But I know I should get some answers out......so here we go.
COCONUT OIL
I get mine from East West Organics - they order it in from Ceres, so you out-of-towners might be able to contact Ceres directly if your local shop doesn't stock it. If any of you are purists, I'd better mention it IS refined. You can get unrefined, but it costs three times as much and so we have stuck with the cheaper-but-still-beneficial option. And even that is not cheap. 10l cost $109 last week.
The other issue with it is SATURATED FAT.
If you have got the heebie-jeebies over it, please go here and read at least three of the articles.
ISN'T THE WEATHER COLD!
Why, yes it is! In fact it's been so chilly in the evenings that I ended up feeling sorry for M4 who wears a knitted soaker over his night nappy (and no PJ pants coz they wick moisture through). I started knitting him a pair of longies a couple of days ago. They will be done in time for tonight.
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN READING?
I've been lent a copy of "The Continuum Concept" by Jean Liedloff, which I really need to FINISH by this weekend. I'm bound to discuss it some time next week!
I've got a great stack of self-sufficiency books by the bed and even Father Bear who is renowned for saying "I'm not a farmer" whenever I'm having a rural-dream picked one up and conceded it was "pretty interesting".
At the bottom of that pile are a couple of books about rural New Zealand architecture in the past 150 years. Why? Well, you never know when knowing that might come in handy! I researched traditional villas a couple of months back. Very interesting.
Two of my *own* books are being flicked through too - the old encyclopedia has been too overwhelming in terms of the amount of information that I don't know....but now in comparison to my newest acquisition, Mollison's tome on the right, it makes positively light reading!
And as these photos show, I am desperately in need of reading Father Bear's new book:
Actually, when we travel next year I am hoping to take the time to learn to a) use the camera well and b) sketch and use watercolours. I wonder if I'll be able to sneak this book into someone's pack;-)
ER (13 mo) had two very snuggly days when we got back, and M4 struggled having his first weekend away On His Very Own With No Other Siblings (in fact he ended up sleeping one night at Grandpa's with two sisters!) and T3 got a wee bit teary at church when she could see all her family in the distance....but apart from that....they had a ball. One watched lots of tv * another enjoyed playing Mother to ER * another didn't even have to do any chores, only clear the table * one was surprised to discover it's not just our family that goes to open homes at the weekend! *
Thanks all you families for taking one or two, even at last minute notice, and giving us a wonderful weekend.
WHAT DID YOU DO?
Dropping off kids took an hour and a half! Not bad we thought!
Friday night we ate at a Mongolian restuarant and dreamed. "Let's dream this weekend and no judgements" Father Bear had said. That will be a post of its own!
Friday night we Did Not Sleep. I was awake from 2-4am, at which point I decided I didn't NEED to go back to sleep right now coz I didn't have to get up in the morning, so I read until 5:30.
I then slept in till after 9! Just before 9:30 we discovered we could go to look at a house half an hour away at 10am. We raced out the door and turned up only to discover the gate closed. Hmmm.
Time for some shopping Father Bear needed to do for work....and while he was doing that the house guy rang him. We could go back - but not until after an auction of a villa on two acres that we were en route to. Bidding started above our final price so we were not in the running - actually noone was. There were no bids and we raced off to the other house. Father Bear loved loved loved it. We looked round for an hour, chatted with the owner and agreed to let him know what we think it's worth (it's not on the market).
Then we had a spontaneous-due-to-circumstances shopping afternoon, picking up some great bargains to get packed away for The Trip.
A weekend away for us almost always involves at least a few hours at Borders....this was no exception, but we were exhausted by 7:30 so headed to the hotel for the night. We both had a new book to read, but only managed to glance through the newspaper!
Sunday morning we wandered around the Viaduct Basin, stopped for breakfast in a cafe....Father Bear let me take my knitting and he watched the rugby replay on a big screen. Win-win! We thought we could get used to having no children and no church every weekend!
We wandered along the waterfront and stopped for ENORMOUS icecreams before heading back to pick up kids. It would be nice to say everyone lived ahappily ever after, but the reality is the older ones were tired and scratchy and snitching with each other and generally quite unpleasant.
It was still a wonderful weekend though.
WHICH FORUMS HAVE YOU BEEN LURKING AROUND?
http://www.ruralvillage.org/
http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/
http://www.bootsnall.com/
and one with a few friends.
ARE THE OLDER KIDS READY FOR THEIR SCIENCE COMPETITION? ISN'T IT SOON?
Yes! And yes. They're tossing up whether to blog about it now (coz they're all done) or wait until after The Day - Monday.
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