Mini Moments

A Different Giveaway

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Posted on July 24, 2014

This is not a regular blog giveaway. This is a personal advertisement to any reader who may be interested. If you are interested please contact me either via the comments or email listed the ‘About Me’ page.

Details: Handmade christening gown and petticoat. I made this from the fabric offcuts of my wedding dress and it was worn by both my daughters and granddaughter but no longer required. Perfect condition. Fits baby approximately 3kg – 7kg (newborn to 6 months).

Pick-Up: I can post this anywhere worldwide. Postage is payable by the recipient.

Hello Again

Housekeeping – How To?

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Posted on June 23, 2014

What is housekeeping? The literal definition would be ‘keeping house’. According to the wonders of Google it is ‘the management of household affairs’. This is a fairly broad definition but allows for everything from shopping, cooking, providing meals to cleaning, organisation, paying bills and filing. Does this sound familiar?

I am not planning on getting into a debate over the merits of mothers who stay at home versus those who do paid work or male versus female workload within the home.

My interest is more about what you do, how to do it and where you learned the skills/methods that you use. Today I was at home and it was a sunny winter day here. I took the towels and bathmat from the bathroom and hung them on the line where they could air thoroughly and dry.

This got me thinking about how often I wash the towels and why. We have one towel each and a bathmat and these are washed once a week. I do this because this was the routine my mother used when I was growing up, and I suspect, her mother before that. That is not to say that that I have religiously followed everything my mother did. An example is the 3 pegs on the towel: I do this because I can’t stand the way the towels go out of shape if you just peg them with a peg at each corner.

We have a climate where it is possible to line dry the washing virtually all the year round. As you can see from the photo the line is undercover which gives protection from the rain and when it is cold we generally have the fire on at night so the washing is finished off indoors.

So, where did you learn your housekeeping routines and skills? Have they changed and evolved over the years? Do you ever discuss things of this nature with others – friends or family? Have you intentionally taught your children or do you just expect that they will work it out for themselves.

Time To Take Three

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Posted on May 29, 2014

I have been very busy this week and working long hours in order to catch up on some things at work. I had planned to take a day off tomorrow but have changed it to Monday so that I can finish some tasks before the end of the month.

In between all of the busyness I managed to cross 3 things off my list on Tuesday. The first thing I did was to articulate what I was going to achieve by telling The Duke. Letting someone know helps to make you accountable.

My 3 things were relatively minor but need doing.

1 Make a dental appointment

2 Send an email to our accountant to make an appointment for our tax

3 Contact the owner of the venue where we will be holding a birthday celebration for The Duke

These had been rolling around in my head and going nowhere but suddenly they took on an unexpected level of importance once I had shared them with someone else. Best of all, it took a total of 5 minutes to do them. I now have the dental and tax appointments in my diary and some details confirmed regarding the dinner.

Project 333 – Changing Colours

The New Arrivals

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Posted on May 3, 2014

On Thursday evening there was a card in our mailbox advising that there was a large parcel at the Post Office for us to collect. We collected the box early on Friday morning before we went to work. It was our fruit trees that we ordered online from Daley’s Nursery. We ordered 12 blueberry bushes and a passionfruit vine.

Here is the box after I had slit one side open (as suggested in the attached instructions). The plants were well-packed and in excellent condition. Once again, we followed the directions and removed all of the wrapping and put them out in full sun.

We watered them well and have placed them in the area where they will be planted – hopefully tomorrow. It may be a bit difficult to see in the photo but I had already placed rocks to mark where we are going to plant them so it will be a relatively simple matter of digging the holes. The ground is quite soft as we have had some rain. Blueberries thrive in a slightly acidic soil. I have never actually tested the pH of our soil but the other indicator is that azaleas and camellias grow really well in our area and they like very similar conditions.

We have four other blueberry shrubs which are in the area which is now the chicken run. You can read about them in this previous post. We did not give them as much care as they probably needed but we still managed to harvest about 1.5kg of berries this summer. That was predominantly from 2 shrubs. We have now pruned them quite hard and mulched them thoroughly.

The other exciting news is that we have completely finished fencing the vegetable garden area.

As well as the completed fencing you may also be able to see the black hoops over the garden bed in the distance. This is some large poly pipe which I am planning to use as a frame for some exclusion netting to keep the white cabbage moth off the broccoli, kale, cabbages and cauliflower. I am looking at buying the vege netting from Green Harvest. We are fortunate that this business is located in Maleny so we are able to place our order online and then pick it up in person.

The chickens are rather unhappy that they are now permanently excluded from the garden area and all of the freshly dug soil and earthworms.

Weekend Work & Chicken Wings

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Posted on April 30, 2014

It is Wednesday already and it is nearly a week since my last post. I have been busy doing things instead of writing and unfortunately have not always had the camera handy. However, here are a few photos of some of the things we did on the weekend.

The existing blueberry bushes have been pruned, enclosed with wire surrounds and mulched thoroughly. These bushes have been in for several years but are now in the wrong place as they are located within the new chicken run. I previously had the entire area enclosed to prevent the chickens from digging around them and exposing the roots but I decided that individual enclosures were a better idea.

The fencing around the perimeter of the vegetable gardens is almost complete. I the meantime I have temporarily closed off the last bit to exclude the chickens. This meant that I was able to prepare a new garden bed and be safe in the knowledge that it would not be dug up immediately by the marauding feathered army. The rock edging is made from some of the hundreds of rocks that litter our property. The bed is inside the fence nearest to the house so I plan to make this into a herb garden.

Finally, I clipped the wings of the chickens in order to make sure that they could not fly over the 1200mm fence into the vegie garden. I had wanted to do this for ages but never felt quite brave enough. With some advice from an online forum, a Youtube video and The Duke to hold the chicken I was able to clip the flight feathers on one wing of each chicken. The exercise seems to have been successful as there has been no more instances of flying over fences.

Planning – A Haircut

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Posted on April 24, 2014

I had my hair cut yesterday. Now that does not sound terribly exciting but I planned it carefully. You see, it is 15 weeks tomorrow evening until we fly to the UK for 6 weeks and since I regularly have my hair cut about every 7 weeks it was important for me to have it done just before we go.

We also have a milestone birthday celebration for The Duke 6 days before we leave so I want my hair to be freshly cut for that event.

When I went to the hairdresser I discussed all of this and with the aid of a calendar we worked out the appropriate dates. I will have 2 more haircuts before we leave – 12th June and again on 31st July. I will look a bit like a shaggy dog when we arrive back in the third week of September so another haircut will be on the agenda as soon as possible after we return.

The other thing we did this week was more directly related to our upcoming trip. We had new passport photos taken and sent off the forms for the renewal of our passports.

Clutter-Free – Start Small

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Posted on April 9, 2014

I often talk about decluttering various spaces and having less but today I want to focus my attention on having clear spaces. I am not advocating jamming your cupboard full of stuff, however, the benefit of clear surfaces cannot be underestimated. It is a task that is unlikely to be achieved in one go and can be enormously overwhelming. That is why I focused my energy on one room – the bathroom. It is the smallest room in the house and is designed for a specific purpose, therefore logically should be the easiest to minimise the ‘stuff’.

I have had the benefit of a renovated bathroom which has an inherently streamlined design. I love the fact that there is no plug lying around on the side of the sink. There are only 2 items on the bench – a ceramic shell dish which holds a small bar of soap and a repurposed vase (The Duke drilled a hole in the base of it) which holds our toothbrushes. It is a quick and easy task to keep this area clean and tidy.

As this is quite a compact area we chose not to have a bath – just an easy to access shower area. I had seen this type of recessed shelf in motel bathrooms and asked the builder to create one when we remodelled the room. I love the idea because it is simple and streamlined to the eye, nothing to rust or gather soap scum and there is no encroachment to bump into when you are showering. From left to right there is shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, facewash and a nail brush – everything required when showering.

The floor is another place where clutter can gather. I found these fittings which attach to the wall – a holder for extra rolls of toilet paper and the toilet brush holder are both clear of the floor and do not need to be moved when sweeping or mopping the floor.