What a Busy Month!

Wow! I seriously thought I was going to be able to get back in here and let you all know what was going on at some point, but after the successful work going on in my garden, I just seem to get into a roll of jumping into it whenever I saw money in my bank account and forgot to talk about anything going on.

Plus, we had a few freaky things going on around the unit complex which I didn't know how to approach. But gotta tell ya, if you know anyone who's addicted to ice, you'll know how freaky-scary it is to hear them flip out. However, we had two of them in the unit complex and every neighbour I saw was peaceful and hard-working became as scared as I am. I started wondering if my car was going to be in one piece or would I be woken up by my smoke alarm or loud noises outside my window late at night. Yeah I slept pretty light - and there were some nights I didn't sleep at all; not until the wee hours of the morning.

Now, just over last weekend just gone, we got some silence in the place, and the we all managed to sleep the whole night through. But we can still feel the tension in the place... as though we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think we're all going to be like this for a while.

But my backyard is looking great! I've got another month to go until it's all finished - and that includes working on my front garden a little to perk it up too. And in the next month, I'll have to get in and work on the lawn; leveling it out, making it grow and then once it's all done, I'll look at putting in nice stepping stones to set off the new look. Those will stay here when I move out, so they offset the nice lawn and make the garden area look and feel homey and cute.

Otherwise, art class is going really well and I'm at the pointy end of The Brunswick Picture House. I really want to work on the signage of it, but Aaron wants me to wait. However, he's always taught me to bring everything forward in a painting at the same time; not leave anything behind. Oh well, I'll leave the sign and let him ask me why I left it for so long. Yeah, this has happened before. 

Since Hannah's death, I've had a few bad days. There's times where I'll see something or hear somebody sing like her and I'll feel awful that I couldn't help her when she really needed me. But then, I'll remember that no matter what, I couldn't have helped her at all with anything in her life. She wasn't letting anyone near her over there, so how would she allow me near her? Many other people who are her friends have been asking the same questions about it all too - coming up with the same answers. 

This month, we've had some of the coldest weather - and I've loved every minute of it! But we've also had some of the driest weather too... which means our farmers are in drought. I'm only hoping they get some relief when the Summer months come around. It's one of the driest Winters we've had; as Winter is normally not only a time for the cold, but we also get a bit of rain too. In August, we get those horrible Westerly Winds - which makes it even colder for us and makes the flu bite us worse! 

Well, I hope I've come through this year unscathed from the colds or flus - as I have yet to catch any (touch wood!) and it'd be good to not catch anything this year. Well, I can dream, can't I? Until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here.

Going Organic

Since I started working on my garden in the past month, I've been seriously looking at what I'm eating - and looking at labels more closely as well.

And ... well, you wouldn't believe how much salt and sugar is in a lot of things we put in our shopping trolleys. 

So, I've been slowly going organic in my home. First it was me installing the green house (which I'll be saving up for a bigger one to be able to grow veggies and other fruits so I can save myself money each pay) and I've begun growing the herbs and a Black Cherry Tomato vine in there - it's looking great! 

Now, I've planted out some garlic - which will take a year to harvest. I don't mind; as I'm a patient person when it comes to plants. 

So, seeing I'm the type of person who loves to cook all my meals from scratch, it's something I've begun to look at when I'm shopping. I've gotten into eating ketchup - and not the ordinary one, but the organic one. Sure it's a little more expensive, but it's worth it too! It has less sugar and no salt in it; and I read the ingredients as well. 

It's amazing when you go organic in your diet... everything changes - you eat less junk food (even though you do eat it, and know it's there, you don't eat as much of it as before). You drink more water and tea. You sleep so much better than you ever did before; and you have so much more energy as well. 

All of this takes time to happen, but it happens. However, when it's only you doing it, it becomes difficult to go anywhere where nobody else is eating organic foods; as they think everything is organic when it may not be. I know this sounds like I've joined a cult - but read the back of everything you buy (believe me, I've had to in my life of being allergic to a lot of things in food) and you'll find out there's a lot of additives in food you never knew existed. 

Going organic is great - but it's not cheap. What makes it cheap is when you start growing your own food, herbs and cooking everything from scratch... that's when you see how long it takes to do things, like make a pizza. The dough takes around an hour - and the pizza establishments put sugar in their dough to make you eat more; but when you make it at home, there's no sugar in the recipe. It just tastes wonderful all on its own. 
If we all grew our own herbs and veggies and made time to cook everything we ate, I think we'd be a little more healthier, the big shopping centres will have to support the better way of living and there'd be more fruit and veggie markets around. 

But seeing that's in a world of another universe where none of that exists, I guess we'll have to start off small and work on this together, one person at a time. I'll do my bit, but if you wish to join in and 'go organic', that's entirely up to you. You have to stick with it though - and yes, there's an upside to it:

You lose weight.
You enjoy fresh food more.
Cooking becomes something of a love.
You look at your garden differently.
Shopping is a whole new experience - not a nice one.

I have been changing the way I live for years - slowly moving my tastes from Cadbury's Chocolate to Lindt Chocolate... from sweet and creme-filled biscuits to gluten-free seaweed biscuits. From margarine, to nut oil spreads to good, old-fashioned butter. It's taken me time to learn to use Olive Oil and butter in my cooking and not sunflower oil or any other types of oil... it just tastes so much different and better. 

And going organic shows in my blood test results. My sugars are a steady 4.6. My cholesterol is high (but that's my medication do that bad crap) but my lifestyle has kept it from doing anything awful to me. My weight has stopped yo-yoing all over the place. I'm going well for somebody in my mid-40's, when I thought I'd be a complete mess... and I'm not. 
Don't get me wrong, I have had times when I do fall off the healthy, organic ways and munch into some of the worse food around - and I did it recently when a friend of mine took her own life - and I felt awful. I didn't sleep, I felt sick and I put on weight from it all. So, within a few weeks, I jumped back in and worked my way into taking care of myself again even more than before because I'm still grieving and feeling her loss even more than ever now I'm finding myself singing (she was a singer) and enjoying the music more than ever too... and keeping to the good eating way of life is best.

Going organic isn't a cult, it's taking care of yourself in the right way. I call it 'Living Like My Grandparents' because it is. It's living and eating the food, making the meals, drinking leaf tea and full-cream milk and cream and butter the way it used to be. It's getting outside and working in the garden every weekend. It's going for an afternoon walk every day to see the day out - no matter what the weather - and it's keeping yourself away from the takeaway food which is clogging up our arteries and making us sick. 

Let's stop making ourselves sick and go back to eating like our Grandparents did. If you look back into the 1940's - 1970's, you won't see a single overweight person in photos or films. They ate burgers, pizzas and other junk food, but it was all without the crap we have in it today. They didn't sit in front of computers and they worked out, walked and swam, enjoyed dancing and going out to dance halls (and by the way, where are those big dance halls today - oh that's right, the governments have destroyed them all!). The kids went out to roller skating rinks and enjoyed life... and that's how life should be: organic in every way.  

Visitors and A Full Saturday

Yesterday, my brother and his girlfriend came over to my townhouse for a visit. It was great to see them; as I don't have visitors normally, and least of all my family. 

You see, I do enjoy my townhouse, but I'm very embarrassed about the townhouse complex I live in... it's rare for me to invite people to my place because of the suburb the complex is in and how my neighbours act in it; and yesterday was no different. When my brother and his girlfriend showed up, they scored a parking spot at the back (only just because it was full with cars) and somebody new was moving in a couple of doors down and had parked in front my next door neighbour's place... well, another neighbour did his pills while I stood there embarrassed that my family had to see this side of my neighbour. 
Then, the poor new neighbour asked me where he could park. I told him that there was a car park down the front just inside the gate or there was car park just at the end. But he was convinced there wasn't - a lot of people don't know about the end car park because they're never shown the back one. My brother told him to drive around to the back, following the drive around he'd find it - and he did, got lost and came back, parking his car back in front of his unit. 

During this time, my brother and his girlfriend had coffee with me while my brother install wifi and Netflix... all exciting and new in my home. However at first, I didn't want it - the wifi, yeah, but the Netflix, not really. But when I saw how many shows were on there, and what I didn't need to pay for or save up for with dvds, well, I thought it might be a good thing after all.

While we were having something to eat, we chatted about the townhouse and how long I've lived here for and what has happened since I moved in. And I said that this place has reverted back to what it was when I moved in over 15 years ago - it hasn't improved or moved forward as many places would; and I don't want to live here anymore. They get it, and my brother said it's time for the townhouse to get evaluated, I told him I did that last year and because of its position, and the work done on it over the years, it's worth more than it was when it was bought years ago. 

While my brother was on my computer, his girlfriend asked me about the terrarium on the table and how I got it grow properly, and I told her the ingredients which go into terrariums; and that I'd love to have more room in a house to have another two or three - but I just simply don't. I have another one in my bedroom and that's it. But I do enjoy building them, they're just adorable - but the most expensive part is the container.
Then she asked me about my dish drainer and where I bought it. Well, I tried to remember exactly which kitchen store I bought it and the only thing I did remember was the it was a place on Compton Road, and she had to Google for it and showed me a few kitchen places and we finally found it. 
After we all had something to eat, set up my account for Netflix and got it all sorted out and I chose a show to see if it worked out (which was Gilmore Girls - A Year Of) my brother could see I was going to setting in and watch the show. Then asked his girlfriend if she watched The Gilmore Girls and she said 'Yeah I used to watch it... it's a great show.' I said I loved it until it went off the air and they made the year of the Gilmore Girls but didn't put it on free to air and I was bummed that it was only on Foxtel. 

Well, we went out to the garden where I had been doing so much work, and my brother was stunned at how much changed in it. I told him there was plants I found were taking over the garden too much and I really needed a change. They both loved it that I was growing garlic and that I had gotten myself a greenhouse and took a look around in it. I offered up the spare herbs and his girlfriend took them off my hands - saying they'd plant them out and use them! I said they were from Bunnings and were the $3.00 ones... I didn't see much point in letting them die if somebody else could have them. 

Before long, they were off and it started raining less than 10 minutes after they left - good hard rain too! I watched 3 seasons of 'The Gilmore Girls' and then ate dinner. Chatted to my Mum and Dad on the phone about the Netflix and then thought that I might have to talk to my ISP about how much download I've got... see if the Netflix will take up. It might be a lower download than I think. I'll have to see. Well, that was Saturday, I totally enjoyed my day, but I was stuffed by 10pm as I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep the night before - no thanks to a weirdo who bashed and crashed around for an hour at 1:30am, and when I called the cops (which I am sure everyone else did too) they told me off for calling triple 0 because the guy had a reputation for flipping out and destroying things around him. 
Well, I zonked at 10pm and only woke about twice in the night to roll over... the alarm woke me and I'm well-rested now. Another good night's rest and I'll be ready to tackle the next week. 

Yep, this weekend is full. I'm chilling out today on here, and enjoying my time online and I'll see what I want to watch. Television to me is something I watch in the late-afternoon and evening, it's not a daytime thing. I don't use it all the time to while away my day. Well, until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here.

Stress Relief

It's been almost 2 months since my friend Hannah died, and almost a month since her service; and I've gotten right into fixing up the garden in a huge way. I've spent every pay packet on something big in it and normally I wouldn't. 

I think this is way to deal with my loss, and it's also a way to deal with my stress as well.

What do you think?

Over the past month, I've installed a greenhouse, repotted a lot of plants, given my folks two Agapanthus (they flower purple, so that's going to look wonderful this Summer) and I've dug out my late-Pop's tomato seeds to plant before Spring.

I haven't spent this much time in the garden since Little Miss Stevie died in 2012; so really I think it's my way of dealing with a great loss in my life. And my garden is looking so much different now things have been moved around and the greenhouse has been installed as well!

Also, I haven't been posting in here as often as I want to; but things will be changing soon... I will be getting in and talking more about life, how much it's changed and what I've been up to - as my social life has changed a lot as well. 

Anyway, if you'd like to see a more detailed post about my garden, you can go to the blog about - as I keep a blog about my garden now, and there's a good album about it on Facebook as well on My Private Little Garden. If you're not currently a member on that public site, just ask, and I'll let you in - no problems. Well, until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here.