Closets and curtains

Hello loved ones :) Here I sit at the computer at our kitchen table, writing as the sun is setting outside of our enormous windows. You can still see the dim reflection of the light on the water in the dam, through all of the lily pads. The cicadas are buzzing away and the wind is gently blowing. The banks of the dam grow larger each day as the level of the water continues to fall with each dry day. Our water tank is almost empty, but luckily, we have the option of calling the “water man.” We are very lucky to be able to water our garden using dam water, most people are forced to watch their gardens to die. Drought is nothing new here though, smart people try and grow native and/or drought tolerant plants and trees.

Although it hasn’t rained in weeks, we don’t feel too dried out here. The spa is filled, even with its daily needs of repairs, this pipe leaking one day, the motor broken the next, the pump leaking the next. It’s not a very wise use of water in our situation, but we’re all desperate to have somewhere to cool off, albeit a little dirty. It’d be great if we could swim in the dam but the cows and all of their “baggage” have made that impossible. Perhaps someday we’ll fence them out. Jess and I cooled off in two different rivers this week, one in Kempsey after a doctor’s appointment and another in Bellingen after we visited the open air markets. She also had swimming lessons at the local pool, so she’s becoming a little fish. She’ll dive across the spa and put her face in the water while jumping to you, depending on the mood you catch her in. In the rivers she loves to play with the rocks, sand and sea weed. No matter which water she swims in, she will stay in for hours if allowed. Today at the river we met a few friendly families and had a lovely time paddling around. She was smitten with one little girl about her age and watched her play with her family, overlooking personal space boundaries that adults obey. After a while Jacinta hopped over to the little girl and poked her. She immediately swam back to me and proudly stated, “I touched her!” How sweet:)

Jacinta seems much more interested in social interaction these days. She had a few friends over to play in her new room this week. Lily and Aidan came for a visit, ages two and four, and I must say it was wonderful to hear them playing in another room while Anissa and I knitted and chatted on the couch. Even so, they spent most of their time near us. At one point all three children were banging on the piano and singing at the top of their lungs. Lily joined Jess in singing “Where’s my Bear?” while Aidan stayed with the more traditional, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” Eventually Lily went into the bedroom and found Jacinta a bear, perhaps to entice her to stop singing the same sad song. Josephine, our only young neighbor (five years old), came to play this week. Jess also went to Josephine’s house one morning, so it was a playful week! We are very happy to have some children for her to play with because living with a four to one adult to child ratio can do strange things to a child’s ego. She gets a well deserved reality check when she tries to tell a five year old what to do. For example: when she plays her cute piano songs for us on the piano, she gets cheers and smiles. When she plays for Josephine, her older friend half smiles and cringes commenting that “It’s a bit loud.” I’m sure baby Henry #2 will help with this.

After cleaning out our old bedroom and scouring it in just two days, this week’s tasks seemed to go on forever. Cleaning windows and making pillows don’t sound like they could take up and entire week, but they did! I did do a few other things like cook, play, read, garden, laundry, hang a few pictures, knit, and relax, but I spent most of my energy trying to achieve these tedious everlasting easy tasks. I did actually finish what I set out to do, with lots of “help” from Jess and a good sewing machine. We made four huge pillows to make the futon couch more comfortable and one long pillow to keep Jess off of the wooden bar in her bed at night. I used scraps of old material and stuffed them with the foam out of our old futon mattress. Jess enjoys sticking pins in cloth but as you can imagine, loved playing in the foam. She cooked with it, rolled in it, threw it, climbed the “mountain,” and put a little bit in the pillow cases. I can’t tell you how glad I was to pack it all up in a bag and send the remaining foam to be recycled today.

Matt had the same everlasting task issue this week, but seemed to accomplish a lot more in the end. Everything seemed to go slower than he wished: staining wooden dowels as curtain rods, building bedside tables and staining them, building Jacinta’s closet, and mounting poles in our closets for hanging clothes. Looking today though, we now have beautiful bedside tables, curtains hanging in both bedrooms (also thanks to Mary’s hard work in sewing them), poles to hang our clothes upon, and even a ramp leading up to the front door so we don’t have to step eighteen inches up to enter the house. The ramp was a quick build, probably very gratifying compared to the long drawn out tasks. Jacinta likes rolling cars and trucks down the ramp. She commented on her closet today upon first sight, “That’s cool!” and gave Matt a good laugh. Right away, she tried to hang her underwear on the pole, but later excitedly hung up all of her dresses and sweaters on the little pole just her size. In addition to all of that work, Matt got to work at the bank one day this week, he describes it as terribly boring, but a privilege to get paid and get out of the house, “going to the bank to plan the closets.” Televised cricket and tennis matches kept him entertained in the downtime, as did Jacinta and I! He even made time to weed-whack the entire orchard for me, in the blazing heat. Playing in the spa with Jess following that task was a good inspiration.

Our first week in our own space had many perks, one of which is musical. A stereo in the living room is essential for me, I NEED music at most times in the day. I guess I don’t need it, but I thrive on it and love cleaning, playing and sewing with music playing. It makes mundane tasks much more enticing. Having a piano in the lounge room is lovely, I’m starting to play at night while Jacinta is falling asleep. The walls aren’t sound proof, but I figure it won’t bother her too much. Last night in her sleep she called out, “mommy, play the piano” and said nothing else. It made me smile. My mom used to play piano at night while I was going to sleep, She still plays me to sleep when I go home to visit and I’m almost thirty. Matt can play the guitar more now, as he likes privacy. It is beautiful watching Jacinta watch him play, she closely follows his fingers, his eyes, his mouth and listens.

The breeze in our new place is great, but the roosters still insist on cockadoodle dooing into our window. I have started trying to scare them away, meager attempts though. They are creatures of habit. Another perk is that we can lock the door and keep Jacinta all to ourselves when need be. She is accustomed to being able to freely circulate to any of the four adults who will most likely give her what she wants. At least we can now begin slowing her down on instant gratification. The change will be good for all of us.

The garden grows on in the dry heat with a little help from Keith watering and Matt and I using the sprinklers. We ate a few ears of corn this week, and surprisingly enough, there were no caterpillars inside. Perhaps they weren’t brave enough to crawl seven feet up. I convinced Keith to come out and harvest with me one evening while Matt stayed with sleepy Jacinta. We brought in tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, and cucumbers. I stayed on weeding until it was too dark to see the weeds, but that was the only weeding I did all week. Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be. Jess and I made the best pesto yet from the basil in the garden. I think the reason was that I put in more oil, more parmesan, less garlic, and toasted the pine and macadamia nuts. Another excitement was the arrival of some French books we ordered from a gift certificate from my dad and his family, three little books for Jacinta and one Senegalese book on the art of their cuisine. Jacinta loves the simplest book and asks to read it at every sitting. It’s about little bear getting used to the new tiny baby bear. She doesn’t mind that I read it in French, this makes me very happy!

Speaking of that tiny baby bear, it is kicking and moving around like crazy! We are approaching our due date and can’t wait. It should be another six weeks or so. So send us some cold weather if you don’t mind and we’ll try and send you some of our sun.

Check out the paintedguitar.com website sometime this week. Matt will post a new photo album this evening. Have a fulfilling week and we’ll talk to you soon.