the best bit!

10. We enjoy having family nearby. We have always had family nearby wherever we have lived, and are very grateful for it.

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