down to earth

I would like to give everyone a gentle reminder and, hopefully, a little strength to not go overboard with Christmas spending. I've received a few emails recently from readers who feel they need to indulge their family and friends with Christmas gifts, even though they're on a tight budget and trying to move out of debt.

It's a difficult balance to achieve. On the one hand you're evolving into a new way of living that even if it doesn't involve paying off debt, is frugal and non-consumerist. On the other hand, you want to show your love and friendship to those you give gifts to, you want to celebrate and be part of the season and that involves gift giving.

Christmas is a time for family and friends to get together to honour their religious convictions, celebrate the season of good will and to reconnect with loved ones. There is no tradition that I'm aware of, apart from the con that advertisers try to pull about buying everything you can, that urges us to spend beyond our means. But I am a realist and I know that urge is there. Christmas needs to be part of your year-round strategy of being true to your own values of thrift, conservation and caring for your family and yourself. That doesn't include providing a luxury goods and toys splurge that you'll be paying for well into next year. Even if you can afford such a splurge, your new found values would, I hope, guide you towards a more frugal Christmas.

Give gifts that reflect your new values. Give, and receive, in the true spirit of Christmas, be generous with your love, acceptance, tolerance and kindness and you will be rewarded with the knowledge that you stayed true to yourself. Remember that everything you do is watched by your children, you are teaching them how to be. If you run around like a headless chook (chicken), buying too much with too little, that is what you'll teach them to do when they grow up. But my feeling is that if you are reading this, you want to give up your headless chook days and move more into a feeling of relaxed celebration; the kind that provides the feeling of abundance without dollar signs attached to it. So if you need to reduce your Christmas spending bit by bit, do that, but at least make an effort to make your Christmas not totally about expensive gifts and more about the embrace of your family.

Don't keep up with the Joneses. They're probably in debt up to their ears. Be glad that the sum total of your life adds up to more than shopping. You may well become the new leader in your family; the one who starts the frugal revolution. My feeling is that many people want to stop spending so much at Christmas but they don't know how to stop. Show them. Show them, by example, that a gift hand made with love, or picked with care at the fair trade store, is the best expression of the season that is not about expensive gifts but about love, peace and goodwill to all.

A post on frugal gifts.

I hope you didn't think I'd jumped ship. The house was a shambles when I woke up yesterday, then when I sat down to my computer to write, I couldn't connect to the internet (Hanno had disconnected everything to move the desk), so I decided to post from work and started tidying up. Yes, I had yet another day at work yesterday. I've been there every day this week so far, and will go back again today for our annual general meeting, where I have to deliver my report for the year. I worked alone yesterday and it was very busy, so I didn't get a chance to post and when I got home, after looking at the 72 emails waiting, I couldn't face it. I was too tired, so I ate my dinner and crashed into bed.

That all sounds pretty miserable and I have really good news. Even though we've yet to cook in it, the kitchen is almost back. As you can see from the picture above, it's almost complete but we still have no running water. The gas fitter connected the cook top yesterday, the electricians were here till 6.30pm last night and the plumber will be here this morning. When he goes, it's almost there. There are some broken tiles to replace, the skirting boards aren't down yet and the lower kitchen cupboards are still empty, but my kitchen is almost ready to work in. I am so pleased.

The curtains are finished and when the plumber goes I'll hang them, then we'll start bringing back everything that has been stored all over the house for the past couple of weeks. This is a good day! My sincere thanks to everyone for all the good wishes that have come in. I love these long distant embraces of support and friendship. And to Sharon and Lucy, the aprons arrived! Lucy's on Wednesday and Sharon's yesterday. I'll email you both this morning. Wow, what a lucky woman I am. And I just have to tell everyone that Lucy used EXCACTLY the same red and white check (I'm guessing hers was from Ikea too), that I used for my curtains and for her apron. LOL Great minds. : ) Sharon sent two beautiful aprons that I adore, I'll post pictures soon. Thank you ladies.

The eggs arrive tomorrow and I'll definitely do a post about them, and how they arrived. In the meantime, I'd better get on with organising my kitchen because I intend cooking our dinner there tonight and baking bread tomorrow. These past couple of weeks have been far removed from the simple life I wish to live. Hopefully things will return to my version of normal next week, and while Hanno and I enjoy the benefits of our new floor and kitchen, I will continue posting about our wonderful life together. : )

Last week Ann asked if I had two dogs as usually Rosie is in my photos. Here are Alice (left) and Rosie together last night for Ann, and to remind us all of the pleasure pets can bring to our lives.

It has been my experience all through my life, that while the vast majority of days are lived in a very ordinary way, they are sprinkled with days that test me to my limits and those that are the sweet icing on my cake. It sometimes feels like life goes on its merry way then, just to remind me that this is not to be taken for granted, something upsets the ordinaryness of life with a set of circumstances that test my purpose and strength. I accept these difficult times, like now with the kitchen, just as much as I do the ordinary days because I know as sure as night follows day, that just around the corner a diamond is waiting.

Symmetry.

When I came home from work yesterday, where I was so busy I didn't stop for tea, lunch or bathroom breaks (eek!), I walked into our home to find even more of the floor ripped out, furniture moved from the lounge room, a bookcase in the kitchen and the lounge packed in tightly behind my computer desk. Then fate stepped in with the most wonderful counterweight.

A couple of weeks ago, one of our Rhode Island red chooks went broody for the first time. She's so focused on becoming a mother hen that she has to be physically removed from the nest to eat and drink. And when she is removed, she runs to the bucket to drink, runs to the feeder to eat, then runs back to the nest, settles down again to try to hatch unfertile eggs. We want some more chickens so we decided to look for a rare breed that we could raise with a dual purpose. We get eggs and a rare breed, and many of them are dying out, is given more space in this fragile world of ours.

I asked around and was contacted online by a lovely lady in Perth. She only knows me from my writing but she said she had an excellent line of bantam Partridge Wyandotte chooks (bottom right hand photo) and that she could send me some fertile eggs. These chooks had been given to her by a vet who had raised them over the years to a very good show standard, but he now has a terminal illness. He had given them to her with the hope that his Wyandottes would live on. Of course I was interested but they were on the other side of the country - 3600 kilometres (2250 miles) away. I've been silently hoping for the past week that we would be lucky enough to raise these chicks, but the likelihood of that happening, because of the contraints of distance and cost, seemed very remote.

Until yesterday.

When I walked into the increasing wreck that we are calling home at the moment, among all the emails and messages, this gem was waiting, and verbatim I will quote it: "I have 8 [eggs] already, if the girls play nicely I should be able to get the eggs on a Friday flight, does that suit you or how about Saturday? Instead of sending me the postage over how about we barter? I would love some dish cloths if you can knit or sew them."

This, my friends, is the most beautiful affirmation of why I live as I do. This simple bartering of goods needed for each of our simple lives, the reaching out to our (long distance) neighbours to help fulfill a need and in turn to be helped, this is what I want my life to be. I want these acts of kindness, generosity and support to be well and truly a part of my days. But balance always steps in. The symmetry of life only allows a slender and humble number of these wonderful days so that when they come along I recognise them for their true and genuine worth and don't take the profundity of simplicity for granted.

I will really enjoy knitting dishcoths and sewing an apron for my unseen and distant friend. The days I make them will be diamond days, as will the days the chicks hatch. I'm not sure if Helen reads my blog, but if she does, thank you, Helen.

The eggs arrive on Saturday. : )

There is no kitchen here, no floor either. These vital parts of our home should have been installed last Monday and Tuesday but the kitchen is still echoing when sound bounces off bare walls and the cement slab. Nothing has been done.

The workers arrived last Monday, ripped up the old floor and discovered water under it. Work stopped while we had a dehumidifier dry out the slab. The slab dried and the workers returned on Thursday to lay the floor. Worked stopped immediately when they discovered the new floor boards were too big to fit into the ones still on our lounge room floor. They contacted the insurance assessor and were told to wait until the insurance company gave approval to have the entire floor done. We got that approval late yesterday. Now we have to try to fit into the schedules of both the floor and kitchen people. We also have to move everything out of the lounge room, which includes moving my computer. Sigh.

It's been an interesting week. Hanno has set up a makeshift kitchen for me where we have a pottery crock full of filtered water, a camp stove, electric frypan, toaster, electric kettle and a bucket. The microwave and fridge are in the lounge room, I'm washing my hands and washing up in the laundry, all the non-refrigerated food is in one of the bedrooms. We've been eating bread from the baker but I've made our other meals here, apart from a cheap vegetarian pizza last Tuesday.

Above is a potato pancake (Kartoffelpuffer) that we had the other night.

Kartoffelpuffer - enough for three people, or one person and a Hanno ; )

Grate (on a cheese grater) six med - large potatoes and finely chop two medium onions. Mix these together in a large bowl and add two eggs, salt and pepper and four tablespoons self raising flour (or plain or all purpose flour with a teaspoon of baking powder) .

Cook in a fairly hot frying pan in olive oil until golden brown. You can make several small circle ones or fill the whole pan then cut wedges to serve. It's delicious served with a salad.

This has shown me how much we rely on the modern conveniences we all have in our homes. I used to think we'd gone back to basics, but we haven't. We're just playing at it. I've been working on my quilt during the past week and that's been a gift. It's allowed me to stay calm and relaxed, except at those times we were told of each delay. Then I let Hanno and the insurance man have it. LOL But overall it's just been a process of working through each day and not focusing on the negative. There are positives here too. I've been able to reorganise my kitchen to how I work now and when it goes back in, although it will look similar, it will be a better place in which to work.

There is no doubt that this has been a big upheaval, but every day, bit by bit, I've been working in my home as I usually do. Tea is still being taken on the front verandah most mornings, we eat well every night, we are still happy and smiling, and I know that I have little to complain about.

Glass jars can be reused many times for your jams. New lids can be purchased when the seal goes.

Choose your packaging carefully when you are buying groceries. It’s great to recycle and reuse plastics but it’s much better to reduce the amount of plastic you buy in the first place.

If you buy those plastic sauce dispensers, buy one, then buy a bulk pack of sauce and keep refilling the dispenser, ditto with mustard. The same goes for those plastic bottles of water. When the bottle is empty, refill it instead of buying a new one. Naturally you’ll need to wash it every day. Cleaning chemicals often come packaged in plastic. There are more natural ways of cleaning your home, look here to find some I use. Even when a product looks like it’s in a plain cardboard box, the box is often coated in wax or a thin plastic to make it watertight. Just scrape the box with your fingernail and if you have anything come off under your nail, it’s probably been waxed. Milk and juice cartons are made from a product called Liquidpaperboard, which is a mix of paper, aluminium foil and plastic. When you recycle these cartons they are made into office paper.

Make your own laundry powder and refill the same container.

Speaking of paper, that is one of the materials that must be recycled, either in your own garden, compost or worm farm, or at the recycle depot. If you add paper to your household waste bin, it will go to land fill and as it breaks down it will add significantly to the methane gas that’s emitted from your local tip. Methane is one of the most harmful greenhouse gases. Paper is easily recycled and uses 90% less water and 50% less energy than paper made from trees.

Shredded paper makes excellent hens' nests.

Australians use over five billion plastic shopping bags a year. That is shameful. In Australia, plastic shopping bags should not be added to your normal rubbish bin, nor to the recycling bin. Despite this over 200,000 plastic bags are loaded into landfill every hour. They should be taken to a store or major supermarket (Coles, Woolworths, Franklins, Safeway) that accepts them back. These bags are then sent en masse to a special recycling station where the bags are processed and recycled. Plastic bags are generally only used for the time it takes to carry your groceries to your home. Then it takes between 15 and 100 years to break down. I can’t stay on blogs or sites that have those plastic bag counters on them. It is the one thing that will move me off that site immediately. I can’t bear knowing how many of those bags are being accepted into people’s lives every day. There is no reason to accept a plastic bag when you go shopping. We have been living with green shopping bags for years now and if you haven’t bought some or made your own shopping bags, why haven’t you? Be prepared, take your bags with you when you are grocery shopping.

Instead of using plastic wrap to pack your lunch each day, buy a lunch box with small containers that fit inside a larger box that firmly hold your food down. You'll have a lovely homemade lunch, that survives the trip to work or school, without the plastic wrap.

There are patterns for crocheted shopping totes here or here or a fabric one here. The bags below are the net bags I use when buying vegetables, nuts and fruit. They are just a piece of tulle or netting, sewn along three sides and hemmed at the top. Simple! One of my readers has just alerted me to her home business that makes a similar fruit and vegie bag, here is the link for online sales. Thanks Rebecca.

Net bags will allow you to bring home your produce without plastic. They also allow the shop keeper to see what you have in the bag.

Buying butter in paper wrappers instead of a plastic tub is the way to go. If you buy bread, buy it from a local baker and ask that they wrap the bread in tissue or a brown paper bag. Or take your basket with you with a clean tea towel and wrap that around your bread. Better still, make your own bread. You'll be able to buy your flour in bulk heavy paper bags with a string closure.

These bags can be composted or given to the worms after being cut up.

If you’re serious about the amount of packaging and waste you throw out, it would be a good idea to sit for a while and work out a waste reduction and recycling program for yourself. I did this a few years ago and now our bin generally contains only a very small amount of waste. Give your food scraps and peelings to your compost, chooks or worms, and you’ll be cutting back on a lot of waste. Newspapers, cardboard, old telephone books etc can all be composted or shredded and used for the chooks or in compost. If you cut back on the amount of plastic you buy, you’ll be on the road to making a valuable contribution to your planet. It really is easy to do this, it only requires a bit of thought and determination to carry it through.

Debt, what a rotten word. Yet it’s what most of us have to sign up to, live with and work through if we are to own our own home. Let me say first that I know there are many ways to pay off debt. I’m writing about what worked well for Hanno and I. This is what I have experience in. Other methods may work equally as well but as I have no experience of other ways, I can't write about them.

As I said in the previous post, we paid off our mortgage in eight years. It was not easy, few things that are really worthwhile are ever easy, but we decided on our plan and we stuck to it. Yes we fell of the wagon a couple of times, but when we did, we got right back on and knuckled down again. We also had a healthy deposit when we bought our house.

If you’re thinking of buying a house, don’t wait until you buy it to start putting money aside. Work out how much you can realistically and consistently pay off a mortgage, and from that moment on, start putting that amount aside. While you’re looking around for your home, this money will be building up and when it comes time to pay your deposit, your nest egg is there. Add it to your deposit. Once you’re locked into the mortgage, pay as much as you can each month. Make extra payments if you’re able to.

If you have credit card debt, and have debt on a few cards, I like the snowball method of paying them off. First you make a list of your credit card debt, from the smallest to the largest debt. Then, before you pay anything from the debts, you save an emergency fund of between $500 - $1000 to provide a safety net in case something happens that you need money for. This will allow you to use your emergency fund instead of your credit cards in an emergency.

When you snowball debt, you pay off the smallest debt first, while continuing to pay the minimum payment on your other cards. When the lowest debt is paid off, you go to the second lowest debt and do the same thing. When you pay off the second card, you'll have more money for your payment because you'll have paid off one card, so you use that money to increase your payment on the second card, and so on, until you've paid them all off. Always pay the minimum payment on your other cards.

Be careful of temptation while you're in your period of debt reduction. The bank will write to you offering to increase your credit limit - they say this is your reward for being an excellent customer and for paying off your debts so well, but in reality it's to trap you in ever increasing debt that they reap huge rewards from. It is not in the bank's interest for you to be debt-free. So when they write you that letter telling you that your limit is increased, write back and say you want to decrease your credit limit. Decrease it so you don't face temptation.

Read more about snowballing debt here.

When you have your cards paid off you should keep ONE of them. That one card should have zero balance and a limit of about $500. This is what Hanno and I have now, we have had this card for many years, we rarely use it, but it's there, just in case. We find that paying for things with cash, feels like we are really spending money, whereas buying with a credit card doesn't. There is nothing like the feeling of handing over a couple of $50 notes to let you know you're really spending, and to be careful.

Now, this is the bit that I really wanted to share with you.

When you pay off your debt you have to be strong. It will be very easy to go the other way, say it doesn't matter, or your best friend has a new dress and you should have one too, or the car needs new tyres NOW. Don't betray yourself. Stay true to what you want to do. Stay on the path you've planned out and don't keep spending. If you do need a new dress or new tyres, then they should be saved up for, not whacked on the credit card. Please don't betray yourself. That is what you'll be doing if you keep spending.

I firmly believe that Hanno and I have such a strong marriage because together we decided what our shared values were and we worked as a team for what we wanted. Debt reduction was part of that. We decided that our days of being screwed by the bank were over, we wanted to be free of debt and the weight of carrying that debt around with us every day. Together we listed our debts, together we planned our escape from debt and together we worked towards it. It helped build our marriage because we were working towards a common goal and when we saw each other making the sacrifices necessary for our success that built into our marriage a feeling of pride, security and strength.

I can't tell you what it will take for you to pay off your debt, but if it's giving up your Saturday shopping sprees, selling your decluttered household items on ebay or cutting back on your spiralling grocery bill, do it; do whatever it takes. You and I both know it won't be easy but whatever pain, inconvenience or anxiety it causes will be forgotten when you come out the other end and live debt-free. Having no debt will give you freedom to live the way you want to live. So what's stopping you? Be brave, take a deep breath and dive in.

Our six monthly water bill arrived yesterday. It was $44.85, with our discount we have to pay $40.36. We've worked hard to reduce our water consumption and as the price of water has been rising - from 78 cents/kilolitre in 2002 when our bill was $248.20; 78 cents in 2004 when our bill was $148.20; 95 cents/kl in 2006 when our bill was $101.65 to 115 cents/kl now when our bill is $44.85, we have been using less and getting the most out of every drop. We've done a similar thing with our electricity bill.

There are choices to be made when you decide to live simply and reduce your impact on the world. One of the choices we made was that reducing our use of water and electricity was something we could achieve that would make a different to our greenhouse gas emissions and to the amount we paid for our utilities. We worked on one thing but got two rewards for the work we put in. In many ways being frugal is being green.

We did a similar thing when we decided to get rid of our debt. We paid off our house in eight years. We did that by first making the conscious decision to do it, we made a plan on how we'd do it, then we did it. That last part was the most difficult. ; ) It's easy looking at something and knowing you need to work on it; making a plan is pretty easy too, but the doing of it. Well, that takes effort, perseverance and determination.

One of the things we planned for when we started on this path of debt reduction was to not worry about what our family, friends and neighbours thought. We had to have enough confidence to know, really know right down to our bones, that what we were doing was right for us. It might not have been right for our neighbours, or our friends, but for us, it was right - it would make our lives better. I'm not going to tell you it was easy, because sometimes it wasn't, but as we got into it and we saw our debt reducing every week, instead of going up or stagnating, it replaced the feelings of deprivation we sometimes felt when we decided against buying tickets for a concert, going out to dinner or going on holiday, with something better - we felt the taste of freedom.

Being in debt restricts you. It makes you play by someone else's rules. You have to work enough so you have the money to pay up every month. And the really horrible thing about having a mortgage or credit card debt is that often when you make a payment, you don't reduce the debt - or you only reduce it by a small fraction - often you're just paying interest to a bank.

But the purpose of this post is not to remind you of your mortgage or credit card bills, but to show you, by example, that reducing debt isn't just about your large bills. You can reduce your debt by cutting back on your consumption of water, electricity, gas, petrol and your phone. When you pay less for all these things, not only will you reduce your footprint on the earth, you'll also have more money to pay off your mortgage and credit cards. And, ladies and gentlemen, I guarantee that the day you pay off your mortgage will be a day you'll remember for a long time. There is such a feeling of relief and freedom that you'll be smiling all the way to the bank to finalise your account.

Tomorrow I'll write about ways to pay off debt.

Graphic from allposters.com

It's Thanksgiving Day in America today so I'd like to wish my American friends happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a wonderful day with family and friends.

Some of my tea making paraphernalia. I know I have too much of this but tea makes me happy, I enjoy making good tea for friends and family and I love having morning and afternoon tea. So for those reasons, I'm keeping all my tea gear, none of it will be removed in a decluttering frenzy in the foreseeable future. I think I have nine teapots. I can't check now because most of them are packed away somewhere. The little white teapot here I bought in the 60s when I first left home - it's a Finlandia. The blue and white tea/coffee pot is from the 1970s, it's an English Adams, not expensive, but my first blue and white set of crockery. The pot with "tea" on it is a 1930s set Made in Japan. I also have a set of canisters that match it which I bought off ebay about six or seven years ago. The little blue cup and saucer and milk jug are similar to ones my Mum had when I was growing up. They were also bought on ebay several years ago. Kettle at the back, tea balls and strainer at the front.

I was asked in comments and emails how to brew a good pot of tea, and thought it was an excellent idea for a post.

Tea is the second most popular drink in the world. Water is the most popular. Like most people, I've been drinking tea made with tea bags - I found a well priced organic black tea bag at Aldi and have been using that. But over the past couple of months I've gone back to real tea, and I say 'real tea' because tea bags are made with the fannings (the worst grade of tea) and tea dust. There is such a difference in the taste that I know if you've only used tea bags, tea made with loose leaves will convert you to making tea in a pot.

You'll need fresh water, a kettle, a china, glass or pottery tea pot, tea leaves, a tea cosy (if you're in a cold climate), tea strainer or tea ball (to stop the leaves going into your cup), and ...

Time. After your water is boiled, it will take about five minutes to make a pot of tea.

You must have fresh water from the tap to make good tea. Tea needs dissolved oxygen in the water and if you use water that's been sitting in the kettle for a while, that's not good enough.

While I'm sure there are many ways to make a good pot of tea, this is how I make it:

Fill your kettle and boil the water.
While the kettle is boiling, prepare your pot and the tea cups. If you're putting the tea in a tea ball, do that, making sure the tea ball is suitable for the size of the pot. Don't put the tea in the pot yet.
When the water is boiled, pour a small amount into the pot and swish it around the pot to warm it. Tip that water out.
Add the tea leaves to the pot. The usual measure is one teaspoon for each person and one for the pot. So if you're making two cups, you'd add three teaspoons of tea leaves and enough water for almost three cups.
Pour the boiling tea over the tea leaves and place the lid on the tea pot. The water must be boiling.
If you're in a cold climate, place a tea cosy over your teapot. The tea will stand now for a few minutes and it must be kept hot. I use a tea cosy here in winter but not in summer.
Allow the tea to steep for between three to five minutes. I drink mine after about three minutes.
If you take your tea with milk, it is added after the tea is poured, and although this is firmly adhered to in certain parts, (ahem England : ) ), it really doesn't matter when you add the milk. Some say you scald the tea when you add it first, I doubt very much that it matters.
Sugar or honey is generally used to sweeten tea and some add a squeeze of fresh lemon. But don't add milk if you add lemon as it will curdle the milk.

I have my tea black with one spoon of honey. MMmmmmmm. Please don't flavour your tea too much, it masks the true flavour of good tea. All those vanilla, apple, apricot and strawberry teas, aren't the types of tea I'm talking about here. They are tea bags made with fannings and with (usually) artificial flavourings added. If you want to drink good tea for flavour and health, you'll choose a good quality loose tea, have it black or with milk and with sweetener or without. That's it.

TYPES OF TEA
All tea comes from the plant Camellia sinensis. After the tea is picked, it is processed in various ways to produce the different teas we drink. Tea is generally named for the region it originates from.

Green tea: Tea that is dried immediately after harvesting.

Black tea: Tea that is dried and fermented, it's stronger than green tea. Black tea comes in various strengths and flavours. There is Darjeeling (my favourite), Orange Pekoe (which not orange flavoured), Earl Grey (black tea with bergamot oil added), Ceylon tea (for my fellow Australians, this is the tea that is sold as Billy Tea, Lan Choo, Bushells, King Tea etc.) Ceylon tea is my everyday cuppa.

TEA COSIES
You'll need a tea cosy if you live in a cold climate.
Tea cosy patterns here and here, Australian 1930s crocheted tea cosy and a vintage tea cosy. I wanted to show you my favourite tea cosy that Tricia made for me, a patchwork one, but I can't find it with everything packed away for the renovations. I'll try to remember it when everything is back to normal.

More information about tea.

The health benefits of tea.

I hope you all have the chance to make a pot of tea soon, and to sit and relax with the warming flavour of it.

This is the beginnings last night's dinner, prepared in the guest bathroom. There are cooked potatoes in the colander at the back, radishes, just picked, and pickled cucumbers. I'll write about this meal in a future post.

We are making progress. It might not look like it, but there has been movement in the right direction. Yesterday the dehumidifier was removed after draining something like 200 litres of water! Absolutely incredible. Today the floor goes down and tomorrow the kitchen is put back. But enough of my kitchen, if you're not bored with it by now, I am, and I want to talk about progress.

I think many of us, myself included, have been conditioned to believe that we should always have our desires met instantly. We are told not to save for what we want to buy but to have what we want instantly by using a credit card. Have it now! This happens in the home too. We have instant porridge, two minute noodles, instant soup, tea bags, precooked rice, we even have instant messaging. Why can't we wait for these things? I believe there are few nicer ways to start the day, and to think about what I'll be doing during the day, than to stand at the stove stirring porridge - real oats. I love brewing tea in a pot with tea leaves too. Tea needs time to develop flavour. Tea bags just don't cut it. Yes, I know tea bags take a fraction of the time a pot of tea takes. You will save about 2 minutes using a tea bag. But what do you do with those two minutes? Do you get what a pot of tea will give you - a sense of slowing down and the anticipation of good tea.

Sometimes you have to wait for progress to happen too. It's not instant, precooked, predigested or fast. Like your tea in a pot or good porridge, progress needs work invested in it, and occasionally it needs to be stirred before you realise something is happening. You might be focused on your simple life and doing some of the things we talk about here, but feel you're not getting anywhere. Progress is a strange phenomenon. It might happen quickly right before your eyes, yet sometimes you ache for it and you feel abandoned. If that is how you feel, don't give up, don't ever give up, progress is brewing in the background.

If you're feeling frustrated by a lack of progress towards the life you want to live, start stirring your porridge, so to speak, by learning more simple things you will need in your life. That might include reading more about budgeting, redoing your budget, talking to a friend or neighbour about keeping chickens or growing vegetables, decluttering a small area of your home or taking time for yourself each day to sit, relax and think. This small step will often stimulate progress to show itself in some way.

Sometimes you just need to wait because behind the scenes progress is bubbling away happily without you knowing it. When the time is right, you'll wake up to a brighter view of your life and you'll see you're closer to your ideal than you realised. Simplicity is not a tea bag, it's a pot of tea and it needs time to develop it's full flavour. And remember that you won't always see your progress, it sometimes creeps along too silent and transparent to be noticed.

Cleaning mould from walls and fabrics

With all this rain around we've developed a mould problem in our home. Usually we have the front and back doors open and that good ventilation stops most moulds from establishing. However, with the house locked up for the past week, the high humidity and the rain, mould is now growing on the wooden walls near our front door and on the lower parts of cupboards in the kitchen. Most of us will find mould growing in our homes at some point. Either in the bathroom or, in humid climates, on the walls, like we have now. You'll need a safe and effective remedy at some point, so I hope one of these methods works well for you. Mould is not only ugly to look at, it can cause health problems so if you see mould growing, do something about it straight away. The longer you leave the problem, the harder it will be to get rid of it effectively. If you have asthma or any allergies, you should do this type of cleaning with a face mask on so you don't breathe in any spores. Many peopl...

MY BOOKS

My books were all published by Pengiun, and are available at Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon Au

Search here

Total Pageviews

Translate

MY FAVOURITE PLACES

Give More

Popular posts last year

Making ginger beer from scratch

NOT the last post

How to make cold process soap

Preserving food in a traditional way - pickling beetroot

Cleaning mould from walls and fabrics

Five minute bread

This is my last post.

What is the role of the homemaker in later years?

Every morning at home

You’ll save money by going back to basics

All previous blog posts