Bea

rainy weekends, red wine and laundry

It's a typical rainy winter weekend down here in the south pacific. Not particularly cold, but very very wet. Which, if you have someone great to spend it with, a good bottle of wine and some interesting reading material, is a very nice recipe to end a chaotic week with. (no, we haven't had  conversation yet. you'll know when it happens, trust me.)

However, the rain only becomes a problem when you have loads of laundry to do, need to pack for a work trip, and have no dryer:

No dryer? Don't say it's so! But it is. Alas, New Zealand is not known for the workhorse of a dryer that I grew up with in Canada and all of my North American readers enjoy. It's not pretty, but it still makes my heart beat just a littler faster. 

Sure, you can buy a dryer in New Zealand. But, it's an electric one. Which basically means there's one little gremlin churning your clothes in a circle and randomly thinking about blowing in the direction of the clothes. It's hours days before your clothes start to resemble dry.

Instead I have resorted to these options:

Hanging clothes in the airing cupboard. What? Not familiar with an airing cupboard? You must be from North America, again. In an airing cupboard we dump loads of cash via our power supplier  so that the water is continuously heated by an electric source. I know, ANCIENT.

I also hang clothes on a clothes horse. No? Not familiar with this either?! Popular with students, and introduced to me in the UK, this simply allows your clothes to air dry while providing some handy household humidifying on the side. 

And finally, the option that clearly does not work, the outside clothes line. Very green with it's use of any available solar and wind power, but not always productive during winter months. 

Which, if you're DINKS, you can totally live with any and all of these methods . Inconvenience? Sure. But still workable if you

put your mind to it. 

New Zealanders are also, no surprise here, prone to procreating (64,1460 babies last year!). And, hey! Why not?  It's fun, so easy, and provides endless hours of entertainment. There is just one burning question in my mind though:

HOW THE HELL ARE THEY DRYING ALL THOSE BABY CLOTHES?!!!    

straight from the closet - domestic goddess

Why is it that you only hit your holiday stride after a week on holiday? Perhaps I just take that long to de-compress and become a bit more normal.

The old biological tock has been tick-tocking and has manifested itself via some rhubarb muffins this morning, the completion of one project and near completion of a second. I've so enjoyed actually working on something that has a product at the end, one where you can see the progress while you're working on it. Ok, and something that's for a little person. 

               model required!

The second project is a smock or apron for crafting and general mucking around. It's my first project using a pattern and it was an experiment to see if I could. I ran out of binding for the neckline and ties at the back, but you get the idea.

pockets for sweets, glue, spoons etc. 

I love the idea of making something unique and not available at your local store - plus the added bonus of extra love included. 

To Do List

It’s the first official day of my summer holidays. A blissful two weeks of nothing is planned. That’s right, no jet lag, no visiting family, no manic last-minute shopping. 

Instead, I’m planning to spend my holidays catch up on some z’s, doing some more exercise, playing in the sun, and organising my home. Oh, I know that the last one may not sound like a lot of fun to most, and truthfully the act of organising my home doesn’t excite me. What does excite me is the though of living in a well organised and streamlined home.

I offer my thanks to a timely reading of Darla Shine’s ‘Happy Housewives’. Yes, she is judgmental and a bit bitchy at times during the book, but the over-all message of having a plan and being bloody grateful for what you do have is a good one. I’m not a housewife (she is), I don’t have kids (she does, and the tale of her birthing experience is not for the light-hearted) and I’m not married to a man who makes obscene amounts of money (she is, and that’s why she gets to stay home, and in style). 

But I do have a lot to be thankful for, and as a result have resolved to get my ass into gear and make more of my home. Small jobs like cleaning out my linen closet will take less than a half-hour. Bigger jobs, like painting and re-organising my home office, will take a day or two. And at the end of it, I’ll be even more proud of my home and look forward to spending time in it every day after work.

I’m off to tackle the linen closet, and if you don’t hear from me again, send the search team into the laundry room will you?