Let's Be Adventurers

It's brewing ever so mildly and steadily within, but I can feel it picking up strength - this feeling that we're on an adventure, that we've taken bold steps towards a new way of living and opened ourselves up to so many things that were previously off the agenda. It's not huge stuff in the scheme of things, just lifestyle stuff, kid-raising stuff. Gardening, food sourcing, choices about consumption and how we pass our time. Here we can do it, whereas previously it was difficult or impossible. Here we can grow food or buy it from the person who grows it. Here we can step back from that cycle of want/buy/discard/want more. Here we can move away from screens and into the backyard, and spend time together at home rather than having to escape it at every opportunity to outrun the cabin fever of too-small spaces.

Our big step away from what we know has been relatively safe. We didn't sell up and quit jobs and sail off into the unknown. We still own a house in Sydney, we've brought our work with us, friends and family are only an hour and a bit of freeway away.

But yet we took the step. And however small and however safe, it feels like a rollicking great adventure to me, and hopefully the first of many.

So this Saturday, I'm grateful for adventures, big and small. And, as always, grateful for the ones taking the ride with me.

Joining in with Maxabella.

Print purchased here.

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. 

Via Soulemama

Bready

This is what remained this morning of a Bourke Street Bakery olive oil loaf picked up yesterday on a quick trip back to Sydney. 

That's a couple of kilos of flour and some fresh yeast, picked up at the same time.

I've been going on about wanting to do it since I first moved out of home into my first share house. I've always held baking my own bread up as a lofty ideal, something associated with good honest nurturing and home-making. And aside from a few foccacias and the occasional pizza base, I've never quite managed to get there. 

The gift of this book a while ago has been the biggest inspiration towards the bread-making goal, and now that I can't pop into the Bourke Street Bakery for an olive oil loaf whenever I please, it's time I finally got on with it. That yeast has a two-week fridge 'life'. Clock's ticking...

 And it's on the list, so I guess I have to now.

Loose Ends

I'm a few loose ends and a good blocking away from having another finished project this week. That would have been two in two weeks - far superior to my usual batting average. And may I just say a quick thank you for all of your lovely comments on last week's effort. I'm happy to report that it fits Edie with room to grow.

Of course, the almost finished cardigan was begun some weeks ago and has just been waiting for sleeves, which it scored yesterday. I had visions of this being the perfect short-sleeved cotton cardi for my girls on those cooler summer days. Of course, now that we've moved out of Sydney, we're dealing with cold summer days, so we'll be needing something sturdier than cotton to survive this new climate. To that end, I'm also working away on a proper little vintage-style wool cardigan - long sleeves and buttons all the way up the front. It's the first of several snuggly things in store for the young ladies of the house.

Having finished my Lily Brett book from last week, I've been resisting the siren call of Book Depository, determined to make do with our overflowing shelves here at home. Moving house has unearthed lots of classics and other stuff that I either read ages ago or still haven't gotten to. I've started 'An Item From the Late News' by Thea Astley, an Australian writer. The GM studied this book for his HSC (that's our final exams here) back in the late '80s, and this is his copy, marked with underlines and notes in the margins throughout. I can vouch that his writing was as illegible then as it is now.

Joining in with the Yarn Along over at Small Things.

Food Styler

Working from home has its advantages, especially when you're a mum. There's no travel time, for instance, and yes, you can spend the day in your jammies if you so desire.

But there are pitfalls. Today I was working on a little project, a follow-on from this one last year. I thought I'd attempt some photos while the girls were playing, but one little monkey found a way to muscle in on the action.

I'll post some of the successful photos soon, as well as the recipes. That one there - an apple, cherry and almond loaf - was bloody delicious, and healthy too! 

Grateful

There's a lot of gratitude swirling around on the blogs I read, it seems, and lots of thoughts on how good a bit of intentional thankfulness can be. I went through a stage once (probably back in my self-help book reading days) when I would write a list of five things I was grateful for each night before going to sleep. It was good for me. Good for keeping things in perspective, good for making me focus on what I had rather than what was missing, and what was working rather than what was not. I've been sneaking glances at the Grateful link thing over at Maxabella loves... for a few months now. And it's a new year, and the topic is 'beginnings', and suddenly it seems apt that I join in.

So here I am, still in the first week of the new year, grateful, oh, so grateful for this new beginning here in this new town. It was a serious slog, and a little bit crazy to try and squeeze the move in two weeks before Christmas after one of the busiest ends of the year ever. But I knew I wanted to be in this house, in this new town, when this new year began. It just made sense.

And having survived the end of that year, I'm just incredibly grateful to be starting this one here, where there's room to run, space to breathe, no need to go anywhere if we don't want to, nature in all its glory in every nook and cranny, and three gorgeous little girls and their lovely dad finding their feet, in this new life, with me.

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. 

Via Soulemama

Zoo

One rug spread out on the grass,

a menagerie of toy animals,

a basket of wooden blocks,

a few bowls of 'hay',

two little girls learning animal sounds from their big sister

and not a single request for the TV all afternoon.

Cherry Red

One thing I know about knitting: a few stitches here, a few stitches there, eventually you'll get yourself something useful. Somehow during the chaos of the past several weeks, a whole stack of stolen moments have added together to create this only-just-slightly-late first Christmas present for my little friend Edie. 

Her mum requested cherry red. Naturally, I was happy to oblige. Red and I go well together. I used my old faithful pattern Baby Kina with my old favourite yarn Baby Cashmerino. It's so lovely to work with. After my last efforts with the Baby Kina, I decided to go with the six-month size, even though Edie is a robust 9-month-old. I hope it fits. Please let it fit.

I'm slowly working my way through another of the GM's book fair purchases - 'You Gotta Have Balls' by Lily Brett. I'm not overly excited by it but it'll do for now. (Gee, I wonder why I never became a book critic.)

Folded and ready to send. First finished project for 2012 - check! Ravelry notes here. Oh, and those sweet vintage buttons are from a huge stash that used to belong to my grandmother, another redhead. I've been saving them for someone special.

Joining in the Yarn Along, as one does.

Hiss in the Grass

In our first week here, we met the couple next door, the woman down the lane, the old bloke across the road and the owners of the general store. Our neighbours on the other side remained strangely aloof. This week, however, we finally met them. They came knocking with startling news. 

There is a snake.

I am not very good with snakes. Spiders I can handle. I don't like them, but I can get them into a jar and outside where they belong. But snakes are a different thing altogether. Rational or otherwise, my great rural dream, the one with a piece of land outside a town to grow food and raise animals, always screeches to silence in my mind when I get to the snake bit. What if they come near the house? God help me, what if one gets into the house?

I have been quietly convincing myself that there are no snakes in the Southern Highlands, and definitely none in our tiny village. It's too cool here. Too elevated. Too English-looking. We've chosen well.

As it happens, the neighbours have observed a snake on their lawn the last few mornings and believe it lives - lives?! - in the lane between our two properties. Turns out there's such a thing as a highlands copperhead. Lucky us.

I gaze out at our lovely large yard with its established fruit trees and flowering shrubs, and now all I see is a menacing jungle with dozens of dark, damp corners that would be enticing to slithering reptiles. Some therapy is in order. 


I'm going to convince myself it is a legless lizard. A harmless, legless lizard with whom I can coexist peacefully and happily.

It might eat its young but it won't eat mine!

Say it with me, people. Legless and harmless. Legless and harmless. Legless and harmless...