where we r at

with our simple living change.

• i forget the last time i actually bought a loaf of bread, we generally make a loaf a day. a mix of white, wholemeal and bread rolls depending on my mood and what is in the pantry.
• cleaning wise we have had a huge change, we r now on septic so many of the products i once used r out the window. we r generally getting by on vingear and bicarb, i usually wipe the benches down at the start of the washing up using the clean water with homemade dishwashing liquid in it. i am however back using a dishwasher...woohoo...but cant use alot of homemade powders because of the borax (it cant go in the septic), and that fact that in vic i can not for the life of me find washing soda...go figure. in the washing machine for our clothes we r using environmentally friendly, septic friendly liquids...its as good as its going to get i think. the floors for the most part we r using dry flat mop for sweeping, and a mircrofibre wet mop for mopping. mircofibre in the bathroom too, thankfully i have no mould problems in this house. when the microfibre just wont do it (esp with a toilet training toddler on the floors) i do go for something a little more!
• we took a bit of a pledge to not buy new clothes...its going well. for the girls and myself im making quite bit...the only things on the buy list r underwear and school uniforms.
• christmas : the kids r getting ALOT of homemade items this year. at their ages they wont know the difference.
• we r growing some of our own food.

its still a work in progress atm, as we build beds etc, i hope they r all going by sunday/monday. all the plants will be raised from seed by me, i have been working on that for ages and i have numerous things ready to go in the garden beds by monday..:) we have choosen to landscape parts of our new yard with etable plants and vines. alot of the yard already had etable trees. and this morning i was greeted to this view of my garbage bin potatos...they r poking their little heads up woohoo. i have two bins of potatos and more seed potatos to go down in the garden beds next week too. its all a bit late i know. but we r enjoying the changes..:) in the gardens so far we already have planted a bay leaf tree, 2 beans, 1 snowpea, 2 zuchinnis, 2 corns, 2 cucumbers, i just poped them in the beds that were here.

• we r trying to make everything we eat from scratch, that we can atm. see the museli a tthe top of the page...blogger wont let me move it for some strange reason. i have wanted to make my own for weeks, finally this morning was the day. i dont know why it took so long as it was very easy. and its so yum. i didnt measure anything, but it has a pack of rolled oats, half a pack of bran (i used processed bran i cant stand the flakey stuff), coconut, dried apple and apricot, sutanas, a seed mix, pine nuts and almonds that dan roasted in the oven first (worth it, i wouldnt of but he wanted to) i think thats it....shake and your done...i had mine with milk this morning, but im going to make some vanilla yoghurt today for tomorrow cause i bet it will be since with that too. i couldnt tell the price of the museli i didnt count it bad i know...but i have enough of everything except the oats to do it all again so its not to bad when i put it like that. i have purchased an electric fowlers vacola preserving kit from ebay so we can make tomato sauce, pasta sauce, beetroots etc and get stock pilling our own food, i should have it next week so that will be some interesting experienmenting to come!
• we decided whenw e moved to change our eletricity. we went to go switch and compared the deals around. we wanted to go with some green energy. 10% green power saw no change in the bills we were paying, but we went 25% for $1 extra per week. i would love to work towards 100%. we have done alot of thinking about the electricity we used during winter. i know its part of living here but we were running the dryer for every wash for months because things just wouldnt dry. i saw a mrspeggs clothesline advertised. its a portable line that is better constructed than the clothes airers etc that r available. anyway we need a new clothes line here. so we decided to go with a portable one, that will easily come inside and hold a load of washing well over winter so it can be dried in the rooms we pay to heat. might as well get what we can out of it., we r interested to see how much of a difference this will make for us over the winter months if we dont have to run the dryer ALL the time.
• im still knitting dishclothes (everyone even my chef dh loves them)
• we have cut out most throw away items
• we have reduced our rubbish by making things from scratch because there is no packaging, by giving things to preschool for construction and by starting our compost off, and by making emily's training pants ive reduced the nappies we r using to mainly a night time useage. (that one is also good for the bank balance!)
• another big change we have all made is a committment to stop using shampoo and conditioner. we have started by using an apple vingear rinse and having another few weeks to go before we start using bicarb for our hair as well. the vingear rinse was surprising! the first time we were oh i dont know...the second time was bit better...the third and my hair was like i had usedsome expensive shampoo and condition...it was so lovely. im preparing myself to go through the ups and downs again when we change to the bicarb as well...but the vingear taught us it will get better and with great results.

well thats just a bit of what we have been working away on since deciding to live this life. we r all happiler, healthier and never bored thats for sure