Creating a home you'll love forever

Living simply is the answer to just about everything. It reduces the cost of living; it keeps you focused on being careful with resources such as water and electricity; it reminds you to not waste food; it encourages you to store food so you don't waste it and doing all those things brings routine and rhythm to your daily life. Consciously connecting every day with the activities and tasks that create simple life reminds you to look for the meaning and beauty that normal daily life holds.  It's all there in your home if you look for it. Seemingly mundane tasks like cleaning and cooking help you with that connection for without those tasks, the home you want to live in won't exist in the way you want it to.  Creating a home you love will make you happy and satisfied.

I've been restoring routine and rhythm to my backyard lately. I pulled up the extensive vegetable gardens we used to have and now, three years after Hanno died, vegetables are growing again in raised beds. My good friend Nicole Lutze came over on Friday and helped by weeding and moving a lot of heavy stuff around for me. Thanks Nicole! Unfortunately, it's a job I can't do anymore. Hopefully, by growing everything in raised beds and a variety of pots, I can overcome that hurdle. It also takes me four times as long to do anything in the garden now because, at 77 years of age and with a brain tumour, I'm often unsteady on my feet when I'm walking around on the uneven ground out there.  Inside the house I'm fine and I'm happy that I can still easily do my housework, cleaning and cooking. I'd be miserable if I couldn't do that work.

The raised beds are slowly filling up with vegetables and this week I plan on sowing flower seeds in with the vegetables. I have already planted Gaura and Yarrow seedlings and I have seeds of white Cosmos, Penstemon, Scabiosa, Bee Balm and Thyme. You probably already know this: I have several pots of foxgloves - both this year's and last year's, scattered around the garden. They're biennials so half will flower this year and half next year. I planted a small bay in a pot and have many roses in large pots surrounding the raised beds. Vegetables in so far include perpetual spinach, silver beet, red onion, Egyptian walking onions, parsley, tomatoes, butter lettuce, chilli, capsicum, and today I'll sow seeds for Hokkaido mini orange pumpkin and French radishes. Growing is slow and watching it unfold takes patience, but when everything starts thriving, it’ll be worth it. There’s nothing like stepping outside and picking what you’ll eat that day. Oh, I also planted a Teddy Bear magnolia in a pot. It's in the photo below.

The fruit trees are doing really well, mainly because we had so much rain earlier in the year. The oranges and lemons are ready for picking; blueberries and elderberries are flowering; I've collected about 50 pecans so far; the Brazilian cherry and loquats are healthy; I have just planted a miniature Eureka lemon in a pot and have a passionfruit ready to plant.  Life's good.

Are you creating the kind of home you want to live in? I hope you are because this way of life only happens if you put in the work.  But remember, life comes in stages for all of us. I have time to do the work, if you're still working for a living try to do as much housework as you can because it will help you save money, hopefully you'll be cooking from scratch a few days a week and doing all that will slowly create the home you want to live in. Living on less than you earn is a constant goal that pays off on a weekly basis and in the longer term. I know quite a few young couples who are living on one pay packet while the other partner, male or female, takes care of the house, cooking, organising and child rearing, with daily help from the partner who goes out to work. Living like that sets up a firm financial base and a happy home with less stress than when both partners are working away from home. Of course, it's not always possible but if it is, here is a post I wrote about Living on One Income.

I hope you'll all take a look at my DIL's and grandkids new IG page. They're showing us their duck and rooster. There's also a recycled duck home being made.  https://youtube.com/@kiwiandmandarin?si=Ghd5S130xEw3gVXI

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. xx