Small steps big ideas

This autumn has been very stressful due to many work projects being shelved or put on hold until 2010 - this means that our income halved overnight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This has not been some warm cosy Waltonesque style battening down of hatches but a drastic and very noticeable change in our everyday lives. To cut down on what was already a tight budget has given many sleepless nights, worrying days and sad faces. Now, though I feel we are really getting somewhere, I am no longer focussed on money or lack of it but on freedom and happiness, at our current pace we will be debt free in three years and I am learning to look within myself for inspiration and strength rather than hoping someone will come and rescue me. We have learnt what we are so much more capable than we thought. From mechanics to plumbing, preserving food and making children's clothes, harvesting olives and growing veg, it is all beneficial to the soul. It has even awakened enthusiasm in others too for example: Grandma has been helping me learn to sew properly on her visits to Italy and we made a sundress from material she had bought 40 years ago but never used!!!!!!!!!! So it is a real vintage number. Also I have become much more experimental in making all things, a real recipe follower normally I have adapted many dishes to suit what we have in the store cupboards or is in season and had some great triumphs amongst the disasters.

 

Most importantly we have become a solid family, self reliant, self motivated and positive in our outlook. I am more joyful about simple things like the bowl of clementines sent over from a very special friend who had too many. The wood I collected on my walk for this weekend's fire, the cinnamon foccacia I discovered I could make in 10 minutes and the kids devoured, the happy rescued kittens playing in the kitchen, the christmas lights hanging in the medeival city streets, the purple and yellow landscapes lined with vines, and knowing that I have the energy to take my life in what ever direction I choose, I can choose how I react to situations, to people and to my own feelings. Right now I feel that having thrown myself into the flow of life that I am definately travelling in the right direction.

On the make to do and mend front......................... Raisin Bread is raising in the oven, shortbread is being eaten by TT, Risotto, for supper, homemade pasta on the cards and a book under a duvet is beconing.

Last years christmas bulbs - embarassingly I made the jar covers from TT's outgrown tights, just snipped the legs in sections and sewed up the underneaths x