self discovery journey....

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognised as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life you could save

words by Mary Oliver from "The Journey"

thank you English Muse & Dizzy Lizzie

march in photos...

persimmons picked for persimmon paste (which didn't exactly go to plan...)

road trips in my pajamas

Rhonda Hetzel's down to earth book launch

farewelling a friend

my first successful attempt at mayonnaise

started crocheting a granny a day

apple trees

garage sale finds that make me smile

almond milk

2 years old

2 years ago yesterday i gave birth to my baby. he has grown into a strong, affectionate, happy, adventurous little man. yep the realisation has hit me that he is now a little man. i know this because he has started playing by himself in little worlds he has created and he has let me read him a really long book from start to finish twice. really big things in the world of a mumma and a little man.

we created a bubbles and balls party for his birthday. i made a conscious effort to scale back from my usual grand plans and we invited 6 of his friends (and ours) to play for the afternoon.

our little activity was painting our own pots and planting marigolds. the kids loved getting their hands dirty and everyone got to take a flower home.

i created lollipops which are just a balloon on a piece of poly pipe covered with clear cellophane and tied with a ribbon. i loved them!

and no party would be complete without bunting - especially rainbow bunting!

yep simple is better.

Garage Sale hopes....

reviewing the garage sales for the morning has me hoping i will find something as amazing as these lamps I found last week - the lampshade is yellow embroidery thread wrapped around and around

every night when i crawl into bed under the glow of these lamps i feel good

Creating Independence - first creating an environment that allows Independence

this week was all about starting to plant the seeds of independence for Paddy

to say Paddy is a strong willed child is an understatement and with the terrible twos arriving early i have been reading up on different ways to handle it

i have found myself saying 'no' all the time and i hated that there were only negative interactions between us on some days

that's why i started planning my activities for the week so that we made sure we played together rather than getting lost in the treadmill of every day life

i really connected with the simple montessori principle of focusing on one thing at a time and creating order in our spaces

one way of employing this principle is to teach Paddy to put away his toys after he has finished playing with them

then i looked at his playroom....

granted it was messy but there was so much clutter and there was no way a 2 year old could comprehend putting their things away in that space

so this morning my mission was to simplify and cut back the stuff in Paddy's play area

this is the result....

i cut back on all the playthings

i put like toys in baskets so it is easier for Paddy to put them back

a music basket

a lego basket

a ball basket

and all his cars in one basket under the table

i also cleared the table and put his blackboard there for Paddy to sit and do drawing

i think we had at least 50 books in a bookcase in the corner

i packed them all up and laid out 5 books and will rotate those every week or so

the cushions also make a nice quiet reading corner too

i cleared off these shelves and put one game per cubicle

this might help Paddy play with one thing at a time

i am not a mumma who buys a lot of toys - in fact 90% of Paddy's playthings are from garage sales and the other 10% are from friends

i don't believe in a lot of playthings so i could not believe the amount of stuff i pulled out of Paddy's playroom

huge wakeup call!

i feel good about this

Day 3. A Granny A Day

this is my favourite granny square pattern so far

so good i didn't stop at making just one

here is the tutorial for the granny circle square

Our St Patricks Day week

we didn't make the banner with shamrocks for our party

i made these for my girlfriend's engagement party

the leftovers hang in my sewing room

St Patricks' Day was celebrated with bad Irish music and rainbow balloons....

hanging shamrocks....

and a big dinner of Irish Stew, Irish Soda Bread and Guiness Cupcakes with Green Ice-cream on our shamrock tablecloth.

yesterday we were trapped inside so did a heap of sponge water transferring