Bliss and Mayhem

    This kitchen renovation has been in the making { well, in our minds at least} ever since we moved in to our home 7 years ago. There has been a many discussion, debates, ideas thrown around and I can assure you a zillion times where it all seemed too hard, too much and I had resolved to the fact that it would never happen.  The thing about my husband, is that he is pretty handy. About 90% of all of our renovations have been done solely by him - which in effect has made me assume that doing this stuff is easy,  because he makes it look easy.  I can assure you though - in the last fortnight I have seen how bloody hard, tiring, draining and complicated it really is. We have so far done everything with this kitchen reno ourselves bar the electrics and gas plumbing. Both of us still working our day jobs during the days and then working till past midnight every evening in the house.  We are exhausted! and over TakeAway food!!! But the end is near, so I wanted to share with you our p

 It’s been quite an eventful week here at the house of McLean’s. I mean, it always is really – we love things happening around the home and you never know when you come visit, what changes would have happened around the home. See, we’re 7 years into our house renovations. YES I KNOW! I’m hearing what you’re saying “7 YEARS?” but with all good things {as well as budget, timing and doing it ourselves} I like to remind myself that all good things come to those that wait. Well, I call BS on that. We’re quite frankly a bit  tired of living on a building site constantly with out weekends filled up with work needed to be done. So we’ve grabbed the bull by the horns and thrown ourselves into the last hoorah of the major work that needs to be completed. The Kitchen  Just because I turned a year older over the weekend – {yes, happy birthday to me!} that by no means meant time to stop and smell the roses. Mind you, I had the most glorious birthday guys, lot’s of love was sent my way, flowers,

  Now I understand that every season serves its purpose, with the whole rejuvenating the earth and shit, but if you follow me on Instagram, you’d know by my praises for sunshine, pictures of Ugg Boots and wishing for Bali balmy sunset nights, that warm days are my thing and when the sun has slowly started to bestow its loving heat on my face during the day, I become a happy content lady. The other week, I attended the Empowering Women Conference in Melbourne . I had the most fabulous day; my inspired bucket was over-flowing by the generosity of the beautiful women that spoke. I came back home feeling all warm and fuzzy. The rest of this year was going to be full of “fist pump” kind of moments. Then Monday came. The whole day, I could feel those little twinges of anxiety creeping its fucked up head again. Juggling doing my work on this day, I was wrestling at my desk with tightness in my chest, dizziness, tears and I seriously felt like I was dying. All this was going on, while ans

 By nature I’m not shy. I’m not afraid to go up to strangers and strike up a conversation. I can stand up and talk in front of many people without freaking out. I love a chat and am a bit of an extravert. However, driving into the Melbourne CBD at 7am last Saturday morning, I had knots in my stomach, full of nervousness and apprehension. I was on my way to attend the Empowering Women Conference 2015 . I wasn’t going with anyone,  I didn’t know any the other 200 odd women that were attending and I was quietly pooping my pants. I live about an hours drive from the CBD and driving into Melbourne always brings on anxiety for me. Those bloody hook turns and all {seriously, who invented those!!} cars, trams and taxis everywhere, not my ideal driving environment. Safely arriving at the Rydges Hotel – I quietly stood out the front chugging down a cigarette before heading in. Here’s me keeping my cool {on the outside but not really} – first time attending a conference as a blogger.  { S

 We hit the 7-year mark over the weekend since we got married. There were no roses, breakfast in bed as, you know, married and all! But we did venture out to our local Chinese Restaurant for some dumplings and Yum Cha because… Dumplings. I’m in love with Dumplings.   image via Pinterest - because i scoffed my dumplings down before i could take a photo!   My sister Angie came over the day before our Yum Cha feast for a visit and I got big cuddles and some playtime with my gorgeous niece. Angie is a super organised, a planner and with her background in drafting engineering she is brilliant with all things squares, shapes and layouts. So while I dished out pumpkin soup and had cuddle times with my little niece Bonnie, Angie shared with me the secrets of the Ikea website ! Little #Bonnie The brilliance with Ikea {which I didn’t know} is that they have planners’ people! And not just kitchen ones. I was looking at updating our entertainment unit area to create more storage and Angie

  image via Pinterest   Dear sweet lord Jesus, if there is one thing that brings me close to a toddler meltdown, every time, it is the most mundane of activity that needs to done as an adult. Grocery shopping . I loathe this excursion weekly, and the mind numbing process of doing this with 2 kids in tow a toddler and an Autistic boy that countdowns every single item that gets put into the trolley and then questions you when you put something “extra” in, drives me to drink, coffee . I was so desperate to “get out” of this thing that I need to do every week that a few weeks ago –I didn’t do it. I bought 3 hours of extra time over that weekend, not struggling with parking, trolleys, feral kids and pandemonium in the shopping centre – coz really, everyone needs to be hounding the centres like a wolf pack just incase the world ends and we can’t get food the next day right? Admittedly, I had to be creative with meals for a couple of days. This also gave me a chance to really go throug

 I never really thought I was the marrying type. Marriage, the whole husband and wife thing, was not really ever on my list to do. Sure, looking at photos of wedding dresses, cakes and the like was nice and going to weddings and seeing how happy those two people on the day were was beautiful to see, but I truly never thought that I would ever be walking down an aisle in all white and stuff. Then this guy came along - We met in the most un-romantic of places, AutoBarn nearly 10 years ago. He was the installer there and I needed a CD player fitted into my car. You can check out the story of how it all happened here . 7 years ago next week we said the “I do”. It’s been a ride my friends. Up and down, good and bad, really, really hard and also so so easy. I’ve made a life with my best friend, I even said to Steve the other night that I love how comfortable I feel with us. I think it’s a pretty rare thing to find. So in honour of the 7 year itch, lets go down memory lane of the day t