When I write, my life does not quite disappear.

The sun! The sun! Today the sun shone brightly and no one was wheezing or sneezing green stuff. I realised how long it has been since I was outside in the bright sunshine when it was so shadowy even at midday. I took these outside photos at midday.


The chooks get no sun in their run at the moment. YTou can see the roof of the poultry palace in the very centre of the photograph. I guess there won't be much vitamin D when we kill them and turn them into stock.

Beautiful sky huh? The low angle of the sun stretches out the washing line shadows - they look to me like giant blackbirds.

A whole day without rain.

Woohoo. I hope Christchurch people get a whole day without an earthquake soon. And then days and then weeks.

The wood piles, pitifully low, are soon to be supplemented by coal.
This is rata which we've had in storage for over 12 months. It burns hot and is wonderful stuff.

This is beech, which we had delivered in April. It is mostly dry rather than completely so. Usually we buy our wood in January and dry it before we stack it and the difference in condition is noticeable. The wet beech is a beautiful red colour in the cross-section - it seems a shame to burn it. In a few years, our wood sellers tell me, there will be no more rata and beech to buy (to do with government legislation from before we lived here I think) and then we will have to work out what to burn with pine.

We still have food in the garden. Lettuces, celery, spinach and kale. Behind them are phacelia and more kale, and some young leeks growing for spring eating. The lawn on either side of this garden is slush. When I remove my gumboot, there is a puddle in its place. But the kale continues to cope. Long live kale, superfood for the bog people!

The idea is that this is also food for Spring. The purple sprouting broccoli that is, not the soccer ball. It has huge leaves so probably too much nitrogen in the compost I put on this small raised bed.

Right now, though, this is where I go for food several times each day: the miners lettuce by the back door. I like the contrasting shades of green together as well as the juicy vitamin C for my sandwiches and salads.

Another thing I have been thinking about today: how budgeting works best for the rich. Today, after cleaning the fridge (medal indeed), laundering, parenting and gardening, Brighid and I set out for the supermarket. I knew to do this first as my New World weekly specials email told me I would get a coupon for 21 cents per litre off petrol if I spent $150 buying groceries with them. At the supermarket, we bought lots of things that were on special that I knew we would need this week or next month, sometimes multiples of a product to get the offered deal. At the checkout I saw I had saved $27 on the usual prices. We could afford to buy over $150 in groceries at once. At the petrol station, I saved $7 on the usual price, because I was rich enough to be able to buy $150 worth of groceries at once. In town, we bought a zip, button and thread for our latest projects - I can because I know how to knit and sew, and own needles and a sewing machine. Then out at the wood and coal merchants, I bought four scoops of coal, to be delivered next week. Because we bought it all at once, they knocked $20 off the price.

So, $54 in savings, achievable because we earn enough to plan ahead. Yes I do have moderately good budgeting skills, but I also have earning privilege. I do appreciate this, and get really annoyed when wealthy people talk about the poor needing to budget better.



Onto crafting projects. I've finished the knitting part of Brighid's scarf. I just need to sew in the ends, press it out so it doesn't roll so much, and sew on the button to hold the scarf in place. The wool is from a cardigan I knitted for Brighid which I unravelled when she outgrew it. Total cost for the garment: 30 cents for the button. She is also wearing the bumble bee hoodie which I made for Fionn a few years ago. Yes that is my dress bodice in the background. No I haven't gotten any further on. So many adjustments to make to match facings and the skirt to the changes I made to the bodice.

The red dress has all the flowers pinned to it, and I'm half way through sewing on the flowers making up the 'B'. She approves now.

The curtain fabric projects. I blogged about the curtain fabric potential here. Yesterday I went back and got the last lot of glistening fabric samples so I had enough to make a skirt, shown above. There is a gold colourway and an aluminium colourway.

While I was on the curtain fabric theme, I pulled this out of my drawer, from the same curtain shop. I've measured it up for the straight skirt in my last blog post. The lure of a skirt is that I plan to make no adjustments to the pattern. All this dreamy planning of skirt making prompted me to actually get some other things finished, hence finishing the knitting part of Brighid's scarf last night, and making progress on the red corduroy dress. That dress is made from a $2 Sallies find, finished with bits and pieces from my craft box. The only new expenditure was a packet of bias binding for the armholes.

Did I cook kale in all of this? I certainly did. I made bolognaise sauce, adding kale towards the end. Given the challenge of meetings and sports practices requiring multiple sittings of dinner, I cooked it several hours early and then put it in the slow cooker on low to keep warm. Worked. Hopefully cheaper than using the oven to keep it warm.

So there you go. Sandra. 39. hair grey at the roots and blonde colour from summer needing touching up urgently. House not as messy as two weeks ago. Thursday = the Mummy day. Does stuff and writes about it. But when I write, it doesn't quite disappear. Whereas the fridge clean will disappear. So will the clean washing and the full tummies. The clean bench is already gone. And when I ponder sewing, and eventually sew, that is the part of my world which I don't allow to be touched by work deadlines or housework or kids. The part of the evening when I love my kids the most, entirely because (and only when) they are asleep, quiet.

Comments

Nik said…
your garden looks great. My chooks are also in pretty much full shade atm too.
Sandra said…
Thanks Nikki. I've been admiring your garden pics on your blog.

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