I’ve always been a bit careful of cooking with herbs and spices.
Truth be told, I’m a bit scared of them – as I don’t know how they Continue reading “RECIPE: Butter Chicken”
Tag: be simple
negative headspace
o0o
I feel so at odds of late.
In the quiet times when I am by myself, and I am able to spend time being introspective – I can see that I am in a season of a very negative headspace – and have been unable to shift it…
I teeter between feelings of anger, disappointment, hurt, overwhelm, being used, sadness, irritation, being taken for granted, feeling unappreciated, cranky and just plain ole miserable!
The only times I don’t have tears welling in my eyes, Continue reading “negative headspace”
southbound again
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SO…here I am once again sitting at the airport, waiting to get on a flight and I’m southbound again to go and help with tidying up yet more affairs of my deceased Mumma and her very-much-alive Hubby (TnT) – who is now in Aged Care.
Its been a pretty stressful time for the last fortnight, with the house having gone on the market, selling really quite quickly, then T initially not wanting to sign the contract, but eventually signing it, and then after the house became unconditional, he refused to sign Continue reading “southbound again”
breathe
irons in the fire
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I feel like I have a million irons in the fire right now – and I’m going to need to be super-diligent of how I schedule my Life and time over the next couple of weeks, otherwise I know that I am going to seriously deplete my already low energy reserves, and end up being a gibbering, anxiety-ridden mess – who cant get anything accomplished! Continue reading “irons in the fire”
groovy gadgets
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Hows this for a groovy gadget?!??
Today a friend posted a picture of something his wife had made at a Simple Living class that she had attended, and I thought it was soooo awesome that I’m wanting to make one too!!
Now I just need to carve out a bit of time to do it in.
Isn’t it fabulous?
Have you made something like it or are planning to?
If you have, I’d love to see it!
all wrapped up!
open and ready to use 🙂
progress
I’ve spent my “free-time Friday” this week, moving furniture around a bit within our little home.
I’ve now made room for my writing desk to go into our living room space so that it will front on to the big glass doors, which means I’ll now have a lovely view of our garden to look out on when I write, instead of only being able to see the top of the trees – which was my previous view from the dining room table – due to me being ‘horizontally challenged’ 😀
I love our garden so much – and love to take my laptop outside to write, when the weather is being kind – but of late its either been blisteringly hot, or pouring with rain – and as we don’t yet have a covered outdoor area, it means I am confined to indoors during those times.
Right now, we don’t use our lounge-room area a whole lot – its more of a winter area for us in the evenings; but when I’m home alone, I’ll often use the area for reading, otherwise it doesn’t get a lot of traffic – so I’ve been looking at ways to re-jig it, so that it not only gets more use, but is a more practical space for us.
And what better way to do that than to incorporate my writing desk into the area!
I have also been keeping a look-out at the tip-shop and the second-hand shops for a day-bed, which I will put along the wall that currently houses a huuuuuuge lounge-chair and a chest of drawers.
The drawers will move to the next wall over, and the lounge-chair will probably be sold.
We don’t use the lounge-chair, and rarely have visitors who would use it – so its just being a space-sucker!
(although our puppies may disagree with my opinions on this particular piece of furniture)
Its all a work in progress, and today I’m loving’ the progress I’ve made! 🙂
My lovely calm writing space.
You can see the view I have, in the title Image for this post 🙂
15 nuggets
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1. You are not your body and your body is not you but you best look after each other anyway.
You might be together for a while.
2. You’ll never have more potential than you do right now, so find a way to use more of what you’ve got.
3. You think too much.
4. It’s not a time issue.
It’s a how-you-manage-your-time issue.
5. You’ll never be perfect, so aim for better.
6. You’ll never live in the future or the past, so find a way to be happy in the now.
7. Your beliefs, standards and rules will change over time so don’t get too self-righteous about your current ones.
8. Life doesn’t get better, you do.
Life is life – it will happen to you, around you and despite you.
It’s your job to get better in the middle of it all.
9. Your body is not the problem.
It’s the consequence.
10. You’ll never find yourself in things.
So stop looking there.
11. Even though you might not feel it, think it, believe it or hear it, you are good enough.
12. Your happiness works from the inside-out.
Not the other way around.
13. Things only have the meaning you give them.
Every day, you get to create your own reality.
So choose your labels wisely.
14. Nobody can take your power but you can give it away.
Master your fear and you’ll master your life.
15. Real success is not about what you earn, own, achieve or win but who you become along the way.
gettin’ closer
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Its a year on from my “one step at a time” post – and I’m reflecting a bit about where I am now as opposed to this time last year.
Some things haven’t yet changed.
I am still at my job as a Manager, I am still working three days a week, and I’m still not a full-time HouseSpouse.
YET!
A lot has change though…
We have the house in town on the market – for sale.
We have moved full-time into the FarmHouse.
We have stacks of garden beds that are flourishing with edible produce, that fills our bellies with wholesome homegrown goodness.
We have enough surplus veggies that I am able to do canning so that our pantry shelves are stocked with a variety of foods that we know the ingredients of, and I routinely make our own bread.
We have chickens that supply us with all of our own fresh eggs, and we home-cook 95% of the food we eat.
I have managed to reduce our food budget substantially.
I have also paid off a lot of credit card debt, and will hopefully have paid off the remainder of it in less than a year.
We also no longer have cable tv or home phone line payments to have to find the money for.
I have reduced my clothing spending significantly, although we are going to need to buy some new-to-us work shirts soon, as the ones we currently share are getting a bit faded and threadbare lol.
And – we’ve reduced our power and water consumption!
I may not be as close to where I want to be as I would like – but I am certainly a lot closer than I was a year ago – and for that, I’m pretty darn proud of the headway I’ve made…
: strength :
Strength doesn’t come from what you can do;
it comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t do.
When you are at your lowest point,
you are open to the greatest positive change.
Happiness is not the absence of problems,
but the strength to deal with them.
The strongest people are the ones who feel pain,
accept it,
learn from it,
and fight through it.
They turn their wounds into wisdom….
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