Consider This

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Two weeks ago I was totally engrossed in the Folk Festival in our town. The festival is in its 51st year and functions predominantly on the assistance of volunteers. I did several shifts in the office where I sold merchandise and tickets as well as billetting one of the visiting artists. It is a great way to be involved.

On the topic of volunteering I would like to share something I heard recently. Every so often you hear or read something that takes you completely by surprise. That was the case last week when someone said:

‘Volunteering is the ultimate act of optimism’.

I was caught completely off-guard and was amazed at how that statement resonated.

It begs the question of ‘Why do we volunteer?’

In general, I believe that most of us volunteer because we believe that we can make a difference or make things better. Not for ourselves but for others. It might be people, animals or places but underneath all volunteering lies an inherent belief and desire to improve and enrich. In order to do this we must naturally be optimistic.

I volunteer in various capacities with a couple of different organisations in our small town and at times it is easy to become a bit disillusioned when you feel that progress is slow or stalled. Hearing that statement reminded me of why I volunteer, refreshed my optimism and confirmed that I can have a positive impact.

There are no shortages of opportunities to volunteer. Here are some of the things I have done recently.

Organised and co-hosted a Trivia Night to fundraise for the local Neighbourhood Centre.

Helped with the set-up of our local monthly market.

I volunteer in the office of the Neighbourhood Centre once a week, am secretary of the lcoal film society and am on the committee of the state Federation of Film Societies.

Tomorrow we are headed to an Information Day for the Federation in a town which is a couple of hours from home. It should be a fun and informative day connecting with people from other Film Societies. I have been tasked with running a short workshop on selecting and programming films so I have all the necessary information and resources ready.

I hope your weekend and week ahead are productive for you whatever you may be doing.

A Christmas Reprise – 10 Years Later

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WordPress kindly reminded me of a post I wrote on this day 10 years ago.

You can read it here.

Christmas has been a relatively simple family affair for quite a number of years and continues to be even more so.

This year we are travelling interstate for a week at the beach with our 2 adult daughters and 2 granddaughters. They are now 17 and almost 19 so there will essentially be 6 adults. And a dog……..as the accommodation is pet-friendly.

The accommodation is booked. We will have a rough idea of a possible menu a week or so before we leave. Our gifts will be the time spent together and some cash for everybody. I will write a Christmas email to friends and family.

None of us need or want an over-the-top, consumerist event to celebrate.

This is a photo that the house-sitters sent last year when we were in Europe. Islay will be included this year and is sure to be the centre of attention.

I foresee a relaxed and fun time together and lots of beach time with Islay.

This photo is from when she was 7 months old.

Fresh Flowers

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No posts for a little over 2 weeks. There have been many demands on my time recently, mostly due to my volunteering activities, however, home remains a peaceful haven.

I have particularly enjoyed the garden which is both pretty and productive at the moment. I am picking and using lettuce and spinach almost every day, the strawberries are ripening and I am anticipating a bumper crop of raspberries next month.

Meanwhile, the flowers bring colour and joy.

Sweet peas.

One of several callistemons (bottlebrushes) in the front garden but this is my particular favourite.

Finally, the white iceberg roses are in bloom again.

I picked a few to enjoy indoors.

Happy Hook Day

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It really does not take much to make me smile and today was no exception.

I have a stainless steel hanger which I use for socks and undies which I have owned for a few years. It can be a bit tricky to store but it generally lives on the shelf above the laundry bench.

However, I bought a second one a few months ago and there did not seem to be any easy answer to storing both of them. They cannot be adjacent to each other as the pegs get all tangled up.

Yesterday GMan suggested that perhaps we could hang them up. He found 4 small white cup hooks and then it was an easy matter of positioning them into the timber strip immediately below the shelf.

This is the end result.

A simple but effective solution which makes me very happy.

A Deliberate Delay

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It is now 5 weeks since we returned from our New Zealand holiday and I have not written a single blog post.

I came home knowing that I had several big tasks which were somewhat time sensitive so instead of trying to grab a moment here and there to try to write blog posts, I made a conscious decision to set blogging aside until the other jobs were completed or at least sufficiently underway.

Things I did:

  • Finished a dress alteration for a friend before she went on holidays
  • Made 5 pairs of loose, lightweight trousers for another friend to take on holidays and repaired 2 skirts as well
  • Made 35 metres of bunting for a fundraising fete to be held at the end of October
  • Made 12 jars of grapefruit marmalade
  • Created questions for an upcoming fundraising trivia night
  • Sourced screening rights for films to be offered for voting for the 2027 program for our local film society
  • Created and printed voting sheets (with film description and image) for film society voting on Thursday
  • Culled, sorted, numbered and named the photos from our New Zealand trip
  • Wrote and published 5 blog posts on my travel blog

Apart from that there have been all of the usual jobs that keep the household running as well as plenty of volunteering.

Here are a few photos.

Marmalade – hopefully enough for the year.

Bunting – all made from scraps from my stash – I may have put a slight dent in one or two piles of fabric.

A pair of trousers

The inside of the trousers. I French seamed all of them as the fabric was very lightweight and could be prone to fray.

It is good to be back because even after 15.5 years I still enjoy blogging and sharing snippets with you.

Creating Community Collaboration

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Today I want to share a project I am working on which I think highlights what community is really about.

I am cutting out fabric triangles to make bunting. I have calculated that I will need 232 pieces to make ten 3.5 metres lengths. I have cut out 117 pieces so far.

I had previously used a cardboard template for a pattern for cutting the fabric. However, I decided that I needed a sturdier template for this project. So, I enlisted the help of the volunteers at the Men’s Shed. I now have a durable plywood template which is lightweight, easy to handle and will last long beyond this project.

The bunting is to be used for decoration at a Village Fete in a couple of months. It is a fundraising event being organised by our local Community Pantry. The funds raised will support the Pantry to continue providing a helping hand to all in our local community.

Clean Up, Cook Up

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Contrary to the statement in my last post, regular blogging did not return. It is almost 3 weeks since my last post and I have been doing everything except writing about it. If I am honest, I keep delaying trying to figure out how to easily use the tablet for blogging, particularly with respect to uploading photos. Hopefully, I have it sorted and I will be testing my skills on our upcoming trip.

I am now in the midst of getting ready to head off on a holiday to New Zealand.

One of the important tasks is to make sure that there is no perishable food which would go to waste while we are away. So, I have had a cook up over the past couple of days.

Here is the result.

There are at least 4 serves each of Tuscan Bean Stew, Chickpea and Vegetable Curry and Mushroom Stroganoff. These are now all in the freezer for future quick meals.

I hope to squeeze in one more post before we go away but as always I will be posting holiday updates on my other blog.

Op Shopping Anywhere

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We have been in Adelaide for a couple of days this week. Shopping was not my prime focus but I did manage to pop into a couple of op shops when we were out and about. It is always fun to check out shops in different locations.

I found a lovely pale blue/lilac short sleeve top which will be perfect when the weather warms up a bit and it would work well under a jacket, too.

It was a short trip which you can read about here and we are now home again so blog posts should return pretty much to normal soon.

Updated Technology

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For several years we have had 2 laptops and we have taken the smaller one when we are out and about as well as when we have travelled both interstate and overseas. From time to time we have wondered about getting a tablet but never taken it any further.

A couple of months ago one of the hinge brackets on the smaller laptop broke but somehow or other the laptop still works. However, we cannot close it nor easily transport it. We enquired about having it repaired but the cost was almost more than a new device.

After a bit of research we ended up deciding on a Lenovo tablet which we are confident will be sufficient for our needs. It is considerably lighter than the laptop particularly for travelling.

Once we picked up the new tablet and unpacked it I realised how delicate and vulnerable the screen was so I decided that some sort of a case was going to be necessary.

So, I set to work with some fabric and materials from my stash. This was the result. It is not super fancy but it is functional.

A view of the inside.

Why a Wok?

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Last week we were doing the grocery shopping and I fell victim to the centre aisle in Aldi. For anyone who is not familiar with Aldi in Australia (and possibly elsewhere), the centre aisle is a relvolving door of special buys which include everything from furniture to homewares, garden supplies and clothing.

Anyway, I bought a wok.

It is not the first wok I have ever owned. Many moons ago I had a lightweight aluminium one, however, that went by the wayside and was replaced by a fancy ‘non-stick’ wok which had a small flat base which was more effective on the cooktop I was using at the time. That eventually was deemed unusable due to wear and tear on the surface and it was really too big for our current requirements for just the 2 of us. I have not had a wok for a couple of years but instead used a large stainless steel frying pan which was adequate at best.

It is now just over 12 months since we changed from gas burners to an induction cooktop. You can read about that here. I was fortunate to have stainless steel saucepans which work perfectly on the induction cooktop but the large frying pan from the same set would not work. I have a smaller cast-iron pan which I love but it is really not large enough for stir-fries so a debate about getting a wok or large pan ensued but with no clear outcome.

That was………until we walked into Aldi and GMan spotted this medium-sized stainless steel wok with an added steaming rack for $50.

Last night I made a vegetable stirfry which turned out perfectly. There will definitely be more stirfries, curries and risottos coming up.

This is the steaming rack which I have yet to try.