Back to blogging... missing the creative outlet once again.

Today I have been trying to bake - channeling my inner Mary Berry / Kirsty Alsopp.
Not very well I hasten to add.

Maya and I have been looking at cake pops. Maya enjoys the decorating side of baking, but gets bored with the actual bake. Therefore, I thought Cake pops would be ideal.

However, impatient soul that I am doesn't like to read instructions. I just looked at pictures.

So, now, I read the instructions... and have realised that mine were too big,
 and that I didn't use enough frosting.
So, we know for next time and should get better results than these:

This was what I was aiming for:

 

Eco - schm-eco

Well, trying my hardest, but it's hard when you're lazy, and when Marks and Spencer have a meal deal on... so tempting. But I am thinking of where the food has come from, and how much recycling I will have with all that packaging.

Need to get back on the eco beauty. However, I have suffered with acne for years, and the only good thing I have found that works all the time in Olay. Very weird. Not sure how sustainable or how eco friendly it is. Nor am I sure what damage the chemicals may be doing. However, my acne is bearable, and my skin glows.

I did buy some eco washing balls though. These are used instead of detergent. They seem ok, and if I get 200 washes for £5, I will be extremely pleased.

I wonder if it is worth trying to convert other people, or whether it is just easier to do your own thing. I have very materialistic friends who shop at Primark and buy accessories to match every outfit. I also have a mum who is happy to buy my little girl crap (necklaces etc) that she doesn't need. They just end up as landfill. And don't get me started on my mother in law who buys value packs of bacon - 1kg for £1. I don't even know if it is from a pig! I'm sure it is a badly reared pig, injected with all sorts of steroids and then the bacon will be full of water and binding agents. Bleaurgh.

So along with ecofriendlyness, I am also on a mission to declutter and simplify my life. It's working for me, but not so much for my husband, who is a horder. We could do with a garage to horde, but unfortunately that was one of our compromises when we bought this house. I keep looking at trademe.co.nz - looking at houses in NZ for if ever we make the move back there. If we do, we will have to unhorde our lives.

Of course, that decision is a whole other blog post.....

Thinking of Home

My other home was struck by a devastating earthquake today.

I have been so emotional. I have felt sick all day. It reminded me of the feeling I had after 9/11.

I went looking for some inspiration to try and deal with it, and found this:

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus on the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
Dalai Lama.

It's a classic, but one which is often forgotten. It is hard not to judge and blame the universe.

I wish I could be there to do something to help with the rescue. I wish I had kept in contact with some more of the people that I met.

I wish for everyone to be ok, and to have the strength to find their own hope.

Today, simply today....

I am such a bad blogger. However, it wasn't until I took a nosy to see if the page was still there that I realised I missed it. It was a huge creative outlet for me.

I am a Facebooker, but your updates can only be a certain length, and I am appalled by the poor spelling and grammar. He he! It's the teacher in me.

So, back to blogging.

A lot has happened since I began in 2008.

I'm teaching, still a full time mum to one, and am doing a correspondence course in Learning and Development. Still renovating the house. Still trying to cling to my mana and kiwiana (unsuccessfully I have to add) but perhaps this blog will be my motivation. They say that writing it down makes it permanent, a solid commitment....

So, one commitment I have made this week is to become more environmentally friendly. I was anyway, but it has lapsed due to laziness of late.

I have signed the pledge to no longer buy new manufactured clothes. I was always a big ebay shopper, but will be serious about it now. Apart from underwear / swimwear / nightwear and osteo shoes, I am determined to purchase all clothes 2nd hand, or to make my own.

I am also going to make more use of my legs and public transport when I can. This, again, is something I was good at - walking into town / work. But over the winter when it has been so dark and so cold, it was just too easy to defrost the car. However, no more!

The shopping has to change too. I have decided to make use of the Ethical Superstore for my stock cupboard / cleaning products - even if it means bulk buying to be more carbon efficient. I am then going to get all my fruit and veg from Ulverston market, and my fish and meat from the local suppliers.

Hopefully, then my recycling pile will shrink.

Oh, and last of all I am going to be planting my own this week - tumbling tomatoes, radishes and courgettes to begin with. Then a bit later I will be doing my salads. I also want to do a herb garden on my kitchen windowsill, however, I am trying to locate a second hand box, or set of pots.

Phew. Wish me luck with all this!

I'm signing the pledge

I ___Laura Crellin_______________ pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 6 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, and on my own blog so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! Signed___ME x_______________.

Beg, borrow, steal.... or rent?

Would you rent an outfit?

It's an interesting concept, renting an outfit instead of buying it, but would we actually want to give that a go, or are we still a bit snobby about things like that?

Clothes swapping, charity shopping and recycling have all seen a boom in the past six months, as people try and make-do with what they've got and try and stay on top of the ever-changing fashion trends. We no longer spend, spend, spend like we used to, and what's more sales bargains can no longer make us go wild with delight. Our environment is changing and that means we have to revaluate our wardrobe and expenditure a tad too.

The renting concept first came to my attention in Sex and The City: The Movie. In New York you could rent the latest designer 'it' bags for a week at a time, never buying but always having the most fashionable bag on your arm to accompany your stylish look

This got me thinking, why is no one out there renting entire wardrobes?

I am heading an a minibreak to Prague in November and am starting to think out my outfit ideas. I need a mixture of city chic, yummy mummy and comfort. Its harder than it sounds! Wouldn't it be great to log onto a website, select some key looks, enter your measurements, dictate what the outfits need to be used for (eg: shopping, theatre, dinner...) and within 48 hours an entire wardrobe of clothes arrives on your doorstep. I'm sure in the fashion world this is easily achieved, but not so much for a gal in the back of beyond.

Friendship - trials and tribulations

Here's the situation:

About a month ago we agreed to go out to dinner tonight with some friends - to an Indian restaurant 15 miles away.
In the meantime, last week we got the keys to our new house. The house was a bombsite - the last owners left a multitude of junk in all the rooms which we have had to dispose of, and about 12 years worth of dust and grime. I have spent all week scrubbing, hauling, polishing, steaming, vacuuming.... all whilst looking after my 15 month old baby girl. When it got too hard on her I called in the grannies to help - which unfortunately has thrown out her routine and she has become unable to settle herself to sleep at night, something which she has never had a problem with before.
RC, my lovely hubby has been unable to get time off work, and as he is working 12 hour shifts this week - he hasn't even seen the house yet.
Yesterday all my belongings arrived from NZ. I was at the house from 7am till 6pm and I am only half way done unpacking.
Tonight will be the first night we spend in the house together. It may take a while to get my little girl to settle to sleep, and to top it all my car has broke down and won't be ready till Monday.
RC is working till 8 again. We can either get a taxi there and back (££££) or his lovely daddy has offered to drive 20 miles to collect us and take us to the restaurant - a 40 mile round trip for him. RC is then up for work again at 7.

So, everthing is telling me to cancel. It makes sense to cancel. We will be falling asleep at the dinner table. And I really just want to curl up on the sofa in front of the TV.

So why am I stressing about it?
My friend will sulk. She won't understand. She'll just tell me to leave Maya with her granny - that she'll be fine.
And I will feel guilty.

I'm letting no one down - there were going to be 6 of us going, so there will still be 4.

Oh dear. It surely shouldn't be this hard. It's times like these that I wish I was in NZ - slightly different culture/mentality about this type of thing.

Bite the bullet, kiwi, just do it.