wordless Wednesday

squashies

My lovely husband, as I've mentioned, is from South Africa. There are many things he misses, not just family and friends, but familiar tastes and smells and fruits and vegies and meats. So every now and then I make a trek across to the other side of town and buy him a few familiar things. The last time I did this, they had squashies in stock. I fell in love with gem squash when we've been visiting over there and my lovely husband loved that I bought him some. He cooked them up and we feasted on South African treats. We also cunningly saved the seeds, as I had a the grand idea of trying to grow some.

So few weeks or so ago I carefully filled an egg carton and gently planted the seeds. I lovingly watered them and left them outside on our table, under the cover of our little porch.

The next morning though, this:

It was one of those ridiculously windy nights, and the wind had blown them off the table. I sighed, scooped up the dirt and a few of the seeds, and tried again.

Check this out!

Yay for squashies!

Wordless Wednesday

night flowering cacti

I inherited lots of things from my nan including, randomly a cactus plant. I've had it in my garden for a couple of years now, and not really paid it much attention. Until this week that is. For this week we noticed that it had sprouted - this weird long growth, and then it grew a bud on the end. It just stayed like that for a few days, then the night before last my lovely husband called me outside. It had finally opened up.

It was so pretty and smelt so lovely. We brought it inside to get a better pic.

And I'm so glad we saw it! By the next morning it was already starting to wilt, and with the heavy rain last night, it is now looking very sad and sorry for itself. But for that one night - it was a random thing of beauty. Lovely...

home?

i really do have an awful lot to say. there are so many things to share with you - stories of our wedding and honeymoon and of visiting family and of wedding receptions. of packing my life into boxes and suitcases, and then trying to unpack and settle into a new house, a new area of melbourne, a new married life. there are stories and pictures and tales a mile long. but for now, with this dodgy borrowed internet and a brief snatch of time, the things i want to say are different. 

see, i've been thinking a lot recently about how you make a house a home... for me, this has been harder than i would have expected. harder than i ever remember it being. i've moved lots of times, but never before struggled to feel at home. 

when we first moved in here, i thought it would be about having your stuff, familiar things, unpacked and put away. things you've had for years out and in use. but i am realising that it is deeper than that. each box we've unpacked and put away, for me, hasn't made this house feel any more like ours. 
 
then i was thinking it would be about living in the space. but we've been here 5 weeks now, and although it does feel more like home. it still doesn't feel like ours. i still don't quite feel comfortable in this space. i feel a bit like i am all elbows and knees and my clothes are too big and i'm wearing somebody else's shoes. i feel a bit like we're living in the in between. 

so yesterday i tried a different tack - i got outside and stuck my fingers in the dirt and planted this:

a rosemary bush. a solid thing. and maybe as it settles in and puts its roots down, we too will spread our roots deeply here and feel at home.

what about you? what makes you feel at home?