*Living Simply*

*New* eco-friendly stuffie, Amandine the deer

Hello readers! We're currently on stay-cation, or holistay as some like to call it. It's actually very similar to a regular vacation, only closer to home and slightly less ambitious. Our stay-cation feels more like a long-weekend at the moment, but another few days of sleeping in and eating my husband's famous Meyer lemon and sour cream pancakes ... I could get used to this!

How will we spend this time off? We are feeling quite optimistic and are planning to use this time off as constructively as we can. To date, we have done just the opposite, enjoying guilty pleasures like playing Wii and watching films til the wee hours of the morning. In the evenings, my husband and I, each with a snuggly child in our laps, settle down on the sofa with a warm chenille blanket and a pot of tea or coffee; it feels like bliss to me.

I've also gotten started on some custom orders and new designs for Niko & Nonnie. There are several wonderful cotton-linen blends I've been eyeing and I am having a difficult time choosing at the moment. I will say that I am leaning towards a more masculine direction for the new fabrics at the moment, as there is already quite a lot for girls available in my Etsy shop. Speaking of which, I've listed some new items and will be adding more this week...

It's important for me to share that I am really enjoying the collaborative nature of writing this blog and having a readership. It turns out, apart from North America and Europe, I also have many blog readers from Malaysia, Australia, Japan, Lebanon, Sudan and even Georgia in the southern Caucasus. It's been a rewarding exchange of ideas and impressions so far, and I'm grateful to everyone who has welcomed Niko & Nonnie into their homes.

At a personal level, in the interest of preserving our sanity, it also seems like this stay-cation will involve some work.  Ho-hum...

We have decided to whittle our belongings and furniture down, pack storage boxes and re-evaluate our essentials for living well in our space. We are an itinerant family and are hoping to capitalize now so that the next time we have to move, it won't be a complete panic. The added bonus will be a more efficient space that is easier to manage on the day-to-day.

I vacillate wildly between the options of nesting and building a family home versus ditching everything we own and starting fresh - I find it an odd and impractical stance to navigate.  I tend to shift objects and pieces of furniture around very often. I am not sure if it is my way of trying to revitalise our home, to provide different visual interests or just another way to cope with the ongoing needs of our family. I assure you I am not an insufferable perfectionist; I am merely a Libran woman who is always thinking of aesthetic value - and how! It is true that in an imagined parallel universe I would excise the following from the world's collective furniture vocabulary: linoleum, sharp edges, particle board and laminate flooring. I'd call upon George Clarke and Mike Holmes to design a highly efficient and eco-friendly home which I would then pay for with the pot of gold I found at the end of the rainbow.

While I close my eyes and dream of the idyllic, I'll leave you with a couple of photos of some very lovely plants in our garden. I mentioned that the weather has been dreadful, but these persistent flowers have found a way to take in every bit of rare and glorious sun!

Rhododendron

Lily-of-the-Valley & Forget-me-nots