My little blue cow

This is a very bad photo of my little blue cow 'delft' handpainted milk jug.  He looks a lot better in real life!  He was purchased in a cute little antique/shabby Chic store on Mount Tamborine.  I love antique stores in little villages.  

I love the idea of owning something that is really old and has not been mass produced.  One day, when we renovate our kitchen, I will have white benchtops and cute white shelves to display my antique finds.  But until then I have my little cow (which after searching the internet I found is not very old...and may not be very authentic) to remind me of sunny white kitchens where the dishes are always done and there is always time for afternoon tea.

Lights out and fairtrade chocolate

OK, So I know it was a few weeks ago now, but I haven't got to the blog in a while so I thought that I would fill you in on my spearmint green activites this month. 

The first was participating in Earth Hour on 27th March.  It started out great with me doing two Enjo Demo's during the day and encouraging everyone that I saw to turn out their lights that night at 8:30pm.  I really like Earth Hour because it is so simple to do and really reminds us that we don't have to be so reliant on electricity.  (Not that I am going to move to a power free home any time soon!).  When it came to me actually carrying out on my Earth Hour plan it was a little harder than I thought.  One reason was because it was just me and baby home by ourselves (and who wants to sit in the dark by themself), and the second reason was that I had a slight headache....which wan't helped by using the scented candles to light the room I was in.  I made it to about 45minutes and decided that having one small light on (so I could blowout the smelly candles) wouldn't be so bad ;0)  In my defence I am pretty power consciece anyway e.g. turning off standby appliances at the wall and making sure the minimum ammount of lights are on.  I mainly do this to reduce our electricity costs...which seem to be spiralling higher with each bill.  So that was Earth Hour.

The next event was Easter and me signing up to a facebook group which promised to only buy Fairtrade chocolate for Easter. (I probably should have reminded myself that joining a facebook group is not a binding legal contract).  Well it really wasn't easy to find fairtrade easter eggs...so most of my family received blocks of plain chocolate...and very little at that.  Man of the house and I also baked Easter Cookies which were a lot cuter than chocolate also.  I really agree with fairtrade principles, but am stuck by the fact that most fairtrade products aren't made in Australia...so it is a bit of a balancing act when trying to decide what brand to purchase.

So those were my two little greener projects this month.  It feels good to find a cause you identify with and try to contribute to it in even a very small way...

Reuse...

Last week I did something I have never done before.  I took two pair of trousers that don't fit me to a seamstress and had them tailored to fit.  After I had baby I lost a bit of weight and my body shape changed, which has resulted in none of the trousers in my wardrobe fitting me.  This has been so frustrating over the last six months as I have attempted to use belts or find new trousers with not much success.  So in the spirit of using less stuff (see previous post), I had my trousers tailored and they now fit like a dream, better than they ever did!  The whole process cost much less that buying 1 new pair of paints, and they wouldn't have fit this good anyway.  So tick one off the list of using less stuff...see a seamstress, I highly recommend it!

The story of stuff

I caught the end of an interview with Annie Leonard and thought I would check out her short movie "The story of stuff".  It was 20 minutes well spent (which I convinced man of the house to watch with me)!  I am really interested in the whole lifecyle of products and consumption, and often pick up products (like halloween glowsticks) and wonder if the world would be any different if we didn't make some poor kid in china make this so I can use it for 30 seconds at my once a year halloween party?  

I would love to be better at using less stuff and finding a better hobby than shopping and watching tv.  Watch the movie and let me know what you think...I am inspired...now what do I do?

Sunday morning's

February has come and gone already and I am trying to remember where it went?  But this month I did use my very quiet Sunday mornings to make baby boy a cute shirt to where to church.  There are a lot of tutorial's on the web for tie onsies, but since he is now one I used a shirt instead of a onsie and one of his Dad's unused hancherchiefs as the tie (which I think worked out great).

Plus it made a really cute photo!

I ironed the tie on with fusable interfacing (I think that's what it is called), and I hand stitched around the edges, which was a lot quiter than pulling out the sewing machine (and waking up sleeping baby).

Finished product: one cute baby boy in a white shirt and tie!

Ms Austen

 

It is not always easy to get through a book with a baby at home, but I have finally finished a Biography of Jane Austen titled 'Becoming Jane Austen'.  I started reading the novel after seeing the movie 'Jane Austen Regrets' and wanted to see how much of the movie is based on fact.  Well, with the novel read all I can say is "Thank goodness for the 20th Century".  I am so glad to be a woman born in 1981 instead of 1775.  Although it seems relaxing and romantic to live in country England and write novels all day, I don't think it was really all that fantastic.

 Not only was Jane never married, she spent a lot of her life worrying about money, having a permanent home to live in and the welfare of her brothers.  She finally died of Addison's disease having never reaped the rewards of her gifted writing. 

In addition, the only picture we have of this great writer is a rather ugly looking sketch that her sister Cassandra drew of her.  Now that would not promote 'sisterly affection'.

Smarter than your average...chicken

We have now had our three chickens for nearly six months, (Let the record show that I have not yet killed them.)  and I was suprised the  other day when I went out into the backyard and they came running towards me!  Apparently I am some kind of Mother Hen to them and they can't get enough of me.  Now this does get really annoying when I am trying to clean out the coop, but is kinda cute when I think about it.  I am also constantly suprised at how smart they are...there is planning and scheming going on in those little chicken heads.  My blog does not have room for me to document the many escape's these girls have had!

Henny Penny, Hermione and Roast now give us three eggs a day and only cost us about $5 a month to feed and house, so it is definately working out to be 'Sustainable'.  Plus I really like having extra eggs to give away to friends and family.

If you are interested in Chickens check out these girls.  We got a lot of info off their site before we chose our chooks.  And who knows, they could be my longest living pets yet (if you ignore my resurecting goldfish).