Kieran is Home

My baby boy returned from his first deployment last Friday evening. Yep, I dont give a rats patootie if he turned 25 while he was away - he is my baby boy.

Five minutes, 5 years or 5 decades he will ALWAYS be my baby boy.

I can't believe how fast the last 6 months have gone, a Christmas & his birthday without him just weren't the same. But as you can imagine I was pretty darn exited about him finally coming home. So excited that I teared up more than once in the time before we went to the airport to meet him....or perhaps that was relief.

I didn't cry when he left. I didn't want him to leave with the image of a tearful Mum imprinted on his mind. He is living the life that he was destined to live, doing what he wants to do & serving his country by doing so. I have faith in that & I wanted him to leave with the knowledge that I am proud of him, not the message of fear & worry that tears would have portrayed.

Watching those boys arrive home, & some of them do seem so very young, I couldn't help but feel for those that had no one there to greet them, & those with babies that didn't recognize their Daddys any more because of the long separation.

Yet between those boys there is a camaraderie, a connection that is special - you can see it, you can feel it. It's not defined by age, race or rank. It is defined by what they have seen & experienced together. I don't expect that there is anything else quite like it in other 'work' environments, but it is a wonderful thing to see.

Fortunately Kieran has the most supportive wonderful fiancée, who seems to be of the same mind as myself. She is also patient & generous, not minding his Mum & family hanging around when I am sure they would rather have been alone. We had a wonderful dinner out at Kerry's parents place & spent a warm relaxed evening catching up.

There were a couple of moments when I felt a bit of a lump in my throat, when I thought back to all that had happened while he had been away. Knowing how the deaths resulting from the Iroquois Helicopter accident here on ANZAC Day & a motorcycle accident that took the life of a solider the next day had impacted on him. Lives lost on home soil - it seems so senseless somehow.

So the baby boy who was born on ANZAC Day (NZ's equivalent to the USA's Memorial Day) has returned safely home. I know I'm as grateful as all get out!

Kitty Convert #2

'nuff said!
(well, apart from the fact that the wine box in the background in no way reflects my tastes in wine! Lindauer has to be the worlds worst excuse for sparkly stuff - blagh!)

All Over the Show

But I don't mind too much. One day I will find my style.

In the mean time my efforts appear to be happily finding new places to go.

Some Beads Along The Way

When time permitted I got to the torch & managed to put together a few sets of beads.

Thinking myself a clever little person for having created stock enough to last me a while, I was somewhat surprised...no, make that stunned, when my first lot of listings sold within hours of listing them. My remaining stock didn't get the chance to be listed as a visiting designer saw it & purchased the lot.

The best laid plans of mice and men......

IN...& Loving it #9

So that is us. The move is complete, we are all settled in & loving it.

Some things have come at a cost as there are a few things that aren't quite as convenient as they were before. It's further to the Post Office, takes a lot longer to get to work...& there isn't a decent cafe anywhere near!!

I'll never like blue carpet, off white walls, down lights (who invented those things anyway....obviously someone that had no interest in art or crafts of any sort!!) or vertical blinds, but for now I can live with them. I don't expect that I will ever enjoy the rules that come with renting either, that inability to put your own stamp on a house or garden & make it feel truly a 'home'. But once again I can live with it.

It's warm, it's tidy & it's PEACEFUL!

It's conducive to living... & creating :)

This batch of Haiti Hearts was taken around to Ris'tretto recently... they'd sold all the rest just after I moved.

IN...& Loving it #8

The neighbourhood.
Call me a snob, but it is so nice to live in a neighbourhood where people actually care about their homes enough to keep them looking tidy again.

It is an absolute delight to walk around here. We are only 5 minutes walk from being out of a built up area & into a green space. Even though this area was developed at the same time the houses aren't all the same, so one isn't faced with a street full of replicas, almost clones of each other, each only having a couple of features that might make it different to the next. I often wonder about that & why people would be happy to appear not to have any individuality, or anything that distinguishes them from their neighbours.


There is a small park with a pond just up the road & over the back is a Home Centre with a huge builders & home handyman store. It also has rather a substantial garden department. Oh dear.


The funniest thing is that I have almost come a full circle. My very first home when my eldest son was a baby was not so very far from here. It bordered on open grazing land & the only building you could see from it was a small plant nursery. That small plant nursery has since become a rather large plant nursery, possibly the largest in this city.

IN...& Loving it #7

Rules aside, sometimes one just cant help themselves. There is such a thing as too much grassy leafy flaxy stuff.....especially when it is so congested & overgrown that it is sending runners under the driveway.

We are required to maintain the garden & lawns, but it's not specific as to whether that is just keeping it weed free or not. Darn that 'grey area' ;)

I felt a bit of judicious thinning was in order...

Before

After

Then there was the small matter of the garden edging that ran directly into the end of the patio. It somehow just looked 'wrong'.

Before - with evidence of more 'judicious thinning'...

After - with some of the evidence (very little) replanted....

IN...& Loving it #6

The wonderful weather has also allowed for some late in the season garden purchases.

Initially I was somewhat disappointed as it was quickly discovered that due to the way the garden is laid out & the rather stringent rules surrounding what tenants can & can't do, seemed somewhat prohibitive.
The 'garden' is primarily grasses, which I could normally work around. However these uninspiring specimens have been firmly embedded in weed mat & then covered by a rather thick layer of bark.

I love colour. I love variety & texture in both leaves & flowers.
Something had to be done....

Pots it was. Just as well I had loads of terracotta pots! Even better that it was sale time at a lot of the local plant nurseries.

Just a little bit scary that over the last 8 weeks I have filled in excess of 20 terracotta pots with plants, & have even snuck in a couple of purchases of more pots....

Woke up to a slight 'oopsy' one morning. I hadn't properly checked the rope holding my hanging pots & didn't realise that one in particular had perished almost all the way through whilst unused over the last few years.

It had speared itself nicely into the lawn...no harm done to either pot or plant.

This strip of fence would be the perfect place for a garden....it doesn't get much sun apart from in the mornings, & I can imagine a few tree ferns underplanted with hostas, solomons seal & astrantias & bleeding hearts. Yep, I see a blank space & my wee mind goes right into planning mode. But for now the pots will have to do.

IN...& Loving it #5

We've been blessed with days so bright & clear, full of the gentle warmth usually associated with early autumn rather than late, that it has been difficult to stay inside. Most days start with a coffee on the patio & me just absorbing the expanse of blue sky & the feel of fresh air & sunshine on my face. Bliss.

Discovering that this house is pretty much on an inbound flight path in certain weather/wind conditions has been a bonus. I love watching planes & on the days that this flight path is used they fly so low that I can tell which airline each plane belongs to.

Air New Zealand

Pacific Blue (why are the planes red?)