Sunday, August 3, 2014

Slow Living Essentials - July 2014

It's been a while since I have done a "Slow Living Essentials" and linking up with our new host Linda from Greenhaven.

NOURISH: Make 

I've been baking bread and pizza rolls for the kids school lunches and they love when I tell them what I've made for their lunch box treats.  They both know home made is better for you and tastes so good.  James is great at making pikelets by himself for our family which is always a nice treat for morning or afternoon tea.





PREPARE:
My main area here is to double up on a recipe and freeze meals for when I don't feel like cooking or we have to get out to footy training.

REDUCE:
Still have a long way to go here on decluttering. I wrote a post here about being organized as a way of reducing, time, money, electricity and everything else in general.

GREEN:
I made up another big batch of laundry detergent and need to make some time to make my second batch of soap.  I also wrote here about Revolutionizing my Washing Process.

GROW:
Apart from harvesting the tomatoes that were self seeded I need to plant out our veggie patch again.  I did however manage to finally plant out the Mondo Grass that Mum had given me for my side pathway.






CREATE: 
Have finally set some time aside for a photography project to create a book for both my kids called "I Love You" and here's my inspiration and the instructions.  I bought the templates a couple of years ago but last week I re-read the instructions and the project and made a start on these.

DISCOVER:  
I like to find blogs with stories about simple living and living in the now and add them to my ipad so I can have a quick read. 

ENHANCE
A couple of weeks ago we attended the opening of our local Farmers Markets which will be held fortnightly and will be a great asset to our community.  I'm still so impressed with what a community can achieve when they put their minds to it.



This week I also made Chocolate Fudge for our school fete and helped out on the sweets stall to sell these goodies.  It takes me back to going to the local April fair when I was a young girl we used to come home with delicious goodies back then too.




ENJOY:
We enjoyed going to the first local Farmers Markets this month and of course the kids particularly enjoyed our school fete this weekend.  Last weekend we went to The Gabba and enjoyed watching The Brisbane Lions vs The Gold Coast Suns with other families from our footy club.  It was Sienna's first time to The Gabba and she got right into the spirit of being a supporter..lots of laughs.





14 comments:

  1. How fantastic that your boy makes pikelets all by himself! And I'm so glad to hear you have a new farmer's market. It looks very well attended for a new market! I was just at our local one this morning and it's much smaller. It's lovely though! So many people know each other and we do as much chatting as shopping. Thanks for the lovely post about your month.

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  2. That all looks so delicious - especially the fudge.
    How wonderful to have a farmers market - we have an outdoor market here once a week but it's very expensive and aimed mainly at tourists!
    Enjoy your august.

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  3. Oh I hear you on the baking- there's been so much of that going on in my kitchen as well :)
    (Yes please to the fudge!!)

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  4. The chocolate fudge recipe was SO SIMPLE.....get a glass large bowl and put 140 gms of butter, 1 can of condensed milk and 3 cups of brown sugar in it. Pop it in the microwave for 3 mins. Take it out and stir it then pop it back for 3 minutes. When it comes out stir it again and add 250gms chocolate buds and back into the microwave for 2 minutes. Take it out, stir it and pour it into a lined tin and pop it into the fridge to set. YUM YUM YUM YUM. So easy and the whole thing to make took about 10 mins and into the fridge. Kathy

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    1. Thanks for the recipe Kathy. Going to jot it down. Looks delicious and easy!!

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  5. Kathy you are such a terrific mum spending so much quality time with your kids...looks like you had a lot of fun this month.

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  6. That bread looks amazing. Glad the farmers market is going well.

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  7. One of the things I love most about this monthly link-up are the words I have to look up... So interesting to me that we are writing in English, but we use different terms for the same things.... pikelets (pancake) and footy (soccer) are both new terms for me this month. :-)

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Kathryn I didn't even think about the footy/soccer thing but you are right we all have our own funny terms. Even more stranger is that within our own states in Australia we call things differently. Kathy

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  8. Also wondered what pikelets were ;) Fudge looks yummy and your bread too!

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  9. That bread looks gorgeous Kathy!!! You've given me an idea to link up with the slow living essentials on my blog :D Jan x

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  10. Love the mondo grass border! I've been staring at that at the nursery for far too long!

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  11. Gee your bread looks sooo good Kathy I can just imagine the delicious smell of it baking. Looks like a great month. Thank you for the inspiration Kathy.

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