It might be a whole year since I’ve written one of these posts, but I’m sitting in a cafe waiting for our car to be cleaned (it’s been a few years… Ask anyone who’s been in it!) and I brought my laptop and I decided that I’m such a main character in a rom-com right now– sitting here, sipping my oat milk cappucino, munching on a huge breaky burger and some hash browns… Even though I’m already married, I can still be the main character in a rom-com, k?! And this main character has lots to fill you in on!
Firstly, I feel like I should mention this first because it’s the biggest thing that’s happened since my last “life lately” post… Alex and I got married! I wrote all about it here if you’d like to read and have a squiz at the photos. (I was also planning on writing a post about planning a wedding in a couple of months, is that something you’d be interested in? Let me know!)
Gosh, that was such a great day. Our friends have asked a few times what married life is like… And honestly, it’s not much different to life before, which is a wonderful thing! Life before being married to Alex was a dream, and it’s a dream afterwards. He’s just the best. I feel so stinking lucky every day! Even when he leaves all the cupboard doors open and doesn’t change the toilet roll when it’s done but that’s small potatoes, you know?! (I think that’s a saying.. right?!)
I also have to do a post about our honeymoon because ugh, it was AMAZING. Tasmania is just so beautiful and I would go back in a heartbeat! Plus, they have lactose free milk in every cafe you can think of! So, that makes up for them not having Starbucks there. Although, they do have Hudsons coffee and that’s pretty good too!
We got back from our month long trip (we’re so lucky!) the day that the Northern Beaches went into lockdown. It was pretty nuts! In Tassie, they hadn’t had a single covid case in almost 6 months, and we were coming home to another lockdown when we hadn’t had any cases either! But that’s the nature of the panasonic, isn’t it? We ordered some groceries from the woolies near mum’s place in the south of Sydney (she was picking us up from the airport) and brought them home and got ready to be in the apartment for the foreseeable future (just before Christmas!) I can’t lie to you, I wasn’t complaining. While we were away, our amazing friends organised having beautiful floorboards installed and I couldn’t wait to just lie on them and sniff them and be the weird gal I am. It was amazing! We put up the Christmas tree and were so lucky that Gladdy B decided that residents from outer Sydney were allowed to visit people in the Northern Beaches on Christmas Day (but we weren’t allowed to leave.. It was strange!) because Mum came up for Christmas Day and we had the most chilled out day. I’ve never spent a Christmas apart from Mum, except for the one year Alex and I went to Scotland, so I was so excited we got to have big cuddles that day!
After lockdown ended, Alex was still working from home quite a lot which suited me so well because my anxiety has still been quite rampant, and having him around while I do my DIY projects and housekeeping all day makes me feel so safe. I feel so lucky that he’s my person– he really looks after me and I am so blessed that I can continue to heal from my mental illnesses with his big, warm cuddles getting me through.
Something super exciting that’s happened is our precious niece came into the world in December! We’re absolutely besotted with little Rooney and she is just as adorable as her brother Ollie! These photos are so wild to look at because she is so much bigger now! But ugh gosh, we just love them both so much!
We also got to take Ollie to the dinosaur exhibit at the museum and it was SO exciting! I think we loved it almost more than he did! I love dinosaurs, you guys. They’re so fascinating to me!
Now, here’s what you’re really here for- my DIY projects, right?! I’m quite the wee handy woman these days! When I was really little, mum and dad said I was always busy doing something- making things and making messes- and whenever they’d ask me what I was doing, I’d just say “I’m doing, I’m doing!” So now it’s a running joke that whenever I have DIY days, I’m having “doing days”! And boy, have I been doing!
Shelves, shelves, shelves!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know I’m obsessed with shelves… Change the record, am I right guys? WRONG! I’m convinced that whenever we decide to leave our wee apartment, there won’t be a wall, or at least a room, that doesn’t have shelves. Firstly, they’re cute af. Second, they’re functional and practical! And third, we have a lot of spare timber from our first two shelf projects… So better that they take up room on the walls than on the floors!
Awkward kitchen nook shelves:
CUTE, RIGHT?! I know these are probably old news if you follow me on instagram, but I have to flex on the blogosphere too, okay?! This corner was SO awkward before. It was such wasted space because of the bit of wall that sticks out, so DIY dad came up one day last year and cut wee spaces out of our timber so they would fit around the wall, I sanded and stained them, and bingo bango bongo, you’ve got a wee kitchen nook! I’ve changed my mind about what kind of kitchen nook it is– first it was a coffee nook, then a baking nook, and now I have no idea what it is. We’ll get there!
Bathroom shelves
This one is fresh– dad and I only did it last week! Well, I should be honest, dad did most of it! But I helped give moral support and by coming on trips to Bunnings for tools and stain, okay?! I love these shelves. Our bathroom is the one area of our apartment I would completely re-do if I could (and we are planning on renovating it at some stage!) but for now, putting these shelves above the bath has made such a huge difference! There’s barely any storage room in the bathroom and now we have somewhere to put all of our products! (And more plants, of course!) Dad was such a machine with this one. We wanted to do floating shelves, and after he carved out the wood to make space for the floating shelf brackets, we found out the wood was too heavy for them. So he came back the next day and used white brackets instead (that don’t match the colour white of the tiles, but nothing a splash of paint can’t fix!) and he finished the whole thing in about 3 hours. It would’ve taken me so much longer! And we did it while Alex was at work in the office so it was a big surprise for him! He loved it! We’re both so chuffed!
The entry way
This one I’ve been banging on about on instagram for months, and it’s finally (almost) finished! If you haven’t seen it on there, the jist is, the entryway used to be a wasted space too. Our apartment door opens straight up onto the courtyard on one side and stairs to everyone elses apartments on the other, and we don’t have a hallway or a dedicated space that people would usually use as a ‘mudroom’ or somewhere to put their shoes, bags and jackets etc. The area used to just house plants and a basket to chuck our shoes in, and I even tried a shoe rack at one stage, but my darling husband would still chuck his shoes everywhere, and quite frankly, it was driving me nuts. We also kept just chucking our bags and hats on the dining room table, and I can’t explain why, but having clutter on the dining table makes me so anxious! I guess I don’t need to explain why, it’s pretty self-explanatory. SO, I slowly devised a plan! I got these “rattan look” wall hooks from Kmart and decided to mount them on the door for our bags and hats, and eventually get a wee cabinet for shoes to go next to it! When the wall hooks came, they were more steel looking than rattan looking (no shade to kmart, we love that place!) so I got some raffia from Bunnings and wrapped it around to actually look rattan. It took 2 days and a lot of binge-watching, but I didn’t mind! I loved it! Next project was to paint the door because ugh, it was SO dirty from fingerprints even though we clean it! I did contemplate painting it a different colour, but eventually decided to go for the same colour white as before. It looks so much fresher after 2 coats! You can’t tell in the photos, but it does, I promise! Next I attached the wall hooks to the door and while Alex was in the office one day, decided to pick up this cabinet from IKEA and put it together. Boy, did it test my patience putting it together, oh my gosh. BUT, I did it! I still haven’t decided if I want to stain it and attach cute handles or give it a cute dowel DIY makeover, but I’ll update you on here when I do! What do you think? Which would look better?
Apart from that, not much else has been happening! I do have many more projects on my list which I’m very excited about… Redoing the balcony is one of them, because it’s just become a dead plant graveyard again. But I’ll do a wee post on that when I do!
I suppose there is one more thing that’s been happening, and it involves a lot of self-care! With the help of my psychologist, I’ve really been trying to prioritise myself and my basic human needs. I think because I’m not working at the moment, I feel this constant guilt and need to do as much as I can around the apartment, housework wise, to prove that I’m contributing and make sure Alex knows how much I appreciate him. I think that can be a good thing at times, but it’s been keeping me sick at the same time. For the past year (and probably before that, too) I’ve been neglecting my most basic needs in order to make sure all of the housework is done. And none of that pressure is coming from Alex- he constantly reminds me he just wants me to look after myself, and everything else can wait. But I guess I feel like it’s something I can control– my environment– so I put all my effort into that. But, it’s not good for me, and I’ve literally been forgetting to eat, drink water, even shower some days. So when I think to myself, “I should be working, I feel a lot better than I did when Charlie died” I think of how I’m not actually taking care of myself, and know that I’m not ready yet. So, I have this list of things that I’m working towards doing every day. It’s not a “you have to check everything off of your list otherwise you’re a failure” kind of list, because I’m prone to making those lists! But it’s more of a, “if you can get some of these things done, you’ll feel better, I promise” kind of lists. To someone who isn’t struggling with their mental health, it could sound basic and even silly. But it’s hard for me to complete them all! The list goes a little something like:
- Eat regular meals
- Drink at least a litre of water
- Hygiene (at the least, brush my teeth and shower, at the most, do my hair and makeup)
- Gentle movement (walks and stretching)
- Mindfulness (journalling and meditation)
- Something for you (blogging, baking, DIY projects)
I’m getting better at checking more than 2 things off the list every day, but it’s still a struggle for me. But, it’s about progress and not perfection! I just have to remind myself of that quite regularly!
There’s also one more thing I’d like to make a note of before ending this post, and that’s why I started the blog– food! Cooking and baking. I haven’t been doing as much of it lately for a lot of reasons, (prioritising housework and wanting to do a blog post for every recipe being two of those) but gosh, it makes me happy to bake. And I really want to do it more often. I think I’d like to blog about it, but put less pressure on myself to make them perfect posts. Cooking is another story! I used to love looking up recipes and cooking all the time, but gosh now I think it’s just so monotonous! I think it’s a lot to do with not having as much energy as I used to, and also not having a dishwasher! I know that last one sounds silly but when we lived with my mum a couple of years ago, we had this deal that she would encourage me to cook and bake all the time, and she would do the washing up for whatever didn’t go in the dishwasher– she loved doing it! And we had such a good flow in the kitchen together! But now whenever I cook and bake, I dread doing the dishes afterwards. Our kitchen bench, and therefore the sink, is super low down (we’re both pretty tall) so my back gets so sore! We’re planning on getting a dishwasher and I really think I’d be baking up a storm all day every day when that happens! But I’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, is there any recipes you’d like me to try and blog about in the meantime? Let me know, buns! And if you made it this far into the post, let’s be best friends? Okay, love you, bye!