Archive for July 19, 2009
Sustainable Sunday
Today was a busy day, at home. Not in that horrible frantic busy way, like when you’re at work trying to keep up with a million emails as well as your regular work, plus the five other things your boss has given you to do just cos they know you can, and the printer is beeping and you have fifteen people all trying to talk to you at once, not to mention the seventeen people from the other side of the world all instant messaging you and your partner texting your phone. (I love you, honey!) I’m talking about the kind of busy that involves doing stuff you want to do. The constant, solid busy that makes you feel like you achieved something at the end of the day. Physical work. What can I say, I like doing things with my own hands.
What with work though, I don’t get as much time as I’d like to spend on those types of things, plus just time to de-stress. I always try to set my weekends up so one day is absolute relaxation, nothing else. Inevitably, that means the other day is full of chores. Yesterday was relaxation day (which included a trip to the shops, admittedly), so today was chore day.
Today, I:
- Washed clothes and a quilt; full loads in a front loader, line dried (I had to start early so the quilt would dry)
- Brushed and bathed the dog, then gave him his peanut butter kong ball, which is his favourite part of the bath routine
- Read a book on making jams, jellies, marmalades, preserves, liquers, pickles, relishes and chutneys – there is a really good-looking recipe for an Indian style chutney with green mangoes and a interesting watermelon rind pickle recipe (the book is Preserves by Lindy Wildsmith)
- Planned where I’m going to set out the carrots, onions and snow peas I’m planting next weekend, with the help of a handy dandy gardening site which tells you what you should plant when, based on your climate. We’ll need a trellis. Might see what Freecycle yields.
- Scrubbed a bunch of plant pots (picked some nice ones to keep in the house, put some on the rack on the front verandah for herbs and planted veges in some others)
- Planted some spinach and onions in aforementioned pots, from seed. I’ve never grown plants from seed before!
- Made some final decisions about how to set up the compost bin. We’re going to use the old concrete laundry tubs under the house, but we still need to work out how to make a lid for it (anyone have any ideas?). Then we need to get some buckets to put under the plug holes and clean it all up
- Hung out some solar lanterns to absorb some energy… we’ll see tomorrow if they work or not. They unfortunately got soaked by a torrential downpour in April so I’m not sure how functional they are going to be
- Sorta kinda cleaned the bathroom cabinet
- Worked on a scarf I’m knitting (will do this later tonight – it’s going to match a beanie I made about 3 years ago).
So all in all, a productive day! Plus Yankee Elv made a super yummy dinner of pumpkin and baked ricotta couscous and mixed roasted veges (pumpkin, zucchini, eggplant, capsicum, french shallots, onion and carrots), which was fantastic and just what I felt like. She is the best girlfriend/partner/wife* ever.
I had a good day.
Loodle's opinion of bath time is not high, as opposed to his opinion of his peanut butter kong ball.
*Sometimes I struggle with terminology, but the sentiment is the same.
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