Planning a Picnic

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Posted on January 12, 2015

On Saturday we were going to be out for the whole day so I decided to pack a picnic lunch. We knew that we were going out for dinner so it seemed ridiculous to consider ‘eating out’ twice in one day.

This is where we had our lunch. It is not out in the country but a suburban park about 4km from the Brisbane CBD. There is a bus depot across the road and a major freeway and interchange a few hundred metres in another direction, yet it was a quiet and peaceful oasis where we stopped for our picnic.

We unpacked our picnic set and cloth, added the food and drink and we were ready to tuck into our feast.

I had made a mixed salad of lettuce, capsicum (red peppers), cherry tomatoes, cucumber and cheese as well as a couple of hard-boiled eggs. There were rice crackers and some mango chutney as well. I packed some walnuts and dried figs to finish and the whole lot was washed down with lemon cordial and soda water.

A pleasing note is that the lemon cordial, mango chutney and soda water were made at home, the chickens provided the eggs and the cucumber and tomatoes were picked from the garden.

Just a few minutes spent planning meant that we saved at least $30 and were able to enjoy some of our favourite foods in a pleasant setting rather than doing battle with holiday crowds at a cafe or food court.

Sewing My Stash Sunday – 2

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Posted on January 11, 2015

I don’t usually get much sewing done during the week and it took until this afternoon before I did any. I was determined to achieve something as part of this challenge so here it is.

I have made a start on a polo shirt for The Duke. I bought the fabric about 14 years ago for this project and it never got made. I have made the tab front, stitched the shoulder seams and done one sleeve and side/underarm seam. I had not done a tab front for well over 10 years, but like riding a bike, you never forget.

With striped fabric it is important to match the stripes. You can see the matching on the tab front in the picture above and the side seam in the following picture. It is impossible to match the stripes with a set-in sleeve due to the shaping.

Next week I hope to show you the completed polo shirt and what I am doing next. It feels good to know that I am using up materials that have been hanging around for years.

Modifying My Diary

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Posted on January 10, 2015

My personal diary which I showed you here is working well and does not require any modification. However, I also have a work diary which is an A5 size and quite slim as it has a week to a double page. However, it is missing one vital ingredient – a marker ribbon.

I did not realise this until I was using it last week so I decided to get creative. I found a length of narrow red ribbon in my sewing collection and was going to cut the length I needed and tie it onto the top spiral. Then I reconsidered and realised that by doubling the ribbon and looping it over the spiral I could avoid cutting the ribbon.

Now I can easily remove the ribbon at the end of the year and I will still have a usable length for another diary or different project.

The finished product is working well and it is much easier to find the page I want quickly. I also can use the second length to mark a different spot if I happen to be working on 2 areas at the same time.

Friday Filing

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Posted on January 9, 2015

As promised, here is my Friday filing post. Not much has changed since last week. We get very little mail so there is not much to deal with.

The Range News is our local (free) newspaper which is delivered on Thursdays. I have read it this evening to make sure I am not missing out on any important local news and now it has been filed in the recycling bin.

Other than that, there is a new insurance schedule now that we have had the policy amended to account for our new car. It has not been filed in the filing cabinet as I need to contact the insurance company as I think the description of the car is incorrect which has resulted in a higher premium than it should be. I will make that phone call on Monday.

We are both in the process of reading the ReNew magazine about alternative technologies. I think this is published every quarter and we keep them in a magazine holder for reference after they have been read.

The hand-written sheet is a rough list of some of the things we want to achieve in the house and garden this year so that stays there as a reminder of our plans.

Previously, these few pieces of paper would have been scattered on the bench and really irritated me but I am finding that having them in the basket has reduced the annoyance factor to zero.

Do you have any tricks to keeping on top of the paper clutter and filing?

One Week

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Posted on January 8, 2015

It is now one week into 2015 and this morning I woke up to the shocking news of a targeted terrorist attack in Paris. Like many others around the world, I was both sad and angry to hear this news. However, I was heartened to see the defiance of ordinary citizens in major centres all over Europe. They took to the streets in their thousands to show their support for freedom of expression.

Like them, I have a life to live and am not going to be sucked into the cycle of reporting on this and no doubt future ‘bad news’ stories.

I looked back at this blog post from New Year’s Eve when I wrote, “Meanwhile, I tried to keep my focus on blogging but there were times when I just felt too overwhelmed by events in the world around me to write about simplifying our life.”

One my my resolutions, if you wish to call it that, was that while I would keep abreast of news events here in Australia and also globally, I would not let the news define me.

I tend to deal in reality and don’t lay much store by clairvoyants, horoscopes, tarot cards or any of the other multitude of ways to “see” the future. I did laugh though, when I read a horoscope (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) in our free Mx newspaper at the train station yesterday. Normally, this paper would be well in the recycling but I brought it home to finish the special holiday edition of the Sudoku puzzle. This is what my Aries prediction for 2015 was:

“Random events will continue to occur around you. There’s no order to the universe. Life is meaningless. Stop trying to find meaning where there is no meaning. You cannot control the uncontrollable, so stop imagining there are arbitrary rules for dividing up and understanding existence by indulging in horoscopes.”

I liked the phrase, “you cannot control the uncontrollable”. There is definitely some value in that.

Meanwhile, today I will do some paid work as well as ironing, preparing dinner and perhaps some more sewing.

A Little Bit Every Day

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Posted on January 7, 2015

My method of keeping things organised to to do a little bit every day, or in my case every evening. At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, I work full-time hours and long days because of the distance that we commute but that is our choice.

Last night I did the bit of ironing that was waiting to be done, one load of washing and hung it out then put the next load in the machine. It was not a full load so when we arrived home this evening I pulled the top sheet off the bed and that made up the load. It is all washed now and in the basket.

It has been cool and damp here all day so the load that is on the line is not properly dry even though it is under the verandah. The next load of washing will be hung indoors overnight.

This is a portable rotary clothesline which I find invaluable in the wet weather.

This hanging rack is usually used to hang shirts waiting to be ironed as well as ones that I have done but tonight I will hang the freshly-washed shirts on here to dry.

I will put the dehumidifier on in the closed room overnight, the clothes will be pretty well dry in the morning. This eliminates the smell that clothes develop if they are damp for too long.

Once the washing is hung out I will finish stripping our bed and remake it with fresh linen. Then it will be time to crawl into bed.

I am working from home tomorrow and will make it a short day so that I can catch up on a few more jobs here.

By spending a bit of time each evening on household jobs, I can choose what I do on the weekends.

A Sleepover & Singapore

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Posted on January 6, 2015

We have a guest who is having a sleepover tonight.

Psycho Dog is on the left and Cousin P on the right. Cousin P belongs to my sister who lives about 20 minutes drive away. It is great that we can share the dog-sitting when either of us go on holidays or simply will be away overnight. The dogs get on well together and seem to enjoy the company, although they are usually both exhausted once the other goes home.

The other news of the moment is that we have booked our flights to Singapore for a holiday later in the year. No other details have been arranged although I will look for some suitable accommodation before too long. Unlike our other overseas trips we will not be touring. We will spend a week in Singapore, hopefully close to the centre of town. There will be no changes of accommodation and we will simply use public transport to make our way around.

Do It With a Diary

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Posted on January 5, 2015

I have never been very good with using a diary but I am hoping that this year will be different.

When the question was asked on an online forum of what your New Year’s resolution would be, this was my answer:

“I am going to stop trying to squash so much into the available time and learn to allow some slack. Recently, I seem to be stressing about meeting deadlines/arriving by a certain time etc. My mental health deserves better.”

The fact that it was 4 days before Christmas may have had something to do with my response, however, it was something that I had considered several days earlier of my own accord.

Now I just have to work out how to put this into practice. One of the first things is to use a diary. This neat A5, day-to-a-page diary was part of a Secret Santa gift which I received so it is definitely going to be put to use.

If I write things down rather than trying to carry a whole load of information in my head it will relieve all of the things I am trying to remember as well as showing clearly what is actually doable in one day. It also means that all of those little jobs that I think of that I am going to do one day are now allocated to a time and day. I choose the time to fit my schedule and will then just do them. No more forgetting the little stuff and trying to squash too much into the available time.

A grand goal and I am really hoping that I can make serious progress on achieving it.

Tomorrow is my first day back at work and I have 2 jobs listed in my personal diary. Post a parcel and take the apparently faulty iPhone charging cable back to the Apple store as it was only bought in July last year.

How do you feel about New Year’s resolutions? Do you have any plans to do things differently this year?

Sew My Stash Sunday – 1

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Posted on January 4, 2015

I do not usually read heaps of sewing/craft blogs because they often feature projects or items that I am simply do not interest me.

However, I stumbled across this idea here and seemed almost too good to be true. Basically, I can sew or make whatever I like as long as at least 50% comes from my stash. I had pretty well intended to do this but had not thought of articulating my ideals quite so eloquently. I love sewing and am working towards decluttering more stuff so this challenge will definitely help.

My personal plan is to post each and every Sunday about what I have done in the preceding week which fits the challenge. This will help to keep me accountable and will also be an interesting future record of just what sewing I achieved in 2015.

To see what I did last week see my previous post.

Thanks to the lovely Leasa who decided to run with this germ of an idea and also StitchnSewCreates for linking to the original. Please check out these blogs if you are interested in this project.

Then when the pieces are too small for much else there is always the ongoing patchwork!

I know that my fabric stash is not huge compared to what some people have but it is getting to the stage of frustrating me because I have so many plans/ideas for a lot of the pieces and I simply haven’t got around to doing it. 2015 is the year.