Tree Change

We've moved to the country!

Just in case the "Baptist Manse" sign didn't give it away, after two months of unemployment, Jeff has just started as the pastor of his second church, CBC. We are now happy residents of a Great Southern town with a population of 280 - well, 286, now that we've moved in!

Our Tree Change tree:

In Summer, when it has leaves, it will dominate the back yard. Now it provides an excellent climbing tree with the ladder leaned against it to provide access.

Jeff has a huge workshop shed in the back yard, and there is also a smaller gardening shed. Attached to the garden shed is a source of joy for Samuel: a chook run. Some friends from church have offered us a few chickens on the lay, so we will be making use of the run very soon. Out of the picture is my own personal source of joy: a large rotary clothesline. After nine months without one, after our landlord refused to replace the one that rusted through and fell over at our last home, I was overjoyed to see our new line in the back yard when we moved in.

Thank you, God, for blue sky and sunshine.
Thank you, God, for an outside washing line!

Inside, things are starting to take shape. I can't say the rooms are starting to feel like home, though. We felt at home from the first moment we walked through the door! I'm pretty sure the lovely pale yellow walls had something to do with that.

Our family lounge room, with our potbelly fire (and a box of paper and cardboard moving leftovers to help get the fire started each morning):

The dining room, complete with new dining table, which we purchased second hand for $300 from our old neighbours, along with four new chairs (two of which now reside in the lounge room until needed).

Our new kitchen:

This is probably as tidy and clean as it's ever going to be!

Our bedroom, my side:

I have made a decision to restrain myself when it comes to junk and books in the bedroom. If it is paper that needs dealing with or filing, it goes in the tray on the bookshelf, and I have a reminder on my Due app to do filing every second Friday. Magazines and catalogues I want to read go in here as well, until I actually get around to reading them. I have a small dish that I was given for Christmas a year and a half ago by a lovely lady from our previous church that I use to hold jewellery and my watch that I take off at night. The only things I am allowing myself to put on my bed side table are one book that I am presently reading; my small pile of Bible, journal and pencil case; and my iPhone. Library books go in a small pile on the left of the bottom bedside table shelf, with another pile on the right side with my other notebooks (one for home making, one on social skills) and a commentary on the book of the Bible I am presently studying. Nothing else! I am being ruthless. My long term Books to Read pile has become half a shelf of my bedroom bookcase. Now I will have a study with a desk of my own, books I am reading for my theological studies are going in that room.

Our bedroom, Jeff's side:

Jeff has made the biggest change: he now has an entire tall bookshelf with his novels and books he wants to read in the near-ish future, rather than the massive piles of books on his bedside table which had been on the verge of collapsing for the past three years. He also has a "Man Box" with handyman fix-it odds and ends hidden on the bottom shelf, for easy access without visible mess.

I took these photos to remind me how tidy certain rooms can be. However, we have by no means unpacked everything. Jeff's office, now that we have bought five new bookshelves from IKEA, is starting to look like an office instead of a book box collection. But my study, which will also be the toy storage room, is still full of yet-to-be-unpacked boxes and missing a desk, which awaits a few finishing touches in the workshop shed.

Even those rooms that are pretty much unpacked, although not fully ordered and sorted, show the impact of four kids (plus a new friend):

I'll post an update on these rooms when they are looking their best!