A Vision Splendid » Around My Home

10 Tips for Reducing School Morning Stress

visionsplendid — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 04:07:00 +0000

Tips for reducing the morning stress.

1. Have all clothes ironed and ready the night before.
2. Put children’s clothes in a place where they can easily access themselves. We put our boys clothes over the same chair every day so when they go to get dressed everything is there.
3. Prepare notes the night before. We have a thin folder for communications between school and home
4. Have lunch boxes out ready to be packed. Depending on what foods you include, some can be prepared the night before.
5. Have an early bed time. Reduce stimulation well before bed time – have quiet music, relaxing baths, turn of TV, read aloud etc
6. Start early in the morning. Don’t leave everything until the last minute when you have to run around madly.
7. Have children do their ‘morning jobs’. Kids thrive on rhythm and routine. Depending on their age they may be able to do their own jobs such as making the bed, tidying their room etc.
8. Get yourself ready early. Get up before your children so you have a head start on the day.
9. Take the time to have a good breakfast.
10. Turn off the TV in the mornings. Time always go slower when the TV is off.

If you can implement these things it will bring peace to a very busy time of the day.

Our Simple Life

visionsplendid — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:02:00 +0000

In keeping with Rhonda at Down to Earth’s challenge, I am writing a post that summarises our approach to simple living.

The whole basis of our lifestyle is captured in my blog tag ” – Live Simply, Live Joyfully. Follow the old paths, they are tried and true”. The ‘Vision Splendid’ is the ideal that my family and I are trying to move towards. We are far from it, but the journey is a lovely one.

There are four of us. Me, Hubbie, and two sons aged 6 and 9. I work outside the home 4 days per week and hubbie is now the stay at home Dad. Because we avoid commercial TV we find that we live in a parallel universe. We have no idea about trends, sales and gadgets! We think it is quite funny.

Our underlying philosophy comes from old fashioned living as we saw with our grandparents.

We LOVE the sustainable way of living in the 1940s. We often chat about how our families were ’self sufficient’ without really knowing it because everybody was ! They had their own water supply, grew everything, raised their own meat. cooked everything from scratch and never had a garbage truck come to collect all their rubbish each week!

We believe that there is a lot to be learned from the old ways. By applying this philosophy we keep our lives simple and joyful. We have jumped off the treadmill of constantly acquiring stuff to make ourselves feel better and then constantly having to work to keep up. We have less income now but more savings because we don’t need ’stuff’.

In practical terms this means the following:

1. Living within our means in a small house with no debt

2. No commercial TV

3. Cooking from scratch
4. Finding old ’sturdy’ items second hand rather than a constant supply of cheap ‘made in china’ items that need replacing every 12 months
5. Spending quality family time together
6. Baking our own bread
7. Brewing our own beer
8. Fixing things ourselves
9. Growing what we can
10. Doing our own renovations
11. Using the town library as a resource
12. Buying local produce
13. Composting our food scraps
14. Minimising plastic packaging on foods
15. Avoiding petrochemicals in products
16. Work on a completely cash budget
17. Changing all lights to CFLs
18. Line dry the washing
19. Menu planning
20. Buying Australian grocery items where local not available
21. Stockpiling

22. Managing my home in a single binder

23. Getting ahead by applying the 6P principle

24. Having a planning day once a week

25. Having a cooking day once a week

26. Work hard at ’saving’ through the year for an annual holiday

27. Using old fashioned items and remedies – e.g. washup with sunlight soap, put eucalyptus oil on your hankie if you feel a cold coming.

28. Wear an apron to keep your clothes clean
29. Turn the TV off and read out loud to my children
30. Wear hand me downs
31. Avoiding food additives and chemicals

We also formulated our own family eco-challenge after watching the Carbon Cops series on the ABC last year. Here are the areas we focused on:

1. Energy

a) Turn off lights when not in use

b) turn off appliances at the wall

c) Have shorter showers

d) install energy efficient light bulbs

e) use re-chargeable batteries

2. Water

a) shorter showers and water saving showerheads

b) catch cold water when waiting for hot to come through – use this to fill water bottle and kettle

c) wash up in the small sink

d) flush when necessary

e) install water tanks

3. Transport

a) Ride bikes to school and work
b) Limit trips to town – by planning and grouping trips

c) Get Dad to ride motorbike to town for smaller items/ errands

d) Walk

e) Find cheaper fuel, drive more economically

4. Garbage

a) Compost Food Scraps

b) Stop Getting Plastic Bags

c) Buy items with less packaging

5. Consumption

a) Don’t buy unnecessary things

b) Work on a cash budget

c) Use things sparingly-

d) Do instead of buy – make it yourself.

This is an ever growing and changing list.

My Kermit Moment.

visionsplendid — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:04:00 +0000

Who’d a thought a Muppet character from the 80s would be espousing such wisdom for generations to come.

Today, I had to agree with Kermit, it’s not easy being green!

We have had atrocious weather, as I said yesterday. My grand plan of having a week to ‘get ahead’ has been somewhat wasted. Today I ventured to town with two kids in tow to go to the second hand shop to get three things – a clothes horse, a torch and ( funnily enough) an umbrella. Previously I had watched ‘THE STORY OF STUFF’. You MUST go to the website and view this short film. I cannot begin to describe the impact it will have on you.

Anyway, at the second hand shop, after the children wanting everything from golf clubs to food vending machines ( so they have to pay for snacks, he tells me ! ) I ask the lady if they have any torches or umbrellas. I wanted an old sturdy torch that was unfashionable but solid. Something that will last another forty years because it’s already been around for 35years. The lady said “ no, we don’t have any. The best place to get them from is THE WAREHOUSE. They’re really cheap”. I said to her, “yes, but I want something old and sturdy because I am sick of buying $2 rubbish” She said “ no sorry and Big W is the best place for umbrellas – they’ve got heaps and they’re really cheap too” – “thank you” I smiled and walked out sighing.

Then I venture to the shops and am very proud of myself for picking up just two apples and putting them in my envirobag, and two carrots and two potatoes – all without plastic bags. I need worstershire sauce and I am happy that the bottle is glass. I buy butter and it’s wrapped in paper and I have a green halo glowing. Then I gt around into the next aisle and rice crackers are on a really good special and I stock up ! bummer – 3 plastics packages ! So I think ‘what the hell’ and grab a packet of salt n vinegar chips on the way out! LOL – MUST TRY HARDER !

WATER LOGGED THEREFORE NOT BLOGGED

visionsplendid — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:54:00 +0000

I currently have a few days off.

We decided not to go away. We decided we will stay around and ‘get things done’. We decided it would be great to do some extra projects. We decided we could have some quality time together as a family. We decided we could do some research and set up some more systems for our eco challenge areas.

But……… it has rained ……. and rained…… and rained……….. and hubbie just ducked his head into my office and said “guess what, honey ? ” and I answered” it’s raining ? ” He just smiled.

Here is the summary….

Entries are for the 24 hours 9.00am to 9.00am on the indicated dates)
5th April/6th April – (0.4 mm)

6th April/7th April – (5.6 mm)
7th April/8th April – (15 mm)
8th April/9th April – (18.4 mm)

9th April/10th April – (3.8 mm)

10th April/11th April – (3.8 mm)

11th April/12th April – (0.2 mm)

12th April/13th April – (0.2 mm)

13th April/14th April – (4.4 mm)

15th April/16th April – (0.6 mm)

16th April/17th April – (3 mm)

17th April/18th April – (2.6 mm)

18th April/19th April – (11.4 mm)

19th April/20th April – (25.2 mm)

20th April/21st April – (39.2 mm)

21st April/22nd April – (16.4 mm)

22nd April/23rd April – (21.4 mm)

Number of rain days: 17

Maximum rainfall rate: 96.8 mm/hour at 17:34:00 on 20 Apri

lTotal rainfall for April: 171.6 mm

Days since rain: 0

Last Rain amount: 21.4 mm

So since I started by break on Saturday we have had 113.6mm in 5 days.

The zucchini plants I planted are so water logged they’re almost going moldy! The only thing that stops me from giving up is thinking about what people did in the 1940s. They couldn’t just say “oh well, it’s too wet too grow anything, jump in the car kids and we will drive the 45 miles to town for pizza” Mind you, they would have preserved their stockpile from the last good season to cover themselves in case of bad seasons. We ( meaning modern society) on the other hand, have no contingency plans. We just rely on a shop being open 24 hours to get whatever we need. We never give any thought to it !

One good thing about all the rain… there’s lots of time to sit with cups of peppermint tea looking over the backyard and pondering the Vision Splendid.

Time for plan B.

The Tea Towel

visionsplendid — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:48:00 +0000

As you may remember I have taken it upon myself to single handed revive the lost art of ‘air pot’ use http://avisionsplendid.blogspot.com/2007/09/chaning-world-one-air-pot-at-time.html

I laughed recently when a girlfriend in Sydney told me that she is single handed reviving the art of giving tea towels ! Remember when people went on holidays they brought back tea towels and spoons as gifts for people ? She cracked me up ! We decided then and there that we are not reviving spoons, just the tea towels.

I can remember receiving tea towels for my ‘glory box’ when I was young. The tea towels were usually brown with pictures of kangaroos on them LOL !

When I was travelling out west earlier this year I picked up two gorgeous tea towels from Inverell in brown and pink that had Australian recipes on them. I gave one to another friend for her birthday with some other bits and pieces ( after telling her our revival story). I gave the other one to my friend from Sydney when she was visiting last week. She laughed so much ! She said she loves it!!!

A few days after giving the first tea towel away my friend turned up with one from England (where she’s from) saying she had brought this back with her and now she knew exactly who would appreciate it. Oh gee I laughed !

Do you remember the tea towel and spoon giving tradition ? It makes me laugh !

So, join the club, lets do a revival of the commemorative tea towel.

Nurture

visionsplendid — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:52:00 +0000

See them jump when I announce ” who would like me to scrub their feet in the bath?” It works so much better than screaming ” get in the shower NOW !!!!”

I light the candles, set the mood. They lay back, relaxed, and enjoy the pampering. I scrub their feet with a peppermint scrub that’s crunchy and smells great. They love the attention. Little do they know I am hypnotising them, slowing them down, preparing them for bed. They get out, we read together and they go to sleep so easily and quickly. Little do they know of the hypnotic, soothing effect of light and water. I think I will try it myself.

Reading Aloud

visionsplendid — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:38:00 +0000

At the moment we are reading the Spiderwick Chronicles. The boys are really enjoying it. As I was reading to them last night I had ‘a moment’. We were tucked up in our queen size bed, me in the middle. Each boy had hold of my long hair and were twisting it through their fingers. This is something that they have done since they were babies. It still amazes me that Number One son will be ten in August and he still twists my hair {(:>) joy of joys!}

As we sat reading I remembered back to my training as a school teacher. There was something called the nuerological impress method of learning to read. It’s where an adult reads aloud to a child and the child tracks or follows along with their finger. There were studies at the time that showed that kids really responded to this style of learning and picked up reading quickly. They also learnt all the intonation, that is the ups and downs in your voice, or the expression.

But… you know what I reckon teaches children to read ? ……

LOVE. Snuggling them up, taking the time, immersing them in rich stories, that special togetherness that probabaly can’t be studied scientifically. It’s probably called ‘modelling’ or ‘osmosis’ but to me it’s the love quotient. – making reading a fun, intersting, magical world of escape rather than a punishment, chore, or something you have to do so you don’t get in trouble for missing your homework at school.

Teach them to LOVE it. Reading can take them on many adventures in life.

COLOUR

visionsplendid — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:54:00 +0000

Rain Rain Go Away…….

visionsplendid — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:57:00 +0000

Rain Rain Rain Rain……………………………………

We have had so much rain! Who was praying for rain? C’mon, own up now ! LOL Haven’t you heard the saying ‘ be careful what you pray for, you just might get it’ ?

Here are some stats:

Rainfall summary:
31st January/1st February – (1.2 mm)
1st February/2nd February – (49 mm)
2nd February/3rd February – (4.8 mm)
3rd February/4th February – (8.6 mm)
4th February/5th February – (12.8 mm)
5th February/6th February – (9.8 mm)

Number of rain days: 6
Maximum rainfall rate: 960 mm/hour at 10:05:00 on 31 January
Total rainfall for February: 86.2 mm
Days since rain: 0
Last Rain amount: 9.8 mm

That’s every day so far !!! Boy…….bring on some sun………………… please.

Rhythm and Routine

visionsplendid — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:27:00 +0000

The school year started for our family yesterday. The boys enjoyed their first day. One in year four and the other in year one.

My focus at the moment is restoring rhythm to our house. Kids thrive on predictability, rhythm and structure. They learn that they are safe, secure and become personally disciplined. Adults are the same to a certain degree. There is a peace in a steady routine and we often feel at our worst when things are happening all over the place and we don’t get the basics done each week.

Because I work four days per week I think the evening rhythm is the most important that needs restoring. Bedtimes are usually all over the place during the long summer school holidays. With daylight savings it’s not getting dark until after 8.30pm, so it’s really important to get the kids to wind down before attempting to put them to bed.

Our evenings will flow like this:

- after school the children can play.
- homework – once I arrive home
- Dinner about 6.15
- shower after dinner
- reading aloud to children ( at the moment we are ready the Spiderwick Chronicles)
- children in their beds – I will let them read or draw for 20 minutes before turning their lights off.

I make sure that the TV is off so that we don’t compete with the noise. I have noticed that the kids choose better activities and use their imaginations better when there is no TV.

Let’s hope the grand plan works well !