When writing is like housekeeping

Procrastination can be one's own worst enemy. There is always something else we would rather be doing, something else I would rather be doing, yet there are things that just need to be done.

For me, housework and keeping our home organised isn't really a chore - it's something that I enjoy doing and which relaxes and soothes me. The end product of a clean and tidy space is always worth the time and effort. It might also help that I try and keep our house tidy and clutter free throughout the week (whether I'm working or not) and maintain a really simple approach to housework. 

I don't follow a particular cleaning schedule or timetable for our housework and I've often wondered if I should. But I don't really like hard and fast rules, more of a guideline to get things done. Like I said, keeping it simple without pressure to complete certain things by certain times works better for me. 

Since I've been on leave I now have more days to get everything done and I seem to have fallen into the rhythm of doing the heaviest housework at the beginning of the week then tapering off as the week goes on (and I begin to lose my energy and my motivation).

Monday, the day when I have the most motivation and energy is for vacuuming and mopping the floors. After the busy weekends (when I tend to do as little housework as possible!) the floors need attention. Tuesday has always been bathroom cleaning day.

Dusting happens when I notice that things are dusty - but even that is getting done about once a week now that I have more time. 

Big jobs like cleaning the windows and the front and back deck tend not to happen as often as they could. When I sit on our lounge and look out the front windows and notice streaks or dirt, or when I am in the dining room and see that muddy paw prints on the back glass door, I know it's time to clean the windows and glass.

Just after Nic was born we lived in a small, Defense-owned townhouse which got no natural light whatsoever. Up until that point, I had no idea how important natural light in a house was to my sense of wellbeing! It felt like we were living in a mushroom - and not a pretty, red and white toadstool one like Mr Mouse. Since then, having natural light come in unfiltered into our living space has been a blessing. It is one of the things that I love most about our house. The warmth and light in the kitchen in the morning, then as the sun makes its way across the sky, various windows in the living spaces get sun (perfect for lying in during winter) until finally the sun hits our front yard and pours in through the lounge room windows - so long as they are clean and streak-free! 

I am also becoming quite adept at cleaning as I go. This winter so much of my time has been spent in the kitchen and this is an area that I love to keep clean and clutter free. Cleaning as I go keeps everything under control, without getting too overwhelming, especially if I am baking bread and a sweet treat. I'm not terribly up-tight about this, and I'm not striving for perfection, but having the space neat and tidy means that my mind is free to move on to other things, like creative pursuits. 

On the weekend, breakfast dishes and fixings can sit around longer as people tend to eat later and at different times. I try and avoid tidying up more than once a meal! Also on the weekends when the kids are home, the general mess and evidence of them enjoying themselves (chess boards out, lego battles in the hallway, bananagrams on the kitchen table, piles of books on lounges and rugs thrown about) is not something I stress about. By the end of the day, we make sure to put things away, but when they are being used then the mess is more than welcome. To me it is a sign of happy, young people playing and engaging with their spaces. As for their bedrooms, maybe once a week I will do a quick spot clean through their rooms, but most of the time we expect them to clean them.

When the washing is done, I try to get it folded and ready to be put away (the kids put their own clothes away once folded) on the same day that it is done. I really don't like having baskets of washing lying around the place. This just makes things overwhelming and, really, it's not that hard to just get it done straight away. 

I know not everyone has the same motivation as I do to clean as you go, or to clean - even if you don't feel like it. In fact, this is where I often find myself when it comes to writing. 

I want to write and often tell myself that I will sit down and write when "such-and-such" is done. This is my form of procrastination. I have realised that if I just sit down at my desk (which I try and keep neat and tidy so that I don't distract myself with more cleaning!) and begin to read over where I left off then the words will come. Even if I don't feel terribly inspired to begin, once I've picked up the thread of the story and gotten into the world of Sylvie et al, it becomes much easier to write.

As I mentioned, my daily schedule is quite flexible, but most mornings I'm done with my chores by mid-morning coffee time. I've usually put a bread on in the bread maker (my favourite way to make bread is to do the kneading and rising in the bread maker and then make the loaf or some rolls in the oven) and can sit and dedicate some time to my stories or to my research.

That, in fact, is another area of procrastination for me. I love researching and taking notes. Some days I will do more of this than the actual writing and it is something I need to be mindful of. Do I need this information to write right now or am I procrastinating again and stopping myself from writing? Perhaps it sounds like I don't enjoy writing, but I really do and once I get start, well let's just say it's hard to stop! I can go for hours once those juices are flowing. Perhaps I need some clearer goals about my writing - in terms of achieving set goals, but most of the time I'm pretty casual about these too. I don't want it become a chore, something I really don't want to do but feel like I have to because I've set myself deadlines and goals. It's a fine line of balancing. For me, at this stage of my life, writing is a hobby. I don't make money from it or risk missing out by not completing pages by a set time. My overall goal is to complete the 12 short stories of Sylvie's life (one per month) and I've done seven, so that to me says that I'm on the right track. If procrastination continues to raise it's head I may have to consider how important this 'hobby' is to me right now. 

However you choose to clean your house or approach your writing, I am sure it is different to my rather laissez faire attitude. I'm sure in many ways it is probably better and more organised and your goals are achieved much more quickly than mine. I like the way I approach both though and feel that many things can still be accomplished without stressing or applying too much pressure. I suppose my main goal in housekeeping and in writing is to keep things as simple as possible. I hope you can also find a simple way to get things done that you might otherwise be putting off.

This photo is of my little 'library nook' where I sit with my electric fire early in the mornings until the sun rises and begins to stream in through the blinds. I always keep this space cozy and tidy :)

Herb Garden

     

It is the greenest winter that I ever remember seeing here! Out on a walk today (one of our favourite routes in our neighbourhood down to the local creek) I couldn't help but marvel at how green everything was. It looked like spring! At 14 degrees it almost felt like spring too!

                                 

The creek was actually a babbling brook! Amazing to think that six months ago everything was brown and dead and we could see the rocks and silt at the bottom of that creek bed! (when we were able to go out for walks in the summer due to the ubiquitous smoke haze!)

Amazingly in the garden we are still harvesting our herbs. One of my favourite Youtubers, Self-Sufficient Me, has the catch phrase, "You don't have to be self-sufficient in everything but you should be self-sufficient in something!" We are so far from being self-sufficient in everything but the one thing we are self-sufficient in is our herbs.

                                

We have basil in summer (and then dried and stored for winter), parsley, rosemary, mint, oregano and thyme. These are the herbs that we use most anyways so it is wonderful to have fresh and dried organic herbs on hand year round.

I use them all the time in pasta sauce, soups, casseroles and stews, roasts, focaccia, breads and pizza, just about everything savoury!  So tasty and they really do make a difference to your cooking. Even cultivating a little pot of one of these herbs (preferably the one you use the most) is worthwhile. The mint is also lovely as tea. I simply dried it in a very low oven and then crunched the leaves up into little "tea-sized" pieces. Add to hot water and enjoy!

Today we had such an abundance of herbs that I grabbed a few handfuls and gave them to the chooks. I read somewhere that oregano from the garden is a natural antibiotic for chooks so I was happy when they began pecking at it. Not that they are sick, but hopefully this will be a nutritious snack for them. As for the bunny, his favourite snack is mint - which keeps the crop in the garden under control (consider planting this one in a pot if you don't want it to take over your whole garden!!)

                                   

Taking the plunge

                                                

I contemplated the possibility of blog writing again for a while before I decided to pick it up again. Not many people write blogs these days - those time seems to have come to an end. Especially blogs like mine, with no real purpose, no business backing and no agenda to sell. Yet, I still love reading my favourite blogs and figured there may still be some people out there who are interested in more than just a picture or quick fly-away comment designed to impress or provoke controversy. This blog has never attempted to do either of those things, nor will it in the future. Nor does it exist solely to be read. It is as much for my own benefit as any other reason. I enjoy speculating on books, thoughts, ideas and general life and miss doing so. I have continued my personal journals and thought notebooks over the years, and will always love pen and paper musings, but I also missed making a more official (if that's the right word) recording of our daily happenings.

I also considered starting a new blog, one to chronicle a new chapter in my life, but I have decided to continue on with the old one. The set up is already here and ready to go, many pages of our past live here (which I still love to scroll back over) and it just seemed right to continue on. So here I am.

So what's happened in the last five years?

The characters are mostly the same (if all a little older). There are a few new members:

The chickens:

           

The bunny:

                                               

The Budgie:

And of course Dash is still here too:

                                            

The setting is the same (just renovated here and there).

                                   

The story plots are different (but that was to be expected if you read any of my old posts of novel writing)

The love of history and studying history and researching and taking notes and reflecting on them is still the same.

Thus, here we are.

Life has been good to us for the last five years, so much so that I was able to take some leave from my teaching job. We are just beginning our Winter holidays as I write this, so technically my leave doesn't start for another two weeks. I am looking forward to recording some little aspects of my sabbatical here.

This year has been a tough one and I, like many others, am realising that a simplification of life is the way forward; making home life a priority and enjoying the little things along the way. I have many thoughts on this topic and read a lot on it too, so expect to see my thoughts here. 

Welcome.

looking back

January is all about looking forward, making plans and resolutions and pondering things to come. I like to use it as a time to look back as well.

2012 was quite a year for us.

We started renovations on our house, painting the kitchen, rumpus room, lounge room and bedrooms.

The layout doesn't actually look like this anymore, but the paint is the same :)

We combined the kids into one room and eventually we got them settled into bunk beds. 

We rode bikes and scooters, and eventually said goodbye to training wheels.

We watched mum's tummy grow :)

We started preschool and made new friends.

We saw dinosaurs, frogs, butterflies, ducks, lizards, pigs, goats, rabbits, and more.

We made racing track cakes and dozens of cupcakes :)


We potted round the garden and were rewarded with dozens of flowers

We went to galleries, museums, parks, rivers and beaches.

We welcomed our newest member into the family, our baby girl in October.

All round a very good year :)

What were your 2012 highlights?

january's wicked ways

Happy new year all! I'm a bit slow in the new year uptake but I think that's part of the beauty of January :) We've had a lovely time over the holidays, catching up with family in Wollongong, visiting the beach and generally just indulging and being indulged :)

January is a bit of a wily enigma around these parts. Sometimes she's cool and drizzly and others you are sitting on high 30 degrees temps for weeks in a row. At the moment, we're sailing (like bugs through mud) through the later. It has been a hot and dry start to the year. There were a couple of days where we got evening thunder storms but, sadly, even they seem to have fizzled under this oppressive heat and beat it too. Not that I'm complaining too much - one of the best parts of surviving a long, cold (snowless) Canberra winter is looking forward to the scorcher summers. It's like the summers of my childhood, long, dry and sweltering. Ahh, sweet, hot nostalgia.

Unfortunately January is carrying the rather unflattering tags of 'extreme' and 'catastrophic' at the moment, especially in regards to bush fires. It's a wicked, wicked time and I hope you are all safe. People and animals alike :)

But January is pretty special for other reasons too. You know, that whole resolutions thing. It's that time of year when you think, this is something I want to do, something I need to do and now is the perfect time to do it. It is a wonderful time to be mindful, as in thinking of the now, planning ahead is important yes, but so is taking the time to be mindful of today, of right now, this minute. If life is getting too busy for you, then make a plan to slow down. If the kids' schedules are making you feel like you're more of a taxi driver than an engaged mum (or dad) with the time to sit and connect with your kids then be mindful of what this is doing to you and your kids and make the plan to cut back.

My resolutions have been quite simple this year. If you guessed finishing Orpheus as being one of them, you would be right :) I've nearly finished planning the trilogy - did I tell you that the one book is now branching out into a trilogy?? that one book that I've been writing for five years and still haven't finished?? What can I say, I like a challenge ;) - and once all the links, kinks and twists have been worked out I can finish planning the first book and get down to more writing. Which I'm very excited about. I've got a notebook which I've covered with pretty scrapping paper, because I believe if you're going to have goals and dreams you may aswell write them down in something pretty, something that you want to look at everyday, something that inspires you. So my goals are written down in there, plus it's big enough to hold notes and plans for the stories.

Another big plan is to finish decorating my study. I mentioned that the process had begun but only in the last week or two since the festive season have the paint brushes come out and the real work begun. And seeing as it's so hot outside this is a perfect indoor activity. Except for the bored kids. And the baby needing feeding and attention. And the fact that anytime after 3pm the study is like a sauna, going face to face, toe to toe, mano a mano, with the full force of the setting sun - one of the joys of a westerly-faced house! But at least the room looks pretty now as it goes to battle - like a golden fleece (dreamy cream of be exact) blazing proudly.  The painting is nearly done and I'll post pics of the final room when it's done. Cannot wait!! Am getting mighty sick of internet-ing on the dining table.

Speaking of golden fleeces, in other areas of my life I've decided to join up with Edie's classical book club at lifeingrace and although I'm a bit behind I've got my copies of the Odyssey and the Aeneid on hand ready to help me through these hot, lazy days. I've also downloaded some free podcasts from iTunes from BBC 4 on the topics. As Orpheus is set in the Renaissance, a time when the classics were being revived I consider this book club a pleasure rather than a chore. She has also read Antigone by Sophocles, a text I read in high school, and Plato's Republic, a book that I'm familiar with seeing as it was a part of a college philosophy course I taught a couple of years ago. So I'm really excited about exercising my brain in this way again and already am really enjoying the Odyssey. If you're thinking about giving yourself a classical training, or going back to read all those books you didn't get round to in high school consider  joining a book club, Edie's or another, or maybe even set one up for yourself. There's nothing better for your brain, your imagination, your mental acuity, your intelligence, your understanding of the world, your conversation skills and your sanity than reading a good book. Any book will do, doesn't have to be classical.

As I mentioned earlier, January inspires being mindful. This year my eldest child, my only son, is starting kindergarten. This really hit home when yesterday we went to the shops and bought black leather lace up shoes, and realised that he doesn't know how to lace up shoes :) With this monumental event taking place in our house, I am aware of the effects it will have on all of us. My two year old daughter will be losing her best friend, her everyday play mate and will be gaining a lot more one on one time with her mother. I will be having my two girls (one two years nine months, the other three months) at home and am interested to see how our days run on this - will there be less trains and cars, more dolls and babies? Or will my daughter continue to play with those things she plays with her brother, in a way to still connect with him even when he's not here? I'm not sure, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I'm also sad and in a mild disbelief that my baby is going to be gone five days a week. It's a big jump from the the two days a week preschool that he did last year. A huge jump. And I suppose I'm also mindful that with him starting school our house and routine need to be simple and calm so as not to overwhelm him too much. Last year I read Kim John Payne's Simplicity Parenting and it resounded so deeply within me. It is everything I attempt to do as a parent and stay at home mum. This January I've been thinking a lot about the simple life (not to be confused with easy) and am planning a post about it soon.

January has unearthed another wonderful find for me. An Australian blog called Che and Fidel.
Jodi is a mother of two and despite having wonderful giveaways she also documents the slow and simple (not easy :) life her family has in the north east of Australia. A lovely blog that I am happy to find as so many of the blogs I read are Ameriacn. I love to be able to connect with other Australian bloggers. She is also working on something called the 52 Project. It's a portrait a week of any subject of your choosing and if you're into photography then this is definitely a fun, simple and worthwhile project to link up with. I'm not doing it, simply because I don't post pictures of my kids on my blog and can't think of anything else I'd like to photograph for a year but my good friend Sophia is and I'm looking forward to following her and others through their creative process.



 
 Wow this post is starting to border on essay proportions so I'm going to leave it there. What are you planning for or mindful of this January?

If the bush fires are on your doorstep I hope you take care.

Happy 2013 friends!! 

pine, presents, piano and panettone

It's that time of year again (my goodness, where did 2012 go???) when our kitchen smells like delicious buttery, sweet Italian bread - store bought of course, I still haven't attempted to make it! And the lounge room is, for the first time, gracing us with the gorgeous fragrance of a fresh pine tree. This year folks we headed bush and cut down our own tree for the very first time!

 I stood on the sidelines, admiring the view, choosing then changing my mind over the perfect tree, snapping pics.

The kids gave up on us and went exploring. The baby slept on unawares in the car (before you call DOCS all the doors were open and I was standing right next to it :)

Finally, The Captain, saw in hand, attacked the perfect tree and we brought it home.

We made popcorn, put on Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas and decorated our beautiful tree.

And after two weeks, it's still looking green and great! I love it!!!

Then yesterday this arrived:

This is The Captain's piano which has been crashing his parents house for the last however many years. His parents are good friends with Marcela Fiorillo and at a lunch recently I spoke with her about my son taking piano lessons with her. Jumping on the band wagon, my mother-in-law had the piano sent over to our house. You can tell from the following (very candid!!) shot that it's a bit of a squish in our living room now. I see an exciting furniture redecoration happening in the not too distant future - stay tuned!!

I've also undertaken a new project - the study. I've taken my before pics, started painting furniture and can't wait for the holidays so that I can really get it going. Again, stay tuned!! The Captain, loving and accommodating as he is, has laid down the law though and told me that me and my paint brush are not allowed to touch the piano! Fair enough, I say.

The kids are getting up at the rather disturbing hour of five o'clock in the morning to check on the presents under the tree, even though I have assured them that none of them are theirs. I am hoping that after Christmas they will go back to being a bit respectful of their tired, exhausted parents!!

We had my son's Christmas pageant last night, our first concert as a parent not a teacher :) His preschool class sang the Wombat Wobble and it was delightful. Once he got his fingers out of his mouth, stopped looking at his best mate next to him, and began to do the actions. But who cares right? Getting up there is a pretty big thing and the crowd was quite large so I'm super proud of him anyway! The first of many such fun nights I'm sure.

Well, I think I'm all up to date now. Now I need to go have a shower and get ready to do an early morning shop for last minute Christmas pressies.

How about you?
What's been happening?
All your shopping done?
Any last minute tips to survive the silly season?

The Great Paint

It's amazing what a bit of paint can do. As an addicted avid home reno blog reader there is nothing I like more than before and after shots. Love them. I love to watch the changes, how a room unfolds, and nothing beats the final shot of the great unveiling.

I didn't take any before shots. I suck.

Here, though, are the afters of my beautiful kitchen. 

The colour on the walls is heaven. It's called Knowing, by Dulux and I'm in love with it. So clean and fresh. And the trim is Dulux Antique White USA in gloss. I used this in the lounge room, and in fact all the house's doors and skirting boards/trims will be done in this colour.

We painted the kitchen cupboards with laminate paint. We wanted simply to replace the doors and drawers but being as ancient as they are no one makes doors and drawers in that measurement anymore. Go figure. So, on our super tight budget, we painted them white instead. At least I know now that I love, love, love a white kitchen.

In case you were wondering, I shamelessly stole my dream kitchen from The Handmade Home. Thank you to Ashley and Jamin, who unknowingly, inspired me :)

Like them, I have used yellow as an accent colour. This, however, was due to the fact that we didn't change the yellow splash back tiles. Lucky when I shopped the house I had enough yellow things (who knew??) to make it work!!

Here, now, are some shots of the lounge and rumpus room. They were done first, but because the kitchen is my favourite room now, I had to show it first. The light's a bit off in some of these. Sorry! The wall colour is Dreamy Cream.

I read a great article over at Starry Sky Ranch on photography tips. I think I need to pull out my manual and play around a bit!!!!

Anyway guys, I hope you've enjoyed the new look in our abode. It's been great to finally put our own stamp of personality onto the place, after two years!!

Content To Rent...?

Via

Some of the blogs I read talk about the benefits of renting over buying, albeit these blogs are American. Now I'm not sure what the difference is between rent and a mortgage in the US but here the difference is not much.


I heard on the radio that the median weekly rental prices in Australia are now $415, but here in Canberra they are a staggering $500 a week.

We have just bought our house. We were lucky enough to be able to buy the house we had rented for two years, so we didn't have to move or house hunt. It was bliss. But we have discovered that our mortgage, once perceived as outrageously expensive, is only a couple of hundred dollars more a fortnight than our rent! Which is a difference, but very small when you consider that we now own a home!!!

I can't see what the benefits of renting over buying here in Canberra are anymore, as rental prices continue to jump up according to demand. I'm very glad that we have gotten into the market and now own a piece of the Territory (at least for 99 years, as per the ACT's land laws :)

The hardest part, of course, in getting out of the rental market and into buying is getting together that bastard of a deposit. I heard, on another radio segment, that it takes the average Canberra couple working full time four years to save up enough (approx. $100,000) for a deposit on a place here. Not necessarily even a house. That could be more.

So that, plus the fact that we were content to rent for a while, held us back from buying here. Renting for as long as we did meant that I didn't have to rush back to work after having my babies, which is something I am still grateful for. It also meant we weren't locked down to living in Canberra. I was still harboring hopes that we might live back to NSW to be near my family. That didn't happen.

We have now undertaken renovations on our place, mostly superficial like painting but it has made such a difference. I know renters such as The Nester are happy to paint rental properties but I couldn't see the point. As an owner, I'm thrilled with the new looks that my kitchen, living room and rumpus room have taken on.

Even if they come with an enormous price tag and thirty years of debt :) There's nothing quite like owning your own place. As I drive up the street and see our beautifully painted blue door I always smile and think I'm coming home!!

 

Birthdays, Easter and Blessings Abound

April is a very busy time for us - birthdays, anniversaries, Anzac Day, Easter (this year), school holidays, plus the glorious arrival of autumn.
Today even has a bite of winter to it with a top of 10 degrees (!!) and snow around the region. According to El Capitan we have had 6 days of morning frost in a row, which is a first since 1970-something. Suffice to say, chilly nights!!

Easter Friday was a quiet celebration at home. We got all dressed up and I even laid the table out all purty style. We had The Meal, salad and all the lovely trimmings. Then it was off to the Gong for more partying.

It was my daughter's first birthday last week and we had a little party with all the family. A big thanks to my sister-in-law who offered up her lovely house as a last-minute-wet-weather plan. Due my daughter's allergies - dairy, egg and nut - I made her cake with a recipe I found online. I doubled the following recipe and sandwiched it with jam in the middle, only because I had to feed twenty-odd people(as in roughly, not that the people were odd. Well....). Here's the recipe for one cake serve:

Dairy-Free, Egg-Free, Nut-Free Birthday Cake.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup cold water
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2 teaspoons white vinegar

Method

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C

Sift dry ingredients together

Make 3 wells in dry mixture. Fill one with water, one with oil and one with vinegar. Don't worry when it all runs together.

Stir with a fork.

Place in a 9 x 13" pan and then into the oven.

Bake for approx. 25-30 minutes. A skewer should come out clean.

Icing

2 cups icing sugar, sifted
125 grams of Nuttelex Lite (butter substitute, the original Nuttelex does not work for icing)
1/2 cup rice milk.

Beat icing sugar and butter together til white and fluffy.
Slowly add the milk - you may not need the whole amount, see how you go.
When it's at the consistency you like for spreading add the food colouring.
Spread on to the cake and decorate with whatever dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free decorations you like.

I used sugar marshmallows to make a number 1 down the middle. But as the day was so busy I don't actually have a photo to show you. This is the best I could find. Sorry!


I love this shot. It's of the birthday girl going head to head with her much older cousin. They then proceeded to wrestle on the floor!! That's my girl!



Here's a pic of my three monkeys - see if you can spot them all!!


And finally, another picture I love of my two lovely children on mother's day, caught unawares in a candid moment. Sometimes they get along really well, others, not so much. But this one just melts my heart!! Such a tender hug!




We have my daughter's Baptism coming up this weekend, so it's the same lovely bunch of people crashing our place this time. Lots of cooking ahead. Good thing the weather is so yucky out. The only down side is the tummy bug that is going through our house at the moment - although so far it's only my son, fingers crossed! We don't want our lovely guests to go home with more than nice memories of the Baptism!

I've also been doing a lot of writing on my new book, Pepper Ridge Lane, but I'll outline all of that success in a new post later this week.

Kirsty x