What I've been up to this week...

~ I've put up a seed tray - as per lunar gardening (thanks for the reminder Linda!) I have put in leafy greens: silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, leeks, cabbages, and parsley.

~ I have a little plastic greenhouse that hasn't yet been used. I had it on my front porch waiting for autumn, but with the revamping of that area, I needed to find it another little spot. I tried it on my deck, but have several problems. It only gets morning sun, it's more exposed to the weather over winter, and there is no water on hand (and I don't go out there regularly enough - so am likely to fall into the trap of "out of sight, out of mind" and kill all my seedlings off). So, I thought that the next best place is in my front/herb garden area next to my washing line. It gets great sun from lunchtime onwards and is fairly protected from wind and rain. Also, I can anchor it to my clothesline if needed (and is in my daily sights for tending to it!). All very permaculture gardening of me applying my zone theory hehe (it's now been placed in zone 1).

~ We've been collecting up the fallen feijoas everyday. Yum!

~ Watering the lupin seeds and strawberries since the weather's been really dry.

~ The kids and I finally have Kiwisaver accounts. I never got around to it when it first came out 3 years ago, and recently started thinking about it again. However, in our favour, with the international financial crisis the funds are not worth much more than what we'll be entering at now (the government will still give a kick-start of $1000, but this may be discontinued soon, so get in quick if you have been wanting to get yourselves set up).

~ Our dishwasher has been broken for about 6mths and we just hadn't got around to getting a tradesperson in to have a look at it. I was put off with the potential increasing costs of a dishwasher needing new parts but with no guarantee of it going (even though it was only 4 years old)! So, we bit the bullet and did have it assessed on Monday. Very sad, but it wouldn't go with the the most likely replacement part (fortunately no cost on the part as the guy agreed to take it away with him). So we now need to decide whether to replace it or just suck it up and keep on handwashing (I'm impressed with our zen approach to it though, and neither of us have been stressing over doing the dishes 2-3 x a day).

~ I've painted my little shelf unit ready for the garden shed, and also the little table in our lounge that the kids have been using for drawing at.

~ I found an awesome old footstool for my lounge at one of the local thrift shops. I've been wanting something for ages, but didn't want to buy one. I did briefly entertain the thought of making a poof/footstool, but flagged it as too hard to source a nice heavy filler. I felt a big guilty asking if I could buy it, when it also appeared that it may be used as a chair in the shop. And yes, soon after the woman there agreed to sell it (very willingly), did another volunteer arrive and started muttering about losing the chair. Oops! :)



~ Sadly, there was a fatal house fire 2 nights ago in our town. Nathan had heard about it at school (it involved a mum and two kids) and was concerned about our home. So, the kids and I set to re-discussing our escape plan and went about checking our smoke alarms. I discovered that I wasn't sure how to test our alarm that is connected up to the mains power (the alarm works, but not sure yet how to test the smoke detector part). So after a few unsuccessful tries, I located our other stand alone unit and put a fresh battery in and we were good to go until we sort the other one out (on the list of phone calls to make today).

~ Oh, and it's my birthday tomorrow. Can't even claim to be mid-30s anymore, definitely late (very late) 30s.