Winter weekend down south

We have just returned from a wonderful winter weekend down in the southern capes of Western Australia, between Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leewin. I love this shot of a very spectacular cloud near the Busselton Jetty.

We climbed to the top of the lighthouse. It is the one at Cape Naturaliste.

We marvelled at the ocean surging through Canal Rocks. Isn't this photo amazing?

We were visited by a mob of kangaroos each morning, after a bunch of kookaburras woke us up at 6:30 each morning.

When we weren't sight seeing, we read books or knitted or whatever we felt like.

Bliss!

A new kind of Monday

The new kind of Monday is likely to see me spend at least as much time at my kitchen bench making rye bread, as sitting at my desk.



I am now only working three days per week! This will be quite a change to a lifestyle -and one which I have worked for and planned for quite a long time now. My DH and I used to share a job, when our children were little, so having one of us work part time is something like normal, for us at least. It has been over 15 years since I started working full time, however, so it is going to take a bit of an adjustment.

I have a number of goals to achieve in my new Monday and Tuesday space.

1. I want to take care of things. By that I mean that when I am able to maintain our home and the possessions in it, it will remove the necessity to buy more things because they are broken or unserviceable. Making things last, is an important contributor to reducing greenhouse gasses. My goals will include taking much more care of our finances, too, as I will have time to monitor things more carefully.

Sometimes taking care of things will actually be letting things go from here -de-cluttering.

Sometimes it will be re-organising things so we know where they are and can use them as required.

All of these activities take time and now I will be spending at least all day Monday doing this.

Today I spent an hour doing a quick tidy up and clean. I made the bread. I swept the front porch. I put the laundry away. I wrote a menu plan for the next two weeks. I pulled a few weeds. I stirred the compost. I will make dinner from scratch.

2. I want to take care of people. The most common message I hear from my full-time colleagues and friends is that they wish they had more time-for themselves, their families, their friends.

Today I have been enjoying writing comments on my friend's blogs, and I have been reading old quilting magazines. Tonight I will go to choir practice and I won't be too tired!

3. I want to have fun! In particular, I am going to be setting aside each Tuesday for quilting -something I enjoy very much and have far too little time for when working full time.

4. I will be project managing the bathroom renovation. Again, it is too hard to fit seeking out suppliers and products, organising tradesmen to come and visit the house and leave a quotation, and all of the disruption that such work entails. We have been saving for this renovation for some time, and we have finally the time and space to make it happen. I will be poring over catalogues and making detailed plans. Our goal is to reduce our water consumption by installing water efficient appliances, and also to see the house through the next 20 years of our life in it.


Today I wrote the project scope, I researched some local companies and did a bit of a budget and Gantt chart. I collected some brochures.

All of these new Monday activities are, hopefully, going to help us build a more sustainable future for ourselves.

Please come back next week for the next exciting installment!

Happy home

My friend gave me some lovely roses, which are gracing our hall stand. They have a lovely perfume and make me feel happy every time I pass them.

We are all missing fresh bananas in Australia, as the dreadful cyclones in Queensland and the floods in Carnarvon in my own state of Western Australia has severely depleted the crop. At $12 per kilo I am definitely not buying these regularly. I had some friends over for dinner on Friday however, and as a treat I served fresh bananas with strawberries and pineapple. It has been so nice to have the taste we miss.

I remembered that I had frozen some bananas when they were cheap, so I made banana bread today. It feels like a real luxury at the moment!

Mt DH changed the sheets on the bed and with the warm winter sun coming in to this room, it looked so inviting!

It has been just a Sunday at home, doing happy homey Sunday things.

Hope you have had a good day and will have a good week.

I'm saying YES

Earthmotherwithin has been out and about this week, attending the Say Yes rally in Perth. I am proud that my DH and DD came with me, to say Yes to the price on carbon which Australia has been talking about for far too long. This is a picture of the people who came to the Say Yes rally in Perth.

This is what it is about:

http://youtu.be/omGKw4XgFEc

I am trying to live more simply -for many reasons, but mostly because I am convinced that climate change is real, human activity is involved and that we must learn to live with less in order that all should be able to live.

Western Australia, where I live, has been subject to a 40 year drying trend, and if we can't turn around the dependence upon carbon fuels soon, we will lose even more of our annual rainfall.

Reports like this indicate how important it is to do something now.

A new independent commission, made up of leading Australian climate scientists just found that the next decade is the 'critical decade' to stop devastating climate change before it is too late. The longer we wait the more expensive the solutions will be.

I believe that the carbon tax that our government is talking about is not going to be enough on its own, but it is an important first step to make the transition to a clean energy future.

If you want more information about the science of climate change, I encourage you to have a look at the climate commission website for more information.