The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

Loved loved loved loved it! I got an old second hand copy of this through the Swap Club, which I am so happy with. It is a 1956 hard cover reprint of the book originally published in 1911. There is something about old books. Not just the smell and feel of older books and their old fashioned font, but I mean books written a long time ago.

How I loved this happily ending and redemptive story! It was sweet and romantic and full of childhood. The children played and grew in a way that I would love for my own children to experience; from morning till evening under broad skies, imagining and industrious and playing up a great appetite and making bodies ready for peaceful sleep.

I’m so glad I have a copy of this one as I know it’s one I will enjoy again, and I look forward to reading it to the children too when they are a little older.

Shameless Plug

For almost three years now I have had a little business selling modern cloth nappies. I started using cloth nappies instead of disposables when B3 was a baby and straight away started making my own and ended up with my own design and I have been selling CutieBums nappies online ever since.

The cloth nappy thing is really gaining momentum here in New Zealand as people are becoming increasingly concerned about contributing massive amounts of waste to landfill in the form of disposable nappies. As well as the environmental reasons, cloth nappies work out a lot cheaper than disposables*, and are much nicer for babies to wear as well as being incredibly cute!

Good quality modern cloth nappies are not leaky, smelly or hard to clean. They are easy to use, easy to wash and it feels good to know that the little extra work you put in is all a step in the right direction.

I have come to love using cloth nappies….I don’t mind washing them and love to see them out on my clothes line. There was a very noticeable change in the amount of rubbish we put out for landfill collection each week. I don’t miss the smell of wet or soiled disposables in our wheely bin or worse in the household rubbish. I am glad to be using less single use products, (and at risk of shocking some of you I’m also talking about feminine sanitary products – ask me if you’re interested) and every time I shop, I’m glad I don’t have to buy them.

For the last 12 months or so since R1 was born (he’s in cloth too! See Below), the business has been rather neglected. One of the nice things about a small home based business of this nature is that I can regulate the number of hours I am willing to put into it and when our third baby arrived, which coincided with our decision to home educate E5, things seemed rather busy and the business got pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

Anyway, I’m very glad to say that I’m now finding I have the time to get back into the swing of things and will be spending a little more time on my little business. Heres some pics of my products. There are a range of prints and colours available and you can find more information about the products on my website. So, feel free to tell all your friends! (and/or email them this post!)

R1 when he was three days old…in a NB CutieBums fitted nappy.

And at 2 months old in a Small CutieBums Fitted Nappy.

*Disclaimer. Cloth nappies don’t work out cheaper if you end up buying gazillions of cloth nappies just because they are cute. Consider yourself warned…cloth nappies are lovely and once you’ve used them you’ll find they are addictive. Strange I know, but true.

I’m Speechless

 

And the Baby turned 1

How did this happen so fast?

Here’s my sweet little one on his birthday.

We had some friends over for coffee and to help us eat cake. I didn’t want to do a party this time around because I usually give myself a headache with all the work. But I really did want to do something to celebrate his day. It’s a family tradition that each of our children have had a Jack-In-The-Box cake for their first birthday, and when you make cake it’s much more fun to share it with someone. So we invited three couples around with their children, so the non-party turned out quite like a party with all up 8 adults and 12 children.

  

We had a great day! The kids all played nicely without incident or too much mess, and adults chatted and relaxed until mid afternoon. Our good friends B & M lingered late into the afternoon after their daughter went to play with one of the other families as they left. The birthday boy had a sleep in the afternoon while we chatted.

I Met a Man Called Danny

There is a man D and I have regularly seen near our local shops who hangs around outside the bakery and asks people leaving for a ’spare dollar’.

I have noticed him many times before but I don’t remember the first time I saw him. He has striking clear blue eyes and an unobtrusive manner. He’s clean and while not immaculately groomed, is certainly not what I would call unkempt.

There have been at least two occasions when I have been with D and waited in the car while D went in to buy bread and I’ve been glad to see him give some coins. However on two occasions when I have gone in either with the children or with them waiting in the car that he has asked me for spare money. I have each time quickly refused with a mumbled “No, sorry”. This has been an automatic and conditioned response because I am a compassionate person. I’m not sure why I have this unthinking response when anyone approaches me for anything (this includes people who door knock selling things, people asking for surveys in the shopping mall, even people giving free samples in the supermarket). I just always so “No.”.

Each time I had refused this man however, I drove away wishing I knew his story. Wishing I had not only given him money, but offered him a meal; and feeling disappointed in myself that when it really counted I didn’t do what I could have done. Feeling that I had rejected him and was cruel.

Last Sunday we were at the local shops to get fish ‘n chips for lunch and D had gone ahead with the our older two children and their friend and I stayed in the car not feeling too well, and waiting with baby R. I was just thinking to myself about this man and wondered how long it was since we’d seen him. A moment later I noticed him hunkered down outside the bakery. I sat for a moment watching him, but before really thinking too much about it I got R out of his car seat, and walked over to where he was. I stuck out my hand and said

“Hello, I’m E. I’ve seen you around here before.”

“Oh, I’m Danny.” He shook my hand and we started talking.

We ended up chatting for a while and I was able to ask a few questions about his situation.

You see, after driving away previous times I started to question why I have this immediate wall response to someone who is needy. The same thing happened to me in India and while on some occasions I gave to beggars, sometimes it was all to easy to just put up the defenses and walk on by.

I have decided that often I feel threatened by neediness. I think If I give this man some money, will he keep taking from me over and over and never go away. In India during my travels I justified my hardened heart with the old ‘the beggar is probably an unfortunate victim of organised crime and is owned by some greedy pimp like character and my giving will only put more money into that corrupt system‘ line. Here in the west I modify it to ‘the guy is probably just trying to scrounge the money to buy his next drink or satisfy a drug habit, and what did he do with the money the government gave him anyway?’ But you know what…I also came to the conclusion that I don’t know what it’s like to be so desperate that I have to humble myself to beg from strangers. I can’t imagine it would ever be easy to beg for money, and so for someone to be that desperate who am I to judge their motives and problems. You just never know what people are facing, and how they got there. Everyone has a story to tell.

I’m glad I talked to Danny. Now that there is a name to the face, I will no longer be able to just walk on by. I no longer feel threatened by this man’s neediness. I walked away full of hope that his life might one day get better. My faith in God, that sometimes seems to become overly complicated and hence ineffective in the world, was simplified. The simple power of the good news about Jesus to change lives. And you know what…it made me come alive!

For the Children’s Sake

For the Children’s Sake – Susan Schaeffer MacAulay

I borrowed this book from a friend earlier in the year and it’s one I wouldn’t mind having on my own shelf to look back to from time to time.

It’s basically an application of the ideas of Charlotte Mason. (This is a Wikipedia link but if you’re interested in her ideas, there are heaps of websites among the homeschooling community – google is your friend.)

I loved the ideas presented in this book, but the two that I know I will carry with me are 1) the idea of living books, and children learning from whole books and 2) lots and lots and lots of free (outdoor preferably) play. These are two things that particularly work well with home schooling and something we have plenty of time to enjoy.

Pippi Longstocking

Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren

 Funny. Had E5 giggling and begging for more. As soon as we finished she asked to go back and re-read her favourite chapters. I still have memories of enjoying it as a child and it was fun to revisit. I like that each chapter can be read as a short story of it’s own.

OOohhh I’m so happy

Look what I found!  It’s Swap Club, and is a website where you can swap books, movies, music and games. There is no exchange of money between users. You simply list books you no longer want and put a ‘price’ on them in terms of Points. If you see a book you want you request it and forfeit the number of points it is valued at. The swapper sends the book to you at their expense, but of course if they request a book from someone else, it gets shipped to them for free, so it all comes out in the wash as they say.

It’s free to join and you get a couple of credits just for joining and listing a few books to offer, so you can start receiving a book or two straight away! AND you get credits for anyone who joins because of you, so if you do like books (or CD’s, games, magazines or movies) or you have some to get rid of, go and check it out. If you join say that Embejo sent you and I’ll get extra credit to swap for more books!

The Widow and Her Hero

The Widow and Her Hero – Thomas Kennealy

 A thinly fictionised version of the events of the ill fated Operation Rimau during WWII. It resulted in the capture, repeated torture and finally execution of several Australians at the hands of the Japanese in Singapore, just 4 weeks before the Japanese surrender. This link explains both the historical events and a review of the book.

Enjoyable, again the book struck me as factual and historical rather than engaging me with emotion in the drama and making me identify with Grace. But, it was a good read and I finished it in just over a week, so not overly difficult reading.

The Party’s Over

I’m nearly always the last to leave a party. Maybe that’s just because I don’t get out much these days and when I do get out, I’m like an animal out of it’s cage and I just don’t wanna get back in. Nevertheless, there always comes a time when nearly all the guests have gone, there are empty glasses and empty bottles, dangling streamers and straggling balloons, the left over bits of food and it’s time to say good night.

Thanks for all those who visited my blog this week for the Ultimate Blog Party…it’s been fun, and I hope you’ll all pop around for a coffee from time to time. I’ve come across some new blogs to read which I’ll add to my blogroll one of these days.

Just one more thing before you all head home…. it’s time to draw a winner. I have written the names of all the commenters here:

Placed them all in this beautiful new kete:

One was drawn randomly (and you’ll just have to trust me on that one) AND>>>>The winner of the little giveaway mentioned here is *drumroll please ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….*

Congratulations Michelle R….I’ll be emailing you for a postal address and something will be coming your way! (I’ll post pics of what it is when I think of something it’s on it’s way.) Thanks for playing everyone.