Tuesday 28 June 2016

Current Mum Uniform




How we live

I read a comment somewhere on Apartment Therapy recently that said something along the lines of "you don't use your house to get your exercise in." Meaning, in most parts of the world a home is used for the basics of living: sleeping, resting, eating in, shelter, warmth. Outside of the home parks exist, as do cafes, restaurants, walking trails, playgrounds, and so on and so on.

It was a lightbulb moment for me. Or rather, it helped affirm everything i've been thinking lately but couldn't verbalise.

I currently rent a 2 bedroom apartment in the inner city. I actually debated whether I even needed a 2 bedroom apartment as Little One 99.9% of the time bunks in with me. But it was at my mother's insistence that i "could use the storage space" and the fact the rent was a steal that made me cave in the end. Besides, I wasn't exactly spoiled for choice in the area I was desperate to rent in.

Now, almost 6 months in, guess which room rarely ever gets used? Yep. Little One's beautifully decorated color coordinated - in the requested pink and white - bedroom.

Another topic of conversation that comes up everywhere i go is housing affordability (almost everyone i know who lives in the inner city is renting or by some sheer family luck has bought, but only just managed to!) Where i live or more importantly where i want to live a 2-3 bedroom house will set you back a cool million dollars to buy or $600 + to rent. This makes sense if you're a double-income couple with a kid or two.

But i'm not. I'm a single parent with a young daughter who, and this is probably the most important part, is at her grandparents or with her dad for 4 days out of the week. I don't need that extra house. That, in this area, equates to a partial garden area and possibly if you're lucky, a dining room. What i'm more interested in is a mortgage with low repayments or better still, something i can pay off quickly and live in mortgage free!

Photo credit: Dwell Magazine
And so while talking to my ex's father we came upon the idea of me buying a 1 bedroom apartment and getting creative with the help of my (carpenter and builder) dad in building a sleeping loft or sleeping partition instead of having a separate bedroom that never gets used.


  

Random Google Images Inspiration
Because really, the very important question to ask when thinking the kind of dwelling you wish to dwell in is, how do we live? 

And so i will answer. This is how we live in our family:

We come home from work, or kinder, or whatever activity we've been at. We sit on our cosy couch and watch TV, or read a book, use the laptop or the iPad. And, this is the important part, the most underused room aside from the second bedroom in our apartment, is the kitchen. Oh i might boil the kettle occasionally, assemble a meal. I rarely ever cook. In fact, i've only started cooking because i DO have a big separate kitchen here. But otherwise? I could honestly survive with two hotplates, a convection microwave oven and a kettle. That's how little i care about cooking as at times it feels like there are more eateries in our area than people. And all our local favorite restaurants do home delivery with Deliveroo or Foodora. We have our little dining table and yes, we eat with real knives and forks on linen placemats with linen napkins to give us a semblance of civility, but it's still mostly takeaway or ready-to-go meals.

Then, when we've finished reading, watching TV, going online, we go to sleep. That's pretty much it. It's all very basic.

The only thing that I think is absolutely essential is a separate bedroom. Just the one. Because Little One wakes up at an ungodly hour and likes to watch TV, draw, play with her dolls and stuffed toys (always in the living room mind you, never in her bedroom.)

I think it's good to think outside the box sometimes. There are people who value the trophy home because that makes them happy (and, very importantly, their investment will pay off in the future) and there are people who value their absolute freedom. I think i fall into the latter category. Though that hasn't always been the case!

It's very important for me to mention the role of my ex's parents, the Little One's grandparents in all this. My ex's parents valued the trophy home (and with 4 children rightly so!) And thank god they did because it was their forward thinking that makes all our lives so much easier now. Their house is an inner city sanctuary. But they could have so, so easily have chosen to downsize after the last kid flew the coop almost a decade ago. So now they are left with a 5 bedroom, 2 office, 1 swimming pool inner city abode with enough space to run circles in. In fact, we're constantly losing one another in it.

When i need to cook a big meal, or go for a swim when its hot, or need a free office to do some work in it's here I go. My ex has since moved back in (all the children have been invited back at some stage or another) and the Little One has her own bedroom there plus a separate TV room. It will possibly remain her main bedroom when she grows up and becomes a teenager as i'll by living near them. It's the sort of house you can float around in and have your privacy and do your own thing in without anyone bothering you or finding you. When she's older, or even now if she wants, she can have school friends over and no one would even notice. We are very, very lucky that this house exists in the family.

And so it makes my goal and decision a lot easier. But i'm still very much inspired by the tiny house movement and micro apartments and the simple Japanese lifestyle. Even when i lived in our previous house, a 3 bedroom huge front and backyarded suburban house, i still only 'lived' in two rooms and prior to the Little One i was perfectly fine living in a teeny tiny 1 bedroom apartment - the kind where you have to walk through the bedroom to get to the bathroom.

Anyway. I'm excited and it will be interesting. The thought of designing my own interior and having it constructed to my specifications and needs (when the time comes) thrills me to bits. So now begins the important saving and getting all the financial ducks in a row (I have a 2 year goal) and the dreaming and imagining of what can be achieved designwise.

Monday 27 June 2016

What do you mean there are no uniforms?!

For some reason in the inner north they don't like their kids wearing school uniforms. It seems to be a bit of a thing. Since Little One is headed off to the local public school next year and not say, the local Catholic school, there will be no uniforms.

Sigh.

Believe me, I fought with my ex long and hard on this one. It seems to be the only thing we fight about these days but he won out. I think it's important to note he's not the one stuck doing her laundry so uniform played no part in his decision.

So what the hell do you dress kids in if they have no uniform? I see what other kids in the area wear at another local non-uniformed public school and it seems to be a melange of whatever they can grab in the morning. Part op-shop, part Target, part sportingwear store. It's a bit of a missmatched wtf.

I guess my point in detailing this is that I don't want to have to think in the mornings. I don't want to have to put together an "outfit". I just want the obvious choices to go togeher. I want a school capsule wardrobe, if you will. Easy to wash, easy to mix and match depending on weather. Neat, appropriate, sunsafe, play appropriate.

After a long hard search through everything from Target to Pumpkin Patch, GAP to J Crew till i found the uniform section on Old Navy. For the love of skorts haaaaaalelujah! They ship to Australia and everything. Happy days!



                






Monday 20 June 2016

Latest Haul: The Outnet


The Outnet is one of those sites I seem to look at more for fun and morbid curiosity than for actual bargains worth paying for. Recently however i've been in luck. A number of things have come up that i've either contemplated buying at full price for in the past or know would be a good addition to my wardrobe.


Maje is one of those labels that just seem to suit my body. I can generally, just by looking at an item, know whether it will suit me or not and their sizes actually fit me properly.

I knew i needed a black miniskirt and had also been on the lookout for a cream jacket. So when i came cross these i pounced.

   
The black skirt, i discovered this weekend, was still full price in the Melbourne store. So i gave myself a pat on the back for that. The cream jacket fits like a dream. However i'm not convinced by the drapey part. Thankfully, due to its construction, it will be easy to do a bit of DIY and remove it.

I'm not normally into DVF but when I saw this dress in this print i had to have it. I've been going out to dinner a lot lately so i thought it would be perfect. I ended up wearing it to a dinner at Melba at The Langham and it looked great.



Stella McCartney lingerie fits me perfectly. Her bras are my go-to's and I wear the Meg Alluring Contour Plunge as my everyday bra. The straps are sturdily thick but still pretty.

I had admired the pattern of these two when I saw them at David Jones. I had ummed and ahhed about buying them and then when i went back they were out of stock. So when i saw them on The Outnet i snapped them up. A decent bargain too as they are extremely comfortable to wear and seamless.

A book a week


I'm a big fan of bookshops. Or more specifically independent bookshops. So at the start of every week when i pop over to the other side of the Yarra i make a point of buying a book for the Little One and a book for myself.

These have been the latest acquisitions:

 



 





 


The 'What Do Grown-Ups Do All Day?' was a MASSIVE hit. Although she was disappointed there were no lawyers featured (there are a lot of lawyers on her dad's side of the family) but to read it's a bit clinical. 'Alan's Big Scary Teeth' has been quite fun to read. I get sick pretty quick of reading the same books over and over again but I haven't tired of this book yet and we've been reading it every night for the past week and a half.

I like to have a few books on the go at the same time. I had read Inga Simpson's 'Nest' so I was keen to read her latest. And Heidi Julavits's 'The Folded Clock' will be keeping me company on the bus to and from training. I picked it up a few weeks ago and read a few pages thinking it probably wasn't for me but they stuck with me so i knew I would enjoy it and want to savour it.