There is a lot of satisfaction to be gained working on ordinary tasks in the home. Gone are the days when homemakers were at the bottom of the pile. Now we have taken control of our homes, we see one of our jobs as managing the home budget and saving as much money as we can, we have stepped up to recycling and repairing, we are living frugally and green and we are enriched by that. Our lives are happily home made. All over the world handmade is making a comeback, showing us that what we produce with our own hands generally satisfies us more than what we buy at the store. We are making unique homes to our own taste full of soft cottons and linens, cutting down on the world's waste and showing our children that both the beautiful and the practical can be make at home.

I read somewhere this past week, maybe it was at the forum, that some feel guilty when they work on their craft projects at home. The idea being that if they enjoy it and look forward to it - be it quilting, sewing, knitting, soap making or whatever, it is entertainment and joy rather than work. I have never felt that way and I have never considered my knitting, sewing and soapmaking as anything but part of my housework. I don't see these things as separate crafts. To me, they are part of my everyday work.

I grew up in a time when dresses, shirts, children's clothes, soft furnishings and knitwear were homemade. If you needed a new quilt or skirt, there was no huge store where you could buy something cheap from China - you made what you needed. Store bought clothes were bought for special occasions. Most homes had piles of fabric and balls of wool waiting to be made into what was needed in everyday life. There was no other option and homemakers did that work as part of their daily tasks.


So for me, I don't hope there will be time available for me to sit down and sew or knit. I plan those tasks in with my normal everyday chores. I usually do my hand work in the afternoon and the more strenuous work in the morning. Knitting for the family and for gifts is part of my housework, sewing a new tablecloth, napkins, aprons or curtains are as much a part of my work as washing up and sweeping the floor. It all goes into the good of my home and even if I love doing it and look forward to it, it's still a household task.


I hope that you get some enjoyment out of most of the things you do in your home. Of course there are some things you won't like doing as much, but if you enjoy sewing and knitting and making whatever it is you need for your home, that is your pay-off for the tasks you don't like so much. Joy is lurking in your home, it is one of your daily tasks to find it.

If you haven't thought about your work in this way, take some time soon to look at what you do and think about the nature of your work. Plan your craft type work in with your normal housework. Never ever feel guilty for doing what you love and as long as you plan your handwork in with your more strenuous housework, you'll have time and energy for all of it.

Steel Kitten is having a wonderful giveaway to celebrate her 300th post. But that is not the only reason to visit her. Her blog is full of interesting posts and great photos and you have to see the fingerless gloves she knitted! Click here to visit.

Also, we are having a competition at the Down to Earth Forum. To be eligible to win, simply write a post and tell us about your simple life - what is working, what isn't working, what you love, what you don't love and what you hope to be doing this time next year. The winner may have been living this way for years or have just started. We are looking for the most interesting and engaging post. Everyone may enter.

The winner will receive two 50 gram balls of beautiful Australian grown and spun, pure, machine washable wool - Cleckheatons Country Naturals, and a pattern for fingerless gloves and a man's wool hat. I will post internationally.

If you have not joined the forum yet, click here to register and you can go straight in.

Two girls fighting over one baby, an enemy is identified and killed on sight, a mutant lurking in the shadows! Am I on the set of a Hollywood movie? No, it's more exciting than that - it's my backyard where life and death meet on a daily basis and all the strangeness is real. Come with me, I'll show you ...

I've been spending some time in the garden in the early morning lately. Since Hanno had his knee operation, I've taken on his garden tasks. I like to do that early, before the sun gets too hot. So at about 5am I collect the eggs, let the girls out to free range for the day, start watering the plants and checking to see that all is as it should be. Wild geese honk as they fly over on their migratory path and realise that the pond they always relied on has been filled in by the person who lives over the back. Yet another natural place taken away by "development". It's quite, it seems like nothing much happens, but that belies the truth. It's a jungle out there!










My harvest basket, minus the tomatoes I picked and the eggs collected earlier. It made a fine meal for us that night.

A prawn salad - with local prawns from Caloundra, and everything on the plate, except the potatoes, white onion and the prawns, grown out the back, in that jungle out there.

After two hectic days of work at the Centre, I'm working at home today. Gone are the days when I would have looked forward to relaxing, shopping and going out to visit friends. Now, settling back into the routine of washing up, sweeping, making beds and baking brings me back to myself and reminds me that my home is the place where I am put right again.

I work in the welfare sector and it's a very tough job sometimes. I don't counsel anyone, I manage the Centre I work at, and I guess I act as a surrogate mother and dish out kindness with cups of tea and encouragement along with advice about getting a job or looking after the family.

I had never worked in welfare before - had never even been in a neighbourhood centre until I wandered in there to ask if they needed any help, but working here in my home prepared me for working there. I teach my The Frugal Home workshop and stretch the slim budget there until I hear those pennies scream, but my preparation for that job is more than those obvious practical things. Since I have have taken control of my home and made it the place I want it to be, I feel empowered to take on many more things.


If someone were to see me working here at home they might believe that I am "just a housewife". How many times have we all used that phrase to describe ourselves? Well I am "just a housewife" who has taken back control of my own life. No longer am I a slave to fashion and advertising, I am not just filling in time by doing my daily tasks. What I do here now is a part of me, it makes me who I am and enables me to do the things I do.

Never undersell yourself or your role of homemaker. Running a home is similar to running a business. You need to work to a budget, manage people, make hard decisions, work to a schedule, delegate tasks, work long hours and make sure those you work with are productive and content. In fact, while all those elements describe the running of both a home and a business, at home you have extras - your work never stops and you raise children. Raising the next generation is not only an important part of family life, it's important for the nation too.


Taking control of the home, while sounding harsh, is, I think, the key to success. You need to take charge, delegate, have routines, get family members working for the good of the family and while that is happening, model the bahaviour you want to see in your children. A tough call, I know, but it pays off if you get it right. I know that we homemakers are looked down upon by many people but don't you ever believe they are right. What we do is the most important job; what we do makes the nation strong.

If you have to describe what you do, proudly name yourself "homemaker", or if you work outside the home as well - "homemaker/teacher", "homemaker/retail assistant" or whatever it is you do. Don't fall in with the rest of them and try to make us invisible. Let everyone know what we do, that we are an important part of our society and that we are proud of the work we do. I am an ordinary woman, there is nothing special about me, but because I have the attitude I have, people listen to me. I got the confidence to be the me I am now from my home - by taking control here and making it productive and alive.

You can do the same thing.

For those of you around Geelong, today I'll be interviewed on your local radio station at around 9.30am. Tomorrow I'll be on a few stations in northern Tasmania at 7.40am. Those are Queensland times, not local time, so you'll have to add an hour.

The headlines will read: Homemaker speaks, the nation listens. ; - )

I'm sure you all know by now that I love knitting - dishcloths being a favourite subject of my affection. Well, I was reading a knitting book last week and came across a new (to me) pattern that I thought would make up a very nice dishcloth. I worked it over the weekend and have just taken a photo for you.

I bake all our biscuits, cakes and bread, so I am always on the lookout for recipes which are quick and easy. I thought I would share one of my favourite biscuit (cookie) recipes. It is easy, quick, cheap and it makes 7 or 8 dozen biscuits, which keep well. The dough and cooked biscuits keep well in the freezer. I use butter and wholemeal flour, but white flour and margarine can be substituted. I have only ever used tinned sweetened condensed milk in this recipe, but i imagine that Rhonda Jean's homemade condensed milk would work just as well.

makes 7-8 dozen, cook 10 min at 180C

500 grams butter (approx 1.1 lb)
1 can condensed milk (390-400 gram)
1 cup sugar
5 cups wholemeal self raising flour (or plain flour and baking powder)
toppings like choc chips, smarties, jam, cinnamon and sugar

cream butter and sugar, add condensed milk. stir in flour. roll into balls and flatten. top with choc chips etc, or thumbprint and add jam for jam drops.

bake at 180C for approx 10 min until golden brown. cool on racks

I love finding a recipe that I know I'll use in the years to come. I found such a recipe a couple of weeks ago and was delighted with the results. It came from the Down to Earth forum, submitted by Paula Hewitt and she calls them Easy and Cheap Biscuits (cookies).


The great thing abut this recipe is that it uses only four ingredients. Paula says the recipe makes 70 - 80 biscuits. I made up one lot of about 40, another batch of 25 a week later and I still have one batch frozen as a log in the freezer.

I turned some into jam drops.

I'm going to share this recipe with our fundraisers at work. I reckon a little tray of these biscuits would sell at our stall for about $4 which would make us just over $50 per batch. I estimate the cost of ingredient to be just under $10 if we buy condensed milk, and less if we make our own. Definitely a handy recipe for charity fundraising.

But here at home it's a good one to make up and have in the freezer for unexpected guests. You could defrost the dough and have them cooked in under an hour. I've written the recipe inside the cover of my Feast cookbook, I'm sure Nigella would approve. This is definitely a keeper.

You'll notice I've put up some Amazon ads for the USA, Canada and the UK. The UK Amazon is now offering free postage to UK buyers from now until January 1, 2010. There is no minimum purchase needed. I will use any money I make on these ads to finance the set up and ongoing costs of the forum.

The start of another week and I'm back to working Mondays and Tuesdays from today. Hasn't this year gone fast! I guess you're all working on your Christmas gifts. I have discovered a new favourite dishcloth pattern. I'll show it to you tomorrow. I hope you have a beautiful week.

I'm happy to report that it all went very well with Hanno's surgery yesterday. He went in at 1pm, I popped down to Spotlight to check out a sale then spent a couple of hours in the waiting room, knitting, and he hobbled out at 5.30pm. We got home around 6pm. He had no pain, didn't need crutches and he slept fairly well last night. Today and tomorrow will be the test, the doctor said he must allow the knee to heal but he also needs to exercise it. His idea of rest, and mine, are entirely different so we'll see what happens today. My guess is he'll sit on the couch and on the front verandah until he reads everything he wants to read, then he'll want to wander around. Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers.


I was going to write about biscuits today but that can wait for another time because I'm going to carry on from yesterday. My post on "perfection" seemed to hit a cord with a few of you so let's expand on that.

I was saddened to read some of yesterday's comments. I know it's difficult to overcome something you've live with in childhood but as adults we have the choice to live as we wish. Examine your fears, think about what you believe perfection to be and develop the strength to toss out old ideas and work on new ones. Oh, and examine your fears in the bright light of day, not at 3am lying silently in the darkness when everything seems hopeless. If trying to be perfect just isn't working for you then replace that need with doing your best.

When elite athletes train for the Olympics they don't try to beat world records, they try to beat their own personal best. And that is a helpful tactic here too. Just do your best on any given day, you can't ask for more than that. I know that as I go through my week, some days I feel I can take on the world, and some days I just want to write, drink tea and rest. NO ONE, has the capacity to work perfectly every day. Not every day will be perfect - in fact very few are.

If you're expecting perfection you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You're hoping for something that rarely happens. Don't do that to yourself. Instead, today, this very minute, say to yourself that you're replacing the expectation of perfection with doing your best. And in the days that follow this one, try your best in every thing you do. Slow down and concentrate on what it is you're doing - don't rush through your work trying to get it done - and do your best. Some days your best will be spectacular and some days it won't be but as long as you can go to bed each day thinking that you did the best you could do on that day, that will stand you in good stead. Hopefully over the course of a few months, you'll replace your mother's voice in your head, insisting on perfection, with: I'm proud that I did the best I could.

I have touched on this subject before here: The best

I hope today is a good one for you and that whatever you do, you'll do your best and be happy with it. And remember, happiness is not one huge reward you find one day. It's tiny fragments that are collected every day and added to your basket. Never stop looking for whatever happiness you can find. It maybe in the passage of a book, it may be lurking in your garden or on the faces of your children. Take note of every happy moment, add them to your basket and be enriched by the thought of them as you go through your day.

It doesn't take much, just one good night's sleep and I'm ready to take on the world again. Thank you for your good wishes and prayers for Hanno, we both appreciate them. We'll go in later this morning and be home late this afternoon; no doubt there will be news to write about tomorrow.


But today I want to talk about perfection. I don't talk about it much, mainly because I don't believe many things are perfect, I rarely seek perfection and I tend to feel a bit uneasy when things look too good. I prefer to live in a slightly wobbly, less than perfect world. It suits my nature, I don't have to constantly measure myself against some "perfect" ideal and I learn so much when I make mistakes. Don't mistake perfection for happiness, they are two entirely different things.

If you were to ask me how I discovered how to do what I do I would probably tell you that my mistakes have taught me well. My mentors are books and the fading memories of the many things my mother and grandmother taught me. I also have the remarkable benefit of having grown up in a time when people did for themselves. But the mistakes I made along the way have taught me things I will never forget. When I first left home I tried to forget what I knew because I wanted to be modern, eat convenience foods and live more outside my home than in it. When I reversed that trend I found I still remembered much of what I was taught and saw but still, my main teacher were the mistakes I made.


There is nothing better for making you remember a sequence, a recipe, a method, than putting time into something and then realising you have to start again. A mistake, that perfect teacher, makes you undo stitches, give food to the chooks and make a skirt into an apron, all because you did something wrong. But do you ever make that same mistake again - I don't, I learn from what I did wrong and redoing it cements it into my brain.


If you're starting off with knitting, sewing, crochet, soap making, homemaking or marriage, be kind to yourself when you make a mistake. See it as a gift. You won't waste too much of your project if you unpick and redo, and the process of doing it will be your teacher. Don't look for perfection, except if you are seeking a warm sunny day, a five out of five nest of new hatchlings, or the first glimpse of your new baby. They will all be perfect, most other things rarely are.

I applaud you if you set delicious meals on the table every night, if you never drop a stitch, or if you produce batch upon batch of perfect soap. But when you do make a mistake, don't beat yourself up about it. Be kind to yourself, let yourself enjoy all this life has to give you - even the mistakes. See a mistake for what it is - an opportunity to teach yourself. I remember the first time I tried to knit a headband. I unpicked that thing about 10 times before I got the tension and size right, and then it turned into a hat! But I learnt so much from that hat. It still shines as a bright beacon for me because it taught me not only how to knit hats and headbands, it taught me that wasting time on perfection sometimes gets in the way of what I want and need.


My own less than perfect day today will include taking my husband in for surgery, knitting, thinking about whether to replace a broken dishwasher, cooking, updating my diary and mapping out what I'm doing from now till Christmas, including deadlines (I really don't want to do that) and reading. There will be parts of today I don't like but overall it is a day just like all others to be mined for all the enjoyment I can find in it.

I wonder what you're doing on this less than perfect day.