Menu Planning

It's estimated that the average household brings in between 5 and 10 grocery bags full of groceries every week. Of that number at least one bagful ends up in the garbage each week as rubbish. This is a result mainly of fresh produce going off before it can be consumed, left overs that never get eaten and exotic ingredients that never get used.

The single biggest thing I have done to reduce waste is to menu plan. I menu plan weekly because that's about all my brain can manage and only buy fresh food as I need it. For example as I menu plan I write down exactly how many carrots I will need for the week based on what dishes I am cooking. If I only need 2 I buy 2 carrots and not a whole bag.

The other thing I do is write out the menu plan and store it in a plastic folder which I attach with magnets to the fridge. In this folder I put any new recipes I intend to try that week. Generally I have pulled these from magazines.

I now have almost no food wastage and the little I do have I feed to my worms.

Best friends

I was not the sort of girl who had lots of best friends through school. I had friends, sure, but no do or die best friend that stuck by me through everything. And when I left high school, I pretty much left all the people I attended with behind me as well.


In fact, it wasn't till University that I finally made lasting friendships. (Hi Holly and Therese)


Now, I have 3 best friends and I was thinking today how very different the three of them are.



This is Linda. Linda is the friend you call when you've been stuck at home with your kids all day and you're ready to hang yourself from the rafters. Not that she'll help (no, she has her own 2 devils, thank you very much), but she will comiserate with you, support you and offer you some sturdy rope she has in her garage that will do the job nicely. My blackest friend.....I love her dearly.




Then there is Natalie. Natalie is the friend you call when your house has burnt to the ground. She has the biggest house of anyone I know and is sure to take us all in (at least for the night). She'll know the names and numbers of three reputable builders to rebuild your house and while you're waiting to move back in she'll whisk you away to Tuscany for some "proper" wine and cheese. My cultured friend...I love her dearly.




And this is Julie (with glass raised). Julie is the friend you invite to every party. Firstly, she'll always turn up. She'll always look fabulous and she'll always bring a dessert to die for. Julie and I hold each others hand through daily life: kids first days at school, car pooling, recipe swapping and general whining about husbands. The friend I rely on..I love her dearly.


I am so lucky to have all the friends I have but these three ladies are the ants pants of friends.

Present Giving

Well its that time of the year when the Christmas trees are packed away and all the new gifts have been assimilated into the house. Its the school holidays, so not many kids parties happening at this time. But soon the kids will be back at school and it will not be long before the invites start arriving in the bottom of the school bag.

One of my challenges this year is to cut down on bought gifts. Now, I have 2 reasons for doing this. The first is that I am over paying $20 for every party we go to. One weekend we had 3 parties to go to. So its gets very expensive. The other is that I feel so bad buying more plastic rubbish to fill up other people's houses with.

So this year I intend to really think about my gift giving. I'd like to make most of what we give this year and really give things that don't create a lot of excess packaging and "filler" for the houses they are going to.

The litlle bags pictured above were made for Christmas this year. They are made from cardstock and paper and a few embellishments. The maroon one was for my Mum and the pink and green one was for Rhianna. I filled the insides with lollies or in Rhianna's case a couple of kinder surprise chocolates. I love ideas like this one. And I hope to create a whole folder of ideas to use for when birthdays have to be celebrated.

Saving Water

One of the easiest yet most important contributions we as a family can make to the environment is saving water. This is so easy, and within the household can be done in a variety of ways.

We make use of a lot of our grey water. The water that runs while you are waiting for hot water is gathered in a container and used to water pot plants.

Washing machine water can be easily diverted to water our lawn and water from the shower collected in a bucket to carry out later for our plants.

With water getting so expensive these days it also helps our hip pocket to save water in these ways.

Well time for some baking (according to Rhianna) and we do love to bake here in this house.

Today some smartie cookies.

We love to cream the butter and the sugar, we taste to make sure its not poison and because we both love cookie dough and then we decorate.

Colourful cookies....what's not to love????

Last year I started collected Rhianna's old clothes and storing them...for what purpose I was not sure.

Then mid year it came to me. Make a patchwork quilt.

As this was my first attempt I kept it small and simple. It ended up being a bed topper for her bed.

I was quite pleased with it and I learned so much via mistakes. I shall do another this year. What a great way to recycle old clothing.

Total cost = nothing.

One thing I have tried to do less of this year is buy plastic crap. And by this I mean toys really.

Although it is very hard at Christmas time with all the I wants, I wants.....

I have tried to steer Rhianna around to home made fun. Which is quite easy really as she is 6 years old and impressed by almost everything.

In fact, when I got out of this bed this morning she gave me a little clap...but I digress....

Here is a "toy" that Rhianna and I made together.

It's made from a CD gift box. I have decorated and divided with ribbon and then bought buttons for the counters. I then put sticky dot velco on the box and the back of the buttons.

Hey presto, a game of noughts and crosses.