Simplifying Life - Mark II

ceridwen

mardatha wrote: »

I was just sitting here idly wondering how she was !
re the TT thing, I'm too solitary a person to do things that way...but I do agree that life isn't going to go on as we know it and things are already changing. I think we need to bring back old skills, look at the Victorian Farm - that only just touched on skills we have lost, but there are many more. And not just skills - attitudes and expectations as well. But I would rather sit up my hills and learn and absorb as much as I can on my own....
anti social old bat

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:awww....mardatha...but you're one of my favourite "anti-social old bats" though..:D

ceridwen

Just thought I'd give a few thoughts for the day - from a fiction book I've encountered recently. It presents a sort of alternative Vision for how things could be - which I wouldnt agree with in its entirety - but it presents a vision of a simpler life for Society that sounds a lot more attractive than what we have at present:

http://www.starhawk.org/writings/fifth_sacred_SFvision.html

Well - whats that phrase about "Without vision the people perish". Its useful to have some sort of general idea of how things could be..

ceridwen

Rhonda Jean has put a post on her blog about conducting a review on simplifying their lives that will be of interest here:

http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2009/07/biggest-kitchen-table-simple-home-audit.html

Worth following methinks...loadsa people have commented on this post so far. I'll be going back for a good read later of those comments and a personal think about this. Its still an ongoing "work in progress" chez ceridwen.....

Personally - I'm still in the business of turning my life round 180 degrees:

...I'm learning how to recognize plants and what they are useful for (eating-wise/medicinally/cosmetic purposes)...must be making a teensy bit of progress here...as I find myself walking through my local landscape with friends and they're starting to ask me "whats that? and what can I do with it?" - so maybe a tiny bit of what I'm busy learning is starting to sink in....one heck of a long way still to go though...

...I'm busy guerilla gardening every tiny scrap of land within range and making sure its all ready and cleared of rubbish ready for when people will be looking for stray bits of land to grow food on

...I've decided that "on the seventh day shalt thou rest" (even though I'm not a Christian - I do see great value in the concept of having a Sabbath every week) - ie a day when as little as humanly possible is done of the "necessity" type and one just goes out into Nature/makes homemade cosmetics and herbal "potions", etc/reads inspiring literature/etc

- I've bought my "share" in my local Community Supported Agriculture group (ie foodgrowing offshoot of my local Transition Movement group). I'm not sure whether I will be using this personally or no yet - but I bought "membership" in case I do and because I believe its worth supporting anyway

- I'm "doing my bit" to try to contribute what I can towards communal foodgrowing strategies

- and I'm still learning one heck of a lot now that I have the access to t'Internet that I've had for the last 18? months or so - so making the best of my chance to learn what I can/find like minds/etc whilst the opportunity is there...

mary-op

Hello ceridwen and all................at last I'm back on line ! Would take me too long to scroll back and see what you've been up to at the minute -taking me enough time to get to grips with new comp and everything looking so different on it - thats without having to re-register every site I want to go on now I've got a new e mail address:eek: Daren't think how I'll get on installing new printer/scanner........................lol
Still, at least things are sort of back to normal.............in a way.
Blood test result today showed sodium levels normal thank goodness -maybe now soc.services will re-instate me ? Young lad won't be coming back and the oldest one went off last week and decided not to come back so I've been left to pack his things up and wait for them to be collected. Relief in a way -one or two 'issues' here with him that I could have done without.
Time off line not been wasted - actually de=cluttered here and there, got all my xmas cards made and written and pressies all got -well near enough.
This is day one of being on line so fingers crossed I don't have any hiccups.........................hope you're all ok
We had our first courgettes from the 'veg in pots' last weekend and OH says this weekend will be the first spuds...........plus we've more strawberries than we'v e ever had -and bigger ! OH doesn't like them so I'm forced to eat strawberries and ice cream regularly..............lol (shame there's not enough to make jam)
Take care all x:j

Sorry -forgot to say - new name as had to re-register and it wouldn't accept the old mary43

Frugalista

Good to see you back!

Greenshieldstamp_2

Good to "see" you Mary43
Welcome back.
Greenshield

By the way have you tried going into the Mary43 user control panel and editing your profile as you can change your email address there? I am sure you have, but just a thought anyway. Take care.

mary-op

Thanks Greenshield but I won't have a clue how to change my e mail address...............lol not very technical even on a good day so you'll have to put up with me being 'mary op' (old pensioner) or just plain mary...............lol

Thanks for the welcome Greenshield and Frugalista =good to be back:j

ceridwen

Frugalista wrote: »

Good to see you back!

Ditto to that..

mary-op

Thanks ceridwen.

Well we plod on..............OH currently half way painting the lounge -proving harder than he thought so he's given up for now and repainting the younger lads old room (just in case we get a placement sooner than we thought).l Just white on white.........much simpler than trying to go from dark green to a sort of 'beige/coffee' shade that OH has decided now that he's not keen on anyway:mad:
Ever feel you take four steps forward and six back ? I bet you do as dont we all.............well I did just that (not in the literal sense)
Just when we think Mums estate will be settled Works and Pensions step in and think they may have overpaid mum her pension credit for the 2003/5 period !!!!:eek: That was before she was ill !
So, everything is going to take much longer. We don't have the bank stuff needed so that'll have to be applied for -bruv reckons christmas is we're lucky !
Still what we don't have we won't miss, c'est la vie and all that but I'd like to have been able to draw a line under the whole thing by now and not have it all blocking up my brain !
But we have now organised our wills properly, sorted out POA and even natural burial plot (how depressing is this for a topic !) Something that kept getting put off and needed to be sorted out and must admit I feel better thats another job well done as they say.
Hope you're all ok and have a good weekend despite the rain we're forecast.

ceridwen

Well - August is always a very QUIET month in my experience - so time for some reading methinks:

I've just had a P.M. from a virtual friend - one of the ones who has subsequently joined her own local Transition group - and sounds like things are starting to go nicely with that one too:D and she's asked me for a suitable booklist of books they want their local library to stock.

'Course I coulda saved myself a bitta typing if I'd thought first and typed second....oh well....nevair mind. But - for anyone else who is wondering the same thing:

1. THE book - "The Transition Handbook - from oil dependency to local resilience" by Rob Hopkins. THE book that started the whole ball rolling.

2. "The Transition timeline - for a local, resilient future" - Shaun Chamberlin (the follow-up)

3. "Forest Row - a community work in progress" - its the first "powerdown" book by a local T.T. group.

4. "The transition guide to food" - Tamzin Pinkerton and Rob Hopkins (not out till September!!!)

OTHER useful books for this:

5. "Depletion and abundance (life on the new home front)" - Sharon Astyk (a leading American Post Peak Oil writer - from the point of view of adapting in place for the ordinary person in the street). She's sorta the U.S. equivalent of Rob Hopkins in a way - "bottom-up planning" for the future and what can we all do personally and written in a way that is accessible for the "ordinary person in the street". I dont always agree with her - correction: I often dont agree with her - but I think she's worth reading nevertheless.

6. "Self Reliance" - John Yeoman

7. "On guerrilla gardening" - Richard Reynolds (THE British book on this).

8. "Guerrilla gardening: a manualfesto" - David Tracey

9. "The post petroleum survival guide and cookbook" - Albert Bates (a U.S. somewhat survivalist book by a "character" - but worth a read nonetheless).

10. "The self-sufficientish bible - an eco-living guide for the 21st century" - Andy and Dave Hamilton.

THESE are THE books I think are "major" and/or worth reading.

Me - I'm busy experimenting with growing every wierd and wonderful food plant I can get my hands on/learning about plants/making own cosmetics/investigating herbal remedies and contemplating whether to learn weaving (which I've always had a bit of a fancy for) - thinks: hmmm....weaving my own lengths of cloth from nettles...hmmm....I wonder.....;):D