Business – I sold SuperWAHM in May 2011 and have been business-less ever since.  It feels strange; I haven’t been unemployed for several years now.  I do have a website up still at http://melindabrennan.com but it’s just a placeholder site – nothing to see here folks.

Facebook – as per my last post in 2011, I quit Facebook for about six weeks.  However I seemed to miss out on so much information that wasn’t sent out any other way.  After finding out a friend’s mum had been in hospital for a week and I hadn’t known I went back on.  At present I’m attempting to not allow it to be as much of a time suck as it was previously.

Dian – the kiddo is now 14.  Where did the time go?  She’s very much a teenager, wears electric blue mascara and purple lipstick every day, dresses eclectically, has good days and attitude days.  Overall, she’s one of the most loving kids I’ve ever known.  Of course, I’m biased.  I’m quite proud of her.  She’s not afraid to be her own person, to wear what she wants because she likes it and not because it’s trendy.  She has hobbies that are outside the norm for her age group (collector dolls, photography and zoo-ology) yet follows them passionately regardless of what others think.  That is truly something to be proud of.

Homeschooling – we took Dian out of High School last year and began homeschooling her.  She was getting further and further behind at school, and a few other reasons that motivated this decision – such as the fact that after completing Year 7 she tested at year 5 level for maths.  Her education is going well now and she’s nearly caught up to where she’s meant to be.  We’re aiming to have her caught up to her peers by Year 11 so she can go to College with them, or continue homeschooling.  That’s a decision we’ll make in two years’ time.

Eddie – he’s still Eddie.    Currently in Egypt on a six month military deployment and gets home late April this year.   We have our 7th Anniversary in August this year, but I’ve been telling him that while ‘I’ have been married for seven years, he’s been away so much he’s only up to six!

Me, myself and I – I’m still me too.  The year away from business has been wonderful.  I’ve been able to think about what I want and need to do.  This year, 2012, I’ll be completing my Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assessment, completing my Diploma in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and possibly doing a Cert IV in Project Management.  It’s going to be a fun year!

I’m still interpreting (Auslan sign language) for the two wonderful Deaf guys at church. Last year at Christmas we put on a Love Canberra Love Christmas event that was amazing, and wonderful to interpret for.  These two are so faithful and such wonderful guys.

Unfortunately I’ve had Tennis Elbow in both arms for the last six months or so, which is continuing to be quite painful and shows no sign of improvement.  This has been a slight impediment to my signing, not to mention just in being able to do everyday activities.  At its worst, there were a few weeks where I had trouble just picking up a coffee cup, thankfully the drugs I’m on reduce the pain to just a minor dull ache most of the time.

Toastmasters – I’m still in Toastmasters and recently achieved my Competent Communicator award.  It took me two years to get there, as there were so many other things I did during that time!  I’m the VP-Membership and Treasurer of Woden Lunchtime Toastmasters, and as of last week the VP-Education for Training in Focus Toastmasters.  In the two years I’ve been a toastmaster I’ve also mentored a new Club through startup and charter, and been a Co-ordinator for a Youth Leadership Program in one of the Primary Schools here.  Both of those were fantastic experiences.

Garden – still have my vegie garden although it’s changed a lot from when we first moved in here.  I’ll put an update for that up soon.

Pets – We still have four chickens in the backyard, although not the same four we started with.  Two of them are the originals, two are new.  Our two black Australorps died, one from a fox attack, one from cancer.  We replaced the first one, but that one also had health issues and had to be put down.

The cats are still here.  Suzy continues getting fatter and hairier.  Friday is still the same – the half wild except when he wants food character that he always was.

I think that’s pretty much everything up to date from the last year – so here’s to more updates this year!

A group of working adults got together to visit their University lecturer. The lecturer was happy to see them.  Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

The Lecturer just smiled and went to the kitchen to get an assortment of cups – some porcelain, some in plastic, some in glass, some plain looking and some looked rather expensive and exquisite.

The Lecturer offered his former students the cups to get drinks for themselves.

When all the students had a cup in hand with water, the Lecturer spoke:

“If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal that you only want the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you wanted was water, not the cup, but we unconsciously went for the better cups.”

“Just like in life, if Life is Water, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold or maintain Life, but the quality of Life doesn’t change.”

“If we only concentrate on the cup, we won’t have time to enjoy or taste the water in it.

This is a seven year old Diamond Python.  Gorgeous!

Dian’s dress that she’s wearing was a suprise for her, I made it in the evenings and hung it up on the door for her to see when she woke up.  She loves it!

So what’s been happening the last five months…  umm, lots…

I’m now President and Area Leader for the Canberra Chapter of the International Coach Federation.  It’s kind of scary, really interesting and so far quite rewarding.  The scare factor comes in because (a) I’ve never had a position like this before, and (b) I want to do it well and be a huge benefit for the members in this area.

I’ve revamped my business, changed the name – now SuperWAHM, the look, the focus and all the copy on the website.  At the moment it’s at the same domain http://wahmbizbuilder.com but we’ll be changing that soon for http://superwahm.com.

Eddie did up a desk that we received from Freecycle and it’s finally in my office.  I now have over twice the desk space I’ve had previously.  While I love my antique teak desk it was just way too small.  This one, although not as nice looking, is much more useful and practical.  It used to be a government desk and is HUGE!

Speaking of Freecycle, I received a steam mop the other day from there too.  I’d been looking at them, have several friends who swear they’re wonderful, but wasn’t sure enough to spend a couple of hundred dollars on something I may not use – housework not being too high on my priority list!  This mop is AWESOME!!!  So easy and gets the floor amazingly clean.  With no chemicals!  Ok, it uses electricity so not 100% environmentally friendly, but it’s got to be better than constant chemicals.  And better for us and the cats too.  I dont’ remember when I last got excited about a cleaning appliance.  LOL

Dian finished school for the year, and at the same time concluded her primary schooling.  She’s off to High School starting 1 Feb.  In other slightly related news, she’s starting to develop physically…  We’re now officially the parents of a prepubescent tweenager.  Heaven help us.  The hormonal fluctuations have been going for awhile now.  Hopefully we can guide her through puberty without too much angst, rebellion and arguments.

Both Eddie and I spend a lot of time talking and working with her.  We’ve actively worked on developing relationships with her, both as a parent and as a friend.  At times we have to ‘be’ the parent – the disciplinarian, the one’s who say no and won’t budge.  Most of the time we work on being friends.  Explaining the why’s, the reasoning behind issues, discussing life issues.  (And no, none of us seem to get confused between the two)  Hopefully this work will help us all get through the next few years.

One of our chooks (chickens) had to be put down a couple of months ago.  She had growths developing on her body which turned out to be cancer.  It was one of the Australorps (the black one’s) so we replaced her with another Australorp about a month ago.  Funy thing, chickens are racist.  They stick with their own colours more than mingling.  When we had two white chooks and one black one the black one was NOT included in anything.  She was very much on the outer.

I haven’t been doing a lot of gardening recently.  No rain, too much cold and then extreme heat.  I do have parsley in – it’s going to seed.  One strawberry plant that survived – out of 40 runners two years ago.  Four tomato plants – one Broad Ripple Yellow Currant and one Roma, plus a Tom Thumb dwarf plant.  Yes, I know that’s only three.  I have another that I put in the garden today.  Up to now I’ve been growing them in plastic cups, the sort you use at kids parties.  I realised this morning that this seedling had half-grown tomato’s on it!  So it’s in the garden, but then I thought about it and I’m going to move it later today to a large pot out the front of the house.

Speaking of pots out the front:  I’ve got a polystyrene box on the front porch.  Filled it with some potting mix, worm farm soil, compost, food scraps, then planted it.  It’s growing better than anywhere else here!  In the box, about 2′ x 18″, I’ve got three silverbeet, one Tom Thumb tomato, a patch of Thyme and a gorgeous crop of Basil.  Plus one garlic that I shoved in there on the off chance it would grow – I thought it was too dead to grow but there are shoots appearing.

I’ve got another larger box in the garage and I think I might pull it out for a winter crop as well.  The boxes are working better than the garden because they’re easier to water and feed.

Oh, I’ve also got a pumpkin plant growing, although I can’t remember what sort.  I think the seed packet said “Yummy pumpkin from Laurel”  LOL.  I’ve got a heap of various pumpkin seeds here, from hybrids that my mother and stepdad grew to mixed heirloom seeds, to supermarket seeds I saved from nice tasting pumpkins.  One day I’d like enough ground to grow them all – but their offspring would probably all be cross bred!

There’s also potato’s (Kennebec I think) growing in a half wine barrel and a couple of spare seed potato’s that I threw in between the garden beds.  They’re growing well and I’ve already bandicooted a couple of little potato’s out of the barrel.

Our apple tree – in another half barrel – had flowers on it that grew into tiny apples.  However they only grew to about a cm or so (half inch) before insects and caterpillars got to them and they died and dropped off.  Next year I know to cover them as soon as the flowers fall.  Very disappointing.

I guess I do have a fair garden going now, looking at all of that!  LOL.  I did have 16 corn seedlings growing nicely out in the vegie patch, but two days ago one of the chooks – the newest one – got in there and dug them up looking for worms.  I’ve fixed the fence since then….

I’ve also got a good patch of Comfrey growing, some fantastic Rosemary and our parsnip self-seeded all along the back fence.  It’s too rocky for them to grow properly there though, the roots are all twisted and distorted from growing around the rocks.  They’re a good source of fresh parsnip seeds though.

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking over the past few months.  Ice cream has featured heavily, and heavy is the right word for what it’s doing to my waistline!  I haven’t cooked any bread for awhile, it’s been way too hot here and no air conditioning in the house.  I’m looking forward to being able to get back to that around April when the weather cools down.  Although I can keep on the lookout for some cool changes I guess and plan around that in order to have a loaf now and then.  Wonder how well artisan bread freezes?

I’ve got several Ice Cream recipes to post over the next few weeks, plus some other recipes that have become favourites of ours.

I think that’s all for now, it’s all I can think of anyway.  Pictures and recipes to come over the next few weeks. 

(The above has been shamelessly plagiarised from Fitcat.)  I thought it such a great way to come back after a huge blogging absence that I stole it from her blog.  I’m sure she’ll forgive me!  LOL!

There’s a lot to catch up on, so I’ll be doing a few blog posts over the next few days.

This is the pots all along under the kitchen window. There’s flowers, parsley, mint, cat grass, a lemon tree, a bay tree (that’s the tiny plant in the black pot!), a pot of radishes and coriander, fruit-salad citrus tree (grafted mandarin, navel orange, valencia orange and pomelo), three avocado seeds that haven’t sprouted yet, dead basil, russian comfrey and a chilli plant.

Then there’s the hanging baskets, with snow peas, sugar snap peas and a Broad Ripple Yellow Currant tomato plant. The tomato plant is still flowering and fruiting, absolutely amazing considering it’s the middle of winter and we’re having frosts! The fruit isn’t ripening though, it’s just sitting there green… Plus the child, who seems to grow anywhere!

These are our gardens along the back fence. The frames were made by Eddie, from scavenged pallets. We filled them about one-third full of ‘vegie mix’ that our neighbours gave us. Vegie Mix is purchased soil, well, it’s sold as soil, but I think that’s exagerating! It’s mainly made from cow manure and fill, plus a bit of fertiliser, and a heap of sand to add drainage. If it dries out it becomes rock hard, and plants actually don’t grow that well in it. However, when you mix it with a heap of compost, manure, vermicast and the odd old bag of potting mix, it does very well!

I’ve been harvesting out of these gardens for about two months now. This is garden one; there’s alyssum flowers, parsley, garlic, parsnips, carrots, spring onions up the back, spinach and some coriander that hasn’t sprouted yet and a cabbage that’s being eaten by bugs. However they seem to be sticking just to that one and leaving everything else alone, so I’m happy to leave it there!

Garden two: two walking stick cabbages, alyssum, silverbeet, garlic, spinach, ordinary cabbages. The one in the front was harvested just after this photo and used for the Cortido in yesterday’s post.

Garden three: Broccoli, Cauliflower, silverbeet, beetroot, garlic, Nero de Toscana Kale.

And I can’t find the photo’s of the pumpkin patch, which is now a pile of compost, but I did find a pic of the pumpkins we harvested. The pumpkins were growing when we moved in here, we think from kitchen scraps thrown on the garden. Also in the patch was two tomato plants, one of which we were able to harvest half a dozen small tomatoes (which Dian took to school in her lunches) however the other plant didn’t ripen before winter hit.

I’m intending to put in at least another three gardens for next spring, just need more pallets and a heap more time!

]]> http://melbrennan.com/uncategorized/our-garden/feed/ 7 http://melbrennan.com/uncategorized/cortido/ http://melbrennan.com/uncategorized/cortido/#comments Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:22:34 +0000 Melinda http://melbrennan.com/?p=99

Cortido is South American Saurkraut. I made two jars today using a cabbage from our garden! I’ve noticed how much juicier the home-grown cabbages are than shop bought. They taste way better too! These two jars used almost a full miniature cabbage, plus bought carrots, onion, chilli flakes and oregano. I’ve already picked a cabbage about a month ago and made ordinary saurkraut, with just the cabbage and some fennel and caraway seeds for flavour. There’s one more cabbage that is ready to be picked now, but it will have to wait for a week until I decide what to do with it.