Happy days

 

My gosh, it has been a while since I last posted. The days have been full and interesting being Summer, there are a lot of things happening. I hope everyone had a glorious Christmas time and a lovely New Year.

 

For New Year I sat down to write out my goals for 2014. I think the list is a modest one I can achieve.

 

 

My goal for 2014 is to work towards building the foundation of a life towards Homespun, Homestead simplicity. I intend for 2014 to focus on Simple Living aspects as much as possible and move away from focusing on consumerism.

 

My goals:

 

 

-Working on weight loss or more importantly focusing on healthy eating.

-More journal writing in books. Documenting my days more on paper rather than just using my blog only

-More photography.

 

-Building up more seeds towards a seed bank for my future gardens.

-Focusing on herbs.

-Cooking from scratch where and when possible.

-Spend moments trying not to rely on electricity. Ways I hope to achieve this include:

Invest in a solar battery charger for laptop/ipad/phone. (The only moderately large ticket item I will buy this year).

-Hand sewing.

-Using solar lights for bedside night lights.

 

-Begin homestead making with project such as:

Soap making

Canning

Cooking from scratch

Quilting

Candle making

 

- Start up a container garden for many medicinal and useful herbs.

-Begin using many of the herbs I grow for projects including:

Remedies

Natural Dyeing

Cooking

I am really looking forward to the herbs and natural dyeing as it is something I've had an interest in a long time. While I am achieving my goals I will also be commenting around on my favorite blogs and new blogs too! Hmm that may defeat the purpose of not using electricity too much. Oh well I do enjoy looking at all the beautiful things everyone shares. Thank you all for being so inspiring.

honey bee

 

Waiting for the bees.

 

I finished my bee painting. The story evolved as I painted. She holds a bee skep in her hand (a small one) and waits for the bees to arrive in her garden during the day. The painting is on a long skinny canvas done in acrylic paints.

 

In the background I featured Simba, who is a dreaming fox in this painting.

And the roses are there too. Along with the baby blue plumbago bush I was admiring. Her lacy collar is inspired by a battenburg lace collar I have in my stash. Now onto thinking about other projects.

Summer flowers

 

When it is not raining I try to get out and about to go walking as much as possible. I'm not getting very far just yet but eventually my health will improve and I will walk longer. Meanwhile there's plenty of inspiring beauty to see just around the block I walk. The happiest one, and perhaps the most oddly beautiful sight was seeing a large hare bounding out of Nanna Chel's street and away. Likely heading to the crops in the CSIRO produce paddocks. 

 

There's so many beautiful roses on show at the moment. Dad is buying new ones and planting them. These lovelies were spied on my walks. They are going to feature in my bee painting.

 

 

I don't know about anyone else but I can't help picking up treasures I see along the way. I always come home with a pocketful of treasures.

 

 

And occassionally I've been teaching Mister Simba to walk with me on his lead. It's exhausting for both of us!