on the first

Happy new year lovely ones!!

I know it's Sunday and not Friday but I still haven't decided whether or not I'll blog each day this month so I thought I'd hedge my bets and pop in to say hello just in case.

Also I felt that my last blog post was a little on the negative side with so many things I had not checked off my 2016 to-do list, and wanted a chance to get on record some of the things I had.

I won't keep you long, the girls are watching The Notebook and my farmer boy is reading his book, but I'm sure someone will want me soon. I've quickly noted down seven things and hopefully I'll come up with an eighth before I get to the end because I'm not at all a fan of odd numbers, so here we go.

I took the cover shot for the autumn issue of Slow Living magazine. I can't begin to tell you what a thrill that was. Every time I saw it in a shop or a cafe or on some one's Instagram feed I couldn't help but let out a little squeal of pride and delight.

One time just after it came out, I was in a cafe in Ballarat and asked the woman behind the counter if she could pass it to me so I could have a look. She started telling me about the gorgeous farm stall just outside Daylesford that sold the most delicious apples she'd ever tasted. Of course I must have been bright pink before I admitted to her that that was me. Crazy!!

We did a small renovation of our house that added another bedroom, a retreat for the girls, a studio for us, a remodelled lounge-room and a corridor with a long bench seat and a desk. Our friend Annabel drew up the plans, our friend Jobbo and Bren worked on it two days a week, our friend Gary painted it and our friend Jezza did all the electrics. And Bren worked tirelessly to make sure that every bit of material used was as sustainable, and as recycled, and as local as he could find. The shelves in particular all tell their own stories coming from the change-rooms at the old Alcoa factory (via our friends at Imperial Fox), our friend Liam's mill down the road, and some that was milled here from trees out of our forest.

In April I lost my last remaining grandparent. That's not something I achieved obviously, but sometimes when I remember that my Booba and Zeida are not here anymore I feel so overcome with grief and heaviness that even taking the next breath seems like an achievement. This morning it occurred to me that this will be the first year of my life lived without them and my eyes filled up with hot tears, as they are now too.

I knitted seven pairs of socks, two shawls, one doll's cardigan, one jumper, one beanie, three hot water bottle covers, and have several other projects that are on the go.

I dealt with a bully by exposing the issue.

Jazzy and I went to visit the optometrist in March and have been wearing glasses ever since. Not just for reading but all the time. That's not all that easy when you're a grubby farmer either. 

My new glasses and I read 44 books last year! I must admit I raced to get through the last pages of Outlander to make the final count a nice even number, but unfortunately the page count still sits at 14,425. Thanks Goodreads for the tally.

And after years of suggestion and encouragement from my farmer boy I stopped buying my aluminum filled deodorant from the supermarket and started wearing a hippie one instead. I resisted for so long because I thought I was too smelly to try such a thing, but I'm here to say that it works. I farm and I gym and I mother and I do lots of stuff that makes me sweaty, but I'm possibly less stinky than ever. AND the sweaty-deoderanty smell doesn't get stuck to my clothes anymore and the underarms of my tee-shirts come out of the wash smelling fresh.

I highly recommend the change if you haven't already. I've tried quite a few over the last few months and my favourite is the miessence - ancient spice.


And of course; I mothered and wifed and loved and daughtered and sistered and friended and thought and felt and listened and learned and ate and ran and lifted and laughed and planted and dug and wrote and photographed and posted and tried and wondered and stressed and blogged and texted and cooked and hoped and dreamed and grew and burned and wept and harvested and planned and drove and missed and knitted and encouraged and and and

and I might see you tomorrow or maybe on Friday.

Lots and lots of love and wishes for a sweet and productive and love-filled new year.

Love Kate xx