{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  Inspired by soulemama

 

 

Gotta love slime

With the school holidays still upon us we have been doing lots of crafty things, but this has been the hugest hit (with both of us LOL).

Basically you take one cup of cornflour, then add any food colouring you like, and slowly add in water. When it mixes well together - you have slime.

The thing I love about it is that it is gooey and dry at the same time. You cant really make too much of a mess with it as it holds its shape, but Little B will spend a good hour playing with it. It sort of melts in your hand and you can even cause a drip, but it still stays together kind of firm.

Aaah the joys of cornflour!!

Be Prepared - Organise Day #1

 Yesterday's first tasks included organising a space to store a stockpile / emergency gear and to declutter to make space for such a space.

As I mentioned yesterday, we have had a stockpile for at least the last 5 years. But prior to that I had always worked on 1-up philosophy. We always had 1 extra of whatever we used, i.e. pasta sauce, mayo etc. I just did this as a matter of course as it was what my mum's family had been raised to do by my grandma. But we initially started our stockpile as a frugal measure. We had just bought our first house and were keen to pay our mortgage down as quickly as we could. So if I saw something we ate on sale, then I would stock up on it.

Then I had an allergy child. Not only was I a SAHM but what he ate was/is so limited, that I needed to have it on hand if we ran out. I cant always just run out to the shop and hope it is on the shelf. Plus he was so sick in the early days, I would have been lucky to even get out. So my stockpile grew.

But back to organising a space for your stockpile / emergency gear. We have always kept it in 2 shelves in the linen cupboard plus 1-up on a single kitchen shelf. Granny B had already taken this idea on board and it has been replicated at her house for the last few years. So yesterday I had no need to declutter, instead I just reorganised the pantry and noted what we were low on.

Which resulted in an afternoon of jam making :-)...I made 6 jars of pear jam after seeing some ripe pears at a local farm stall. As this is something I cant buy and the only jam Little B can eat, it doesnt hurt to have a few in the cupboard.

Floods :-(

As so many, I have been really affected by all the stories coming out of Queensland about the floods. But this hit even closer to home on Friday as the floods hit north west Victoria. My dad lost his house to the flood early Friday morning. His house was completely flooded and unfortunately it is mud brick - the house started to melt almost immediately and now has massive cracks through the walls, ceilings, not to mention mud throughout. He has been very brave through it all and says "if it can be fixed by money, then it's not a problem", but I know he is heartbroken as most of his belongings have been ruined as well and the flood has not peaked in the area yet. He just missed out being flooded in the September floods.

The most amazing thing though has been the community spirit. Neighbours turned up to try and help move things to higher ground (which was impossible in the middle of the night, knee deep in water). They have again been trying to help salvage anything.

So in the community spirit, I've decided to join in Gavin (from Greening of Gavin) & Bec's (from Eat at Dixibelle's) "Be Prepared" challenge.

They are running the challenge over 4 weeks and using the OARS principle - Organise, Acquire, Restock & Rotate & Spread the Word.

As Bec says:

"Together we are hoping to help other people, and ourselves, to increase our preparedness for short term emergency situations".

Here at the House of B we like to be prepared anyway as we live in a bushfire prone area, and our trusty stockpile held us in great stead when Mr B was between jobs a while back. Plus it never hurts to be prepare just in daily life. But I love the idea of this challenge and cant wait to see what their tasks involve :-)

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  Inspired by soulemama

 

 

I am enough

After being sick for the last two days with who knows what, last night I reached a sort of epiphany.

I posted and subsequently removed a post this week about joining the “6 items or less” challenge. I was quite excited about the challenge but in retrospect I can see now I was also conflicted and reserved. After all, I already have a tiny wardrobe now after having to throw everything out from the mold, and I lived with 2 items or less in the early days. Then over the next few days, I read a post here by Julie and then here by Dixibelle, and on top of that have been feeling very tired, flat & extremely unwell.

Little B & I went to a kids crafty session at the library yesterday which I normally love (the library lady is seriously brilliant). I just couldn’t feel the love or enjoyment. In fact, my fragile ego was further sunk by some fellow mummies who implied that I wasn’t doing enough for Little B because we didn’t do the same fantastically outrageous and expensive things they’d done for their kidlets over the school holidays thus far.

So last night I re-checked out a blog by Tracey Clark and her “I am enough” self-kindness collaborative. And that’s when it hit me “I am enough”. This collaborative blog spoke to me at some deep fundamental level - I need to stop guilting myself about my life and my choices, to stop comparing my journey to that of others, to be free to enjoy my life.

I don’t need to drive myself into the doldrums striving to be the ultimate “winner” of some purity eco lifestyle brigade / challenge / competition. I just want to be me and my life to be a great representation of me - the real me. I want my lifestyle choices to be made from passion and interest. To bring me peace and in some sense happiness, not made from constant feelings of not being good or worthy enough.

I’m a good mama, wife, friend…we choose to live the way we do because we love it…because we want to make a difference to our lives, our child, your lives and the planet. As one lady said "live a life your proud of" - and that's what yesterday gave me. The discovery and the spark to move back towards authenticity - the authentic me.

I am enough! *hugs to me*

Lots of Little Projects

 I finished my first "proper" sewing project just before Christmas. This is the skirt I made during my dressmaking lessons. My teacher was fantastic and at the end of the term I felt I'd learned a lot :-)

Since then I've made a Waldorf birthday crown for Little B, lots of Christmas present bags and lots of storage bags for toys.

But now I'm itching to sew more clothes and one of my Christmas presents were some vouchers for fabric. So I've been working on this shirred top / dress. I'm just getting the shaping right for the bottom section before I decide whether it will be a short dress or top. Or I may even keep it as a dress for a while, the make it into a top. This is sewing at it's easiest as I bought the cotton already shirred :-)

I have a new kindy backpack to make for Little B.

I fell in love with this fabric but they only had 1.5 metres left (which of course I bought LOL). Originally I was inspired to make a dress from Peppermint Magazine. I've cut out the free pattern but I think somehow it's wrong (the pattern not my cut out). Or at least the way they want you to cut the fabric is wrong - you cut the back and half the front out along the selvedge and the remaining front half across the grain?? Hmmm something not quite right there.

So now I'm on the search for another dress or skirt pattern....