New Routines

Well, as a follow on from my Low-Tech Wednesday post yesterday, we've been slowly settling into a new routine. The house is slowly getting more organised, and thus quicker to clean (decluttering through one area at a time, currently working on the kitchen), so morning cleanup goes quite quickly. Then we intersperse the morning with schoolwork, more focused cleaning (like the decluttering), and, of course, playing. After lunch (usually either fresh cooked bread, or sandwiches/toast from yesterday's bread), DD will often settle in for an hour or two's TV or computer games, while I find a little time for catching up with my online communities or writing. Then depending on our mood, we play a little more, do some craft/sewing, or go out somewhere.

Yesterday, we made a simple fishing game. DD drew several fish on blank pieces of paper, and we cut them out and slid a paperclip onto the spot where their mouth would be.

Then with an old magnet off the fridge, we went 'fishing' for a while. DD loved it! She's always wanting to buy these sort of fishing games at the stores, but I think our home made one is much better! (Plus it gave her some drawing and cutting practice!) Once she tires of the plain fishing game, I'll write some numbers on each fish, and we can see who gets the highest score. (Great for maths practice, adding numbers.)

DD was watching a birthday party on one of her TV shows, so once it was over, she decided to wrap up some 'presents' for me. Lovely job I think. Especially the bow, perfect finishing touch.

And, of course, what rainy week is complete without an indoor cubby? DD did nearly all of this herself while I was in the other room hanging washing on the indoor line. She did call me out to help with a couple of pegs, but overall, I think it's a pretty spectacular construction.

And while I was in the kitchen cooking, DD decided to write out her own recipe. I helped her with spelling, and working out what the ingredients were, but all the writing is all hers. She did ask how to write a couple of letters, so I demonstrated on a separate piece of paper.

I'm starting to feel like we really are homeschooling, with all these activities going on. DD is learning things so quickly, and her attention is far more sustained than it was even a few weeks ago. I'm looking forward to more homeschooling posts as we slowly find our way into a routine that works for us.

Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Wednesday

Yes, I know it has been a couple of days, but things have been happening here. And it all started with Low-Tech Wednesday. Now as far as low-tech goes, it was a bit of a failure. It did make me realise though, all of the wonderful tech that I just don't want to live without. (I don't say can't live without, as I have done so quite successfully in my childhood!) I mean, hot and cold running water! Flushing toilets! (I just have to put those two first, because I am NEVER going back to not having them, LOL.) But we also continued to use our refrigerator, freezer, lights, car (to go the playgroup and ferry DH to and from the train station), washing machine, stove top, oven and the dishwasher. That is a LOT of technology, just in one day. It is amazing how reliant we become on it.

When we were in the shed, it was slightly easier to do without some of these things. For a start, we didn't have a dishwasher! On previous low-tech days, I've avoided putting on loads of washing, or using the oven, and we've done our dinner cooking outdoors on the barbeque, but given our household's tiredness (I'm pretty sure even DD is a little sleep deprived right now, or maybe she's just having one of those growth spurts), we went the easy route. The only things we turned off for the day, were the computers/TV.

But none the less, it made a HUGE impact on our day. I've never been one of those people who insisted that the TV was bad, and we should do without it. However, low-tech Wednesday made me realise that we've been coming to rely on the TV and computers just a little too much for our entertainment, and we were all suffering for it. DD has been much calmer, and much more likely to find games to entertain herself, with her TV time limited to about an hour a day.

I'll be back to post tomorrow about some of the fun things we've been doing!

Low-tech Wednesday Revived

Yes, it's been a long time since we've had a low-tech Wednesday, but given the amount of stress and tiredness in our house right now, I think it's time to revive this habit. We've been watching far too much TV, and spending far too much time on the internet, so I think a regular day without would not only give us some time away from these distractions, but get us back into the habit of considering alternatives to our electronic entertainers.

And before you point out that I'm here posting this online, I'm actually writing it on Tuesday, but scheduling it to post on Wednesday! Clever huh? I'll be back on Thursday to let you know how the day went!

Simple, whole foods

A lot of posts about simple living focus on food. How to grow it, how to prepare it. I mean, it's one of the most basic necessities, and one that I think has been most interfered with. Just about every product you look at on the supermarket shelves has been modified in some way, usually by the addition of many synthetic chemicals. Although probably many of these do no real harm, I don't think that the continued consumption of these can have any long term benifits.

I'm still working on the food around here. I have a house full of very picky eaters (me included!), and DH's gluten intolerance to take into consideration, so finding things that everyone will eat and enjoy is a challenge. We generally stick to very bland, plain meals, making it very easy to try to keep to whole, unprocessed foods.

This is how I started my day at 7:30am this morning. DD had a similar, but smaller plate. All of it fresh, from the markets, with the passionfruit being picked from our own vine yesterday afternoon. I went a bit overboard here, and wasn't sure if I could eat it all, but in the end I did. I find that getting this fruit in early in the day is the easiest way for me. I used to eat a lot of fruit, but since DD was born, I've found myself eating less and less, while encouraging her to eat more! Far better to practice what I preach, and eat it myself. However, I often find I'm too busy to stop and eat much during the day. Doing it first thing means that I don't forget.

Of course, while fruit is full off all those great vitamins and minearls, I find that even after a huge plate like that, I'm hungry again by about 9 or 10 (10 in this case!), so that's when I have some nice, hot, filling poridge, covered in wheat germ and brown sugar. (I do need to cut down on the sugar a little, I admit, I'm working on it.) That lasts me a lot of the rest of te day, and the chickens love eating the leftovers (because I always make too much, these days on purpose!)

So there you have it, a nice healthy breakfast, and delicious as well!

Financial Goals

Lately DH and I have been giving quite a lot of thought to our financial situation. I've written previously that our goal is for DH to be able to work part time, and hopefully retire very early, but so far aside from dreaming, we've made very little effort to achieve this goal.

I've been reading many blogs lately about people who have begun to make moves towards changing their situation. People who are working to pay off their mortgages, and live life the way they want to instead of being ruled by their debts, and they are inspiring. I think we can do it too. No, it won't happen tomorrow. In fact, it will be years away. But we certainly can't start any sooner.

Our first goal is to finish paying off our credit card. We hope to have this done by the end of March. Until it's paid off, we're going to continue with our Nothing New policy as much as we are able to. I'm mending our sheets yet again because I don't want to have to buy a new set. (And I refuse to buy cheap ones, I have a particular set in mind, and am waiting until we have the SPARE cash to afford them.) We're attempting to intersperse our normally meat heavy meals with cheaper ones, like the scrambled eggs we had tonight, (Can't get any cheaper than that, eggs laid by our own chooks, on toast cooked here at home), fried rice, and pasta. The increasing amount of produce we're getting from our own garden, as well as making everything we can at home (from materials we already have where possible!), helps as well. Really, there is very little we will need to buy over the next few months. (Except the previously mentioned bookshelves and new lounge if they are available, though in reality they aren't needs, but wants.)

Once the credit card is paid off, our next step is to build up an emergency fund of $1000. As any budgeting gurus will tell you, if you lack an emergency fund, you will simply rack up your credit card again when the unexpected happens. We now have a second mortgage offset account (off our construction loan), where the emergency fund will be separate from our day to day money, while still offsetting the interest on our mortgage. We hope to have this done by the end of June.

After the initial emergency fund is secure, we will increase our payments on the home loan by $100 a fortnight. Not much, and should be easy to do without many changes to our current budget, but from the few calculations I've done, it should reduce the repayments on our home loan nearly in half, and save us scads of interest! While we're doing this, we will continue to add any extra money, bonus payments etc, into the emergency fund until it's at about $5000. Hopefully we should achieve this by the end of the year.

Then, all going well, any extra money we get will go straight into the home loan. If we can pay off this one loan (the smaller, and at a higher interest rate), it will halve our repayments, and would allow DH to work part time if he chooses, or allow us to pay off the second loan (on the land) in half the time.

In order to help us keep track of our goals and progress, I've set up a budget in Microsoft Money (which we already had!) We've used this with great success previously, only falling behind when DD was little, and we couldn't find the time to keep it updated. Hopefully it will work just as well for us this time!

Overflowing

On Friday, we had over 18mm of rain in about 24 hours! Our tanks, which were already pretty full from the weeks of rain in early summer, were simply overflowing. This one, which fills from our house roof (about 115sqm), apparently doesn't have a big enough overflow outlet! It was simply gushing out the inlet, and I ended up going down and pulling the cap off the pipe so that it would flow out into the street drain rather than overflowing here near the house. At least the pipes will have had a good flushing out!

We ran entirely off our stainless steel tank last summer and most of winter (you can see it in the background), and managed to use no town water, though the levels did get mighty low once or twice. So far though, with the two tanks, we have had so much water we don't know what to do with it!

Still, conserving water is so ingrained in us now, that even when we have plenty, we use very little. Our washing machine and dishwasher use only minimal water (washing machine about 50l a load, dishwasher about 11), we have water saving shower heads, and are careful every time we turn a tap on. It all pays off though, and hopefully we will have plenty of water to see us through the winter (which typically has less rain here), without any worries.

Restoring Old Toys

When DD was first born, we bought SO MANY toys for her, all new. I shudder to think of how much we spent on toys that probably only lasted a year or two at most. (To my credit, most were either sold or donated to charity then, not thrown out.) My sister has a far more sensible attitude, and gets a lot more for her $50 at the second hand stores or garage sales than we ever got at the toystore!

These days, we buy a few select, high quality toys new, and mostly either make them at home, or buy second hand. While there are many second hand toys that are like new, or even gain appeal through being loved, many just aren't as 'pretty' as those you can buy new. And I don't believe in kids getting 'second best'. Though DD will happily play with her second hand toys, I often like to spruce them up a bit for her.

Here is the toy ironing board we bought for a couple of dollars somewhere. A new cover, and a second hand wooden iron from the markets, and it's a toy worth of any child's playroom. (Clicking on the pictures will enlarge them so you can have a good look if you want.)

This pram, likewise, was a dollar or two at a second hand store. I believe they're $7 or so new at bargain stores, which is probably where this one was originally from. With a new cover, it looks far prettier than the original one would have looked the day it came home from the store. I took off the old cover and used it to make a pattern for this new one. DD and I gave the pram a good scrubbing. The new cover took less than an hour to sew up (mostly due to me trying to 'improve' over the original design, when will I learn), and used the buckle from the original cover, but otherwise all new material (less than half a metre of $5 a metre material).

I enjoy this so much more than just going out and buying new, which always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

These toys will also be a great addition to DD's 'home corner' once I get to it.