In Love With Old.

The buying ban is going well. It has been a lot of fun, actually. Apart from my regular hankering for a Thermomix, I haven't yet missed anything. All our needs have thus far been met, and we are enjoying being creative in sourcing things. If we can't find something, we don't buy it.

We have broken the buying ban once. We moved our chicken pen to the back of our block, and discovered that our backyard hose was not long enough to reach the new pen. We bought a hose connector to join our two hoses up so we could still replenish the duck pond and chicken drinking water. We bought a metal one, on the premise that it will last longer, and is less likely to break and become landfill.

I have developed a slight eBay addiction hobby. In fact, I have mastered the art of 'snipering' and have developed a failsafe strategy for keeping the bids low whilst still ensuring the kill win purchase.

So, here are some of my favourite purchases this year.... some of these have come from local Facebook secondhand selling sites, some from Gumtree and of course, some from eBay.

 I actually haven't decided whether this enamel milk jug and cream container will be purely decorative or not.... but I just love them!

 

 I gave my old plastic washing basket to my mum when I found this gorgeous sturdy wicker one. Wicker baskets make me feel like more of a wife and homemaker. I can't explain it, they are just magic like that.

 Nath cracked my old (cheap) mortar and pestle and for the first time during the buying ban I was worried as I wasn't sure I would find a decent one secondhand - its not the kind of thing people generally get rid of. However, I was lucky enough to find this beauty on gumtree for $40, and, even better, it had only ever been used for decorative purposes! These usually sell for $70 - $80 new.

The sifter was something I bought after cleaning out my overflowing Tupperware cupboard. Over the years, I have bought so much Tupperware that I literally had to open the door to the cupboard, throw things in and shut the door quickly so nothing fell out. I did a huge cleanout, partially to empty my cupboard and partially to rid our kitchen of unneccessary plastic. I grew up with a sifter like this (although my mum has since 'upgraded'!) and was thrilled to find this one cheap on eBay.

 I bought Nath this didgeridoo as a gift from someone locally who was selling things in preparation to move. Nath first started dreaming of owning a didgeridoo over five years ago when we were travelling. I remember him looking at some at the markets in Broome. At the time, all of our money was going towards caravan park fees, fuel to get to the next place and food. Finally, I am able to treat him to one. This one is made from Northern Territory Blackbutt wood.

I remember a set of these lined up on my grandmother's benchtop when I was a little girl. This was a purely nostalgic purchase, and well worth it for the looks on my own girls' faces when they saw them - they love the shiny, bright colours (and the sound the lids make when clanged together).

These purchases have weaved their way into the texture of our home and make our spaces feel like they have a bit of story to them. I am loving my home these days, it is so rewarding to create a beautiful, restoring place for our family, and for my children to be able to grow up with some of the memories of special things, similar to the ones that I have from my childhood in my mother's kitchen and laundry, as well as my grandmother's.

It's The Small Things.

Right now, I am sitting in a friend's house, watching her two beautiful boys for her while she and her partner are out for the night. The boys are both sleeping, I'm curled up on the couch with an iced coffee, a block of chocolate and Season One of Gray's Anatomy. The Cats just won the football, and tomorrow is Sunday.

It's the small things that make me happy, and today has been full of small things....

Chatting to a friend I haven't spoken to in a while....

Taking the kids to watch some vintage racing cars race up Mt Ommaney...

Miya saying, as we watched the cars, "I LOVE this! This is my FAVOURITE day!"....

Nath and the girls going for a picnic in the park, giving me valuable time by myself.....

Having a wonderful four hour nap this afternoon while my girls first slept, then played happily....

Ordering our Autumn seed collection ready for planting next weekend....

Both Eden and Miya saying "I love you", unprompted, at different points of the day....

Looking at the housework and thinking, "It will wait."....

Counting four little green tomatoes growing on our tree....

Watching the girls pick herbs and salad greens from our garden to go in the scrambled eggs from our chickens....

What have your 'small things' been? I'd love to hear them, being the voyeur that I am....

It's Been Awhile.

I apologise for my absence of late. Amidst holidaying, returning to routine and other bits and pieces that have been going on, I have also been feeling like I have sitting in a creative hollow as far as blogging is concerned. There are a few reasons for this, not all of which I am willing to share, and some of which have taken some soul searching to get to the bottom of.

As a blogger, I enjoy not only writing my own thoughts and experiences but reading the things that other people write, too. I subscribe to over fifty blogs and I read the feeds from these daily. I am terrible at sharing the comments love on other people's blogs, but I love to read them. It feels like a looking glass into people's lives, and I am voyeuristic like that!

However, I was finding that the more I delved into the blogging world, the more disheartened I was becoming. I went through a bit of a blogging existential crisis. I would read about people who received thousands of visits every week, and my humble little blog was plodding towards 4000 visits for the entire few months of its existence. I would see bloggers cross referencing each other, engaging in banter within their posts, be nominated for awards, attract sponsors. I would be very happy for them, these favourite bloggers of mine, but my own exciting blogging moments were limited to seeing another visitor pop up on my page. I'm not sure why all of this bothered me, but it did.

I also found that I was reading blogs written by people with very similar values to me, walking very similar paths, except they seemed to do it so much better than me. Their days seem filled with effortless transitions from one peaceful, meaningful activity to the next, constantly taking advantage of endless learning opportunities that magically arose in their day, peppered with wholesome, homemade, organic snacks and meals for their incredibly well-behaved, calm and tranquil families.

Now, I know it is harder than that. But I also know that blogging becomes our calm place, our place to celebrate the positive things from the day. In our family, those beautiful, educational, wholesome moments happen in between tantrums, headaches, dirty floors, sneaky I-Can't-Be-Bothered-Tonight pizza nights (and not always the healthy homemade ones!), sibling arguments, sulks and a few frequent maternal losses of temper. We are not perfect. We are far from it. I am sorry if my blog thus far has led you to believe otherwise. It's just that, after a day of wading through the shitty moments looking for the good ones, I really don't want to have to relive it by writing about them. Those moments are put to bed when the kids are, and washed down with a glass of wine.

My blog may never win awards. It may not be read by thousands of people. But this little blog will continue to be the place I come to when I reflect on my day, the medium by which I realise "Hey, I'm not doing a bad job here. I'm doing ok."

This blog will continue to be a record of the road I am walking. It will continue to be the space in which I write about my fumbling attempts to live a simpler, greener, calmer life. I have never claimed to be perfect. I have never claimed to be an expert. I don't expect anyone to change the way they live, I am not in the business of judging others for their lifestyle decisions. This blog is my selfish place. This blog is about me. You are welcome along for the ride, but please remember, this is my ride. I will keep blogging, readers or no readers, in order to be true to myself.

So, I'm back.