down to earth

I can feel love sometimes. It manifests itself in many ways as H and I live together and although I know he loves me all the time, sometimes, I feel it too.

As you know we’ve both been sick with colds or flu, or whatever it is. I get asthma too so I have to be careful as my asthma is always worse when I get any respiratory tract infection. Luckily we’re both pretty healthy and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been sick in the past ten years.

I haven’t been strong enough to do much over the past few days. H made sure I’ve been sitting either on the front verandah, in the lounge room or next to the bedroom window with the sun pouring in. He’s been bringing me glasses of water, cups of tea and soup and cut up pieces of fruit. To me, peeling and cutting someone’s fruit for them is an act of love. It’s been with me since forever and I always associate it with being cared for and nourished.

He’s listening to my breathing too. Just like I did last week when he was sick, and I listened to his. I wonder if he thinks of us aging, like I did, and that we’re getting older now. When I start wheezing at night, he wakes me up with my asthma puffer and while I organise myself with it, he gets some lemon and honey tea, and then we settle back into our warm bed together again. I know he’s been covering me up too. I have a habit of throwing off the quilt, but he keeps retrieving it to make sure I stay warm. I know what he’s doing, but he doesn’t know I know. : )

This love we’ve grown through our marriage is like an old sourdough starter that’s been developing its flavours for years. Those flavours are complex and delicate, yet robust enough to last through time. When I was young I didn’t know that love matured and changed through the years, but it does. As we change, so does the expression of our love. This is unlike the young love of a new marriage, it’s confident, softer and mellowed.

The first thing he asks each morning is “how are you feeling today?” I want to say “I’m feeling love” but I tell him, “I’m ok” instead. It’s a wonderful thing to find someone who will look after you as a mother would and who maintains a loving and patient attitude not only when things are wonderfully bright and positive, but also when they’re not. It’s at those times I have more than the knowledge of love, I feel it too.

Hearts to all of you who drop by today. I hope you feel love in your life too.

H and I are off on a trip up north soon and as we want it to be a frugal trip, I need to start organising it now. We are taking the tilt train to Townsville. Luckily my sister and son will be staying here to look after the animals and chooks so home is all sorted.

Here is the Tilt Train site:

http://www.traveltrain.com.au/traveltrain_services/Coastal_Services/tilt_train/Overview.asp#

We'll leave at 8pm and I'll pack a Thermos of hot chocolate that we can have while we watch a movie and settle in for the night. We don't have a sleeper so I'm taking two pillows and a patchwork quilt that will fit over both of us. They will all be rolled up and packed into an overnight bag that I'll carry. H will be looking after our other luggage - which is one of those pull-along bags on wheels. At 7am the next morning we'll be at Mackay. Our breakfast will be an apple and cinnamon muffin each, tea and some cut up fruit. I'll prepare all our food just before we leave. We'll each take a bottle of water that can be refilled on the train from the public water dispenser - ie free. LOL!

Okay, so far, so good. Our frugal travel is on target. I'll pack a container of cashews for snacks and a few pieces of fruit, oh, and I intend buying a block of Lindt dark chocolate from the local IGA - it will be $3. That will supplement the cashews and fruit.

We arrive in Townsville at lunchtime so my guess is my sister-friend Kathleen, will have something prepared for that. We're going to visit her so we can see her new home, just built, brand new and still shiny. We have a few friends up there so our activities will involve visiting them, wandering along the famous Strand and maybe having a coffee or a cold drink at one of the cafes on the beach.

Our trip back will start on Sunday afternoon at 2.45pm. We'll have our water bottles full, more hot chocolate and tea, and the rest of the Lindt chocolate and cashews. I'll just buy the makings for some sandwiches, some fruit and get one of the loaves from the neighbourhood organic baker. Those sandwiches and our tea will fill us up for dinner on the train. Our trip ends at 7.30am, so we'll have breakfast with the family when we arrive home.

I think we'll be well and truly satisfied with our little picnics along the way and if it all goes to plan, it will be a very frugal trip, although we will take Kathleen out for dinner the night before we come home.

I've forgotten if I've told you about the prices for our train trip. My ticket was $520 and H's was $24. Actually his was a bit more because the return trip was booked out for pensioners so he had to buy a normal return ticket. All up it cost us around $700 for both of us. And yes, I know we could fly for a fraction of that but flying creates huge amounts of greenhouse gases so it's something we don't do anymore.

We're really looking forward to our trip. We've driven the road up the coast many times but neither of us have travelled it by train. Neither of us have been on the tilt train either, so we're looking at it as a bit of an adventure to enjoy together. We still have to watch what we spend though, so this planing phase is an important part of the trip. It reminds me of the trips I used to take with my parents when I was young - all organised and planned beforehand with little spending along the way.

If you've decided to move from two incomes to one so you can stay at home with your baby, you'll enter a period of review. Now would be an excellent time to overhaul your lifestyle and shift from the modern mainstream life to a more simple way of living. Before you are pregnant, and while you're both still working, make up a new budget. Try to live on one wage and use the other to pay off debt. This might be the first time you've really limited your spending and it will be difficult, but when you feel that it's getting too much for you, think about why you're changing your spending habits and how much you'll benefit from it when the baby arrives.

When you're pregnant, decide exactly when you'll stop working so you have a goal in site. If you have any credit card debt, try to pay it off while you still have those two pays coming in. If you only your mortgage to pay off when you stop work, you'll be in the best situation you can be in. If you stop work while you still have credit car debt, or other high interest debt, it might be wise to consolidate those high interest debts into your home loan.

When you stop work use the short amount of time you have before baby arrives to reassess how you shop and make some adjustments to help you save money. Sit down with your partner and make up another new budget. This will be the budget you'll live with for a few years, so think about it carefully. Both of you need to do it together. If you can save money on your grocery bill, you'll save a considerable amount as it will be ongoing saving. Read as much as you can about stockpiling and if you have the cash, invest about $200 - $300 in starting a stockpile. Buy those things that are on sale that you use frequently like toilet rolls, toothpaste, soap, bread, butter, canned goods, meat, flour, rice, pasta etc. And even if you don't add to the stockpile for a month, you'll save yourself going to the supermarket so much with your newborn.

If you have a second car, sell it.

Review your expenses - now is the time to be ruthless with your expenses and cut off all those extra monthly bills:

Stop dining out and buying takeaway.
Put expensive family holidays on hold for a few years.
Stop buying so many gifts. Make up a list of those people you feel you must continue to give to and keep it at that. Start making homemade gifts. You might feel a bit strange at first but most people love receiving something you've made yourself.
Stop buying magazines. Join the local library for a never-ending supply of books, magazines and DVDs.
Do you really need a mobile phone? If not, get rid of it.
Pay TV is a luxury you can say goodbye to until you're in a better financial position.

When baby is born, and if you're Australian, claim all the government benefits you are entitled to. I think the baby bonus is about $4000 now, make sure you claim it, and also look into parenting payments that will be ongoing until your child goes to school. Those readers in countries outside Australia, make sure you know what your government gives you when your baby is born, and after it in the form of family payments.

Remember that you'll only have real success with your new simplified life if you change your attitude to spending. You can't expect to live the way you used to, there are many things you'll give up. But I can assure you that after the initial shock of not having the things that used to take up your spare time and make things easier for you, you'll settle in to a new kind of living that doesn't rely on those things. And once you're used to your new life, I know you'll love it.

If you go back into the archives here, I've written about budgeting, emergency funds and change jars. They'll all help you save for your new lives. Don't be afraid of budgeting - it is the one thing that will organise your thinking about money as well as the money itself. And despite what a lot of people think, a budget frees up your money instead of taking it away. H and I have a tight budget, we do this voluntarily, and even though we live on the very small amount of $355 a week, we still save $150 a month, we still have holidays and we still have private health insurance. It can be done.

Can a family do it?

There is a common understanding in contemporary Australia that it’s financially wise for both husband and wife to work. While I believe that is true when there are no children in the marriage, I don’t believe that’s necessarily true for all couples with young children. When you add up the actual cost of having both parents in the workforce, when child care costs are in the equation, and often when they are not, it’s often financially sound to have one parent at home. And when I say “parent” I mean either the mother or the father. The partner who can earn the most money, for the least expense and the shortest time away from home, should be the one who goes out to work.

The actual costs of earning a living are those that might be hidden or forgotten about. Some things to consider are whether you will go into a higher tax bracket, day care or babysitting costs, transportation, fuel costs or running a second car, clothing for the new job, equipment needed or tools of the trade, cleaning costs for clothes, grooming in the form of haircuts and cosmetics necessary for your level of work, lunch at work, all those lattes and espressos, magazines to read en route to work and at lunchtime, bottles of water and the added cost of food at home when you start buying convenience and pre-packaged foods. When you calculate all those factors in, many people find that they are working for less than the basic wage.

You should factor in related matters too - those factors that will lessen the impact of one parent not working. When one parent is at home with the children, their job is to look after the day-to-day needs of the children and to save money in the home. When one parent is home they can shop for grocery bargains to make the most of the food budget, food can be cooked from scratch and they can bake bread – this is the healthiest way to cook and it’s also the cheapest. When one parent is at home they can grow vegetables and have chickens for eggs. If there is surplus in the garden they can preserve the excess for eating later in the year - again saving money. Clothes can be sewn and knitted and in general, there will be time to look after the things you already own.

When one parent stays at home with the children, you can read to them, teach them how to write their name, tie a knot, how to count and identify colours. You could teach them to garden, bake cookies and boil eggs and you could show them, by example, what a joy simple living can be. You can be there when they come home from school, or homeschool them, and you can watch them grow to their true potential. Value comes from many things apart from those with a dollar sign attached.

This is one of those decisions you need to make with your partner before have children. It's better to go into your big life changes having already discussed them together and knowing what each other wants. I think the ideal, which is not always possible, is that you both work hard when you first marry to save for the deposit on a home and then to pay off as much as you can on your mortgage. When your babies come along, you can start on this next stage of your life - raising your children within a strong and loving family where both mum and dad have a good balance between family and work.

So if you're thinking about taking on a job sit down and work out if it will really be worth it. For instance, if your new job will pay $500 a week you might pay $150 of that in taxes, making your take home pay $350. You have to get to work so you spend $50 a week on public transport or running the car. Your $350 is now $300. Child care costs $100 a week, so now your income is $200. Take off the amount you need to spend on clothes and grooming, your coffees and lunches and you’ll soon realise that working when you have to pay childcare is sometimes a no-go zone.

As you can see, it's not straight forward and you need to think about what you get from working as well as what you'll give away. There is no doubt that working together to pay off the mortgage is a good thing to do, but your first priority as parents is to your children and you may find there is more value in having one parent be with the children to guide them through childhood. No matter which way you go, when you think about it and talk to your partner and then make your decision, make sure you do everything to make that decision work for your family as a whole. And if you're sure that your decision is the best for your family, work towards your goals together with no guilt and no regrets.

Tomorrow I will continue this theme with - Transitioning to a single income.

As always, I'm interested in your opinions and comments. If you've had experience with this one way or the other, please let me know how you coped.

Another Tuesday and another day for catching up on the two days I wasn't here. I have so much I have to do today and as usual, if I write about it here, it makes me more accountable and more likely to get through my tasks.

I'll start in the kitchen as the benches need cleaning. That means moving everything I have on the benches, wiping it all down with a homemade dishcloth dipped in warm soapy water. I'll wipe them all dry with a terry cloth and replace everything. The fridge needs checking, just a quick check to make sure there are no science experiments lurking in the back. After breakfast and the cleaning up of it, I'll start my bread off and get it on the rise. I have to put it outside in the sun with a clean tea towel over it as the kitchen is too cold at the moment to allow a good rise.

Into the bedroom then to strip the bed and wash the bed linen. I'll remake the bed, do a small amount of tidying in an untidy corner, check H's side of the bed for snotty tissues (ack) and open the windows to let in some fresh air. The shower needs a wipe over but I'll do that when I take my shower tonight, but this morning I'll wipe over the sink and mirror. When all that is done, I'll vacuum all the floors and wash the wood floors with some hot water, vinegar and eucalyptus oil.

Hopefully all that is done by 10am when I'll make us some morning tea and sit on the verandah in the sun with H and my knitting. I'm going a bit nuts on the dishcloths at the moment and I want to use up all that cotton yarn I bought recently. Between 11 and 12.30pm I'll be in the garden. The blueberries need some blood and bone and potash as they're just starting to put on new growth. H will be preparing a garden bed for our main potato crop of the year, so I'll "supervise" that project ; ), do some watering and talk to the chooks.

After lunch I want to do some sewing. We are going to visit a good friend in her new house in a couple of weeks time and I want to take her a few house warming gifts. Late this afternoon, just before I start on dinner, I want to pull down the luffah vines that are still standing like skeletons over two trellises. This evening I'll be reading before I fall asleep to prepare for, hopefully, a less strenuous day tomorrow. If I do everything I wrote about above, tomorrow I'll be rewarded with a day where I only have to sweep the verandahs, and make the bed and some bread.

I operate really well when I tell others what I'm about to do. Sorry everyone, I am using you! But if I do that, I feel obliged to do what I said I would do and it's more likely to be done. It's a bit primitive, I know, but I am what I am. : )

I do realise my post is pretty ho-hum today but I have a treat for you all. Visit Duck Herder's blog to read the most sublime post. She is on my must read list now and I'm sure many visitors here will appreciate her writing as much as I do.

As always, I love your visits, your comments and your emails. Thank you for stopping by and if you haven't made contact yet, please do. I'd love to hear from you.

Graphic from http://www.allposters.com/

When my sons were in primary school, there was an anti-drug message aimed specifically at kids to say no to drugs. It was on T shirts, on TV, on billboards. The message was everywhere. And although that message didn't save everyone, it did save a lot of kids from a life defined by crime and the horrors of drug use.

At work yesterday I talked to a young man who I see every so often when he needs help with a bit of food. When he came in yesterday he was nervous and looked sick. After a few questions, he told me he'd been with "friends" on the weekend and had "shot up speed". For those of you not used to the terminology, he'd been injected with amphetamines. He'd since been to the doctor, was on antibiotics for an infected arm that he couldn't bend and would need a lot more treatment to get back to normal. I asked him why he did such a stupid thing and he told me it that he was with friends and didn't want to say no when they suggested it. But in the cold light of Monday morning, saying no seemed like a much better option to him, he just wished he'd been strong enough to say it when he needed to.

I told him he has to learn how to say no, and if he can't learn it, he has to say no to going out with these people. Luckily, the entire episode scared him a lot. I'm not sure he's scared enough to stay away from these people but after our talk about saying no, he certainly knows now that it's ok to say no, and often it's important for our own safety and health that we do say it.

It was really busy at the Centre yesterday. When I thought it was about 11am, I looked at the clock and it was 1.20pm. I decided to say no to taking a call and yes to a cup of tea. I try to pack a lot into those two days. I work as the co-ordinator, so I have that work to do but I also have a lot of people who come in to talk to me or ring up, so that adds to the work load. Yesterday my day was longer than normal as there was a two hour committee meeting at the end of the day. At that meeting, I agreed to take on a couple of extra things that I can do on the two days I work. I was also asked to be on a panel of three who will administer a community fund for local children. This I said no to. It would require that I work outside my two days and I'm not prepare to do that. I also said no to another request for my time, but gave them a solution so it was not a problem.

One of the skills you must learn when living simply, and even when you're not, is to say NO. If you say yes to everything you lessen the time you have to live the way you want to live. Simplifying isn't just cutting down on the clutter in your cupboards, it's also cutting the clutter in your day to day life. Saying no to some requests for your time and energy helps you to cut this clutter.

You have to make judgements about what you give yourself to and stick to your decision, even when you're pressured. Just like the young man earlier in the day, saying no is sometimes the intelligent and sensible thing to do. You do need to think about it beforehand though. Think carefully about the amount of time you have available and make conscious judgements about what you're comfortable doing and what will make your life more difficult. If you've thought about it beforehand, saying no when the question arises - no matter what the question is or who it comes from - makes the no word come out more easily. If you're prepared to say no, and not try to please everyone with yes, then it makes it easier.

It's impossible to please everyone and your first responsibility is to yourself and your family. You have to have enough energy and time for the things you've decided are important to you. So think about how to say no, think about what you've got time for, what is good for you and your family, and say no to the rest of it. And if you can do this, if you can say no in a polite but definite way, it will allow you to say YES to all those things that are significant and valuable.

I've been thinking a lot about growing old lately. It's something that's never really bothered me before, but seeing H so sick and frail this past week focused my mind of some unthinkable thoughts.

Yesterday, as H was working slowly through his day, he kept coming inside to rest. He sat in a lounge chair and almost immediately, was asleep. He did that four times. I told him not to overdo it but he insisted he was ok and felt better doing something.

It made me think of how we both used to work hard when we were a bit younger and it never affected us. H used to be really strong and took pride in being able to work on most projects alone, but was always ready to help others along side him not as strong. We've both lost a lot of our strength in recent years and when I saw H so sick, I realised it's not just physical strength that's been lost.

It's a strange thing growing older when you get past about 55. Until then I still felt I was as strong and capable as I had ever been, and then in a really short time, I felt much weaker. H has also become weaker in the past few years. He has tried to keep going as he always did but he's given up trying now and asks for my help fairly frequently.

It is good that we're still happily married as I think it would be quite different, and maybe difficult, if we were alone. It seems we compliment each other now better than we ever have. What I can't do, H does, and what he can't do, I can. I hope it continues on like that because it feels very comfortable. Old shoes fit the best.

But I also know that our future will hold sad goodbyes to many friends, both human and animal, and that scares me a little. We've already been to the funeral of one friend this year and it was sad and very confronting. Who knows who the next funeral will be for. The Australian statistics tell us that if you're a man and you've reached the age of 60, you have, on average, another 22 years to live. An Australian woman, having reached 60, is likely to live another 25 years. So if the statistics prove to be accurate in our case, we still have a long way to go.

Having someone you love so sick makes you think though. Listening to breathing in the still of the night makes your mind wander to the unthinkable. I was glad to be up and showered this morning and glad that it's a new week with so many new possibilities.

It's been a busy morning here with everyone up at 5.30 to get Kerry on the bus that will take him home. We all had toast and tea and I made the men up some scrambled eggs with herbs to get them through the morning. The remainder of Kerry's birthday cake was packed in a plastic bread box for the trip back; I hope he doesnt throw the bag around and end up with squashed cake.

Before he left I had a load of washing on, when he left I did another with his bed linen and towels. I had him warmly cocooned in a heavy blue flannelette and a doona (duvet) and quilt that he loves in Winter. I put out a couple of wheat bags for him and some extra throw rugs to keep him warm while he watched TV at night. I know my kids think I sooky them up when they stay here buy I love doing it and it teaches them, by example, how to nurture others. I hope that when they have their own babies, they'll pass on this heritage of cosiness and support that is but one of the ways parents express their love for their children.

After the washing was hung out to dry, I did the dishes, swept the floor, made the guest room up again - my sister is visiting soon, made our bed and did some ironing. I've just picked a cabbage for our dinner tonight and dug up some kipflers to have with pumpkin, carrots and herbs. I'll make a cheese sauce for the cabbage and bake it in the oven so it's golden and crispy.

It's taken H a full week to recover from the flu. It made him really sick and weak and the only time he looked ok was when he dosed himself up on flu medication to go out to dinner the other night. But now he's almost back to his healthy self and he's been catching up on chores in the backyard. He's cleaned out the chook coup, let the chooks out for some free ranging and done some gardening.

Soon I'll make a lunch of leftovers and a cup of tea for us both and we'll enjoy the afternoon doing whatever we want to do - nothing is planned and nothing needs to be done. H will probably have a nap and I'm going to do some sewing. I want to make a ironing pad for my sewing circle ladies. After that, I'll put my feet up and read about the Nearings. Everything back to normal after a week of celebrations, visitations and a time with children (albeit adult children) at home again. Another good week. : )