First day of school for 2011...

Joshua and Timothy...

Have to have the silly shot...

Uno was played...

My pile of books waiting for me...

Well the boys are at school... Over the weekend, Timothy kept on insisting that school only started back on Thursday. I told him different each time... He was not happy to go back. He was really struggling with it. The bell noise annoys him as it is so loud. The kids annoy him... He even asked if he could stay home this year...

This morning he was up bright and early just after 6am and presented himself to me completely dressed and ready to go... He had his breakfast and then went back to bed. Normal routine. :) When it was about 15 minutes to go before he would have to leave, I started talking to him about what lay ahead to prepare him a little. He knows he won't be changing subjects like last year. He said he looked forward to doing Ag Studies. I mentioned that I was looking forward to finding out what he would be doing in Manual Arts and that maybe he would be apart of a band or orchestra this year in Music... Just light hearted but something for him to think about... He was very happy to leave in the end. He was busting to tell people about his new pet, Bud... He actually ran and skipped down the driveway. :) Was wonderful to see :)

Joshua also presented himself just after Timothy, fully dressed with bed made (as usual :)) and ready to go... Now Timothy leaves at 7am as he has the bus to catch. Joshua can't leave till after 8am as he isn't supposed to get to school before 8:15am. So once Timothy left this morning we played a round of pool... He had five balls to pocket, me only two and he still whipped the pants off me. :)

Then he played a heap of Uno with me. I love that game. We take 14 cards each in our version so it lasts a bit longer seeing it is only two of us playing. Has been a while since we have played that game. :) Chess tomorrow I reckon. :)

I must admit there are a few things very, very different this year. All of last year Timothy wore his yellow hat with Cunningham written on it. It is the house that he is in at school. Today he said that he wasn't wearing it anymore as he was the one and he didn't want to stand out in the crowd... Now that it growing up... Amazing, he has never said anything like that before... This year is also Joshua's last year at Primary school. He is in Grade 7... The other thing was that for the first time he didn't want me to come to school for the first day. He wanted to ride to school as normal... Felt strange... But also shows just how much he has grown up in the last year. He longer hangs off me giving me lots of hugs and kisses... Though I still always get the one when he leaves. Yep my boys are growing up :) Which is a good thing I know but a little sad on the other hand as well... As parents we really need to enjoy our kids while we can because it really does go ever so fast...

Everyone has gone now... Russell is at work for another week and the housework was done by 8:45am. Clothes have been hung on the line and dinner has been organised. Love to monthly menu plan... makes things so much easier.

Oh the Serenity. Oh the Quiet... I am loving today already :)

So after finishing here I am off to have some Me Time... Reading, with coffee off course... something that I have not done really for the whole holidays... And am missing it...

Cheers Damaris

Just plodding along...

Bailey keeping me company while I was feeling sad earlier this week...

It is now our third day without the cows and things are slowly going back to the way things were before. The front gate is still open and nothing has escaped. lol

The kids don't like to talk about them and neither do I. I have found out through email that they all arrived safely at Magrita Dexter Stud and that they are settling in very well. I was really glad to hear that.

We have now moved the bales of leftover hay out of the shed so that we can make a start on the cubby for the boys. The leftover bales will be used around the gardens and also help set up our new veggie gardens. They will certainly come in handy that is for sure. We are moving the veggie gardens down beside the shed at this point. We are starting with just one bed of 1.2m x 2.4m. It is rather late in the spring season now to start too much all at once. This way we can get some crops in and start from scratch really.

We are investigating about getting a hothouse and shade house as well. They will probably go down the side of the eastern side of the house so that the westerly sun in the afternoon doesn't hit it. They will not go against the house though rather against the retaining wall that goes down the whole length of that side of the house and then some.

Being inside the house area will also ensure that they don't get pecked at by the chooks. The fence around the veggie garden will be going up soon too to ensure hares, wallabies and chooks don't get anything before us humans do. lol

It has been a rather sad week for us here but you know what, things are looking up. We are making tracks on our plans to be self reliant and that is what is really important to us as a family. We all want this to work, not just Russell and myself.

So this weekend we are off to the Toowoomba Gem Fest. Timothy has been looking forward to it off course. Then Adam, a friend from Brisbane is staying from Sunday for a whole week. Can't wait for that either.

I joined Simple Savings a while ago now and just recently joined Flylady. Boy am I glad I did. I love her. Simple Savings has been a wealth of information for me and has helped me with things like: Monthly Meal Planner, decluttering, being more organised, cleaning more greener... The flylady has done her bit with her 15 minutes a day doing particular tasks. It has been fantastic and now I love to shine my sink. hehe

Anyway am off to put some washing away that my lovely husband brought in for me before the thunderstorm got too close, not that it came as it is now silent and still hot... Here is hoping. :)

Cheers Damaris

Audit Update...

Time for reflection...

I thought I would take this opportunity to just let everyone know how our family went in last week's audit...

It started on the Saturday with the Family Plan being created just for us. This has given us great focus for the next 12 months at least. We have done everything that we set out in our plan to do during this week. This included:

We collected chicken and cow manure for the compost.

I reduced the amount of milk that I take from Lorray so that we don't have any go off anymore.

The boys started to regularly collect kindling from a kind neighbour and we are giving her milk in return.

I have asked another neighbour about fixing our tractor and that hopefully will be done within a month.

I have asked another person from our village about helping plant our seedling trees when we get them in spring.

Other things that we continued this week were:

Monitoring our electricity usage and putting the information into a spreadsheet.

Wednesday we only used 0.3kWh for our Low Electricity Day.

We spent no money this week at all as per Rhonda's blog. We are rather proud of that one and ended up saving over $140 for the week on groceries alone.

Made a monthly menu plan.

Yesterday I had a day to myself. It was lovely and I went to the Beaudesert Dexter Breed Show. Yes it started two hours later than originally scheduled but I had a ball. It was lovely to see our breeders and show them pictures of our three. I nearly sold my single milking machine. Shame, could have done with the room in the shed... I will actually get a little more serious about it soon as I would rather see someone else using it than it just sitting there.

Really this week has been very productive. I am still working on things as we go but today is a stay-at-home day, which I love and am really looking forward to. I will milk, cook, bake and do some cleaning probably. Washing will also be done. More firewood needs splitting as well for the coming week. I like Russell to do a whole heap so that the boys and I don't have to worry about it as much during the week when he is not here.

One thing that I am really excited about and can't believe that I have not done it years earlier is my monthly Menu Plan. Wow, how easy is that. All I did was sit down last Sunday night, think of all the dinners that my family likes and then fit them into our days accordingly. I have picked up some lovely quick but nutritious ones in the last two weeks as well so have incorporated them in as well. I must say, I am loving my Menu Plan. Why did I wait so long? I will never know but realise now that the time spent one evening collating it all and putting it all down on paper is sooooo worth the effort. I don't stress anymore about what is for dinner. I already know I have the ingredients and just make sure meat is out in time to defrost. Time management wise it is brilliant. Until I did this plan, I didn't realise just how much I stressed about dinners. I implore anyone and everyone to try this. If you want a copy of mine just let me know and I will email it to you. You can then customise it to your own needs.

My biggest hurdle this week, being holidays has been to limit the boys on the computer or with the DVD's. I usually allow two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon but this has not worked at all this week and shows with my electricity usage. I must admit I have not stuck to it either. Bad, bad, bad. This will improve I am sure as we go back to school and I can implement it starting this school term. Wish me luck...

So this is what happened for us during the last week. Has been very busy but very productive.

Cheers Damaris