Full moon tails

Cottage tails has started something called Full Moon Tails. Every full moon we journal/ take photos of what has happened that day. I think it’s a fantastic idea as in years to come I have a day in the life of.  Being a mom now my days are pretty quiet and focused on my little man, also since I had surgery on Thursday I'm having a super quiet week trying to recover and I’m supposed to be taking it easy! On that note this was my slow/ easy day.

Very happy baby with no naps time

Little man woke up at around 7 but he now likes to play by himself for awhile. I so love hearing him play in his bassinet cooing away; so heart warming. He’s such a happy little boy. I love going into his room and opening the curtains and seeing him smiling up at me, so happy to see me; little legs kicking away. So coffee in bed for Mr Ecochick and myself. It’s so great that John can play by himself and we can have this special time in the morning together. A wonderful way to start the day.

Breaky time for me and the little man. He so loves his bottle and gets so excited when he sees his bottle; his little arms shake with excitement. Then play time for the little guy on a towel on the ground. Was amazing to watch him play as for the first time he rolled towards a toy to get it so that he can play with it. Wonderful I can watch him for hours. He can rolled from front to back but not back to front yet though he made a very good effort yesterday.

While John went down for his morning nap I wrote my blog and played on the internet. Have I mentioned I love the internet? My first job of the day was finding a sun cover for our buggy so that when I’m full recovered John and I can go for walks and the NZ sun being what it is we really need to protect ourselves. Was happy I found a cheap one at the baby factory in Poriura so got Mr Ecochick to collect it. Score at $39!

Did some more shopping on line including getting a new filter for our water purifier. You might wonder why in NZ we bother to have a purifier on our tap. When I change the filter I’ll put a photo up and you can see how much icky stuff gets trapped. So glad it’s not in me.

It looked like it was going to rain – dark grey clouds coming in fast but I thought I’d put the wash out anyways; oh yeah I’m obsessed with washing! And did another load to put out too. Both dried nicely. Now 2 washing baskets to put away.  

Got a text from Mr Ecochick he got a pay raise! Out of the blue and even better it’s back dated to the start of the month. Woohoo!!!

Little man and I did some singing; I want to teach him Dutch as well as English so I’ve been singing him songs in both languages. Brings back memories as I was bought up in a Dutch speaking house and so didn’t really learn all these English kiddie songs until much later. Will be great for him to be able to speak two languages; just like my brothers and myself.  

So while the little man played on his own I watched Charmed; secret alert I love vampires and witches movies/ shows. Embarrassing really I know but hey can’t help myself. So I relaxed and did cross stitch. I love doing cross stitch; my mother has done it for years and has always been trying to get me to do it too but I was never interested until my best friend taught me how. Now I’m obsessed, though haven’t really done it for a year as while I was pregers I didn’t have an attention span so glad I’m getting back into it.

So after Mr Ecochick came home we chatted together and we made tea. We hung out together played with little John and then when he was in bed we chatted and watch a movie together. I love that John is still little enough to be able to go to bed early and we get some adult time together. Wonderful.

Day #2 - Love thy self

A hot topic as everyone finds it so much easier to criticize themselves than to love thy self. When I was younger and people would have to say what do you love about yourself? I would say I love my pinkies. He he so silly I know but they are kind of cute. A strange thing I do love about my physically self are my feet – most people hate feet but I like mine; I call them “real” feet; the second toe is longer than the big toe. It's a family thing (Mr Ecochick's are even longer than mine!) I’m so glad to say that little John has "real" feet too!  

On a serious note I do love my passion. I am a very passionate person which has often got me in trouble but makes me feel alive. I used to be super feisty but I am a bit better at keeping it in check now-a-days though I have to say I like my feisty nature it means I get things done and don’t get stepped on, though at times it would be great if I was a little more tactful.

I love that I’m loyal to family and friends. Sometimes a little over protective but hey it’s much better now that I’m no longer a teenager and at high school.

Mostly though, I love that I’m romantic and a dreamer. As they say this keeps love alive and it means my life is always interesting and never boring. To tell you the truth I’ve never been bored in my life I think this has to one of my greatest accomplishments; there are so many exciting things to do in life that I just don’t have time to get bored.    

Day #1 – hate and myself

I was brought up to love myself, not in an arrogant I am the most amazing person in the world kind of way but more I am who I am and I have to make the most of my abilities and most importantly that I am loved. Not to sure if there are things I really hate about myself; there are things I really don’t like ie; the aftermath of a pregnant body but that can be fixed with eating less chocolate and doing some exercise, along with that though I have to say that now my boobs are two different cup sizes on a plus note I now have boobs! (clothes looks so much better when you’re a C rather an A – hope I get to keep some of these).

These things however are just physical things and can easily be dealt with. What I do hate about myself is my stubbornness and my inability to let something go – always having to have the last word and be right (well most of the time though I accept I can’t be all the time). Thankfully over the last few years I’ve read a lot of self help books and I think I’m much better in this department.

What is left to hate is my ability to get really excited about something and then never finish it. I’m pretty sure there are still huge jars of candle wax in my parent’s garage in my making my own candles phase (I think I was about 16 at the time so a few years a go now). I know I have 5 big terracotta pots in my own garage waiting for me to paint and plant my house plants into.

Though it’s not just craft things that I leave unfinished or not followed up on this can be seen in how many times I’ve been back to university to study yet another degree that I have to have and guess what never do anything with, though at least I have a load of letters after my name; BA (classical studies – went there to do Art History and History as well but guess what didn’t stick with them), Grad Dip TESOL (though I did teach overseas for 5 years so I guess this one wasn’t totally wasted) and a Diploma in Veterinary Nursing. I mean seriously how embarrassing you’d think after 6 years at uni I would know what I wanted to do!             

I think the thing I hate most about myself is the way I talk to myself. I can always find something nice to say to someone else but looking in the mirror whether it is inside or out at my own reflection things don’t come up so nicely. I guess I better reread “self talk soul talk”  

30 Days of Truth

Well it seems everyone else is doing it see Courtney Kirkland (I think this may be where it started?) but I originally saw it on Cottage Tails so I though why not give it a go?

So here is the list:

Day 1: Something you hate about yourself.
Day 2: Something you love about yourself.
Day 3: Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 4: Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 5: Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 6: Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 7: Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 8: Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 9: Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10: Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11: Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12: Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13: A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14: A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15: Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16: Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17: A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18: Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19: What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20: Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21: (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22: Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23: Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24: Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25: The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26: Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27: What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28: What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29: Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30: A letter to yourself: tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself.

We’ll see how far we get. Might be a bit of fun and a bit thought provoking?

Who does what?

So how are chores divided up in your household? We don’t really have a list as such for who does what but we do kind of have our own chores that we do. There are a few chores I absolutely hate; I hate trash, I hate firewood (just as well we have gas heating), I hate cleaning toilets and showers, I don’t like cooking, I don’t like dirty dishes, I don’t like putting washing away, I hate messy unmade beds, I hate washing baskets full of clean washing. What I do love though is fresh bed sheets  in a recently vacuumed room and a clean house. What I really hate about housework is that it never stays done!

We share most things in this household. Mr Ecochick does  all the yard work and almost all the cooking, he is such an amazing cook I always say I live with a chief. He also enjoys doing it though I know he would love it if I did more cooking and now that I’m at home with the little man I will get into it more. The times I have done it I have actually enjoyed it. Often I get brought breakfast in bed - I love having breakfast in bed I feel so lucky, loved and spoilt. So because Mr Ecochick does most of the cooking I tend to do most of the kitchen cleaning; only fair.

The laundry is mostly my department; though I guess this is more to do with my obsession with clean washing than anything else. Though then I have to deal with all the clean washing; luckily the washing fairies (that would be me) generally put away the washing though sometimes the baskets can pile up a little but until I can’t handle it any more and have a tidy frenzy.

We do have a few tasks that are kind of our domains ie; Mr Ecochick takes out the rubbish when we are participating. Everything else in the house is either done together or shared. Often we do the household chores on the weekend together though now that I’m at home and Mr Ecochick is at work all week I try to get most of the household items done so that we can just spend the weekend together as a family. At the moment the house smells great as Mr Ecochick has been busy vacuuming and mopping the floors. How lucky am I?!

Cloth nappies 5 months on...

So how is it all going? Well we’ve used itti bittis on John since he was a week old. For the first week we used Moltex Eco nappies; they are sposies but are made of paper pulp so I figured not as bad for him or the environment as other companies out there but I still hated using them. So as soon as the meconium stopped so did the use of sposies. Have to say I’ve never looked back. I just love using cloth nappies and take great pleasure in using them, washing them, seeing them on the line and seeing John’s little bum covered in fluffy nappy goodness. Mr Ecochick who was sceptical at first with using cloth loves them too and is always showing people his son’s cute fluffy bum.

John in his new silver tutto

I’m also proud to say that a few others have converted to cloth now too; some maybe my direct doing but I think it’s more because they see how easy it is and that it really is no big deal and best of all saves you loads of money.  I love that I can just chuck a load of washing on (and I wash everyday but then hey so do most mothers and they are not using cloth nappies) and there is another two days worth of fluffiness.

My sister in law who was not interested in using cloth at all with her first daughter nor with their second one; though I did buy them a cloth nappy when she was born. Now though 1 year on she is using cloth on her second child. My other niece amazingly toilet trained herself overnight at aged 2 and has never had an “accident” she’ll be 3 in a few weeks. Was really great to see a blue and white spotted limited edition itti bitti sported on my 1 year old niece today. Strange feeling of joy really. Cloth just looks so much cuter. I mean have you every looked at a bum with a sposie on it and thought aww how cute?

So the final verdict 5 months on as I said I love using cloth and can’t imagine life any other way and am almost horrified at the thought of being any other way. Crazy how we all get stuck in our routines whatever they may be.

So my recommendations on what nappies to buy when you are starting from scratch. I would say buy 8 to 10 small SIO itti bitti’s with extra SIO liners and boosters. Then 10 to 12 bitti tuttos (the wonderful new All In One nappy from itti bitti that fits from 3 to 20kgs!) with medium and large SIO liners. You can buy extra tutto SIOs but I personally prefer the delish SIO liners myself I find they are more absorbent. I’m super excited to say that itti bitti will be releasing some limited prints in January and yes I can’t wait!  

Shopping and the internet

I love, love, LOVE the internet!!! I really don’t know what I would do without it. I mean it has ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that you could possible want, need or be convinced that you need to have. Not only is it cheaper than the stores; I can shop, buy, pay on line and then even better get it delivered to my front door (or back door if I’m not home – might be a little scary that my courier guys know to leave items at my back door if I’m not there. Obsessive much?)! All without leaving my house, getting dressed or having to put make up on. I love shopping in my PJs with a drink in one hand and credit card in the other.

I love the enormous variety that the internet has to offer. I love that I can search a huge number of stores/ web sites and buy items heaps cheaper than going out into the real world. My latest store find is payless pharmacy. I can buy items I would normally need to go to the pharmacy to buy; I can now buy on line and not only is it cheaper but guess what? It is delivered right to my door!!

Mr Ecochick's "soap"

Payless pharmacy seems to sell most things other pharmacies sell and as mentioned it is cheaper. All these products cost me $97 including delivery. If we had bought these items in a brick and mortar store it would have cost us around $150 and I would have had to go out and buy these products too.

I’ve always loved the internet and its delivery possibilities. It’s even better now that I have little John; as just popping into a store to get something is no longer just as simple as popping anywhere.

Every day I get a truck load of special deals sent to my inbox*; think 1-day, daily do, ziwi, spread a deal and even trade me has daily deals now. These deals are great as they are cheaper (hence why they are called deals) and they are items that I might not normally think of or items have wanted to buy but have been to stingy ie Egyptian 400 thread count sheets (bought from 1-day for $80!). I can see how dangerous these deals can be for people so if you are a shopaholic it might be best to stay away. Often I have to remind myself that I really don’t need something even if it’s cheap and seems like I must have it. Just as well I’m Dutch and was born stingy. On a good note almost all my Christmas shopping is calmost completely - thanks with a little bit of help from some of these websites.

I buy almost everything online including cleaning products, make up, hair dye, clothes, books, you think of it and I buy it on line. I think the only things I don’t buy online are food, fresh fruit, veggies, and free range eggs. All I can say I go the internet!            

*Just a side note no one pays me to make these reviews (would be nice if they did) I just like to share what helps me save money and reduce stresses in my life especially with a 5 month old. So the sale fairy is just sharing the love.

Life supports

The babies!

We did our antenatal class through the Parent’s Centre. The Parent’s Centre is great; they do loads of extra classes that you can do for very little money. So far I’ve done a crafts class and a baby CPR/ choking class. It’s really fantastic to have access to all this extra information and experts.

The main reason, however, we joined the Parent’s Centre was to make friends. The information was helpful as before the class I was in total denial about the whole birthing process; but more importantly I’ve made the most amazing group of friends. We meet on a weekly bases and have coffee and cakes (though today it was bubbles, cucumber club sandwiches and cupcakes!) and yak and laugh.

This group of girls has been a total life support for me; we talk about everything together. I mean everything! It’s amazing how much life changes once you have a baby and you so need girlfriends that are also going through the same thing at the same time. It’s so wonderful that all our babies are within 6 weeks of weeks of each other and so they and us can grow up together. It’s great we can help each other out with different issues or stages our kiddies are going through. We can also share clothes and tips.

We talk about absolutely everything and it’s so great to know what you’re feeling is normal. Girls just need to talk really, that’s how we sort through issues and thoughts and it’s so great to have a group of like minded woman who are a life support system.   

New camera!!!

We finally got a new camera. We wanted to get one before John was born but just hadn’t got round to it. We wanted one with as much optical zoom as possible. After some researching we found the Olympus Mju 9010. It has 14mp and 10x optical zoom. That’s a lot of zoom!!  I love that it’s super small with this giant zoom lens that pops out. Did I mention it’s zoomalishous! I first saw this camera in a retail store for $800ish. That’s why I hate paying retail!

So onto the internet we go. Go price spy! It’s a great website which lets you find the cheapest price on whatever product you want to buy. You just type in a product and it gives you the price of the product at different online stores. If you don’t want to buy online it also shows you prices at brick and mortar stores. We buy most of our things through sites on this website; it saves us heaps of money and we’re all about saving money. Now to work out how to use my new toy. Off to take some pictures we go.  

Photos

On the weekend we went to a wedding so while we were all dressed up we decided to take some family photos. We’ve been taking photos of John every week since he was born and we have loads of photos of John and Mr Ecochick but not so many of John and myself. So we took a whole bunch of photos of the three of us and also of John and myself. We got some really amazing photos so will go to the photo shop and get some photos printed. You can never have too many photos.

Home made

New clothes made with love

I just love home or hand made. I think there is nothing more special than receiving a gift that someone made especially for you. I always used to make my own gifts and cards; though over the years I guess I got busy and so didn’t make things anymore. I want to get back into making gifts and things around the home. Sadly nowadays it is often cheaper and better made to buy items ready made rather than making them yourself but the self satisfaction just isn’t there; unless you mean the score of buying an item cheaply or on sale. So I’m keen to get back into making my own house hold goodies/ gifts.  

On the weekend I went to Spotlight with my mother in law to buy some wool so that she can make John a cardigan, hat and booties - I just love knitted baby clothes. John has lots of knitting that a friend of my mother makes; Shirley makes the most amazing clothes. I found a knitting catalogue for myself with loads of amazing tops and cardigans in it so I have decided that I’m going to learn to knit so that I can make my own clothes.

While we were at Spotlight I bought some satin monster material as John just loves different textures especially satin; might have something to do with the satin nighties I wear. John was sleeping with a pair of boxes he just loved them but I thought it was a bit embarrassing so now we have monsties. Take 20cm of cute monstie satin material, sow into a rectangle inside out, and voila we have a new favourite toy!

              

Getting rid of stuff!

Just one bag that has gone!!

I’ve been meaning to declutter for a while now but couldn’t really motivate myself. Then in plunket’s newsletter I read that they were having a garage sale so I thought this is the best time to great rid of everything. I mean everything! I was totally ruthless and got rid of lots of stuff. Was such a great feeling going through the house room by room. Started in the kitchen and then went through all the cupboards and bedrooms. I got rid of linen, clothes, books, ornaments, towels and loads of other things. It was an amazing and liberating feeling. Even better is that the items we don’t need or want anymore have gone to plunket so hopefully they will make some money.

I feel so much lighter. Crazy. Great feeling knowing the unnecessary and unwanted items are gone from my life and knowing that no new stuff will be coming into my home. I now have control over what is already in our home and what is coming into it.  Have just found out when I did all my cleaning it was also declutter week! No wonder I felt so inspired!

Saturday morning market

I just love going to the market on a Saturday. There is a big one about 15 minutes from our house and it has everything you can imagine; fresh New Zealand fruit and veggies, free range eggs and meat and also treats like super yummy almond croissants. We go about every two weeks and spend about $30 on fruit, veggies, tofu and free range eggs. I love going there as the produce is so much cheaper and is fresh and I love that I’m supporting local farmers/ families.

I think it’s a great educational opportunity for the kiddies so they can see where their food comes from. John’s too little to know this yet but I love to carry him in his front pack and now he can face forward so that he can see all the great colours and varieties of food.

We take our own bags so we have no waste - any left over food goes into the compost heap. So great it also means when we go to the super market we only have to get dry goods and basics. Home cooking sure has its advantages.