Starting a more simple life

I received a comment on my last post from Kellylynn who wants to know how she can start living a more sustainable, simple life. This is part of her comment:

I'm 45 yrs.old. We are a one income family, have no savings, pantry's not stocked. Living pay-check-to-pay-check. We do own our home and have almost a 1/4 of an acre to work with. I long to help us live a sustainable, simple life. Comfortably prepped for growing old. But I feel so overwhelmed with where to even start. Feeling short on time and upset for not beginning so much earlier in life. Will your book(s) help with steps on where to start coming from zero? If so, which should I start with?

You start with NOT buying my books. Stop all spending. From now on buy only essential items. You should only spend on food and transport. If you absolutely need clothing or shoes, yes, but within reason.  That's all I'll say on money at the moment, I'll get back to it later when we discuss your budget.

A comfortable place to grow old

When we first moved into our home we made quite a few changes. We pulled up carpets, built a new kitchen, added another bedroom and bathroom and built verandahs front and back. Fences went up. We also put in gardens and a chook house and Hanno got a big shed to house his tools, garden equipment and any future cars our sons might have. We, although we didn't know it at the time, were getting ready to live more simply and our house and land were evolving with us.

Talking, baking and planting

I've spent a few Saturday mornings on Skype recently chatting away to people I know through this blog. It's been a lot of fun and many of the women I chatted to said they enjoyed it too. We were all in our own homes, many of us had a cup of tea or coffee and it was like meeting up at the coffee shop with the girls. So I've been thinking I might make it something I do just to socialise. I wonder if there are six people who want to chat on Skype for an hour on a Saturday morning (Brisbane time). You can ask about bread, or cooking, or mending, or whatever, or we can just socialise and get to know each other. Isn't that a great idea! I'll start it in April because I still have a writers chat and a bloggers chat coming up. When they're finished, I'll pick a date and if you comment here or follow me on Instagram, you can email me and let me know you're interested. I think we'll have a great time.

ADDED LATER: Please not, I'm not taking names now. In April, I'll let you know when to contact me via the contact form on the right.

I made a new bread recipe yesterday. Well, I suppose I can't call it a new recipe, I just added oats to my normal bread.  I ground it up in a small food processor and substituted one cup of ground oats for one cup of flour.  I wonder why I waited so long to do that, it was fabulous.  Here is the link to one of my bread posts with the bread recipe.

Here in my heartland

I intended to post yesterday, and wrote something to accompany a video I made of Gracie running around the house like a ratbag. When I tried to post it Blogger didn't like it so I walked away.

Sleeping angels and carrot cake

All the grandkids were here on Saturday and stayed for a sleepover. They ran around like headless chooks in the afternoon, Eve watched a little bit of Peppa Pig, the boys watched Dan TDM, they had a drawing competition and played with Gracie and the Lego. I made lasagne for dinner but only three of us ate it. Eve filled up on avocado and bananas and Alex had grilled cheese on toast and some milk. They all slept in the same queen sized bed and when I went in to check on them at 11, all I could see were three tiny angels resting their sweet heads in a bed way too big for them.  😇😇😇 They slept soundly until 7am.

Pottering along

Rye flour has always been expensive but now it's expensive and hard to find.  Most places have rye premix but I don't like using that, I prefer pure flour. So when I dug out a small chicken from the bottom of the freezer yesterday, I was very pleased to find a bag of rye flour.  I made up a loaf yesterday and it's delicious.  I used to bake bread every day. Now it's maybe twice a week but it's still an important part of my house work routine. Supermarket bread, and often bakery bread, contain preservatives and I'd much prefer to eat food without it. Preservatives keep bread on the shelves longer and it stays soft longer when you bring it home. When our bread is three days old, I toast it.  After baking bread and when the loaf is cold, I slice it, put it in a bag and store it in the fridge.  If I keep bread in the bread bin during spring and summer mould grows after a couple of days so for now, the bread stays in the fridge.

Sending much love to Sun Ja, Sunny and our Korean family

Hello to our family over in Korea - Sun Ja and Sunny and the rest of the extended family.  I found a photo you probably haven't seen and then I searched for a few more of us all together.  I thought you'd like to see them.  We're thinking of you and send much love across the ocean.

Remember this Sun Ja?  The day after Jamie was born and you made your special bone broth and seaweed soup for Sunny.  I think it was the traditional Korean soup mothers have after their baby is born.

Ducks and garlic

I meant to show you these delightful photos I took, then forgot all about it.  The ducks visited us last week, I was inside when Hanno yelled out "Ducks!!", I went out and was surprised to find an entire family on their walkabout.  Of course Hanno fed them, they had a rest and off they went into the bush on the other side of our little dead end street.  It's always a treat seeing all the visiting birds we get here but this was something really special.