Simple Living

Just over a week ago I attended a Simple Living workshop that was run by Rhonda Jean who write a blog that I have followed for years - and it was wonderful! I had wanted to meet Rhonda for so long. It’s funny how you feel like you know someone and that they are a part of your life, just from reading their blog. I was so very excited when I heard about the workshops so I decided to spend my birthday money on attending as I hadn’t found anything else I wanted to buy or do as much.

 

Beautiful set up at the Blakheath Community Centre

 It was wonderful to be surrounded by a group of women who all shared similar values and wanted to live or were living the same sort of life that I want to. Since buying my own home 4 months ago I always knew when things settled slightly for me I would get back into the swing of my version of simple living. Listening to the other ladies talk about what they do and how they live their life was so inspiring. It was nice to sit near women who were also in a similar age bracket to me (30 ish) who did not have children yet but also wanted to pursue a simple life. 

Rhonda-Jean showing us how to make laundry liquid

We talked about lots of things but one thing that stuck with me was when we talked about blanching vegetables which inspired me to give it a go. T and I had been buying prepackaged steamed parcels to cook in the microwave to go with our dinners – very expensive but we have found it to be convenient with our busy lifestyles so we still get a veggie hit. So I decided to blanch some veggies and put them in to packages with a serving for the 2 of us and freeze them up. A few dollars of veggies and not much prep time lead to 10 double servings of veggies that would probably cost the same for 3. And they taste a lot better and can be quickly cooked in the microwave just like the prepackaged ones. 

I also really enjoyed sitting around in our knitting and crochet circles. I have been doing a bit of crochet lately and started on making a cushion. I find it really relaxing and it’s been so long since I’ve made the time to do some craft work.

Going to the workshop was just what I needed. I felt so energized and happy. It really cemented my beliefs on how I want to be living my life. And I know whilst I am working full time and commuting 4 hours a day at the moment I can’t change everything in one go. But I realised I can start making the small changes and build on them and live my own version of my simple life. And I’ve found that feeling to give me great comfort ever since the workshop.

Talking and meeting Rhonda at the end of the day where I got asked her to re-sign my book!

Do you do anything towards living simply? Do you enjoy crochet too?  

Note: All of the above photos of the workshop were taking by the lovely lady I sat next to, Dru. Thank you Dru for sharing these with me :-) 

100 must-see movies before you die

I found this list of movies this week on the Daily Telegraph website. It's the 'Leigh Patsch's 100 must-see movies before you die'. Interesting! I have not seen most of these movies. I decided to write out the list and work through them one at a time with T who is a real movie collector. We got started on the weekend and watched No Country for Old Men and I did not enjoy this movie at all! So hopefully it gets better from here. I'm going to come back and edit this post and cross out the movies when we watch them. I would be interested to find more lists of 'must see' movies. How did Dirty Dancing not make the list?!


All Time Top 20
1. The Godfather Parts 1 & 2 1972, 1974
2. Citizen Kane - 1941
3. Gone with the Wind - 1939
4. To Kill a Mockingbird - 1962
5. Casablanca - 1942
6. Raging Bull - 1980
7. Mad Max 2 - 1981
8. Rear Window - 1954
9. The Toy Story Trilogy - 1995, 1999, 2010
10. Avatar - 2009
11. Schindler's List - 1993
12. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly - 1966
13. Lawrence of Arabia - 1962
14. Pulp Fiction - 1994
15. Singin' In The Rain - 1952
16. Goodfellas - 1990
17. Inception - 2010
18. The Wizard of Oz - 1993
19. The Matrix - 1999
20. When we were kings - 1996 - Watched 30/05/13

Modern Top 20
1. Sideways - 2004
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - 2004
3. The Harry Potter Series - 2001-2011
4. Knocked Up - 2007
5. Lost in Translation - 2003
6. Senna - 2001
7. Life of Pi - 2012
8. The Departed - 2006
9. Up - 2009
10. There will be blood - 2007
11. Amelie - 2001
12. Samson & Delilah - 2009
13. Mystic River - 2003
14. The Lives of Others - 2006
15. Momento - 2000
16. Inglorious Bastards - 2009
17. The Avengers - 2012
18. Looper - 2012
19. Beasts of the southern wild - 2012
20. No Country for old men - 2007 - Watched 25/05/13

Romance
1. Slumdog Millionaire - 2008
2. Love Story - 1971
3. Brokeback Mountain - 2005
4. An Affair to remember - 1958
5. Out of Sight - 1998

Comedy
1. Some like it hot - 1959
2. This is Spinal Tap - 1984
3. Groundhog Day - 1993
4. Annie Hall - 1977
5. Dumb & Dumber - 1994

Thriller
1. Dirty Harry - 1972
2. Vertigo - 1958
3. The Hitcher - 1986
4. Speed - 1994
5. The Bourne Ultimatum - 2007

Horror
1. The Exorcist - 1973
2. The Silence of the lambs - 1991
3. Psycho - 1959
4. Jaws - 1975
5. Seven - 1995

Action
1. Seven Samurai - 1954
2. Top Gun - 1986
3. Terminator 2: Judgement Day - 1991
4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - 2000
5. Die Hard 1 & 2 - 1988, 1990

War
1. Paths of Glory - 1958
2. Apocalypse Now - 1979
3. Gallipoli - 1981
4. Saving Private Ryan - 1998
5. The Battle of Algiers - 1965

Crime
1. Heat - 1995
2. The Usual Suspects - 1995
3. Rififi - 1955
4. The Sting - 1973
5. Scarface - 1983

Based on a true story
1. The Pianist - 2002
2. All the Presidents Men - 1976
3. Apollo 13 - 1998
4. Titanic - 1997
5. Chariots of Fire - 1981

Documentary
1. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse - 1991
2. Don't Look Back - 1967
3. Bowling for Columbine - 2002
4. Hoop Dreams - 1994
5. An Inconvenient Truth - 2006

Sci-Fi
1. Alien & Aliens - 1979, 1986
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - 1977
3. Blade Runner - 1982
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey - 1968
5. Sunshine - 2007

Australian Films
1. Don's Party - 1976
2. The Club - 1980
3. Strictly Ballroom - 1992
4. The Boys - 1998
5. Ten Canoes - 2006

Adapted from the book
1. Fight Club - 1999
2. Trainspotting - 1996
3. Great Expectations - 1946
4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - 1975
5. Deliverance - 1972

What are you favourite must see movies?

Home ownership 3 months in

Well we haven’t got blogging regularly off to a good start have we? Where have the last 3 months gone? In a blurr it seems! I feel like I am struggling to find enough hours in the day with my big commute every day. Some days it feels easy and other days it feels really challenging. I hope it becomes easier as more time passes. 

We have been so busy since buying the house. I think we have had 2 weekends in 3 months were no one visited us. I feel a little burnt out. I have loved everyone visiting but it’s brought up all these emotions for me that I am not used to. I’ve never really been able to have friends visit before – not where I felt comfortable anyway so it’s a whole new experience playing host all the time. I have really enjoyed it but I feel like I hardly get any time for myself anymore or proper quality time for my relationship.  Now that winter is just a few weeks away the pool has become less desirable so hopefully everything will start to slow down. Since my last post it was my birthday and T’s birthday. Mine was low key, I didn’t really do much other than a surprise that T had organised which was Thai cooking class in Sydney. For T’s birthday I organised an epic surprise party. I love putting effort into things like that and got a real kick out of it when he came to the house with his friends bestest friends – some from far away (Wagga Wagga & Canberra). It was an awesome time and I was stoked that I pulled it off without him finding out. I had to buy things and hide them through the house!

My dad finally visited the house to see it for the first time over the Anazc day weekend. He visited with his partner and my brother, wife and 2 kids also visited but I absolutely adored that visit! I haven’t had my family visit and stay before so it was wonderful to have that time with them, especially the joy you get from a 5 & 7 year old! 

We have done a number of jobs around the house. There was a great big gap from our fence down into our neighbours yard so we filled the hole up with some sleepers from bunnings and a few spare bricks that were laying around the house. We have ripped out all the roses out the back and a passionfruit vine that was near the pool as the leaves continued to get in the pool and make more work. I’ve been doing a fair bit of research on plants that don’t attract bees as T is allergic to them which is why the roses had to go. We have some more plants to take out which I haven’t got to yet.

We’ve also cleaned out all the gutters and put in some gutter guard on part of the house before we ran out. I still need to get some more and finish it off! We’ve taken down all the lace curtains everywhere, hung almost all the pictures on the wall, built a heap of furniture (4 bar stools, an office desk, a cubed wall unit cabinet, a bed side table shelf for the spare room & our outdoor furniture.) One weekend my hand was so sore from using the screw driver all weekend it had bruised the palm of my hand! LOL. I’ve got a few more things I’d like to get finished fairly soon. I need to oil our wooden table out the back and also make a headboard for the spare room. I have bought the materials for those 2 projects and hope to get started soon. 

The house looks good to a visitor but I still have so much to sort through. I haven’t unpacked any of my paperwork/study stuff, all the boxes are just shoved in the cupboard so the house looks neat. Along with probably 50% of my clothes and shoes that are still in bags waiting to be unpacked. I haven’t unpacked a lot of my personal stuff like earrings, necklaces, perfume etc. We have boxes of chords and boxes of things I am not sure really where to put that all need to be sorted through. We’ll get there, I just haven’t had time to do it yet. I also need to work out a proper budget for us because we don’t have one at the moment. I have a few spreadsheets started and have listed when regular direct payments come out of my account and the dates but that’s about as far as I have got. And I really need to be more organised with that. I also changed my loan over so part of it is now variable and I have an equity account. I didn’t understand about all that stuff when I bought the house and I have a much better idea now. I was also lucky to not be charged with the changeover because the interest rate is very low at the moment. 

Amongst all of the above on a personal level I have felt quite anxious and stressed the last 3 months and not really myself. I decided it would be good to go to the doctor about a month and a half ago because I had constant heart burn/chest pain that wouldn’t go away. Turns out it’s more than likely anxiety/stress/panic causing the pain. So I got a care plan from the Doc and have been seeing a psychologist to talk about some stuff. I’ve been 3 times now and it’s helped quite a bit. I really want to go on a journey with her and also talk about my current stress and also stuff from my past and how to heal from it and not let it affect me and my life now. I mean the big stuff (being overweight since I was a child and where a lot of my core beliefs come from.) I feel like it’s going to be a really good thing for me in the long run and finally allow me to love myself and be more self-confident. Although probably for the last 4 weeks I’ve had bouts of time where I have been unable to stop being itchy on my skin which I also think is related. Some nights I’ve sat up until 3am because I can’t sleep because I can’t stop scratching. It was stressing me that I was so itchy which I think makes it worse. The itchiness has eased off the last few weeks so I am hoping that it is going for good because it’s been really unpleasant and something I’ve never experienced before. 

I feel like everything I have just said is 1^st world problems really but that’s what’s been going on. I just wish I could take some time off or go on a holiday but I know that that won’t solve these problems and just distract me from them so I’m going to keep facing it head on until I sort it out. I know I am fine and everything will be slower soon. With all of this going on I feel like I haven’t had a lot of time to sit and enjoy and be proud of achieving one of my biggest dreams in life (buying a house). It still doesn’t feel like it’s really mine! Maybe when I have a different pair of earrings to wear once I’ve unpacked them and a bit of perfume it will make all the difference! ;-)

Valentine’s Day Week!

Time is flying! Where did last week go? I was back at work Monday for a short week of just 4 days. My mum came to visit me for a few days and see the house for the very first time. I’d shown her pictures at Christmas time but due to her living about 450kms away from the house it wasn’t possible for to see it before now. She was most looking forward to coming. She arrived on Wednesday night on purpose so I could meet her after work and welcome her. She loved it! For the 10 and a half years I lived in Sydney she always expressed how much she hated Sydney. I have mostly lived in share accommodation so it has been difficult to have anyone visit with me and stay. So it was nice to finally have somewhere nice for my family to stay complete with their own bedroom! She is pleased I have left Sydney to live! ;-)

She spent the day at the house on Thursday helping me out by cleaning some windows and cleaning the oven. She also made us dinner, zucchini slice! One of my favorites and it was nice to know I was coming home to a home cooked meal. Thursday was also Valentine’s Day and my first time with T as my Valentine! It’s really important to us to value and appreciate and love each other every single day so I wasn’t too sure how we would spend or celebrate the day, and considering my mum was there we weren’t able to get up to too much mischief! But to my delight T surprised me at work with a massive bunch of red and pink roses in a beautiful round vase! 

 When we got home, I surprised him with memberships for both of us to the Newcastle Knights. I’d bought our memberships a week before but I wasn’t sure how present the gift as I had nothing physically to give him. I’d bought a card and a few love heart chocolates so thought it might be fun to write him a cryptic message for him to solve so he could work out what his present was :-)

I took Friday off work so I could spend a bit of time with Mum. We fiddled about and went shopping and in the afternoon we drove to Newcastle so she could meet T’s family for the first time before she traveled home. After that T & I went to a Jet’s game (A League) and decided that we were spending the weekend alone together as a Valentine’s weekend – just the two of us. We didn’t care that we had jobs to do the most important thing was that we were together. And it was wonderful, just what we needed. We finally had our first swims in the pool!

 

I also got to work unpacking my clothes. I’ve got about half way. I moved 6 months ago and pretty much didn’t unpack when I moved so a lot of my clothes needed a freshen up so I decided to wash everything which I am the middle of doing now. I have never really had a wardrobe or clothes cupboard to put my clothes except when I lived with my parents. It feels strange and it’s taking me some time to get used to. For the past 9 months I’ve lived with 1 bag of clothes and a washing basket, traveling between Sydney and Newcastle. Now that I have everything I have been wanting for so long, I don’t really know how to feel about it. I know I love it! But it’s just taking some time to adjust and get used to it. Maybe it’s hard to believe that this is really our house and not just a holiday house we are staying? I’m not sure if anyone else has felt like this when they first get a home that is really theirs. For so long I haven’t felt like I haven’t had a ‘normal’ life and maybe I don’t feel like I am worthy or it’s really happening. I’m not sure. 

It is feeling more like home as each day goes by. It’ll be a work in progress I imagine and I’m ready to embrace this awesome change in my life. And I still feel so incredibly lucky to wake up next to T each day. That in itself is a dream come true.  

Home Owner

Hello from a brand new home owner! We have been in our new home now for 5 nights and let me tell you that time has flown by! I am still getting a feel for the place and finding it hard to believe it really is ours. I look around and look at the pool and it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet. This is just a quick post as we don’t have internet at home until sometime later this week so this is a quick update from work.  

So we got the keys! I got the keys around lunchtime on Wednesday, headed to Sydney early afternoon to pick up a moving truck from Balmain Rentals, loaded up and then headed up to the Central Coast in peak hour traffic. When we arrived we got stuck right in, unloaded the truck and we all had some dinner (delivery from pizza hut) once we were done. After that we sat around the pool for about half an hour just taking it all in, then re-built my bed then headed back to Sydney with the truck to drop it off so we didn’t have to face traffic again. By the time we drove back to the Central Coast T & I had a much needed shower and fell into bed it was about 1am – but we were having our first night in our very own home! 

The next morning T had to go to work so I set about trying to get some stuff done. I fiddled about and had to be home and wait for the delivery of our fridge and washing machine. They arrived at around mid-day and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the kitchen cupboards as everything was left rather dirty and sticky. The most random thing left in the house was a yellow raincoat that was hanging in the garage! On Thursday night T brought a load of things from his home in Newcastle so did not get home until late – we moved a heap of boxes around so at least they were in the right area to be sorted through and that was our day done. We sat at the kitchen table and had dinner and looked around our empty lounge room and we were alone and it was just us and it was awesome! 

Friday morning T started work early and I had a locksmith coming at 8:30am – he arrived right on time but ended up leaving and coming back 4 different times as he needed different parts from his office. By the time he was finished it was 2:30pm and I went out to buy a dress for the wedding the next day and then drove up to Newcastle to load up T’s truck for when he finished work. Once we were loaded I drove the truck to the Central Coast, we unloaded then drove the truck back to Newcastle. I was quite proud of my efforts as I had not driven my truck from Sydney and I felt really competent and like I’d mastered a new skill! Right until I went to fill the truck back up with diesel and swung the truck too tight in next to the petrol bowser and hit a sign, scraping the side of the truck (&*@$#!!) The damage wasn’t too bad and we didn’t say anything when we returned it, they didn't notice anything. The petrol station however said I might have to pay for the sign to be re-painted and bolted back into the ground as it ended up on a bit of a lean as I'd knocked the bolts from out of the ground!

But it was done, we were moved! On Saturday morning we were a bit exhausted and T’s phone had completely died so we had to take it to a shop to get repaired. My brother drove down from Coffs Harbour with a lounge for me and he arrived around lunchtime. They didn’t stay for long, maybe 30 minutes and as he left we got ready for the wedding we were going to that afternoon.

We drove to Sydney and raced to the wedding.. and we missed the wedding (only just) so then had to wait around for the reception which was at the Opera House. We had never been to such a fancy wedding. The food was amazing! It was catered for by Aria restaurant, which is co-owned by one of the chefs I have admired for quite some time - Matt Moran. We had a lovely time and arrived home around midnight.

Dessert - came with topped with gold!

The next morning T’s mum came over to help me with the kitchen and get some of the ‘stick’ off everything that I have been struggling to get clean. We also had some other friends come over and deliver coffee and lunch and help set up the TV and the lounge rooms. Everything is now set up in our front lounge room with the TV and surround sound all set up. Just one problem we discovered though we can’t actually get TV! There is either a problem with the aerial or socket but I was happy to see part of the house coming together!

And today I have tried out the first half of the commute this morning and now I’ve got to run to get the train home!