Life Changes

Mmmmm... what a week. I am exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally from it. I found out some things about John (E's dad) this week that I don't like and have asked him to move out. Not sure if I have written much here about our living situation but to cut a long story short, we separated many many years ago but he has been living with us for some time. We get on well enough to live together to raise our daughter and share the load. Not many people get our situation but it has worked for us. I don't tolerate some things though and can not live with him any longer - not even for E's sake (she doesn't need this crap either). As you can imagine, she is devastated and I am worried about her more than me. But the main thing I need to worry about for the short term is earning some money to pay the rent of $370 a week and also to provide our other basic necessities. Although John says he will give us money, I will never again in my life rely on a man to provide for me. It is only in the last year that I have allowed myself to get into this situation of relying on him - never before in the 10+ years I have known him have I done this. I was always very independent and am annoyed at myself that I am not now. Anyway, to say that this week has been emotional is an understatement. Our whole life will change now and while I am trying to look at it as the wonderful opportunity it can be to get my life back, I am also sad that plans and little dreams I had are now no longer achievable. My heart breaks for E too.

I had a day off today (although I did go to work for a couple of hours this morning to finish off some work). After coming back from work I spent some time cooking a potato bake and a casserole in the slow cooker. We ate the potato bake for lunch and I am freezing the casserole for meals next week. Tomorrow I will probably cook some more meals to freeze. And I may also do some baking. I have to go to work tomorrow for a little while to stocktake :(

We are nice and busy at work - I am quite tired from it all. I have 1 more week until a week off and I really am looking forward to it. E will also be on holidays and I plan on us doing lots of cooking, craft, reading and snuggling in bed :)))

I have been making lots of cards at work for classes. Usually I only do scrapbook classes so I have been enjoying making cards. Here are 2 cards that I taught last week. They are made from white card that I have cuttlebugged, inked and stamped. Not very good photos though...

I went out for dinner with Kate tonight and enjoyed salt & pepper calamari & Reef and Beef - yummo! We ordered dessert but it never came and after waiting about 40 minutes we asked for our money back and went home... It is really cold tonight so I think it is now time to go to bed - my fingers don't want to type anymore lol!

Perspective

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, 'How was the trip?' 'It was great, Dad.' 'Did you see how poor people live?' the father asked. 'Oh yeah,' said the son. 'So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?' asked the father. The son answered: 'I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.' The boy's father was speechless. Then his son added, 'Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.' Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your family and friends!

'Life is too short so appreciate each day!'

Life has been really hectic over the last month or so. Business has been slow this year due to the rise in the cost of living for everyone. It is not just our industry (retail craft) but everywhere. Every business owner you talk to says the same thing and I have noticed some have started closing down. This is a very sad part of small business ownership. We went into business 4 years ago this month knowing that it would not be an easy journey but I have to say that it is far harder than either of us imagined! In case you are wondering who the 'we' is, it is myself and my best friend Kate. We had both been in retail management for many years and both managed successful stores. So we figured that we knew it all! We look back and shake our heads at our own arrogance. Probably the toughest part but also the most rewarding aspect has been the growth in our friendship. It is hard work working with your best friend some days, especially when you think in completely different ways. We had been best friends for 12 years when we went into partnership but over the last four years I have gotten to know her pretty much completely - really it is like a marriage! Running the business together has taught me the value of our friendship, the strength of it and that Kate will always be there for me and love me even on my bad days! It has also taught me about discipline & perserverance. I read once that small business ownership is a true test of character. When you run a small business and things don't go to plan you start to question yourself & your abilities. You don't always do this when you work for someone else.

Now, back to why we are so busy! We sat down about a month or so ago and started to plan ways to bring more customers into the shop. We mapped out a full month of events and also started planning the next two months as well. We are also focusing advertising dollars on the customers we already have. All of this is working and so we are really busy with it all. The interesting thing is that even though I am a little physically tired, I am not mentally tired. But, being so busy at work has led me to lean back into old habits of relying on convenience food (bad me!). I ran out of frozen meals which were keeping us going. It shows me how much I need to keep that up. So, I have most of this weekend off and I will be cooking and freezing and back to planning meals which I have not done over the last week.

Breastfeeding & Society

A friend asked me today how long I thought it was appropriate for women to breastfeed for. I told her that I figure that is a decision best left up to the mother who is breastfeeding. Apparently there was a segment on a morning show about it - the mother plans to do it until the baby teeth fall out I think. The general consensus was that this was way too long and disgusting. My friend commented that she thinks it is a form of abuse... I am not too sure why she thinks that as she did not offer an explanation. Now, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but the whole conversation leads me to ponder more about society in general and how we form opinions and judgements on our fellow human beings. I am really starting to open my eyes to how we are led by advertising, government, society etc in our thinking. On the breastfeeding issue I wonder how long mothers breastfed for hundreds of years ago. What really is the natural progression of that? I said to my friend that yes, most of society views mothers breastfeeding older children as not the norm but that does not mean it is not right. I personally believe that it must be a great bonding experience and also that the child must be receiving lots of great nutrients from the breast milk. Let me just say though that this is not something I have sat and pondered greatly! That is my initial thoughts. Also, my friend does not have children so I wonder too if she did would that change her opinion? I personally had no success with breastfeeding though God knows I tried! And, when I finally gave in at 2am one morning the nurse on duty was a breastfeeding advocate and thought it her duty and right to sit me down with a manual and a lecture about why I should not bottlefeed. She insisted I pump my breastmilk and then SHE bottlefed it to my daughter while I watched. I was all of 23 and suffering from a small amount of baby blues as well as HUGE amounts of guilt for even considering bottle feeding. The next morning I again tried breastfeeding at which point my mother and partner complained about the night nurse. I did continue to try breastfeeding but after 7 days of my daughter losing weight & us not allowed to leave hospital the decision was made to give up. The guilt remained for months though I can tell you. Another great example of society enforcing their views and judgements on us!

The Life I Want

Very sadly, the long weekend is finished. Although I enjoy my work I really enjoy and look forward to my time off. Thank goodness I am no longer a workaholic. Back in my early twenties I lived around the corner from work where I was the store manager. I shared a house with my assistant manager and both of us were addicted to work and pleasing the boss. It was not unusual for us to be awake at 1am talking about work. I remember one time that we did this and we came up with a brilliant idea so off we went to work and did it - at 1am for goodness sake! My boss loved us of course but I can tell you that in the end we were burnt out and resentful.

I have been thinking about where I want my life to go. I mentioned to a friend yesterday that my faith is wavering but I do not make the time to work on this. I also do not make enough time to improve my health. In fact there are may areas of my life that are not in balance. I wouldn't think that I am alone in this. I am not too good at doing a lot of things well. I find that either I am doing well at work but home is suffering or vice versa. I don't envy those career women high up in the corporate world. Family isn't valued too highly in many big businesses - it is all about the bottom line. How do these women combine motherhood with career? Not too well from what I have seen. Something has to give and for many of these women that I know, it is themselves. They are run raggard and many of them are giving their children absolutely everything except enough time and discipline. In my own personal experience I spend my mornings rushing and nagging and sometimes yelling at my daughter to hurry up. I do not look forward to mornings! Afternoons are spent either at work or rushing through homework and chores. I am over it. And what I have come to realise is that I need to create the life I want rather than just accepting the norm as society expects. Society tells us that we need to work to make more money to have the big house, cars, clothes, tv's etc etc. I am happy to forego many of those things and in their place I would rather have calm mornings, sleep ins with my daughter, breakfast together, fun and games, more visits to the park in the afternoons, cooking together during the day, crafting together happily etc etc. I am making plans to create this life. I will share more with you as it progresses.

Yesterday I spent the day cooking. I think I did this to avoid the sewing! We started the day off with pancakes. E helped me with this and we had a great time - and made a great mess! In this photo you can see my really old frypan. It was my best friends mum's frypan. I used to live with Kate and her mum (Mrs Kelly) and when we all went our separate ways Mrs Kelly left me the frypan because I did not have one. I did buy one but I prefer to cook with this one! And now it has more meaning to me. As you can see, my pancakes are a little sad looking but they tasted great!

For lunch I was going to cook pumpkin soup but the tribe wasn't too keen on this idea so in the end I just roasted some vegies. Now, E doesn't like pumpkin and assumed this was sweet potato which she loves. So we went along with this to see if she would eat it. She did and told me how yummy the sweet potato was lol! I had to tell her the truth... She kept eating it anyway.

I also made a banana cake and choc chip cookies yesterday and then silverside for dinner. I was very tired last night! Today I did not cook a thing. I scrapbooked most of the day.

A thank you card.


A layout - the photo is shocking sorry.

A close up of the layout. This is for a class at the shop during the week.

A Day of Simple Living

I had a lovely day today - slept in a little, visited Kate at work and collected some papers etc to design a class for next week, did a little bit of shopping and then came home to relax and get started on my sewing project. It was rainy today so that was nice too.

I made washing powder for the first time today. Not that there is anything to make as such. I just followed Rhonda's recipe and mixed together Lux flakes and soda crystals.

Following her recipe you mix together 4 cups of the soap flakes with 2 cups of the soda crystals. You can also add in 2 cups of borax but because we use the washing water on the garden she suggests not to include the borax. I have stored the laundry powder in a plastic container. I did 3 loads of washing with it today and am happy to report that it worked perfectly!

Here is a link to more of Rhonda's recipes for laundry detergent.



After lunch I finally made a start on sewing a dress for E. Because I have borrowed a pattern I first had to make a copy. Mum told me to use greaseproof paper for this. I suffer from a bad back and unfortunately it played up during this. I also have to admit that I got very bored while tracing and cutting - especially while in pain. So, I procrastinated and called Mum to distract myself! She gave me a recipe for fried rice for dinner so it was not wasted time really! So, I did not get too far along with the sewing but am now ready to start cutting the material - yes, this project could take me a long time... This is a picture of the dress I am making.

And this is a photo of my fried rice - very yummy! I had an idea last week to make fried rice and freeze for E's school lunches. She was receptive to the idea so I asked her what vegies she would like in it (she doesn't particularly like meat which does not really worry me). She asked for corn, zucchini, mushroom and carrot! So, I used corn from the cupboard which I have had for ages (I used to buy a tin just about every shopping trip because I really had no idea what was in my cupboard and I really like corn!), chopped up mushrooms and grated zucchini. I added chopped onion and skipped the carrot. I used brown rice because that was what we had in the cupboard. I knew that E would ask why it wasn't white so I told her it was due to the colour of the soy sauce - kind of believable don't you think?!! She bought it and liked the dinner. Now I will freeze the rest for her lunches.

I was very excited when I logged onto Rhonda's blog this morning. She is hosting a swap! I have never participated in any kind of swap but have wanted to do something like this for ages. So, after reading some of the tutorials for how to make the items in the swap I convinced myself that I could make them and I joined in! It is for a pin cushion and a needlebook. I figure that if I get stuck there are a few ladies at work who will be able to help me as well as Mum. I have to say that all I wanted to do today was get started but I decided to stick with making the dress as planned. Tonight though I have surfed the net looking at lots of different blogs and came across these that I just loved:

The Solitary Thread

One Crafty Mumma

And, Nolene (one of our Design Team members from work) has loaded some gorgeous mini books onto our blog.

Changes In Me

It has been about two months I think, since I first typed the words "simple living" into google and came across Rhonda's blog and many other sources of frugal, green & simple living. I have changed so much in those two months. Tonight, after vacuuming, mopping, doing a load of washing, cooking potato bake & cleaning up the kitchen, I printed out my bank statement for May & June so far and started to work out just where I am spending my money. Of course, this does not take into account cash I have spent but it is a start. And, for me to do all those things on a Friday night after working most of the day - that is a huge change! At about 5.30pm I saw an ad on TV as I walked past it for Hungry Jacks and for a split second I thought "easy". But you know what? As soon as it flashed into my head to buy dinner it flashed straight out. I wanted home cooking tonight and I did not want to spend the money. It surely adds up... After working out what I have been spending I looked at how much I have left of my monthly food budget and started planning what we will eat for the rest of June. I "stocktaked" the freezer and compared it to my list of what is in my cupboard. I then flicked through the recipe books - I think the family is getting sick of the same old things! Found some yummy ideas and because I was looking through Weight Watchers recipe books they are all healthy too. Tomorrow morning I will finish my plan and I may drive over to Aldi and do my first shop there. I am actually looking forward to seeing what it is like and saving money. Two months ago I dreaded grocery shopping!

Anzac Biscuits YUMMO!

I am sitting here eating freshly baked anzac biscuits as I write this. I have tasted some bad anzac biscuits in my time and I was quite prepared for ours to taste bad but they have totally exceeded my expectations! E and I cooked them just before dinner tonight - it was quality time together after the hustle and bustle of the day and afternoon. I have included a photo of them below. The first photo here is of the potato bake that I cooked on Monday. I had the day off and it rained all day so I cooked. I made bacon and lentil soup, beef and lentil casserole and the potato bake. I froze most of it which made up about 5 nights worth of dinners. Unfortunately, I don't like the casserole... I did not have all the ingredients to follow a recipe I had so I made it up as I went (not a great idea!). The last time I made up a recipe it was too bland so this time I put in heaps of herbs etc and it was just way too much. Oh well, I am expecting lots of failed experiments on this journey and I know not to do it again!

On Monday before I cooked I went and did some grocery shopping (you would think I would have bought the ingredients I needed wouldn't you...!). I purchased meat from the local butcher for the first time and I was impressed with the service and the meat. I will continue to use the butcher. I also purchased lots of fruit and veg from the local fruit shop which I have been using for some time now. Very happy with them. I was going to go to Aldi but the closest one is about 20 mins away and I did not want to drive that distance in the rain. Next time I need to stock up I will go there. I am trying to use up ingredients I have in the house at the moment rather than making lots of trips to the shops. That way I will save money. For the first time I grabbed the Coles brochure for the week with their sale items listed and sat down and went through it. Apart from toilet paper on special there was nothing else that we really use. As I am new to stockpiling I purchased only two lots of the toilet paper - yes, should have bought more but I am still getting my head around this stocking up!

Back to the casserole... I am trying to incorporate more lentils into our cooking. I used half of what I would normally for the beef and substituted with lentils for the rest. If you have any great recipes using meat and lentils I would absolutely love for you to share them with me!

Life's Not About What's Better Than...

I love this song from the John Butler Trio (in fact I love most of their music!).

Here are the lyrics:

All you want is

What you can't have and if ya'

Just look around man

You'll see you got magic

So just, sit back and relax

Enjoy it while you still have it

Don't, look back on life man

And only see tragic because

chorus:

You can be better than that

Don't let it get the better of you

What could be better than that

Life's not about what's better than

You can be better than that

Don't let it get the better of you

What could be better than that

Life's not about what's better

All the time while ya' lookin' away

There are, things you can do man

There's things you can say

Unto the, the ones your with

With whom you're spending the day

Get your, gaze off tomorrow

And come on and maybe, because

chorus

Oh, I know, sometimes

Things can be hard

But you should know, by now

They come and they go so why

Oh why do I

Look to the other side, 'cause I know

The grass is greener

But, just as hard to mow

Life's not about what's better than

All you want is

What you can't have

And if ya' just look around man

You'll see you got magic

So just, sit back and relax

Enjoy it while you still have it

Don't, look back on life man

And only see tragic because

chorus

I spent the day with Kate & E today. Just sitting around chatting and had lunch together. We talked about the cost of petrol and how they are predicting the cost of food will double over the next year. I hadn't heard that figure but she said they mentioned it on TV today. As I have been reading so many blogs etc about this topic I was not surprised. I told her about my readings and that we all really need to learn to be more self sufficient - grow our own food where we can, wean ourselves off oil etc etc. We talked a lot about this and then moved on to the topic of spending what we earn ie society in general not just us (we don't earn much so not much to spend lol!). I told her that I believe it would be an interesting experiment to live without the media's influence in our life for a couple of months and see what happens. I heard someone say that in today's society it is hard to develop a sense of self. I have to say that I agree with this. With the media telling us what we want, what we need, who we should be or aspire to be, what we should earn etc etc it can be a little hard to drown it all out and think for ourselves. Especially because our friends and family are also being lead by the media so if we try to go against the norm, they are there to tell us what they think! Now I am not saying that this totally applies to everyone but I think to some extent it does for us all. So, to close ourselves off from advertising in all forms I wonder if that would give us some quiet time and space to think, read, play, BREATHE, and become ourselves a little bit more... Do you know what I mean? Just something to think about on a cold, wet day!