Tag: home

basics · challenges · Changes

Adopting the Minimalist Approach…

Joanne7 Comments

Yesterday, I “accidentally” finished all of my ironing…yes, that’s right…

I don’t have an ironing pile climbing up the wall anymore!

It all began a couple of days ago. I felt cold. My fingers were so cold that I’m sure they might have snapped in half, if I were to try bending them. Doing some ironing would warm my fingers up very nicely.

To cut a long and boring story short, (yes, boring…ironing is boring, believe me), I enjoyed the warmth of the iron all day, although my over-exertion, in the interests of keeping warm, created yet another problem…I ran out of coat hangers.

To every problem, there is a solution, and the solution to this one made my heart sing. I discarded more unused clothing from my wardrobe!

The periodic analysis of my life over the past couple of years has made it clearly evident to me that a huge chunk of the middle of my life, to date, has been lived to other people’s standards rather than my own.

The reality of it is ~ I’m a “closet” minimalist.

Hot on the tail of yesterday’s post, “Flicking the Labels”, I am reluctant to label myself by announcing “I am a minimalist”. But yes, living a minimalistic life does appeal to me…it “feels” right for me.

Look at what I have hung on to over the years, not wishing to discard useful items, before they were past their “use-by date”…

  • My refrigerator worked perfectly, although it had rust marks covering the doors. I buckled and purchased a new fridge, after hearing that “old fridges never die”.
  • When my washing machine did die, after hearing the painful news that there was simply no hope of resurrection, I reluctantly purchased a new machine. Lifetime of the old washing machine ~ 1988 to 2009.
  • My children nicknamed my first mobile phone “The Dinosaur”. Another hurtful name they gave it was “The Brick”. I’m here to tell you that I became rather attached to that phone. I only owned it for about eight years and it didn’t miss a beat. Initially I had resisted owning one, but the Man of the House insisted I have a mobile, giving it to me as a gift…
  • Our TV set came into our family around the same time as the washing machine, in 1988. It has served us all very well over all of these years, and continues to do so.
  • When the fabric began to fade and fray on my old favourite lounge chair, I had it recovered…simple!
  • The first car I owned, a two door, stopped being functional after I had my first two children, so after nine years, I traded it in on a four door sedan. That car served me well for ten years and was traded in for a four wheel drive after the birth of my fourth child, as I needed a six seater car. Five years later, when my eldest son had his own car I couldn’t justify hanging on to a “gas guzzler” so traded it in on another four door sedan, which I have had for four years so far.

This list could go on; however I think you get the picture. I loathe the idea of discarding useful items. I refuse to get sucked in by all of the glitzy marketing of buying the “latest and greatest, you’ve simply got to have it” fashionable items.

Don’t the consumers realise it ~ everything goes out of fashion!

My discarding of useless items, especially clothing, is so liberating! The clothes I have hanging in my wardrobe now have air flowing around them; no longer are they all squashed up together to fit them all onto the hanging rail. The clothes I’m parting company with, I never wear anyway, and the charity shop will make good use of them. Not to mention the fact that I finished my ironing…and had enough coat hangers for everything…win/win!

Becoming a genuine minimalist would entail selling household furniture and appliances, only hanging onto the barest minimum. It would also involve downsizing my home and perhaps selling my car in favour of riding a bike, which would, in turn, create more problems…

1 ~ All of the furniture in my home is enjoyed and used every day.

2 ~ We actually need a home the size of ours, to accommodate our family.

3 ~ (Don’t laugh)…I don’t know how to ride a bike, never owned one. Besides which,

we live way too far from the town for it to be practical.

So where does that all leave me? This year especially, I have upgraded my desire to part company with all material item which are no longer of any use to me. I now purchase only the essentials in food and clothing, reverting back to my own old ways of growing food in the garden and making my own clothes.

Actually, “back to basics” is perhaps the more apt expression for how I prefer to live. Although you could also say I’m a minimalist…basically! 🙂

Let me know what you think about this topic. Are there any more “closet” minimalists out there?

advice · Australia · basics · challenges · gardening · inspiration · Tweed Valley

A Local Discovery

Joanne4 Comments

Over the past few days, I have begun the task of scouring my local area for inspiration, namely the inspiration for food. The urge to do so was firstly inspired by watching such television shows as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “River Cottage” series, Rick Stein’s “Food Heroes”, both British shows, along with Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant, host’s of the Australian TV show, “The Cook and the Chef”.

What these three TV shows have in common, apart from all being highly entertaining cooking shows, is the chef’s recommendations throughout the shows to purchase locally grown produce.

If you care to read through some of my previously posted articles, listed under the “gardening” category, you will note that I am a keen gardener and cook. My ultimate goal in the garden, hands down, is definitely to have the know-how and the means to grow all of the fresh produce for my own family’s consumption. While the task is not impossible, it is a work in progress. And we do have to eat in the meantime!

My home overlooks the Tweed Valley in New South Wales, Australia. From the back of our home, we look over hectare upon hectare of farmland, mainly growing sugar-cane, which is a major industry of the area.

Each year, a nearby town called Murwillumbah hosts the annual “Banana Festival”.  Yes, bananas are grown in my area too. But what it really comes down to, regardless of my home being surrounded by farmland, is the fact that it is not blaringly obvious what our local produce is, apart from sugarcane and banana growing!

I don’t know what you think, but I personally believe that a staple diet of bananas and sugar would be downright boring!

Further inspiration to take the matter further, in search of my own local produce arrived in an article written by a lovely lady called Robin, who lives in Ohio in the U.S.A. In her recent article, “The Chains That Bind”, Robin urges us all to discover what our own local areas have to offer, not only in regard to fresh produce, but also by investigating the local small businesses in our area. As Robin points out, supporting the economy begins at home.

Taking Robin’s advice on board, I set out on Tuesday, shopping list in hand, and, rather than making my first and only stop at the local supermarket, I headed into South Tweed Heads. A number of years ago, a bulk food warehouse had opened, and it had always been my intention to call in there…one day.  I never seemed to find the time. So, on Tuesday, I made time. (Rather than lack of time, in all honesty, I believe my tardiness was more so due to my being a creature of habit!)

Once inside the bulk foods store, I felt like a kid in a toyshop! Lines of tubs and containers of bulk food held every type of flour, sugar and legume imaginable…dried cranberries and blueberries, figs, dates, raisins, currants, dried pineapples, apricots, bananas, and the size of the glace cherries…can’t wait to make my Christmas cakes this year with the cherries they have there!

They sell both whole and shelled nuts, including pecans, walnuts, cashews, pine nuts, peanuts and almonds. There’s oats, honey oats, muesli’s, cornflakes, pepitas, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, tahina, molasses, the list goes on and on.

Although it was extremely tempting to buy a bit of everything, I showed amazing restraint and followed my shopping list. Amongst other items on my list this week, I had caster sugar, honey, borlotti beans and crystallised ginger, all of which they sold. My one and only purchase of temptation was a few soy crisps, just to try, as I know my children usually love the plain flavoured crisps. In this store, I could choose from three flavours ~ cheese, sweet chilli and Dijon mustard.  They were a hit! I’ll be back for more this weekend.

Imagine my amazement when I discovered not one, but two Tweed Valley honeys to choose from! The one I chose is a beautifully rich brown coloured syrupy delight, with a tea-tree flavour.

Not only is the range of food available at this store the most extensive I have found in years, it is much cheaper to buy, per kilo, than at the supermarket! Another bonus!

If you haven’t already done so, why not investigate your own local area to see what treasures you may find?

For me, it is just the beginning of this adventure. I can hardly wait to see what else is here, right on my doorstep and yet to be discovered. 🙂

This weekend, my adventures will continue, at our local Farmer’s Markets!

basics · Changes · gratitude · happiness · knowledge · music · nostalgia

Do You Remember…?

Joanne3 Comments

Now I’m really feeling nostalgic! I received an email from a very dear friend this morning. He and his wife live in England and we often forward amusing emails to each other after we receive them.

Following my post yesterday, “Recycle, Reuse and Repair”, which found me lamenting to the tune of “whatever happened to the good old days when broken items could be repaired?” this email now has me thinking even more about “whatever happened to the time when…?”

Take a walk along memory lane yourself! Here is the email I received, along with a few interjections from me. 🙂

The email begins ~

“Someone asked the other day, “What was your favourite ‘fast food’ when you were growing up?”

“We didn’t have ‘fast food’ when I was growing up,” I informed him. “All the food was slow”.

“C’mon, seriously, where did you eat?”

“It was a place called ‘home’,” I explained. “Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.”

(Once every blue moon, my Mum would buy me a treat of hot chips, wrapped up in newspaper. But they weren’t fast; I waited forever for them to cook!)

“By this time, the lad was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.”

(I remember this very well; I had to ask, ‘please may I leave the table’, without interrupting any adult conversation!)

“But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I’d figured his system could handle it:

Some parents never owned their own homes, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.”

(Credit cards weren’t even invented! When you wanted to buy something, you saved up to pay for it!)

“My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only one speed, (slow).

We didn’t have a television in our house until I was ten. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off air at 10pm, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on air at about 6am. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people…”

(Oh yes, I remember the black and white TV days; my kids think it’s hilarious that TV’s weren’t in colour!)

“I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.”

(We didn’t have a phone in the house at all!)

“Pizzas were not delivered to our home…but milk was.”

(I had my first taste of pizza at age seventeen…boy oh boy, did I ever lead a sheltered life!)

“All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers…my brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6am every morning.

Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost anything offensive.”

(Those were the days!)

“If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?”

The email continues, asking do you remember the following ~

  • Bottles with holes punched into the lids, for sprinkling water onto clothes before ironing them, because we didn’t have steam irons. (My Mum had one!)
  • Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators. (Yes!)
  • Sweet cigarettes. (Thinking he’s talking about lollies, and yes, I remember them).
  • Coffee shops with juke boxes. (They had one in the café next to where I worked at age 16!)
  • Home milk delivery in glass bottles. (The magpies (birds) liked to peck the silver foil lids off them, and the bottles were recycled!)
  • Newsreels before the movie. (Hmmm…Can’t say as I do).
  • TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning (there were only two channels, if you were fortunate). (Oh yes, this I do remember!).
  • Peashooters. (They were a boy thing…I remember boys having them confiscated at school!)
  • 33rpm records. (Still have some!)
  • 45 rpm records. (Yep, still have some 45’s too!)
  • 78rpm records. (Yes! My parents had a few! Wonder whatever happened to them?)
  • Hi-fi. (My parents had one; lasted for years!)
  • Wash tub wringers. (Funny…Mum had one and always told me not to stand too close, in case my hair got caught in it!)

Yes, I know…now I’ve ‘dated’ myself something shocking, and you have probably done the same thing! But would you have it any other way? We lived in an age when the world was younger and much more innocent. Those days cannot, and will not, ever be replaced…and we were lucky enough to have lived them! 🙂

The technology in the world advanced suddenly and with such a great volume of speed that at times it left our heads in a spin. Our children missed out on our ‘good old days’.

I wonder what stories will be told by our own children, when they tell their grandchildren stories of their own ‘good old days”?  😉

Australia · basics · challenges · knowledge

Recycle, Reuse and Repair

Joanne9 Comments

As a general rule, I’m not much of a one for standing on my proverbial soapbox and trying to convert the world, one way or another, on any given issue, nor do I write today with the intent of converting anyone’s beliefs.

However…once in a while, although only occasionally, an incident will leave me uttering certain statements and questions, such as “What the …”, “Why?” and “I really don’t see the point!”

Such an occasion has just reared its ugly head. Let me set the scene for you….The Man of the House (MOTH), decided the time was right to begin some outdoor house painting. At the back of our house, we have two fairly wide and rather long verandas, which look out over our incredible views of the Tweed Valley. The ceilings of these verandas are his latest target with the paint brush.

We have a total of four ceiling lights along the verandas, each light covered with an enclosed glass light shade (enclosed to keep the bugs out of the inside of the shade). The shade sits into a metal surround, with a rubber seal between the metal and the shade, to hold the shade securely in place.

We removed the light shades for ease of painting around the lights, only to discover that the rubber seals have perished, no doubt due to being subject to the elements for the last four years since we put them up.

Today, the MOTH has taken one of the old perished seals to various local stores to find replacements, as without the seals, the shades won’t hold in place on the metal surrounds, only to be told he will have high hopes in finding them.

Okay, so what are they suggesting? That we go out and buy four new replacement light shades, just because the seals are perished??? And what exactly do we do with the old shades? Oh, of course, throw them away!

A similar incident happened recently, although with a happier ending. The electrical lead on our son’s laptop wasn’t working; we had to buy him a new one. An initial price check revealed that once we had parted company with $80.00 we would become the proud owners of said lead. $80.00?!! The MOTH dismantled the point of the lead (yes, he has electrical expertise!), found the broken “bit” and bought a new one. Twenty five cents worth of parts and ten minutes labour on the MOTH’s part, and it was all fixed!

What is it with our consumer driven society these days? What happened to the good old days of “repairing items, when broken”? That’s if they ever did break down. I owned the same refrigerator for over twenty years. It didn’t miss a beat; however the doors were beginning to show spots of rust, all over, apparently caused by our use of magnets on the metal, when holding up our children’s works of art for all to enjoy.

For years, I waited patiently for that fridge to die, only to be eventually told, by a man in the know, that old fridges never die! Finally, I bit the bullet and bought a beautiful new refrigerator, only to be told I should get five years wear from it, perhaps seven, and ten if I was extremely lucky!

How society has changed over the years. It is sad to say, but I do believe that we are living in a disposable world. No sooner have you left the car yard with a shiny new vehicle than it has lost value and become superseded! The same applies for computers, mobile phones, television sets and CD players.

Advertisers prey on the vulnerability of consumers at large, especially the young, displaying the latest and greatest “got to have it” items. Just bring your credit card along!

Hmmm….the credit card….Australia has a population of over 22 million people. Our national credit card debt is at $40.4 billion dollars. Let me take that one step further ~ Australia’s national debt, including mortgages, credit cards and personal loans is currently at $1.2 trillion, which is up by 71% over the last five years. And, it gets even better…that equates to $56,000 debt for each and every man, woman and child in the country!

Quick, pass me the scissors; I’m cutting up my credit cards!

Just when you’re thinking it can’t get any worse, I have found even more statistics…each Australian produces, on average, a total of one tonne of rubbish each and every year!

Whatever happened to the idea of recycling, reusing or repairing? We are going further and further into debt, all in the name of owning the latest and the greatest, or being forced into buying new, when the old could be repaired. The old is tossed out onto the rubbish dump and we are burying ourselves in the waste!

Help!!! Am I missing something here?

Being a firm believer that every little bit helps, for years now I have encouraged my family to recycle, reuse or repair old items. We have a compost heap down the back yard, we use the recycled items garbage bins for glass, paper, etc. I take old clothing to the charity shops and believe that repairs and a good coat of paint gives renewed life to all walls and furniture.

The World Wide Web is a big place, so how about we all start sharing our own ideas on recycle, reuse and repair? I’m open to ideas on the three R’s; how about you?

Oh, and about those broken seals on our four light shades? The MOTH is working on improvising ~ he’ll come up with an idea! 🙂

~ All statistics information contained on this post was obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. ~

basics · Changes · daughter · son

Skeletons in the Cupboard

Joanne2 Comments

On Thursday night my eldest daughter and I decided to have a good old rummage around in my sewing cupboard. My daughter and I have a mutual interest in all things crafty, and although she knows how to knit, she is just a tad rusty on some of the minor points, (eg ~ keeping all of the stitches on the needle!)

I’m proud of my daughter’s previous achievements in the finer arts. For such a “people person” (she goes stir-crazy from lack of human contact, after approximately ten minutes alone), she has displayed amazing perseverance with craft, especially cross-stitch.

My girl is a scarf lover and I have knitted her several over the last two or three years in a fluffy yarn called “Flurry”. There is another similar brand also available, “Feathers”, which is the knitting yarn I am using for my latest project, which I wrote about in “Back to Basics”. She has attempted to knit with this beautiful, soft, fluffy yarn herself, without success. She is in need of some practise, using a flatter textured yarn.

Remembering my old stash of wool, collected throughout my many years of knitting, although recently neglected due to my so called “time saving” methods of buying readymade articles from the stores, we began opening bags, checking inside of cane baskets and poking around at the back of the shelves to locate all possible woollen candidates for my daughter to practise her knitting on.

We had no trouble at all in locating just the right coloured and textured yarn for her practise knitting, along with a suitably sized pair of knitting needles….

….along with a number of “old treasures” that I hadn’t bargained on finding!

An almost finished jumper, all red, which, as I recall, was intended for my ten year old son, who is now twenty-five! And a sleeveless cardigan that I began knitting for myself, half of the back completed, which, when finished, would have been quite stunning…back in the 1980’s!

Yet another forgotten find was a large bag full of the most gorgeous, deeply toned balls of wool, each ball a different colour of the rainbow. I felt rather disappointed in myself for not completing this particular project as it was a lovely designed multi-coloured jumper, which had also been intended for my eldest son, when he would have been around five years of age!

Neatly wrapped up in its own separate little bag, with half knitted back and extra pastel coloured shades of wool to complete it with, we found a cute little babies jumper, with various designs of boats and houses tediously knitted into it. We both recalled that I had been knitting this for my younger daughter…(drum roll)…who turns eighteen this year!

Oh dear! But all is not lost; my daughter assures me that if I finish the pastel coloured baby’s jumper, she would love to have it herself, for when she has a baby! (Now, where did I put that knitting pattern?)

Why, oh why, didn’t I ever finish these projects?

From my own point of view, the pièce de résistance has just got to be the pair of glasses I discovered, hiding away in the bottom of a plastic bag, immediately recognisable (to me, anyway, even if to no one else) as the prescription glasses I wore, back in the days when I read so much that I suffered from eye strain ~ when I was a teenager, still living at home with my parents!

My youngest son, Master Twelve, (always centre-front when a clown is required!) offered his modelling services for a photographic session, wearing my pre-loved spectacles! (Note ~ No modelling fee was paid for his services. Yes, I am unashamedly into cheap labour, especially when hideous reading glasses are concerned!)

When writing my post on A Rejuvenated Soul, I must now admit to an absolute oversight on my part ~ I didn’t mention sorting through your sewing cupboard, if you own one. :/

So, now we all know what I’ll be doing next week; when the kids are back at school and I have the house to myself, I’ll empty out the sewing cupboard, pack up all the wool that I haven’t got a hope of ever finding a use for, and the charity shops will love me all over again! 🙂