Kindness- Mantra For 2017

If you are a long time reader, you'll know I seem to find a theme every year, "words to live by" if you will that seem to come my way at the yearly junction 'tween old and new.

Towards the close of last year "kindness" struck a cord with me.

I read a particularly powerful piece about weathering the storm of argument in a marriage by remaining kind even in the midst of disagreement, I happened to think this was good advice for all sorts of relationships for instance between; siblings, work colleagues, step families, customers/clients and social groups etc. Ever since, a quiet little voice of calm within my head sits on repeat saying "be kind, be kind".

Kindness can take you far and heal rifts and open opportunities.

I think we could all adopt the mantra of kindness to help us through some tricky situations.
If I could work on "patience" too I would surely be an angel on earth, but sadly I seem to be able to work on only one virtue at a time!

2014 - A Retrospective

Come along with me and see the year that was in our suburban quarter....

As well as my two paid jobs I also participate in the local Growers' Market and as always our activities are very much seasonally driven.

Living Better With Less also continued for another year meeting monthly.

Here are some of the things we did and learnt;

Dehydrating

Re-hydrating and fermenting...

Kombucha making and....

Milk Keffir and Water Keffir...

We've been frugal making

Creamy yoghurt for next to nothing and

A whole three course dinner party for less than $15.

We learnt how to make healing salves and potent "Fire Cider" for a cold remedy

and talked about healing herbals and tisane...

and how to make toothpaste and sunscreen...

Wooden chair maintenance,

...and wooden drawer maintenance.

I did some work shops on food preserving called

"Beyond The Freezer"

And participated in the 

"Tassievore Eat Local Challenge"

with a very local and seasonal dinner.

I  also held a darning and knitted garment repair workshop at a Launceston pop-up "non-buying" shop in May

And later in the year I did a talk/food demonstration in Hobart for Colony 47

"All About Beans: Growing, Storing & Cooking"

And I even organised and hosted my first bus tour.

I took 30 ladies on a knitting journey through the midlands of Tasmania with a focus on fibres and local suppliers.

Our party of the year was a baby shower as we eagerly anticipated our first grandchild 

and we decorated a nursery...

And we are still trying to wipe the grins off our faces!

Sadly we lost some good people this year and I would like to dedicate this year in memory of;

Nic Leclercq - one of our Living Better With Less members and a dear friend

John Schoots - my uncle and an extraordinary man with extraordinary stories

and 

Jeremy Ball - our deputy mayor who was an absolute hero for our city and gone too soon.

We grow, we make, we mend, we preserve,

we flourish.

Thanks for being there and sharing it all.

Happy (Chinese) New Year

On Saturday we had a ball hosting a Chinese New Year party.

It was a fun date/theme for a BBQ get together with friends.

It was a real winner with the children of our friends too.

I was rapt when with each arrival of little people, we were greeted with the Cantonese 

"gùng héi faat chōi"

They had been practising with their parents all week and looking forward to the party with so much anticipation. They brought us presents of lolly snakes in honour of the year of the water snake.

We hid some lollies around the garden and had the fairy garden lit with bud lights.

They all played in the cubby house and around the garden and the dogs were beside themselves with so much activity.

Just in case we needed indoor activities, I downloaded these from here but they ended up as going home gifts. I also had cardboard and glue and red cellophane ready for making Chinese lanterns too.

We got out picture books and fairy stories and the bamboo cards for fortune telling.

Mostly everyone was happy mixing outside and when it turned cooler and dinner had finished, we gathered around the fire pot

Made from an old enamelled inner bowl from a washing machine.

Craig's plane that he is building in the garage was also a popular male hangout spot during the hours. (Amazing how men love to congregate in sheds)

I love this photo that a young 13 yr old guest took of the lanterns swinging in the (high) wind as night descended. He has his own page for his photography and works for sale here.

Another reason we enjoyed the party so much was all the help we had with the night.

If someone offered to bring something, I took them up on the offer. 

Some people were allocated a salad, or a dessert, or bread or even just a bag of chips.

In the past I have tried to do everything but allowing people to help when they wanted to really made the party a shared and joyful experience.

If people offered to help with the washing up,

I let them.

It made for some great conversation doing the dishes.

And boy were there dishes! I almost succumbed and bought plastic plates but neither Craig or I could bring ourselves to add to the plastic dilemma of the planet and when all is said and done, after hunting through cupboards I really do have more than fifty plates and bowls that I have bought inexpensively from the local op shop and was happy for them to be used outside. True to Murphy's Law, not a single 20c plate was broken.

I finally got to use "stuff" I had been storing in the cupboard for such a party for about 15 years now! Bits and bobs that had been purchased very inexpensively from China Town in Sydney. The children were rapt with the bundles of Chinese "money" that they got to take home and play with.

Too soon it ended.

Just when I got to sit down with a drink in front of the fire, people were starting to break up and wend their way home. We tend to have a large party every couple of years and the only thing I would love to do if I could afford it would be to hire staff to get the food out and clear away simply so that we could really enjoy every moment with our guests. Our aunty Lettie does that and she really gets to enjoy her time with her guests.

Have you got any great party tips to share? 

The Year of the Metal Rabbit

Something very funny has been going on round here for a couple of months now.....

Ordinary household objects keep disappearing.

My metal preserving thermometre, toenail clippers, crochet hooks...

Craig thinks I am just having early onset dementia but I have turned this house inside out.

I keep cutting myself with scissors (not intentionally obviously), pricking my fingers with pins and cutting my finger on tin lids.

The knives seem to be going blunt quickly and even the ordinary dinner knives seem very dull.

There is definitely a disruption to the energy in this house.

It had me wondering about the Feng Shui for this year and....

lo and behold

when I looked it up,

2011 is the year of the Metal Rabbit (Xin Mao)

The East and West contain most of the inauspicious energies this year.

It is definitely time for a tidy up and a good look at the kitchen and the front entry way.

The remedy for the East this year is the placement of metal to exhaust the earth energy. Luckily the kitchen is already full of lots of metal but it needs a re-jig of the placements. Perhaps some coffee pots and brass candlesticks at immediate eye height.

As I am an air horse, I am particularly effected apparently by this year.

I do so hope my metal objects come back once of have placed some fixes.

As for the "Rabbit" I think I have that covered.

The strange thing is that I don't actually collect rabbits,

but it occurs to me that if I can find this many around the home,

then I have a lot of "stuff" which could be a Feng Shui dilemma in itself!

Washing the Christmas Tree

We are lucky to have hot sunny days here at the end of Christmas.

I bought my tree 21 years ago at a really good price because it was missing it's base that it goes in to stand up (I just use a beach/market umbrella stand) otherwise I would not have been able to afford a tree of this quality at the time. It has been a great investment with lush realistic looking structure.

I am very particular about storing the Christmas things and looking after them.

We had a super hot day and I hung the Christmas tree on the clothes line and gave it a hose to wash out the last couple of years of dust and then left it to thoroughly dry before packing it away in the afternoon.

I have old doona covers and European pillow covers that I use to swaddle my tree and then pack into a box.

I have an old wardrobe from the op shop in the garage specifically for the decorations which means I can keep them pretty protected and dust free.

The decorations are all packed into their own boxes and I close the lid I smile to think how future generations when I am go might one day lift this lid and talk about me. I know that Christmas memories will be my legacy. The decorations are the tangible reminders.

So the nativity set is carefully bubble wrapped and in it's own plastic storage tub and everything is freshly dusted and in it's place now I have light and airy glass with light marine colours and themes.

It  is another opportunity to rotate the platters and other servingware, bringing to the fore the dishes for summer entertaining and inspiration.

We have been running the air conditioning the last few days - even Tassie gets the odd few days of 30C+ and it's lovely to have cooling, calming scapes I think.

The Beginning

Today is the beginning of my blog but here in Tasmania, Australia, we are mid-summer and at the height of our brief growing season, for although it doesn't snow here, it certainly slows down to a crawl.

Today should be inspiring and auspicious with words of wisdom and encouragement like some of the other blogs I follow, but honestly, I'm no super woman hero thing and last night WAS New Years Eve. I'm not good at doing the "sleep in" so it was a couch day and a couple of movies. Ironically the first movie I watched was "Hangover". It was a gorgeous hot day and lent itself very well to a sloth indoors day.

A couple of my friends have spent the day pulling down Christmas but I am a traditionalist and keep Christmas in all its glory till the twelfth day and will bring it to a close on the 5th of January.