hurry, hurry …

Seen this? – Airline asks passengers to pee before flying to save energy. It’s a trial and seems a little far fetched – but doesn’t it all count in the end – lighter passengers, less fuel, less carbon emissions?

I had a million titles for this post- but seeing as it’s all to do with Blog Action Day, and this year the issue is climate change – sometimes the simplest is the best (and easiest!).

What do I want to say about this incredibly important topic- and one pretty close to my heart.

I’m sick of the whole blame game. 

It’s up to both individuals and governments and groups and all types and sorts of people and initiatives. But everyone can do something!

Small things are OK- start small and work up. I like the idea of the 10:10 initiative. It’s about cutting 10% of your carbon emissions in 2010. Achievable stuff. .

10:10 quick ways

1. fly less – combine trips
2. save 10% on heating – insulation, turn thermostat down
3. save 10% on electricity - lightglobes, turn stuff off
4. drive less – try to combine trips, walk or bike more
5. eat better – local, in season
6. buy good stuff - less stuff made = less emissions = less climate change. Repair, second-hand. The old- reduce, reuse, recycle?
7. dump less – less packaging, compost
8. don’t waste food
9. or water – taps, showerheads, rain tanks, grey water, flush less
10. feel happier

Simple, achievable stuff. Imagine the impact if we all reduced by 10%. It’s a good start.

I’ve been making an effort this year

• to combine my work trips so less plane trips
• been driving or going by coach on my frequent trips to Sydney
• using bicarb and vinegar to clean
• we don’t have a clothes dryer – haven’t had one for a few years and we get by
• just trying not to consume as much
• I want to join the local Mt Ainslie park care group. I’ve been meaning to do this for years, but want to put back
• get into the garden, plant some  vegies etc – especially now we have water tanks and grey water.

I don’t get the argument about cost – well I do – but I don’t. I don’t if you think nothing of buying a new car every couple of years but don’t want to make small, basic changes to your lifestyle to save the planet. It’s not about money. It’s about the future.

I don’t know when some people are going to start taking this all for real. But then, maybe some people never will. I need to get over that.

I want ETS in plain English. I don’t think it’s plain enough. It worries me that such an important issue is not properly understood. I don’t understand ETS!  I’m going with The Greens on this though – Greens talk sense on climate change bill.

Ultimately we’ll get photo voltaics. Yeah!.

Am I being too simplistic? Small steps. Small stuff adds up. Small stuff is acheivable and can be non scary and can lead to the bigger stuff. The sum of the whole.

Have you had an ”oh shit’ moment? – when you realised that you finally *got it* about climate change? Read some of the ‘oh shit’ comments in this Crikey article. I think mine was about 18months ago listening to several radio programs on peak oil.

Bit of a rushed post, left a bit too late. Mmmm, hope not.

Kx

Do you ever read that part of the SMH on Saturday where a person selects three possessions- and then they talk about why they chose them, and there is a photo? It’s called ‘favourite things’. Below is last weekend’s page, which isn’t the best example, but the only one I have…..

Saul Eslake (economist and yes I have heard of him) shares his good-luck ‘pixiu’ – why? – you find out that he and his wife have adopted two Chinese-born children. Saul – “The pixiu is a symbol of the personal connections that we have made with China…China has given us these precious gifts that we couldn’t have had on our own.”

I like this kind of stuff – more so when I know something about the person. I’m intrigued by things and why we value them. I also like knowing about the provenance of things – the story behind a favourite possession, how did you come by it, what makes people collect certain things? I like the stories and the memories behind these things.

I’m also pretty hopeless at picking just three, or just five, or the hottest 100 – what you want me to pick? Even with 100 I waver…what if I miss someone, something – wonder what that says of my personality type?  Please don’t ask me to name my favourite five songs of all time – I just can’t !

Anyway- for months now I’ve been feeling a mix of all sorts of emotions- at times I’ve overwhelmed, then distracted, then uncaring, then sad, and more - sometimes all at once, and even sometimes all in one day, or one hour.  Friends and family all say lovely things like “well it’s been a rough/busy/sad/scary/difficult year – you have a lot on….” I know.

On the weekend I got a lovely, unexpected present.

A kettle.

Carl and I were talking about bookshelves and wood and planning more trips to the hardware when Carl said- “I need to drop into Braddon as well….” Anyway I went with him and he bought me this wonderful, fabulous Alessi kettle. Completely unexpected. Completely. Unexpected.

But the timing, the thoughts, the sentiment, the love behind that kettle – all perfect. Hey…and it’s an Alessi kettle, and it whistles and looks so cool and pours so well (so in fact cool design and functionality can work together!).

I’m not sure if it will go in my three favorite things – for you see I still can’t decide on three! (I am currently trying to come up with my top six people to have for dinner – have been thinking about it for about a month now).

The kids however think that we are both mad, although Iz has already claimed the kettle when I die….

Even the box is great!

Kx

I’ve been bombarded with photos of the dust storm – and frankly I am over it….but I loved this one.

I’m sorry I can’t attribute it, because I don’t know anything about it- but Elena sent it to me…

The Boston Globe has some amazing photos as well – they really do great photo stories.
Kx

Backyard #1

It was raining for a few days earlier in the week.
The backyard quickly gets boggy. I got home from work just as it was getting dark and took these photos (and I think from now on I’m going to put up larger photos).

Backyard #2

Backyard #3

What I really want to post about is the raintank – yeah, but I’ll do that soon. Yep – lots to do in the garden, and the clay is hard work, but I’m happy…
Kx

I’m tired? So what’s new?
I have about ten draft posts at present on a whole bunch of stuff. And I’m getting frustrated by my lack of ability to. (well). do. much. really.

Tonight – I present – my scatter-gun approach to my life at present … and my head.

We’ve been in our beautiful house for a few weeks now. It’s wonderful. There is still some, well loads of *tweaking* to do. For instance:

• we haven’t worked out the greywater yet – we don’t seem to have instructions, oh and we haven’t worked out where we will use the greywater yet either. Although for a start I know our big trees- the claret ash, liquid amber, eucalypti, Manchurian Pear could do with some help. And then someone warned me about over watering….too much information. We just need to get down to the enviro-friendly place centre and have a good talk with them. We have a Gator-Pro – in case you’re interested!
• rainwater tank – we’ve had some great rain recently, but have only just realised that it hasn’t made it into the tank? Why? Not sure – again we need more information – which bit of the roof is plumbed to it. Does the tank need priming? What? Carl’s had a quick look…only to find all the gutters blocked with leaves…so clearing those and adding gutter guard first.

That’s just two of a whole stack of things, but you get the picture.

But I think I’m happier..it all seems a bit surreal and unnatural at times…not my happiness…the house! I didn’t think it would make such a difference but it does…and doing things around the house gives me *process time* and I definitely need that.

This video made sense to me:

I need time to process. I reflect. I agonise. I like the idea of thinking something through. I guess what I’m finding frustrating at the moment is that I feel that there is so much going on that I’m not doing anything well. I’m not even starting some things. It’s almost a paralysis. I don’t want it all at once…just need to work through a list, break it up into chunks. I know what I should be doing. It’s just the self-talk. Blah. I’m hard on myself, most of us are. Blogging hasn’t changed my life, but I like trying to articulate what is going on. Hey- it’s the journey isn’t it?

A small win for me has been cleaning the bathroom. No- I’m not mad or insane or sad, but I tried cleaning with bicarb and white vinegar. And it worked. Pretty well. Of course it’s a new bathroom and only two weeks of grunge, but I’m pretty pleased that I was able to use just bicarb and vinegar and it cleaned up beautifully. One of my aims in this house was to be as *green* as possible and it’s a small win, but a win nonetheless. I now have to get the kids on board with cleaning their bathroom (three weeks grunge already and counting…). I have since found out that I should have used lemon too – which makes sense – what was missing in the cleaning process was a shiny, clean smell, and vinegar and bicarb didn’t really fill that gap.

This is our major focus outside at present – dealing with the clay. Tomorrow we are having 5 cubic metres of sub-gravel delivered so that we can even out and then spread this around the south side of the house that needs drainage. It will eventually be covered with recycled gravel and stepping stones – with some planting. I like the sound of gravel paths (and it will keep the dog’s nails down!).

North side of house

I have written before about reading Extremely loud and incredibly close. Well my choice for our next book in bookgroup is this author’s first book – Everything is illuminated. It just sounds like a cool book doesn’t it? Hope so.

So thanks, a big thanks to:

• some pretty out there friends who get things done – Kath and her battle to save a heritage house and Edwina for continuing to pressure and lobby for kids (and her child) with autism. I am in awe of your energy & commitment. There are many others too.
• a shower that is the size of a small lift. I had years of the bath/shower combo – and I love our new shower (and bath). The luxury, indeed almost decadence of a separate bathroom to the kids is still taking me some time to get used to. Actually, not true – I am very used to it already.
• Carlo – for doing almost everything
• Mt Ainslie and the parkland. Oh I have missed you!

I must get around to taking more house photos. Soon. Very soon.

In the meantime I’ll leave with a photo of our spider mate who is living in one of the car headlights at the moment. Actually he/she (probably a she) is not there now…just checked, but she was around for a number of days and quite a few car trips. She has probably now made her way into the car and onto the sun visor and is waiting to surprise me next time the sun is in my eyes.
Makes for pretty cool photos though.

Huntsman in the headlight

Kx

Mould - erk

Exhausted and I have a nagging sore throat, but I wanted to share a few photos and thoughts from the last couple of hectic weeks.

We spent about four days last week moving…I think we did 18 trailer loads – although we kind of lost count..and even more car loads… (and yes- next time we move we are hiring a truck and scrawny, muscly removal guys!)

Load five - still smiling.

And then I spent a couple of days cleaning the rented house – one of those tricky, hard to clean places. The agent had organised to repaint and re-carpet when we left. We argued that it need re-carpeting, but didn’t need repainting – more like major work on ventilation, insulation and condensation -but more paint it is. Just cover that mould I say! Took time to take quite a few photos of mould. We had an inkling that there was mould behind our bed…but discovered this when we moved the bed – I felt really quite ill. We always sleep with the bedroom window open- even in minus temperatures as I love fresh air when sleeping. I just wonder how many mould particles we inhaled while snoozing.

And then during it all…it hailed one day three times, just to add to the fun. And in between the hail..an hour or so of sunshine. Very strange. I like the photo below as it reminds me of an English garden, and it is hail and Dickson in Canberra!

Hail in Dickson backyard

We even have the chooks back from their sojourn in Candelo – Tilda, Feathers and Heather (sadly Fonzie died after much care and attention was lavished on her by Carl’s parents). And yesterday – the first egg! Yay for the chooks!

Here are the chooks enjoying their first moments of freedom after a four hour drive. The chook run is overgrown with grass and all sorts of chookly goodness.

Chooklets are home!

We finally got to sleep in our new house last Friday evening, except I was then on my way to Bowral and then Sydney to have lunch on Saturday to celebrate Jeremy’s birthday. I didn’t even sleep in the house the first night! -  but as dad says – it makes for a good story.

There is champagne in the fridge and I have found and unpacked the groovy anodised aluminium champagne flutes. Maybe this weekend?

So here we are …. coming up for air – mould free air too.

Kx

I saw the latest Harry Potter movie on the weekend. I really enjoyed it, although I think I liked it so much just watching Isabel’s face throughout it all. She was soooooo engaged.

There are a few films that I am looking forward to, and the strange thing is they are all of a genre that I don’t usually follow that much. The sort of fantasy, fairy story, animated film? I am usually up for a serious, searching type of film. Films that don’t hold back and ask hard questions. Or funny, clever, intelligent movies – like the Coen Brothers movies. We are currently re-watching Coen Bros movies with the kids, and loving them all over again.

Maybe it just shows where my head is at at the moment, and my need for fantasy…or lightness…or something else?

First off: Where the wild things are. I know this book back to front and front to back . I have read it so often with the children when they were small. Looking forward to what Spike Jonze can do with it.

And then: Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland. YAY! Can’t wait. I loved Edward Scissorhands and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd. Such rich, rich, colourful, colourful, whimsical, whimsical films (and yes I am deliberately repeating myself). I did have the link to the trailer from YouTube but it’s been pulled. 

And finally: The Fantastic Mr Fox with the equally Fantastic George Clooney. I know, I know- I am with millions of other women and men who think George is a honey- but I love his voice, so George being Mr Fox should be, well, fantastic….

and thanks: thanks so much for all your messages, cards, emails, texts of love and support over the last few months. I feel really blessed (in a totally non theological/religious sense!) to have such a wonderful network of support and happiness around me.

Kx

ooh- almost forgot…Library themed ice-cream? Can you think of any?  Library Liquorice? I like the sshh sshh sshh sherbert.

Jack, Kate and Isabel at Lez' funeral

Lez

Lez my father-in-law died last Friday. So sad, so sudden and unexpected. He was up in Canberra from the South Coast (3 hours away) having some medical tests. Lez died waiting to see the specialist in the Canberra Hospital. Lez was to turn 80 this Thursday. On Thursday we will attend his funeral. On Friday we will all go down to Lez and Margaret’s house in Candelo and have a party to celebrate his life. I liked Lez a lot – the whole in-law relationship can be tricky or so you’d be lead to believe, but I’ve never found it the case with either Lez or Margaret. Lez had an opinion on everything, but I never felt judged. I will miss his quiet “alright love?” as I walked into the room. Always wanted to know that you were alright.

We are all going to miss you Lez. I feel sad. I feel sad for Carl. I feel sad for Jack and Isabel – their grandad has gone.

An online friend wrote to me “remember what made him great, how your life was richer because of him. Take your time…”

Lez in the Warrumbungles, 2004

Jeremy

Jeremy started chemotherapy three weeks ago. He has to have 12 weeks treatment, with chemo every third week. First time through and the end of the first week was bad. He’d lost 5 kilos in that first week and said to me later that at that time he didn’t want to do any more chemo. He has felt better in the last two weeks, so much so that he has been doing half and occasional full days at work. I’ve told him off about that…as have others…half days at the most…you have to look after yourself. It’s really important that Jeremy walk daily and get his lung capacity up. Being ill takes time – there are countless medical appointments, exercise routines, and the bloody paperwork and bills to contend with. Luckily living in Potts Point there are just the most special walks - all close by – Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay, Botanic Gardens, the Cross. I managed to spend a couple of days with Jeremy and Max in Sydney in the second week of chemo and he was definitely feeling better. Another round of chemo started yesterday – a 12 hour day in hospital. I have had some nice phone calls and some lovely times over the last few months with Jem. It’s a shame that it takes an illness to bring us closer together….we have always got on…there is a special connection…but we are all busy and don’t spend enough time just being together. Heal! Dammit.

Too many words

A week or so ago I had too much to drink at a party, and said some inappropriate things about a friend. I was trying to explain to another friend about how I was feeling. I was all over the place. I was also ranting about a whole bunch of things. I don’t even know exactly what I said. What appears to have happened is that someone told this person. I have tried to apologise but I have been ignored. I stuffed up.  And now online I have been deleted, locked out and blogged about. I stuffed up.

Thanks… (haven’t done this for a while):

• for knowing Lez
• family – both sides, all shapes and sizes
• a daughter that just offers to cook and especially seems to know when no-one else wants to….and then cooks fabulous delicious meals
• tea
• Carlo

Kx

Lots of talk about the moon landing 40 years ago has got me thinking.

I don’t have huge memories of times before I was six or seven – I just can’t really remember. Isabel tells me she remembers things from when she was two or so – but I’m not sure if she is prompted by lots of photos, someone talking about a particular event or the occasional video of the time. How do you construct memory?

Moon from Ainslie 29 Dec 2004

I do remember watching the moon landing…but was it a replay or live? Not sure.

According to …yep…wikipedia…the moon landing was 20.17 UTC. Sydney is 10 1/2 hours plus UTC which would make it 6.30 in the morning? What was the delay on relay back to earth?

I remember watching the moon landing on a black and white television in a house across the road from Clemton Park Public School. I was seven at the time. I remember the whole class went and sat in the living room. We didn’t have a TV at home and it’s unlikely that the school had one either.

I love the moon. I don’t think about it a lot, but when I do I am filled with awe (most of the time- other times I am blaming the full moon on crazy behaviour- mine or anyone elses!)

Moon from Ainslie 30 Dec 2004

And I love, just love some of the names of geographical features on the moon. I’ve always liked the idea of seas called names like Sea of Tranquility, Sea of Serenity, and apparently there is a Sea of Crises too and more. Oh and Sea of Nectar!

Here is Doris Day singing ‘Fly me to the moon’. I like this song…not particularly Doris’ version, but I like a woman singing this one, no smooth Frank for me. My memory of this song is my brother’s dear ex-wife Amanda singing this song. I do remember Mandy singing a lot around the house.

so close….so tantalisingly close. Giving three weeks notice on this house on Monday.

Sky through pergola

The worst thing about waiting is … the waiting.

winter sun

In other news Jack got his L plates during the week.

grey water - about to go in

Tomorrow – trip to IKEA to grab stuff. Izzy is coming and we’ll be listening to the JJJ hottest 100 of all time and coming up with our own lists. Of course saying ‘of all time’ is always going to be controversial…

sky, house, windows, reflections

are we there yet? ….almost…but then again we’re never *there* are we?

Kx