May

It's hard to believe that 4 months of the year have gone already.

We bought a rain gauge last weekend, a very cheap one but I am sure it will do the job. I looked at it yesterday morning and we had 1.5mm, and came inside and told my WH, he then asked if I had emptied it out, I wondered (to myself) what for? and then I realised so went back outside and emptied it. Checked it again when we came back from grocery shopping, library etc and only had a couple of drops in it, yet it had been raining quite a lot about 2km away, which just goes to show about local conditions. This morning we had 5.5mm, every bit of rain is good.

The long weekend is over

It is so enjoyable to have a long weekend. I made 3 loaves of bread during the weekend, and we have about half of the last loaf left. I also made Anzac biscuits, they are a very unpredictable biscuit, I remember reading a discussion on how to make crispy or chewy biscuits, something to do with the amount of liquid and flour I think. One tray of the ones I made were thick and crisp, the other tray were thick and chewy. The crisp ones were cooked in the middle of the oven and cooked for a bit longer. I can remember Anzac biscuits that my mother used to bake and they were thin and crisp. It doesn't really matter as I like them all ways. The other thing I have to remember is if I am using an Australian or NZ recipe as the tablespoon measurements are different. Australian tablespoons are 20ml and NZ are 15ml, so depending on the ingredients used it could make quite a difference.

We have had a lot of rain - nearly 20mm and has been quite cold as well about 14°C as well. The sun has been out this afternoon so it has been quite nice. I went to the library on Saturday to pick up a book I had ordered, it is Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver. After that I popped into the Salvation Army Thrift shop to get some knitting needles, I ended up getting 2 needles, 1 crochet hook, 1 circular knitting needle and 2 double ended needles - all for $4.50 a bargain I think, as I had seen needles in Lincraft for $5. Started another dishcloth last night but I think the needles might be too big for the job as so far the cloth seems a bit lacy looking.

This afternoon I started tidying up my sewing room, but got side tracked and completed 2 small projects that were nearly finished. I will finish up the tidy up tomorrow morning.

We're having red chicken curry, green beans and rice for tea tonight - leftovers from Friday night, followed by quince poached in red wine and honey. It's raining again, I can hear it on the roof and the cloud has come down so I can't see the reservoir any more.

Living simply

Rhonda over at http://www.down---to---earth.blogspot.com/has asked her readers to give a description of what our lives are and how we live. This is mine;

I have been inspired by several of the blogs that I have found over the past year or so. About two years ago I felt unhappy with the way we were living our life. I knew there were changes we could make. These are just some of them:

Starting a compost bin, this has really reduced the amount of rubbish we put in the bin.

Stop accepting plastic bags, cloth bags go everywhere with us so we are never caught out.

Start a small veggie garden and grow some of the things that we would normally buy.

My WH put up a clothesline under the roof in our outdoor living area, now I can hang the washing out and not have to worry about it getting wet. I still also use my Hills hoist.

Instead of buying cleaning products I now make my own, I also make my own laundry liquid.

I did a major de-clutter of the house, selling furniture and giving away a lot of "stuff" that was excess to our needs.

Using a mooncup instead of buying tampons, pads etc, the money saved in 3 months has paid for it.

I already made bread, and cooked all our meals from scratch. I have been making pickles and chutney, the only thing holding me back from making more is a lack of jars.

Started sewing again and even knitted a few dishcloths.

I feel a lot more content and in control of our life now.

Poppy

Anzac Day

The Ode

They shall grow not old,

As we that are left grow old,

Age shall not weary them,

Nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun,

And in the morning

We will remember them

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), For the Fallen (1914), stanza 4

Another weekend gone

I spent most of Saturday cleaning the oven, or it seemed like that. It is done now and today I re-arranged the 2 drawers under the oven, they are all tidy now, I had just been tossing the cake tins in any which way. Weatherwise the weekend was a bit bleak, it was quite cool and sent me to the wardrobe searching out my winter clothes, I think next weekend I will be putting away all the warm weather clothes, perhaps this time I will also get rid of the ones that I didn't wear but have been holding on to thinking I would wear them.

I was going to plant seeds on the Sunday, but never got around to it because it wasn't very nice outside in the garen. I'm glad I didn't as the birds have been in the garden digging through the mulch and have made a real mess scattering the mulch everywhere, so any seeds planted would have been eaten or messed up. I think I will have to buy some seed raising mix and plant the seeds in punnets first. We got about 10mm of rain last week which is better than nothing. My freesias have started pushing through and also my volunteer anenomes, will have to wait and see if they all flower.

We were looking around the garden today and deciding which plants needed cutting back or removing, there are a few that haven't come through the summer too well and as this is the second summer for some of them, I think it will probably be better to take them out and put in something that can cope with less water. Cactus maybe!!!

Ikea is starting to annoy us, I rang there on Thursday last week, to see if the bins that I wanted had come in, the guy on the phone said yes, we have 60. We arrived at Ikea and navigated our way to the kitchen area and there was 1 solitary bin, when we asked the shop assistant she said No, they haven't come in yet, I said yes they have, and explained that I had rung and asked, so she made a few calls, and the upshot was: they had arrived but there was a problem and they hadn't been unloaded yet. We were quite annoyed (one of us more so) and I have yet to ring back and see if they are on the shop floor. Perhaps I will leave that till Thursday.

The picture is of the shopping tote that I was sent in a recent swap, my swap partner also sent me two other bags, a knitted dish cloth and an apron (on the back of the chair). they were all really lovely and I am using them already. I forgot to take a picture of the shopping tote that I had made for the swap. It is similar to one I already posted about, but I added a strip of green fabric and embroidered spirals on one side, I also made a pincushion as well.

I have a book out from the library called: Sorted by Lissanne Oliver, it is about decluttering and I will be using some of her ideas over the next couple of months.

Daylight Saving is finally over

NZ Spinach or Warrigal greens (L)

Plumbago next to the compost bin (R)




Cody (not amused) (L)

Closeup of a small table I am decorating (R)


Another weekend almost gone, we have had lovely fine weather all weekend and it hasn't been too cold. I made bread but didn't get to make the hot cross bun/loaf that I had planned, just as well as we still haven't finished the other bread. It seemed as if I spent most of Saturday washing clothes and hanging them up, and then folding them once they had dried.

We went to Ikea today, we had been there last weekend looking at a divided bin to replace our current recycling and rubbish system (which is a separate box and a round bin (attached to the cupboard door) in the cupboard under the sink) the bins we were after had run out and were coming in last Friday, but the shipment has been delayed and there were no bins, so it was a bit of a wasted trip really. I like looking around Ikea, there are some good ideas there and I prefer to take my time, have a close look and compare prices etc. My DH doesn't really like going in there at all. So later this week I will be phoning them to see if the bins have arrived so we don't have another wasted trip.

There is a koala in a tree about 200m down our street. When we were coming home last Sunday (from Ikea) I happened to see him (or her) walking up a side street, so we stopped our car and put our hazard lights on and sat there and watched the koala cross over the road, he ran on the grass and climbed up a tree and he has been there ever since. I heard on the radio a few days ago that koalas sleep 22 hours out of 24 and it seems to be true, this one is just sitting there. He has moved around the tree a bit going a bit higher each time. I must try to take my camera next time I go for a walk and get a picture of him.

Wild Weather

A rather large hot cross bun loaf that I made on Saturday

Today has been really windy, plenty of leaves and bark falling off the trees, and also several tree branches falling down (but not near us). There has been a bit of rain but I think the wind is drying out the ground fairly fast.

I took a look at my garden this morning when I went to empty the compost bucket. My NZ spinach seedlings are growing well. I planted them in 3 separate spots around the garden and they have all taken off, now I will have to make sure I keep the area around them weeded.

We went and got groceries this morning, over the last few weeks we have been spending less at the supermarket, I think it is because I am really thinking about needing as opposed to wanting something. We are not spending any more money at the market , in fact last Friday I came home with $25 in my wallet. The last 6 weeks I have been writing down everything we spend and it is a bit of an eye-opener, it should make it easier to budget come the end of June when we will be cutting back on the number of jobs we do in our business. I am really looking forward to having a bit of extra time.

We also had our flu vaccinations this morning, usually we don't bother till May but this year they had a waiting list at the pharmacy as they were waiting for the vaccine to come in and I guess they wanted an idea of how much to order. We have been having the flu vaccine for the past 5 years, it is a good idea, especially when you work for yourself, as if you get sick then who is going to do the work (Mr Nobody??)

A loaf of the New York sourdough style bread that I made on Saturday