In preparation for Easter

Not quite figured out the connection between rabbits and eggs yet but we’ll get there.

Easter here is going to be an interesting affair. We heavily restrict sugar in our house as even the smallest amount causes incredible silliness and misbehaving in both Jasper and Allegra. For example, a 1/6th of a bounty bar and a single bakery biscuit each last week created an awful afternoon of two children who basically spent their time swinging from the rafters.

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A sunshiney day

I’ve been nominated for a sunshine award. 😀

What a lovely surprise. I can tell you as I read through Suburban Simplicity‘s post the last thing I expected to find was my name on the list of recipients! Bit of an honour there aye. 😀

So, without further ado, here are the questions the recipients must answer.

The questions:

1. Who is your favorite philosopher? I can’t actually say that I have one.

2. What is your favorite number?  13 for sure.

3. What is your favorite animal? I adore chickens. Big fluffy black chickens most of all. My first chicken was a black chook, probably an Australorp called Higgy.

4. What are your Facebook and Twitter? I neither Tweet (never have) nor Facebook (any more) and my life is simpler because of it.

5. What is your favorite time of day? I would have to say 6pm when my husband gets home. 😛

6. What was your favourite holiday? Definitely our big Europe holiday where we flew to the UK via Bangkok, bought a car in the UK, drove around Britain, through Wales, caught the ferry to Ireland, then back, drove to Scotland then to a wedding in Newcastle, drove down to Newhaven and caught the ferry to France, drove through France, Italy, Austria, Germany, back through France and back to London again. We then flew home via Hong Kong where my then boyfriend proposed to me. It was a magical holiday of 8 amazing weeks.

7. What is your favorite physical activity? Does sleeping count? 😉 I would have to say gardening probably now.

8. What is your favorite non-alcoholic drink? A homemade hot cacao with rapadura sweetening. I don’t drink alcohol any more.

9. What is your favorite flower? I adore gardenia and freesia but my all time favourite is the erlicheer daffodil. Good think I have over 300 bulbs planted then isn’t it. 😀

10. What is your passion? At the moment it’s all things hippy. Blogging, baking, finding better foods for my family and their health and buying organic.

Now, for people I nominate…

In no particular order…

The Tropical Hippy – An old friend and new blogger who is also making the change to a more sustainable lifestyle for her family. She’s a big inspiration to me and a great friend besides.

Birth Without Fear – If not for the amazing information and general support, I am not sure I would have birthed Orik at home and I would have missed out on one of the most amazing and incredibly empowering experiences of my life. The support offered here is for all birthing ways. Yes, there is an emphasis on natural birth but their main objective is to educate women to understand birth and to make educated choices rather than blind trust in the medical profession which does not always have only the best interests of mum and bub at heart.

Greening of Gavin – An incredibly inspiring and informative blog about Gavin who had an epiphany and changed his whole lifestyle to one of sustainable practices and environmental awareness. Reading about his journey and everything that he achieves has given me many ideas and a LOT of inspiration for our own lifestyle. Knowing that he will soon become almost kind of our neighbour when we move is really cool too. 😀

Milkwood Permaculture – A great place to learn about permaculture principles.

Living the Good Life – Linda Cockburn and her family’s story of going off grid entirely for 12 months absolutely blew my mind! The things they did, the achievements and the goals reached are just incredible and their ongoing journey since then has been amazing to follow. This blog has probably been one of the most instrumental blogs I have read to inspire my own journey to the green side of life.

The Eco Mum – How many emails have I sent this incredible woman asking for herbal advice? She has greatly inspired me into stepping away from conventional medications and looking for natural herbal and homeopathic treatments for our ailments. Her essential balm is liquid gold and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Check her out for sure, particularly her Facebook page.

The Road to Serendipity – A blog I am just new to following but I feel I’ve found another mentor to add to my list of enviro mentors. I know who I will be asking advice from should I ever decide to try grafting and I love when I wake up in the morning after posting a blog post as I know there is always a wonderful comment from her. I’ve learned to keep my phone on silent though as she rises a wee bit earlier (read at least 2 hours before) I do. 😉 

Natural New Age Mum – A wonderful blog with a broad range of ideas to help live a more natural life. Her blog covers all sorts of topics and as a Thermy owner her recipes are also shared in Thermy terms as well as normal. Makes life MUCH easier. 🙂

The Prairie Homestead – Another great blog with a heap of wonderful and practical ideas for simple frugal and sustainable living.

Missus Moonshine – Alicia’s blog is about their family and life of sewing, gardening, soap making, homemaking and parenting whilst living the city homestead lifestyle. Her thrift shop upcycled kids clothing is absolutely divine as is their garden.

 

🙂 🙂 🙂

So, for those that have been nominated, to pass on the award you need to in turn nominate 10 people and link to their post. Don’t forget to let them know you’ve nominated them too. Then just answer the questions and pass on the love. 😀

 

Carrots

I had a busy morning yesterday. After putting Orik to bed for his nap I headed into the kitchen with Jasper and Allegra to sort out the 3 or 4 kilos of carrots I had purchased. Out came the big saucepan, mandolin slicer, frozen kangaroo mince (I needed something cold to chill the water and I needed something for dinner) and a sink full of carrots and water. Jasper was installed at the sink with a scrubbing brush and he cleaned the mud off the carrots. He had a ball and the bonus was he helped me immensely. Allegra helped me by collecting the sliced carrot and bagging it up for me. We sliced and diced all the carrots whilst the water boiled and then the blanching and chilling began.

I followed the instructions, and indeed got the idea in the first place from my friend over at The Eco Mum who had blogged about it a couple of months back. Check out her blog for the links and details.

Anyway, I now have a HUGE bag of carrots blanched and frozen for future us and I know they are organic well as being heritage carrots (purple skins with orange inside and a golden yellow carrot inside and out) and best of all, they taste DIVINE.