down to earth

January, week 1 in The Simple Home

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. ~ Abraham Lincoln

January in Australia is pretty laid-back. It's summer time, the kids are on school holidays and many people take the opportunity to take a break with the family or sit in a cool room watching test cricket on TV. Cough, cough. 😉 In the northern hemisphere, winter has set in and even though life continues as normal, the weather encourages hours spent by the fire, with some relaxing and others remaining productive with knitting, quilting, mending or other quiet work. It's good for us to sit back and slow down with our family in the one place where we should feel comfortable and secure - our homes. January is a very good time to disconnect, in varying degrees, from the internet too. I have various accounts on social media and even though I visit those accounts infrequently during the year, I make a conscious decision in December and January to step back from them and clear my mind. I want to see my own and my family's priorities rather than have those thoughts diluted with all the noise that goes with social media. I stop blogging then too. I rethink my goals, work on strengthening my values and reconnect with my family and home, with no distractions. I use the time to organise the year ahead, think about what I hope to achieve and put as much in place as I can at this slow time of year. I know that if I use January to think about my year and organise as much as I can, the better off I'll be when I'm busier.

Home is the place where we can be ourselves, kick off our shoes and enjoy every passing hour. Home is important and whether you live in an ordinary house like I do, on a farm, or in an apartment, a caravan, an RV travelling country roads, a mansion or a tiny house, all our homes need our time and energy. They can withstand periods of neglect but all homes function better and support us more if they're well ordered and maintained.

Lists can help you clarify what you want to achieve and your calendar and the emails/messages it sends will remind you to get those things done. If you set your calendar up with the information you have at hand now, then add to it over the coming months, you'll be able to concentrate on other things during the year and know you'll be reminded of birthdays, important events and that you wanted to clean the windows when the mild weather sets in.

There is no recipe for organising a house, no website you can go to to find the list of what you need to do. We all have to create our own unique list and it's always changing. Every home requires thought, plans, routines and organisation that suit the people who live there. For instance, I have lived in this house since I arrived here at age 49, in a few months time I'll be 70. We've moved things around, changed wall colours, blinds and curtains, installed new energy efficient appliances and lights, we've put up barriers so crawling babies stayed safe, put up fences and took them down again, changed a bedroom into a writing room, then a writing and sewing room and now a writing, sewing and ironing room. All those changes and more have been part of my lists and organisational strategy over the years and helped us do the work this home needs.

I thought I'd write a post to introduce my main 2018 project of strolling through The Simple Home book. It's almost two years since it was published. Back then, I had plans to go through the book online with my old buddy Rose. Sadly, Rose became ill and died on 10 January last year and it's taken all this time to even consider the project again.

Christmas day lunch with my family.

Non-fiction books, particularly those which propose change, can sometimes be confusing allies. On the one hand they might lead you forward with absolute certainty and on the other hand, they might create confusion, doubt and, sometimes, guilt. I hope that by walking with you through my book it helps clarify your ideas about simplifying and how to use the book to build or modify your version of a simple life. Together, I'm sure we can go through the year, month by month, looking at each topic and discussing not just my ideas but yours as well.

Above: spicy tomato relish was made to enjoy with cold meats on Christmas day.

Below: I used some of this summer's crop of elderberries to make cordial

I've said many times that my way of living isn't for everyone, it's just the way I do it. My way might suit you, it might not, so I'm hoping that this project will show you various ways of building a simple life that will suit how you want to live. There is no right or wrong way to do this. We're all different, even those who are at the same stage as you. At any age you can be single or partnered, have children or not, own a home or rent, go out to work or work at home, be in good health or have health issues, have money in the bank or live week-to-week, be interested in growing food and keeping chooks or not have time nor interest in it. There are so many variables and all of them alter how we live. We all need to work out where are are at, what we want and how to identify the changes we need to make to live the life we want. I am hoping that this project and the collective thoughts and ideas that come from it will help you discover how to live a happy and fulfilled life.

Christmas day desserts. (Photo by Sarndra Hetzel)

I hope to do a Simple Home post on four Mondays of each month. That will enable me to break each chapter down into manageable segments and establish a post where you can add your ideas or ask questions as we go through topic by topic. However, a year is a long time to make any sort of commitment like that so if I miss a Monday, the post might just come later in the week or I'll make up for it the following week. At the moment I can tell you that I'm having cataracts removed some time in February and I'm not sure if that will affect my blog writing. I don't think it will but at least you know it might. When everything is going well, a post will be there on four Mondays of each month.

Hopefully you will contribute too. I know it's easier to just sit and read but I believe that being part of a community gives us all the opportunity to become good neighbours and to develop and demonstrate generosity, kindness and productivity. If you see a question or ideas posted by another reader, get involved and help if you can by replying in the comments section. We all have our own points of view. What I say might help some people, what you say might help others. So don't be shy, become more than an onlooker, connect with the other readers and we'll all benefit.
I'll see you tomorrow. 😊

Our days have been full all this week. We did our grocery shopping yesterday and drove to Beerwah for the first time since the storm. Oh my, it's much worse than I expected it to be. The trees and rubbish have been moved off the road but is still waiting to be picked up. The railway line to Brisbane is still closed and maintenance crews are going along picking up what they can and cleaning the tracks. I think it will be another couple of weeks before it's all done. Back here at home, Hanno cut up the storm damaged trees and branches and someone from Airtasker will haul it all away to the council tip this morning. Now I've seen the rest of the neighbourhood, I think we got off lightly. There are areas just down the road near the Steve Irwin zoo that look like a tornado has ripped through and parts of the local forest will take years to recover.

But I have good news too. We're getting some new chickens next month! A few of our girls have booked themselves into the retirement village and some days the egg supply is beginning to look pretty grim. We have nine girls now and three or four of them have stopped laying so I think a small flock of six new girls will get things on the move again. We often have non-laying hens here because we let them live out their lives just swanning around looking beautiful. I'm always excited when there is the promise of new chickens. They are a big part of our backyard, they give us the best eggs, provide entertainment and laughs and they're great insect hunters.

Drying oregano in the oven.

You'll probably remember I've been having problems sleeping. Well, more good news! Although I can't say I'm having a normal night's sleep I'm sleeping well and feeling better when I get up. I had a checkup at my doctors recently (all is well) and she told me about Melatonin. It's a natural hormone which we all produce in our bodies and it seems I've not got as much as I should have.

This is the Melatonin I'm taking. It doesn't state a strength. It's called Melantonin 6x.

So my doctor told me to buy Melatonin from the chemist and see if it worked for me. It does. I chew four tablets before I go to bed and usually feel tired about 30 minutes later. I still wake up once during the night but my sleeps are deep sleeps, I'm dreaming again and I feel it's doing me good. I'm so pleased my doctor told me about this gentle therapy. I don't take any prescribed medication and Melatonin does clash with some drugs. If you want to try this, please check with your doctor first.

As I said earlier, Hanno and I did our shopping yesterday and bought our Christmas ham and a few Christmas treats as well as our normal weekly shop. It was a big effort going to Woolworths and Aldi but we got exactly what we wanted. The job of putting it away saw us overflowing out of our fridge and into Sunny's. Luckily, she only had a tray of mangoes in her fridge in the shed. All we have to do now is return to the shop late next week to pick up milk, cream, fruit and vegetables and we'll be set. I'm looking forward to watching the Boxing Day cricket match - it's a tradition here to spend the entire day watching the cricket to recover from Christmas day and the build up to it. I love knowing we have cold ham and drinks, good bread, salad and leftover pavlova in the fridge, and that everyone can help themselves. There a few of us here (I'm not naming names) who sit watching the cricket while we knit or sew. I hope you've all got your projects ready. It's just the best way to spend Boxing Day. Sales, what sales!

And finally my friends, I've had two enquiries about blog courses next year. I do them online - a mixture of my notes sent out to participants, setting up your blog in your own time using the notes, then two face-to-face conversations with everyone in the course, on Skype. All the blogs are shared around the group so you get feed back from a few people. The cost is US$100. Along with the usual topics such as layout, keywords, blog titles and style, we discuss how to set up a blog and how to build it up in the following years. I think there are three keys to a successful blog and they are good content, a clear and simple layout and a spirit of generosity, tolerance, inclusion and kindness. The Skype sessions we did on the last course were much better than I expected them to be and everyone seemed to get a lot out of them. Not only could we talk to each other in real time, questions were asked and experiences shared. I'm happy to do two separate courses if there is enough interest: basic blogging and blogging to gain a following or a book contract. I'm thinking we might have a course in mid-February if there is interest. Let me know.

It was a quiet normal day on Saturday and then all hell broke loose in the evening. Hail started tapping on the bedroom windows, then there were strong winds and torrential rain. In about 15 minutes, our evening went into overdrive. Hanno checked the big shed where Kerry and Sunny have all their possessions stored. That shed has flooded before but we were lucky this time and everything remained dry. Lightening was constant in the sky with 130,000 lightening strikes recorded and the rain and hail bucketed down. It was quite a storm, which I noticed they called a microburst on the news.

Above and below: just outside the front door.

This morning when we woke, Sunny and Kerry were off to work around 6am and when Hanno and I went outside, it looked like a war zone. Trees were down in the front and back yards and there were shredded leaves covering the lawn. Our garden umbrella snapped off just under the canopy and Hanno said an old tree near the creek was ripped out of the ground by the roots and dumped across the creek.

Breakfast was easy, everyone had the same thing - eggs, baked beans and fried bread.

The power was off from about 7pm Saturday night till 2pm Sunday and I was starting to get nervous about our freezers. Sunny has her full freezer here too but happily, they all survived. The internet went down on Sunday morning and when the phones ran out of power, it was silent and we started telling Jamie about the old days, before TV, computer and internet. 😉 It was such a fine opportunity I couldn't pass it by.

It will take a while to clean up all the mess. Hanno doesn't have a chain saw anymore but we'll get there taking it one step at a time. We're hoping the council has a special kerb collection because I know there are hundreds of people in our town and the next one who have a lot of storm rubbish to get rid of. I'll be adjusting the emergency numbers in my phone too. I used Hanno's phone yesterday and liked the way he has his emergency numbers organised in his contact list. It's always a good idea to think about these things after they happen and see if there are improvements to be made. I'll be doing that today.

I hope all my readers here are safe and sound - those close to me here and in much colder climates. I noticed in the news that snow is falling in the UK, Ireland, Europe and North America. Take care, my friends, and stay safe.

Every so often I receive an email from a reader asking for ideas about something they're struggling with. Here we have one such query which I present below and hopefully, between all of us, we can give Amy a range of possible solutions.

I hope you don't mind me asking a question...

I wrote to you around 3-4 years ago about wanting to quit my job and stay home and you addressed it in a November blog post. Well, it's taken me awhile...but I've done it...I finally quit my job. I'm burnt out (from my job) and have no direction right now. How in the world did you find your "way" around your home and get into a routine after working for so long? I've only been home for 2 weeks and need to adjust to it all...but how?

What is my first step?

Where do I start?

How do I plan?

I wake up each day with good intentions...but find myself aimlessly wondering around.

Can you offer any suggestions?

I'm sorry to hear you're burnt out. I remember that feeling and it's not nice. I hope you're spending time doing nothing but the basics so that when you're rested and ready you can take the next step in your new life with optimism and confidence. What you need is a plan.

Sit down with a coffee, paper and pencil and work out what changes you need and want. Remember, this is about a new life for you and your family so the only ones you have to please are yourselves. The priorities are to keep a clean and tidy house, feed everyone, work to a budget so you live the life you choose without running up debt, maintain the house and garden and possibly to make a few things you currently buy. I'm thinking mainly of laundry liquid, cleaners, dishcloths, napkins, aprons, bread, cakes, preserves etc. But keep in mind that you make the items that will make a difference in your home. We're all different.

I would start by dividing your day into three sections:

Morning, which will be from when you get up till around 9am - remember, all this is adjustable.
Daytime, 9am - 4pm. This is the bulk of your time when you'll do your shopping, ironing, cleaning, sewing and whatever you choose to do for your own pleasure. That might be reading, gardening, talking to friends and neighbours, sewing etc but it includes what YOU love doing.
Evening, 4pm - bedtime. Evening meal, cleaning up, thinking about tomorrow's meals.

In the morning and evening you'll usually do the same thing most days. In the morning it will be cooking, breakfast, getting other family members off to work or school, laundry, cleaning up, making the bed, feeding animals, watering plants, general tidy up. In the evening it will be preparing the evening meal, washing up, packing the dishwasher, thinking about tomorrows lunches and possibly preparing them, or deciding on what you'll cook the next day so you can defrost what you need. The more you can get done at night the less you'll have to do the following day but you don't have to push yourself because you'll be at home and you can do extras during the day.

The rest fits into the main part of your day. It might help you to list all the large tasks you have to do in your home that aren't covered in your morning and evening routines. Tasks such as cleaning bathrooms, doing the washing and ironing, food shopping, vacuuming and mopping floors, dusting, cleaning the fridge and oven, washing windows etc. If you can make a list of these tasks and assign them to a certain day, that will help you cover your housework by doing your morning routine, your daily routine, which will include one of those larger tasks, and your evening routine. The main thing I urge you to do is to take it slow. You have many tomorrows ahead of you and as long as you're making yourself happy by the changes you're making, you'll be on the right track.

When you have these life essentials sorted out, or at least on their way, you can fine tune the other things that need it and add what you enjoy doing. I found when I started my new life that when I started changing things, one thing lead to another and I just followed along. If might not be that way for you so just see what happens and do what you think is right.

Other things you can look into include:

make a list of your priorities, values and how you would like your life to change. When you have that in place, it will show you what you need to do, change and learn to make the life you want;
create a budget;
work out a shopping strategy, including reasearching where you'll get the best value for money;
look at the rooms in your home and working out if you're making the best use of the space,
menu plan;
start a stockpile cupboard;
make up a rag bag;
if you don't know how, teach yourself to sew, mend, knit and garden;
work out how you can remove cleaning chemicals from your home.

Life will be slower now. What you're about to do is to make a new life and to redefine what a normal day is for you. It's different for everyone so start by getting the essentials of food and shelter sorted out and then concentrate on the rest. Once you settle on a way to organise your days that suits you, you'll probably find that housework is less of a burden and more about making your home a place that supports and comforts you and your family. There is no need to fret about moving all this along fast. It will take it's own time and it will change as the years pass by. Homelife is never static, there's always something to do as well as time to sit quietly and appreciate what you have.

Don't be pressured into having a rubber stamp of a life. One of the benefits of living this way is that you no longer have to live to a rigid timetable or one where recreational shopping has any importance. Good luck! I'm sure our readers will have more suggestions for you. Now, my friends, it's over to you.