just do it!

Hello honey bunches,

I hope this finds you well and happy, not too warm or too cold, and maybe, hopefully, enjoying a little pocket of time you've carved out just for yourself and nobody else.

Before I start I want to acknowledge that I'm learning how hard it is for me to get straight into the blog writing without a quick discussion of the process. (Please see the the first paragraph of my last blog post for more info on this). I think I know what I want to write about today but I don't know where to start, and setting the scene, describing my morning and talking about where I am at, feels like a short cut from here to there. But knowing that my mum will arrive in a few hours with her (metaphoric) red pen and draw a line through this paragraph on her way to changing my semi colons to colons and moving my commas around makes me wonder if I should try a bit harder or just do it, as the case may be.

Just do it - if there were a theme to my past week, that would be it.

Just do it began last Monday in our gym session, as so many of my big thoughts and blog posts do lately, have you noticed that? The session was actually about finding our wall. Our trainer smashed us. Push ups and sits ups and running and rowing, ropes and weights and squats and kicks and so much more. And then the whole lot again three more times. In the third round I found my wall but somehow got through it and went on. 

But the harder it got, the tireder I became, the more my head talk took over. 'I just finished my period so I don't have a lot of energy today', I thought, 'it's so humid and there's no air' I went on, 'we split and stacked so much wood yesterday so I'm too tired today', I tried, 'I can't concentrate on my breathing', 'I don't like this song', 'I feel weak', 'I don't know what's wrong with me', 'I can't do this'...

Some of them I kept to myself and some of them I puffed out loud to our trainer. 

Just do it - she replied.

And after she told me a couple of times I took it on and tried it. I stopped myself from making the same old excuses and turned inwards to get the job done. I didn't let myself feel the pain but tightened my core, checked my position and focused on the finish line. Over and over until I did it. And it was the best feeling.

All through the week I've tried to do the same. Stop the crazy amount of head talk, stop the self doubt and the questions and all the multiple choices, and just get the job done. I've carried enormous rounds of wood to the splitter, I've pulled up hundreds of meters of irrigation lines that had grass growing over them, I've dealt with daughters with extreme emotions, I've hung washing on the line in winds that almost pushed me over, I've squished a zillion tomatoes and processed just as many apples, I've shopped the city with two teenagers, and I've picked and carried crates and crates of apples and pears and quinces.

I just did it.

You know as silly as it sounds I've never really thought much about that brand's slogan - Just do it - they were only just words until I put them into action and felt them in my core. Now I feel like I could totally wear them on my tee-shirt.....just joking.

I've included the next few photos just for fun. Jazzy asked to borrow my camera while we were out picking fruit earlier in the week and I just did it. It was lovely to see her perspective, nice to be in a few photos for a change and interesting to see what I look like from the back and how farmery my hands are.

Then they all had a go.

Jazzy took this photo.

Indi took this photo.

And Pepper took this photo. I can't help but laugh every time I look at it at how she got everything in focus except for us. I love it.

And with that I have a few questions for you;

Do you read my blog on your phone, tablet or computer?
How do you know when I've updated my blog?
Approximately how many blogs do you read these days?
Do you read my blog for the craft, the family, the farming or something else?
Do you have anything you'd like me to blog about?
Are you listening to S-Town? (I'm up to chapter three)
If you had heaps of pears what would you do with them? (These look good)
Do you, can you, should you just do it?

Thanks and so much love,

Kate xx

Thirty first

Happy last day of the first month of the new year!

Happy thirty first blog post of the new year!

Last year, in 2014, I posted 74 blog posts and here I am in 2015 with 31 up my sleeve already, I'm pretty happy about that.

In truth taking on the blog-a-day project over the summer holidays has had its pros and its cons. The pros being that the girls have been around making my photos prettier, we've done a lot more fun activities to blog about, and the routine has been more relaxed allowing for more time for photography and writing. The cons are that my blog ate up a chunk of time every night often making bed-time very late indeed and the fact that the girls are always flitting around me during the days chatting and distracting me meant that the only time I could ever put aside to focus on my blog was after they were in bed, which was never any earlier than 10.30. And while I am a night person, I don't think I am necessarily an articulate at night person. So often the great and wordy blog posts I had planned during the days, would end up simplified and shortened. I'm hoping that I'll be able to carve out a chunk of time a few days a week when the girls go back to school to write during the day and I hope to see the difference.

I think the fact that the blog-a-day made me take photos every day has been a great thing for my photography. There were some days that I panicked at dinner-time that I hadn't shot anything yet that day and made the girls come out walking with me, but most days I captured what was going on in real time and that makes me happy. It also makes me happy that I didn't break my own personal - no Instagram photos on the blog - rule.

Late last year when I did make the commitment to balance my life better by writing a blog a day in January, I also made a commitment to try and start an online Lightroom course. I did the first class the day I made that statement and haven't had a chance yet to get any further than that since. Hopefully that will change when the girls go back to school too.

I guess there were only about three days that I really struggled and almost didn't follow through but now that it's done I'm really am thrilled that I persevered and I'm pretty pleased that I have the record of this chunk of time too.

I'm grateful that you guys came along with me, encouraging me, joining in with the conversation and never letting on that you found my posts tedious or annoying. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, your kindness means the world.

So what happens to my blogging from here? I guess only time will tell. I just told farmer Bren that I have a few photos that I haven't used in this post that could easily be a blog tomorrow and he just raised his eyebrows. I'd like to post a blog two or three times a week from here on in, but we'll just have to see where this year takes us to see how that goes.

So, see ya soon, and thank you, and love.
My first new year's resolution - tick!

xxxx

stuff.

Thud!
Two months home from our great caravan adventure and I have hit the ground.
Hard.
I've had a tough week.
Nothing big. Just cold, blustery days, tired cranky kidlets, sore elbows, a random nasty comment, an overwhelmed feeling, a chill in my bones, a messy house, a realisation that that's it-we're back, it's over.
Real life.
I just wanna go to bed and snuggle up and crochet the afternoons away.
I think we probably did well to hold this feeling off for so long.

There have been some good bits too mind you.
Miss Pepper's drawings of little people and animals and monsters EVERYWHERE, Miss Jazzy's excitement over her lolly passion project, an amazing phone call and plan, Nel and the gang, Miss Indi's solo, preserving and jamming, my Mum's prize, the twilight walks, the instagram and the look on farmer Bren's face when he told me it was time to pick apples. So good.

I do know I'm lucky. It's all good. It'd just be great if the sun came out and the temp rose by about 10 degrees. It's early Autumn NOT winter.

So I'll just keep plodding on towards the weekend. Trying to focus on the good things, trying to warm up little heads with eared beanies and trying to keep warm.

I'm off to pick apples.
Yay!!

See ya. x

Twirling.

I've just gotten back from a whirl wind, 26 hour trip to Melbourne. I had a ball catching up with lots of crafty bloggy girlies, walking the city streets, hanging out with the parentals and drinking lots of great coffee.

Before I go and get changed into my Farmer Kate clothes I thought you might like to see the new skirt I made last Thursday.

I made it from some of the fabric scraps Michelle sent me. I didn't have enough of either the grey or the red to make an entire skirt so I mixed and matched. Like the red skirt it has a zipper fastener, a lined facing, three layers and a couple of darts.

It is very full, almost tutu like and pretty short and boy is it fun to wear. After my Mum and a couple of my bossy sisters assured me that I am not too old to wear such a skirt I decided to make some more and wear them often.

This skirt makes me feel happy and twirly and dancy.

It doesn't make me want to stack wood, or comb lice out of hair, or deal with crate loads of apples and pears and persimmons, or make dinner and play Uno though, so I'd better go and get changed. Jeans and a hoodie here I come.

Have fun y'all.

I'm loving...

I didn't press publish on the last post I wrote for this blog. It was a long whingy post about how I felt like I was drowning in my own chaos. About how sick I was of feeling late, messy, lost, like I was going to explode, full, overwhelmed and out of control.

I didn't press publish on that post because I wrote it in the middle of that chaos and I couldn't think straight any more and I couldn't trust how I was feeling or if any of my words even made sense.

And then on top of all that I had to hurry up and pack us all up for a visit to Melbourne.

So I left it and we went to Melbourne for 24 hours and now we are back and I feel a bit different. Like having a break from here made me realise how much I love it. The fact that Indi and Jazzy are at friends' houses and there is a bit of quiet and calm doesn't hurt either.

On our return, after unpacking the car, these were the first 10 things that reminded me of how much I love it here.

I do love sewing with vintage florals. This is The Little Blue Flower Dress. A dress I made last weekend. Sewing little dresses with vintage table clothes and sheets makes me happy and calms me down and gives me peace. Its in my shop.

I love living on an organic fruit and veg farm and having the freshest of the Autumn harvest to play with in the kitchen and for the girls to help them selves to.

I love getting new yarn in the mail from a Ravelry destash. This lot will become some sort of scoodie for Miss Jazzy to wear to school.

I love that farmer Boy of mine. Love, love, love, love.

I love having a toasty warm house too.

I love the look of the weekend's garage sale fabric stash drying and airing out on the line. Oh the possibilities.

I love my gang. Its a shame this is the only photo of us country mice all scrubbed up last night for dinner.

I don't love that this dress is still in my house. The birthday girl's party was last Sunday but I got so lost on the way there and drove for miles and miles and miles and then had to turn back when I realised I was completely and totally lost and the red petrol light had been on for ages, I had no mobile reception and I hadn't seen a car or a house for ages. Everyone in the car was crying by that stage.

I do love how Miss Pepper designed the dress for the present though. She chose all the fabrics, sat on my knee while I sewed most of it and then wrapped it up and told me her friend was going to love it. That part's cool.

And I love that I am going to conquer my fears and sew dresses from stretchy knits with these patterns. I love Miss Jazzy's little sketchy characters I keep discovering around the place and I LOVE dreaming, designing and planning our caravan adventure. Farmer Bren has a count down to the big departure on his ipad. Eeeeeeeep can't wait.

What are a couple of things making you smile right now?

See ya. x