Ringing in the changes

Today's pictures are of the wonderful Italian banquet that my DH gave for a group of friends and I last night -New Year's Eve- in honour of my birthday. They are in order of appearance

• Tasting Plates of olives and salami served with asparagus and roasted capsicum;
  
• Sicilian pasta with garlic and silverbeet;
• Osso Bucco,
  
• Insalata of tomatoes and capers;
• Watermelon Pudding
• and a great Italian torte
  Thanks Darling!

When I think back over 2009, it is with a sense of amazement at what changes I made, mostly as a result to the way I changed my thinking. It seems to me that if 2010 is going to be better as a year for me, it is important to notice this and to build upon it.



For example, I learned how to quilt when I was on Long Service Leave, and I kept on quilting because

• I signed up for more classes even when I went back to work and
• I learned how to make quilts in the evening and at weekends, even if it did mean that I had to set up and put away afterwards.

You see, I had always thought that it was too hard to do this -"I do not have time on my weekends to go to classes -the housework takes up all the time there is! It takes too long to set up the ironing board, to clear off the dining table so that I could cut my fabric and so on". When I decided that the effort was worth the inconvenience, I had great fun and gave myself a much needed creative outlet.

I made several promises to myself at this time last year, and I kept many


of them. This was in part due to the fact that I changed my priorities in order to give some kindness to myself. I made changes in the way I worked and the way I played. I started putting some boundaries around hurtful relationships.

Last night's celebrations were in honour of my 55th Birthday. For lots of people -for me at one stage, such a number would bring horrible thoughts such as " I am getting old!" (which of course is true) but I have a different attitude since a life threatening illness some years ago taught me better. Each year is a jewel to be treasured, and the more of them you have the richer you are.

I find myself more content with each passing year, more self-aware and more sure of what I know to be true, and less sure of everything else! These are great gifts in themselves and I want to build on these too in the new year.

I am quite sure that there is a way of thinking about life which treasures the things that last -things like wisdom and friendship and hope -and lets the rest go. If I have a New Year Resolution, it is to focus even more on these things.

I hope you all have a wonderful year in 2010 !

Hearty celebrations

Here is proof that I managed to finish the Advent quilt and hung it before Advent was over ...about 6 hours before Advent was over in fact. LOL.

Hope you are all having a Christmas day with lots of Hearty heartfelt good wishes.

I have had a champagne breakfast and we have all sat around the lounge room opening presents and laughing a lot.

I have a wonderful family and each of them -husband (DH), adult son (DS) and beautiful adult daughter (DD) is very special.

We have bought each other books and DVDs -these are great because we can all share the love as we watch them together. I have been spoiled with a trolley to carry my fancy dancy sewing machine to sewing class and lots of fat quarters of fabric and thread and bobbins and stuff.

Hope you are having a lovely day. If nothing else, be kind to yourself today!

Christmas where the gum trees grow

.....there is no frost and there is no snow!

I have noticed that lots of my blogging friends in the northern hemisphere are getting snow for Christmas. I think I like it fine this way! I had snow when I was a little girl in Liverpool. Nice one day, a pain for months after that.

We started our summer holiday ritual of walking on the beach last weekend. We kick off our shoes and go barefoot, just on the edge of the water where the sand is cool and the odd wave comes in to wash between our toes.



Up to the reef and the rocks. Find the crabs scuttling to shelter.


Back the other way to the surf club, past the fisherfolk angling for herring.

Smile at the young parents with their babies having their first trip to the beach. Toes in the water.

Give a smile to the guy who always runs at this hour every morning. How old is he really? 60? 70?

Let the wind blow your hair. Admire the young people getting ready for the Marathon.

Hopefully we will be walking in the early morning every morning we can as long as summer lasts.

For Christmas Day itself, we are planning a bit of a special breakfast at home for the Day. I am thinking of scrambled eggs and leg ham, followed by rye bread toast with grilled figs (if I can find any) and Little River's "Brut de Brut" sparkling wine. (The EU says we are not allowed to call it the Champ....gne word because we are not French!)

This followed by a salad lunch with DHs family. I am bringing the salads and they will supply roasted meat (cooked outside on the barbie) and desserts. Well, it will be at least 36 degrees C!

Boxing Day will be a huge get together for my side of the family and we will have a " bring and share'" relaxed meal, with presents for the kids and a swim in the pool for anyone who wants one.

Happy Christmas everyone. Take time to enjoy the ones you love. Several sad things have happened to us and our extended networks this month to make us even more aware of the need to just enjoy and love the ones we care about, whilst we have them with us.

Things I learned while quilting

This is the Advent quilt I am making -at this stage it had just come together as a quilt top. Since then I have had great pleasure in machine quilting -first with my walking foot doing straight lines. Next I will get out my darning foot, pluck up my courage and jump right in to the most fun you can have with a sewing machine (at least, that I know of so far!)

I have been reflecting on what I have learned in my quilting this year.

1. You have to be humble to learn something. I am coming up to my 55th birthday -most of the stuff I do in life I now do well, having had lots of practice. I can make a meal without a recipe. I can balance the household books. I can operate at a high level of functioning in my work environment. Learning to quilt took me back to being a learner. I made mistakes, I had to ask to see how it was done, I had to do less than I hoped for if I was ever going to get better. These lessons were good to have again in my life.

2. The sum is greater than the parts. The quilt takes little pieces of seemingly unrelated fabrics -some of them dull and insipid when alone -and when they are all together they are stunningly beautiful. Life is not made up of starry days every day, but over a lifetime it takes on a complexity and beauty that is truly unique.

3. You have to be able to keep going sometimes. This quilt needed a very tricky technique to make the stars around the tree -and I made an afternoon full of failures before I got them right. Those 24 pockets took a lot of discipline to make - I was bored and it seemed like I would never finish but I am so glad I did.

4. We all need a little help from our friends. In this case my lovely teacher Trish was a great boon - I have learned so much from her this year. And my DD who would not let me slack off but kept on insisting that I keep sewing until the job was done.

5. Deadlines help. Yes the fact that this is an Advent quilt has made me want to complete it -and hang it- before Christmas eve. Of course it would have been better to start sooner!

6. You can make yourself happy by immersing yourself in something challenging and rewarding! Life has not been too great around here at times this year -but this quilting has been a way of switching off all the negative thoughts and just enjoying myself. Sometimes it feels as good as meditation!

Thank you to all those who visit my blog -you are a great encouragement to me. That 'widget' that shows where people visit is amazing!

Thanks to the friendly West Aussie ALSer who made such nice comments on the Aussies Living Simply website about my last post.

Feel free to make a comment - I am always happy to hear from you.

Don't hate Christmas!

In my office today the young receptionist was grumbling as she waded through the box of Christmas decorations. Eventually she exploded: "I hate Christmas!"

I went over to assist the unpacking of the tree, and talked about how, as a dedicated Church-goer and collector of Christmas decorations, I love Christmas.

I know what she means though. For many people Christmas is a rush from one end of year festive occasion, to another shopping trip, to another worry about how much this is all costing, to another panic over family expectations and so on.

Over the years I have tried to simplify our experience of Christmas and help us all enjoy it more. I want to share some of our practices with you.

1. Be upfront and let each other know what you want for Christmas
There is a funny sort of belief which is quite prevalent in our society, that if we really love each other we automatically know what the other would want for Christmas, and where we could get it, so that they can be surprised on the day with the perfect present. We feel as though this is totally unrealistic. People who love each other are quite often unaware of what the other wants. I believe that we need to be willing to help our loved ones out by giving a hint or two or a whole list of suggestions, so that they don't waste their money and time getting something which will not be appreciated.

In our house we give each other quite extensive lists of things -some quite expensive (in our standards) and some things quite inexpensive. We all choose something to purchase from the list of things we know our loved ones want. Often we add a small 'joke' present as well, but nothing elaborate.

This one practice takes a huge amount of stress out of the gift-giving.

2. Keep away from the shops

I mostly buy things on the internet. I love this way of purchasing because it is so convenient and I am not tempted to buy more things than I want, or to purchase coffee and cake to reward myself for venturing in overcrowded shops in the heat of summer.

This year my work party has suggested that our 'secret santa' gift to each other should cost less than $10 and come from an Op Shop. Easy!

3. Make up some family events or decorations

Putting meaning in Christmas is a matter of doing things which bring joy, rather than purchasing things. It can be anything from decorating the tree together to going to a
Carols by Candlelight' service on the school oval. Lots of families walk around the neighbourhood and look at the houses which have put up special lights displays.

I love to add a personal touch with the things I make to decorate the house. Each year the collection grows and I feel like I have found an old friend when I unpack these things each year. I made the tree quilt a few years ago now, and am currently working on a quilted Advent calendar.

4. Keep it simple

Years ago we made a budget for Christmas and it has hardly changed since. Our view was that this was a Christmas gift, not a birthday present. It would have a specified dollar value and that was how it would be.

Similarly we like to enjoy nice foods at Christmas, and in the past I often felt stressed about it. Now my family talks over the menu and encourages me to keep the plans tasty but easy. A stressed mother makes for a stressed day. A relaxed mother makes for a happy day.

We have a special breakfast -and this enables us to feel festive all day -and a light but tasty lunch (often served cold in Perth's hot weather) and we linger over it.

Dinner is often just lunch's leftovers.

As we often give each other DVDs at Christmas, there is usually some kind of new blockbuster to watch together and relax.

Our extended family meets up for a special celebration on Boxing Day. We all bring a contribution to the meal. At first some people were unsure about it not being on Christmas day, but now we realise how much less stressed and tired the children are if they can spread the family obligations over the two days, and we all can be much more relaxed and at ease.


5. Remember where it started

Christmas belonged to Jesus long before the stores took it over and turned it into a festival to greed. Sing a few Christmas carols, listen to Handel's "Messiah", read Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol", maybe even venture into a local Church. You need the context of the celebration to make it meaningful.

I wish you all a peaceful start to the Christmas time.

Its fun to get ready!

It is Advent and that means getting ready for Christmas. Not the kind of 'getting ready' that the shops ask us to do -spending, spending and more spending then complaining that 'it doesn't feel like Christmas"!

In our house we have some traditions which make Christmas a lovely time for us without a lot of expense.

Over the years I have collected a lot of Christmas decorations. Some were made over the years by my children. A lot I found in op shops (see the little mice below -which goes with my little china cat to remind me of the Cat and Mouse Carol) . Some I bought from my favourite Christmas shop in the Blue Mountains.

Each year on the first Sunday of Advent the boxes of Christmas decorations come down from the roof. The CD player has our favourite Christmas music on it.

Everyone has to be here to help!

All the decorative items that help make my 'country decorating' real have to be taken down and put away and all the shelves dusted. Books are pushed to the back of shelves to make way for decorative items in as many places as possible.
Some pictures are put away so that Christmas specific decorations can take over.

Then we decorate every space we can.

This year I have given my children the task of trying to count how many 'nativities" I have in the loungeroom. It is more than 5 and less than 15!

I now have a tree in the kitchen, a tree in the loungeroom, several small trees in the dining room and a tree in the family room.

It has become a lovely start to our Christmastide.

This year I have added my Christmas Quilt to the back of the sofa -I am very proud to have made this in my sewing class. And soon I hope to add my newest quilt -an Advent quilt -but first I have to finish it.

I am amazed how many people don't bother to decorate for Christmas. It brings out the child in me and that can't be a bad thing surely!

The final picture is of my DH who was so inspired that he actually sat down at the piano and played some Christmas carols!

I plan to write more about putting the meaning back into Christmas in simple ways next time, with more pictures of my decorating efforts.

My wish for you is for a simple meaningful run up to Christmas.

Travel Options

Since I changed jobs I have had more time on the public transport system in Perth. It is a pretty good system really, the trains are on time most of the time and the rolling stock is new.

I get the 8.10 from Warwick and get off 15 minutes later in Leederville. Off along the walkways and bicycle tracks and I can be in my office in West Perth by 8.40. It is a pleasant walk -this morning I rejoiced in the views of the blue Jacaranda trees in Leederville.

I park the car at Warwick for $2 and the train fare is roughly $3 each way. $8 per day ($40 per week) is not a bad price.

I also get a car park about once per week at our office in West Perth -and then I leave home at 8.10 and I can usually be parked by 8.30 am. The car is comfortable and I arrive at work refreshed -but I have had no exercise! Having the car at work is good if I need to travel to a meeting that is hard to get to by public transport or too far away to take a taxi. If I need to carry anything heavy it is good too.

The car travel used to cost me somewhere between $40 and $50 per week, depending on the cost of petrol, so the saving using public transport is not huge. However there are lots of hidden costs with the car -insurance and registration and maintenance and depreciation and so on. Then there is the cost of the road system and the cost to the earth of all of that carbon being vented into the atmosphere.

I was reading recently that some experts believe that we have already found all the commercially viable deposits of oil and that production is already in decline. In time this will mean that price of petrol will have to keep on going up -and at some time the public transport option will begin to make more obvious economic sense to the average person.

I know many people who do not know how to catch public transport -they don't know how to buy a ticket or read a timetable. They drive their cars day in day out. If we are to live more sustainably on the earth, we are going to have to deal with our transport choices.

How do you get around?