Bye Bye Birdie

Not long after mum died AB and I went away for a few weeks. We drove from Sydney to Adelaide, up to Alice Springs, across to Brisbane and home again. It was a quick trip to get us out of our grieving space and take some time out of the real world for a while.

While we were in Alice we saw these paintings by an indigenous artist who also designed the aboriginal flag. They were beautiful. All of them in some way were of birds native to the area and all of them screamed space and peacefulness.  In the state of mind that we were both in we bought one.

We had it framed a year or so later after we got back from living in Singapore and almost immediately as we put it on the wall I knew it wasn't really a painting that would bring me joy for years to come. It's just not my style.  Firstly I'm not really a landscape person, secondly I'm not really a bird person and thirdly I'm not really a water colour person.

But it was expensive and even if it wasn't my style it was beautiful and worthy of respect. So on our wall it stayed.

Today as I cleaned and preened around the house I looked at our birds and finally felt that I'd had enough of it dominating our living space. I took it down and tried to imagine what I would actually love on that wall.  I found an old mirror in my hiddey hole under the stairs. And a few frames waiting to be filled. I moved almost every wall hanging or artwork in our house and finally felt like our living space was more the way I wanted it.

The birds have been moved into the study. And although I'm still not loving them I feel like they work better in this space.

I think that the choices I have made in the lounge are good, but it's not perfect yet (maybe it never will be) so I'm certain I will be fiddling with it for a while yet. But for now I'm feeling pretty impressed with the results.

So tonight as I sit relaxing in our newly tweaked lounge room, I'm reminded  how changing your space can really change your frame of mind as you live in the space. As they say 'a change is as good as a holiday'. And tonight apparently I'm having another mini break. Now all we need is to paint the lounge and maybe I'll finally be happy with it :)

Reading - Sandman Trade PB 8
Watching - Fringe S4
Listening - To the hum of the city once again
State of mind - Glad I accomplished my spring clean and wondering when I can convince AB that we need another mini break again.