Valentines day

Our Valentines Day.
Pooh took me for a walk on the beach and provided a snack. It was gorgeous, the day was so clear and the ocean was awe inspiring. I made those in the picture below. While it cost us very little and certainly came in under our $10 limit, we both thought it was a hoot and appreciated the efforts, especially the time together.

Pikelets for morning tea and brewed coffee of course.



I crocheted love birds and made a card.

Here's the link to the free pattern: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/80015AD.html
You have to join, it's free and you get their great newsletter with lots of links to freebies.

Minimalism

I have always been curious of minimalism. The problem I had though, I'm a hoarder and recycler of all things remotely useful.
I have so much stuff and it is ruling me, I hate it.
In an effort to understand minimalism, I down loaded 2 kindle books, appropriate don't you think, Miss Minimalist (Francine Jay) and Clear your clutter with Feng Shui (Karen Kingston). Both books I enjoyed very much they had different things to offer. It seems like all things you have to get into the head space  of minimalism. I love the idea the Miss Minimalist had, can she walk away in an emergency (political or natural etc) and feel ok? I know I could not! I like the idea of working towards it though.

This would have been a ridiculous concept a few years ago, but secretly I wished a disaster would befall my house (not my family!) so I could start again. I suspect I'd just pile up the stuff again so learning to part with things and file things safely is by far a better lesson.

I love the idea of never having a dvd again. A physical disc that gets damaged. I want to down load my movies as I want them off 'the cloud' which I'm still to get my head around.

I want to sort all my photos digitally on the 'the cloud' and various hard drives so I can't lose them to theft or disaster.

I would like to transfer my books to kindle or pdf. I suspect I'd always want a few 'real' books for inspiration. I love the feel of books and looking at the pictures.

Can I transfer all my cook books to digital? Some are available as kindle versions but lots are not. Can I scan and transfer to pdfs. I have no idea, would that even be legal?

How about no cd's or a reduced amount and using my ipod?

How can I de-clutter my kitchen? Now that makes me feel a little faint. Baby steps, baby steps.

Guilt and Ramblings

I feel very bad I've not taken the time to post, I do apologise!

We have been busy over the Christmas new year period, like everyone else! We had littlest in hospital twice with lung issues. He has now been well for over a month now! Hooray!

We had a thrifty Christmas, everyone was happy and no debit occurred. We didn't do a homemade one but the older children commented they would like to do that this year again.

We are delighted out DD16 got into Uni this year. She will be doing in distance ed. If you are disciplined, DE is brilliant, it cuts so many costs.

She will save heaps:
*Moving out of home
*New furniture
*Rent/Food other than board at home
*A car or transport to get to Uni, a job or shops
*No uni parking fees
*No library fees/photocopying etc
*No text books (Most is available on line now, it's amazing!
*No student union fees

For older people who didn't do their HSC or state equivalent, you can do a tertiary preparation course at home, on the internet and gain acceptance that way.
Something like this: http://www.cdu.edu.au/lba/all/programs/tep.html It is full time and you can't work and do it in the evenings, it will be too much, those who did dropped out.

It's never too late :o)

So DD got a small extension to her room done in preparation of lots of study. Here's her new office: