Slow Living Diary - August 2012

I'm joining in with a community of bloggers started by Christine over at Slow Living Essentials.  Christine had this fantastic idea at the start of the year to focus on 9 elements that will help to maintain a focus on slowing down and enjoying the simple things in life.  I only found Christine's blog half way through August but thought that it blended well with what I am trying to achieve on my blog so I wanted to get started straight away.  The idea is post at the end of the month (or the start of the new month) and reflect on the 9 categories and share your achievements (or even lack of) for the past month.   I've included Christines description for each category in italics next to the title.

Nourish : Make and bake as much as possible from scratch.  Ditch overpackaged, overprocessed convenience foods and opt for 'real" food instead.  Share favourite links/recpies/tips from the month.
Cooking from scratch is pretty normal for me.  I think my best effort in the past month was my Zucchini pesto and chicken dish made with my Spirooli.   You can see the whole blog post here

 

 Prepare: Stockpile and preserve, Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce.

Having only just moved in the last month I haven't done a lot of this.  However I did shop in bulk and stock the freezer as well as making a couple of weeks worth of meals for Layla (the dog) and freezing those. 

 

Reduce: Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.

Not sure if this counts but we did sell some unwanted furntiture on e-bay at bargain prices to help out others and cut down on the excess "stuff" in our life.

 

Green: Up our lives. Start (or continue) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies.

I discovered the wonders of Coconut oil.  Not only is it great and healthy for cooking it makes the best mosituriser.  This is all I use now and my skin seems to love it.  It has also cut down on all those little plastic bottles that used to fill the bathroom shelves.  (ahh just realised this also fits the Reduce category).

 

Grow: plant/harvest. What's growing this month?  What's being eaten from the garden.

My favourite category and on moving into our new house the first thing we did this month was plant.  We now have herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and bok choy growing.  Check out my planting post

 

  

 

Create: to fill a need or feed the soul.  Create for ourselves or for others.  

My other favourite :-) I finished off some dishclothes and face washers.  I made a little crochet purse and finished off this mat just in time to go under my anniversary flowers.  

 

 

 

  

Discover: Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests. Trawl libraries, second hand shops or local book shops to find titles that fill the need. 

I enjoyed re-visiting my gardening books to learn how to grow herbs and vegetables in pots in the new house.  I've only been used to planting in garden beds, so this is new and experimental.

 

Enhance: community: possibilities support local growers and producers.  Help out in your community. Start a blog!

I started blogging again after a 3 month break while we got settled after the move.  I found the local growers market and have been supporting it every Sunday morning usually while others are sleeping. I have also really enjoyed reading other blogs and I'm just amazed at how many inspirational and talented people there are out there.

 

Enjoy: Life! Embrace moments with friends and family.

I had a couple of really nice dinners with some special friends this month.  I've also bought some beautiful framed prints. These are from a very talented photographer.   I posted a pic below but please check out Jen Waltmon's Red Bubble site  Thanks Jen I'm enjoying them immensely !

 

 

 

Thanks Christine for starting the Slow Living blog idea. I look forward to having a whole month to reflect on next time.

Jen