Made By Me May - Day 22

 

My mother picked me up from the Airport and she drove me home.  It was midnight Fri 25th Feb and I had no idea what I was coming home to.  The power was still out and once I had coaxed Mr Wobbly out from under the house all I could do was go to bed.  The next morning I was shocked to see how little our home had been affected, we live on the edge of the city central, the footage of which I had been watching for days.

Fallen items in the kitchen

Buttons everywhere in my workroom

More Buttons

Hallway

Close Up of  DVD's

Top of Hallway (more buttons)

After only 1 hour of tidying up, the house looked like nothing had happened. Non essential travel was not recommended, I was now stuck in our home.  Looking in our kitchen cupboards I found all our wine glasses had fallen over but remained intact, for the first time in my life I was furious, I wanted to smash everything, it all seemed so unfair, instead I sat down and cried and cried.
Luckily our power was restored that evening, I don't know how I would have managed on my own in the dark.  The Mr came home a few days after me and we set about seeing how we could help.  But didn't know what we could do, and that's when I went onto TradeMe and ended up with these guys

Here are five of the six kittens we took in, in early March.  Then while our heatpump was being installed, the kittens were overheard and the installer mentioned the earthquake had left him with a new cat who had given birth under his house.  The shelters were all full and he didn't know what to do with them.   Now guess what I said?

That's right meet the new four. Luckily the others had found homes by the time these guys showed up. Except for Jack that is.

We consider ourselves to be very lucky, everyone we love is safe, our home is ok and where we live life is reatively uninterrupted.  I'm proud of the way we came together, everyone reaching out to the neighbours they had probably never met.  I love Christchurch even more now than ever and I have no plans of leaving.  I'm in this relationship for the long haul.

In the top earthquake photo you can see that we had a huge lack of storage in the kitchen, we used this bookcase until I could get my new shelves built.  I bartered for these shelves with a builder friend by babysitting his son's.

As you can see, I painted this wall a deep green, I so love this colour.  He built the shelves from odd pieces he had stored in his garage.  The original idea was to paint them white, but I liked the rustic feel of them.

I filled the shelves with all the eclectic pieces I had collected.  The scales my Gran used to bake with (far right), the mismatched glasses, decorative plates as well as practical items.  The basket on the bottom shelf holds our cutlery, we don't have any draws, that's weird right?

Jen

Made by Me May - Day 18

We turned the heatpump on for the first time today, Man it's getting cold!  For me to say that you know it's true.  The Mr and I are so different when it comes to temperature tolerance, he can be sitting with 2 jerseys and a jacket on complaining about the cold and I'm sitting next to him in a t-shirt feeling comfortable.  So, when to turn on the heatpump is always an issue.  We were lucky enough to have a heatpump installed by EQC (Earthquake Commission) for free just before last winter and I have to say I don't know how we would have managed without.
It's been long enough that I can show you more pictures of our fur babies right, don't want you to get sick of the sight of them. I took a photo of each of them today and have to say they encompass who they are quite nicely.

Here's Jack.  Sleeping in Mr's suitcase, which I refuse to unpack and has been sitting in our lounge until it's empty.  Jack loves to climb into things to sleep, we have found him in some weird places.

Mr Wobbly, looking regal and giving me his usual, "What do you want?" expression.

And lastly Kitty, who as soon as she saw the camera wanted to know what it was and wouldn't sit still. I usually have to sneak up on her for a decent photo.


About a year ago I found an old mirror frame for free, I had a vision and grabbed it.  I filled the space where the mirror used to be with some old wallpaper I had grabbed from my Granparents house, it had been left over from decorating their bedroom and stored in the top of their wardrobe for I don't know how long (that wallpaper was up when I was born).  The frame still had the metal tabs on the sides that held the mirror and I used them to criss cross some string over the front.  I used pegs to hang some black and white photos plus other bits and pieces to decorate.

This is one of my most favourite free items ever.

Jen