Slow living month - September

I know I'm 5 days late with this journal - its been hard to find the time and motivation to get here to blog this week.  We're on school holidays and the boys and I have been having a ball, and the weather has been great, so I've been in the garden a lot.  But I do love these journal type of entries, so here it is, Slow Living Month September.  Do pop over to Slow Living Essentials and see what others have been up to.... that's what I plan to do as soon as I'm done typing this :)

~Nourish~

We celebrated early spring one night by taking our dinner outside.  We cooked our tortillas on the BBQ plate and ate by candlelight.  We realised that early spring is really the only time you can eat outside by candlelight with kids - in summer it is too late by the time it is dark and in winter it is too cold.  It was a lovely, impromptu, weeknight dinner.  I love making our own tortillas, it is one of the few things that Stu and I cook cooperatively and I love it.  We are also now getting plenty of eggs, so there has been a resurgence of egg based meals and pancakes on weekends.

~Grow~

September in the garden has been all about preparing for summer crops.  I continued to plant and nurture seedlings in the cold frame and started planting out.  Unfortunately, snails and slugs are a huge problem here, so I've been fighting them at every step along the way.  I've continued to harvest greens from the garden and the snow peas are finally producing a few crisp pods that never seem to make it to the dinner table.  My son has decided that they are a snacking vegetable, not a dinner vegetable - I tend to agree.  I've loved joining in on the garden journal with Squiggly Rainbow too (and will be back on that when the holidays are over!).

~Prepare~

The coriander that has filled our curries with its colour and flavour through winter has sensed the spring and is bolting to seed, so I have picked huge amounts of it to make frozen coriander ice blocks using this recipe.  They're lovely and will hopefully keep the deliciousness going for us a bit longer.
We also continued to bottle beer and our first batch of alcoholic ginger beer.  The alcohol level is relatively low, but the taste is gooooooood!

 

~Reduce~

Lots of lovely op shop finds this month - clothes and books for the kids, crafty things, clothes and a couple of homewares for me and something special for Stu.  An espresso machine! It's not a super fancy one, but it works really well and Stu is enjoying his morning coffee from it.  He is not enjoying so much the regular requests for 'cinos (strawberry, vanilla, caramel and chai) from the rest of us ;) 
I've also continued to reuse and repurpose a lot of 'junk' through the garden for various jobs.

~Green~

Our challenge for last month was to do 'random acts of greening'.  We built (from recycled materials) a new compost bin; switched to bamboo compostable toothbrushes and discovered new ways to be just a little bit greener.  The kids also took it upon themselves to pick up litter when they go for their walks to check the mail or exercise the dogs - proud of my little greenies.  Our bamboo toothbrushes needed a bit of decoration.  They are all exactly the same, so we decorated the handles of them with nailpolish so we know whose is whose.

~Create~

I'm still working on my jumper that I had hoped to have finished by spring, but keep getting interrupted in its creation to make costumes for dancing, birthday presents etc.  And I have had to write a plan for the next few months of Christmas present making as the sheer quantity on the to do list was overwhelming me.  

Here are a couple of little birthday presents I made this month and was able to gift to the little girls they were for yesterday. They loved them!

A Tangled Happy Wand for a 5 year old friend

A little "spare pocket" handbag with crocheted decals.

We also started on the pizza oven, and are discovering creative masonry :) We built the arch to the base - so proud!  (photos soon)


~Discover~

The library loads have been huge this month and I was also given some vintage pattern books which are gorgeous.  On the reading pile are: Living the Good Life, A Katie Fforde novel, numerous books on building woodfired ovens, a couple of copies of G magazine and a book called A slice of Organic. 

~Enhance~

We had our Spring Hafla at Belly Dance.  I love gathering with the community that we've built with our little belly dance group.  We always have a great atmosphere and fabulous fun.  I was so proud of my own kids and all of the other Belly Kids and adult students who graced the stage with the crazy collection of dances I've been teaching them this year.  It is always such a pleasure to watch a student take to the stage for the first time and to watch the buzz they get from such an achievement.  I had numerous people congratulate me on the diversity and family friendliness of the group, I work hard to make sure that all women and kids, regardless of their abilities or body shape, size age etc are not only welcome, but truly included.  I'm really glad this shows.  I also love that I get to share this with my hubby and kids - special!

Some crazy Shaabi style fun with my intermediate students.  This style is representative of modern 'nightclub' style dancing, hence the casual jeans costume.  All just for fun really :)

~Enjoy~

I've enjoyed the first rays of Spring sunshine.  The first week of holidays with my kids.  Hanging out on screen free Saturday nights with Stu.  Having my stepmum visiting and taking her to meet Clover (and in doing so getting to spend time with my awesome bro and sis-in-law again).  A photoshoot with my little spunky guys before their school disco.  A family day at my mum's place where I felt closer to her and my little brother and sister than I have in a long time.  Dinner and dancing fun with my dancing sisters, including some time where we banned belly dance talk and just connected as friends.  And much more. A good month.