Let's take stock.

It is mid term and we have three glorious days off school. OK I normally have these three days off but there is something nice about not having to get me and the little people dressed and along that road to school, either a leisurely walk or a quick march depending on the time. Our little girl is thrilled at having the days off......maybe a little too thrilled actually. I'm kind of concerned that she already has an adolescent approach to education.

Anyway, anyway... I got thinking that as this is halfway thru the school year and our kids have had mid-session reviews I should give my targets a bit of a reviewing.

Avoid the shops..................... for me that has not been hard. I have made some good purchases of late and actually enjoy a browse thru the clutter in a calm sort of way while the shopping centre has me actively concentrating on my breathing. We failed on a jacket for Mike, saw one in Tesco's (not exactly high end shopping admittedly) and had it bought and worn before we remembered our target. Kids clothes, grandma is still kitting out the kids. Osh kosh b'gosh! Charity shops do not stock kids clothes. Where do they all go?

Clean the house chemical free. This is not a tough one. My spray bottle of water and soap is my absolute favourite. And I clean tougher stuff with bicarb either sprinkled directly or mixed with soap and water. Hey... if you have not considered it then do. Honestly saves you a fortune and it keeps those chemicals out of your house and your lungs. This target has kind of sent me in to another one of reducing the chemicals in products we are using on us. Check out www.froogrecipes.com for some more stuff that Beth is working on.
(Note to Self - maybe not the smartest to blog about the shampoo reduction thing. Wiser to do it when folks are none the wiser and do not then start conversations with "which hair day is this?" !!)

Our diet................. . We love our local farm. It is not organic but the food miles don't even reach a mile! Everything tastes so good. Sadly it is only open six months of the year. We love Nancy too and the cows. It is quite the outing for us. We went up last week, me and the littler boy. Phew it stank. They had just spread the manure, and chicken manure at that. Now anytime the littler boy smells something bad he says with great certainty "I can smell Nancy's farm."
We are eating very little processed food. (Does Bailley's count as processed?). The littler boy's diet is still not full of obvious fruit and veg but we are seeing very small steps of progress and a lot less fighting and gagging. And take it from me, that is GOOD!!!!!

Our allotment project has taken a bit of a hit with the weather but we are still committed to it. we took a trip down a few weekends ago and the little people were highly entertained by their father's Tigger impersonations to cut off a couple of high tree branches snagged in the telephone wires. We had forgotten to put two pairs of socks on the little people tho so only got an hour of clearing done. We need the temperature to go up a little as you would need a pneumatic drill to break the ground up now.

And Christmas, well that has been well chronicled but we will be seriously on the look out for package reduced Easter Eggs!

Change is often hard. We were given a new computer this week by Mike's Dad. Very generous. We really like it but on Thursday night as we were making system restore disks (....two hours those things took to make, two hours.....), loading antivirus software, trying to remember exactly which password we had put on the Internet account, it just seemed like it would be a whole pile easier to stick with the old, familiar and decidedly decrepit computer. Yesterday I really struggled with not washing my hair, yeuch it looked pretty awful. I wanted a sign for my forehead which would read something like.................. well I am not exactly sure how I would explain it, a hat or indeed a bag for my head might have been easier. Two and half weeks Beth reliably informs me, or at least Meredith's book says, for our hair to adjust to a different routine.

How long I wonder for me to adjust to a different pace? I do not want to do less. I just want to be more effective in what I do. I changed the header quote today. Justice. Mercy. Humility. These I want to pursue. And Dot's comment on the previous post is really worth the contemplating..... .

Check out http://www.thebodiebunch.blogspot.com/ Wednesdays entry-Wants and Needs http://www.iblamedorisday.blogspot.com/ Fast and slow.
It is encouraging that there are others who get this, and get it clearer than me.

And as for my hair on a significantly shallow note, I am adjusting a bit at a time. every second day for a month or so and then we will move on to three days. Either that or I need two and a half weeks somewhere I know nobody. I have a lot of pride to deal with.

Pure and simple.

I may not have been blogging much in the last few weeks but I certainly have been doing some thinking. Turns out it would take me washing my hands for two hours, yep two hours steady contact with that anti bacterial soap on my fingers, to kill some of those germs. Yeah right! My son has just been learning hand washing at nursery. Rub that soap in and sing "Happy Birthday" twice. A good aim I feel and in our house, if I can get this soap recipe to work... a little on the watery side but hey it was a first go, then pure olive oil has got to be better for us.
Why am I so easily conditioned to believe that I need to be buying these products? Why am I so adjusted to consumerism?
And........ I have found myself in chats with folks in the last months about the amount we wash our hair. This weekend Karen, our hairdresser and a fab one at that, was appalled that I would be washing my kids hair as often. Once a week full stop. (Now our eczema creams come in to play as they do get into their hair but I am hearing her) And for me once or maybe twice a week unless I am sweating up a storm at the gym. (Me?) We are stripping out all the natural oil. Again I am really irritated that I would get so easily sucked in to this idea of progress with the increase in products available. It is not progress, and it may actually be damage, as we pour a pile of unnecessary junk in and around our bodies.
A friend who gave me a great clean green book last week ( I am thinking of holding some kind of green clean party where we can share ideas and learn!?) suggested to me this week that maybe the whole cleaning/products thing had a parallel in the spiritual with me. I laughed at the time but I think she was right. There is a deep desire in me for the simpler yet more effective in everything. It is hard for me to blog this well and there has been much back spacing in the last ten minutes.
So I pause here for some more thought................... .

What is the deal on anti-bac?

OK, I would like someone to give me the answer to this, please.

I grew up without anti-bacterial soap, kitchen cleaner and dish washing liquid. I did not have a pile of infections. In fact I may not have had any to speak of, leaving aside the time we camped together with a massive group of folks in a muddy field, and one toilet, and you do not want anymore details than that!! I have just completed in the last six months the food hygiene course and it is anti-bacterial all the way, and yep it kills those nasty germs but not all of them. (So beware!!)

Do we need antibacterial everything or is it about good hand washing with some soap? Basic good hygiene practises? Will good ol' soap and water do it?

Maladjustment and soap.

We have lived in our house now for four years. I so dislike my narrow rectangular kitchen and dream for a large square one. We arranged the microwave and stuff the day we moved in and have lived with it like that ever since I guess just thinking that we had made the best decision for the kitchen, based on the space on the counter tops we had. On Friday I was walking through the kitchen and it suddenly hit me......if I moved that there and that there and then that to over there we could double our usable working space. This may sound sad but I have been excited about our kitchen over the last few days. It is so improved.

It got me thinking that often we just live with things because we have got so used to looking at them, responding to them, in the same way. We miss out on challenge and improvement and settle for the OK in our own lives. We accept things that are not in actual fact unacceptable in our communities and our world at large just because we have looked and listened for so long we have stopped hearing and seeing the truth. I renew my commitment to maladjustment.

I am happy to share my shortbread recipe with anyone who wants it. I am also away to work on a shower gel recipe. Take one bar of pure olive oil soap, (smells interesting!?!), grate, add boiling water and essential oil of your choice. (Dearly hope this bit works!!) Will let you know how it goes, or those who live in closer proximity to me, may well be letting me know!!

One of the highlights of our holiday season for the last couple of years has been opening our church on New Years Day to folks who may need some company, some warmth and some nutritious food. Many folks had cooked up a storm and I was part of the kitchen team who made sure all was to temperature and fit for serving.(The joys of regulations!) It was great to see and hear the buzz around the place. Over 30 folks we trust found something to make that day a little easier. For me it is good to start the year with a real outward focus. And it reconfirms my commitment to maladjustment.
I also discovered a shortbread recipe that will forever be the one I use and am happy to share. I made it first for friends and family on Hogmany. Ok. I made it next for friends on the 2nd. Excellent and even better for the fact I made scones too so we have eaten shortbread for days.
We attempted a jerk ham. It was a real project and the results were good but like the shortbread we need an excuse for round two. The clootie dumpling however being on round 9 was just sooooo good but needs to be bigger. If you are catering for folks then a rule of mine is that there has to be left overs, and definitely of clootie dumpling.
I just do not get why when I can cook pretty well and why when we have very little junk in our house (shortbread being high quality of course!!) buddy boy (a fit and healthy three year old) had such a limited diet. "Don't like it" is the answer for everything new. All fruit and veg. He will do peas (around 10) and endless baked beans. He will scrape any sign of sauce from his spaghetti! I used to be one of these people who was pretty disparaging about parents whose children developed these kind of habits. Yes, I know at some point I took a step or two wrong but really, honestly and truly I am not lazy, lacking in will or imagination.
So the next few days I plan to set us out on a new approach, using the ideas in Deceptively Delicious and the Sneaky chef. I am determined meal times will not be a battle ground because that works for no one. We just need to decide exactly which of the three or four ideas we are going to follow........ !

New Year's resolutions!!

Happy New Year to you!! May this be one of many blessings.

I am not one for setting New Years resolutions. This year will not be any different seeing as I set myself some hefty challenges during the summer. There is enough exploring, and thinking, and committing to, in these for another year I reckon.

The only non resolution I am making is to try to make time for some quiet in life, some time for reflection, some time for thought. I am calling it a non resolution because in actual fact it is a necessity. Giving up on January 15th is not an option.