'There are friends, there is family, and then there are friends that become family.'

 

Ive spent so much time worrying about Opeie since this whole covid fiasco started. Stressing about the impact that this situation is having in him, the fact that he's not seen some of his friends for a while and his general well being. The parent guilt is constantly banging at the door even though I know it is out of my control. As I stood in the house this week and watched him sitting on the shed outside with his besties watching the sun set I was reassured that actually, despite the confusing government guidelines and the massive change to our lives, he's actually got everything he needs. A calm, loving home, a doting dad, and the kind of friends that you could spend your whole life hoping for... (the excessive amount of LEGO is a bonus too). 

"You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend."

The last few months have been all about making the house ours, moving rooms around, de-cluttering and making use of all of the space we have. We decided that one of the rooms downstairs needed to be a relaxing reading space. We couldn't quite decided what to put on the wall though in a relaxing space dedicated to one of our favourite past times. That was until I thought about a gift that my bestie Helen had got me for my birthday. She has really helped me through a lot of the harder parts of all this heartache and she was eager to help with putting some personal touches into the house. She had very Kindly bought me 3 canvas's so that the boys and I could create one each.

I asked the boys if they would use their artistic flair to create something each around a book (or series of books) that were important to them. I knew straight away that mine was going to be based on A Series of unfortunate events as Ive been reading them to Opeie at bed time and Ive really loved how excited he's been as we have ploughed through them. I didn't want to draw an obvious picture of the Baudelairs or even their nemesis Count Olaf so I went for a random singer from the Volunteers fighting disease, as the song about the heart shaped balloon always stuck out for Opeie.

I wasn't at all Surprised when Opeie decided he was going to base his canvas design on Beetle boy by M.G. Leonard. The Beetle boy trilogy will always be very special to me as they were the books that really opened up Opeie's imagination and made him realise just how amazing the world of books can be. He hung off every word of those stories and after the first and the second books we were both eager for the release of the next one. I was genuinely gutted when Battle of the Beetles ended.

I not quite sure what I expected Seth to choose, as he mainly reads on his own these days and he gets through so many books that I can't keep up with him.  I was pretty surprised that he chose Enid Blyton's 'The Secret Seven' as they are books that I have been reading to him at bedtime. The secret seven and the Famous five were books that I grew up on and I wanted to share those adventures with the boys.When I asked Seth what was so special about the Secret Seven books he said that he loves me reading to him and finds my voice really relaxing (which made my day).

Emotions may be all over the place at the moment but these little personal touches around the house are making fun new memories and giving us the relaxing home that I think we all need.

"I don't have pet peeves; I have whole kennels of irritation."

I'd love to be able to say that I've become a real dog person since Snuffy joined the family. As much as I love that adorable grumpy faced Pug, I could happily give her away tomorrow. Its not a personal thing, I just really don't like having animals in the house. Negative feelings aside though, Snuffy and Polly have brought a lot of joy into the house and having a friend there all the time has had a great impact on Opeie, I may not notice it all the time if I'm in a micro rage and distracted by pooh in the back garden or wet patches on the carpet, but when I look back through my photos I see that maybe pet ownership isn't all that bad.

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action."

A few months back Mrs. M picked up 4 frames from the cheapo corner in Ikea and she knew exactly what she wanted to do with them. It wasn't until this week though that she explained her idea to Opeie. The big plan was for him to use his creative flair and draw a picture for each of us to go up in the hall. Opeie jumped at the chance to get his artwork up and got started straight away. I love seeing what the boys come up with when they are being creative, children's drawings are so innocent.

The concentration on his face was intense and when it came to the self portait he requested a mirror from Mrs. M as he was unsure what he looked like.

There was no surprise that both him and Seth would be riding on their Micro-scooters, thay may as well have them surgically attached at this point. The pictures turned out amazing (obviously we expected nothing less) and they have been lovingly mounted on the wall by the front door, to greet all of our lovely visitors. I think it is so important to make a huge deal of your childrens creations and having them on show add's to our already warm and welcoming family home.

 

"The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability."

I always title my posts with a quote and as lovely as that one is we also need to feel like our possessions are safe and secure. Home security is so important with us going away sporadically throughout the year. It is really important for me to put my mind at ease as best I can because although usually I'm a real laid back chap, when it does come to being away from home I always worry about what could happen while we are not there. I get that sinking feeling in my stomach as we pull in to our road on our return and as we get closer to the house my over active imagination will envision coming home to the front door being wide open or even worse a pile of ash where the house used to be.

There are many things you can do to deter unpleasant things happening while you away from your home. It wasn't until recently though that I was introduced to LightwaveRF and was blown away by what is possible for home security these days. I wouldn't class myself as a cliche bloke at all, if anything, when it comes to anything techy its Mrs M that shows more interest, these products and the fact that you can control them using your phone from anywhere though had me hooked.

I remember going away a few years back and placing those old plug in timers in to the sockets with a lamp plugged in to them to deter any possible unwanted attention around the home and give the impression that there is someone home. Which at the time did what it needed to do but what concerned me though is that if someone was watching the house they would realise that the same light went on and off at the same time every night. For an opportunistic robbery great, but useless in stopping someone who knows what they are doing.

Once you have installed the LigtwaveRF Wifi Link to your phone or other device, which is really simple to do you have a central hub to any of their other great products that you chose to use to keep your home safe. This week I changed over one of the plug sockets for the LightwaveRF 2 Gang 13A Socket. Which again was very simple to do and can be done by any one with knowledge of household electrics (Just remember to shut down the power to your sockets). Once the product is installed (as with all of their products that connect to the Wifi Link), you can then download the app and connect your added devices to the app. They really couldnt make the connection process any clearer it takes a minute (if that) to have your device up and running.

The app lets you set up different rooms in the house and give nicknames to your devices like upstairs landing lamp for example. What I love about these devices is the peace of mind you get from knowing that at any point in the day while you are away, using your phone you can switch on a radio, TV, or lamp etc giving the impression that someone is home, which for a worrier like me means a lot.

LightwaveRF have given me back my confidence for going away and hopefully the next time we are away I wont have that unnerving feeling in my stomach as I approach the house.

"There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures."

It's been 6 months since we moved in to our new home and although we are completely settled now we didn't have a single light shade up in the house! Well until this week anyhow. You would think lampshades would be something that would get sorted as soon as we moved in but we didn't take any of the ones from the previous house and just hadn't spotted any that had taken out fancy.

It was starting to get to the point where it was annoying us so we went looking for some lighting accessories to cover the bulbs and perk the rooms up a little. Mrs M spotted some odd looking shades while we were out shopping one afternoon and although i couldn't stand the look of them I went along with it and we brought them to try (they were returned the following day, I don't know what she was thinking??).

I was hoping to find something quite simple that was very 'US' but nothing was getting my attention.

If you have been reading the blog for a while then you will be aware that I love recycling old books and I'm always picking up extra copies of the picture books we love for future craft ideas. As reading is such a big thing with our house we wanted to incorporate the stories and illustrators we love as much as we could in to our home. While we were out at Ikea last week we spotted some really simple shades that you velcro to a frame and we knew they would look great lined with pages from our favorite books. 

Oliver Jeffers has now dominated the two lights in our hall and the extra copies of 'The amazing book eating boy' and 'The great paper caper' I had found a while back worked out great because of the amazing illustrations and colours he uses. For the boys room it had to be Dr Seuss as the books are really important to me and we have had some great times together reading them. I asked Opeie which book he would like me to use and he asked for Green eggs and ham, great choice I thought.

We love the way they look so much that I think that these illustrations will be popping up throughout the house now in various ways and we still need to add shades to other rooms. Its amazing that some old books and some double sided sticky tape can transform a room this much. Adding these decorations to our home just shows even more the importance of books and the impact they have on us as a family.