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Showing posts from April, 2013

The Great British Sewing Bee

This blogpost has links to all the episodes of The Great British Sewing Bee on youtube, for people like me who cannot access BBC website replay from New Zealand.  I'm completely in love with the show and I'm even contemplating sewing a french seam now.  Fabulous history snippets as well. Other great things: school holidays feijoas from Golden Bay going visiting with friends having friends come visit my new polka dot circle which I made my very own self (photos to come another day) school holidays (2x great)

The Invisible Rider

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Some parents take their children to church.  We take ours on marches. I love my garden.  I've been out in it, even just tiny bits of wedding and caterpillar squashing, almost every day this past fortnight.  I planted out seedlings of crimson kale. green kale and celery last weekend, and have packets of coriander and rocket ready to scatter this weekend. In The Rushing Woman Syndrome , Libby Weaver talks about exposing ourselves to seratonin through daylight as soon as we get up.  This is supposed to have the effect of helping us start the day bright and full of energy.  I think it is helping.  We have blackout lining on our curtains (I like proper dark to sleep in and also it blocks the street lighting), so it's good to go outside as soon as I get up.  Even when it is raining, I can stand under the lean-to by the old shed and look at the chooks and my garden and greet the day. Although I haven't dared ask my loved ones for accurate feedback, I think I am calmer than

Garden love

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 Cosmos in autumn.  Pulled out to make room for more winter veges.  The new chook run for the bullied chook is behind it.  Mrs Victim is flourishing in her refuge, testimony to what life beyond domestic abuse can be like.  The shady corner by the tree hut.  The photograph doesn't show the nasturtiums, the roses and the jerusalem artichokes, but they are there, roaming free with the wandering jew and the composting cosmos.  Crimson kale in dappled light.  There is some chicory and some spinach there as well.  The tomato and the marigolds in the background will be pulled soon to make way for more winter veges.  The brick north facing wall provides a great spot for winter veges. It's a beautiful experience, gardening, and spending time out there every day is doing me a world of good.  Much much better than washing shirts and then discovering at the ironing board that a scrap of orange paper survived the pre-wash pocket check and the shirt is now stained.  Don&

Rushing Woman's Syndrome

Rushing Woman's Syndrome , by Libby Weaver, may just change my life.  I've read it cover to cover over the last few days, and it gives me a powerful context for my thyroid problems, plus reassurance that having serious symptoms but still having bloods within the medically accepted range is quite common.  It has helped me to understand what is going on when I get stressed over only medium-sized organisational challenges, like getting everyone to their respective birthday parties, sports tournaments and kung fu gradings.  It's not that what I am organising is impossible, it is that I'm working in frequent (sometimes constant) overdrive so I don't trust that I've remembered everything. Weaver is a big advocate of yoga, so I'll be sticking with that.  She is also passionately in favour of women giving up or cutting back on their alcohol consumption and caffeine consumption.  Caffeine is a non-issue for me most of the time, but I'm now over 11 weeks into my