Full days and happy hearts.

As the school term winds up to a close our days here have been full.  The boys are tired, ready for a break, free time and to do what ever takes their fancy.  We are all looking forward to a change in routine!  Henry is unwell and as am I.  But that aside there is still so much to be grateful for this week. 

As any long term readers probrably know we are wanting to establish a "community hub" here in this rural town through the local church.  Including building a community garden to provide food, bring gardening therapy in post the bushfires, build relationships and give people both young and old the opertunity to grow and garden together in a caring environment.  The first step of this was to start a family group of some kind as the traditional church service shut down here a couple of years ago.  There is an older community group who are beautiful people, but we needed some younger ones too.  It's clear as day that God has not left this town and doors are still opening, and its truly amazing to watch.  Its very humbling and inspiring to be a part of.  We have a beautiful group of families already, lovely kids and more wanting to pop along as well.  I wanted to create a lovely kids nook but we have limited funds being a brand new ministry group and a neighboring church just happened to have everything we needed and donated it to us!  A couch, bookshelves, books, a TV unit.  And it all fits just perfectly!  The space has so much potential.  Though I'm yet to do another trailor load.  Its so amazing to see things on your heart begin to take shape. 

The new kids nook beginning to take shape made up from the very generous donations.  God is indeed providing. 

I went to the markets on Saturday, and then swung past Jembella farm to visit Sally who is my dear blogging neighbor, I had a lovely cuppa or two and a tour of the farm.  It really is a beautiful place!  We chatted as if we were old friends and it really was just so lovely, there is simply no other way of describing it.

The beautiful Sally and I at Jembella farm! 

A simple, rustic slow cooked meal of beans, pork sausages and fresh market bread

Upon driving around the Barossa my mind fell to the up coming birthday of little Henry, he is turning three!  I cant actually believe it.  My baby is going to be a proper big boy.  As these children of mine grow up I soften more and more.  I encourage them to snuggle in my bed these days knowing this season will soon come to an end.

Midday naps all round! 

Seeing as are all feeling a little run down and tired at the moment, and our yard is still in the process of demolition and rebuilding of the sheds.  So we have decided against a home party.  I don't really have the energy for it and instead we are going to pack a simple picnic and go to the Adelaide zoo which will be a lovey treat for my animal obsessed Henry.

In keeping with our simple birthday gifts I decided to make Henry his very own raggedy quilt.  On Saturday afternoon I nipped into Spotlight and bought some flannel.  I was lucky there were sales on and the fabric in total cost me $44 plus some thread.  For the wadding I will cut up an old wool blanket I have at home which will make it a wonderful weight.  I will also whip up a new outfit for his Waldorf doll made from some Thomas fabric he choose and make him a little super hero mask and cape to match his own.  Like I did for Angus not long ago.  Though I have all these plans and only about 13 days in which to do it.  So big squares it is, ha!

The fabric for the quilt, bought on sale with a flannel sheet for the backing and re-using an old wool blanket saves money whilst still giving a beautiful gift.

A cutting board and rotary cutter are handy tools to have.

Anyway on that note I best be off, my bed and a cuppa tea is calling.  I cannot work out if I am hot or cold....

Much love,
Emma
xx

PS. Please excuse my typos, As I mentioned I have a virus and despite my best efforts more then usual have possibly slipped.  Xx

A detour on the journey.

I have been doing a lot of pondering coming into this year.  Who am I kidding?  I'm always pondering something as plans grow, change and evolve. 

You know when you hear or read something that stirs inside of you and you just cant put it down?  Well a little while back I listened to a pod cast while I was pottering in the kitchen about a lady was on there talking about how she started her journey into simple living.  Like many of us, held the ideal of growing/cooking everything from scratch.  She went right down deep into the rabbit hole of simple living and made bread, cheese, you name it she threw herself into the whole making EVERYTHING from scratch thing.  Then her entire life was made up of these activities and in the end it didn't resonate with her, or her idea of what a simple life looked like.  She found that way of life was complex and time consuming and took her away from what she was truly looking for in her simple living journey.  That level of self sufficiency is a beautiful and inspirational thing, but it was simply not for her.  

They re-assessed their lives and she became pretty much zero waste.  Today she still lives minimally,  frugally, but in a way that resonates with her.  She chooses to buy good quality cheeses from small cheese makers and so forth, from people whose passion it is to make cheese.  But her realization resonated with me, she wanted to simplify life so her life could become rich in experiences rather then things. 

Here is a link to the episode HERE.

This was all stuff I kinda knew, but you know when you know you know something and its finally sits a little differently on your mind?

(^^^ That sentence totally makes sense in my head! Ha!)

There is a part of me that dreams of owning a little dairy cow, making cheese, having a pantry stocked with shelf after shelf of beautiful jars of my own produce.  

 Loving being able to ride my bike around town!

And its a beautiful dream, it really is.  But in this season of my life its not truly mine.  Its a little bit mine, but not in my heart of hearts.  I want to be building experiences and memories with our kids.  Bush walks, going to the beach, taking our little old van away for a night or two every month.  I want to study without a mountain of work hanging over my head. To have the occasional regular daytime nap.  The reality is this season we are in is really busy, and I want to be able to live simply and slowly enough to be able to enjoy it.   

I do want a good productive veggie patch, I truly love gardening.  But its OK if it doesn't resemble a market garden.  I'm quite happy to preserve some of the produce, but I don't want to spend every waking hour doing it so nothing goes to waste during each growing season.  Preserving is a wonderful and important tool.  But I don't want to loose any sleep over it.  In fact I don't want to loose sleep over anything in my life.  I have spent enough time losing sleep over the past 8 years of parenting small children and I'm all about fiercely protecting my sleep these days.  I'm happier, more patient and calmer because of it.  All essential in raising happy children.  I'm happy to give some produce away, pop some in our shop to sell and even give the chooks some imperfect fruit.  And a dairy cow?  Well the reality is not in this season.....

It kinda pains me to write this, like part of me feels like I'm handing back a part of a dream.  I feel like this is the epitome of simple living, but the logical side of my brain tells me not to be ridiculous!  That its about living MY authentic life and that trying to life simple, mindfully and consciously is whats key.  These are simply tools to help us live the life we value.

And I have done ALOT on my simple living journey, sewing, gardening, de-cluttering.  Oh my goodness the de-cluttering.  I'm proud of how much our shopping habits have changed, how much easier my house is to tidy and clean.  I'm proud my boys understand "junk" toys and why we avoid them, how they are happy and capable of assessing what they want to keep and why and what they want to donate.  The reality is we are living in a tiny space and doing just fine!  All 5 of us share the one bedroom, we all have one cupboard each which stores our clothes and its going great with room to spare.  5 years ago our priorities were very different. 

There are some amazing blogs out there, and I kind of feel like I want to be doing what they are, to be doing "real" simple living, the full on self sufficiency thing.  Who knows, maybe one day we will.  But the reality for us is not in this season.

There are perhaps some triggering factors to this thought process.  My heart of hearts is in helping build our community and helping it heal after the bush fires.  I have been in conversation with various Rev's, people in the community and  pitched a few ideas which have been given the green light.  With a lot of support and enthusiasm beyond what I expected or could have even dreamed about hoping for.  So this is going to take up a lot of my time and energy and I'm aware there is only so much fuel in my tank.

The thought process is kinda long term and multi-faceted.  Our little country church has essentially shut down.  There are services offered in the local nursing home once a month and there is a vibrant home group of about 15-20 people also held once a month.

The old church.

The thought is to use the church to create a kind of "community hub".  A place where groups in the community can gather, where we can hold a family orientated home group which is starting shortly, perhaps a mothers group, and to use the large plot to create a community garden.  The aim being to create a lovely space in which we can care for the community, and do church in a way that looks a little different but is in keeping with the community at hand.   

Garden therapy is a very useful tool in helping recover from trauma, its relaxing, its healthy, it provides gentle exercise which releases endorphin's which help to counteract the cortisol stress hormones.  The aim is to add a beautiful green zone to the scarred landscape.  To show the community there is still a church here, going quite nicely thought it doesn't look the way they are used to it being.  It would be lovely to do it in conjunction with kids and make it part of a regular mums and bubs/kids group, but also make it accessible to the older generation that are present and vital to this community.  I'm thinking that if we used some raised beds hopefully the oldies from the local nursing home would be able to make it down too with a bit of help.  It would be lovely to grow veggies, to share among the gardeners and so the garden is generous in nature, also it helps to spread the simple living message which I'm so passionate about.  I hope that we can create a "quiet" reflection area with a lovely kid safe water feature and seats, lawn and a natural play space for the kids.  There will be no fancy play ground, as their is no budget for that in a little country church, but imagination and creativity and hopefully we can create a special space.  We have put it through all the relevant people and its got the thumbs up, so now to plan.  I'm very excited, a little nervous and a little overwhelmed at the amount of work.  But as with anything its just one step at a time, working steadily.

There are some good trees in the church garden at the moment, its quite wild and over grown, but its peaceful there.  There are toxic oleanders to remove, trees to prune up and all sorts of jobs.  I think its important o create a garden that works with both the old and the new.  To create a garden that reflects both the history, the present and the future.   

So I guess this year my simple living journey is shaping up to look different then I expected.  But I have great peace in my heart that this is the right direction.  That after all that has happened with the fires and everything else that this is right.  Perhaps wider spread then I imagined it would ever be.  But change is good, a challenge is good and detours are all what make a journey interesting, yes?

Anyway I best get back to my study, enough procrastinating!

Much love,
Emma
xx

Finding my mojo!

You know when you life seems chaotic and your rhythm is out of whack?  Or if you have a partner, you and your partner seem out of whack?  Well that's what things have been like here since the move.  Not that things have been bad, we love it here, but we have not been able to find the easy rhythm of our daily lives that we are used  too.   

Moving, bush fires and renovating will do that!  Then throw in school holidays which are always busy and I'd totally forgotten what the bottom of my washing basket looked like!  I'm pleased to say I have re-discovered it, and Grant is happy to wake up to fresh shirts in his draws.  There *MAY* have been a morning semi regular occurrence that in the mornings Grant would wake up to find no clean shirts, washed one himself and wore it to work wet to "air dry".  I am many things, but a morning person is not one of them.  Admittedly it was the middle of summer and by the time the customers came it was well and truly dry.....But still.  Not my finest house keeping moment.  But Grant never once complained, just chuckled in his cheerful way and teased me.

Making more laundry liquid. 

But after many ongoing conversations about what was, and wasn't working, we seem to have "clicked" again into our old rhythm.  Its not one singular thing, its just we are both on the same page again.  Its lovely!

This weekend we were at home, pottering about.  We did a trip into town to buy some timber to fix the sheds.  $200 of new timber and we will re-use the old timber where its still good and and the old iron which we will re-use.

Fixing one of the sheds.  Its a rustic fix but it will suit the place just fine once its done. 

I have re-found my preserving mojo and 9 big bottles of peach jam have been made from our home grown peaches.  Its seriously delish!

 Making jam....

 mmmmm.....

I'm really excited for this year.  Things seam to be falling into place.  This week I received all my paperwork for the Diploma of Ministry I'm doing.  I also received a scholarship which takes away the financial burden and that's a huge relief!  Paperwork is not my strong point, and Im totally adulting my way through it.  Its only taken 32 years to face paperwork but you know, better late then never!

The mothers and children's group I help with is all go, the youth group I help with for vulnerable or struggling youth is also shaping up well after a few unexpected changes ready for a fresh year.  The local Rev here and I have chatting and are very much on the same page to help support the community after the fires and I'm seriously energized and full of ideas to help the tiny local church be a safe and nurturing place to help support the community through this tragedy.  We have some beautiful people here.  Its a good place to be.  Its a matter of finding time to sit with them, listen and to hear what God is saying to them and hopefully God is stirring their hearts in a similar way to which he has stirred mine.  I have had some great chats to the local Rev.  I had met him and was amazed to hear his ideas line up along mine.  Which are a little un-conventional so I see that as a real "God moment".

Yep things are falling into place all over the place.  Have you noticed the harder you try to get your ducks to line up in a row the more they scatter?  A lot of my last year was like that.  Well I gave up trying to line them up and suddenly they seemed to have lined themselves up.  Its a little bit of a wonky line but that suites me just fine.  Its funny how God often works like that.

 Little Sooty is so loved, she spends half her life being snuggled and carted about by the boys.  She is settling into our family beautifully.  We have forgotten what life was like without her! 

Well little Henry is standing at my side asking to make chocolate cake so who am I to argue with that?

Much love,
Emma
xx