We don't have to live on the streets

The Postie and I signed our lives away with a letting agency on our new flat, a sunny three bedroom top flat in a suburb I've never lived in before. It is many miles away from Aro Valley or Newtown or Mt Victoria where I've spent most of my Wellington life, but that's what you get when you have a kid and you want room to swing the cat, and the kid at the same time even. Luckily, Ms Bramwell is moving in with some pals just around the corner from us, and it's on a good bus line not far from Brooklyn, so it's not like I'm moving to Tawa or J'ville or something. I apologise to those of you who DO live in those suburbs, but they're not for me...

Anyway, I am filled with all sorts of domestic ambitions at the moment, even though I still seem unable to complete my weekly lists. I am, for the first time, actually a little excited about the prospect of putting the baby's room together, something I had not thought even a tiny bit about until now. I thought that was for those wealthy mums who buy Nature Baby and new merino clothes for their children at vast expense. Don't worry, I'm not going to paint the room pink or blue or anything like that, I just want to get things ready. I have this wonderful Children's Encyclopaedia from the 1960s that I want to turn into posters - pages like 'children from around the world' and 'animals we love' etc. I've also got this beautiful old New Zealand map to put up in there, because I love maps and remember clearly staring at them as a child memorising where all the countries fitted together, dreaming of where I would go when I was big enough. Most of all, I will be able to start hanging up and putting in drawers all the clothes that are coming our way from Sweeney, the grandparents, and various kind folks who have made things for the kid. And all the books I get from the review box at work will finally have somewhere to go.

Ok, so this week's list:

• do yoga
• send Trade Me items to auction winners
• make a cake as it's my turn to bake for the parents at Ronald McDonald house and last time I was rostered on, I burnt my cup cakes
• clean out the car *yawn*
• update my clippings book dating back to June 2006 *urgh*
• send cute fabric to Helen and Melissa
• do some more work on the diary I am making for Bramwell *fun*