As the days move towards Christmas and the end of the year, it's a good time to do a few small cleaning jobs. Many of us will have visitors over the holidays and getting everything clean and tidy before they arrive will give us the opportunity to relax and enjoy the season just as much as the rest of the family and the visitors do.

The first task on my list was to clean my bread boards and then my cleaning brushes. Remember that if you have wooden boards, they're porous so you have to think about what you put on them. You don't want your bread board smelling of bleach or chemicals for the next month. That's where the brushes come come into their own. I use a camel hair brush for this job. It will create quite a lather as I give the board a good scrubbing.

You'll need to wait for a sunny day to do this but you'll get a much better result with scrubbing and sunshine than with any chemical that will leave residue on the board.

CLEANING A BREAD BOARD

CLEANING BRUSHES

I have a number of brushes that I use for cleaning. They're much better than anything else I've tried, including microfibre cloths.

To clean my brushes, I swish them around in a bowl of hot water to which I've added a squirt of laundry liquid.

• I look at all the bristles up close and make sure there is no gunk caught up in the brush. 
• Swish the brush through the water and rub the bristles with your hand.
• When I'm sure they're all clean, I rinse and scald them with very hot water and take them outside to dry in the full sun.
• Generally, I leave all these items out in the sun all day.

Thank you for your visits this week and for your comments. The comments create a point of interest for me, help me build up a picture of you and they remind me that we're all in this together. Enjoy your weekend, friends. I'll see you on Monday.

If you're a new knitter, treat yourself to Fringe Association's Beginning to Knit series.

And, hot off the press, if you're already knitting and want to go to the next level - Pullovers for first-timers or, an Introduction to sweater construction. Also from Fringe Association.

Madman Knitting

The art of toy rotation

What they do to food

Vegetable Chow Mein

Growing your own food is like growing your own money - TED Talk

Joel Salatin at Milkwood talking about debt-free farming - You Tube

Backyard Farmers

Milk Mayonnaise

From comments during the week

Mennonite Girls Can Cook

Sue St Jean

Made to Treasure

Picture this. It's 5.00pm at the end of a busy day. I grab a cup of tea and prepare to sit down and watch the news on TV with Hanno. I sit down, the phone rings. On the phone is the Maroochydore Library asking for a favour. The person booked to do their talk on Creative Writing is sick and can't make it. Everyone booked via email, so they have no phone numbers to phone participants to cancel. Could I please come over and fill in. I love my local libraries, they give an excellent and worthwhile service to people in our region. I said yes, how could I not. I was just sitting around drinking tea.  In the background I could hear applause. LOL 

"What time is the talk?" I asked. "Erm, 6 o'clock."

I took off like a rocket. It's a 30 minute drive to get there. I got out of my scarecrow clothes and into something decent, combed my hair, applied lippy, and grabbed what I thought were my notes and bits and pieces from a talk I'd given previously on writing. I arrived at 5.55pm, with no real idea what I'd talk about. The notes I grabbed were a stack of my old Women's Weekly columns. Ahem.

I think it went fairly well. There were 40 eager writers there with some great questions and busy pens taking notes as I spoke. We finished at 7.30pm and I drove home. The next morning I received a couple of emails from people who were there saying how much they enjoyed it. But as I drove home I was thinking about how fragile life is and how quickly everything can change. It reminded me of the time last year when Hanno nearly cut off his hand with the chain saw. One minute everything was normal, the next I was dealing with spurting blood and trying to call an ambulance. Life can change in the flicker of an eye. Note to self: make the most of every day.

I hope there are no more quick changes before the end of the year because even though I'm writing for Penguin again, I'm also winding down for the end of the year.  We've started talking about the Christmas holidays and what they will bring. I'm hoping we have a slow Christmas. I want to take time away from writing and the computer and just sit back and relax with family and friends. I want face-to-face conversations, knitting while watching cricket on the TV (hello Sue), pineapple crush with ice cubes clinking and enough rest to fire me up for next year. Because next year is going to be my best year yet. I say that almost every year and every year I'm right.

Yesterday I discussed our Christmas lunch menu with Hanno. There'll be eight of us here and I'm looking forward to a day of family, good food and watching Jamie make sense of Christmas in his own unique way. There will certainly be a lot of beautiful memories to store away for later. Our food will be simple - roast chicken and maybe a small ham with salads, followed by a pavlova. Everything will be cooked the day before and assembled on the day. We need to keep the house cool, so definitely no cooking. Just after Christmas, we'll be travelling up to visit Shane, Sarndra and Alex. We're really looking forward to that. While we're there, some of the blog and forum readers who live up that way are meeting us to have a cup of tea. That's something extra to look forward to. There are so many exciting things coming up!

I think the trick to enjoying the holidays is to be well prepared and to delegate jobs and cooking. Know what you'll serve on your special days and make sure you have everything you need well before Christmas eve. Try to keep calm in the run up to the holidays. But we've all still got plenty of time to organise ourselves, even if you haven't started yet.  Just do a bit at a time and slowly it will all come together. Start with a budget, work out your menu, plan your shopping and do your cleaning a few days ahead. And when the excitement of Christmas day is over, I hope you do what I'm going to do - nothing.

I've had three emails in the past week from people who are a little confused about simple life. One said they're not doing everything Hanno and I are and asked if that's okay. The second said they've just started and were asking how long it will take them to set themselves up in this lifestyle. The third thought they had to be living on acreage and making bread every day, or off the grid and slaughtering chickens or at least living in the same way that Hanno and I live to be genuine and truly living this life. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. I wrote back to all of them, reassuring them that their own choices were the right ones. Then I decided to write about it because I might have said something recently that gave them the wrong message.

As soon as you take that first step towards a simpler life, you're living it. Some of us will be doing more or less than you but there is no grade to pass, no percentage to aim for, no right location, no formula. When you make a conscious decision to spend less and then move towards simplifying your life, that's it, you're doing it.

One of the many wonderful things about living this way is that there is no single goal that everyone is aiming for. We all decide for ourselves what our goals are. And there is no prize. No ending. We are all after different outcomes depending on our stage of life. When we reach one goal, there are others to pursue. The real prize is the unusual and beautiful journey we take to live this way. It is for all of us to create the life we want for our selves and our families and that life is different for all of us, as it should be. Don't let anyone tell you that you're not living simply or sustainably if you're not doing this or that. That is just not true. I think that if you've made the change to live a more simple life, if you're slowing down, more mindful, becoming less of a consumer and you continue along that path, adding as you go, then you're in the club. You're in the process of simplifying and it is a process that lasts a life time.


There is no prescription for this and no set of rules. We all decide for ourselves what our lives will be and then work to make that life happen. Some days you will be able to do a lot, somedays you won't, that's okay. Remember, some of us will be balancing paid work with house work, some will be raising babies and homeschooling, some of us are retired and on a lower income, therefore trying to trim our needs to suit our budgets. We have men at home looking after babies while their partner works and brings in the money, people who are looking after loved ones who are ill or frail, we have young couples just starting out and divorcing couples who are going their separate ways. This is an unusual life choice, we are not doing what our friends and neighbours are doing, we're going against the tide of popular opinion. No matter where you fit in, live your life your way and if you're moving away from your old consumerist habits and living on less than you earn, then that is the marker. How we do that is different for all of us and there is no right or wrong way.


If you're trying to move away from the materialist trap modern life has become, if you're trying to live according to your values, if you want to step lightly on your part of the planet and you know that you can do all that by being frugal and living simply, then I applaud you and I encourage you to keep moving in that direction. Because that is what I'm trying to do too. Some days it's easy, some aren't but I always remember the place I started from and I don't want to go back there. This is much better, but it's not a neat package, it's a long flowing ribbon.
.

There is something about Sunday afternoons. I'm not sure what it is but I know they feel different to every other afternoon. I'm writing Monday's blog now, Sunday afternoon, and feeling very relaxed and calm. The three of us - Hanno, Jamie and me, have finished lunch and now Hanno and Jamie are having a snooze, while I am her with you.   :- ) Lunch was delicious, by the way, we had buttermilk fried chicken, green beans straight from the garden and Dutch cream potatoes. Jamie played at the table with his animals while Hanno helped me prepare the lunch.

I've been trying to get around to making a new apron and I haven't found the time for it yet. Maybe when I finish here I'll have a few hours. Who knows, when there is a toddler in the house, anything can happen.  I did finish off my pin cushion-sewing kit and I'm very pleased with it. It's only a little preserving jar with a two-piece lid. It's a very easy project and it makes a lovely small gift for the sewers and quilters in your life.




Out in the backyard, the garden has almost given up. We haven't planted anything new for about a month and while I intend to plant eight self-sown pumpkin seedling vines in the compost heap to grow over summer, nothing else will go in until next March. I picked three good cucumbers yesterday and there is one small one still on the vine. I'm not sure if it will continue producing, if it does, I'll continue picking. The beans we had for lunch today were from a few bush bean plants that still look reasonably healthy, there is a lot of parsley, as well as onions and a few tomatoes. The corn is on its last legs and we picked three, although Jamie found one small cob on the dying stalks this morning and immediately started eating it. It's one of the lovely side benefits of having a toddler in a garden. When they see vegetables and fruit growing, they want to eat it. Apart from that, we have a few capsicums/peppers still producing and I picked a bag of small chillies yesterday. As soon as I washed them, I put them in a plastic bag to freeze. They'll be fine for cooking later this year and into next.

It is one of life's true pleasures to be able to slow down, do your housework in your own time and to produce real food for the table with close family there to appreciate it. And now we have Jamie with us two weekends out of four, he's growing up knowing that food is picked in the backyard and put into the harvest basket to take inside with the eggs. And if no one is looking, and even if they are, it's okay to eat what you pick straight away and get the benefit of that kind of freshness.

I wonder what you did on your Sunday afternoon. :- )

Are you getting yourself organised for the end of year holidays? I made up three bottles of ginger beer yesterday and today, I'll make a Christmas cake if I have the time. I hope you enjoy your weekend, take some time out for yourself to relax.

I would be a very happy woman if I went out over Christmas and was served this from Petite Kitchen
How much do I need to retire at 60?
Global warming since 1997, significantly underestimated
Self reliance in LA - You Tube

From the comments this week
My Little World
Cassandra Madge
Twigs and Twine

I love to have a homemade treat to serve when people come to visit and stay for a cup of tea and I usually make a cake or biscuits during the week so I'm not often caught unprepared. At the moment there is a moist banana and walnut cake sitting on our kitchen bench. It's such a small thing to offer homemade cakes, they only take five minutes to mix, then 30 minutes or so in the oven. But what happens when there is no homemade cake or biscuits and someone rings to tell us they're on their way and will be here in 20 minutes.

I'm sure this will be different for everyone but my main two standbys are scones or pikelets. Both can be mixed, cooked and on the plate in 20 minutes. If you don't know how to cook pikelets, here is my quick recipe. They're similar to the flapjacks or hotcakes that some people have for breakfast, although these are apple and cinnamon pikelets. And they are delicious.

Into a mixing bowl add:

Pour half the wet ingredients into the dry and mix

Add the rest of the milk mixture and finish mixing. The batter should be a thick pouring consistency.

Into a hot frying pan, add a little butter to stop sticking, turn the heat down to about medium and pour in small circles of batter. You should be able to fit four into a regular size frying pan. Allow to brown on one side and when you see small holes appearing in the uncooked side, flip them over. Brown the second size and remove.

I used the new Sundowner apples for this recipe. A daughter of Pink Lady, they're a very good eating and cooking apple - crisp and sweet. I'd never tried them before but I'll be buying more of them.

Serve with a knob of butter if they're still warm, or buttered if they cold.  These make a good treat in the lunch boxes as well.

What is your go-to fast homemade treat?

I don't think I've written about travel and transport before and I'm not sure why because I do think about it a lot.  When I gave up paid work, we sold our second car and I voluntarily gave up air travel. That was well over ten years ago and since then, on long trips, I've used the car or train. Plane and car travel cause a lot of greenhouse gas emissions we should all be looking at what we're doing and improving what we can.  Of course, there are times when no matter how much you want it, you can't get rid of your car and you can't change it. You have to made do with what you have.  Here are some eco driving tips to get more kilometres or miles from the fuel you use. From an environmental and financial perspective, we should all be concerned about our own usage.

This is our car - a second-hand 2010 Toyota Camry Hybrid.

Back in the 70 and 80, before we'd heard of global warming, we used to drive six cylinder Fords or Holdens. We usually had a station  wagon so we had enough room to get our boys to where they needed to go and enough room for our dogs. When we knew we had to be more careful with fuel, we moved to four cylinder cars.  A couple of years ago we bought our first hybrid car - a Camry Hybrid. We got a great deal from our local dealer on the car they were using as their hybrid demonstration car. We paid cash, drove it away and I was hooked. Our fuel usage dropped by 30 percent. It is, by far, the best car we've ever owned. It's easy to drive, four cylinder, spacious and comfortable. It's not a plug-in car, it's electric and petrol combined. When we turn it on, there is no sound, we can only hear the motor when the petrol motor starts. It incorporates technology that harvests the energy from using the brakes and forward motion. It's far outside my limited understanding of such things, but the bottom line is we're using 30 percent less fuel than we used to. It still has all the mod cons you expect in a new car but the technology makes the most of the fuel we put in it. 

There are also the options of public transport, walking and bicycling. We are within walking distance of our local shops but we rarely shop there. Occasionally, when we have to go into Brisbane, we'll go on the train rather than the car and I have used the train often when visiting Tricia. I love train travel and see it as a bit of an adventure.  Hanno has a bike and will cycle over to the local shops sometimes but mostly the bike sits in the garage. Of course we all know of Greg and Sophie's bike trip from Melbourne, via Tasmania, to North Queensland. They stayed with us here on the long trip up the coast and reported in their book Changing Gears, how that trip changed them. And here are some tips on travel, transport and sustainable living.

Many local authorities in Australia now have a sustainable transport plan. Ours, on the Sunshine Coast, is here. We do make sure we do as much as we can on each trip out and we are conscious of the amount of travel we do by car. I guess if we were a little younger we might look at other, more sustainable forms of transport.  But now, I'll stick with our hybrid, with occasional long trips by train.

What's your main form of transport?

As I wander around the web, I sometimes find homemakers who aren't really at peace with their role. From what I can see, these are all kinds of homemakers. I don't think that homemaking is only a women's role. I know of women and men who call themselves homemakers, I know career women and men who are part-time homemakers, and I know of girls and boys who help care for disabled parents and that places them in the role of the homemaker.

When I was working for a living, I hated house work. I saw it as a burden and I did it as quickly as I could. When I gave up paid work and started full time housework, I had to think about my place in our home and how I could work there and make it a place I was happy to spend time in. I didn't just want to be there because I had to; I wanted to love it. That was the key for me. If I could work at home and feel comfortable there, then that was my gift … to me, and to everyone who lives here or visits. 

My mission was to create a place where we all felt protected, relaxed and comfortable. I wanted to learn as much as I could about traditional homemaking and to make that fit into my modern life. I identified the work I needed to do and along with the work I added time in for relaxation, learning, knitting, research and self-improvement. I thought that if I was to work in my home and be fulfilled doing that, I needed to give myself points of interest and rest throughout the day so that I would enjoy what I was doing. There were a number of chores I did love. I love baking, cooking, gardening, mending, recycling, knitting, sewing and some cleaning, although not all of it.

In those early years, I structured my day so that I always did my heavy work in the morning. When I came to something I didn't like doing, I would follow it up with either something I loved doing, or a rest break. I was always rewarding myself with tiny things. I know it's much more difficult doing that when you have children to look after but when we're looking after Jamie now, I've found it works well but it takes more time.

I get a lot of emails from people who ask me what the secret is - how can they enjoy being at home when it means doing housework? Like me, you have to first change your attitude about what housework is. If you see it as something you must do for everyone else, stop and think about what you get out of it. Do you feel good about inviting family and friends over? Do you like extending hospitality to guests? Do you factor YOU into your day? Doing that is not selfish, if you're struggling with housework, it's a survival technique.

My beautiful mother, Jean St Claire McGrath, died 20 years ago today. If she were alive now, she would be 94 years old. Even now, there are very few days she doesn't tip-toe into my consciousness. She was a truly remarkable woman. RIP mum. I miss you.

One of my heroes, Paul Keating and I grew up in adjoining working class Sydney suburbs. Both born in the 1940s, he eventually became Prime Minister of Australia and I believe, an outstanding Australian. This is an article about the upcoming series of Paul Keating - Kerry O'Brien ABC interviews. I love what he says about the asbestos suit of motherly and grandmotherly love.

Economic growth has become anti-life

Ruler boxes - a wonderful gift idea
Home maintenance tips - there is everything here from how to repair a screen door to fixing a leaking toilet.

Top ten tips from 10 years as a parent

Exchange Stores at Nundle I was searching for a Falconware 1.5 litre teapot at a reasonable price ($35ish) when I came upon this gorgeous store out in the bush, near Tamworth. What a treasure trove it appears to be. It's like shops used to be in the old days BC (before computers). Check out their history as well as their stock.

Orange self-saucing pudding I can't stop obsessing about food made using oranges. I had some of the most delicious blood oranges in winter and it tipped me over the edge.
The wartime kitchen and garden - youtube
The Noble Knitter

From the comments here during the week
Simply Free
Meadow Orchard
Sweet Journey Home

I hope you enjoy your weekend and use part of it to relax and recuperate. If you're lucky enough to have your parents near by or far away, take the time to say hello to them over the weekend. There will come a time when, no matter how much you want to do that, you can't.

See you next week. :- )