Some days I just don't seem to get anything done at all, yesterday was one of those days, but it was still a good day, we just didn't do anything at home.


Our number one and only son and myself went to visit a friend to return a borrowed item and then we all went to one of our local swimming holes for a swim. It was lovely and the water was very cold and fresh. We hadn't been to this spot before (you know, live somewhere for years and never visit the local area) so it was good to see, there are so many spots so close to home and it is a shame we haven't made the effort before this.


So we had a lovely time with my friend, who also gave me some leftover calico so I can make a Christmas pudding, which I am going to get onto today after a general cleanup. It is a recipe I haven't made before so I will see how I go.

It is funny how sometimes you don't see people people for months and then run into then a couple of times. Last week ran into one of my friend's from Tai Chi and her husband, had a huge chat, haven't seen him for ages and then the next day ran into him again at the markets. Then yesterday ran into another friend I haven't seen for months had another huge catch-up chat and then ran into her again a bit later, yet haven't laid eyes on her for so long. Weird how that happens :)

My partner in crime and life came home a little early yesterday so he finished helping the neighbour give new life to his boat trailer and then we did some more house painting. Little by little it is getting done and it looks really good, our house is an old one but looks good with some paint and freshening up.

So best go and do the million squillion things on my list and later on visit another friend, if she is home, and later on this arvo go to another different swimming spot (we are doing the rounds). Maybe some of those million squillion things will have to be done tomorrow :)

Yesterday was such a stinking hot day and today seems like it is going to be the same. The dog is looking old after walking, we think the heat is affecting her (then again so does the cold), and even though she is only 8 1/2 years, I think her age is catching up due to health problems when a puppy. She is very healthy but looks so tired and old after walking, though if you opened the gate back up she would head back out. Unlike a dog we see most mornings, so far behind the owners, and yesterday we went past their house as they were leaving and the dog refused to come out, it is a very slow and lazy looking dog and walks SO, SO, slow, it is quite funny :)


So yesterday was just catching up on the housework I didn't do on the weekend, but it was just so hot it was difficult to do. So mid afternoon I took our number one and only son to the creek for a swim. There isn't much water in it at the moment but it is still very cold and I refuse to put in more than my feet :)


It is a lovely spot, very popular with lots of people going there and only about ten minutes from home. Unfortunately, when we move up the mountain we won't be so close but hopefully it also won't be so hot up there :) and we will have other distractions.


I finally got my partner in crime and life to cut down our bunch of bananas, and it is a beauty. I have been refusing to buy bananas as we have our own, and now they are down we will have to eat them up, they ripen quite quickly once they are cut.

This morning (once our number one and only son eventually gets out of bed), we are going to visit a friend to return a jigsaw puzzle and go to another swimming hole for a swim. I told my friend that our number one and only son said he wanted to go visit her and would love a swim, what he actually said in his pre-teen, one word sentence way was "cool", though I know how to interpret his language so I know just what he meant :p



So, we are going to take the ham and cheese muffins I made yesterday arvo (even though I left out one ingredient they still are good) and also the chocolate biscuits I made at the same time. I had never made these before and they are a bit soft but yummy, so of course we will eat them anyway, but I won't bother to make them again. Then again, my cooking is sometimes questionable, I can make a double batch of something, at the same time, and both batches turn out different :)

I did however, make a great meatloaf last night, I normally am not a meatloaf person but this was really good and the men in my life LOVE meatloaf (obviously a man thing). The secret ingredient was chutney, I have got no idea what sort of chutney or how old it was, but it was homemade, not by me, and made the meatloaf wonderful, and we are not dead yet and our number one and only son is having it for breakfast. Guess I will have to make another one.

Today we will also be going to get our turkey and ham, I wasn't going to, being all Christmas resistant and all, but I changed my mind, a women's prerogative. We were just going to have prawns and salad for Christmas lunch, while we are out kayaking, and then we go to our neighbours (guess we are this year too, it is an every year thing) who always have enough to feed and army and they always invite an eclectic group of people. However, if I get turkey, that will keep our number one and only son happy and a ham will feed us for days, including ham and eggs everyday :) yummo.

The Only Planet We Have

I occasionally hear comments from people that they can't afford, be bothered or are too old to be green. I don't think we can afford not to be green, regardless of whether you believe in climate change or not, polluting the only planet we can live on is not a good idea.


Not everyone can afford solar hot water, green electricity, hybrid cars or sometimes even the extra few dollars to buy recycled paper. There are things that most of us can afford to do and are sometimes the cheaper version, may require a bit more work and regardless of age we can do them, after all, there are many people still going to be around long after we are gone, like our kids and grand kids.

Everyone always talks about the things we can do and there are many books written about it to but if we don't keep it in the front of our head we slip into bad habits, like getting plastic bags instead of taking our own. This is one of my things I forget, not when grocery shopping but when at the markets getting fruit and vege I often forget my vege bags and then for some things I have to use a plastic bag. Having thirty lychee's or cherry tomatoes running loose in the carry bag isn't a good look, luckily the larger things don't require bags.


The things that most of us can do aren't very hard nor are they rocket science. Take our own bags when shopping, even our number one and only son refuses a plastic when shopping knowing I always carry calico/jute/cotton bags around with me all the time. And really, who needs a little plastic bag just to carry a CD or a bag of lollies or whatever only to then chuck it away as soon as we get home.


Having a compost bin or pile or just digging a hole in the garden and putting your kitchen scraps in it, you then end up with all sorts of things growing. I know that is a bit wild for some people but I love finding tomato plants growing in weird places or pumpkins just growing wherever.

Turn off the lights and fans when not in the room, turn all those standby lights off, they are all just on for no-one, just like that ad on TV. We all hear this all the time, and maybe because we do hear it all the time it goes in one ear and out the other. I know I switch off when I start hearing the same old thing again, but we need to keep it in mind all the time.

Save your jars and make sauce with the excess from your garden, or at the very least make sure the jars are recycled. Or reuse the jars to store stuff in like seeds, our sugar "bowl" is an old jar.

There is always conflicting information about what is really happening with our planet, but if we keep in mind we have live here, our children and grandchildren after us, and all the animals and plant life that rely on us too, we really can't afford to make excuses and do nothing because we couldn't be bothered.

There are things we can do, don't cost much or anything at all and we are never too old. So we need to do them, they become second nature after a while, like the bucket in our shower which then gets emptied onto the pot plants. After all, we can't move anywhere else, this is the only planet we have.

We have started our decluttering so we don't have to take as much stuff up the hill with us, perfect opportunity to get rid of the stuff we just couldn't be bothered doing anything about.

So, I have chucked the broken solar lights (note to self: buy only really good solar lights next time)thrown away my cherished fishing stool which I broke while painting out the front, gone through my clothes, our number one and only son went through his and I am not sure I shouldn't have been there.


I have dedicated a shelf in the kitchen of for things to get rid of there, we don't have a big kitchen here but things can still be culled. But it is weird the things that can be kept, like the egg separator. I only use it when I make my mayonnaise but it is so handy, oh, I also use it when I make ice cream :) But really, it looks quite useless and I can do without it but I choose not to.


So what to take and what to leave, a lot of my plants will come with us, like the chives, kang kong, betel leaf, sweet leaf, some sweet potato, stevia, and I am collecting seeds from basil, rosella and pigeon pea. I am sure there is more like aloe vera, I will just go around the garden an find them all. And a friend has also offered any cuttings form her garden which is lovely and I will take her up on that :)

Live Your Life

Well, what a week, my head is still spinning and I am trying to get my head around it. We have found our green acres, offer accepted, bank giving us lots of money, oops, did we mean that?

So we are moving, we are buying five acres of lovely land with a great shed, built so we can live in it while we build our house (if we can afford it after this).

It has all happened so fast, we were going along looking around, ho hum, not much around that interested us then, bam, there it was. It called to us, and while we were going to wait till after Christmas, what if someone else made a move on our land? Couldn't take the risk, so we moved very, very fast and within two days things were taking off.

Of course things couldn't go too smoothly, some problems with the conveyencer so now have a new one (before the first could do anything), and we also have advice being thrown at us left right and centre and who do you believe. The real estate agent wants to move things forward, the solicitor wants to put things back and the bank doesn't know why we can't proceed as planned. Being Christmas there are public holidays and people away and everyone not really working to speed so who knows if it will go through in the planned time or if it will be put back a little.

So we are going through our stuff and decluttering as we won't have as much space, and we are painting our current house and getting it ready to put on the market, so for a while we will be living on the smell of an oily rag :) However we now have a place that ticks all the boxes (though my partner in crime and life would prefer a place about a thousand times bigger)and it is still close enough for work and school (about 30 mins for each) and I will be able to continue my Tai Chi.


Though I am having visions of all my Tai Chi friends coming up to visit, and we sit around on the veranda drinking tea and eating muffins and thinking about doing Tai Chi, but maybe we'll have just one more cup of tea first :) I think in front of the very pretty dam would be a good place for doing Tai Chi.


I am going to miss my home here, I love this house and the garden (though some of the garden is coming with us) and I will have to start from scratch with the garden and fruit trees up there as there is nothing. They built a great shed to live in with a bed room, bathroom/laundry, toilet (biocycle system) full on kitchen (bigger than my one here) but no gardens or fruit trees (this is beyond my understanding why have five acres if you don't do anything with it?)

This week I have been so busy, doing all the running around, phone calls, some painting and also all the regular stuff like cooking, washing, cleaning etc and today we go sign our life away (again) so we can go live the life we have always dreamed off.


Have to step outside the comfort zone sometimes, take some risks or you don't ever do anything, and one of my biggest fears in this life is getting to the end of it and wishing I had taken those opportunities that came my way, not doing something because of fear. So even though a lot of things make me very anxious, I make myself do them anyway, and regardless of how things turn out, there can be no regrets as I have tried the things I want to do (even if I end up not liking it, I have done it). I think the only regret is if you don't go and do, live life as you were meant to :)