by Krista | Oct 29, 2013 | Spring
This past weekend Bear and I got went on an adventure – a madcap 2000 km road trip from Queensland to New South Wales and back again to pick up Bear’s car, Duc. We had fully intended to do the wickedly long trip in one straight shot, but after 22 hours of driving, Bear surprised us with a mini-vacation and turned our road trip into a holiday.
It was so much fun!
The cab of our ute was full to bursting with all sorts of healthy snacks to keep us going while we drove through the gorgeous New South Wales countryside. I roasted Brazil nuts with rosemary and sea salt, made venison meat balls, curried eggs and flourless tahini cookies, sliced good strong cheese and nitrate-free sausage, and filled containers with fresh snow peas, tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, and Lebanese cucumbers. We were set!
The first half of our trip was spent in total darkness as we drove through the night to arrive in Milperra by 6 a.m., so we entertained ourselves with audio books from the library and I kept Bear awake with numerous cups of raw cocoa mochas.
Once Duc was loaded onto our trailer we headed north again, through the smoke-filled Blue Mountains and Hunter Valley, still hazy from nearby forest fires.
By the time we arrived on the outskirts of Tamworth, we were knackered and very, very happy to pull over to crash in a motel for the rest of the day.
Turns out Tamworth is the Country Music Capital of Australia and when we saw the gigantic gold guitar out front of the Golden Guitar Motor Inn, we embraced our inner dorks and simply had to stay there.
We could’ve stayed at a quaint bed and breakfast or a posh hotel with entertainment options, but sometimes you just want a clean, quiet place where you can stretch out in air-conditioned comfort and do absolutely nothing.
This place did the trick, and they totally won me over when they handed me a bottle of milk for my afternoon tea, and invited us down later for complimentary wine and beer. Yep, that’s my kind of hospitality.
It was early afternoon so we luxuriated in long, hot showers (is there ANYTHING better than a hot shower after umpteen hours in the car?), took naps, and cozied up on the couch with strawberries, tea, and dark chocolate.
Not bad at all.
For dinner we craved cold drinks and comfort food and found both at the local BBQ joint: Bibs and Ribs. Amused by the crocodile decor – including crocodile head toilets that, when opened, revealed the open jaws of a tooth-filled croc mouth – we eased our aching selves onto wooden seats and sipped cold beer (Bear) and an icy mojito (me). The drinks eased our aching joints and stressed muscles and when our food arrived we were so relaxed we could hardly stay awake long enough to eat. But fish and chips and BBQ chicken can tempt even the most tired traveler, and we happily tucked in. We strolled back to our motel and were sound asleep by 7 p.m. and slept a solid 12 hours.
There’s nothing like good food and good sleep to set you to rights, and the next morning we were back to our perky adventurous selves, ready to head out on the open road to see what we would see.
I can’t wait to tell you about our adventures, from stunning lookouts and a cherry tree farm to Australia’s version of Stonehenge.
What is the best road trip you’ve ever taken?
by Krista | Oct 24, 2013 | Spring
“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn?
Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends?
Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked,
or the hush of a country road at night,
or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak,
or, most beautiful of all,
the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house?
Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”
Norton Juster
Sometimes the world seems a very noisy place. There are so many causes, opinions, and philosophies clamoring for our attention and response. And sometimes I need to pull away for awhile to get my equilibrium back.
I love those treasured quiet moments where all the voices are quieted, including my own, and I can just rest. I create them whenever I can.
In the car while waiting for Bear to run an errand. Such times are wonderful for rolling the windows down, closing my eyes and soaking up sunshine and deliciously cooling breezes.
On the farm right after Bear has dashed off to work with his bag full of papers, lunch, and the detritus of a school teacher’s responsibilities. This is my time to take a deep breath and luxuriate in absolute peace before the farmyard erupts in bleats, cackles, hoots, and quacks as everyone demands a good feed.
During this time I like to do something special just for me. Sometimes it’s reading a few pages from my book or making raw cocoa dandelion mocha. Earlier this week I made fresh-squeezed juice with white nectarines and apples and headed out to my kitchen garden for a sit in the early morning sunshine.
The sun felt so good and I loved just sitting, admiring the flowering thyme and cheery nasturtiums, spotting the first strawberries of the season, not worrying one iota about weeding or watering or getting seedlings transplanted to the big garden.
Soon enough the work of real life beckons and I’m busy writing an article or setting up a photo shoot or trekking through the fields with the goats. But even in those times of busyness, even a few quiet seconds observing a fluffy dandelion head sparkling among the grasses can make a huge difference.
It does me no end of good to take these little moments to restore, refresh, to remind myself that even when life gets crazy and hard and scary and sad, there is beauty and goodness just waiting to nourish a weary soul.
What do you like to do in your quiet moments? XO
by Krista | Oct 21, 2013 | Spring
It’s been a lovely, lovely weekend and soon I will tell you all about it, but today I just want to share some things that have done wonders in cheering my heart in the hopes that they might cheer yours as well. XO
This little girl who arrived in the world yesterday afternoon. Her sister didn’t make it but she did and just seeing her little stalwart survivor self wobbling about makes me smile and take courage.
This gorgeous post on what people really look like. Hint: “Women have cellulite, men have silly buttocks.”
http://dalefavier.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/what-people-really-look-like.html?spref=tw
This handful of wildflowers picked at sunset while I was meandering with my goats. Now it’s on my kitchen table in a tiny blue vase making me smile whenever I go in the kitchen.
This 3-part series that has brought inestimable healing to my heart and the hearts of many who have suffered spiritual abuse of any kind. I feel like there must be sunbeams shooting out of my heart because it feels so light now.
http://journeyfree.org/rts/rts-its-time-to-recognize-it/
This beautiful little creature who got himself stuck in a water bucket before I happened along to rescue him. I felt like I must’ve stumbled into Brambly Hedge. 🙂
This post by the wonderful Anne Lamott:
“A dear friend has a grievous skin condition that has not yet been probably diagnosed, and she is in the deepest rashy misery every day, especially at several peaks hours. Her whole back looks so painful that you want to start scratching it for her; plus shoot her up with a little cool and refreshing morphine. It may be dreaded Japanese river rash.
Her doctor will eventually figure out what it is and be able to treat it but in the meantime, nothing helps, she could open a thriving black market in prescription unguents, although she is a Nana of 70ish–let’s say fifty-21 and may not your black market typo. She is deeply spiritual and active in her mental and psychological health, with a rich self of humor, yet she feels terrible about feeling so terrible. She’s feels guilty.
She said, “I have friends who are coming through chemo, whose bodies have been ravaged, yet they manage to say positive and grateful. So I am trying to keep it in perspective.”
I said, “I am not heavily into perspective at this time. Please call again during regular office hours. In the meantime, it’s awful to hurt and itch at this level every day. I do not accept it on your behalf. It’s a nightmare. I am going to file a brief itch the complaints department.”
She laughed, but said, “It could be so much worse. I have a friend with melanoma, and another who has shingles. Mine will pass.”
I said, “Stop! That is crazy talk. Suffering is suffering.”
How did we get so brainwashed that we can’t even say, “I am climbing out of my skin; and I hate this, and I need extreme comfort right now, even though that may not be convenient for everyone else in this family?” And how do we get back the right and ability to care for ourselves when we are very down and uncomfortable, the way we would for a friend–the way you would take care of me–even though 90% of the world may be in worse shape?
We just do. We start our new 24 hours over NOW. We cannot take care of others from a true and profound place if we blow ourselves off. It’s just the way it is. We can offer what we have: an apricot tree can offer apricots.
Yet, it is so radical to insist on the right to our own care and rest and love and aid. It breaks the contract we signed at 4 years old, to take care of everyone else in the family first, especially dad and then to make do with whatever was left; PLUS, in general, not to have any needs at all.
So it is an act of disloyalty, and there will be payback, and if we stop the train to get help, the long bony finger will appear in the sky, pointing at us, and saying, “You know the rules.”
So here’s my plan: this Facebook page will be available for everyone to complain about stuff their families said they must suck up, or stuff their husbands or children or girlfriends make them feel ashamed about.
We take the action, that we are worthy of being heard and deeply cared for, and then–and only then–the insight will follow. That if someone is suffering, see if you can. If someone is thirsy, get him or her a glass of water, even if it is you.
So for today, 1) feel free to mewl and puke and spew here about how the last few days have been a nightmare or how much your feet hurt a lot of the time, even though you know that amputees do have it much worse, or how much you hate hate hate your current weight, or what an absolute asshat your son has been lately, or how scary you just find all of life on earth some days, and how you can’t get your Internet working and have been on the line with snotty tech support for so long that you may have had a nervous breakdown. will read every single post, and believe complainy-spoiled-overly-sensitive old me, I will GET it.
2). Baby yourself, all day. Radical self care, naps and lotion on the Auntie thighs and maybe too many scrambled eggs and also a basket of raspberries that possibly could feed a family of three for the day, and the new issue of People, or the new Mary Oliver collection.
Okay? Start your engines. I want to hear some nice juicy complaints: for instance, I was on planes and at airports and in cars for 22 of the last 36 hours, a flight got delayed and i missed a connection and I was trapped at the Newark airport forever, and was completely bitter and enraged, even though I got paid for my lecture in Richmond and sold lots of books, and got to be a writer when I grew up.
SEE?
You can do it. I’ll be right here.”
Are there any quotes, stories, experiences, or people who’ve cheered your heart this week? I’d love to hear about them.
XO
by Krista | Oct 14, 2013 | Spring
As you know, I dearly love mornings on our farm. The animals are happily snoozing in the first warming rays of sunshine and the garden, oh, it is a lovely, magical place and shimmering light and glistening dewdrops.
It’s my favorite place to wander for the morning light captures things I miss during the blazing heat of midday.
Slowly but surely I’m turning it into an herb garden with all sorts of wonderful things I can use in herbal teas, medicines, and skin care products. It’s so fun to see it filling up with bergamot, peppermint, rosemary, sage, comfrey, rose geranium, and fennel.
I learned last year that I simply must have flowers in my garden so I’ve got a few lovelies growing: hollyhocks, nasturtiums, cornflowers, Johnny-Jump-Ups, lupines and a few others I can’t remember the names of.
All this growth and color has inspired me tremendously in creating my own homemade skincare products.
I have extremely sensitive skin and for years I moved from one product line to another trying to find something that wouldn’t hurt me. I knew people made their own skincare products but always assumed you had to have special appliances and skills to make them. How wrong I was!
Over the last year I’ve done a massive amount of research, pouring over books and recipes and ideas, collecting ingredients bit by bit. It’s been so fun getting in the kitchen mixing and testing until I found the combinations that worked best for me. It’s like making mud-pies for grown-ups.
I made and used homemade deodorant from a medieval recipe and loved the heavenly scent and that it actually worked.
For the past few months I’ve been using my own moisturizer and found it so soothing and healing.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been using my own cleanser and toner as well and the difference has been incredible. My skin never hurts now and issues that I’ve had for years are clearing up at long last. It feels so good knowing I’m putting stuff on my skin that is healthy enough to eat.
Here are the recipes that I use each day using simple things like yogurt, cold-pressed oil, flower waters, and essential oils. Next up is shampoo, chapstick, and emulsified lotion.
Have you ever made your own toiletries?
Homemade Face Cleanser
Ingredients:
1/4 plain yogurt
4-6 drops rose geranium essential oil
4-6 drops lavender essential oil
Directions:
- Whisk all ingredients together, bottle and refrigerate between uses.
- When ready to use, dampen face with lukewarm water, pour about 1 tbsp of cleaner into hand, rub together with other hand and apply all over face. Rub gently all over then rinse well with lukewarm water. Use damp face cloth to gently rub face to make sure all impurities are removed. Follow with toner and moisturizer.
Homemade Skin Toner
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp rose water
2 Tbsp orange flower water
Directions:
- Whisk ingredients together, bottle and refrigerate between uses. (You don’t have to refrigerate flower waters, but they’re wonderfully cooling to the skin when chilled.)
- When ready to use, dip clean cotton ball in toner and apply to entire face. Follow with moisturizer.
Homemade Face Moisturizer
Ingredients:
1/4 cup cold-pressed oil such as apricot seed, sweet almond, or jojoba
4-6 drops rose geranium essential oil
4-6 drops lavender essential oil
Directions:
- Whisk ingredients together, bottle and refrigerate between uses. (You don’t have to refrigerate oil moisturizers, but it’s just handy to have all three products in the same place.)
- When ready to use, dip teaspoon into oil and collect about 1/8 of a tsp. Pour into hand and rub hands together. Smooth over face, massaging into the skin. If you’ve applied too much, simply remove excess with a clean cotton ball.
by Krista | Oct 13, 2013 | Spring
Welcome to this weeks edition of Five Things That Made Me Smile This Week. (click here to see part one and part two)
1. A stack of new books to read
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;
they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors,
and the most patient of teachers.”
Charles William Eliot
I do so love a good story, especially a new one that pulls me right in. When I moved to Australia I had to leave behind 90% of my library and it absolutely gutted me. It’s been so lovely to rebuild it again through library sales and a funny little bin that sits outside a nearby petrol station where books are available on donation basis. I’ve started a new tradition of beginning each morning with a cup of tea, a good book, and my journal. It does wonders for getting my day off to a fantastic start.
2. Heaps of duck eggs
Through the winter our chooks, ducks and geese cease laying. But once Spring arrives, they lay like mad! Each day I’m collecting bowls full of eggs and using every egg-centric recipe I can think of. (If you have a favorite egg-y recipe you’re willing to share, please do!!) I’m especially excited about the duck eggs because they have such big yolks and are very rich and lovely in baking.
3. A pretty little plate
Bear and I like to have “a little something” with our evening cuppas, and when I found this plate at a thrift store this week, I knew she’d be perfect for holding small delectable morsels. It’s such a cheery plate and makes me happy.
4. Cornflowers and hollyhocks
I was very sad this week to discover that a mystery animal had eaten every one of my cucumber and bean plants. Humbug. But my spirits were restored when my hollyhocks and cornflowers erupted in gorgeous blossoms. They are so beautiful and colorful and cheer my heart every single day.
5. Homemade ice cream
Queensland seems to have skipped Spring completely and launched headfirst into a piping hot summer so I’ve been guzzling iced herbal teas and making batch after batch of dairy-free, sugar-free ice creams. My favorite recipe right now is Strawberry Mint. I use good quality coconut milk (check the label to make sure it’s actually coconut milk and not thickener with a bit of coconut milk thrown in for fun), ripe strawberries, real maple syrup, mint leaves, and mint extract and it is scrumptious. It freezes really hard so make sure to take it out about 10-15 minutes before you’re ready to serve. It’s so lovely to dig into a big bowl of strawberry mint ice cream while sitting on a shady, wind-swept veranda.
What things are making you smile this week? 🙂
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