Slow Living Diary March 2013

I’m once again joining in with Christine from Slow Living Essentials for a monthly reflection of slow living.

  

NOURISH: I’ve started making vegie burgers and freezing them in bulk lots. They make for an easy meal if we are caught out late. I made allergy friendly hot cross buns for Easter which were seriously yum. I’ve also started experimenting with carob syrup in savoury dishes as an alternative to soy sauce (sounds weird I know LOL) but very helpful to branch out for Little B.

PREPARE: Freezing vegie burgers, school snacks and I’m also trying to do a day of bread by staggering times (we currently make 2 loaves at a time, this means I can make 4 loaves within roughly the same time period – 1 extra hour).

  

REDUCE: Nothing to report here that I can think of.

 

GREEN: Mr B and I have been researching a wood heater for our fireplace. The good news is we can have one, and now we just have to work out which efficient one we like. We would really like to stop relying on town gas for our heating.

  

GROW: We harvested the last of our beans and zucchini then ripped the plants out. Our jalapeno chillies are still going strong and we are just about to finish the last of our apples (3 left). We will leave the garden to rest over winter as we hope to revitalise or move the beds during this time.

CREATE:  I finished my hot water bottle finally…yay!! :-) I sewed 48 handwriting grips for Little B’s prep (FYOS) class. They looked a bit like this. And for Easter with so few leaves around due to our delayed autumn, I sewed an autumn leave bunting (following atutorial by Twig & Toadstool).

DISCOVER:   I’ve been reading crochet granny square books to get ideas for my next couple of projects – a lap blanket for Little B and a beanie for me.

I also read The Storyteller by Jodi Piccoult and really disliked it!! I normally quite like her writing, having read all her books from the start but then again perhaps I should applaud her writing as it was not the nicest of subjects and perhaps that encouraged my dislike??

ENHANCE: I sewed the handwriting grips for school (they don’t have enough funding to buy them).

 
ENJOY: 

~ Thanks to Granny B, we went and saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Her Majesty’s Theatre – it was well worth the trip – the flying car illusion is amazing.

~ Little B lost another tooth and the tooth fairy came again bringing a beautiful pink agate stone (we give stones a la Sparkle Stories martin & Sylvia).

~ We started sailing our “new” 2^nd hand boat and found that Little B loves it as much as the canoe.

~ Little B graduated to a blue belt at Karate and I applied for and accepted a new part time job :-o

~ And last but not least, we survived Little B’s first term of school with a few tears, lots of laughter and a whole bunch of new and old friends (both he and I).

Spinning Around

As part of a yucky bug, I've been suffering from the worst vertigo this week. It's been a bit like living with a permanent case of travel sickness or having a major hangover without any of the fun bits beforehand :-(

So with as little movement in my day as possible, I've been...

~ reading The Storyteller~ listening to quiet, quiet, quiet music
~ making easter goodies to go on Little B's easter tableau
~ watching the boys renovate our "new" secondhand boat after work and school. It's been quite the DIY project.
~ crocheting a new hot water bottle cover for when the cold nights start to bite

Now I'm just hoping to be up and able for the Easter weekend :-)

We heart Banjo the Carob Bear xx

Little B is allergic to so many things that often he either has to miss out (a big no no when you are six) or magic mama has to try and re-create things as best she can. And I have to say this generally involves food and I work hard at making things from scratch (I make a mean fake freckle for a tea cup biscuit LOL).

But after only one term at school, this need to fit in has made itself even more apparent. Our school has no formal policies on birthdays and in an open prep classroom there are 48 birthdays to be had this year. Thankfully we really only have to experience 24 of them!! And experience them we have - they primarily revolved around a bag of chocolate frogs, chocolate biscuits and birthday cakes.

At kinder and now school, we have always had home-made cupcakes in the freezer at the office, so Little B gets to celebrate when things are brought in. But we have since discovered (sadly in retrospect) that this is too hard for the teachers to follow through with.

My next try was to present them with a jar for Little B containing small containers of bubbles, individual shortbread biscuits and plain white marshmallows (so he could pick one thing). Which was novel and exciting and seemed to be working.

But you can imagine delight when we recently discovered Banjo the Carob Bear. He is a little carob teddy bear (not unlike a branded chocolate frog). He tastes divine, is oh so very cute and Little B loves that he looks like he is eating the same thing as everyone else.

These have made their way into Little B's treaty jar at school and now he doesnt spend birthday time, sitting with nothing while the rest of the kids munch on. Plus I love that they are made by a small South Australian family business in Port Elliot (where my grandparents live).

** Disclaimer: I am in no way sponsored or affiliated with The Carob Kitchen. Just one very happy customer :-)

Slow Living Diary February 2013

I’m excited to once again be joining in with Christine from Slow Living Essentials for a monthly reflection of slow living. I really enjoyed last year looking back at what I had done and achieved. I also like the accountability and vainly hope it might inspire me to blog more often :-)

NOURISH: I’ve been bulk cooking snacks for school (jam oat cookies, amaranth pikelets, museli bars) with great success. I also make a batch of egg custard at the start of the week so Little B can take some as well in his lunchbox. I’m currently still trialling some kind of savoury scroll/scone – I’m nearly there with the recipe.

And I have to say the days when what's on our plate is either grown by us (vegies), made by us (bread) or from somewhere local (tiny local butcher using local meat) just gives me a total buzz.

PREPARE: I’ve been using the last of our zucchinis to make Hot Zucchini Relish (recipe courtesy of Rohan Anderon’s Whole Larder Love) as well as blanching and freezing any green beans that don’t make their way straight into dinner. I’ve also been making, using and freezing copious amounts of chicken stock. With Little B at school and prone to picking up every bug that goes around, I’m trying to keep his immune system fighting fit and healthy by adding stock to all our soups and casseroles.

REDUCE: I’ve been doing lots of decluttering a la Flylady's focus of the month (swapping clothes Little B has grown out off with friends, getting rid of any old toys or things we don’t need). I managed to swap Little B's old car seat for a fantastic maslin pan for jam making (I was so very proud of this LOL).

 
GREEN: I’ve had great success with this conditioning treatment from Maria at Econest:

'Blend 1/2 ripe avocado, 1tsp avocado oil and 1 egg yolk until smooth, then spread throughout hair and leave for a few minutes before rinsing. Excellent for fine or dry hair'

As I grow my henna out and embrace the greys, I’m finding my hair that bit more dry. As challenging as it is socially more than physically, I’m intent on going back to my natural grey even though I’m only 35!!

GROW: So far this summer, I’ve kept us in potatoes, zucchini, squash and beans. I pick beans every day so far (one of the few vegies Little B isn’t allergic too). We also harvested and ate the last of the blackberries and have just eaten our first few apples off our apple tree. But the vegie garden itself looks sad and needs some tender loving care after this hot hot summer.

CREATE:  Not much going on creatively. I keep plodding along with my hot water bottle covers. I've only got one square left of this one, then I can sew it all together. I’m hoping they’ll all be finished for winter.

DISCOVER:   I’ve really enjoyed The Little Vegie Co’s Guide to Backyard Farming – I love to read about gardening and I’m happy if I only learn one new tip. In this book, I learnt three :-) I succumbed and read Sweet Poison: Why Sugar is making us fat by David Gillespie. I’ve avoided this book for ages and I thought I didn’t want yet another thing or bandwagon to “worry” about, but it was a great eye-opening read. The irony is Mr B read it cover to cover and has totally taken it on board (suffice to say he’s not a health foodie kind of guy).

And for fun I’ve been re-reading my way back through the Phryne Fisher mysteries by Kerry Greenwood. Gotta love Phyrne xx

ENHANCE: I’ve been using my excess zucchinis and squash for good and not evil LOL. Granny B’s work set up an impromptu foodswap and I’ve bartered our excess for cucumbers, eggs, tomatoes and strawberries. It was such a great thing to be part of and I hope it happens next year as well. We’ve been trying to walk to school as much as possible as well.

ENJOY: Little B started school this month for the first time. Quite a momentous occasion for us!! And it’s been going well so far – though he has been super tired!! But February is also the month of birthdays for our family so there’s been BBQ’s, home-made ice-cream cakes, canoeing, picnics, and our 11^th anniversary!! Full of love and laughter.

Do possums eat pumpkins??

Picture from here 

 
I've never had much luck with growing pumpkins. Probably because the last 2 houses we've lived at just havent had enough sun. So I was absolutely gleeful when my pumpkins started fruiting this year. I've watched them carefully as they've grown on the vine, made Mr B mow far away from them as they took over the lawn and imagined all the lovely things I could cook when they were ready.

So you can imagine my surprise earlier this week, when I went down to the vegie garden to water one hot morning and discovered the whole lot had vanished. Into thin air :-o The vines were still there but alas not a pumpkin to be seen. And no evidence of what made away with them - no skins, no seeds - zip, nada, nothing!!

So my question is - do possums eat pumpkins?? If they dont, I have to say I'm out of ideas...hungry aliens maybe LOL??

Simple Summer Holidays

As the summer school holidays are drawing to a close it’s been fun to look back and see what we’ve done with ourselves.  Mr B took all of January off work because Little B starts school this year. We then detached ourselves electronically, turned off our mobile phones and placed them in a drawer and let the summer take us where it would. It’s been great family time and we’ve had a whole lot of fun :-)

:: We’ve explored our local surrounds and found new places we didn’t know existed (like waterfalls)

:: Been blackberry picking in our own backyard LOL (we get a bowl like this every 2^nd day) and found wild strawberries

:: We’ve spent a lot of time canoeing, bushwalking and exploring local lakes (yay for the warm weather)

:: Spent time at our local library weekly and enjoyed their school holiday activities like making carrot cars and croaking frogs

:: Read our way through the entire Flat Stanley series; then Babe the Sheep Pig, and re-read Stuart Little

:: Visited family and old friends, discovered new beaches and a new favourite – climbing trees.

The greatest thing I think has been how much time we’ve managed to spend outside and out in nature.  But with school just around the corner, we’ve spent the last couple of days readapting to the “real” world. Not long now and my faithful side kick will take his first big steps out into his new world.

New Years Goals

 Picture courtesy of here

The start of a new year is such a funny time – there’s the reflection that come as one year closes as well the opening expanse of possibilities of a brand new year. I’ve enjoyed 2012 – we’ve renovated and settled into our house, Little B has loved and thrived during his last year a kinder, I made new friends and we’ve had the peace that comes from digging in and making a home.

As I look at last year’s goals, we didn’t do too badly. We started a vegie garden at this house but had no chance to expand it. We kept our electricity usage to a minimum and our latest bill with solar has us in credit (yay!!).  I did find alternatives to more items from the supermarket and have settled on a little local independent supermarket as an alternative to the duopoly of Coles & Woolworths for those things we just cant change because of Little B’s allergies. And I did learn more crafty skills (I learned to crochet, to sew a wider variety of items) and hey I learnt to plaster on this house ;-)

And I was kinder to myself. I’ve let myself wander in mind and thought – read more for fun than information, caught up on old movies, and spent some really concentrated time with my family.

So as I enter 2013, I’m focussing on 4 simple goals:

* Improve my posture – after my fall in July, my body is still struggling to recover. Turns out I pulled my psoas muscle which controls your hip sockets and is kind of hard to work on. But my physio and I are aiming for full recovery by July this year (which sounds like a long way away but it’s sort of a little by little process)

* Move more – said hip injury has made me a couch potato, but a few thoughtful Christmas gifts means I can get back out into the garden and canoeing more.  I’m a moving kind of gal and I want to get back to that.

* Grow more – after our successes this spring/summer with our limited vegie beds, I’m inspired to branch out and grow more of our own. We are aiming to put in more vegie beds and to put in an avocado tree, and another pear tree as well.

* Be more creative –I've purposefully left this sort of open ended because I want to think outside the square for so many different areas of my life and I'm not quite sure where I'll end up. I guess creative to me in this instance, is to look at things in my life with a different set of eyes.

* Remember more - Time passes so quickly and perhaps I feel more nostalgic as I get older, but as we slow down on our sustainable journey and as my little one grows, I want to document our family memories more. I hope to write on this blog more, am aiming to join in Jodie's (from Che & Fidel's)  52 A Portrait A Week project, and to spend more time with my lovely son and husband. We've done so much community work this year, that I want to spend 2013 focussing that little bit more inward.

And as Jodie quotes Gretchen Rubin from The Happiness Project, I want to "slow down, stay patient, take photographs, and play Hide and Seek". This year I want to live and soak in the moments of my time with my loved ones.

 

Let's see what 2013 brings!!