Everyone has to make their own decisions as to the size of their home. I am 54 years old and both children have moved out. I live alone and maybe use 3 of the rooms in the house. Your house is already good sized; do you really think you want/need all that additional space? Think carefully and perhaps poll your friends / older relatives for their advice.

" How wonderful it is online that now we can all see what amazing ppl are creating. We always have had amazing ppl making such things, but usually reserved for family keepsakes, or nanas specialty. Put down the iPhone and pick up a craft I say!" ~mldesign0401 Indeed. I'm often gobsmacked at what people can do. And it's great to see the process in pictures. I do spend a lot more time looking at others creations the actually doing something myself! One of the traps of everything shared online. I do love seeing the creations that didn't go as planned too! So funny. It's great that people have the sense of humour to still share their "failures". At the end of the day, there's more benefit in the process of creating right? At least they had a go.

Long ago when I was in high school, we had a sports lesson doing hurdles. I loved it and secretly thought I was great at it. At the end of the lesson, we were sauntering back to class and I decided to show my friends once again how good I was. Now, hurdles must be approached from only one side. If you don't make it over, (from the right side)it smacks down. The other side doesn't move when hit. Well, I approached from the wrong side and had a little too much saunter and not enough pace, so didn't make it over. I hit it hard and the hurdle didn't budge. I was draped over the top in a horribly awkward position. Finger tips just off the ground on one side, toes just off the other side, bottom in the air, school uniform around my ears! Everyone gathered around laughing their heads off. Finally, after much laughter I was lifted off by my school mates. Lesson learnt, don't show off!

Given Australia is fairly dry country (current flooding excepted), we changed our water usage considerably: changed to a front-loader washing machine, updated the dishwasher to one with minimal water usage, and changed a lot of taps and our shower heads to low flow types. It's cut our water usage by 60-70%. In particular, the Miele washing machine made a huge difference.