Controversial confessional…a feelings dump.

Worst things I have worried over:

3. That the children might trip over and impale themselves on the bamboo shoots currently growing in our backyard.

2. That I might be in pain all the time but be so used to it that I don’t notice it anymore.

1. That the weasel which hangs out in our garden some nights might break into the house while we’re sleeping, come up on the bed, and bite me on the toe.

(I lost sleep over that extremely specific fantasy)

Silliest plants:

3. Air plants

2. Mint

1. Venus Fly Traps

So Venus Fly Traps predate on insects, right? But they also need to be pollinated. The solution they have evolved really makes me laugh.

Controversial-est opinions:

3. Most food-fad foods are actually nice and people are correct to be excited about them

2. Breastfeeding is great and all but the current over-emphasis of exclusive breastfeeding in public health spaces harms many parent’s mental and physical health in a way that is disproportionate to how beneficial it is for their child

1. It’s fine to be chubby. Really, I promise you it is.

Most moronic things I have seen on Pinterest:

3. Half-dipped frames

2. I know this is low-hanging fruit, but here it is anyway.

1. How is this helpful for anyone?

Reasons I am writing this post:

3. I am moving house this week and my to-do list is distressing.

2. We’re moving because we sold the house to a developer and I want to confess to everything because the guilt is eating me up inside. They are going to put a bulldozer through the whole lot of it – the house that has done its best to shelter us, and the garden that has delighted us. I’m sorry, gentle trees. I’m sorry, chirping birds and buzzing bees and clever brown spiders. I’m sorry, blooming flowers. I’m sorry, sweet old broken house. We couldn’t save you and I’m so sorry.

1. Because my parents are moving in with us, I’m losing two homes at once.

Wildest things we saw while house-hunting:

4. House where they built the new kitchen next to the old kitchen and just like, had two kitchens! They just kept the door to the old kitchen closed.

3. Room that an incredulous fellow participant in the open home described as an “indoor barbecue room”. Yes, it was a gas barbecue.

2. I wish I’d taken pictures of some of this stuff, honestly. One place had a garden feature that comprised of a large pentagram painstakingly inscribed in the lawn with river pebbles, several meters in diameter, with a plinth in the centre that also had a pentagram on it.

1. The winner though was the house where some of the walls didn’t go all the way up. Like, you know in a public toilet stall? How the cubicle wall does not meet the ceiling? Like that except the wall between bedrooms, and also the wall between the living room and the bedroom. In a house, in an actual house, that we were expected to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for. The walls didn’t meet the ceiling. In an actual house.

Let’s end on a positive note. Things I’m most looking forward to about the new house:

3. I will have a dishwasher for the first time in my life.

2. It’s in a fantastic location for weekend markets with my mum, going for walks with my dad, taking Nora to the mall for a milkshake, letting Juney to get grubby in the sand, and sneaking off with Barns for a stroll along the beach.

1. Some day soon I’ll be sitting on the deck with my family on a Sunday completely free of open homes or packing, while someone else makes me a cup of tea and the Kapiti Coast sunshine pours over us like honey.