Inspiration

Certain major events in your life always make one think about how you are travelling. Going in hospital last week scared me a little and made me realise how much my family means to me. I guess there is always a risk with any anaesthetic and I did make sure I told my children that I loved them as well as my boyfriend and tried to spend lots of time with them the few days prior to my day surgery. Of course I came through with flying colours but it made me think about how I am living my life and what I would change given the opportunity. Being a single parent has made me frugal in a lot of ways, but I guess I still have things I like to splurge on. I have spent more time reading more blogs about people who are living simpler, more sustainable lives. I guess this is a path I am exploring and may eventually want to head down.

One person who really inspires me is Rhonda and her Down to Earth blog. I loved her post today about "convincing the family" and these words in particular summed up what I am trying to achieve with my family:
"It's more about giving up what you can do without so you have money for things that are important."

I have to say though that on the whole my children are great, they remember to turn off lights and since my son did a unit at school last term on sustainable living we have had a bucket in the shower. I mostly make a lot of our food from scratch, due to my son's food intolerances. I am taking baby steps to achieve my long term goal.

Other things I am trying for the first time are :
-growing my own veggies my spinach and bok-choy are growing very slowly, but given the prices of green vegetable right now i will start to give them a little more TLC to see if I can harvest the young leaves soon.
-a compost heap, which has been somewhat neglected, but as I have a few days off on the weekend I am hoping the weather will co-operate and I can mow the lawn (i.e. weeds) and fork over the compost heap!

Wish me luck !
Take care of you.

Compost

My weekend was fairly busy and at least part of it involved lessening my footprint on this earth. I worked on Saturday so that was mostly unproductive as far as household chores go. Saturday night was a "soup & scrap" at my friend Mandy's house. I am working on a baby album for one of my friends who is having a baby. (seems there are 3 friends now who are all due before Christmas - guess i will be working on a few more albums!).
Sunday i caught up on all the washing, I worked full time last week (due to sick workmates) so everything go ta bit out of hand. By last night I had brought in 4 loads of washing and had it all folded in front of the heater.

Managed to score some free timber for kindling, from the shop we got our mattress from, although we are not using the slow combustion heater as much this year it is still nice to light it when I get free wood. We also went to the local Bunnings to price some timber to re-do my bench tops. Since I will be living with this kitchen for a few more years it seems the easiest/most cost effective way to replace them. We did the grocery shopping on the way home, managed to spend very little as I bought bulk chicken and steak a few weeks ago and am trying to use up what I have first.

The rest of the afternoon we spent building a compost bin/enclosure. Basically a wooden box shaped frame with an open front. The timber were the surrounds form brick pallets from the house being built next door. The sides I covered in an old piece of chicken wire that came from my Dad's shed. The back was one of the mangled sheets of colourbond from my damaged fence. All up I spend nothing but my time in constructing it.
I roped my boyfriend into helping and he supplied the screw and the staple gun, as well as an extra set of hands. Oh and for a cover on top I salvaged an old piece of carpet off someones curbside council pick up pile.

All in all I feel it was a productive day. Hope to take a picture and post later tonight!
take care of you.