Turtle tales

We can haz turtle.  In fact, we has haz turtle since we bought the house we're in!  Our place had a rather...unique wavy in-ground tank, in which our turtle, Squirtle (most common turtle name, EVAH!) resided since the people before us built this house in the early '90s.

Squirtle, and our giant goldfish (the fish has sadly gone to the pond in the sky).

Being an inherited creature, we didn't have a licence for him until very recently *gasp*.  That's right, our family was living on the edge, walking the line, practically criminal!!

Anyhoo, as part of our never ending renovations before we sell the house, we decided to knock out this paragon of eighties architecture. 

The old tank that was built in, complete with kid-proofing and kid.

Tres classy!

Cleaning it out on moving day.

Which involved re-homing Squirtle.  One 4ft tank and much hefting later, we have a temporary spot for him in our lounge room.  When the painting of the new bits of wall are done, he'll go in our doorway to greet the world.

New tank, precariously resting on a TV stand.

 

Catching all the feeder fish that lived in the old pond! Hours of fun...

Given how much fun he's had since we moved him into the new tank, I now feel like we'd been keeping him in some kind of turtle-torture cave for the past few years.  Still, he's out now, and loving it.

Turtle renovation: done!

Oh, extra bonus shot of our other fish tank.  You can't keep fish in with a turtle (unless they're big enough), the turtle will eat them!  As we learned to our shame...it was two fish-buying sessions and a lot of "where did those fish go!?" before we worked it out. 

So when the kid wants goldfish and guppies, you get a kids tank for them.  So we did.  

Kitchen renovation, the show-off post :D

We finished the kitchen recently, with an unexpected fridge fail, which led to the purchase of a new fridge.  We lashed out on a side-by-side fridge (from a seconds warehouse).  It is veeerrrry noice! 

Then, another trip to Ikea later, we had somewhere to put the microwave and the whole kitchen seemed to come together.  Here's the new set-up.

Here's are some before shots to compare...

Old.

Old.

In progress...

New!

More new!

I'm enjoying having the kitchen finished off, and loving the white on white.  Although we sometimes think that we should have run those awesome red tiles all the way up that wall...  I guess you never really finish!

Book Party!

Earlier this week, I held a book party.  What's a book party you ask?  It's a happy occasion I made up, where you're getting rid of about half your books and need a prodding helping hand.  Why might I need a hand? 

Well, here is what my books used to look like:

This is Lolly "catching a possum", a year ago, but shows a fair few of my books, there's another four bookcases you can't see in this shot, and some more upstairs (and a few boxes we didn't unpack).  Yup.  Ahem.  Kind of a lot. 

Here is what the precious-es have looked like since April, when we packed them (loosely speaking) and schlepped them upstairs.

Hmmm...

Our long ongoing renovation meant we were going to store heaps of books til we moved, but then decided that we had a gazillionty of them in digital form, and we should *gasp* get rid of the hard copies.  This took me months of thinking on it to agree to.  I LOVE books, and always loved having them out, I want a giant library one day.  But, really?  Books take up space, most of these books we will never read again, some were just plain crappy, and most of them I can read online, often for free.  So, I really had to think about why I was keeping them round at all.  Why is it we need to display things like books for public consumption?  Or our own consumption. And why is this tied to our self-concept so tightly (in my case, that is). 

Anyhoo, navel-gazing aside, you can see why I might need a hand sorting them.  The pile is huge, and the mental issues, likewise.

So, I asked some lovely friends and their kids to come over to play, to lend a hand, either physically or in moral support, and now the books look like this:

Books to keep, and collectibles

Kids books (to go back out on shelves) and DVDs.

So, thanks, muscly friends (both physically and morally), for helping me do a task I was really struggling with.  And making it a good day. 

Also posted at Shaggy Dog Story, my book blog!

The girl likes to swim.

We fixed the spa, and now, we swim, rain, hail or shine.  It's a cold snap here in our down-under Spring (by "cold snap" I mean slightly cool, you might need a cardi weather, not icy freezing-ness, it is Brisbane after all).  This does not stop the girl.  And her swimming ring of power.  Oh, the cute. 

Reorganising play spaces

I've been interested in Lolly's play spaces for years, and mostly had a psuedo-Montessori approach to it.  Posts about Lolly's shelves are linked here.  I've been following Mariah Bruehl's Playful Learning Spaces blog for ages, and decided to take her e-course on creating (revamping) learning spaces. 

It's been great so far!  A big part of the course is participating in the Flickr group where participants post their before and after pics, and have discussions about different types of spaces, problem solving and brainstorming. 

My biggest issue, I guess the best way to describe it, is a lack of follow-through.  I have a great idea, go a fair way to making it happen, but don't get to the last 3 feet or so.  Which I think is why my house is not that decorated, or that it's organised, but not the final 3 feet that would help stop more mess.  I think most of us have this issue, to be honest (at least I hope it's not just me), and it's something I envy admire in those bloggers I see that invest time in the last 3 feet of making a space not just functional but beautiful, or an idea not just mostly done, but done all the way. 

Doing this course was a commitment to myself to act on that last 3 feet.  I've done some innovative and thoughtful things with and for Lolly over the years (which I'm proud of) but I've never built that final layer of awesome that makes a space sing.  And it's something I've always wanted to do

So, here are my "before" photos.  I'm yet to tackle any revisions, as I've organised a big clear out of our books for next Monday, and this weekend we're re-arranging the playroom. 

Lolly has a few spaces in our home, there are shelves in the lounge room where I've done her activities and toys for years now.  They are a tad sad at the moment, and haven't had a proper review in months.  Snail also has a set of shelves in the lounge.

Lolly's current shelves, needs major work, and she doesn't play with much of this.

Snail's shelves, which are successful but too crowded

Miscellaneous table for collecting crap.

More crap.  Dining room table.

Play kitchen and giant television.  Lolly doesn't play with it here at all!

The other main area is the "playroom," one of the bedrooms we have all our miscellaneous crap in.  I re-vamped this a while ago but it hasn't been successful, still too crowded, nowhere to sit, and covered in laundry. 

Playroom.  !!!

Playroom, and giant trampoline!

Where I like to keep all the clean laundry.

Confessional over, you can see why I might want to make some of these spaces a tad more effective, and attractive! We're so lucky to have so much space, and I'd love to be using it more effectively.  I'll be posting updates when I get things done.  Wish me luck.

Playing catch up: new carpet!

I’ve been a slack blogger for ages, and have missed a few fun things that I thought I’d do some posts on as a catch up :D   

At the start of November, as part of our slow renovation process, we had new carpet put down.  You can see why in this photo, it was an off white colour, over 15 years old, and we have kids and dogs.  Here is what we found under the couch in the lounge!!  *looks embarrassed*

A kinda gross collection of kiddy artefacts and sultanas, which were under our couch.

 We had to shift all our furniture out into the tiled area or on the front lawn.  

The carpet layers pulled up the crappy old stuff, here’s our place with nothing!

Down to the concrete, complete with suspicious stains.

With new carpet!  Lolly does a happy dance :D

We packed up all the books and took ‘em upstairs, and rearranged things downstairs.  Our old library/dining room is now our TV area/lounge, and the lounge is a dining room and, well, a lounge, with a kids area.  

Before (Lolly is catching possums here).

After, complete with Diego.

Please ignore our unattractive paint colours, this is on our list of things to change.  It's odd how much you can ignore in a house (like our carpet, paint, and curtains, see below). Painting is next on our renovation list, together with a new kitchen!!  :D

Lounge room, before.

Lounge room, after (we have since got a bright red rug for the middle, too).

You can see that I've got a TV bench set up with Lolly's activities, and her table and new chairs.  We've since got rid of the tent, it came off worse for wear in some play and a teenager.  We're loving the shiny new red leather couch from Ikea :D

This is the other side of the lounge, before.

Other side of the lounge room, after, now our dining area.

We love the new colour, and it’s far more forgiving of our black dog!  We're looking forward to getting the painting done.

Getting Rid of it All...or at least Some...

We have been clearing and cleaning around here lately, in preparation for doing up our house.  Part of this big clear out involved taking everything out of our shed.  And it's a big shed.  It was stuffed with all of our stuff (okay, mostly my stuff) which has been there, virtually untouched, since we moved in here years ago.  A lot of it was rusty and mouldy and a lot of it was just old and not needed anymore. 

There were couches and clothes and chairs and the top of a bar, and bits and peices everywhere!  We filled an eight square metre skip with all this stuff!!!  I say we, but I mean DinnerDad and Smash.  The girls and I went down at the end of things to poke in the boxes and pick what to keep.  Apparently the spider population down in that shed was tres impressive.  I was somewhat relieved to miss it.  ;)

Here it is, full to the brim with our crap.  That's 8 square meters of crap!

In the process, DinnerDad and Smash cleaned out the garage - wow, it's tidy in there!  Notice the awesome motorbike :D

The giant shed, now a gardener's dream!

In order to get the stuff from the shed to the skip, DinnerDad and Smash spend a good while tidying up the "road" part of the garden that goes round the back, from our driveway.  It was seriously overgrown, wish I had a before pic!  Actually, this shot of Mr Possum Catcher letting the possum go was of the very spot I was standing to take the After shot below, but before the tidy up, which gives you an idea of how bad it had gotten. 

Here's our dog speeding down the newly tidy "road".   In case you're interested, our house is up one level to the right, and to the left is a very overgrown second level of "road" and bush down a gully.  

That is a LOT of crap we threw out! I am feeling very environmentally irresponsible, having just that sheer amount of stuff to throw out!  That is just so much consumption, most of it gone to waste.  I suppose I used it at one point in life...

I've kept some things - some boxes of books to sell, and my comic collection, which I'm also getting up for sale at some stage.  And my diaries, stuff from school days, memory stuff that I need to sort and file.   We do feel lighter!