Important matters and trivialities

"Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy.  She was already in the habit of writing down important matters, and afterward, when she was mute, she also recorded trivialities, never suspecting that fifty years later I would use her notebooks to reclaim the past..."
                                                                                 House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende

Some people like to take notes, to  keep diaries and journals.  I am one of those people. I guess blogging is merely a modern (and public) form of ones diary, journal or notebook.  (Except you can add pictures, videos, links and more!!) A record of daily life and interests relevant at that time.  Just when I think I'm not really going to continue with this blog I read something and get inspired to do it again.....

I read this recently on brain pickings .....   (I love brain pickings!)

"Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle. Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up. Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."
                                                                        - Joan Didion on Keeping a notebook (from  Brain Pickings)

I am not sure if I am an anxious malcontent nor do i have a presentiment of loss , but I do think taking notes is a 'peculiarly compulsive one'.  I have had journals, diaries and notebooks nearly my whole life - since I could write anyway. My mum always takes notes too - maybe it is inherited.  To me it has got to do with thinking, ordering my thoughts, reflecting on life, philosophizing and remembering and recording ' important matters and trivialities'.

Here is an  event I never got round to recording and with my slightly dodgy computer skills at least I will have these photos safe here. It is the crazy hail storm of last year.  See I have already forgotten even what month it was in - maybe Nov/Oct.  

We were just observing that very morning how glorious the jacaranda trees were looking, so we took a photo....  lucky for by that evening not a flower was left!!

It really was the most crazy storm I have been in, very exciting, so much hail and such large hail stones. The noise on the tin roof was deafening.

After it finished it became very misty and freezing cold.  It looked beautiful and we were all a bit excited running around looking at it all.

Here are the jacaranda trees again.  No more lovely purple flowers!

Massive bean bag sized collections of hail were all through the garden.  They stayed their for a day or two.

We collected quite a bit of hail and put it in the freezer.  We ended up using them to make our drinks cool over the coming summer months.  Unfortunately the hail did smash all the developing oranges and mandarins....  so we won't have many this winter.   Anyway it was an exciting event of nature , one I was glad to be a part of.

Stay Wonky and Eat Cake

I like these.  They are from the Keep Calm Gallery.

Gandhi's Top 10 Fundamentals

 I like this.... Gandhi  was definately a good human!!!  (Image from here)

Save the Reef,Save the world

Seeing images of the enormous mines in Australia makes me think of big open gaping wounds, wounds that will never heal.  They also put dark and gloomy images of a 'Mad Max', 'The Road' type of life not too far down the track.  Such rape and pillage is sure to have dire consequences for the earth and its inhabitants.  To me it seems like this boom is just a big greedy race for money - (ridiculous amounts of money for only a few people) with little thought for the environment now or in the future, with little thought  for what these resources are being used for, with little thought for the communities in which the mines are.....   The scary thing is that plans for more and more mines are in place.   While many of us are trying our best to live a simple, sustainable life which treads gently on the earth - it seems unfair that this is going on and there is not much we can do.

Not sunshiny thoughts today!!

PS Do you think Gina Rinehart or Clive Palmer have read the Lorax?  Maybe they should be bombarded with copies..... (although they might be too daft to make the connection!!)

A rebellious Sunflower

 

 

A self seeded sunflower has broken the rules in the garden. 

It did not believe it couldn't flower at the beginning of winter. 

It decided to go ahead and  flower anyway.

Doesn't it look beautiful all alone just standing there.  It wasn't even a sunny day.

*

 "I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. " Henry David Thoreau


“You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.”  Wendell Berry

Simple Life

Hi again!  We have been without phone or internet for this past week and I must say it has been quite pleasant.  I often think I would have liked the pre phone era...  I often reflect on the computer and my love/hate relationship with it.  It is interesting how the internet has become such a central part of life.  Only two years ago I hardly ever used the computer - i would just check my emails every so often, then I discovered blogs (and now pinterest!) and the plethora of ideas out there.  It is too much sometimes, there is only so much one can do in a day and all these extra added ideas often make my head spin, not to mention the time wasted just looking and not doing.  However I do love it too, the easy access to all sorts of information, ideas, people, music, art, food, instructions..... I do love looking at and reading my favourite blogs and keeping in touch with my far away family and friends and when you live a slightly isolated life it is great to be connected to the big wide world.  Still it was nice to have a week with no computer or phone, just beautiful simple sunshiny days.

The School of Life

I recently bought a copy of a cool magazine called Dumbo Feather because it had an article about Alain de Botton.  I like him, I think he is interesting and he has some interesting ideas.  Anyway he has founded The School of Life  in London and they have a great web site - have a look.......It has all kinds of interesting articles to read and also Sunday Sermons (not religious ones) to listen to on all kinds of topics like passion, mindfulness,  compassion, pessimism and being yourselves.  It is quite good if you are like me and like thinking about life, how the brain works and why we are the way we are.

Thinking In Pictures

I have been reading a very interesting book called "Thinking in pictures" by Temple Grandin.  If you are at all interested in autism or how different brains work it is worth reading.  She also has an interesting TED lecture.

Walking with the giants

We went for a lovely walk through the rainforest. It was the perfect day for it - misty and damp. I think we were hobbits in Lord of the rings (though I'd rather be an elf) ..... There is nothing like a walk in the forest to calm the mind, sooth the soul and invigorate the body.

"Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little she achieves her work." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." - Lao Tzu

"It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility." - Rachel Carson

Embrace the chaos

Yay, the sun is shining. Yippee..... I feel full of energy when the sun is shining after rain!

Sad and soggy garden needs lots of work.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a one track mind. To have just one hobby or interest to think about and do. Sometimes (quite often really) my brain (and life) feels so full to overflowing with ideas and things I want to do that I just can't fit them all in. Oh well. Embrace the chaos. At least I never get bored! Today I have already made banana muffins, done some knitting, had a cup of tea, danced and sung with Sunny and done some gardening - planting seeds and weeding (not to mention the daily washing up and washing, making lunches and getting kids onto the bus) and it is only 9.30. Now we are off to preschool. (Check out the outfit Sunny chose - pretty white dress with old yellow gum boots!)

I forgot to post this the other day, it is now Thursday.... Sunny even stayed by herself at preschool that day for two hours. I came home and felt overwhelmed with so many ideas rushing around in my head of things I should do and things I'd like to do...... so instead I flopped on the couch and did some knitting.

Foxes Lane

I have been reading and enjoying this blog Foxes Lane lately.  She is a cool chick and even her name is Kate.  She makes lovely colourful things and cooks and grows vegies.  Anyway she pretty much summed up my own thoughts on happiness and goals for life in her happiness recipe......

"Love where you live.
Shake up the routine.
Love the ones you're with.
Remember how lucky you are.
Be brave and change.
You can do it.
Be more social.
Indulge once in a while.
Get active.
Eat well and drink lots of water.

Also not on that list are be creative, grow lots of stuff, read books, get outside as often as you can, beware of clutter, stop talking and start doing and remember that you are not responsible for other people's grumpiness."

No new or amazing ideas there but lovely simple things to remember for a happy life.

She also had this beautiful flower garden on her pinterest page.  I hope one day to create something so pretty (apart from Sunny!)

Another trip around the sun.....

A new year, a new beginning.  I love the start of a new year, with it comes renewed enthusiasm and zest for life.  New goals and projects.  As usual there are lots of things I want to do.  The most important is to ....

and

Next  is "Go health".  I want to exercise and get fit.  Three kids later and nearly forty  I definitely need to exercise more! With both boys at school this year I should have some time.  (I'm sure I say this to myself every year, but this time I mean it!)

This sounds good in theory I think in reality a lovely  brisk morning walk or bike ride is more realistic (and more pleasant!)  Maybe even a zumba or dance class!

Do more stuff! (and sometimes do less stuff) Have adventures, go to new and different places, meet and talk to new people, cook different foods, listen to new music, read lots of books, write letters to my friends .....

Be creative.  Make some cool colourful things. (Like these cool mittens)

or perhaps I'll redecorate the house like this.....

I better get some sheep!

Lastly remember and practise the very good advise of Gandhi......

Also I will try to keep these few things in mind too....

The Girl Effect

I am lucky to have a lovely little daughter.  She is lucky to be her.  She can do what she wants with her life.  She has a loving family, clean air to breath, water to drink and fresh healthy food to eat. She has room to run and play and the time and space to have a happy childhood.  Other girls around the world are not so lucky.  It is Sunny's birthday tomorrow and so I am going to make a donation through Global Giving to help another girl somewhere in the world who is not as lucky as Sunny.   You can choose to donate to specific programs.  By donating just $25 I have provided school supplies for 20 girls for one month in a school in India.  Hopefully the money really gets to where it is needed!

The Peace of Wild Things

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry 

I was just browsing some of my favourite sites and I visited Keri Smith - an artist, writer, person whom I admire.  I hadn't visited her lately (I don't mean really visited but cyber visited), anyway she had posted a poem by Wendell Berry.  I liked the poem and never having heard of the poet I looked him up and he sounds like a very interesting man (and a cool dude).  Next I looked up some of his poems and this title caught my eye.  I really like it and can relate to the poem.  That is how I feel when I am down at the river.

Here are some quotes of his (from here)

“One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race.”


“You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.”

“The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality.”

“How joyful to be together, alone as when we first were joined in our little house by the river long ago, except that now we know each other, as we did not then; and now instead of two stories fumbling to meet, we belong to one story that the two, joining, made. And now we touch each other with the tenderness of mortals, who know themselves...”

“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”

Quotes I like

All these posters are on my Pinterest board.  Have you heard of pinterest? Another addictive computery thing where you add pictures to make your own virtual pin board.  I've always been a fan of a notice board and have boxes of cards, pictures and bits of paper hanging around the place that I intend to pin up one day but have never done so in the seven years we have lived here.  Oh well.  This new computer pinboard at least does not contribute to my hoards of paper and card and it is a really good pictorial bookmark for the internet as all pictures you pin are linked to a blog or web site where you or someone else came across it.  To see mine click on the red P or here.  It is a bit of a time waster but no worse than TV!!

Wisdom

Check out more info about this on Brain pickings.  It sounds like a book I'd like to read and a film I'd like to see.

Get some perspective....How rich are you?

I saw this poster on a thought provoking  post about wealth and perspective on The Woman Condition.  She alerted me to an interesting thing called the Global Rich List and i would like to alert you to Kiva where you can loan people small amounts of money to help them with their businesses. You can choose who to loan it to and then find out how they are going.   They then pay it back and you can take your money or loan it to someone else. 

If someone asked me if I was rich, my first thought would be no.  But actually I am very rich.  I am not obsessed by or really interested in money but I have never needed to be.  I am lucky to have always had enough.   I am rich because I have never been hungry, homeless or sick.  I have never experienced war or disaster.  I am well educated and have the freedom to choose how and where I want to live. I am very fortunate indeed.

I recently saw a cool book called "Where Children Sleep" by James Mollison which shows photos of children's bedrooms around the world.  I would like to show it to my kids to give them some perspective of life on this planet and how lucky they are.

A Manifesto for life

 

from Brain Pickings

Rainbow

Another great picture from the seakiwi