I have been thinking…. that I will probably have to take a blog break. Only two more sleeps till we get the keys to our new house. I know we will be busy and I want to be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Today we went out there with the owner’s permission and did a bit of mowing and gardening. We had a few downpours over the past two weeks and the grass has gone a little crazy! We particularly wanted to get the grass down around the house area because of snakes. As we gardened, we didn’t see any snakes, but my dh did come across a blue tongue lizard! We left it in peace after having a bit of a look at him.

After we came home, I packed up some boxes. Most of my nice kitchen stuff is packed away now for storage. Everyday things will go straight into the cupboards at the new house. I wanted to work on the school room a bit tonight, but I think I will head for bed.

So,…. this will be my last post for a while…. I have no idea when we will get internet over there and what quality it will be! Still, we are all excited about moving out to our homestead, so we’ll be fine with whichever internet we get!

Till next time, take care and God bless!

I used to love junk mail. I used to go through the catelogues and get the specials of things I needed and ignore the rest. I was pretty “shopping savvy”. Things have changed. I’m much busier now than I was and don’t take the time to go to as many different shops as I used to, to get bargains. Also, I have older children now……… Now when we get the junk mail in the mail box, the kids pounce on it. They study it from front to back and then go on to inform me what great bargains there are and can I please take them to Kmart. It is probably also worse because we’ve been away for two years and didn’t have all this junk mail bombarding us while we were over there.

I try to sneak the junk mail in and put it straight into the recycle bin. It doesn’t work very often. Usually Daniel has already gone out before me and is busy sorting the catelogues out into piles: supermarkets, toy shops, playstation games…. He tries to be helpful and tells me that chocolate is on sale, again, this week. Just what I didn’t want to know.

When we move out to the farm I am hoping we will be too far out for junk mail delivery.

Now not only does the junk mail drive me nuts, but so does shopping. Since Elizabeth and I went yesterday to get her clothes, I told the boys we would go today. They needed some t-shirts and shorts for summer. Little did I know that today was the grand opening for the mall where Kmart is. They extended it and added some shops or something like that. In any case, there were people everywhere and SPECIALS everywhere - buy one, get 50% off the second one. Buy two, get one free. All nice and fine if you actually need the stuff, but very tempting to overspend if you don’t need it. So much for a quick shop…. I mentioned to one lady that I picked the wrong day to come in, and she was surprised that I hadn’t heard about it on tv or in the newspaper. I told her that I don’t watch tv or read the newspaper, and that my life was complicated enough without those two things!

There were people everywhere with full trolleys…. we almost spent more time in lines than in the shops. Imagine what it will be like at Christmas time! We managed to find some tops for the boys, but the shorts were disappointing. They were a very strange style with no elastic and so were either too tight or too loose. I might have to try Big W where I had success with Elizabeth’s clothes, or else I’ll have to make them myself.

I always breathe a sigh of relief when I come home from shopping. I really don’t enjoy the experience very much. Bring on the farm and the quiet country life! Only 4 more sleeps….!

Yesterday I decided I’d better pull my head out of the sand and start packing. Seeing that we are moving next week, it was probably a good idea. I dragged a whole bunch of stuff out of a cupboard to sort and pack. Some stuff needs to go into storage because it just won’t fit in the new house - things that have some sentimental value (other things I am giving away). Some needs to be stored until we build some shelves in the house. As I started packing, I just got this huge feeling of being overwhelmed which ended up in a tiny, little meltdown… I called my dh and told him I wasn’t moving. He told me off, very kindly and firmly, (Especially when I told him that I needed a FIXED curriculum or else our kids wouldn’t become educated! LOL! Yes, I can laugh about it today..) and reminded me that he is going to try to take the week off.

The minute I hung up from my hubby, my parents rang. My mother always seems to know when one of her daughters is down in the dumps. A few tears later we had next week all sorted out. My parents are going to come and help out. My dad is the master packer. My mother just hangs around for moral support and makes cups of tea! My mother-in-law already offered to come and help clean the new house,… so all of a sudden things looked a lot brighter.

Another thing that was stressing me was that Elizabeth desperately needed summer clothes. I had started making a dress, and I took it out to keep working on it yesterday. Again, I just felt this feeling of being overwhelmed. I knew if I added that to my list of complaints my hubby would tell me just to go shopping! He is working from home the next few days, so I told him that Elizabeth and I were going to go shopping together for clothes. His response? “Great! I’ve been telling you to do that for ages!”

My husband is one of the most easy going fellows I know, especially when it comes to spending money. He would much rather me go and buy clothes than make them, if it stresses me out. He knows that I have a lot on my plate with homemaking and homeschooling, and if something will make it easier for me, he is willing to spend the money (if we have it!). He expects far less of me than I expect of myself. Having said that, he is also very supportive of me if I want to make clothes myself, and is happy for me to do so… but he is wise in seeing that at times like this when we need to move house for the third time this year, maybe sewing clothes for my daughter is not as big a priority as staying sane

I have found that when some things get too much for me, all of a sudden it ALL looks too much for me! Like yesterday, I went from feeling like I couldn’t cope with the move, to feeling like I could never sew again and that I was doing a bad job of homeschooling! Today, I can see clearer and know that I will cope with the move, I will sew again one day, and that homeschooling is going just fine. These are the times when I just need to stop and take a break, and spend some time with Jesus. He knows exactly how much I can cope with, and He will be there all the way. I think the enemy just loves to get to us at these times and tell us that we are useless. We need to stand firm against these negative thoughts, and know that we can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens us. “ALL” things are those things that He has for us, not necessarily the things we add to what He wants us to do… and I do have a tendency to keep adding things…!

So,…. Elizabeth and I went shopping this morning. We had a lovely time. Thank goodness for Big W (Walmart). Target had very little that I would consider modest and suitable for an 11 year old. We did much better at Big W, and now she has a lovely selection of everyday clothes and some for church on Sunday. It is a big relief to me. I can sort through her old clothes that are too small before we move and pass them on to someone else. And I can finish her dress at my leisure… after all, it is only spring….

This morning I decided it was time to conform. My hair was steadily getting grayer and grayer. I had bought the box of color a few months ago and kept putting it off because I was so busy.

I have dyed my hair before. Last time it turned black and I had to go to the hairdresser to fix it! Not very economical. I assume the batch was faulty, because that had never happened before! Today it turned out just fine, much to my relief. My nightie ended up with a big dark stain on it, however, where I dropped a big bit of gloop on it… oh well…

However, the reason for this post is this. As I was rinsing out my hair, I watched all that brown dye go down the drain. For the first time in my life, I wondered where it was going. It is nasty stuff. It made a stain on my nightie, can you imagine what else it does? Well, I reasoned, it doesn’t matter, because I can’t see what it does when it leaves my shower and disappears down the drain. Out of sight, out of mind.

Where does that mix of chemicals go? Where does it end up? Is it so diluted by the time it gets to a river or sea that it won’t harm any of the fish or animals that are there? Does it affect anything else along the way? I don’t know, because I can’t see it.

I thought about not dying my hair, but growing gray gracefully …. That really isn’t acceptable in today’s society. We have the options to stay young - why not use them? Makeup makes you look nicer for your husband, as does hair without gray in it. Our husbands might run off with someone younger if we don’t use these products, someone with less gray hair and wrinkles! At least that’s what the tv tells us….

The dye disappeared down the drain, and I got out of the shower and got dressed. Then I went to clean up the rest of the stuff from my hair renewing experience - the cardboard box and four little plastic bottles. Once they are in the bin, they are out of my sight and I don’t care where they go.

What if, I wondered, we all had to dispose of our waste ourselves, ie no rubbish collectors, but a part of our own block of land where we had to take responsibility for the things we buy. I know I would be more mindful of the packaging things come in and also the products themselves. But because I put it in a bin and it disappears magically each week, it is easy not to care.

Of course the point of this post is that I should and do care about where my waste goes, but do I care enough to make real changes in my life? Do I try to reuse as much as I can, and avoid buying things that end up in landfill - be they food packaging or clutter? Am I brave enough to not dye my hair? Because even though my dye may not affect anything on its own, along with everyone else using it to try to look artificially young, our rivers and seas might eventually reach saturation point…..

These past few days I have been thinking once again about my priorities and the goals I believe God has for me during this season in my life. I was thinking how quickly my children are growing, and how many more years I have with them to teach them at home, before they leave to their own homes. My youngest will officially finish school in about 10 years time. That’s not long! I then thought about what things I was involved in now that I will look back on and say,

“Oh, how I wish I had waited till the children had left home to do that, and spent more time with them instead.”

Life is so short. Children grow up so quickly. I don’t want to look at them when they are older and wish I had spent more time with them. You may ask what I mean by that. After all, I am a homeschooling mother. I spend ALL day, every day, 24/7 with them!! LOL! True. But I there is a difference between having my children around me all the time and spending time with them.

Let me give you an example that is very dear to my heart. I love my hobbies. Over the years they have been different. Reading, sewing, scrapbooking. There is nothing wrong with these hobbies. There is nothing wrong with spending time doing these things. But there is if they take the place of doing other things I should be doing - like spending time with my children. I sometimes catch myself telling them that I will be done in a minute… with my sewing, or reading, or computer time. That minute easily stretches to become minutes…. sometimes hours! Before I know it, the afternoon has gone by, and I haven’t played that game or made that puzzle with the children, or even sat with my daughter teaching HER how to sew…

Again, I don’t mean that I need to be spending every single minute of the day with my children, giving them my undivided attention. I think you know what I am trying to say. I have so many choices to make during this season when my children are growing up. I want to choose the right things, and not get distracted with things that I can easily do later, when they have left home and I am alone all day.

We have so many things that pull us and try to get our attention. Just being a keeper of the home is a full time job, let alone homeschooling on top of that! I constantly find myself re-evaluating my goals, activities and priorities. It is not a thing I do once a year, as a “New Year’s Resolution” that is broken a week later…. but with my short attention span, it is something I need to do regularly. Depending on my frame of mind, I even need to be doing this daily or weekly! LOL! What are the important things in my life at the moment? Who are the important people in my life right now? What should I be investing most of my time in today?

Benjamin Franklin said:

“Does thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”

Our time here on earth is so fleeting. How we spend it is entirely up to us. I don’t want to squander it on things that will not last….

Matthew 6:19 - 21

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy,

and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Hosted by Biblical Womanhood

We all know it. We all tell ourselves we should cut down on it….. IT being take-away or fast food. Our experience coming home from my in-laws just rammed it home once again.

While we were in the Middle East we ate out a lot. Sometimes it was social - after being isolated all day we just wanted to get out with other people and be “normal”. Often it was because the Turkish food we could get there was just plain YUMMY and cheap to boot! And there were those times where I just couldn’t be bothered cooking. Yes, that does happen with me! But most of the food over there was cheap, which in my mind justified it a bit more (rightly or wrongly!).

Back in Australia it was a different matter. I told my friends who were picking me up from the airport that the first thing I wanted to do was go to McDonalds and have a Bacon and Egg McMuffin! (No pork allowed where we lived in the Middle East.) So after they picked us up from the airport we dropped in at a McDonald’s on the way home. I made my order and it came to about $16. I said to the girl behind the counter,… “Are you sure?” She immediately thought she had overcharged me, while I was trying to tell her it sounded too cheap! My friend was at my side saying, “That’s dollars, Joy, not ****!” Ooops! Yes, I quickly converted it and realized that it wasn’t cheap, it was… expensive compared to where we had been!!! Needless to say, after two years of converting the local currency back into Australian dollars for comparison (oh, that is sooo cheap, only x dollars!), I needed to do the opposite.

So on to our weekend away. My father-in-law kindly gave us two sheep - dead ones for the freezer. He paid $52 for each one. A friend killed it and we helped him cut it up. I was so pleased! There is heaps and heaps of meat there and will last us quite a while. What a blessing!

Anyway, we were planning to get away just after lunch, but things happened and we weren’t ready until about 5pm. (It is just over a three hour drive home.) I had planned to take out some chops and whack them on the BBQ when we got home, that is, if we left as planned. But we didn’t, so dh said, “Don’t worry, we’ll just grab something on the way home…………….”

McDonald’s was way too busy, which was my choice, so we went to KFC, which I really don’t like much but anyway… choices were limited! We ordered and dh paid, and the bill for a family of 5 came to……… $50!!!!!! That is the same price as one sheep!!! And that one sheep will give us….well, at least 20 meals!!!!!

I think the comparison between the sheep and the one meal really hit me. In the past I might have said, “Oh well,…” but this was just such a classic (and timely) example of how much fast food really costs.

Our actual weekend with the inlaws was also a great example to me of homemade cooking vs take-away. My dmil cooks simple meals, but she never buys take-away. I guess as farmers they just didn’t have the money, and for many years they didn’t have the take-away shops in their small town. They used what they had on the farm, which was a lot of lamb that they grew themselves. I am always reminded when I eat my dmil’s meals, that even though they are simple, they are yummy and quick to make. So often the recipes in the magazines and recipe books these days are so complicated, with so many ingredients. No wonder we want to go and get fast food!

I have strengthened my resolve to cut down on take-away. Whenever I am tempted, I will think of our lamb vs KFC experience, and I hope I will head for the pantry and freezer real quick!

We’re back after our weekend away, which didn’t go quite as I expected! LOL! When does it ever…?!

Friday night I started getting a bad sore throat and my head and nose started to feel very blocked up. Thankfully my mother-in-law has boundless energy and I was able to rest on the weekend while she did all the work! I didn’t get much sewing done at all, just a bit of hand sewing. I just didn’t have the energy.

What I did do, however, nearly drove me nuts. I decided to bring a box of beads with me that needed sorting. The packers had packed it on its side, so that all the beads that were so nicely in their own little squares, had tumbled down into the wrong squares:

So began the tedious work of sorting them all out.

I almost got it done! I just have two small compartments to finish…. but I decided to stop because every time I closed my eyes I saw beads! We use the beads to make small ornaments and also to decorate wall hangings and stuff like that. This box was mostly Christmassy colors, so I really wanted to get it sorted before we started using them on our Christmas projects.

I also started to make buttons. I learned this from a dear friend of mine while we were in the Middle East. I used this clay:

Then I rolled it out and used small cookie cutters. I used a toothpick to make the button holes, and then laid them out to dry.

Now I need to paint them and they will be ready to decorate stockings like these ones:

We got home late Tuesday night. I am feeling much better now, probably due to my lovely rest at my dmil’s where I didn’t have to cook or clean! Yesterday I unpacked, did some washing and cleaning. Today I need to do some more, but I also need to start thinking about our move - it is only a week and a half till we get our new house!!! Exciting stuff, but also a bit nerveracking! LOL! I’ve decided to write a book about moving - it will be our 15th move in 15 years. What do you think?!

I’ve got more photos and more things to write about, but that will have to wait. I need to go and visit some blogs that I missed over the weekend! (Oh, and I guess I need to get up and do things around the house too….. )

My dh has Monday and Tuesday off, so we are heading to his parent’s place for a little vacation I am bringing my sewing machine and plan to have quality time with her! LOL! I know the kids will be enjoying time with Dad and grandparents, so I am hoping to have some time to myself. I’ve also just developed a nasty head cold, so a quiet weekend will be good.

So,… have a great weekend everyone. I’ll be back in the middle of next week.

Oh, before I forget. I made asparagus soup with the rest of the asparagus from our new garden. It was yummy too!

I didn’t use any particular recipe. I just made a basic cream soup with some butter and flour mixed together, and then I added the stock from when I boiled the asparagus. I tossed in some chicken stock cubes, salt, and mashed the asparagus roughly and added it. I kept adding stock until I like the consistency of the soup. I drizzled a bit of cream on the top and sprinkled on some homemade croutons.You can use this same method with any other vegetable. I particularly like cauliflower and/or broccoli soup. Let me know if you try it! It’s delicious!