The Big Reveal of *my room of my own*: Part 1

Hello Lovelies. After teasing you endlessly for months about how *my room of my own* has been coming together, ever so slowly, it's finally time I showed you around. Does that appeal? And are you up for it? Well I saw a few hands shoot up in the air (loving your manners) so here goes. 

I'll start with some photos of my desk. Remember how I bought it from gorgeous Emma before she moved interstate? Well, she left a decent dose of her calming zen vibes behind with it. Whenever I'm seated there, I feel serene and like anything is possible. And that, my friends, is a precious space to inhabit, particularly over the 6 months or so with all their trials. So here's the long shot as we enter the room.

The desk

I really should name this *the room Planetarians decorated and inspired*! Up the top is the divine blue scallop punched and butterfly stamped garland strung up with Divine Twine made by the lovely Sarah, a fellow blue lover like me. 

Then we have those 3 scrumptious moodboards I picked up at Typo for a song - remember we looked at them here? I will go through them in detail in another post as they contain so many treasures from you all. I just wanted you to see where they fit in for now.

Starting on the left, you might recognise the French vase I was given for my 40th birthday.  Looking at it always makes me happy, whether it's filled with flowers or not. Hanging off it is an intricate origami crane I bought yesterday from Hideyo.

There's one of Felicity's handmade flutterers on the wall and a little white butterfly bowl with lid. There's Charlotte in all her blue beauty - remember meeting her here? There's that photo of my darling Dad on Australia Day 2011. Next to it is one of Tasmanian Sally Cassandra's divine southern porcelain tea-lights. The blue floral ceramic box is also made by a local whose name I can't recall - please let me know if you do! And there's my favourite blue dragonfly glass paperweight.

Moving to the left, there's my trusty 'box in a box'. Remember when I bought it here? I highly recommend it - it's cheap, so easy to assemble and fabulously useful. Not to mention pretty on the eye.

You can spot some of your lovely contributions - Ness's clay tags, Melissa's 'Someday' clip, Felicity's bluebird book and Iris's washi tape garland.

This is one of my favourite sayings. It's so pertinent for me right now. I'll fill you in soon as to why.

Here are my airmail stickers in my O-Check bottle - I adore the fine, scrawled French writing on it. Tell me, you overseas Planetarians, does the sticker stand out to you? I always feel so proud to lick the Southern Cross and affix it to my missives sent abroad.

In the middle is my treasured Liberty-covered 'inspire' I posted about here. It means so much to me, even more so than when I made it.

Here's the divine little Sharon Muir birdy Felicity gave me for my birthday. This is what I've filled it with. To all of you who wrote me condolence cards when my Dad died, I punched hearts out of all your envelopes and keep them safely inside. 

Here they are. Just looking at those confetti hearts buoys me on a tough day so thankyou!

To the right is dear Anna's gorgeous painting in the background which makes me heart sing. My lacy pen-holder is full of my favourite things - my large floral scissors and the smaller blue ones which I use for my ribbon work and papercraft, silver Lamy fountain pen, bone folder and my treasured Kusadama flower. I want to make some using this tutorial.

And on the edge is a spot I've posted about before. On the wall is my calendar of all the letters and cards I've sent in the Month of Letters - I'm about a week behind! No worries - tomorrow I'll catch up when the pixies are all at school and daycare ☺.

The moodboards

I had so much pleasure creating these moodboards. It gave me quite a rush to see so many of my treasured and meaningful pretties all in the one place.

I finally felt like I was seeing Jane-the-person revealed in my truest light.

And I was *delighted* with what I saw.

Following kind Kerry's thoughtful suggestions during her recent trip here, I chose the themes of creativity, colour/inspiration and travel. 

Here's creativity. See anything you like from afar?

Next is colour and inspiration. * Sigh*.

And travel to finish with. What do you think?

Next time, I'll show them in detail - I promise! I'd love to hear if anything here has caught your eye or inspired you. Oh, and ask away if you have any questions! And before Bron asks, no, at the moment I don't have a pretty laptop to sit there ☺. Until our budget allows, I'm blogging from our old PC in the next door playroom!

What's made my heart sing this week

You precious Planetarians! Apologies for the delay in getting CommentLuv up and running again - I'm still waiting to hear back from their (normally prompt and courteous) Help Desk. In the interim, I hope I have enabled Old Boy Blogger to allow comments on this post - fingers crossed. We've had a full and eventful week on Planet Baby - I'll share the low-down with you very soon. But for the moment, I thought I'd share you some of my crafty projects which have brought me pleasure this week. Let me know what you think!

Some beribboned fun

A girlfriend had her birthday this week so I had pleasure in whipping up this little number. I took a punt on her liking red and navy. The navy grosgrain ribbon was extremely fine so it took double the time for the red ribbon. When I turned up at her house, she was wearing a red cardigan - bingo! 

Then a little friend turned one so I made her this, guessing that pink would be appropriate. It went down a treat with my dear friend, her mum, so that put a smile on my dial.

Prettying up my scissors

I took a close look at my sewing scissors the other day and thought they needed a spruce up. Not a pretty look, is it?

The answer? I grabbed some washi tape and started a-twirling. Five minutes later and hey presto! Swish-looking scissors which are a pleasure to hold - the tape is soft and enables a bigger grip than the metal.

Some more decorating for *my room of my own*

I adore Typo and their 'buy 3 letters or symbols for $10' deal. I snaffled some @ symbols (do you know there is no actual word for it? Curious, don't you think?) and pulled out some pretty French ribbon I'd bought at the lustworthy 'Store & Co'. I ran out of ribbon and had to order some more. But I love it so much as it is, I might just leave it like this. What do you think? And yes, the ribbon is green, blue and white. Quelle surprise!

Purchasing some resplendent ribbon

Hmm, it seems ribbon made my world go around this week, don't you think?! I bought these pretties for a snap and they brought me so much pleasure. My colours, of course. And the mixture of crisp gingham, striped grosgrain and soft velvet made my heart flutter. They're all so amazingly tactile and hold the promise of something beautiful to be created from them.

Making some cards

As part of participating in A Month of Letters, I have delighted in making some cards. I used my acrylic paints to daub some circles onto paper. Once dry, I punched out circles from the painting and glued them to cardstock (for the locals, I swear by Chickenfeed's packets of 6 cards and envelopes for $2). I was delighted with the result. These missives of love are now winging their way around the world, with the carrier pigeons flapping their hardest. And some of them are destined for the mailboxes of Planetarians so keep your eyes open!

Here's another one I made of punched hearts for a special Planetarian friend in wintery Europe. 

Inventing some wrapping paper

I had fun making this paper for my sister-in-law's birthday present. I've been dying to make it for ages. Just buy a cheap packet of coloured paper confetti and scatter it all over a sheet of adhesive contact. Seal it with another layer of contact and hey presto! Wrapping paper with attitude is the result ☺.

Decorating my birdcages

As part of playing around with *my room of my own*, I decided to pretty up a couple of birdcages I'd had for a while. 

Here's the before shot. Pretty but plain. 

Here are my tools of trade. Can you imagine what I did with them? I'll show you later in the week - I know, I'm such a tease! I adore the result. And what's better still is that it was my own idea, not just something I'd spotted on Pinterest. Woo hoo!

Receiving some unexpected, joy-producing mail

A while ago, I sent a card to sweet Emma who hadn't blogged for ages. She's been the busy mama of her 2 gorgeous pirates whilst they've been renovating their fabulous Sydney home. Emma was so chuffed to hear from me that she sent us a parcel. It was addressed to:

And it was sent by:

Gorgeous, don't you think? The pixies were besides themselves with excitement. 

Here's the before photo. 

And the after - what was inside but a brilliant, detail-rich pirate puzzle! We set to and finished it excitedly in about 20 minutes flat. It's been used all weekend long - an absolute winner in the present stakes. And Emma also sent me a delightful steel water bottle with the prettiest pattern. Thankyou, Gorgeous Girl - you made us all very happy!

So I'll leave you there on that up-note - hopefully a good portent for the coming week for us all. What's made your hearts sing this week? Do share - let's experience your joys vicariously ☺.

Testing times: maintenance on my commenting system

Oh you gorgeous Planetarians! 

I'm currently updating my CommentLuv plugin as suggested by the clever people at Intense Debate, given some recent changes Blogger has made.

Unfortunately, whilst all my settings appear correct, the comment box below my posts has vanished into the ether. The horror!

Fear not, though. I am assured that all our comments have been saved.

I'd just like to be able to see them, strangely enough! As would you, I guess.

I have emailed the Intense Debate help desk for urgent assistance. Hopefully it will all be rectified soon.

I apologise for the break in transmission - normal programming will resume shortly, with any luck!

'Grace under pressure': the follow-up

Oh Lordy! Thankyou so much for your extraordinary outpouring of support after my last post. Life has since been so frantic here on Planet Baby that I haven't had time to respond to your amazing comments. Please know that I have read, and appreciated, every single one. As I said there, posting about such unpleasantness was something I hadn't done before. It required an enormous leap of faith for me, especially at a time when I am feeling so vulnerable given the uncertainty surrounding us. But I'm glad I did. It may cause fall-out - we'll see. If it does, then I'll plant my foot forcefully down the wicket and hit that ball out of the park (my fellow cricket tragics will *get* that reference!). Seriously. I need to, for my sense of self-worth and dignity.

A clarification

Just to clarify again, the conduct which has distressed me has not involved bloggers. It's come from sources a lot closer to home. I'll leave it at that. No name, no pack-drill (how I love that phrase! It was one I used often as a lawyer). I'd be grateful if we could just leave this unattractive topic alone, if you don't mind. Okay?

There is one element of that post, however, that I'd like to elaborate on.

Grace under pressure: what does that mean to me?

Source

In my last post, I mentioned that 'grace under pressure' is my new motto. For those pondering what that actually means to me, here's the low-down.

I would like to:

• not snap at Mr PB so readily. We've both been doing it to each other a lot lately. I guess it's not unexpected behaviour, given what we're dealing with. But it's plain unpleasant, completely against my nature and only makes a tense time worse. A lose-lose scenario all around. We need to stick together right now, of all times;

• not get so caught up in all the pettiness of everyday life and respond to the poor behaviour of others in such a hair-trigger fashion. That is *so* not me. I need to build a huge, protective bubble or moat around our little family and let life's slings and arrows sail right past us; and 

• remind myself that I have no power over people's thoughts and perceptions of me. I only have control over my own. I know that. I believe that. But it's so easy to forget when you're stressed to the max.

So that is my challenge to myself right now. One of the many ☺.

Please bear with me whilst we get through this period of instability and uncertainty. I am finding less time to blog which it frustrating me no end. I have to let that go. Life first and blogging second, right? It's something I've said to so many of you before. Now I need to take my own advice!

So whilst I'm champing at the bit to show you how *my room of my own* is coming along and such other pleasantness, for the moment I just have to bunker down and attend to life's necessities for a while. I hope you understand. 

But I'd better leave you with a photo of one corner of my room. Just as a taster, all right?

Oh okay, and a little close-up as well (and yes, that is my reflection, ahem). Sorry to be a tease!

So, time to wrap this up and return to my reality of number-crunching our budget with Mr PB. The joys. Wish us luck!

Struggling to *go gently*: Part 2

Ah, you gorgeous Planetarians, all 467 of you (Hello newbies! How are you finding this planet?), I hope you're enjoying your weekend, wherever you may be. As for me, I'm heavy-hearted. A combination of events has led me here. The main one was that yesterday marked 6 months since my darling Dad died. Somehow that's hit me right in the solar plexus. I didn't see it coming. Such is the nature of deep grief, I'm finding. So I'm struggling to *go gently* again.

I think I'd been adjusting to it when shazam! Mr PB lost his job. So I had to box up my grief for a while to allow us to attend to triage on Planet Baby as we worked out what we needed to do. We had a resolution of sorts this week (sorry to be so cryptic but I must) and I think that's somehow allowed my subconscious to tiptoe over to *the box* and open it, whilst I was slumbering. Throw in miserable, rainy weather, a vomiting pixie, cabin fever, frayed tempers and PB HQ enveloped in paint fumes as Mr PB paints our new mantelpiece, none of which have lifted my mood. 

I've also been buffeted lately by unkind winds *behind the blog*. As long-term Planetarians know, I cherish my little haven in Blogland. It's *my place*. somewhere I can truly feel comforted by your friendship and support. It's enabled me to discover so much more about myself. I relish sharing my discovery of my long-dormant creativity with you all. You are my jaunty cheerleaders, wise mentors and kind friends. As fellow bloggers, you *get* me.

But some others who read this don't, it seems. I'm not one for tattling. I find it distasteful and not something with which I wish to sully my haven. But the unsolicited advice of some about my blogging has really caused me to do some soul-searching lately. I've pondered the accusations, weighed them up and tried to walk a mile in others' shoes. This is what I've deduced.

I wish to show grace under pressure. 

I will not respond to my detractors. I will carry on as normal. Well, as normally as I can given all the stresses currently burdening our little planet. I won't censor my posts for fear they may cause others discomfort. The judgey-judgers can amuse themselves. 

Here's a peek at one of my new moodboards! This really resonates with me.

Yes, 'grace under pressure' is my new motto.

I've never written a post like this before. It's discomforting but also empowering at the same time.

For once, I'm standing up to be counted. That is a huge step for me, something it's taken most of my 41 years to accept. I need to do this to 'reclaim' my haven. 

This is my cherished spot. It brings me succour in trying times. As do you gorgeous Planetarians. In spades. I can't begin to express how much I treasure your constancy, kindness, wisdom and compassion.

I don't mean this post to be a rallying call to you, requesting support. I just hope you can see it in the context of my being true to my ethos of *keeping it real*. Life isn't always sunshine and roses, I guess. Or black and white. There are hundreds of gradations of grey in between.

I've contemplated switching off comments on this post as I don't want it to become a pity party. But to do so would fetter me and that's exactly what I don't want. So comment if you wish. I'll understand if you don't.   

I trust my pecker will return soon. In true Scarlett O'Hara style, I just need to remember that "...after all, tomorrow is another day." I'll see you then!

PS I promise to reveal my new moodboards very soon ☺.

PPS [Edited following Carmel's helpful comment below] Oh dear. In my efforts to be gracious, I think my references to my detractors are too oblique. Just to clarify - this post does not relate to any troll-like behaviour in comments left on my blog. I would just delete such comments. Rather, it's about people who know me forming judgements on my lifestyle based on what they read here and then telling me in no uncertain terms what I'm doing wrong. It's poor manners, bad timing and ungracious. In my books, anyway.

Miss India starts Kindy

Well today, lovely Planetarians, was an auspicious occasion on Planet Baby. It was a day which had been keenly awaited by Miss India for months, then weeks, then days and finally sleeps. And then this morning, it finally arrived - let's-start-Kindy-day! She was the first dressed, in her freshly ironed tunic and now-worn-in-after-a-week-of-wearing-nothing-else black Mary Janes. Her hat was firmly ensconced on her head from 7.30 am. Her backpack was filled with her lunch-box, drink bottle, pink (of course!) smock, library bag (the one lovely Val sent me for winning her giveaway) and spare change of clothes (all with name-tags sewed in by A Certain Mother at 11 pm last night!). Most importantly, her best friend, Tommy Dog, was packed into a little box as her guardian. She rustled up all the boys and their paraphernalia, supervising their teeth-cleaning. She was a girl on a mission!

And then The Photographer (er, moi!) was called in to mark this momentous occasion. Here's one of the pixies on the back deck with backpacks in place and broad brimmed hats on to ward off the summer sun. They loved feeling like a team, about to start the new school and daycare year. The sun was a bit glary, though.

Then we adjourned to the front door where the light was better. Here's a gorgeous little sequence of them, proudly posing.

Let's start with my Big Girl, clutching Tommy, with hat on. Doesn't the joy just radiate from her? *Sigh*.

Then with hat off, to show her navy ribbon and side part. Goodness, that transported me back many years!

Joshie then stepped up, the old pro. He'd already led the way with his Kinder photo here and Prep photo here. He knew the drill. 

But more importantly, he wanted to have his two emerging front teeth recorded for posterity. So here they are, right down the bottom!

And then Sammy took his turn, after waiting ever so patiently for the big ones to finish. He was proud as punch. Goodness, he wasn't even holding his favourite friend, Spot - he was firmly stowed away in his backpack.

Here's a close-up of my Little Man, wearing his 'S' for Sam top.

Photo shoot over and the school bell beckoning, Mr PB then had the very unusual task of assisting me in loading up the Chariot and doing The Drop-Off. The chattering was non-stop all the way there.

We dropped off Joshie first as he was the old hand. After a few details were ironed out like where his locker was and where he had to put his hat, he found his mates and sat down, cross-legged on the floor, ready to start a-learning. His eyes were bright as could be. After some swift hugs and kisses, we left him to start his year.

Kindy was the next stop. As I'd been to the Parents' Evening last night, I knew the drill. We found India's locker, stowed away her bag and Tommy and then found her girlfriends who'd followed her over from their daycare. She was instantly at ease with them which made my heart swell. We then fetched her name which had been laminated and she traced over it in texta, keeping perfectly between the lines, to my amazement. She proudly stuck it on the wall and then, after a quick chat with her teacher, ventured over with her girlfriends to start on of her favourite crafty things ever - painting! 

We pulled on her pink smock and she was away, already writing her name on her painting before even being asked to by the teacher! Another heart-swelling moment for A Certain Mother ☺.

And then I realised I had to stop snapping photos, kiss and cuddle her and let her go to make her own way. There weren't any tears from either of us. She was ready for it. And I knew that. With a wave, she was then immersed in her painting and we left her to it.

That left Sam alone with Mr PB and me - an almost unheard of situation. And he relished it, holding both our hands and beaming away. It was a delight just to solely focus on him for once. Upon arrival at daycare, however, we soon found that his treasured carer, "Sawy" (Sally), no longer worked there. And he was moving to the next room. Mr PB and I had sharp intakes of breath. How would he cope?

We headed out to the slide and he was away, in his absolute element! We couldn't believe it - we actually had 3 happy little pixies. And all at the same time! Kisses and cuddles over, we fairly skipped out of the place. Slowly, just ever so slowly, I can now peek over the deep trenches of motherhood ☺. And my babies are doing just fine!

And here's My Big Girl at the end of her first day of school - luminous.