Melbourne Int'l Flower & Garden Show

We went to the Melbourne Garden & Flower show today and had a great time! We've gone every year and it's (technically) the 3rd year L's gone even if the 1st year he was just a mid-sized bump in my tummy. I had to restrain myself from buying a lot of things because I know I'll need time to design a garden for where we end up if I want it to really look nice and that'd mean that buying a lot of little delicate tubes would result in dead plants. I indulged (quite a bit actually) instead in bulbs and tubers for plants I wanted to bring with us from this place but couldn't and in child-hood favorites that grew around my home and I have a lot of fond memories of. The downside is that my wallet is firmly lodged in ICU on life-support! ~_~'

Here's the haul:
Tempo Two Iris ('Natch... cuz we couldn't go and NOT come back with some TTI!)
Tall Bearded - Owyhee Desert (white top, speckled tan falls), Classic Suede (rusty-brown and honey-gold), Coffee Whispers (white top, coffee pink falls edged white), Santa (cream and salmon-buff), Milk on Apricots (white top, pink-apricot falls); Median Bearded - Mania (apricot tan, rose tan signal on falls), Furioso (bright mid pink and orange apricot); Dwarf Bearded - Spicery (tan brown stitching on lemon)
Daffodils - Yellow Trumpet (x45!), Potluck (x25), Erlicheer (x20)
Fressias (x80, classic whites!)
Lily of the Valley (x12)
Chinese Peony 'Double Combination' - outer pale pink, inner cream

Tiger Lily

Queen of the Night Tulips x10

Anemone De Caen (x50)

Orange Asiatic Lilium (v. Golf... hideous name for a pretty flower, x3)

Chocolate Cosmos

Coreopsis tinctoria "Mahogany Midget"

Since we quickly filled up the prams carry-rack and L was not loving sitting in the pram, he rode in the sling most of the day... muuuuucchhhh better! Thank gods for slings!

Some of the beautiful flowers...

Yummy orchid... I've photographed this variety 3 years in a row... I ought to just BUY it!

Loved the colours on this! My fav colours for flowers are red, yellow and orange!

Randome pretty orchid!

And at the end of the day, we still thank the gods for slings! L completely zonked and when Nic went to get his hair cut, Mary had to ask, 'Is he comfortable in there?'... 'Gee... dunno, what do you think?' (*blinks innocently*)

I also got the ace news that L's new pants were ready annnnd Sif, being the ace person she is, also made a matching hat to go with them that is just TOO cute! I'd commissioned her to knit up a set of soakers (okay, so we're just using them as pants) for L with the request that we really wanted GREEN ones! She told me the other day to go check her blog and this is what we found!

Now here's the insane part - she knitted these up in a day all up! X_X I started a hat for L on the same day she did... except mine is about 20 rows in, instead of finished!

I've got all these feelings churning about as well, chiefly about moving but I feel like such a whiner and like everyone must surely be sick hearing it, secretly thinking, 'OMG... would she just MOVE and SHUT UP about it already!?!' Okay, so my friends are too polite to say it but really... I've been angsting over it for how long now? It's nuts, it really is!

I want a crystal ball to show me I'm wrong and this is the right choice despite how I feel. I want Nic's mum to have tea with me and be the voice of widsom and experience. I want anything but to make a choice that goes against my instinct by myself. I think ultimately that is my problem... from the second my foot hit the dirt stepping out of the car I felt very iffy about this place and I haven't been able to shake it... but I'm being pressured on every side to just ignore that. Everyone is sort of saying, 'look you don't have options, this place is decent even if it's not what you wanted, so what if it's too expensive and doesn't have enough bedrooms, you should just buy this place and be happy - what more can you want, you're not being realistic!' I even tried meditating and asking the land and my guardian angels to send me a sign if it was the right place for us because I didn't 'click' with it, I just felt a sense of sadness from visiting it and thought maybe I was picking up residual energy/emotions from the owners. Not only hasn't that happened (funky arse dream yes but none that make any sense! anyone want to intrepret my weird arse dream?) but that knot in my stomach won't go away.

I mean, I decided to move from one COUNTRY to another on the 3rd day visiting, got engaged the next day to a guy I'd first met in person 4 days prior (though I'd known him online before that!) and never batted an eyelash or questioned myself. It felt 100% right and while I've had challenges, I've never doubted it was the correct choice. I've made 6 other moves, never questioned them. And I'd have signed the document to the other house in a moment because it felt right. This though? I just can't seem to get rid of the nagging feeling... especially with regards to how much it'll cost to fix properly and I waver between feeling like I should obey it and feeling like it's just my damn nerves and I should stop being so silly. I'm absolutely, mortally terrified that buying this house will result in our money all being sucked up, leaving us in debt, preventing us from doing the things we want to and ultimately the bills and stress will end up causing us to fight until our family just disintigrates from it. I know it sounds irrational but I just can't shake it from my head.

I ended up panicing about the move the other night and also thinking how damn lucky I really am to have the beautiful family I do... a loving husband and a beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful bubba who makes me laugh from the center of my soul... my gorgeous dogs, my little white spirit cat... I am more lucky than any one person deserves. Nic has said (with this rather put upon and pained voice but genuinely meaning it all the same) 'if you feel that bad about this place we'll just pull out' and I'm stuck with, 'but then what will we do.... what if we can't find a place to rent; if we rent, how long; if we can't find it in a year, do we keep going until we've spent all our money on rent; what if the only thing we can find is even worse and this would have been the right choice; maybe my dream place doesn't exist etc.

See? Whiney. I'm being the kind of person who generally annoys the crap out of me, so I'm getting it all out so I can shake off the fear and be me again.

I really do want that crystal ball and a cuppa with Nic's mum though. *sigh*