The last couple of months....

 We have enjoyed abundant and delicious local food....

 We have worked in and enjoyed our garden

 And we have played....

Well, I was looking through my archives today at naptime with Ginger - that would be Tom Kitten's naptime; Ginger sadly has given up her daytime sleep in the last month.  She loves looking at pictures of herself when she was younger and I think it is such a pity that I have not been good about record keeping the last 12 months.  So, there really is no time like the present to do some catching up!

The last 7 months have just been so busy for us.  Since Mr Provincial left the Army it feels like we have been working flat out.  Evenings our now occupied with gardening or bottling produce.  He also now has a 3 hour daily commute so I am holding the fort a lot more.  Occasionally there is time to add a few stitches to the cross-stitch I started a couple of weeks after getting here - progress on that feels grindingly slow.

The weeks seem to be full as well.  For the first time in my adult life it is the week between weekends that seems to disappear; not just the weekends!  While the renovations were intensive up until Christmas and I thought I would just about lose my sanity if I saw another builder or contractor, we are slowly settling down into our rhythm.  Bread is being made daily, yoghurt weekly and I made my first batch of homemade laundry powder (since we got here) this morning.  The house is actually both clean and tidy!  The gardens...well they are enormous and we have so much work ahead of us but we are harvesting tomatoes and zucchini in abundance thanks to Mr Provincial's hard work.

We have been blessed in our neighbours - our neighbours over the back fence are lovely and we often while away a good hour in the evening chatting.  Ginger and Tom Kitten have been spoiled with the arrival of a play kitchen and doll's house from said neighbours - turns out our male neighbour enjoys a good garage sale!  Our neighbours across the road have offered to baby sit and even arranged for us to take up a egg arrangement they have had in place for 20 years but no longer needed because they have purchased their own chickens.  I love how we now always have an abundance of eggs in the fridge and opening the carton and finding a variety of egg sizes within.

Ginger is now at a local preschool one day a week.  She was so happy (if exhausted) when I picked her up last week - it was the right decision to send her.  We have kindygym, swimming, and music group during the week.  Ginger has ballet on the weekends.  Church for all on Sunday.  Just last week I was invited to join a bible study, we are going to try to attend but I do like to be home some of the time LOL!  At home I am at peace and the more we are home the more comfortable being at home we are.

I am finding everything requires more planning now we live out here in the country.  I also have to constantly be reminded by Mr Provincial that although Canberra is just over an hour away and offer so many opportunities we chose to live out here and need to engage in our local community; even when that means giving our children different opportunities than we might have given them had we chosen to live in Canberra.  Mr Provincial is now being given errands to run after work because it saves us $15 in petrol if I don't go in to do them - not to mention quite a number of hours.

But, most importantly we are content in this little brick house.  Our children are happy and we are settling in.  I couldn't ask for more than that.