Friday Finds – playing with fire

It’s the first day of winter in Australia, and by our standards it’s getting a bit chilly.  Yes I know that in Sydney we don’t know the real meaning of cold, to us it’s freezing if the mercury slips into single digits, and that’s celsius speak!  In honour of winter today’s Friday Finds is all about fire.  I love an outdoor fire.  Memories of toasted marshmallows on camp fires, bonfires on the beach and if I cast my mind back a long long way we use to have bonfires on cracker night before everyone became safety conscious and fireworks were banned.

Fire pits are becoming a backyard trend at the moment, and they range from a hole in the ground or half a metal drum to some seriously beautiful metal sculptures. It’s the seriously beautiful end of the spectrum I’m coming from today.  I stumbled across this artist when I was researching fire pits for a client.  Rick Wittrig calls himself a functional steel artist, and his company, Fire Pit Art, creates very simple, yet elegant fire pits that look good with or without a flame.

Check out his website at Fire Pit Art.

I’m headed off to find me a heater!

Sam

Tags: art, design, fire, fire pit, fire pits, gardening, landscape design, outdoors, winter

31 days in May and I blogged them all!

I thought I was biting off more than I could chew, thought I had over estimated my blogging prowess, but I proved myself wrong.  There’s nothing like setting yourself a challenge and rising to meet it.  I have had so much fun posting every day in May, but I know that it’s not something that I’ll be doing regularly.  My usual 1-2 per week, with the special edition of 3 or 4 is more my style, less structured and also gives me time to feed my ideas a little more.  There is one thing I will miss just a little bit, with the regular blogging my stats have skyrocketed.  While I don’t blog for the numbers it’s nice to know people are reading, and with fewer posts will come fewer views (theoretically), though I have mades some great new blogging friends who I hope will stick around!

The good news now is that I’ll have a bit more time to get back too the real world work of designing.  The Daredevil is set to have his first full day of child care on Monday, so watch out world here I come, munchkin free, and ready for inspired designing and busting barriers in my way.  Who knows, maybe our garden will finally be designed and built.  Maybe I could get myself a cool super outfit to bust out in, some ideas…

It’s also the last day of my Happy Days in May project, so to wrap it all up…

28 May 2012 – Child free for an hour while the Daredevil had his child care orientation, time to breathe and clear my head and enjoy a coffee without a babycino friend.

29 May 2012 – Hair cuts for the munchkins, the Drama Queen was right at home, and the Daredevil cruised through his first haircut – mullet be gone!  I have the best kids!

30 May 2012 – Frustrating but fulfilling, spent a large chunk of the day sorting out household and business accounts and records – feel much happier having completed them.

31 May 2012 – Crazy time with the cousins – how much fun can you have with 6 kids under 5 – apparently never too much!

Short, sweet, and time for a little feet up time, though I will be back tomorrow for Friday Finds – damn I didn’t time that one well.

Sam

Tags: achievement, blogging, gardening, happiness, happy days in may

1000 things in winter

We have too much stuff.  At least that’s what Mr Perfect thinks.  The Drama Queen can’t get enough stuff, the Daredevil is just happy to get any stuff, and I think maybe we do have too much, but I’m also a bit too sentimental when it comes to stuff.  With a little inspiration from Minimalist Living and his great post about The Summer of 1000 Things Challenge, we have decided that we will hold an in house competition to de-stuff a bit.  We’ve had to re-word a little bit, after all we are “down under” so it’s the WINTER of 1000 things.  We’ve also added another level of difficulty, teamed up and challenged ourselves to 1000 things each – it’s boys versus girls, so the first to 1000 wins.  The Drama Queen and I think we have it in the bag, after all we do have the most stuff to get rid of!

I’ve enlisted a bit of help from the team at  Did You Remember the Milk, I’ve written about them before, here.  Brigitte has just released a new e-book – The Biggest Tosser, so the Drama Queen and I will be implementing their expert advice in our de-stuffing quest.  It is “The 7 step guide to a bigger life with less stuff.” Sounds perfect for us, particularly since the claim is that they “do the bossing and you do the tossing”.  I think the girls might need a little bit of hard love along the way.

Part of my rationale for embarking on this challenge is a bit of re-education for the Drama Queen.  As the first child, first grandchild, and more importantly the only girl child in our family, she’s been just a little bit spoilt.  I know I’m guilty of it, Mr Perfect’s guilty of it, and particularly Nanna is guilty of it!  But the Drama Queen generally gets what the Drama Queen wants, and as a result she doesn’t always really value what she has.  She appreciates her stuff, she doesn’t like to part with any of it, but she has a constant quest to get more and more. Now she’s getting a little bit older it’s time for her to work out what is really important and how to let go of stuff you don’t need any more.  Lets face it, I don’t want to see her on an episode of hoarders in 30 years time still holding onto her 30 My Little Ponies because she didn’t learn it was OK to let go sometimes.

The other lesson we will need to teach is how to get rid of the stuff with a little bit of eco-cred.  I don’t want to just toss everything, that’s way too environmentally evil for my liking, so there will be a lot of donating, re-homing and maybe a market stall at the end of winter.

As much as Mr Perfect would love our house to look like this, I don’t think it’s quite us, but we can come closer…

 

The good news is that the Drama Queen has started stockpiling stuff ready for the 1st of June when the competition begins.  It’s not much but it’s a start.  Anyone feel like joining us?

Sam

Tags: clutter, de-clutter, environment, family, home, organisation, stuff

Glass Beach

What happens when people dispose of their waste in the most irresponsible way, try to clean it up, until it all gets a bit too hard, then when they can’t think of any other way to repair the damage, they close up and move on?  OK, maybe I’m being a bit harsh, but I’m filing this one under “what the hell were they thinking until it becomes wow that is just too spectacular for words”.

I am a beach glass collector.  I like to find it, feel it, decorate sandcastles with it and then leave it for the next person to enjoy.  I rarely take it home with me unless it is quite spectacular or the Drama Queen insists.  I love its smoothness, the way that time and energy have ground down all the sharp bits to make something soft and subtle.  I really like the blue ones, though they are really hard to find.

I think I would be in beach glass meltdown if I ever manage to visit Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California.  In the early part of the 20th century the residents of Fort Bragg disposed of their waste by hurling it off the cliffs onto the beach below.  No object was too big, too toxic or too much.  Household appliances, cars, trash all were tossed over the cliffs until the 1960′s when attempts were made to clean up the dump.  Despite clean up attempts, nothing could be done about the masses of glass that remained on the beach.  This is the result, a now protected altered beach landscape.

Pity it took such a gross act of human laziness to make something so beautiful.  What do you think?

Sam

images from digggs, meganpru,lee rentz

Tags: design, environment, glass beach, nature, photography, Travel

Planting our babies

We had another clear sky sunny autumn weekend.  No rain to complain about, a bit of a chill in the air, but perfect weather for vegetable garden creation.  While we’re waiting out my garden design and construction procrastination phase, I’ve been creating little bits of gardens, filling in some gaps with herbs and vegetables, and the odd flower.  The rest of the time the garden is pretty well occupied by weeds and whatever opportunistic plant species decide they need a new home.  Without the rain (take a look here) I had no excuse left to put it off, it was time to find a permanent home for the Drama Queen’s seedlings.

While I always dream about gardening in style, the reality is that we put on the daggiest clothes we could find, collected our tools and equipment and hit the courtyard.  I had assembled my rag tag team of three.  Two of them wanted to be there, and the other one just wanted to avoid too much carnage.  The Daredevil got to put his new birthday garden tools to the test and the Drama Queen helped him while I got stuck into the hard work of turning the soil and preparing the beds, and Mr Perfect supervised to make sure that no one and nothing came to too much harm.

Before we started

We had built some trellises for the pea plants to trail over, and the Drama Queen was so proud of them when they actually stood up in the newly prepared beds.

Pea trellises are in

The Peas ready to plant on their new trellises

Small plants and small children are not always a great combination, but as the Daredevil bored of the fiddly work, the Drama Queen took over and started giving the plants names and calling them her “babies”.

The Drama Queen and Daredevil hard at work

Everything is in the ground

We planted three kinds of Peas – Sweet Peas, Snow Peas and normal peas, broccoli and gourds.  All the peas should do well, we had a pretty good result from the snow peas last winter, so I’m pretty optimistic.  The gourds already look like they’re about to jump out of their skin, so I’m hoping they don’t take over completely.  The broccoli I’m not so optimistic about.  We planted some last year, and it didn’t survive the insects or creatures who feasted on its new shoots, and to be honest we didn’t give it the most delicate planting into the ground – they were the last, and the attention span was waning.  Plus they probably should have been a little bit bigger before we put them in the ground, but you never know your luck in the big city, fingers are crossed.

Finished pea trellises

Sweet pea plants ready to take on their trellis

After a covering of sugar cane mulch and a drink of seaweed fertiliser, it was time to pack up, clean up and let our babies get used to their new home.

The Drama Queen and her dirty behind!

I checked on them today, and everything is still alive, the broccoli is even looking happy.  I’m looking forward to our harvest!

Sam

Tags: children, DIY, family, fun, gardening, nature, plants, vegetables

Does kindness = happiness?

I’ve been trying to be kinder lately.  I recently asked the question “have you been kind today?” in a post.  I’ve not really gone out of my way, haven’t planned any over the top grand kindness gestures, I’ve just been doing the things we should really be doing, but that are sometimes forgotten in the daily rush of things.  I’ve been doing things that don’t come so naturally to my generally more shy personality.  I’ve been chatting to more people, saying hello more often and definitely smiling more.  I’ve helped upset kids in the playground find their lost Mums and let the Drama Queen’s friends at child care treat me like their climbing frame.  I’ve tried to help where I can, and generally spread some happy karma into the world.

I thought I might take stock of this kindness and see if it has made a difference to my general happiness, and because I’ve been joining in the Seven Cherubs Happy Days in May project, it’s perfect timing to reflect while I’m posting my weekly happiness post.

Has it made me happier? Has mindful kindness affected my general mood and made my world a happier place? The short answer is yes, or at least I think it has.  I feel as though the people I interact with seem happier.  Maybe it’s because I’m reaping what I sow and the energy I’m sending into the world is being reflected back.  I’ve definitely had a lot more casual conversations with strangers in the street.  I have seen a lot more people smiling, and it looks like they’re returning my smile a lot of the time.  My general mood has been a lot better and my patience with the little inconveniences of life is definitely improving.  I haven’t measured anything, don’t have any facts and figures, just a general feeling and a hunch, and that hunch says that kindness does equal happiness.

I do have a kindness highlight that I would love to share.  About 18 months ago I had a bus trip into the city.  While this in itself isn’t extraordinary, I catch a bus quite often, the bus driver I had on this trip was extraordinary.  She embodied all that is kind and happy.  In a world where it is all too easy to just go through the motions, this bus driver went out of her way to greet every single passenger onto her bus.  I chatted to her on the trip into the city, and it made my journey unforgettable.  I went home and sent an e-mail to the transit authority thanking and praising this bus driver.  I hoped that she had received a copy of the e-mail because I knew she deserved to know how much happiness she had injected into my day.  This isn’t where my story ends.

This week I was out shopping with the Daredevil, I was waiting for a lift and started chatting to a lady about the lifts and which one would come first.  The lady looked familiar, and when I saw the Sydney Buses logo on her shirt the penny dropped.  This was my bus driver, the one who had given me the best bus riding experience ever!  I couldn’t let the opportunity pass, I mustered up the courage and asked.  It turns out that not only was she my bus driver, but she had also recognised my face and remembered that I had been on my first night out without the Daredevil (he was only 6 months old at the time).  Unfortunately she hadn’t received a copy of my e-mail, but I think I made her day by remembering her and thanking her in person.  I know it made my day!

Now for my Happy Days in May update.  If you want to catch up on the last couple of weeks, you can see post 1 here, post 2 here and post 3 here.

21 May 2012 – I ran into my bus driver lady today!

22 May 2012 – Today I got to be a eucalyptus tree for the Drama Queen’s imaginative child care Koala friends –  lots and lots of laughing.

23 May 2012 – Mt Perfect went away for a boys golf escape, so the Munchkins and I got to have carpet picnics for dinner.

24 May 2012 – Mr Perfect and I escaped for our night of culture at the theatre, I always feel happy being immersed in another world, another reality and expanding my creative horizons, though Jack Thompson’s smooth voice almost put me to sleep!

25 May 2012 – An afternoon nap for all of us recharged the batteries.

26 May 2012 – Lunch with the family at the Hard Rock Cafe – cocktails, too much food and Brownies to die for, Yum!

27 May 2012 – A morning of garden creation with the family lead to smiles,  a lot of mud and a big mess to clean up, hope our green grows!

I’m off to polish up my smile for tomorrow!

Sam

Tags: family, fun, gardening, happiness, happy days in may, kindness, love, seven cherubs, smiles

All sewn up

We’ve had a bit of a blow out at our place.

The poor cushion couldn’t handle the munchkin torment any more and gave in. The Drama Queen’s not very happy about it, it was her “favourite”! The cushion did have a sibling, but apparently it’s not as good as the favourite, I actually prefer the sibling, but I’m not 4.

Both cushions were made for my sister’s wedding, quite a few years ago. She had a beautiful garden wedding with masses of handmade touches. I’ll have to borrow her wedding photos one day if she’ll let me share them! With such a sentimental beginning it is sad to say goodbye to the cushion, but we’ve taken the opportunity to redesign and remake. The Drama Queen has helped me pick out some material and a cross stitch design and we’re about to start the hard work.

The Drama Queen has picked a cross stitch design from a French cross stitch book. I borrowed it from the library, and have renewed it twice already, it is beautiful, full of patterns based on French deserts like croissants and macaroons. the Drama Queen has chosen cupcakes, which fortunately seems pretty easy.

I’ll let you know how we go!

Sam

Tags: Craft, creativity, design, family, sewing, weddings