Gotta Have Friends

I have just come home from a night out with the girls. We went and saw the new Bette Midler movie (I think it is called Then She Found Me) and then went for dinner afterwards. These are friends I have made through our scrapbooking shop. Wonderful women who come from diverse backgrounds but who share a love of craft and now who share this easy and comforting friendship. These women come to my classes every Wednesday night and also often to my Saturday classes. They first came to learn how to scrapbook but mostly they now come for the friendship we all have. It is one of my favourite parts of my job. Many of these ladies are professional women who work extremely hard and have craft as their stress relief. I now call our Wed classes "therapy sessions"! I also get therapy from them and that is fabulous. So, tonight some of them brought their mums and sisters and we all had a great big chat over dinner. Just what the doctor ordered (I have been battling a cold this week). It reminds me how lucky I am to have these ladies in my life. I often wonder how women cope in life if they don't have at least one close friend. I am so lucky to have Kate as my best friend. We can talk about anything to each other. And my friendships with my scrapping friends are becoming closer all the time. Tonight we talked about planning a retreat away soon. Up in the mountains in a little bed and breakfast with fireplaces, massages and great company - heaven! But before that we will be going to see Mamma Mia when it comes out - looks fabulous!

Petrol YIKES!

I just filled my car tonight and I managed to save myself 13c a litre! I use Premium Unleaded but the BP was out of that so I had to put in the Ultimate and it was 1.55 a litre (the normal petrol was $1.42). They were raising the price in half an hour to $1.55 for normal and $1.68 for Ultimate. The other servos in the area were already higher. $70 later and I walked out of there... Recently I priced bus fairs but never went any further - now I think I will. We will also consider walking to school and work. I am fortunate that I work a block away from where E's school is and we actually live on the same road too. However, it is a very long road and it is a good 40 - 50 minute walk. So it really depends on whether I want a longer sleep in or not as to whether we have time to walk! And in the colder weather I have to tell you that sleep wins! But a compromise could work - bus in the morning and walk in the arvo especially while it is not so hot. Better for the environment and better for my waistline too!!

I am considering having a garage sale. Have never had one before but we have stacks of "stuff" and I was going to just donate it because essentially I am a lazy person ;) but I realise I could make a few dollars that could go towards my vegie garden. I will also be starting with Ebay. Well, actually I have used Ebay a lot for work but never for personal things. It will be interesting to see if any of my things sell on there! For a while now I have considered selling my handmade goods on ebay but have been slightly put off because there is so much on there. You know what though - if you don't try you will never know! I design handmade wedding invitations for work (fairly basic ones because customers need to see that they can easily replicate them at home). My plan is that I could design more intricate ones for sale on ebay. Maybe this weekend I should sit down and do that and load them on to ebay and just see what happens!

Simple Living

I enjoyed Rhonda's post today about simple living. She asked readers to share what they are doing in their lives. I left my list of what we have started to do in the last few weeks and I was surprised at how far we have come. Still nowhere near the other readers who commented but it is a start. Never in a million years did I think this is who I would become. I am happy about the change though! For me, the hardest part is making conscious choices because I seem to live more on automatic pilot. I need to slow down and really think about how I live. I know that my life will be better for it. During the last school holidays I had a week off with E and it was one of the best weeks of my life. We slowed right down and really enjoyed our time together. We cooked, read, crafted and pottered around the house. I rediscovered just how wonderful my girl is! I will be having a week off with her again during the next school holidays. And I am still researching homeschooling. I have pretty much decided to do it once we sort the business out and I am really looking forward to it - the next chapter of our lives!

I worked today - normally I have Monday's off but Kate is on holidays so it was up to me! I had a good one, lots of nice customers in today and I made this layout for a mini class we are having later in the week. Mmmm just tried to upload it below this text and it went above it???

So, apart from work nothing else of real interest happened today, bit boring I know! Some news of mine to report about recycling - after really paying attention to this last week I am proud to say that we recycled heaps. Again, I need to admit that I am embarrassed that we have not been faithful recyclers but at least we have seen the errors of our way. I also checked out our electricity usage last night and discovered that we used an average of 25.9kWh per day on our last bill. From what I have read this is a little higher than the average (I am putting this down to us really giving the air conditioner a workout over Summer). I am setting myself a goal to get this down, although we are nearly finished this quarter so it probably won't be noticed on the next bill. According to the bill this averages out to $3.97 a day. One good thing is that I have signed up for Green Earth so 20% of our electricity is green. I am going to look into whether I can get more green energy supplied than 20%. Am sure this is possible. I also read somewhere on the Aussies Living Simply site that a fair amount of usage is from the hot water so I need to cut this down. We are almost within our target of 140l per person of water a day (we went over by 6l). But I know that I can cut this more and that would help with the hot water issue I guess. Thank God for the people who are doing more than their bit - makes up for us who don't...

Here is a link to another blog that I have done a little reading on lately - Consumption Rebellion.

I love blogs! I have learnt so much from other people's blogs and can spend hours getting lost going from link to link. Welcome to mine. I plan to share so much here and hope that you will find some inspiration in my ramblings!

Some background on me - I am 32, nearly 33. I am single and have 1 daughter (E who is 9). Currently I own a scrapbooking shop with my best friend Kate - we have had it now for nearly 4 years. I live in beautiful Brisbane, QLD, AU. I love crafting (papercraft, beading and would dearly love to learn how to sew), reading, cooking, homemaking (although this is a new love so am still getting there ;), time with family and friends. Yes, I have turned into boring old me but I love it!

A very new interest for me is the environment. Yes, am embarrassed to admit that until this year I have not really taken the time to learn about how I impact on our environment and what I can do to minimise this impact. Kate thinks I am losing the plot I think with all my ramblings about going green lol! Unfortunately, I know that I am not losing the plot - we all need to sit up and take notice AND do our bit. I have been totally inspired by Rhonda's blog and encourage you to read it. I was searching for ways to live more simply when I stumbled upon this blog and from there I have found so many links to other frugal living blogs, green living blogs, homeschooling blogs and loads more. I have started to bake from scratch (not a lot so far but every week I focus a little more on this), recycle more, watch what I spend, starting to think about a vegie garden, look into green cleaning ideas, stockpile slowly, consider what I am buying and whether I really need it especially taking into consideration the packaging. This is just a few things I can think of right now. I do have a list somewhere of my goals and when I find that I will post it here (more so to keep me on track).

I have to admit that after 32 years of living the consumer lifestyle I am finding it hard to change. However, I figure step by step and I will get there.