Object(s) That Make Me Feel at Home

It's Day Three of our Expat Blog Challenge.

Mr. Smith and I arrived in Sydney on February 25, 2012.  We lived in the Mantra 2 Bond Street hotel for a month until we moved into an apartment in Kirribilli.  We bought an inflatable mattress, a set of sheets, some towels and a few dishes for our new place while we waited for our things to arrive from America.  BTW, we didn't get our stuff until April 16th.

But OMG!  Once our stuff arrived and we started unpacking... it really started to feel like home.  Now, I'm not all that attached to many things.  I hate clutter.  But these things make me feel at home:

Our bed... Mr. Smith and I have had this bed for YEARS!
We bought it at IKEA in California.

OH!  The joy of the night we could sleep in our own bed again!  I don't mind traveling too much if it's to see family and friends or go on a nice vacation, but I don't like to sleep in any other bed.  Most hotel beds are so freaking stiff and hard and unwelcoming.  I love my pillow top mattress with feather bed topper.  So soft!  So comfy!  So full of pillows!  I bought these awesome pillows from Bed Bath & Beyond before we left the states.  Great pillows!

This is where I sit to do pretty much everything.
It's my armchair and ottoman where I blog, watch TV,
eat dinner, whatever.  And those are my little friends.

We bought these armchairs (there are two) and a sofa from IKEA here in Sydney for our new apartment.  It's my second favourite place to be when I come home from a long day at work (when I have a job...).  You'll notice that I'm a big kid at heart.  All my friends sit on my chair all day waiting for me to come home and keep them company.  LOL

My sewing machine.  I should quilt and create more.
I truly do enjoy it... I can just be a very impatient person.

And, of course, my sewing machine... it's all mine.  I've had it about 10 years and it still runs great with regular maintenance.  It has an embroidery component, but I really prefer to just quilt and do basic sewing.  I don't sew nearly as much as I should, but it comforts me knowing that it's there waiting for me to create.

Mr. Smith and I have another tradition that is all ours.

When we lived in Long Beach, CA we found something!  We were moving into a new apartment and there was a little girl's shoe (a cute white sandal) in our parking spot.  After discerning that it didn't belong to anyone else in the building, we decided that it was meant for us.  We kept it in a special place in our parking spot the whole time we lived there.  We called it our LIL SHOE.

Since Long Beach, we've lived in a few other places.  Fast forward to our first place in Kirribilli.  One day we were walking down the street and discovered this:

a new LIL SHOE !!

It was like a sign that we were meant to be here!  All was right in the world.  You know, it's the little things...