late summer blues

 first day of school

end of summer garden jungle

the cucumber hunt

little fuzzy quince

tiny apples

pretty spotty pears

apple eater

Hello my lovely ones,

I'm writing to you this week from inside my snow globe. I was going to say from inside my shower screen, but the imagery isn't as good. And actually it's kind of like a reverse snow globe anyway. I'm sitting inside and the rest of the beautiful world is outside. Shake it up and a flurry of pretty leaves and flower petals fall from the trees.

I've been sitting inside my snow globe for close to a week now. Sitting here alone hoping for the lid to lift and for things to feel different. And just now I've started to feel anxious that I'm ending the week feeling the same way that I started. Nothing seems to have changed.

From in here the world looks grimy and a bit hopeless and sad. Even though we still have a few weeks left of summer, the days are getting noticeably shorter and cooler and I fear the long winter to come. I fear that the sunshine is already growing weaker and as we slowly pull the decaying summer veg from the garden and replace it with winter crops, I worry about those icy months when the garden is only green and does not boast with bright colour and bounty dripping from its vines. I'm not ready to go back to those months of frost, wet and cold.

I agonise over the stories my children bring home, not able to understand the way kids treat each other and that teachers can be so impatient and unseeing. I wonder how in this day and age with all that we know, that more of an emphasis isn't given to teaching about sustainability and care for our planet and putting plans into action.

I feel panicked at the never ending sameness of my life. The ebbs and flows are practically predictable and feel impossibly tedious from where I sit right now.

I feel disappointed about the growing season and am already tired of the excuses I'll have to repeat to myself and others as the harvest we had been so looking forward to doesn't eventuate.

And I worry about the world. About the people and the creatures who should treat others and be treated themselves with kindness and care, and that the way things are now, is not how they always will be.

Yet despite all this, I've labelled this place where I sit my snow globe because I'm well aware of the beauty that sits outside its rounded walls. I am also all too aware that if I were a better housekeeper and brushed the cobwebs away and scrubbed the grime from the glass, that the sunshine would stream in and bleach the dirty carpet from my sight and the ache from my heart.

It's a funny place to spend time, this grey world of mine, because I don't feel overcome by despair; I just feel full of melancholy. I am aware of all the gifts I have been given, I just feel too tired to play with them right now. And this is not depression, I don't want to stay in bed and I can make a list for you a mile long of all the reasons I have to be grateful. And I believe them. Every single one. Everything just feels tainted somewhat. Bland.

At the start of my week I was kind to myself and felt that the greyness must be the result of last week's virus leaving my body. All those days spent shivering and burning up had had a physical effect on my body and now this was the emotional effect. After a few days I decided it was seasonal. I could feel summer melting into autumn, and so in turn the moon and the tides and the stars were having their effect on me. Then I got a bit cross with myself. How dare someone with so much privilege take it for granted for one moment. What was the point of wasting even one second. But the more I questioned how I felt, the more uncomfortable things felt, the more I understood that I had to lean into this mood. To push at it and poke at it and try to find its origins, its meaning and look at it from all perspectives. The worse it made me feel, the better, because hopefully somewhere hidden inside I would discover some answers.

I don't know if any of this will make sense to you, or be of any interest. I contemplated just posting a couple of photos for today's post with a promise of a proper blog when things shift, hopefully over the next few days. There is no craft, no garden, no farm, or family in these words and that makes me feel a bit odd.

When I spoke to my farmer boy about having no story other than this greyness for my blog this week, he suggested I write it down anyway, let him read it and then delete it. I knew I wouldn't delete it though. That's not my style.

He also suggested that I take a 24-hour break from social media, which so often is his solution with the girls, and I think he was surprised when I agreed. I love social media, but noticing how often I open an app and scroll mindlessly without thinking has been interesting. And having a break from what has lately felt like all the people shouting at me to look at them, do things their way, or compare myself to impossible perfection has been a bit of a relief. Life feels a lot less noisy without all the chatter. I think I'm ready to join my girls in their limited social media access during the week, possibly. As a trial.

Which brings me to the feeling that maybe this week is the discomfort before a change. I've been saying for months that I'm stuck and ready for something new, something more. But late yesterday afternoon as I ran through my list of possible new projects to take on this year and then neatly followed each with a reason why I don't actually want to, it occurred to me that maybe I am scared of losing what I have in the process. Life on the other side of the snow globe looks pretty good.

So I'm right back where I started. But glad that I have the weekend and a break from routine to try to get out of my head and stuck right into life with those I love. Hopefully the grey will become mauve...

And just for the record, here's some other stuff that I've been getting up to this snow globe week.

Reading - After watching the Little Women film last week and noticing how much more of the story it covered, I checked back in with another copy of the book we have on our shelves only to discover that Louisa M Alcott wrote two books that were eventually published as one. Good Wives being the second part. So much to my delight, I have spent some bonus hours with the March family this week reading the rest of the book.

Listening - I'm still making my way through the StartUp podcast although I think I've almost reached the current episodes. The most recent series examines Dov Charney and the demise of his company American Apparel, and the start up of his new tee-shirt company. I'm loving it and it makes the long school commutes and the hanging out of the laundry and the weeding of the garden chores I actually look forward to.

Knitting - I'm happy to report that I've turned the heels of the spotty socks and am on my way up the ankles. I love them and am hoping that the recipient feels the same when she sees them this afternoon when she returns from canoe camp.

Cooking - Beetroot for salads, blackberries in fruit leather, beans in stir fries, cucumbers in pickles (not really cooking but you know...). Hopefully by this time next week we'll be eating sweet corn.

Watching - This Is Us. Oh my goodness, Kevin and Randall!!!!

Planting - Lettuce, cabbage, beetroot, rocket, carrots, spring onions, parsley, broccoli and chives.

Contemplating - What to do with the list of ethical businesses wanting to work with me on my instagram and blog. Would be so good to be able to look out for the good guys, but how can I do it and keep my integrity.

Running - Off to gym right now.

Hurting - On the knee that I landed on when I was stupidly picking blackberries on the dam wall earlier in the week and feel in.

Hoping - To be out of my snow globe and back to my silly, interpretive dance, optimistic, self ASAP.

Sending - All my love and wishes for some warm sunshine on your skin, a gentle breeze to dry your washing, a book you can't put down and a great big cuddle.

Love Kate xx

five hours

I'm all alone in a tiny cabin on the edge of a forest in a town an hour away from home. From the last school drop off to the next school pick up I've counted five hours. I have no wifi, no washing machine, no farm work, no house chores.

Somehow, due to some crazy planning, compromising and trialling, that little seed of a dream that has been at the back of my mind through all the crazy chaos of the last 15 years of parenthood has come to fruition. I have complete silence (except for the wind and the birds), I have no one to look after or talk to, there are no shoulds, only a heap of coulds.

To be honest, part of me is slightly terrified. I'm worried that my precious time will go too fast and be over before I've done anything with it, and I'm also fearful that it'll drag on forever. I feel bad that my farmer boy is braving the winds and the rain pruning the apple orchard back home. I feel sad thinking about Miss Pepper sick on the couch. And I'm a bit nervous that my mind will travel to dark places and I'll have nothing to distract me from exploring them.

And I think I fear the fact that this thing that I have wanted for so long, this precious me time, is not in fact what I want at all.

And of course another part of me is beside myself with excitement at all the possibilities. I feel rich with time. I don't know what to do first. 

I could knit some squares onto my memory blanket, I could play spider solitaire on my phone, I could have a long shower and wash my hair and then dry it, I could fill in our census forms,

I could hop into bed, put the electric blanket on and read the last hundred pages of my book, I could rug up and go for a walk, I could make some notes for myself for when I go home,  I could tackle my inbox on my phone,

I could fill in an interview for a magazine that I've been putting off for ages, I could cast on another hot water bottle, I could lie on the daybed and listen to a podcast, I could call farmer Bren again, I could try and attempt to graph out the knitting pattern that is stuck in my head,

 I could visit the local town and walk up and down the main street, I could pop the kettle on and make another cup of tea, I could knit the other heel of my ugly socks, I could scroll through instragram and Facebook, I could borrow Indi's water-colour paints and paint in my journal, I could even have a Nana nap.

Or I guess I could sit on the couch by the fire, sip my hot peppermint tea, watch the crazy wind in the trees and the sheep out the window and write my blog. Acknowledging just how precious these moments are and how lucky I am to have them. Trying not to be swept away by the unsettling wind and to enjoy my moments.

I miss my people. But I just had a little thought that I might be a better person for them because I have had a chance to.

Three and a half hours still to go. I'll publish this and still have more time.

Sending you all the love.

Do you know this place I'm in?
Have you been dreaming about it too?
Or have you been here?
How did it make you feel?

Bye!

xx

stressing out!

Hello dear readers of my blog, I hope you've been well.

Generally I'm not a fan of blogs that begin with apologies and explanations for time passed but in this case something is making me do just that. Probably because the reason for my absence here is a story in itself, but the delay is because the story is not mine and that makes the telling difficult.

So often over the past seven years of my life I've found the best way to deal with the words that swirl around my head and keep my eyes open and my mind ticking every night is to type them into my blog. Once they are out of my head and published with some pretty pictures, something in me changes and I can see clearer and move on, or at least move.

But this story feels different because it belongs to one of my daughters. All that is mine is my response. How can I write the painful details of this period of time without betraying the trust of another? And is it possible to write the story from my point of view when the story isn't mine to tell?

I think I have no choice but to try.

You see the story itself has been playing out in the school yard but on such a level that I have never experienced in my almost 16 years of parenting, and even in my 44 years of life.

Generally, in difficult times my pattern of behaviour is to experience things like this in the fullest way. To immerse myself in the situation, to dissect every detail, to feel every sharp angle, to analyse and question and discuss and shout and cry. And then after a while I find that I can see things a bit clearer without all the added emotion, and I can move on to the solution.

For some reason though, this time I haven't been able to move through and beyond the emotional, beside-myself stage, and instead have been stuck here for months. We've tried facing the problem head on, we've tried dealing with all the side issues, we've tried building resilience and also taking the easy way out, but nothing changes.

It has been interesting to watch myself from the outside going through this difficult time. Because it has dragged on for so long I've been able to watch how the stress affects my coping mechanisms and my life. A few weeks ago I found myself at gym on a particularly difficult day. I had always assumed that physical exertion would be a great way to help me cope, and even get rid of all the nervous energy building up. In fact that's probably the main reason I go at all. But this time I found myself moving as if under water. I had no energy and was clumsy and powerless. My trainer described the damage that cortisol, stress hormones, can do to your system, and gave me a series of stretches to do instead. Sitting cross legged on the mat, twisted all the way around to one side, I just felt angry that this nasty situation had invaded yet another part of my life.

I've studied my own childhood, focusing on a time when I was excluded and had to make another group of friends, but I can't find any anger or betrayal in that situation to make me feel like I'm playing it out now.

I worry about the damage it's doing to our family when so many of our conversations seem to end up there, going round in another circle.

I find myself not trusting my responses.

I notice that whenever my thoughts go to this situation my tummy fills with ants that start crawling up to my lungs and then my throat.

I'm embarrassed that my reactions to this nastiness are inappropriate and filled with swear words and things I don't really mean.

I realised that even geographical distance doesn't give me emotional distance. A few days holiday with my mum in a cottage on the edge of a nearby forest made the worry bigger rather than smaller.

And the worst part is that I can't work out if my behaviour is supportive any more. As a parent I want my child to feel like I have her back, to feel safe with me and that I am here for her and adore her. But I don't want to live this out for her. So how do I do that? Somehow I'm missing the ability to separate. This situation is nasty, possibly even dangerous, but still my losing it doesn't do anything at all to fix it.

So far the things I've found that really work for me are farm work, taking a big slow breath before reacting and reading in bed at night until I am so tired I cannot keep my eyes open.

A few days ago I was telling my farmer boy the story a friend had told me about how stressed she'd been lately and how she'd almost had a nervous breakdown. That's how I've been, I told him, but he said he disagreed completely. He thought I'd been dealing with it. Interesting.

In any case, this isn't a story that is over yet unfortunately, but this is an intermission thankfully, as the girls are on school holidays and we've taken them far away from home to escape the cold and the mud. I am hoping that by typing bits of it out I'll be able to have space from it for the next little while and that I'll be able to break the blog drought and get back to blogging about knitting and books and food and family.

Fingers crossed.



xoxo

under the weather

I think this is one of those posts that I'm writing more for me than for you. I'm writing it for future reference, as a record and to try and get it out of my head and into my computer. So please, feel free to skip this one, it's not going to be very exciting or uplifting. Hopefully I'll be back here later in the week with something a bit more fun.

So basically I've been feeling crappy for quite some time now. Crappy physically but not emotionally. About six or eight weeks ago, almost exactly a year to the date of my left breast saga, I got the same infection on the other side. This time it was quickly diagnosed and treated and within a few days of starting an antibiotic course it was history.

But I mustn't have started taking acidophilous in time because next thing I knew I had a rather itchy situation. Too much information? Sorry.

All of the above knocked me around a bit but after a few days I was back to running around like usual. Until one Saturday evening I discovered that everything I ate or drank tasted like poo. This went on for a few days resulting in a complete loss of appetite, many conversations about what poo actually tastes like, me having to convince the girls that I am definitely not pregnant, and of course lots of googling.

I think the poo-taste thing lasted for about two weeks and then gradually disappeared. Only to appear in the mouths of a couple of school parents who must have asked google much better questions, I know they used the words battery acid rather than poo, and discovered a little thing called pine-mouth. Pine mouth!!!!! After all that pesto I'd been making and all those pine nuts I'd been sneaking, of course it was.

The diagnosis brought relief but also the feeling that we have to stay truer to our only buy organic and Australian grown or don't buy it at all rule. Pesto filled with dodgy Chinese pine nuts? No thanks. From now on I think we'll use almonds.

After that was cleared up for some reason I stopped sleeping. For what felt like three years but was possibly only a week or two, I just stopped sleeping. At the start I didn't mind so much. The nights are so quiet and I got lots of reading and thinking and looking at Facebook done, but unfortunately the days after the nights spent awake were a disaster. I was fragile and impatient and shivery and felt like my brain was full of a ton of wool.

Are you sick of me yet? I am.

Then of course I got a shocking head cold that two weeks later I still haven't completely shaken. Blah!

Then not last Saturday but the Saturday before as we were doing the rounds visiting our bee hives, I was stung four times. This in itself is not such a big deal, we keep bees and occasionally we get stung. But the fact that I got stung in my suit is weird and has never happened before and also I had some sort of reaction to the bites that I've never had before. In the past they've stung for a few seconds, maybe a minute and then nothing for a few days until they've itched like crazy and then disappeared. This time my bites swelled up until they were enormous. The ones on my ankle were so big I couldn't put my shoe on and the one on my thigh was the size of a small plate. And they burned. The only thing that calmed them down was a bicarb paste. Gosh they were nasty. A week later and you can still see the shadow of them like they are bruises.

And lastly, gosh how I hope it's the last of it anyway, my old shoulder injury has flared up and is travelling right up my neck, into my teeth and all the way up to my head. What even??!! I'm having a treatment with my pilates teacher in the morning and I have a whole range of exercises to do, so I'm hopeful that this will be short lived.

I know they're all just little things and I'm trying to see the bigger picture and not let them get the better of me, but sometimes it's just trying. I accept that I'm run down and my immune is low but I can't work out the reason why. I live on an organic farm, my work is pretty active, I eat a fresh and organic diet, most of which we've grown here, and I love what I do, who I do it with and how we're doing it.

I hate to complain partly because I know there are so many who are doing it so much tougher and I hate to complain because I HATE BEING THE SICK ONE!!! It's driving me cuckoo. Like I said at the start, it's just boring.

Lucky I have the apple picking, the preserving, the farm stall, the girls, farmer Bren, my knitting, stripey tights, a big pot of lentil bolognaise on the stove, linen sheets on my bed, a great book, big travel plans and the kitchen garden to take my mind off it all.

I hope you are well and happy and have lots of nice things going on.

Big love xx

digging spuds

Today we ate porridge with honey for breakfast.
I did a Pilates class and learnt how hard it is for me to balance on one leg with my eyes closed.
My farmer boy surprised me and took me out for an early lunch.
We came home, got the eggs, fed the animals and watered the garden.
Then we took out our map and walked through the orchard and it occurred to me that it is my job, my occupation, to wander through hundreds and hundreds of fruit trees and taste the fruit to decide what's ripe and needs to be picked.
After that we gave the farm gate stall a clean up and a fruit shuffle.
While we were at the stall a dad from school came past for some apples and a chat and then a lovely couple who read my blog and had driven an hour to get to us pulled up. It was so gorgeous to meet them, hear a little bit about them and then just as we were about to leave and drive on up to the house the woman gave me the most lovely letter she'd written on the drive out. She had been planning to leave it at the stall but gave it to me instead. The kindness and love in that letter totally made my day. Thanks Pauline xx
Then I baked this cake - which has had rave reviews.
And I hung some washing on the line.
I picked up the girls from school and from the bus stop.
Jazzy went off to dancing, Bren went to training and me and Pepper left Indi inside with her guitar teacher and we went out to pick apples, tomatoes, potatoes and other odds and ends.
Bren came home and made a spoon, the girls did some homework type stuff and I made soup and garlic flat bread for dinner. Everybody loved it. It's the best when that happens.

The second day of autumn was a lovely day indeed.
And now, after a mad scramble, all the girls are in bed and my farmer boy and I are going to sneak an episode of House of Cards. Shhhhh don't tell the girls we're breaking the no TV/movies during the week rule.

So what did you get up to today?
I hope yours was lovely.

Love Kate xx

I choose kind

I think at the end of the day it's all about kindness. That's the message I'm choosing to take away from the events of the past month.

I think it's pretty interesting that I got so sick at a time when I was possibly the fittest and healthiest physically I have been for years. Now, in retrospect, I can see that while I was eating and exercising well, I wasn't doing so well emotionally.

My plan from here on is to surround myself with kind. To be kinder to myself and those around me. And to properly accept kind in return.

At the end of last year our Jazzy started at a new school. A week or so in I asked her to describe the school in one word. She chose kind. I was elated. A school that feels kind is where I wanted my girls to be. But now I want something bigger. I want to live a kind life.

I have this thing I do where I take on the weight of the world. I read and listen to all the horror and tragedy that goes on and I imagine what it would be like to live through something like that, or to love someone living through it, and my stomach aches and I cry. It's almost addictive this need to follow the news. But then after the crying I feel terrible that I'm not actually doing anything practical. I'm not helping Syrian refugees into Jordan, I'm not sifting through satellite images to find a missing plane, and I'm not looking after sick or injured or displaced children. My heartache isn't really of any use and I think if anything it just makes me sick and drains me. So with a lot of encouragement from my farmer boy, I've decided to be kind to myself and switch it all off for a while. It feels harsh but necessary.

Next is to surround myself with kind. Make more of an effort to spend time with people who make me feel good and make me feel like they care about me. I think that's important. Positive people spread positivity and that's what I need right now.

And I want to be kinder. I don't know if I should admit this, but I was really aware of how people were behaving to me and my family while I was sick just now. It meant the world when people showed they cared by calling and texting and doing cute little things. It made us all feel loved and thought of. I want to be the person who sends cards and bakes cookies and remembers the big and little things. I want to be kind in good times as well as bad.

I think that the fact that the infection was in my left breast, so close to my heart, says a lot. I've been spending too much time with heart aching for the world and not enough time allowing my heart to be filled with all the love that I have right here. My farmer boy, our girls, my parents at the bottom of the hill, our farm, the rest of our family, our community. This is where my energy needs to go.

I want to be an example of kind to my girls. I want to teach kind and thoughtful and lovely by example. I want them to see me being understanding and friendly and generous and sympathetic and forgiving and accepting.

And I really, really, really need to be kinder to myself. I really do. I need to learn to listen to and accept compliments. I need to learn to not be so critical of my own work. I need to push myself to places that challenge me and believe that I will not only make it, but also grow.

I feel like this period of near-death thoughts is an opportunity for change. My friend Melissa reminded me the other day that on New Year's Eve I said I felt sure that something big was about to happen in my life. Something that would answer the questions I had been asking about what my story is. Maybe this is all it? The more I think about it, the more I can see that I certainly needed to be shaken up a bit.

But I'm not being unrealistic. I know I will feel bitchy or PMSy at times but I guess part of being kind to myself is working out a way to deal with things in a way that doesn't take over my life. I'm learning that it's better to take the easy way out sometimes rather than stay up all night stressing. Let it go.

So today, on the 16th of March, I'm starting again. I'm making a fresh start. From now on, it's all about kind. I'll let you know how I go.


Big kind love to you guys.
I'm off to preserve the crates of plums all over the kitchen floor.


xx

ps. I'd still love your postal address Kathy A from Brisbane.

notes to self...

Dear Kate,

When it feels that big, leave home.

RUN don't walk.

Leave the dishes in the sink. Leave the unanswered emails. Leave the shoulds and the have-to's and the musts and the endless to-dos. Leave the feelings of inadequacy. Leave the laundry in the machine and the dead flowers on the kitchen table. Leave all that crap all over the lounge room floor. Leave their spelling words and maths-mates and projects. Leave the pile of games that fell out of the cupboard. Leave the worries and the overwhelm and the deadlines.

Leave it all!

Walk out of the door and choose a direction. Any way will do.

Breathe deeply. All the way in and then all the way out. Even if the freezing air burns your nose and chest, get it in there.

Shake your arms and legs about and get the blood back into them.

Notice the tiny things. The oddly shaped things, the magical things, the new season things.

Admire. Respect. Love. Cherish.

Climb up on top of anything you can.

Meditate!

Hold hands and trust.

Shout! Laugh! Dance! Sing!

See it for what it really is.

And when you get back home you will see that everything looks different. Everything IS different. But still the same. The same but more manageable. More beautiful. More everything.

You'll be so glad you/I did.

xx

Coffee and paste...x

I think these last few weeks have been amongst the biggest of my life. The book, the interviews, the feedback, the film, the signings, the reviews and of course the Daylesford launch.

I have been so overwhelmed, I have been humbled and I have been grateful. I feel like I've been running on adrenaline for so much of it. It really has been huge.

And over these big book weeks my blog words have woken me up at night whispering descriptions and explaining goings on and feelings. My nighttime blog words always feel so articulate and honest in the dark.

And yet my days have been so full that I haven't had a second to get those words down here. 

And now that I finally have a little bit of time, they're gone. Actually I don't think they're gone but I think there are so many of them that I don't know how to make sense and order out of them. I feel like they're all jumbled up and all over the place.

I hope I will get all that stuff down here soon because it is important and because I want to remember it, but for now I thought I'd try something completely different. Something I found on Pip's blog. Something I feel might help me take stock and ease my way back in.

So here goes;

Making : Another crocheted hot water bottle cover, knitting a looooong scarf and squares for a blanket.
Cooking : Wintery breads and soups and cakes and bakes.
Drinking : Freshly picked beetroot, carrot, kale, ginger, orange and lemon juice.
Reading: The List Of My Desires. The publisher sent it to me. I've only just started but I love that she's a blogger.
Wanting: Warmth in the air and a bit of sunshine on my skin.
Looking: At the chooks through the mist in the forest.
Playing: A feeding a plant game on my phone that tracks how much water I drink during the day.
Wasting: Time on facebook. I resisted for so long. Then I joined to keep an eye on Indi. And now I think it's fun.
Sewing: Buttons on a knitted onesie.
Wishing: I had more time to knit. And cook. And garden.
Enjoying: Reading chapters of The Famous Five with Miss Jazzy every night.
Waiting: For asparagus and the start of the spring veggie season.
Liking: Photos on instagram.
Wondering: how much our lives will change now we've made the decision to scale things down here and homestead instead.
Loving: That my folks are just at the bottom of the hill.
Hoping: Miss Indi feels better soon. Hate the flu!
Marvelling: That Miss Pepper can stand on her head for minutes at a time.
Needing: To go out and collect the eggs, but it's toooooo cold.
Smelling: The Daphne blossom at the front door.
Wearing: Jeans!!!! It's been years.
Following: An exercise plan. True story!
Noticing: The first signs of spring. More daylight, almond blossom, jonquils...
Knowing: That I shouldn't wear my shoes inside the house but I do anyway.
Thinking: That the bunnies are super messy.
Feeling: Calm for the first time in a while.
Bookmarking: Recipes. I need to menu plan again.
Opening: The stove door to add more wood. Constantly.
Giggling: About Miss Jazzy's suggestion that I should write a book called BUMtastic.
Feeling: Like I could sleep for three weeks if I had the chance.

So how about you? 

What's going on in your life?

Do you want to play Pip's game too? 

Coffee and paste the blank list from her blog.
And let me know so I can come and see what you're up to.

We're off to get the eggs.

Happy days my friends!

xx