Bras and Undies!

Well, I haven’t blogged for ages – February has been a crazy month here – lots of medical things going on to deal with (will write more another day), a written assignment to do, a few social outings that have been unavoidable and of course the start of dancing, tumblefun gymnastics and our occupational therapist appointments for the year!

But March is looking a little quieter here, so hopefully I can phone those friends I’ve been neglecting, write here a bit more, catch up on some cooking and sewing, and just plain old get back into life again.

And on the topic of sewing… The March Challenge on Aussies Living Simply is No Knickers! Now I cannot give up undies forever, but I have decided that from now on, I shall not put any commercially made underwear on my bottom (other than what I currently own, that is).

On ALS, I have been asked about my homemade undies, so here are some pics of my first Hemp Bra & Undies set made in April last year. They were made using Kwik Sew Pattern 3301

Its probably important to note that this is not an underwire bra and as I am rather small busted, I find it great, but I’m not sure what those with larger busts need in the bra compartment...

I made the undies the high waisted version, but afterwards realised that I don’t own any high waisted clothes! So from now on I will only make the low rise ones.

These are obviously boy-leg undies too, but I'm going to be on the lookout for a good regular undies pattern as I'd like to try some regular pants as well.

They were not at all difficult to make and didn't take too long at all. These are made using hemp jersey, but can be made from any stretch fabric. I'm guessing it wouldn't be too difficult to add some lace or ribbon if you wanted to make them pretty... I'm not so into underwear that it bothers me if they are pretty though!

So there you have it - my home made bra and undies. I must admit I haven't made any more since this set, but do have a couple of pairs cut out, so will endeavour to get them done in the coming weeks. I have some spotty pink ones and some beautiful bamboo velour ones cut out.

Some Sewing and a Challenge!

Since moving to our new house and having an area designated to my sewing, I have found myself having sporadic bursts of sewing enthusiasm. This will be a rather image heavy post, but I hope you enjoy some of my latest creations. You'll have to read to the bottom to read about my newest challenge though ;-)

Firstly we have a couple of little outfits I made for the girls at the end of last year. The pink dress was cut out a LOOONG time ago and only just finished, but G's little dress and the top she is modelling (which is actually E's) were from the Ottobre Magazine - I am totally in love with this magazine for inspiration!





Next is a little Pencil Roll I made for Miss G - I made E one for her birthday last year and there were far too many fights over the pencil roll, so now they have one each!





Now, some gifts! These are amongst my favourite things... actually, no I can't say that - everything here is pretty much a favourite! This bag is an eco bag inspired by both our regular plastic supermarket bags and my Enviro Sax bag. The recipient, J, is a great conservationist and tells me she thoroughly loves it and her Mum wants some too!



And for J's little man, almost 3 year old E, a T Shirt. I had wanted to make the shirt from scratch as well, but couldn't find a nice quality fabric in the colour I wanted. So I compromised and bought the shirt and just appliqued it myself. Master E loves his "Froggy" shirt I am told! There were also some reusable tea bags for J's Husband (and E's Daddy), S, but I forgot to take a picture of them :(


And finally, Miss G's weighted vests. G has a sensory processing disorder and her Occupational Therapist has her wearing 1kg of weights all day every day. It's certainly helping, but rather than having her wear the too-big, plain navy vest that I bought from the OT, I have been making her some custom designed vests! These have pockets on the inside so the weights can be easily moved, and as they snap up at the back, she cannot take it off. It was recommended that G wear her vest under her regular clothing, but it is just far too hot up here to be wearing too many layers, so I have made these to be worn as outer wear. This is just one of the selection!

(Forgive the Fairy Skirt - some days we are a Fairy Princess, other days we are a Mermaid and other days we are Dora the Explorer!)

But of all the vests I've made, this one is my favourite - a dress-vest! So the same as the vest, but I attached a little skirt to it. This is by far G's favourite too. I love the fabric which was just from Spotlight believe it or not. I do have a couple more dress-vests started, so I really need to get some sewing mojo back and finish them.



So there's some of my sewing! I have quite a few projects on the go and a WIP list as long as my arm, so over the next few months I am hoping to get that list under control. The only problem with that though is that I am making gifts for Birthdays and other events throughout the year so they will be added to my To Do list!

Now, my challenge... Last weekend whilst the girls were visiting their Dad, I emptied 2 of my 3 large plastic storage tubs of fabric, sorted it all out and neatly re-filled the tubs. I have SO MUCH fabric its not funny. Some stuff I will probably never use, some I had forgotten about and some I have a definite plan for...

So, my challenge is not to purchase any NEW fabric until I have at least 1 box completely empty! Now I'm saying NEW because if I happen upon some nice stuff at an Op Shop that I think will be an asset to my collection I want to be able to purchase it :D

A Dilemma...

I’ve been slowly working my way through all my thoughts on the way the girls and I live, and the aspects we need to improve etc, but it’s left me with quite a dilemma.

Where I live, there are not really many options available to us with regards to sustainable living products – although every time I go near a shop, I do spot the odd improvement, so at least there is some progress. So, if I wish to use recycled pens, or biodegradable bin liners, or not pay a huge cost for compact fluoro lights, I need to order them in.

Now this is obviously not a huge problem – I have access to the internet and am a very capable online shopper LOL.

BUT, my dilemma is that I’m concerned that the costs associated with shipping these products to me outweigh the benefits. I’m not talking just the cost of posting/shipping the order – but the full costs of packaging, emissions and not supporting local businesses etc.

I honestly have no idea how to work this out either – is there a calculator that can somehow “tell” me, or is it purely an ethical decision that I need to make? Has there been any research into this? Am I over-thinking things?

Obviously a good first step for me would be to do a bit of research and see if there are any thoughts on the matter on the wonderful world wide web! But, somehow I need to make a decision on this because it will really impact on my decisions in the future.

And on the topic of sustainable living, I have been thinking about the most common products we use that are either disposable, or not very sustainable.

The biggest issues I think we have are:

Baking Paper – a lot of our special recipes only really work with baking paper, so as a result we go through LOTS of the stuff. I do reuse it as often as I can, but after a few uses it really does need to be replaced. Any recipe that can be used with just an oiled pan, or a silicone baking tray, I do these things as well. But, there is still a large qty of baking paper being used in this house and I have yet to see a “recycled” or similar baking paper – I’m also not sure if it can be composted or not? I’m thinking that the greaseproof coating will be problematic but need to research this as well.

Toilet Paper – with 3 girls in the house, and a 2y9m old who likes to use half a roll each time she makes a visit to the toilet, I was amazed at how fast a roll disappeared! We only use recycled paper, but we are now using cloth wipes for wees – no paper. Little Miss G still likes to use about 16 wipes for each wee, but I’m quite ok with washing wipes rather than using a roll of loo paper each day!

Freezer Bags – I order my meat in bulk, so once a month I have a large order to divide up and freeze. At this stage I use as many plastic containers as I can, but I simply do not have enough, so have been using freezer bags for the rest. I’m finding that they really aren’t up to a 2nd use once they’ve been frozen for a while, defrosted and washed. So, I think the obvious answer here is to slowly accumulate enough containers to store all my meat in and slowly reduce the bags.

Transportation – yes, I do use my car nearly every day. I currently have a horrible big 6cyl 4wd, but am in the process of getting a much more economical 4cyl car so at least that will help. I live around 10 minutes out of town, so do try to combine as many trips to town as possible, however I’m finding that between Kindy on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Occupational Therapy every second Tuesday and then every second weekend I do as many jobs in town as I can while the girls are with their Dad, I am still spending a LOT of time in the car. We do live around 100m from the nearest public bus stop, and I would dearly love to use it, but the routes don’t go near the Kindy or Occupational Therapist, and I’m simply cannot put my girls in a closed environment of a bus full of people wearing all sorts of smells – their bodies simply wouldn’t cope with it, and I can hardly ask the bus company to not allow people on if they are wearing deodorant or perfume that might pong a bit… So, I think doing the best I can to reduce my trips to town, and driving as economically as I can is the best I can do at the moment.

Electricity – This is really only a summer problem! We do use our air conditioner significantly during summer, and compared to grumpy, whiney, sweaty little girls, the pleasant, happy, and calm little girls I have when the a/c is on, makes it all worth it! And I know that once the worst of the heat is over, our electricity usage will reduce drastically and there may only be one or two days in winter when we feel the need for a little heating.

Meat – this and transport are my two biggest issues I think. Due to our allergies and the program we are on, we are required to eat a substantial amount of meat each day as it’s the only source of complete protein we have, and given our many allergies, combining proteins is not overly practical. So, I’m sourcing my meat from as local a supplier as I can get, buying in bulk to reduce packaging, and trying to accept that for now this is just the way it has to be.

Obviously our health is a very important consideration, so despite the fact that I struggle every time I get in our car when I see the bus pull up, or eat yet another meat meal, I really do need to learn to be ok with it because without our health, we simply wouldn’t be capable of doing anything to reduce our ecological footprint in other areas.

So, besides these 6 problem areas, I’m actually pretty happy with the way we live. I hope that we are making enough contributions in all the other areas to help counteract some of these issues, and will continue to endeavour to do whatever I can to address these 6 things.

Lots of ramblings from my mind today, but I do feel like I am doing the best I can right now and my nearly empty wheelie bin each week is a good sign!

My Garden

OK, I’ve been spending a lot of time in my gardens lately so wanted to share my progress – it’s become quite an obsession!

My yard is really quite large, and predominantly lawn. There were a few garden beds in situ, but most were overrun with weeds or plants that run wild. The lawn was also scattered with prickles :(

So, I’ve turned some of the existing beds into vegie gardens and am hoping to dedicate a strip around 15-20m x 3m along the back fence to larger grain crops. I’m also slowly but surely working my way through the lawn digging out the prickles – but for now everyone wears shoes when outside.

I have decided to grow the following vegies:
• Sweet Potato
• Carrot
• Green Beans
• Swede
• Beetroot
• Pumpkin – they keep coming up in my compost so I may as well let them go!

I am also planning on these experimental grain type crops as well:
• Quinoa
• Amaranth
• Chickpea
• Chia

For now, I am only going to grow the few things that we do eat a lot of and as our diet expands, I imagine our garden will too. For vegies that I am unable to grow in sufficient quantities, and for other things that I just can’t grow, I will continue to use Lillypilly Organics – a lovely little local business that home delivers fresh organic vegies – mostly from local growers but supplemented by organic growers in Southern Queensland as needed.

So far I have de-weeded, dug and mulched two beds ready for our first round of plantings. I’ve planted the first two slips from my sprouted Sweet Potato, have some Lettuce seedlings in, as well as Carrot, Bean, Swede and Beetroot seeds. The seeds were all planted in the midst of a rainy day, and the Bean and Swede seeds came up within 2 days!

I’m looking forward to seeing how much our small garden beds can provide and would love to be able to grow most of our own vegies.

We also have three very large pots that are now home to some herbs. We have Basil, Parsley and Chives planted in these pots, and Mint growing in the planter box at our mail box.

For Christmas both girls received some gardening implements and their very own little watering can, and they take great delight in watering the pots each afternoon! I am really hoping to foster a love of gardening in them both and I’m sure once they can see the vegies developing their excitement will only increase.

Managing the lawn is certainly much more work than the garden beds at this stage! I’d dearly love to rip up the lawn and put in more gardens! But, for now, I just have to keep watering the lawn and mowing it… And mowing it isn’t really that big a chore with my new toy! I bought an Ozito Push Reel Mower and it hasn’t disappointed me.

Because it operates by being pushed, there are no horrible motor’s to worry about, no ongoing fuel costs or emissions, its quiet and it doesn’t stir up dust like traditional mowers do. For a sensitive family like ours, it’s great because it reduces the number of things we may react to, and Miss G does not cope well with loud noises at all, so it’s been good as I have been able to mow without her being extremely distressed. And best of all, if I take care of it, it should never need to be replaced – I may need to sharpen the blades occasionally but that is it!

It is hard work though! If the lawn is a bit long, or a bit weedy, the effort required to push the mower is increased – so I guess another advantage is that I’m also getting some extra exercise as well as having a lawn that looks great.

The only disadvantage to gardening is that we have very long hot summers here, and the best time of day to be outside in the garden at this time of year is around 6pm – however at that time I also need to be cooking dinner and bathing girls etc… So I can’t wait for the days to cool down so that being outside at 4-5pm isn’t so horribly hot for us.

I’ll be sure to keep you all posted of our progress!

My life... at the moment

Well, the start of a new year… Happy 2009 everyone!

I feel like this year is going to be a year of many changes in my life. The changes that have taken place recently have certainly started to tip my life in the direction I want to be heading, so I feel motivated to continue this journey with gusto!

My life at the moment is fabulous. It’s certainly different being alone and solely responsible for the girls and my life, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I feel so much more free… free to make decisions based on my beliefs alone, free to sit up and watch trashy TV if that’s what I want, free to go nuts in my garden, free to just be me.

I’m learning so much at the moment as well – not many days have gone by that I haven’t learned a new skill. Some of the things that I’m most proud of may not be that significant to others, even in months to come when the novelty of doing everything myself wears off, I may laugh that I was so proud of these achievements, but for now I’m savouring that, amongst other things, I have been able to:

• Build a Max-proof Compost Heap Fence (Max is my dog!)
• Repair my broken toilet (this was a major milestone for me!)
• Provide all the physical labour of setting up our new gardens
• Program my new Harmony Remote Control (a Christmas gift – here’s more details)

I’ve also experienced the thrill of buying my first lawn mower and mowing the lawn! Actually my new lawn mower is my favourite toy at the moment  But I’m going to do a post on my garden soon, so I think I’ll save the details for that post!

Because the girls Dad and I still have a very good relationship, they don’t appear to have been adversely affected at all. I’m sure that because everyone is coping well, and there is no animosity at all, it’s easier for me to be enjoying this time. If we weren’t getting along so well, I suspect that life would be very different.

There is a lot of joy in each day at the moment and whilst I have no idea what the future holds for me, I feel ready to embrace whatever comes my way. I’m sure there will be times when I’m not feeling so good about being a single mum, but for now I’m enjoying the moment!

A LONG overdue update...

Hello my dear friends – I hope you are sitting quite comfortably because I suspect this is going to be a very long update!

In the 4 months since I was last actively online, a lot has been going on in my life.

In August I had quite a few things going on and I felt totally overwhelmed, in too deep almost. I had a meltdown one day and it occurred to me that I was devoting as much time as I could to being online, to avoid actually dealing with the things that were going on in my life. So I snapped! I made a decision to not turn the computer on other than to do banking etc and to check emails in order to maintain contact with our Biochemist and some very close friends. And that’s exactly what I did…

It was quite a change and I’m pleased to report that the benefits of this break have been life changing.

Now, for some updates!

The Girls

Over the course of the past few months I have been able to finally sort out some of the more puzzling reactions the girls have had, and they have now had quite some time of being fairly stable with minimal reactions. I guess what we are doing now is “tweaking” the program and our lives to accommodate minor little changes that are producing great results.

Miss G (2y8m now!) appears to suffer hayfever and easily irritated nasal passages as much as her dad and I do. She has also been diagnosed with a Sensory Processing Disorder so we are now seeing an Occupational Therapist and have seen fantastic improvements.

Miss E (now 4y5m), however, has achieved an amazing milestone… At the end of November we flew to Brisbane and E had surgery to have her PEG removed! (Her gastrostomy button – or feeding tube surgically inserted into her stomach). This has been so significant because it has shown that all our very hard work this year teaching her to eat, and ensuring she has been eating enough to maintain, and increase, her weight has been totally worth it!! E recovered incredibly well and only 7 days after surgery was on stage at her end of year dance concert dancing her little heart out!

I’m so very proud of her because I know how hard she has worked at actually eating – its not something that has come naturally to her, and it makes me so incredibly happy every time she says “I’m Hungry!”

The House

Well, we finally came to a conclusion about what to do with regards to our living situation. We ended up renting a house out of town just near the school the girls will be going to. It’s a nice home in a lovely quiet area and has a lovely safe yard for the girls to play in with only a few neighbours who have no toxic habits. But best of all, it’s got a huge rumpus area downstairs that has enough room for an entire section to be devoted to my sewing machines! We decided to rent out our old house, but you’ll read more about that soon…

Family

As with every family, ours has its share of disputes and dramas. I have a family member who has hardly spoken to me for almost 3 years, and upon hearing that they were saying things about me (that weren't particularly nice), I made contact with them to try and resolve the situation. Unfortunately things didn’t go as I had hoped and it may be quite some time before we speak again, but I am at peace with myself now as I know what the problem was and that I have done my very best to help the situation – there is simply nothing more I can do.

The lesson I have learned though, is that irrespective of how you intend for something to be said online, the reader can interpret it however they choose. They can also interpret replies from other people however they choose as well. Three years ago when I first came across Internet Forums I thought I was quite reserved in everything I wrote as I was quite wary of privacy, however I was not reserved enough according to this person. I have been quite spooked by this and as a result am not sure if I’m up to participating in any public forums just yet, and even now I am second guessing everything I am writing today in case it might be construed in ways other than I am intending…

Marriage

I guess the biggest life changing experience has been that my husband and I have separated. We made the decision mid-November, and we both agree that it has been the right thing to do. We are both a lot happier, less stressed and just much more relaxed in general. Fortunately the tenant we had lined up for our old house fell through, so he moved back there and the girls and I have stayed at the house we rented.

I now feel so much lighter and more alive than I have in such a very long time and I’m feeling really good at the moment.

Lifestyle etc

Unfortunately, splitting one household into two has certainly not been great for our consumption challenge… We have simply had to make some significant purchases. But I am happy to report that whilst our consumption has increased dramatically over the past month, we are still, where possible, making the best decisions we can and trying to source the products that fit within our original purchasing pledge the best.

An advantage to being solely responsible for how the girls and I live is that I now feel COMPLETLEY free to be able to do as much as I want to be an aware consumer and reduce our ecological footprint.

I feel a renewed zest for taking charge of our lives and am planning on making 2009 my year to put as many practices into place as I can to help achieve my desire of treading gently on this Earth..

Even a simple little thing like our council finally providing recycling bins for the residents has been met with such great enthusiasm by me!

Other things that are a priority for me at the moment are to continue researching Ethical Superannuation – I may not have very much of it at the moment, but I want to know its being put to good use. I also am compiling a list of regular household items/purchases and researching the most ethical, environmentally friendly option for each of these things so that as I am needing to make a purchase, I have already done my research and can simply go out and make an informed purchase, or purchase ahead of time if I see a special. All too often I have been caught unprepared and needed something straight away so ended up purchasing what ever I could source at that moment, rather than purchasing the best option – I want to stop this cycle of disorganisation leading to unwise consumption.

Whilst in Brisbane for Em’s surgery, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with some truly beautiful friends of mine who are both Environmental Scientists and very ecologically aware. They are so inspiring and because they have been living a very sustainable life for so very long now and most of the changes I want to put in place are now just automatic responses to them, I have been asking many many questions of them! Thanks J & S!

The Garden

In recent weeks Miss E has become increasingly interested in gardening, and I have been spending some time working out which parts of my new yard would be suitable for vegie gardening. So over the past few weeks we have planted some herb seeds in pots for E to tend to, we have also dug one section of garden ready for our Sweet Potato that is sprouting nicely on my window sill, have unravelled the sprinkler system that was here but not working so well & found out which parts I need to repair it so it does work, and I have placed an order with Eden Seeds to get us started! For now our garden will not be very diverse – we can’t eat that many different vegie’s at this stage, so we’ll be sticking to the few things we do eat quite a lot of.

Christmas

Due to the events of the past few months I can honestly say that this Christmas was not as organised as I would have liked. I have not made all my purchases in the light I would have liked to, and I do feel an incredible sense of unease at the whole event.

However, a very close friend and I have decided to have sewing/crafting bee’s throughout next year so we can both be in control for the next festive season – she too felt like she wanted to achieve more this year. I’m really looking forward to our sessions and can’t wait to feel a greater sense of calm this time next year. Our little get togethers should also be great at satisfying our creative urges!

In keeping with my usual hyper-organised tendency, I have now written a list of every person who I expect may need a gift throughout 2009 and decided what I would like to give them – mostly homemade gits with small bought components. I have a great feeling about this new method!

And finally…

I truly do believe that organisation is the key to living a lifestyle that is ethical and sustainable.

And on that note, I am going to say thank you to everyone who took the time to read this, thank you to everyone who has sent me well wishes over the past few months, thank you to everyone who is there for me no matter what – you all mean so much to me and I know that I am never alone in this world. So, THANK YOU.

I wish you all a very safe and happy festive season and look forward to continuing our journey into 2009.

Love

Theresa

Air Quality and Other Things

hehehe so much for not writing every day after July LOL!

Anyway, I was thinking more about the Air Quality Issues so decided to write!

The biggest issue we have is that we just don't know exactly how much poor air quality is contributing to our issues - we certainly do know that neither girl has slept through an entire night since moving here, despite sleeping reasonably well in our old house. So after eliminating everything we can think of as a cause for their sleep disturbances (and starting our Biomed Program, so finally sorting their diet out), all that is left is the house and its environment.

So whilst this certainly makes for one chronically tired Mummy, more importantly it means that our girls are obviously struggling too :(

And just under an hour spent at an Open Night at Miss E's Kindy with a few other *smelly* parents, resulted in Miss E having an enormous reaction and being barely able to cope with anything at all yesterday - she's still off with the fairies today, but at least her mood is stable. So its blatantly obvious that the air my children breath in needs to be as clean as possible - not only was yesterday a very stressful day for me, it must have been even worse for Em who simply cannot control her emotions the way we adults can.

It proves that our attempts to minimise our exposure to these things is absolutely worthwhile and it really does have a dramatic impact on our children. Obviously things like the Kindy Open Night aren't going to be regular occurances and after having the past few months at home with as little contact with the outside world as possible, it was a great chance for us to guage how sensitive Em still is, and reiterate to us that we do need to be very careful.

Less than an hour with a handful of smelly adults caused a massive fallout.

I'm keen to see how much happier the girls could be in general day to day life if they aren't also breathing in air from our home that isn't so poor. We certainly think they've come a long way in the past 6 months, and can't help but wonder how much better they could be in another 6 months...

More Housing Thoughts!

I know I'm really not supposed to be online on a Thursday, but I've been doing some cooking and thinking (rolling dough and cutting biscuits gives lots of thinking time!), and have a few more thoughts to put out here that may or may not help bring clarity to the situation! My first post probably needs to be read to make sense of this one LOL.

Firstly, if the only issues with our current house were the indoor air quality and the need to extend the house, we would probably risk renovating as the reno's would hopefully help solve a few of the indoor air quality issues in the process. However, seeing as we are very much an outdoors family, the issues of proximity to neighbours and the busy street are of significant concern - and renovating can't solve these problems. This morning has shown me just how much my daughters need to be outside regularly - they are instantly soooo much happier as soon as we come outside to play! (Fortunately the neighbours are behaving themselves at the moment!).

I was also thinking about WHY we bought this house in the first place...

• It was the only affordable home that was able to be lived in straight away without major renovations required.
• It oozes potential and character - two things that were very important to us then.
• Its proximity to those things I've already discussed earlier, as well as the school we had originally planned to send the girls to. Its across the road from Kindy, so also only 3.5klms away, but we are highly unlikely to send the girls there now. And also at that stage I was still at the Dr's regularly (fortnightly) as we battled constant illness and ongoing testing to try and make sense of what was going on with the girls. However in the past 6 months (since starting our Biomed Program) I've only been there about 6 times all up and most of those times were simply for referrals/scripts or the girls regular weigh in's and dealing with Miss G having pneumonia!
  
• The landlord where we were renting was not one of the better ones, and her property manager was possibly the worst we have ever dealt with, so our renting experience at that time was not overly pleasant - especially seeing as between us we had rented a considerable number of times throughout our lives and were used to higher levels of service.
  

So of those initial reasons we bought the house, the only truly valid ones that would still apply are the fact that we had had a bad renting experience and that could be repeated (although I suspect that with the amount of questions I need to ask about any prospective home I would soon work out if the property manager was going to be helpful or not!), and that it was affordable financially - obviously we only have a finite amount funds to allocate to housing!

Unfortunately, we now can't really consider potential and character as critical components of future housing as *potential* means the need for renovations, and *character* is really quite a superficial element in comparison to providing a healthy environment for our family to live in. Also the need to be close to our Dr is not as high, and the close school is no longer our preferred option.

And from that I started to questions...

What are the most critical things we need in a home?

• Less toxic house (so no recent reno's or need to do reno's, no gas, minimal fragrant gardens, considerable distance to neighbours/other hazards plus other things as per my list)
• Bigger house (even just a 3rd bedroom would suffice) with lots of room outside for kids and vegies
• Located closer to our prefered school - which is in a semi rural area - so that covers the desire to be further out of town as well!
  
• Still be within our local Organic Fruit & Vegie companies delivery area!

I'm sure there's going to be more to add to this ongoing saga! These are just my scattered thoughts from this morning :D

NaBloPoMo Wrap Up!

Yes, today is the 31st of July - so the last day of my NaBloPoMo Pledge!

As I'm not one to make promises I can't keep, I knew I would stick with it, but I will admit that there were a few days when I simply did not want to even go near the computer...

I know that my blog is not one of the most exciting, interesting, intellectual or inspiring out there, and I'm certainly not a very eloquent author, but I do love to write - I always have and suspect I always will! So I have enjoyed this month overall. I was able to gain a few insights into my life simply by posting (ie why social interactions exhaust me so much!), and it was nice to just sit down and write every day.

In the future I will try and write a couple of times per week, but as I am trying to limit my internet usage, I wont be here everyday!

As for my initial excitement at being able to write about food, and work on my food photography... well, I didn't really get to do much photography at all did I?! Oh well, that's still something I'm sure I can work on in time!

But, I'm very thankful that Eilleen let me know about this and I have really enjoyed it - so Thank You E!!

And just for something completely unrelated, I thought that in response to Eilleen's question and my response to yesterday's post, I would actually put up the Pro's and Con's list relating to our house...

PRO's

• We LOVE the character of this house and would dearly love to see it restored to its former glory. We truly believe that our plans would have complemented the original theme but made it more liveable for our current era. Our vision would see it being a superb *inner city* (well as much as you can be up here!) townhouse with a lovely alfresco dining area outside taking in all the fragrances of the local restaurants!
  
• The location is so handy to everything! I am 1 block from our Doctor, 3.5klms from Kindy, and around the same to the local supermarket.
• As is, and with *regular* renovations, its an entirely affordable home for us - unlike the rest of our town/preferred areas to live.
• Moving does mean having to do a lot of research - we do at least know all the *devils* we are dealing with here.
• The additional costs of renting elsewhere and maintaining this house for tennants if we can't sell.
  

CON's

• The Indoor Air Quality issues - our Air Filter is run 24 hours per day 7 days per week and simply cannot filter our air so that it is relatively free of nasties.
• The need for Renovations - the house is run down, needs some maintenance and needs to be enlarged to happily house a family, but renovating is fraught with issues for a Chemically Sensitive Family.
• The proximity to neighbours - again, this is only a concern to a Chemically Sensitive Family - most would have no issues with the habits of our neighbours.
• The very busy street our house faces - again, not an issue for most people, but we are concerned about the vehicle emissions and their effect on our health.
• The cost of renovating using Low Volatile Organic Compound products and methods will add considerably to the project. There is also the concern that even using low VOC products and doing the project as slowly as possible and giving lots of off gassing time may not be enough and we may still react - this is an unknown.
  
• The school that we are now planning on sending our girls to, due to its Principal having dealt with Chemically Sensitive children before and being simply wonderful in helping me with my investigation, is out of town - its in a smaller location around 10 minutes out of town. So yes, it is still possible to drive them there daily, however I'd like not to increase our vehicle usage that much. (This is the area we would move to if we were to move).

So there you have it - the Pro's and Con's as to our current housing situation. Either way, we are up for additional costs than we had planned for - either by having to make up the shortfall here between rent received and repayments whilst renting elsewhere (unless we DO sell), or by doing the renovations as safely as we can...

More Decisions to Make

More housing decisions to make, or at the very least, we need to come up with some back up plans...

We have our house on the market as we believe it's adversely affecting our health and we can't really do the renovations we had planned whilst we are living here due to our chemical sensitivity. However, after almost 6 weeks there has been not a single enquiry and some contacts in the Real Estate business here tell us that an almost instanteous stop happened here around a month ago - not a thing is selling anywhere after still having quite a good turnover of properties despite other areas declining markets and rising interest rates.

So, we need to come up with some back up plans in case our house doesn't sell. We realistically can't sit around for too long waiting as we need to consider our health. We have decided we need to set a time limit and then have some back up plans in place to follow.

The two options that we seem to be considering the most at this stage are to rent our house out and rent somewhere else ourselves (as we can't afford to purchase another property if we still own this one), or to stay here and do the renovations - taking as many cautions as we possibly can to reduce their impact on our haelth.

Both plans will cost us money - we certainly wouldn't cover the repayments from any rent received here, so would need to make up the shortfall as well as covering our own rent elsewhere. And doing the renovations VERY slowly and with products designed to cause less reactions, will also add considerably to the project budget. These are short term costs of course... Once the renovations are done, they won't need to be repeated, and if we keep this property we would hope to have some capital growth in the long term. I'm just not very good at looking at these types of long term benefits though - I'm more focussed on what we need to do NOW.

But, an even more important consideration (to me at least!) than money is our health... I don't think you can put a price on it and I want nothing more than to have happy, healthy children. Obviously we don't have a crystal ball to help us know if our sensitivities are going to reduce rapidly or if we are going to have them for the longer term, so we can't really put off making a decision until we know.

We also need to decide if we would ever move back here... If so, then perhaps we could renovate whilst others are living here helping to cover the costs, and then move back once complete and fully offgassed. If not, then I think we need to think about what we really want... Is there any point having this property as an investment if it means we can not buy our own home again in the near future? Do we actually want to buy our own home again? We have often discussed the financial benefits of not living in and owning our own home, as in our financial situation, cash flow is greatly improved if we don't own.. but then that has to be offset against the stability and ability to do whatever we want to our house that comes with owning.

I think a lot more soul searching and talking about this is needed, but I guess in my heart I know we need to move soon, I doubt our house is going to sell quickly, so I think I'm leaning towards moving out, renting the house out and renting something for ourselves. I just don't think I can put us through the renovations wondering if even low VOC products may still cause a reaction - we just don't know and I wouldn't want to get half way through the reno's and realise that we simply HAVE to go...