Changing old habits and establishing new routines is one of the hardest things you'll do when you move from a consumerist mindset to a more frugal and homemade one. When I first changed from my old life, I knew I had to do a lot more for myself but for the life of me I couldn't find the motivation to get all those new chores done. After a period of trial and error, I stumbled onto a good routine that established a rhythm to my days and I have not looked back. I like doing my housekeeping now - it grounds me and remind me every day that all the work both Hanno and I do, helps create a home we love spending time in and a relationship that grows stronger each year. Those home tasks carried out each day remind me that a simple life is a journey, not a destination.

Establishing a housekeeping routine can be a daunting task but is made easier by small actions repeated regularly. I didn't know it then, but when I made myself do my daily chores a little bit at a time, before too long, I got into a rhythm that carried me through what I had to do. When I took up the broom and pegs as my tools of trade, I started with a little list of jobs I would do within a certain amount of time. For instance, I would get up, shower, write, feed the animals and chooks, make breakfast, make the bed, clean the kitchen and make bread all before my unofficial time limit of 9 am. By 12 o'clock I had to have swept the floor, cleaned the kitchen benches and stove, and any laundry that needed doing that day. Keeping a list of tasks within a flexible time frame helped and I was surprised that, in the space of about a month, I had established a routine for myself that felt comfortable and easy to work with; and it got my housekeeping done. That surprised me because I hadn't liked doing housework before then, I thought it was boring. When I had that rhythm, I started thinking about what I was doing, how my work connected me to my female ancestors and how it made my life better. When I made that connection, I started liking most of what I did, I began looking for new things to learn and I settled into my home. At last, I felt truly comfortable in my own home.

Now that I look back on it, I know that getting into the rhythm of doing a certain number of chores each day, and repeating those actions, changed my habits and established positive new ones. So I'd like to share with you five things to do every day to help a establish a routine. As you can see, they're five very common things that most of us would need to do each day. I hope you you will add another five things that are required in your own life. This second set of five things will be those things specific to you and your circumstances - whether you have children or not, work outside the home or not, and possibly would change according to where you live. For example, if you live in an apartment, your chores would be different to those you would need to do in a house with a garden and chooks.

1. Make the bed/s. When the children are old enough, this should be one of the chores they learn so they contribute to the running of the home.
2. Sweep the floor.
3. Wash up or run the dishwasher.
4. Organise and tidy one area a day. This might be the laundry, kids' rooms, the family room or your finances and mail.
5. Know what you'll eat tomorrow.

And when you have your daily routine working for you, add one weekly activity: learn or teach one new skill every week. A new recipe, new pattern, new stitch, or work though something over the weeks - like building a compost heap, learning about vegetable gardening, experimenting with sourdough or other fermented foods, teaching your children simple, practical skills like how to sew on a button, tie their shoe laces, tell time or read the sky - during the day for changes in the weather and at night for interest.

Learning new skills is something we all need to do and you need to make time for it and put in the effort to do it. At almost 61 years of age, I still look for new discoveries, and I hope I never lose the interest in doing that. I believe that when we lose the will to learn, we stop flourishing.

I hope this way of establishing housekeeping routines works for you. It is said that new habits need about three weeks to set up and become part of you. I never timed my changes so I wonder if that is true. Hopefully in a few weeks time, some of you tell me that it is.

Thanks for that previous post, Sharon. The money being raised for the fire victims is growing steadily. Australians have always been generous and supportive in times of crisis so it's good to see that tradition remains strong. The Red Cross is accepting donations both here in Australia and from their locations around the world. You can read about their current efforts here.

It seems I'm always running late these days. The book proposal that was supposed to be in on January 31 still hasn't been sent and after two busy days at work I plan on writing for the rest of this week and have it in on February 15. It is late because I made some last minute changes and my agent, Abby, was gracious enough to not mind the missed deadline. Work was particularly busy this week because I'm starting some new programs and we're planning our move to the new building and all that brings with it. Monday and Tuesday were HOT here, there is no air-conditioning at work so when I came home, I crashed. I'm still feeling a bit tired now, even with a good night's sleep, so I hope I come good during the day.

So, what is on my agenda today? I'll bake bread, sweep the floors and do a general tidy up and then settle into my sewing room to write most of the day. Hanno did a lot of gardening while I was at work so everything is fine outside. I have seedlings ready to plant in the garden and all the tomatoes need to be potted up. I hope to do that tomorrow when I'll see to the worm farm as well. They've been a bit neglected recently but they usually do okay as long as they have food and water.


I wrote last week that Rose had sent me some cotton called Down to Earth. When I start my new project this morning - at morning tea I plan on starting a set of dishcloths for Sarndra and Shane - I'll use some of Rose's cotton and see how it knits up. I'm knitting a set of aqua and red cloths so I'll use some of my Lions cotton for the thin red stripes.

These small squares of cotton that we knit for our wash or dish cloths can be made into other things as well. I showed the pot holder I'd half finished a week or so ago. Well, here it is now, finished, with some very quick hand quilting to attach the back to the front. All I did with it was to knit a square of Lions organic thick cotton, cut a square of cotton fabric to size and then quilt the front to the back. I'm already using it and it's worked really well. I have those saucepans with metal handles so pot holders are always used in my kitchen.


But there are other projects as well. When you've knitted up your own set of cloths, you could knit a few cleaning mitts. Just knit two rectangles (or one long one) the size of your hand and sew them together, leaving a hole for your thumb - in the same way we make a thumb hole in fingerless mittens. These make very good dusters or mitts for cleaning or washing dishes. If you have a swiffer, you could knit longer rectangles to replace the synthetic ones you need to buy replacements for. Two squares, some lining and a strap would make a sweet little shoulder purse for a little girl, or a big one. Or two squares and lining would also make a very serviceable padded digital camera pouch.

As you can see you can turn your squares into quite a few small items that will serve you well. Knitting the squares improves your knitting and you can experiment with different patterns, they're like modern day samplers. Women in the past used their samplers as decorations but we can put our samplers to use replacing products we used to buy. It's like permaculture knitting - we're getting multiple uses from the one thing.

Are you using your cotton squares for things other than dish and wash cloths? If you are I'd love to know what you're doing.

ADDITION: If you're looking for some good reading today, I recommend A Farmstead Pilgrimage to you. I have a handful of blogs I read when I have the time and Kris's has become a firm favourite. Even that first page, without any scrolling back, is a delight. Grab a cuppa and enjoy a visit there. Oh, her feedburner is broken and she can't find a way to fix it. If you can help can you contact her and offer your help. I'm sure she's apreciate if very much.

I have two simple recipes for you today. It's food we've eaten in the past few days, easy to make and very tasty. They're both old-fashioned recipes and as my heritage is Irish, they come from the old country. If you're teaching yourself to bake from scratch, this cake is a good one to try. It's mixed by hand and apart from cutting up the dates, is merely a matter of adding and mixing.

DATE AND WALNUT LOAF - you can use any nuts you have on hand
The cake makes two small loaves or one large one.

1 ½ cups chopped dates
1 ½ cups walnuts
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon bicarb (this is the rising agent for this cake)
3 tablespoons soft butter (vegans use the same amount of olive oil)
1 ¼ cups boiling water - add more if needed
2 ½ cups plain (all purpose) flour
1 beaten egg (vegans use ½ mashed banana)

Method
Boil some water.
Add the dates, nuts, sugar, bicarb and butter to a mixing bowl and mix together. Add the boiling water and mix again.
Add the egg, half the flour and mix, add the remaining flour and mix it in. If the mix is dry, add a little more water, enough to make a loose, but not runny, batter.
You do not have to beat this cake mixture. It's not a light cake and doesn't require the incorporation of air.
Add to a loaf tin (or two) and bake in a slowish oven (170C / 340 F) until cooked - about 40 minutes.

To check if the cake is cooked, poke a toothpick into the middle of the cake. If the toothpick comes out clean, it's cooked, if it comes out sticky and with moist cake mix on it, (see photo below) cook for another ten minutes.

If, when you do that, you're worried the top of the cake will burn, cover the top with a piece of alfoil.

When I cook this cake I always make a large one and cut it in two. We are enjoying the cake this week and I have another one in the freezer for later in the month.

It's a very good cake for packing into lunch boxes, but if it's to go in a school lunch box, you might have to leave out the nuts. I believe nuts are banned in some schools now.

My other recipe is colcannon.

Ingredients are mashed potato, cabbage and green onions or chives.

Method
Cook your potatoes as you normally do. About ten minutes before the potatoes finish cooking, cook a portion of finely sliced cabbage. You will need about one third cabbage to two thirds potato. I use a steamer on top of the potatoes to cook the cabbage. This saves money as I'm using the same heat that's cooking the potatoes to cook the cabbage as well. I use this method when I cook all our vegetables. The hard vegetables, like potatoes or pumpkin, go in the saucepan and the soft vegetables, beans, carrots, peas, zucchini, are cooked in the steamer on top.


Make up your mashed potato as you normally do, then add the cooked cabbage and green onions. Don't forget to season it with salt and pepper to your taste. This is delicious with any meat, chicken or fish meal and uses three vegetables in one dish.

We had a wonderful weekend here full of family, both old and new. On Friday night, Tricia and I went to cousin Susie's home on her brother Stephen's 55th birthday. Stephen died a few months back and as he didn't have a formal funeral, we chose that day to remember him. My uncle Hal, Stephen's dad, was there, as well as Susie's husband Nick and children, Angie and Billy. It was a good night, Susie, as usual, presented us with the most delicious meal (she is ,without a doubt, the best home cook in our family) and we talked and listened to some good music. Some of that music was Angie and Billy's brother Tom who you can listen to here. Have a listen, he is very good and this is a beautiful song. Tom is in Ireland at the moment.

I thought about family a lot over the weekend, triggered by that gathering, where we all sat outside on the deck on a perfect late summer's night with the bush surrounding us and the stars shining. Tricia and I are both early birds in the morning so we were tired and went home early. Honestly, it felt like it was about 3am when we got home, but it was only 9.45pm. LOL! Still we both went straight to bed, Hanno was already asleep, and I drifted off thinking of Stephen and how he would have been smiling down on us, happy to see us all there, and possibly surprised to see his father. They had been estranged for years. I will remember that night for a long time. RIP Stephen.

Of course, the next night was Shane and Sarndra's engagement party and wouldn't you know it, I didn't get a photo of them together. But here they are nontheless, Shane cooking, as usual, and Sarndra looking her gorgeous self, talking to some of the 50 guests.

Hello everyone! I've had a few emails asking if Hanno and I are okay and if we are close to the bushfires. At least 25 people have been killed by fires in Victoria, which is at the bottom of Australia. I'm happy to report we are a couple of thousand kilometres away from the fires. There are other fires in New South Wales, where Tricia lives, but they're not near her home at the moment. The temperatures down south are still very hot - well over 40C (104F) in many areas, and no doubt the temperatures are aiding the fires.

We live in Queensland, and while we certainly have the odd bushfire, summer is our wet season, so there isn't such a threat here. In fact, we have floods here in our state,with record rainfall in many little towns and areas along the coast. In a long strip along the coast, the rain has poured down without a break for almost a month. Again, Hanno and I are not close to the flooded areas.

I hope everyone who reads here is safe. I really feel for all those suffering in the heat, not just the people, but also the pets, stock and wildlife. I can't imagine how devastating it must be to lose your home to a fire or a flood. As well as the loss of human life, there have been heavy stock losses, both in the fires and the floods, and I'm guessing a lot of wild animals and reptiles have died too. It's so sad.

So far, this year has witnessed a cruel climate. I've seen on the news there have been record snowfalls and low temperatures in the UK and the US. I send my best wishes to everyone who is suffering either fire, flood or the extremes of high or low temperatures. Thank you for thinking of us, we are fine, I hope you are too. Stay safe everyone.

My sister Tricia travelled up from Sydney yesterday to visit for a few days. We have some family events to attend, the first one being a remembrance for our cousin Stephen, which will be held tonight at his sister Susie's home.

Tricia caught the train from the airport and I picked her up from the train station. I feel a bit removed from it when I'm in a busy place like that, people going everywhere and no familiar faces, or smiles. But there she was, suddenly, that face I've known all my life, we hugged and the talking started. Welcome back.

She had brought a few surprises with her. After going through hers and mum's photos, she collected some of our cousin Stephen to bring to show Susie. Among those photos from a far off distant time, was this one of us. I'm the blonde with the straight hair. I remember those home knitted angora tops we wore. Mine was pink and Tricia's was blue and I called them our fuzzy-wuzzy tops. The inscription on the photo's envelope, in my mother's hand, states Christmas 1950. Then, I would have been two and Tricia, four. We look older than that, my guess is we are four and six.

Another surprise she found was my first prayer book. It's called Pray Always - prayers and instructions for children. The copyright is New York, 1951. Wow.

I have been using my large chest freezer as a cool room for storing my grains and dry goods. In this humid climate, especially in summer, it's truly been a very good way of making sure bugs and mildew don't spoil our food and thus we avoid wastage. Using the freezer this way I wasn't concerned if the electricity went off, I knew that no matter what, that food would be fine.

However, since we started eating a little bit of meat each week, I now have a small amount of meat in the freezer and I have changed my cavalier attitude towards the contents of the freezer. Now I see it as an active part of my food preservation and have been freezing more. I would be much happier with my freezer if we had our solar panels, but I have to deal with what we have now, so I don't think about what I hope to have in the future and make sure my freezer doesn't use more electricity than necessary. I do this by not putting warm or hot food in the freezer and keeping it full, even if it's with containers of frozen water.

Freezing is a very good way of preserving food. It does not sterilise food, like a water bath or pressure canner does, but it slows down changes in food and retards the growth of microorganisms due to the extreme cold. It doesn't require special equipment, except the freezer itself, and it doesn't take much time. It's much faster than using a water bath and if treated properly, the food usually retains its nutrition, texture and colour. I believe freezing is the best method of preserving food but it does cost money to keep the freezer going and you run the risk of losing the food to spoilage if your power is cut for a length of time. Our freezer is very efficient and since our local transformer was replaced a few years ago, we very rarely have power cuts.


For the best results, keep your freezer below minus 18 C (minus 0.04F). While freezing will not kill the bacteria that causes botulism, if the bacteria is present, it cannot multiply and produce harmful toxins in a freezer kept at under minus 18C. The top of your fridge freezer isn't cold enough for long term storage. It will freeze food but not at a temperature low enough to keep food for months. When we know we will add new foods to our freezer, I set the temperature lower 24 hours before adding the food. That allows the food to freeze faster. The faster food freezes, the less damage there is to the cell wall structure of the food.

There are two main points I always take care with when freezing food I want to store for a long time: blanching and wrapping. Blanching vegetables before freezing them inactivates enzymes that can spoil the food and it helps kills some micro-organisms on the surface of the vegetables. Blanching will also collapse the vegetables and that helps pack more food into a small space. I tend to blanch all vegetables I freeze because generally I don't know when they'll be used. But if you know you'll only store something for a couple of weeks, it doesn't need to be blanched.

Blanching vegetables <- click for information from the National Center for Home Food Preservation
Wash all the vegetables thoroughly. Prepare a deep pot of boiling water and have a colander and tongs ready. Fill your kitchen sinks or large bowls with cold water and ice. Blanch small amounts and time them from the moment the water returns to the boil after the vegetables have gone into the water. There is a chart here for the times most vegetables need. When blanching is complete, remove them from the boiling water and plunge the vegetables into the iced water to prevent overheating. When the vegetable is cool, drain in a colander, wrap and place in the freezer.

Wrapping
I always use freezer bags for vegetables. Place the vegetable into the bag and press gently to expel as much air as possible. If you can move the contents of the bag around a little to make a flat square package, do that because it will stack well in the freezer. Small packs are better than big ones. Make sure you mark the bag or container with the type of food and the date it was added to the freezer.

Freezing soup or sauce
This can be packed into a plastic container, suitable for freezing. Some plastic containers will crack when subjected to very low temperatures so make sure you have the right kind of container. Don't freeze glass, most of it will break.

Fill the container almost to the top. Food expands when it freezes so make sure you leave some headspace, just as you would when you're canning/bottling. The larger the container, the more headspace you'll need. For example, about 500 mls (one pint) will require a headspace of about 13mm (½ inch) and the same food in a 1 litre pack (1 quart) needs about 25 mm (1 inch). If you're freezing commercial milk, you might need to take a little bit out of the bottle to allow for expansion. Defrost milk in the fridge.

Freezer records
It's a very good idea to keep a record of what you have in your freezer. This will allow you to manage your frozen food effectively. A freezer, particularly a chest freezer, is a difficult space to manage and a record of what goes in, with the date, and what comes out, will give you an accurate freezer inventory at any time without you having to unpack it to see what's at the bottom.

If the power goes off
If you know the power will be off on a particular day, turn up the power the day before. Then, when the power goes off, unplug the freezer and cover it with blankets or quilts to insulate it. Don't open the freezer until the power comes on again. When the power comes back on, plug the freezer in again and switch it on. A freezer will usually be able to keep food safe this way for two days.

Position of a freezer
If your freezer is under a window, make sure the sun doesn't shine on it. If sun comes through that window, put up a curtain.

Having a deep freezer will allow you to store all manner of raw and cooked foods for several months, depending on the food. You'll be able to take advantage of buying meat in bulk and store harvests from your garden, or cheap buys at the markets, for the months to come. If you're new to freezing, it would be a good idea to find a book on the subject at the library so you know the ins and outs of it. If you do, you will make food storage in your home a safe and easy option.

I am looking forward to reading the ways you freeze food, particularly leftovers.

There was good news here recently. A couple of weeks ago I told you that my elder son Shane and his lovely girlfriend, Sarndra, will marry this year. Their original plan was to go to New Zealand for a few months, return here in September, marry and go to Spain to live for a while. Well, things have changed. The wedding will now be in June!

And it will be here at our home. : - )

I was really proud of them when they told us they wanted a frugal wedding. The price of the average wedding in Australia now is $35,000. I doubt I'm the only one who thinks that is madness. All that money for a one day event, all that thought and preparation going into a dress and a celebration, all that debt starting a new life. I think they should focus less on the wedding and more on the marriage.

So, Shane and Sarndra started talking about being married in a park or on the beach but after Hanno and I talked about it, and offered our home as the venue, they jumped at the chance. Sarndra was a bit hesitant, thinking it would be too much for us, but we quickly talked her around. Here they can fashion a day exactly to their liking; we have three fine dining chefs to cook - Shane, Kerry and Shane's friend Nathan; my sister is a florist and she has offered to do the flowers and my step son is a photographer. I can bake a good cake. If we can't create a wedding, who can?

But it must be beautiful too. There is no point in it being a frugal wedding if it's not a day they'll enjoy and be proud of. So now I'm trying to come up with some ideas to help them plan their big day. I started looking online and I thought, why not ask my blog friends! I'm sure many good ideas will spring from here.

The wedding will be at the beginning of winter, although we have mild winters here, no snow, very little rain and it shouldn't be too cold. We'll hire a marquee and have that set up in the backyard, with tables and chairs for about 50 people. The ceremony will be in the front garden, probably under our wisteria/rose arch - being winter, the wisteria will be bare, but the Cecil Brunner rose might be flowering at that time. Our next door neighbour, who is a florist, said we can use her coldroom for food and drinks.

Do you have any ideas you'd like to share with me? I'm starting an ideas book to show Shane and Sarndra when they visit. They're going to New Zealand at the beginning of March and will return at the end of May, so I'd like them to decide on the look they want before they go so we can work on making it happen while they're away. Remember, it must be frugal, beautiful and simple. So now it's over to you - all links, flickr photos and your ideas are welcome and appreciated. I want this to be really special. :- )

Bev welcoming everyone with her clapping sticks.
(click on the photos to enlarge them)

We had a wonderful weekend. I hope you did too. Saturday morning we were up and dressed early to go to our local annual aboriginal gathering - the Bunya Dreaming Festival, a celebration of the local Gubbi Gubbi people and aboriginal culture. It's held when the Bunya pines produce their delicious nuts and for thousands of years, the local aboriginal people gathered at this place to eat and share the nuts. In the old times, the coastal clans were invited up to the mountains, they brought fish with them and when they met, they feasted, had games and challenges, dancing and corroboree.


Message stick invitations went out to many people and about 700 attended as family groups. The festival wasn't advertised and only those invited could come along. I was invited as part of my Centre's family, and as part of this family, we helped cook and serve the food and drinks. My wonderful friend Bev, the organiser of the festival and elder of the Gubbi Gubbi, spoke to me about six months ago about us helping and we jumped at the chance to be part of this event.


Bev wanted the food to be simple and easy to walk around with. She supplied us with an amount of money and asked for something like sausages on bread, fruit, and drinks. On the invitation she asked people bring a plate of food to share. What we ended up with was the sausages on bread, onions, sauce, barbecued bunya nuts with wattleseed and wild tomato dressing, oranges, watermelon, rockmelons (cantaloupe), grapes, bananas, peaches, soup, scones and jam, tea, coffee, spring water and fruit juice, plus the shared food people brought along. There was also a bunya cooking competition and when that was judged, the pies, bread and cakes, were sliced up and shared as well. With over 700 people there, there was not one drop of alcohol, which I thought was wonderful and amazing. I'm no wowzer but it is commonplace in Australia now for alcohol to be a part of almost every social gathering so when no one turned up with beer or wine, well, I was shocked.


Oh, and part of the culture is that everything is shared, so Bev asked me to ask the volunteers who helped cook and serve, to give whatever people asked for. No one paid for anything and no one was to be refused anything. I had visions of giving out 20 sausage sandwiches but that didn't happen, we just had a few kids coming to ask for extras for the old aunties and the old people who had sent them to collect food for them. There is a very strong tradition of respect for the elders and it shone through on that day. It was a privilege to see it in action.


The main part of the day was opened up by Bev welcoming us all to her ancestral lands. She explaining what happened at the Bunya gatherings in the past, as told to her by her mother from the stories passed down over thousands of years from mother to child. Then she invited aboriginees from other places throughout Australia to come and introduce themselves to us. While she was talking, she used clapping sticks, and a man next to her played the didjeridu. I wish I could have listened more intently but I was serving food and couldn't hear everything she said.


During the rest of the time we were there we saw some artifacts poked into the sand in the dance area, and there were challenges and games. After we left the Gubbi Gubbi dancers performed and there was a corroboree and fire ceremony at sunset, where a canoe brought fire from one side of the water to the other. But we were long gone by then.


Hanno and I went home after lunch, totally exhausted. When we got home, we went to sleep on the couch. But it was a fine day, one of the best I've spent in my local area, and we were thankful that we'd been a part of it.