Domestic Day - Making a House a Home: Something Living in Every Room

I once read, somewhere in a list of home-making tips (likely linked from Pinterest), that one ought to put something living in every room. Being a lover of plants and animals, I fully supported this idea. Now that we have our own place I have begun to implement this idea, and I must say, if you are looking for ways to make your place more homey and alive, add plants!

My hubby seemed rather skeptical when I informed him of my intentions. He also has a passion for plants, but he prefers ones that bear fruit and vegetables. House plants don't generally fall under that category and as such didn't seem as useful. However, after I had finished my work he agreed they added a nice homey touch and later commented on the added advantage of how they made the rooms smell good as well. (Bonus! Hubby approval ^_^)

This activity is really a quick and easy thing to do, and took me only one afternoon to complete. After going through the house and taking note of locations that looked like they needed sprucing up, I went to the local Italian nursery to procure my plants. The plant nursery was recommended to me by our landlords, who advised me let the woman know who had sent me. I then appropriately name dropped and coincidentally I was given several plants for free! (Yay for connections!) I returned home and proceeded to get good and dirty planting.

Above are pictures of some of the creatures I encountered while planting. Upon seeing them, I took the opportunity to practice one of my new hobbies: photography. I've been attempting to improve the quality and style of the photos I capture, and this here may be the most captured lady bug ever! I took numerous shots in various settings and angles, finally settling on showing you this one. (Thank you again for the camera Uncle Tom! We use it almost daily.)

Our landlords are very involved with their yard and garden, and have been more than supportive with our endeavors at gardening. For this project, they offered me planter boxes they no longer use. (Hooray for saving money!)

While we were house hunting here in Italy, I noticed that nearly all of the windows here have very large windowsills, due to the fact that the custom is to have wooden window shutters and they need space to fold up when opened. The house we selected is no exception and every room has large window sills with plenty of space to put plants. This thrilled me, as I had always wanted to live somewhere where I could have a window box of flowers. A dear friend of mine once made me a lovely window box that I got much joy out of, however I was unable to bring it with us overseas, and realizing that our new house had the ability to home flowers/plants in EVERY window was very exciting.



     Here are some of my finished results! What do you think?

I have little pansies on the window sills in the nursery. The tiny colorful flowers seemed suiting to the room.

The window sills in our bedroom.

This is my favorite window in our house! I like the unique triangular shape and design of the bars on the other side. My favorite window happens to be in my hobby room. ^_^ My hobby room is really about the size of a walk in closet... and currently stores the boxes we've partially unpacked... but it will be great someday soon!

A partial view of the window from the outside. These plants are supposed to grow long tendrils and flowering vines. I thought they would look pretty overflowing from the window, and the representation of life escaping through the bars and the fragile, whimsical petals against the cold, hard stone wall make for a good contrast too good to pass up.

Our current table center piece. I may look for some natural pebbles to put in the square vase. The small vase is actually a glass salt/pepper shaker.

The plants have definitely added a homey touch and some life through their vibrant colors, smell, and movement when a breeze blows through the house. This project was a very good idea indeed.The only potential downside to the majority of the plants I chose is that they are only good for a year or season. But I guess that means I will get to redecorate with new varieties next year!

Pslam 103:15-17

 "Our days on earth are like grass;
    like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
¹⁶ The wind blows, and we are gone—
    as though we had never been here.
¹⁷ But the love of the Lord remains forever
    with those who fear him."

Adam's first days at home

Coming home:

The week prior to having the baby, our landlords (mostly the wife) would come running out onto the balcony, or shout to us from across the yard every time we were leaving the house. “BENE!?” they would ask. “Bene” means “good” or “well”, I believe they were asking if I was well and if it was time for the baby. We always shook our heads, nope, not time yet.

            As we were backing up our driveway, I mentioned to Troy that they would likely be waiting for us and want to see the baby right away. “Nah…” he said shaking his head. Sure enough, before I even had a foot out of the car door they were on the balcony putting on their jackets and shoes, shouting excitedly in Italian. I gave Troy the sideways glance. I love our landlords, but I had just finished being around loads of people at the hospital the past few days and was kind of hoping for a breather. They came in and sat on our couch and they held the little one till he started fussing.

            That night they came down with hot soup for me and gave me advice, but which felt more like mandates, of the things I could no longer eat now that I was breastfeeding. They basically said about half of the fruits and veggies are not good for me to eat. No carrots, zucchini, cabbage, etc. They also were very insistent that I eat no grapes, because they would ferment in my stomach and make the baby ill. I nodded as I added grapes to my mental list of “Foods not to eat around the landlords”. I have read in a few forums that there are some foods babies are sensitive to, but none were universal. The majority of blogs and articles I read implied that each baby is different and different foods will either get along with them or not and it’s up to you to figure out what your kid likes and what doesn’t sit well with him. (Which makes sense, don’t you think?) Regardless, I thanked them for their advice and the soup and they left, finally leaving me and the hubby with our little one. 

Baby’s first bath

Our drying zone, awaiting a clean baby!

      We were finally able to give him more than a wipe down because his umbilical cord fell off, meaning… bath time! In order to spare him future embarrassment, all bath pictures are going to be kept between my hubby and I, but here are the before and after pics I got. 

He didn't much enjoy the bath, but he was quite happy and clean after!
 

Then he was ready for nap time. Him and mommy both...

        For those of you who haven't seen him with his eyes open yet, yes, he got his mommy's blue eyes ^_^ though I know that can change over the first few months, right now, they're quite blue. 

         And a big thank you to his Uncle Abe, Aunt Summer, and cousin Brock for the cute little brown elephant outfit he's wearing! 

       

Cooking with the Parents

         My hubby and I love to cook together and eating healthy is a big part of our lifestyle, so naturally we wanted to show him our passions as soon as possible. 

       For those of you seeing the picture on the right and freaking out, don't worry! Whomever is carrying the baby is on dishes and vegetable prep only. We never wear the baby and work at the stove top or oven. ok? Just had to clarify because I know someone will contact me concerned... 

      Below is my hubby, cooking up a delicious pork roast on a bed of veggies while  talking with Adam. What a lucky kid, I mean, how many other kids get their own private cooking demonstration? 

Yes I know, my hubby needs his own apron. But he said he was secure enough in his manhood that I could post this picture of him in my apron online. Don't worry, I have an apron for him in the works ;)

Sleep and Noise Training:

       

          Troy and I both decided we wanted a kid who would sleep through anything. I know that noise training is controversial in the parenting world, and I’ve read many articles and personal mothers’ blogs for and against noise training, but my hubby and I decided we wanted to try it. I’ve heard people say that you can’t noise train children and one woman (who was a family therapist and sleep coach of 18 years) claimed that children who can sleep through noise are an anomaly. Well if that’s the case, we’re hoping to make an anomaly.

            For those of you not in on this debate, the main reason against noise training is that the quality of the sleep you obtain is up for debate. Some claim that you may be able to sleep through whatever noise or commotion is going on, but that you’re not getting the quality sleep you need. I can see this logic, and Troy and I both like a good nights sleep. He even purchased the thickly lined “black out curtains” in an attempt to block out all light. And while a nice dark quiet room at a certain temperature is ideal for sleep, life is not ideal and cannot always conform to our sleep needs. Thus we thought it would be a good talent to give him early.

From experience I can say it’s been quite handy. I can sleep through just about anything. During swim meets I’d fall asleep on the grass in the bright sun with the frequent shots of the start gun in the background. Perhaps this wasn’t “high quality” sleep, but at least I was able to get some sleep while my teammates suffered like zombies, needing rest but unable to fall asleep in such an environment. I’m convinced I was better off. I had roommates who simply could not sleep under such conditions and required dead silence and dark in order for them to get their beauty rest. I understand that at night, but during the day when everyone is on such different schedules and people are napping at odd hours, it’s a pain to tiptoe around and wonder if someone sensitive might wake if you fried a snack on the stove. Or there are those mothers with signs on their door saying not to ring the doorbell so as not to wake the sleeping infant. What a pain. 

Sound asleep in his bouncer

So during the day when he falls asleep we leave the lights on and keep him in a room near us. We’ll play our tunes on the speakers (which aren’t blasting by any means, but it’s certainly not quiet) and we’ll go about our business and rearrange furniture or cook foods as needed. So far it’s been great and he sleeps through everything. As the evening progresses we start putting him in the crib in his dark room and all through the night it’s very dark and quiet. If he needs quality deep sleep, he’s certainly getting it at night. Deep dark quiet sleep is nice, but in a world that can’t always offer this to you, we believe it’s good to have the ability to sleep through whatever it throws at you. We’ll let you know how this works out for us. 

Aaaannnddd one last picture for this post. I love his thoughtful face and the little moose outfit from the Wong family! Thank you for clothes!!!