Thursday Themes -- Home

Home. Such a little word, with so much meaning attached to it.

I asked Fabio what 'home' means to him. He said, it's wherever I am.
Same for the kids; it's 'where mum is'.

Because Fabio is head of the home here, but I am the heart. I'm the one who makes our home comfortable. I clean the floors and wash the clothes and fill the pantry and find the remote and sort the toys and scrub the toilets.

And though I'm not a born housekeeper, I do love being a homemaker.

I love baking with an apron on, fluffing the cushions and curtains to get them just so, and arranging the pictures on the walls.
I love Howards' Storage World and paint charts and I have an Ikea catalogue coming in the mail that I will pore over time and again.

***

With my husbands' job, we've moved a lot. We've lived in the middle of no-where, in a city, in small country towns.... all in rented houses or supplied accomodation. Some of those places I've been desperately unhappy, all the while trying hard to fit in and get on with it.
I guess the plus side is that I've ruled out a lot of places where I know I definitely don't want to live!

If my husband needed it, I would go anywhere with him. Being his wife is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, and he is the most important thing in my life.
So, in a way, home is wherever he is, or wants me to be.

But in another way, 'home' means 'my own place'. The place where I'm glad to come to, the place I've had a hand in making into a home.
And the ultimate in that would be to own my own home. To have a say in what the laminate in the kitchen looks like, to have the cupboards set up to suit me, to pick my own curtains and paint colours, to plan a garden from scratch, to throw out the carpet and lay down something that doesn't stink from other peoples' dogs....

.... that's my Big Dream.

***

My husband is working hard to provide for our future. He had to start all over again after his first marriage ended, and he only has a few years left doing the work he does now, because it's so physically hard.
We have to make sure that when he has to stop, we can survive.
And I get that... sacrifice now, so we can live later. I support him in his choices.

But.

This year I'll be 46. I'm no closer now to owning my own home, than I was when I was 26.
All I can do for now is dream. And when the dreaming gets too painful, I try and convince myself that renting is wonderful, and I can live anywhere

because home really is where Fabio, my heart, is.

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Want to join in? Write a related post, and be as creative as you like.
Make sure to link back to me in your post, and make sure to leave some love on at least one other persons' post. The link should be open till midnight Sunday.

Thursday Themes - Textures

I love old timber and rusted metal.

Lichens, fungi and bark do it for me, too.

I always want to touch them, and sometimes even looking at these photos I'll find myself rubbing my fingertips together.

Want to join in on this weeks' theme? simply do a post about textures, link back here, and leave some comment love on at least one other blog.

Thursday Themes - Tools of the Trade

In my other life, the one where the children are at school and the housework is ignored, I couldn't manage without these. They are my go-to tools -- the ones that help me create scrapbooking LOs and papercraft projects, like wedding invites and birthday cards.
They are -
- Fiskars paper trimmer, and awesomely sharp scissors that stabbed me in the leg
- T!m Holtz design ruler (which has grid markings AND little holes to help with paper piercing and stitching), T!ms' Distress ink and applicator, his rubber stamps and his embossing powder -- why, yes, I am crushing on T!m, how did you guess? but his products are so damn GOOD.
- collection of pens, including white gel pen and my Zig Writers
- Versacube ink in Pinecone -- everyone should have this colour. Everyone. The world would be a better place.
- double sided tape and glue dots -- no more sticky glue up to my elbows. (my dad superglued his forearm to the kitchen table one time when he was making fishing lures. Luckily (?) he had a razor blade handy, and cut himself free. A millimetre at a time. This has nothing to do with papercraft but it's pretty funny.)

So what tools do you use every day? what could you not manage without?

Join in by writing a related post, and be as creative as you like.
Make sure to link back to me in your post, and make sure to leave some love on at least one other persons' post. The link should be open till midnight Friday.

next Thursdays Theme is....

Two posts today! And I'm only on my second cup of coffee....

This is just to let you know what NEXT Thursdays' theme will be....

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

No matter what you do, whether you're a full-time mum, retired traveller, employed outside the home, even a street-walker, you use tools to get the job done.

So let's see a post about the tools of YOUR trade. What do you use that you couldn't do without?

You can use pictures or not, link to old posts, whatever floats your boat.

Remember to post this NEXT Thursday and then come here for the linky.

Thursday Themes!

This is an idea that's been brewing in my head for a while, and I had a look around to see if anyone else was using it. If you know of another similar (Australian) meme, please let me know.

So here are the rules:

Each Thursday, if all goes well, I'll post a theme for the day. Join in by writing a related post, and be as creative as you like.
Make sure to link back to me in your post, and make sure to leave some love on at least one other persons' post. The link should be open till midnight Friday.

Todays' theme is Art Attack.

We all have items around our home that are decorative AND have a story behind them. Maybe the vase Great-Aunt Marjorie left you, or a picture you bought on holiday, or that lumpy clay thing one of your kids made you for Mothers' Day.
I want you to have a look around your home and find THREE things that you could conceivably call ART, and write about them.

And here are mine:

I found these in a op-shop, and instantly fell in love. I Googled the names and eventually found the studio where they were made, and contacted the artist. She e-mailed me back and said she would get back to me with the details of who the knight and his lady were, but I never heard from her again.

I have them hanging above the bedside tables in our bedroom. I like to imagine that they were deeply in love and lived happy lives. Probably not, but I can dream.

***

So what do you reckon this is? I think it looks a bit like it wants to be an owl.

I found it one time when we were out bush-bashing.

Western Australia has a massive history of mining towns that dried up and disappeared, and rummaging around the sites can unearth some pretty interesting stuff. Alas, we have never found anything valuable, but I just love this melted lantern frame!

***

Probably not (strictly speaking) ART, but this gorgeous old sapphire pendant came from my great-grandparents to my grandmother to me. One day, I'll get a chain made for it, hopefully before it's time to pass it along to my daughter.

We'll call this one a test run, I think. Tomorrow I'll post the theme for next week, so you have a chance to prepare for it, if you'd like to join in. Thanks for the suggestion, Maxabella.