Pure Joy

 
                                                  Sunny's first icecream - YUM!

Out in the garden

    Here is the garden all undercover so the bower birds don't eat everything!

          The garlic patch is round this year.
  

 Seed Raising area - i have planted cabbages, silverbeet, cauliflower, broccoli, parsley, onions, leek, fennel, celeriac, celery etc

                                           The chook house.

                                           The chook chooks.

                                           Chickens in the sandpit.

                                           The Madagascan Bean Kirsti gave me going nuts!!
               

                                          The garden is desperate for some mulch!

                                           The day's pickings.

The Minimalists on Happiness

This is an extract from an article by Joshua Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus......

"Happiness is an expansive concept, it goes without saying. At its fundament, the term “happiness” is abstract and abstruse and can be a mind-numbing, migraine- inducing thing to try to explain with words. But it was this complex idea—the thought of being truly happy—that led us to live simpler lives. Happiness was at the precipice of our journey. It was happiness that led us to minimalism. Eventually........  

....... we embraced these concepts—the concepts of minimalism and simplicity—as a way of life and discovered that we too could be happy, but it wasn’t through owning more stuff, it wasn’t through accumulation. We took back control of our lives so we could focus on what’s important, so we could focus on life’s deeper meaning.
Happiness, as far as we are concerned, is achieved through living a meaningful life, a life that is filled with passion and freedom, a life in which we can grow as individuals and contribute to other people in meaningful ways. Growth and contribution: those are the bedrocks of happiness. Not stuff.
This may not sound sexy or marketable or sellable, but it’s the cold truth. Humans are happy if we are growing as individuals and if we are contributing beyond ourselves. Without growth, and without a deliberate effort to help others, we are just slaves to cultural expectations, ensnared by the trappings of money and power and status and perceived success."   Read the rest of this if you are interested here.

PS - I didn't write this but I agree with them.

This is for you kirsti

I think when I finish Sunny's crochet dress I might try to knit this vest - maybe in a dark green or maybe better still bright orange!  The pattern is here at Pickles.   I like the way they do their name!!

What is happiness?

I think happiness is a state of mind.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" -  Shakespeare.

Some days  life feels  absolutely fantastic - like today, its a beautiful autumn morning, the birds are chirping, the children are playing happily and one can enjoy a lovely cup of tea in the sun before embarking on the daily doings... other days babies are crying, the tea gets spilt and the chickens are in the garden squashing everything.   The challenge is to choose to be happy and calm amidst the chaos and relentless chores of life.

As Buddha once said  "Our life is the creation of our mind".   Do what you like but also like what you do!

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind.....If you change your mind, you can change your life. Each of us literally chooses by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit" - William James.

"Smile, breath and go slowly" - Thich Nhat Hanh

A rainbow scavanger hunt

A stroke of insight

This is an amazing account of having a stroke - all the more interesting because she is a neuroscientist and understands what is going on as it is happening.  She can recognize as the brain is switching from the left side to the right. Her book - A Stroke of Insight is well worth a read too.