LIVING LIGHTLY OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS
If you read my blog regularly (thank you if you do!) you'll know I chose "Live Lightly" as my Word(s) Of The Year for 2023. I've made a pledge to myself to chill out a little this year and to take things as they come, rather than trying to push too hard or trying to control everything. I hope my year will reflect taking life at a gentler pace and stepping lightly and slowly.
So, on that note, to wrap up April, I'll be sharing a few little highlights that contributed towards a lovely month....
EASTER HIGHLIGHTS
Easter was a quiet one for us with our daughter and son-in-law away camping, and our son and daughter-in-law and grandgirls due to visit during the following weekend. We spent our days quietly and enjoyed the peace and quiet - as well as taking time out to remember what we love so much about this time of the year.
One small interlude was spent strolling along our local estuary on Easter Sunday admiring all the black swans that were floating by - I think there were about 100 of them milling around.
FAMILY HIGHLIGHTS
As I mentioned, our daughter-in-law came to visit the week after Easter, bringing our two delightful grandgirls with her and the added joy of their new little Ragdoll kitten named Mallow. Our two cats were a little suspicious to begin with, but they all managed to survive the visit and we had a really lovely time. Our son had a bad cold, so he stayed home and popped down for a visit later in the month to catch up on all he'd missed out on.
Sophia (our oldest granddaughter) turns 7 in a few days, so she had an early birthday during their visit, plus a late Easter bunny for each of the girls.
BLOGGING HIGHLIGHTS
It's been a pleasant month on the blog with a few new posts - including an update on my latest health hiccup - a diagnosis of hyperparathyroidism. Nothing life threatening, but lots of scans, and a visit to a specialist and a surgeon - with an operation in the not too distant future.
CREATING HIGHLIGHTS
I'm still playing around with collage here and there, plus some colouring in, and also a jigsaw or two. I thought I'd share a couple of my April collages for those who are interested.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
The other highlight of the month is that we've decided to do a few things around our house to freshen it up. We've lived here for 14 years and felt that it was time to update things a little. The question was 'where do we start?' because everything is fine and nothing needs to be done, but we didn't want to leave it until it looked old and dated.
So, we've settled on updating our kitchen benches to stone, replacing and extending our kitchen tiles and splash back, installing a new sink and laundry trough, having a lot of the paintwork freshened up (by a professional painter instead of doing it ourselves), replacing our living room window treatments, and buying a new floor covering for our dining room area.
Everything (post-covid) takes longer, so we finally got our quotes and made some colour and material choices. The updates won't happen until June and July - but we've made a start, paid a deposit, and have something to look forward to in the next few months. And I'm sure I'll share the before and afters in a blog post when we're finished.
APRIL'S LIVING LIGHTLY QUOTE
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A lovely colourful, family month...I'm looking forward to the reno photos...
ReplyDeleteI think it'll be a while before the reno photos appear - but time seems to be rushing past so quickly that maybe it'll be June or July before I know it and the process will be well underway by then. It'll give me something different to share in my monthly wrap-up posts!
DeleteThe little grandgirls are so sweet Leanne and growing up fast! Looking forward to seeing your renovations, it's always a big thing to decide where to start isn't it?
ReplyDeleteIt's been quite daunting getting started with the whole process Deb - especially in these post-covid times where everything and everyone is in short supply when it comes to the trades and home maintenance/improvement/building. We've made some headway with a couple of the bigger projects and have some timelines in place, so that's a good start for now.
DeleteIt's nice to catch up with what you've been up to. You live in such a beautiful place! I love the photos, and your new collages. Christina Daggett xx
ReplyDeleteHi Christina - the estuary walk was just lovely because the weather was so perfect - blue skies always make water pics look prettier don't they. Thanks for the collage love - I always like it when you leave a comment :)
DeleteHi Leanne - Glad to see you have a had a lovely month of April, with a family get together. It is always nice to have a meetup with our dear ones.
ReplyDeleteHi Pradeep - family makes me happy - and having them come for a visit is one of my most favourite things. I bet you've enjoyed having your son so much closer to home - I assume he's moved back for good?
DeleteSounds like you had a lovely month! I love your collages.
ReplyDeleteThanks Janet - they're my little homage to creativity - something that's been missing from my life for many, many years.
DeleteGood luck with the house refresh! I always find that time both exciting and annoying. LOL. I love seeing the progress but don't always enjoy the actual work. It sounds like you had a lovely April.
ReplyDeleteI feel a bit the same way Joanne - I hate mess, so it will be a challenge - especially while the painting is being done, but it's not for a few months, so I'm just grateful I have some people to do the work and I'll worry about the messier stuff closer to the time :)
DeleteHi Leanne, looks like you had a quiet, peaceful month, enjoying all the things that matter. Good luck with the renovations. I'll look forward to seeing how things turn out.
ReplyDeleteYes it was a very pleasant month with a sprinkle of family and lots of gorgeous Autumn weather to enjoy. The renovations are in the back of my head and I'm trying to leave them there until they're due to get underway - but I do tend to mull them over a lot!
DeleteHello Leanne - what a lovely round up. The view of the estuary looks so peaceful and swans always look very graceful and calm when on the water. Family time is always special and it looks like you had a great time celebrating. Good luck with the surgery.
ReplyDeleteHi Elizabeth - it was a beautiful morning for a walk - and to see so many swans chilling out on the water was an added bonus. Time with the family was great - and I've added in a few chats with my daughter too (which is always a blessing). Next on the list is the visit to the surgeon in a couple of days - and then on with the surgery show!
DeleteHi Leanne, my families were away for Easter too although we minded our Granddog who is less trouble then two boys!!! Your girls are growing up so fast. I love that you live near the lake and the swans are beautiful. It is exciting doing some makeovers in the house. As you know we are doing this at the moment and it really is giving the place (and us) a lift. xx
ReplyDeleteHi Sue - I remember seeing Mike at work in your kitchen in one of your previous posts. I hope you found choosing surfaces and tiles easier than we did. There were so many colours we didn't like - we're trying to get away from dark colours and not just go with a plain cream or white - and there just wasn't the choice I expected. Still, we've settled on a benchtop that we both like and are tossing up between two tiles atm - so we're getting there slowly.
DeleteYes we are almost done with the kitchen and I actually prefer neutral shades. We had the backsplash installed yesterday and Mike just has some touching up and painting and we are done. It is an exciting time but I always second guess myself when it comes to colours. Thanks for linking up at What's Been On Your Calendar and sharing your month with us. xx
DeleteI hope you're going to share some pics in a blog post so I can see how it all turned out. I keep second guessing our colours too, but the benchtop is locked and loaded, and the tiles will be white - so it's pretty much all sewn up and I'm just hoping I like the end result - I'm not good at visualising how something will look from a sample.
DeleteThanks for sharing your April happenings with us, Leanne. The estuary looks beautiful...so colorful, and of course, time with family is always a plus. We are getting to a point where we need to have the interior of our home painted throughout. I am both looking forward to it (the results) and dreading it (the fuss of the process)! We will hire professionals as well, so at least we won't be doing the actual work.
ReplyDeleteHi Christie - we're dreading moving all the furniture around and clearing rooms to give access, then putting it all back together again. It's a huge process, but not happening til July, so I'm trying not to think about it too hard. A fresh coat of paint does brighten things up - I think the colour (even beige) dulls over the years and new paint gives a really clean look.
DeleteHi Leanne, it looks like you've had a lovely month - apart from your diagnosis! I've just caught myself up - clicked on the link to your What is Hyper-Parathyroidism post! Oh dear - you just got your hip sorted and now this! It's good though that surgery and removal will fix the problem and thank goodness you discovered it! For many years, from after I had my children up until about 5 years ago, I had hypothyroidism and was on medication for it every day. For some reason it went away and no medication is required anymore for it. Very strange. I do however have several other things I have to monitor and keep on top of. Wonderful to see your granddaughters and kids over Easter and it looks like such a lovely spot where you are in the photographs in this post. Take care and good luck with your upcoming medical appointments! xo
ReplyDeleteHi Min - the whole parathyroid thing is just such a nuisance - more time in hospital (which I don't enjoy) and just a pain in the neck (small pun there). After my hip I thought I'd have a bit of a break - or a LOT of a break between doctor's visits, but I feel like I've been back more often in the last year or so than in the ten years leading up to now. It's like I hit 60 and all these weird things started happening - our bodies are very strange at times - like your thyroid suddenly deciding to fix itself - what's with that?! A good weird thing in your case.
DeleteOh how exciting to be doing some updates / renovations at home. I'd like to do some as well I think but there are some basic things I should do first - like replace mouldy curtains (that I've been saying I'll do for years and years!).
ReplyDeleteAnd your granddaughters are so cute and look just delightful.
Hi Deb - even small things around the house need a degree of motivation for them to happen. I need to replace the bedroom curtains because the lining is starting to fail, but I keep thinking I'll do it and never getting around to it. Getting the room painted might give me the incentive to take them down and replace them rather than re-hang them!
DeleteWinds of change? Do I detect a restlessness - or something else? Lovely work on the collages. Exciting on the house (tho that's my husband's department - I would gladly let everything grow old and shabby if I didn't have to deal with tradespeople and pay for it all - ha! Love the pic of you with the new cat. I thought it was a baby at first glance! Ha! Was wondering what I missed!
ReplyDeleteHi Lydia - tradesmen are my nemisis atm - they are so hard to find, and then you don't know if they'll be any good, or if they'll even show up. There's so much extra wait time since covid too - one kitchen place had a 6-7 month wait and I just gave up on them. I just want to wave a magic wand and have it all fresh and done - and not think about all the furniture moving, kitchen reshuffling, colour choices etc.... I can't even watch home reno shows without getting palpitations these days. And yes, I think I'm out of the hip tunnel and wondering what's next on my horizon - even the new-ish little day job is starting to come into question.....
DeleteEnjoyed seeing the grandgirls. I know you had the best visit. Our kitties don't take well to any other animal visiting much less people visiting. I keep hoping they will FINALLY warm up to my grandgirls, but no luck yet.
ReplyDeleteExciting times around your house as you do a bit of updating and renovation. I would really like to have our paint touched up. Actually, the walls don't look too bad if we could get some paint that matches exactly, we could fix those little places. But the baseboards need to be painted. Wonder if one can just have the baseboards painted professionally?
My step-son has stopped taking his mental health meds and we are very concerned. I am trying hard to not let this completely undo me but it is hard. I keep hoping we can get to the place in our lives where we can live lightly for a bit.
Hi Lesley - we've been through the ups and downs of family members being on and off meds for depression. It's so hard on everyone - more so on the people around the person who's decided "to have a break". I just wish they'd see it like any other chronic health issue and be grateful for medication - diabetics take insulin every day - it's just a small sacrifice for a much better quality of life isn't it. I hope your step-son comes to the same conclusion, but it takes a lot for them to see themselves clearly while they're under-medicated.
DeleteI'm sure baseboards could be professionally painted - we're getting ours done with the walls. There's not a big need, everything looks fine, but I think it will look so much fresher with a clean and unfaded layer of paint over the top. It's an expensive process though and one we've been toying with for quite a while. I figure in 6 months we'll look back and be glad it's all done and dusted. And yes, having the family here for the school holiday break was lovely (the cats were glad to see them all go though!)
Oh what a lovely and light-filled post. Lots to love here and to look forward to. Nothing like a refresh at home. Great to see your post in the link up for Wednesday’s Words and Pics. Thank you! Hope to see you next week too. Denyse.
ReplyDeleteHi Denyse, we've been here for 14 years now and it felt like it was time to do a bit of a freshen up and to have a kitchen in a colour that I chose - rather than in a modern colour that wasn't really in my top 10 picks. Dark benchtops are very "in" but I like lighter colours and I'm sure it'll give the room a lift when it's all done.
DeleteHi Leanne, Thank you for your weekend coffee share. It looks like you've had a lovely April. I enjoyed seeing your photos of the black swans. In terms of number, they're like the Canada geese that I see in my part of the world. I hope your surgery goes well. Keep us posted.
ReplyDeleteHi Natalie - I thought it was a fun coincidence that we both had swan photos in our blog posts this week - just different colours. And yes, I imagine the numbers would look a lot like your wild geese at certain times of the year. Will definitely keep updating about my future surgery. :)
DeleteThe Grandgirls look like pure fun & cuteness along with their cuddly cat. Our Easter with family was the week before Easter & I worked on Easter Sunday. I'd like to paint our walls but not sure if we will get around to it this year. There is still much cleaning up & organizing to be done along with making a chicken house. Like you said, the walls are fine, I would just like for them to be a different color. Karen #Weekendcoffeeshare
ReplyDeleteHi Karen - painting is one of those things that often can be left on the backburner if it's fine. We've left everything because it was all "fine" - but now it's finally time to do a few things and cross our fingers that we've made the right choices. Colours are a big deal and finding tradesmen is an even bigger deal - covid seems to have backed everything up and slowed it all down.
DeleteVery cute granddaughters! Sounds like some quality family time. Your house updates sound lovely. I hope you’ll share lots of before and after photos. #WBOYC
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle - the grandgirls are delightful and we love seeing them (we also love getting our peaceful house back again when they head home!) I really hope the house refresh goes according to plan and we end up with something that we love and feel was worth the money we're investing into it. I'll definitely share a few pictures when the time comes.
DeletePost Covid, we all have so much of work. Love your grandkids. From Natalie's weekend coffee share, Ganga.
ReplyDeletePost covid seems to have a backlog of work for anyone involved in renovations, home building etc - I'm not sure where they all went, but it's certainly made everything a longer wait.
DeleteI get a sense of peace reading your post. April looks wonderful!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great update Leanne. Your family looks so sweet and fun to be with. How exciting to have some projects in the works! Can't wait to see it all come together.
ReplyDeleteLovely pictures of family times, Leanne. I'm not envying you for the projects, but I suspect it's much easier to do these than it is in India! Stay well. ♥
ReplyDelete