this saturday i'm grateful for...the rain stopping

After a night of crazy rain, flooding backyards / front yards, houses, streets and veggie gardens plus little sleep, today I'm grateful for:

* a snuggly cuddly day at home in the warmth - we read books (Little B is loving The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton), did lots of beading (Little B) and knitting (me)

* a mum who knits so much better than I do - meet Pebbles & Bam Bam our knitted cave people

* belly dance starting again this week - a whole hour of technique a week *drool*

 * home-made baked donuts and roast veggie pie to celebrate Mr B's birthday

Check out Maxabella loves for more grateful goodies....

{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

 

 

Waste

Picture courtesy of www.accidental-greenie.blogspot.com

I've come across two examples of massive waste recently that have really stuck in my mind. Just after Christmas, I went to the supermarket and saw someone clearing the shelves of "old" bread to make way for the new. Now this individual was hurling the bread onto the floor and kicking it out of the way. Damaging the bread - pure and simple. When I asked the checkout operator where it went she said that she had no idea.

Now Woolworths at least donate all their leftover fresh food as part of their Fresh Food Rescue program. I'm hoping Coles do the same but the state this bread was in, I'm almost sure they would have binned it :-(

The second example comes from another big corporate. Here the staff are required to wear a uniform which is compulsorily updated with a new uniform every year. Individual staff are prohibited from donating the old (and I use that word loosely) uniforms because they have logos on them. Some senior management staff in the past have donated some uniforms to homeless shelters as this was ok, but it had been done by an individual management member. So does the head office collect these excess uniforms every year and donate them en masse to homeless shelters around Australia? In one word - No.

For some reason, these two examples seem to rattle around in my brain a lot at the moment. Both seem so wasteful and both seem to have fairly straight forward answers to such waste.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

- The Lorax by Dr Suess

So I wrote to both companies asking them what their company policies are in regards to these waste areas and if they feel their response to it will change in the future.

Hopefully I can either jolt just one person to think outside the square, be a blinding flash of the obvious or join in an unknown chorus of complaints / questioning from the public. My aim this year is to speak up more when I see things that could be made more green / sustainable.   

Holiday Rhythm

As the summer school holidays draw to a close, I dont know about you but we've had a ball for the last 6 weeks. It's been so nice to fall into a more relaxing family rhythm than we experience during term time. My aim this school holidays has been to get Little B outside and more immersed in natural settings.

We've spent a few days at the beach

Collected shells, sea sponges and cuttle fish

Visited adventure playgrounds

Ridden his bike (from Santa) along paths and through parks

We've been to the local pools ALOT!! :-)

Visited some nature playscapes, where we've built rock towers and played in fairy grottos

Planted some colour in the garden

Been absorbed by changing waterflow in some creeks

And who could forget our beloved library...

Paper monsters

Scary mobiles

Slime :-)

Be Prepared - Home Preps & a Go Bag

Still in Week 2 of the Be Prepared challenge - this week has focussed on Acquire.

Home Preps

We have done a lot of the preps suggested over at Bec's, mainly because we live in a high bushfire zone. Our old house was in what is known locally as "the indefensible zone", so we have always taken the notion of being prepared very seriously. Whilst where we live currently is marginally better (the CFA will actually come to this area *bonus*) we still take it to heart.

The other problem with living in such an area is we often live with power outages during hot weather. In fact our electricity provider often sends out letters saying they cant guarantee power during summer (we also lose power in winter but that's from trees coming down).

So we have to make sure that we can cook, be warm / cool, hear important messages - and that's where preps come in.

Some key home preps we have are:

* wind up lanterns

* battery operated lanterns

* solar charger for our mobile phones

* a wind up radio which can also run on batteries

* a portable gas hot plate

* a bbq and gas bottles

* wool blankets (good in summer and winter)

* our stockpile

* well stocked first aid kit

** and obviously all the trappings for fire readying your home

Another key thing we have is water tanks. And water purifying tablets. I would not hesitate to drink the water from our rain water tanks should we need to do so. Mind you that's probably because I come from South Australia originally and drinking rain water is normal over there.

Go Bag

Again an obvious necessity in a bushfire zone. And one unfortunately that we have fine tuned due to evacuating a few years back around Black Saturday. Make sure you check at Bec's post at Eat at Dixibelle's for a really comprehensive look at Go Bags.

We have a couple of dedicated bags for this. One is a bigger duffel type bag that stays in the boot of car during fire season. It contains mainly change of clothes, a few precious things and sits with our sleeping preps (sheets, pillows, a couple blankets). We also always have a car first aid kit.

Then we have another backpack that stays inside the house by the front door. This has a copy of our important docs (i.e. rates notice to prove you own your house, ID docs, insurance docs), a mobile hard drive plus USB's (photos, backups of work docs for Mr B), some snacks, some money, and most importantly Little B's bedtime lovey. Everyone knows they grab this if nothing else!! LOL

Now money may seem like a strange thing but in times past I always assumed I would grab my hand bag. But we evacuated for a fire and had smoke whipping around the house a few years back (though we found out later fire wasnt that close) but in the panic, I left it behind. Mr B was in another car,ten minutes behind me and we were going to our safety meeting point. BUT I was alone with a 2 year old dressed only in a cloth nappy (it was 46 degrees) and I had no ID and no money. Now nothing bad happened but still it was not a good idea!! Not making that mistake again!!

Another thing we did was buy an exact replica of Little B's bedtime lovey and keep it at a safe house. Which makes me feel better as he couldnt sleep without this and its a little well of security when you cant be at home and are camping / sleeping somewhere different / unusual.

Snacks are also a key thing for our go bag as we cant whizz out and buy Little B something to eat due to his allergies. In high summer, I always have a little kit of things I can snatch and go. Plus the few things we can buy and store easily.

Both these preparations are really important - even if it's just having copies of important docs. And it always helps to be prepared for a power outage in winter or summer. Once you can get the mind set it just becomes a common part of your thinking. For example, it's going to be 40 degrees here today and we already organised a meal for dinner tonight in case there is no power.

Tutu cute :-)

Little B and I had the best fun yesterday. We went on a play date outing with his favourite gal pal, where he rocked it with the ladies at an Angelina Ballerina concert. His best bud insisted on him wearing a pink tutu to match her hot pink one when we got there and he was more than happy to oblige.

The hilarious thing was that while he was only one of two boys wearing a tutu, we witnessed some tantrums and whinges from boys who wanted tutus. Gotta love it ;-)

They had a great time and we mum's enjoyed soaking up the sun (even if it was on fake grass). Little B was totally gob smacked by fake grass though and cant stop telling people about it LOL.

{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