The Christmas Challenge. Show and Tell for February 2017 Part 1.

Lots of photos have come in for show and tell for February! I don't even have to remind anyone these days! At the end of this post I will invite everyone to send in their photos though as I don't want to miss out on any!

As usual these are in no particular order and I include everyone.  Next weeks photos are equally beautiful, inspiring and diverse!
I hope everyone finds joy, inspiration, ideas, motivation and this helps us move into a new month of making things for our gift giving and Christmas cupboards.

Firstly, we have Rachel. She has been making socks with a frilled edging!

Frilled edging! You know how I love this! 

She also has been cooking up a storm but you will see this in a post on Monday! 

Lynette has made knitted toys. She made these for Harper and Scarlett! We have an angel and a mermaid! Imagine my surprise when these arrived in the mail! 

They are just gorgeous. Thank you so much Lynette!  This parcel absolutely made my day!

Fiona has been using her machine to embroider stunning designs onto wool fabric. She is making hot water bottle covers. How exquisite!

These will be gorgeous gifts. 

She also made a childs rug ...

I am so glad to see you sewing Fiona. Sewing  = happiness. Actually crafts full stop = happiness! 

Teri made a dreamcatcher for a present all from things she had on hand... this is so feminine!

Beautiful work Teri.

Jeanette has made hats.  This is one she made for her friend who is undergoing cancer treatment. She makes the flowers removable so it can be worn with or without.  Jeanette I am sure your friend just appreciates this so much!

Jane sent in this picture of a chest of drawers that Bluey and her daughter Katie made over.  The before were shelves that were not too good (think paint dribbles and icky colour) and this is the result of the collaboration!

How beautiful! 

Jane also made sating pillowcases for her son...

(some of the fabric was from cutting up a satin sheet)

Gorgeous candles...

Patchwork bags.... 

And she made over and decorated tins to use for gifts.  I LOVE the shells and pearls. Just stunning.

Jane this is all amazing and a lot for the month of February as I know you did heaps of cooking too!


Well that is enough for this week, we have heaps more next week!  I would love to see what you have been making. Filling our gift cupboards is a year round job. Lots of things end up as Birthday and other presents and some make it through to Christmas.  Seeing what you all have been doing is fantastic. Everyone is off to a massive start!
You can post pics on the Bluebirds Facebook page or email me at brinkzi21@hotmail.com

I hope your week is going well!  It is pretty hot here. But also the first day of Autumn! I can hardly believe it! I love Autumn!  We usually still get about two weeks of summer weather though... not long to go now!  This is so exciting to me!

Vicky is having a ton of unpleasant dental work tomorrow. It will be a long day for her.  I am praying she gets on well.

See you on Friday! I hope to be able to report some decent building up my home activities! xxx

Pantries and Preparedness. Your pets.

This week we are thinking of how to include our pets and farm animals into our preparedness. If you were stuck at home, the shops were shut or you couldn't shop for a period of time would you have enough food and supplies to go on with?

This is pretty easy for us. We have budgies, a larger parrot and chickens. All of them will eat a lot of supplementary things i.e. things I could pick from the garden, Ricky and the chickens will eat so many things from fruit scraps etc.
I try to stay well ahead with chicken feed. We keep a large bucket in reserve. I also keep back up bird seed and nuts in a whole heap of baby formula tins I made over to blend in with my other supplies.

Chippie  is our friendliest budgie but we also have two other blue budgies and one bright yellow one.

Hillhouse asked for advice on preparedness for her large dogs. This was well out of my sphere so I asked Glenda who has two Labradors how she covers them in her preparedness.  The following is some of what Glenda advised...

 The dogs do eat a lot and a lot needs stored for them. They go through one 26 lb bag of high quality dog food in three weeks, plus they have extra hamburger on their food and treats. To store the dog food we purchased Vittles Vault storage containers. Each container holds 50 lbs of dog food and they are stackable. The containers are heavy duty, airtight, FDA approved, and have a Gamma Seal to keep the dog food fresh. Keeping dog food fresh for long term storage is an issue, so these work great for that. Rancid dog food is unhealthy, but the oil in dog food does go rancid. We purchased the Vittles Vault containers from Amazon. The plastic containers from the Dollar Store and Walmart are inexpensive, but won't keep the dog food from going rancid, so the investment in the correct containers is important.

   We buy the dogs really high quality dog food, so we always try to get it on sale. Gracee has a sensitive stomach. Often, one of the farm/ranch supply stores will have the food for five dollars off per bag, plus if you buy six bags you get the seventh free.

   Finding storage space for food, water, medical, household, personal, and animals can be a real problem. We have two dedicated rooms downstairs to storage of food, medical, household, and personal items. We opted to take one of the stalls of a two car garage and make it a prep center. The Seville metal shelving works wonderful for storing heavy items, such as dog food, water, extra household case goods, etc. The shelves can be spaced in one inch increments, so they can be utilized for all types of storage. The shelves are strong up to 500 lbs per shelf.

   The garage is heated but we keep it at 42 degrees in the winter. Just warm enough to not freeze, but not so warm it runs up our electric bill. In summer it does get hotter, but it's well insulated so it's not too bad normally.

   In addition to food for dogs or other animals, herbs, extra med's, clippers, and other necessities should be stored in quantities for six months to a year. After six months of dog food, a back up plan should be in place, just in case there is not availability or money to purchase more dog food. Dogs that are active and on farms would eat more than our two house plants (LOL). I have a medicine cabinet full of extra med's for pain, and medical equipment specifically for the dogs. If no Vet is around or available it is wise to know how to care for the 'what if's' for the four legged members of the family. Knowledge of grooming would, also, be very wise and helpful.

Glenda also made the point to me that thought needs to be given to how to exercise big dogs when you are stuck indoors for any length of time. There is a lot to think about! 

These tins are on my kitchen shelves full of bird treats.

A good place to start might be to get several weeks ahead with pet food and keep that buffer.  

What pets do you have? How do you store extras for them incase it is ever needed?

Ricky totally loves Broccoli. But other favourites are chops, sausages, cheese, nuts, apples, toast. 

This is Chickies pot. Once there was a plant in it but we gave up. She loves this pot!

I think pets are important, they bring us so much joy everyday!

Have a wonderful week!  Our week is looking pretty warm but so far is is lovely. xxx

Feather your Nest Friday, 24 February, 2017.

This was a week that didn't go as planned!  I ended up with four trips to the hospital and two days on an IV drip to get ahead of the infection I had. I have never had anything like this before that is for sure!
Yesterday things started to improve a lot. Thank you for all your prayers and comments!

Mainly it was a week of easy meals like toasted sandwiches and trying to keep things going.  Due to counting from last Friday to today in my week I had a few savings and things to report. (thankfully)

I used up leftover yoghurt in a "use it up' cake and covered it in plum slices.

I actually made two of these and one was frozen.

My friend gave me five huge plastic tubs with lids and a heap of giant plastic storage bags with zips. She had just moved house.  I have shared these around and some have become storage in the shed.

My neighbour collected us a bag of cuttlefish for our birds as they went to the beach. We never would buy them but they are a couple of dollars each in the shops.

I collected a dozen free lemons.

A beautiful parcel arrived in the mail. I knew it was from Vicky right away as it was covered in flowers!  She sent me a gorgeous gift and included something I have been really wanting. Zote! Yes pink Zote has been on my wish list!   (this is a US solid bar of laundry soap that comes in pink. When grated and added to your homemade mix the whole batch turns out a heavenly pale pink!) 

I want to use it to make pink laundry soap!  Vicky also sent me fragrance beads which I have never had before. The parcel smelled beautiful. It scented the van it arrived in and probably the plane coming over! 

I used up a heap of tomatoes and zucchini in my Nan's bake (this is good to go with roasts and stretch meat meals) This also used up left over bread.

Mum gave me six bananas which I peeled and froze to make a cake.

Yesterday I went to the shops. I bought bags of baguettes and rolls for 99c. As I haven't baked so much these will be handy.  Each bag was about $6 worth of things,  just yesterdays. 

I collected some lovely gift bags to recycle. I have a drawer just for gift bags. 

Once again I haven't totalled up my Vicky Challenge yet. But I will and I can see the weeks are really adding up. 

This weekend Andy is spraying the whole yard again for bugs. This was done before Christmas but we have had a very wet summer and more humid than usual. The Chemist and Doctors have told me they are seeing many more bites than usual. Andy doing is saves a few hundred dollars and he can do just as good a job. 

The nicest part of the week was going with Mum around to Lucy's house.  I had missed out for a few days which I did not like! Mum bathed Harper and washed her hair and Lucy bathed Scarlett.  I got  a lot of lovely photos.  This is Great Grandma with her babies all freshly washed and in pjs.  😊 

How was your week? How did you build up your home or get ahead?  If you are tracking savings for your Vicky Challenge how did you go?  

We have good weeks and not so good weeks! Big weeks and small weeks!  But everything adds up! 

Have a wonderful weekend! xxx

Jane let me know that Bluey has had a bit of a set back. They both could do with some prayers.

The Christmas Challenge. Make your own tea chest.

Kelley has saved me again this week! I had been in hospital three mornings this week and am finally back to oral antibiotics. I think we are getting somewhere now.
But my crafts and gifts are not getting somewhere at all!

So it is with gratitude I share with you another one of Kelley's crafts that she sent me.  I just love this and many of us could use it for ourselves or for a gorgeous gift!  I hope you enjoy it as much as me!

Over to Kelley....

I bought this old jewelry box at a thrift store several years ago for a couple dollars.  I planned to store sewing notions in it when we lived in the Philippines because the sun there was murder on anything in my Inspiration Station.  Honestly, it sat empty for five years.  (That’s not a very dutiful handmaiden is it, Laine?)

We moved to Guam last year, and in reorganizing my crafts, etc. for about 30 minutes this gutted old gem sat in the Give Away pile.  If she wasn’t going to perform any duties around here, out she goes...

…or on the other hand? I got the brilliant idea to repurpose it as a tea chest.  You know, those fancy tea chests that are brought to your five-star restaurant table when you want to order a cup of hot tea with your $40 dessert?  *chuckle*

So, with a a hot glue gun and some lovely tropical fabric scraps from my stash, the tea chest was outfitted with a refreshing new lining.  A cotton trim hid all the bar spots and cut edges and covered the old hinges.  Snips of ribbon and thumbtacks serve to keep the lid open.

I cut the stiff cardboard from the back of a large yellow steno pad to fashion tea chest dividers.  Complementary teal lace was hot glued to the top of the dividers’s cut edges.

I was practically giddy, filling the tea chest with a variety of delightful teabags!  As you can see, the new tea chest holds a lot of teabags, and I couldn’t get over how perfect the dimensions were for this project.

The exterior of the tea chest got a facelift, too.  Using a hot glue gun, the lid was embellished very simply with rectangles of fabric and batting and cotton lace trim.

Wouldn’t this make an ideal gift for the tea lover in your life?  We do lots of entertaining, and perching this happy little handmaiden out on the tea/coffee station at our dinner parties gives me such joy!  All the tea lovers, male and female alike, appreciate the variety of teabag offerings, but the ladies are especially delighted by the tea chest!  You’re going to be like them, aren’t you?  On the lookout for an old jewelry box!  Maybe you already own a special, sentimental one that used to be your mother’s or grandmother’s.  This would be a special way to put that little beauty to work as a beloved handmaiden in your home.

*hugs*

Kelley~

This all is just perfect! Turning something about to be thrown out into something lovely! And kind of luxurious too!  Any tea drinker would love this.  Thank you Kelley!  Your post last week attracted so many comments!  This is the sort of inspiration we need. Use something up... many of us are on "use it up" challenges. 

How is your gift making going?  I have a really good list of projects I am wanting to work on. For us soon it will be autumn and this is a great time to get into some crochet and sewing.  Usually I get so much done then. So I will make up for lost time! xxx

Pantries and Preparedness. Paying off debt as preparedness.

Last week preparedness was in our news again! That is three weeks running and most unusual. This time the subject was rising household debt, rising national debt and a host of things that do not look good.  Nothing we don't already know but there it was in black and white and it ended with "pay off your mortgages, stock up on canned goods..."
For anyone interested the article was called "Apocalyptic warning for Australian Families".
Now not that all these kinds are articles are true and no one knows the future. But there are signs around us that are enough to cause concern!

In my week I took out all the first aid supplies I have build up over the last couple of years and went through them. I had too much in a small space making it hard to find anything quickly.
I bought a small cupboard to become a first aid station.  It was inexpensive at the cheap shop. This was probably because it came in 30,000 small pieces with virtually no instructions!
Andy came to the rescue and after a lot of muttering we had a really nice cupboard. It is about 1 meter/yard high.

On the right there is a smaller one, just the drawers. This was for my writing paper and stationary! That's another story!

As I stocked this I checked the dates on everything and was pretty shocked how many things were out of date.  I was then making a list of what I need to replace.  I made the top drawer cleaning and antiseptics, cotton etc. All things to clean up a wound.

The second drawer is bandaids of different sizes.

The third drawer is creams, ointments etc.

The bottom drawer is kind of this and that, heat patches and so on.

The side cupboard is large bandages, my super soft hankies, dressings etc.

Medicines are kept elsewhere in the kitchen. 

I showed it to Andy so he knows where everything is kept and can find things fast.  

So it is much better. I hope to add to it weekly.

This week my aim is to go through the car first aid kits and update those.

Now to our article from Vicky.  As our news story mentioned getting out of debt as far as possible is a real form of being prepared.  Paying down debt, resisting more debt...  all of this helps you weather any future storms.  I do not want to discourage anyone who feels overwhelmed by debt.  We are doing what we can, with what we have and as we can!   But I notice all the time people adding to their debt rather than reducing it.  Someone on our street already double mortgaged their home to pay for something big and unnecessary.  Things were really bad for them. Then last year they took out a loan for $30,000 to have a party! We were scratching our heads.  Last month they were forced to give up their home.  

 This is also a subject in the news/media a lot. Recently it was about Smashed Avocado and the cafe lifestyle. People were saying life isn't worth living unless you can eat out at the cafes and travel every year.  Apparently its $20 to have someone squish and avocado onto some toast for you.  By travel they don't mean down the coast for an ice cream they mean world travel. But they also want a house! The credit cards are maxed out and so it goes...

Sometimes we have choices.  Along these lines I really loved this article by Jes... relevant to use as we need to do something about our bathroom!

Jes' inexpensive bathroom re do.

Many times we can apply this in different ways!

Over to Vicky!

 Debt Free!!!....... Now what? 

As most of you know last year we paid off half of the mortgage and already paid off most of the other debts we had and now this year we paid off the second half of the mortgage and are 100% debt free. First we paid it by halves so that it would be in two different tax years thus saving us thousands in taxes. Second by making the decision to pay it off now versus later we have saved what would equal the cost of another small house in interest alone. Forty thousand to be exact. 

It has been a long journey for us over the years to say the least! And although we have gotten a lot of flack for our decision we stuck to our plans and achieved our goal. Maybe not in the way others would agree with, but it's done. 

It started with learning to save on groceries. Then starting the snowball effect by paying off smaller debts first and rolling the money from that payment to another payment to start paying off something else. Then came stockpiling and preparedness efforts. And having an emergency fund. All the while we learned we could actually live better and manage things much easier and be able to take care of ourselves through many circumstances. 

The opinions vary from we are stupid to oh boy now you can party all of the time you have no worries, Yeah...no we still have insurances and property taxes and electric, etc. We still have to rebuild the emergency fund and have the funds for repairs on the home and vehicles if needed and doctors and dentists. All on what the Mr. is able to make and his lovely wife being the frugal gal she is. 

So what is our plan for now? Well our first plan is to continue as we have since we seem to do well and both enjoy our lifestyle. We will continue to save in all of the ways we have before that won't change and with the Vicky Challenge if there is extra to bank we will do so. We need to tear down and replace an old garage and pay cash to replace it that is what we are currently saving for. I have seen too many people that when circumstances get a little better they quit saving or quit being frugal and go right back to a lifestyle they can't afford a vicious cycle that never ends. Slow and steady wins the race! We need to learn from the things we do and continue learning. 

To be honest we have had discussions on the matter of wouldn't it be nice to do this or that, but in the long term those are only fleeting moments of instant gratification, we want a life time of it. 

So to end this I will say that in the long run the wonderful friendships we have made and the support we have been given by people who many don't know us in person or us them has given us the enjoyment and encouragement to just keep our lives as they are. Thank you Blue Birds! 

XOXO

Vicky

Thank you Vicky!  I am so happy your place is now all paid for and you do not have anymore payments! This is a great achievement and security!

A couple of weeks ago I had a bad bite and was really unwell with it. We put it down to a spider as it became infected almost straight away.

I blamed the peach tree as I had been rummaging through that!  But on Thursday I had another one. I had been in the garden as usual but I could have got it anywhere. It was in the exact same spot on my other arm.  We have turned up the house, sprayed, used bug bombs and never found one bug. Outside Andy sprayed with a professional spray kit (and I hate sprays!)  

This bite acted exactly the same and became infected in a few hours. This time I knew what was ahead of me and got to the Doctor the same day.  I had antibiotics again but still the pain is awful and throbbing and hot. Not much sleep.   Yesterday it got worse instead of better and more of my arm looked bad and I ended up in hospital on a drip.  By then I was glad to be there. I was allowed to come home for the night and have to go back in this morning. 

They are great but only interested in fixing the infection. So far no one is interested in identifying what is biting me i.e. is it a spider or have I developed some huge reaction to a Mosquito bite or something (which is apparently possible).

I have never been prone to bites and never had a severe reaction. 

To me my problem is that I feel panicked that I will get another one. I feel sick at the thought.  

I need prayers for a solution!  

Have a good week!  Keep working on your preparedness! xxx

This was taken by Rachel's Dad. A Kangaroo at his place! 

Feather your Nest Friday, 17 February 2017.

We had a really busy week to the extent that I am amazed I have anything much to report as far as nest building goes.  But I jot things down and I still got some cooking done and made some progress!
I feel better about the week now that I have looked back over it!

Nest wise the best news is baby Scarlett is doing well and gained weight and her big sister loves her! This is Harper saying goodnight that was just a little moment Lucy snapped and I just love!

So this was the best part of the week by far!

How I built up my home this week:

I did some re arranging and tidying up. I prettied up the front hallway with flowers...

I did a big shop at Aldi and on the way home went to a fruit and veggie shop that is kind of out of the way for me. But it was a big success! They have good prices but that day was amazing. I think maybe because the weather was really hot there were hardly any people around. Anyway I got the best prices I have seen in a long time. My car was full of baskets of tomatoes, cucumbers, you name it. I was thrilled.  

Due to requests I made fruit and nut balls...

We kept half and the rest walked out the door! :)

We picked apples from our tree. It is only the second year so pretty good!

I made all the work lunches.

Andy cleaned the air conditioner filters and the whole yard.

I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce. This gave us two meals,  some went into the freezer and some went to the girls as well.

I made bread and focaccia.

For Valentines Day I made a double batch of Chocolate Brownies as my present to Andy (and a card). I tied it up with a ribbon.  He loved it! 

I got pink orchids! These are so lovely and I hope I can keep them going!

I improved our preparedness too by sorting out our first aid supplies and getting a special cupboard set up for it all. Now we can find everything easily. Much better. 

I also set up a little cupboard for my writing paper and pens etc. I love it! At least all in one place!

Because my week has been a bit interesting I haven't worked out my Vicky Challenge totals yet. I have my list so I will get to it on the weekend.  It should be pretty reasonable this week!

I hope you had a good week! How did you get ahead, save or build up your home?  

Next  I am making a cake covered in plums inspired by Janine's.  I have some dough coming along for some pizzas.    Have a good weekend! xxx

The Christmas Challenge. A guest post by Kelley.

I am so excited to share this.  Kelley sent me this for show and tell but it was worth of a whole post as I wanted to include the whole story. This has everything I love... beautiful end results, inexpensive (or free) plus special and sentimental.

Also this has something else. Yes you can "get ahead" in another way... My Mum has done this... she has made ahead baby things for babies not born yet. I did this too. I started working on baby things years ago. I thought if I am not around the girls will have whole collections of things I made with love for their babies.

GRAMPS SHIRTS BABY BOY PROJECTS
I started saving my husband’s old, 100% cotton sport shirts.  Every four years or so, he decides to get rid of the old ones and buys new ones (at thrift store/op shop prices) when Dillard’s has a deep, deep clearance sale and we’re home on a US mainland visit.  I have never made a quilt before, but I imagined darling baby boy projects gleaned from Gramps’s shirts.  Of course, we have not a single human grandson (or granddaughter, for that matter) YET; only granddoggies.  But Annabel, life is short, and I decided that if something were to happen to me, my children will have something for their newborn sons that I made from their maternal grandfather’s shirts.

Since 2011 or 2012, I began saving the shirts and cut them into 5-inch squares.  This is very quickly accomplished with plaid fabric and a hem gauge.  I pressed the shirts and cut the squares on the ironing board.  The bin below is where they were reserved all these years.  Last year I cut the last shirts up, and squares gleaned from more than 30 different shirts eventually filled this bin!

MORE THAN 1,200 squares yielded:

ELEVEN (11) Gramps Shirts BABY BOY BIBS for each daughter (22 Bibs total); I used nanaCompany’s free bib PDF pattern and after I took these pictures below, I added snaps I purchased from SnapSource in Troy, Michigan, USA.

Each of our two married daughters will have a set of bibs like these (11 total).

Each bib required nine (9) 5-inch squares.  I backed the bibs with solid fabrics I had in my stash.  Typically it was a soft yellow, cream, beige or white-- whatever complemented the quilted bib front. 

Then, I made each daughter five (5) different Gramps Shirts Baby Boy burp cloths (below).  I backed all the burp cloths with a very nice, queen size, crisp, 100% cotton vintage white sheet I got at a thrift store for $2. (With the rest of the sheet I made large dish-drying towels and a bag to wash my lettuces in.)  Yield: 10 Gramps Shirts Baby Boy burp cloths (total).  Each of these required twelve (12) 5-inch squares, and for the burp cloths ONLY, I matched up all the points.  YIKES!  I’m so glad I didn’t do that on the bibs or the baby quilts (below).

The first things I made with the Gramps Shirt squares were these seven (7) Baby Boy quilt tops (below). Each quilt top required 10 rows x 10 squares = 100 squares, but since I didn’t match the points, some of the rows in the quilt actually had 12 squares, so about 110 quilt squares each (770 squares for 7 quilts).  Since I’d never quilted before, I also found a link to make a simple quilt frame that my husband made me for about $10.  Each daughter will have three quilts plus I have one leftover to gift.  I will use a low-loft quilt batting for these quilts, plus I will back them with a solid baby boy fabric like a soft blue or white.  I will also embroider on the quilts somewhere.

Before I constructed the quilt, I always took a photo of the design.  This was the first quilt top (below) that I did, so my design improved with each one thereafter.  I taught myself to mark my rows with labels, be “neater” with each one, and to cut the threads as I went.  Annabel, I taught myself and learned something new after sewing for nearly 50 years.  This is something my great-grandmother did with each and square inch of fabric scraps.  Nothing went to waste.  She likely made all of hers by hand, and because of the work of those hands, today I have a quilt that I treasure decades later that she made.  Our own children’s children will enjoy the fruit of my labors in years to come, too, and they’ll know the story behind all the quilt squares.  Though I constructed mine on a machine, I love how my baby boy quilts will have a vintage feel to them after I quilt them by hand.  They’re nothing special to the eyes of other beholders, but to my girls, they will adore them.

And would you believe I have many Gramps Shirts quilt squares leftover!  I have several vintage floral sheets I’ve collected from thrift stores, and I decided to make baby girl quilt tops, baby girl bibs and burp cloths with them!  These projects will not only put a huge dent in my stash (NEEDED!), they will turn into practical, useful necessities my girls’ daughters can use for generations to come.

*hugs*
Kelley~

This all is so lovely.  Plus it could be adapted to use up all kinds of other fabrics and prints that are special some way.  So many possibilities! Thank you so much Kelley.

I hope your week is going well!
Glenda is suffering blood cloths and having to rest while being treated. If you would pray for her this would be wonderful!  It is so hard when health issues are in our way.

For Valentines Day I made a big tray of Chocolate Brownies and tied it all up with a card!   
See you on Friday! xxx

Pantries and Preparedness. Encouragement.

I think in everything a little encouragement goes a long way.  That is what this post is about.  Making progress in any area just means sticking to it and even in tiny bits it all adds up!
When I first started on being more prepared there was no encouragement on the subject around me except for what I found online.  I had some basics from my Mum and Nan's. Without them there was nothing!
But now things have changed. Preparedness is suddenly in our media in one way or another everyday. It is not presented positively but it is there in mostly dire warnings and grim scenarios. Still that is a kind of motivation!
Last week I mentioned how even members of parliament were saying we need to go out and buy generators.
Since then there have been widespread heatwaves. In Adelaide we had it pretty hot (about 41, almost 106)  and at night the coolest was about 30 (86) and this is plenty hot enough but still short of what we often get which is 43 and 44 and the odd 45 or 46!  None the less this was all too much for our electricity supply.  This time rather than have the entire state crash "they" (no one knows who they are as there is still argument who is responsible) decided to just turn off the power to 90,000 homes. With no warning.
So the news has been taken up with all of this, the heat, the electricity problems and so on. In a backwards kind of way it is all motivation to be prepared. And another big supplier of electricity is a plant over the border in Victoria. And it is being shut down entirely in March. This means the shortage we have now is nothing to the shortage we have coming. Yet nothing is done. A crucial bit of infrastructure can be sold and then closed and the government do not stop it.   We have such unreliable power that we rely on Victoria and we import it. However a large chunk of their own supply is about to end. So you don't have to be Einstein to know what is ahead.
Yep that's motivation!

We were very lucky. In the heatwave we only lost power for three hours. And Lucy's home with the new baby did not lose power at all. That was my main concern.  But we have a fair bit of summer left and we could get an actual higher temperature heatwave easily. I am confident there would be no power as they didn't manage what we had!

When I started out I found a lot of encouragement online. This was huge! It meant I could learn, research and have some support and truly this helped me so much in that first year and last year the second year.
Then a couple of weeks ago Vicky wrote me the nicest email!
Contained here is a verse I had never considered!  You will see... it is so so true!

I think we all have a person who we maybe tend to give more time and effort than they do, the ones who always have some kind of problem or drama and we have to do the right thing and lend an ear? Well I have one like that! I patiently listen to her problems and offer what advice I can. I have tried to include her or get her involved in many things including joining in the reading of The Blue Birds Are Nesting and the Christmas Challenge. She's like Oh yeah just a blog. 

I thought about that? Just a blog? And it weighed on my mind for a few hours. And I thought about it. 

Then I called her back and told her no some are not just a blog, it's a community, many friends, fellowship, encouragement, sisterhood! 

Luke 15:8. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbours together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!'

I read her this verse to her and tried to explain to her that although most of us are far apart that like the woman in this verse we call upon each other to rejoice. Rejoice in our savings like the lost coin, putting forth the time and effort into our pantries and preparedness and organization. Rejoicing in new skills learned or old ones shared with others. Sharing prayers for those who need them and lifting each other up. Encouraging one another to be our best no matter what our best might be? Putting a value as we should to our work and ways. And feeling good about it!

It just goes to show that if we but look we can find exactly what we need. Sometimes a little encouragement really can make a difference in our world or finding that common bond that we have lacked before. There is such joy to be had in life especially from the simple things that it helps take some of the bite out things that are not going so well. 

Oh I know there will always be those who thrive on having to have some kind of problem or another, but we can take comfort in knowing that we have our own little retreat from it in the form of "just a blog!" 

XOXO

Vicky

I loved this so much!  I have found so much encouragement from your company and that's what we do! We have a place to share and rejoice our progress and good news!  I have found several places that I can do this including with Patsy, Jes and Wendy (and others) on their blogs. This makes a big difference to me. I have family too that will celebrate with me. 

We can easily know no one in person that thinks we are anything but mad trying to build up our households and pantries etc.

Mind you, I notice, anyone who thought buying a generator was ridiculous doesnt think so anymore they are more likely asking where did we get it, how does it work and so on. (While wishing they had bought one in time.)  haha! 

In life there are people who will support and encourage you and there are those who will tear you down. The effects are dramatic. I think it can take five minutes for someone to suck you dry of happiness and enthusiasm! But also five minutes of building up can make a world of difference!  The beautiful verse Vicky has pointed out shows we are meant to be able to rejoice together!  I also love the one thats says "...encourage one another and build each other up" (1 Thes. 5:11)  We need that.  

It is my hope that by doing this it will help us get much further as the year goes on.  Vicky said not to feel overwhelmed with trying to get ahead and get prepared.  Just try to do something every week. With a bit of encouragement we can have fun doing it too!

Maria made the cake I posted on Friday's post!  

She used sewed nectarines. Also she served it with cream as a desert. It made her husband very happy!

Janine also made it! She had free plums!   I love free fruit! 

How beautiful these look! That is encouragement to me! Seeing my cake pop up in other kitchens! 

Have a good week!  Do you have plans to increase your preparedness?  I am re organising my first aid supplies for one as they have grown and now it is hard to find what we want in a hurry. So a big overhaul is happening! xxx