My Year of Meaningful (2011)

Otherwise known as "the meeting of the furnitures"
Or as one of the local real estate agents here would say "furnishers".

hahaha
no really, he advertises his semi-furnished houses in town as "having some furnishers inside".

hee hee

We have a new living room set that was delivered on friday, giving us places to SIT finally! We celebrated by having T & L around on sunday for cake and coffee. I chose these couches (3 seater + 3 seater ((arranged in L-shape)) + large matching arm chair - light fawn colored couches, stainless steel legs + chocolate/fawn striped back cushions (beth)) after over a MONTH of looking. They had to be perfect. THey had to be WAY soft and entirely, undoubtably inviting because they're going in the living room withOUT the TV. So as to encourage us, and everyone else to NOT stare at the boob tube as often, and rather sit in unbelievable comfort in the big living room gazing out the large sliding glass doors onto the back garden at the banana tree and everything else nature-oriented. It works. the one side of the "L" gives you a straight-on view out the glass while the adjacent side of the "L" is oriented so you can see kind of cattywompus out the window into the bush/informal garden on the side of the house. And you get the breeze flowing through that room with the kitchen door open and the sliding doors open and it's just wonderful. Photos soon to come. TV room is still TBA on the furnishings as we have to see about the old couch when it comes and gets reupholstered, etc etc. Hell we dont even HAVE a TV anymore, nor is one coming in our container, and quite frankly we aren't all that sad about it. Have been having a much more quality life since we kicked the box to the curb 3 months ago. Now our dinners and breakfasts take hours, we read more, we have more weird and obscure conversations than even before, which is strange but true. (i.e. Bizarrely enough we found ourselves talking about trig and geometry the other night, over a glass of red wine after dinner.)

The killer is the rug I picked to match. It's yowza-bright orange and beige stripes.... THICK SHAG Pile, but the shag is made of silky material, not like 70's shag. It's totally decadent and totally orange which really lifts up the otherwise extremely dark blue naaaaaavy blue carpet underneath.

And we got a new fridge. No more 2-ft tall temporary bar fridge for us. Which I'll admit was a godsend after living out of a cooler-box & ice blocks for the first week. The new mamma is a great big whopper of an american-style double-door fridge/freezer combo, complete with ice and water dispenser. WAHOOOOOO the ice and water despenser is the Mr's dream come true. His whole life he's lusted after people who could just go to their fridge and fill up a cup of cold water and crushed ice. He's fascinated by it and always used to stare longingly at them in the white-goods stores in Australia and Ireland saying "someday baby. Someday." Now his dream has come true, and I couldn't be happier for the boy. Now we just need to get the %^$# thing hooked up to the water source which is OF COURSE on the other side of the $#**&% room and is gonna need special plumbing and handiwork to accomplish but we'll get it.

Now I can actually buy
1. Frozen foods
2. More than 2 days provisions at a time
3. Milk in >1-litre boxes
4. anything that needs to be refrigerated in containers larger than a bottle of mustard.

Now for the best news ever: THE CONTAINER COMES TODAY!!!!!!!!
we'll be leaving work early and letting the unpacking commence. Oooooooooohhhhhhhh boy howdy that's gonna be an experience. I may even get a wee bit misty eyed as I unpack all those tons of bubble wrap I'll remember the night my dear Padraig came over and helped us slave away in a mountain of last-minute packing til late late at night on a "school night" and thanks to his unusually high capacity for "spatial awareness" we were able to pack what I thought would've been 30 cubic meteres of kitchen junk into less than 10 crates. -sigh-