I need your HELP!!!!!

Hi guys I need your help....

Since things have been a little slow around here (and since my friend Nell offered to help spread the love) I thought we might over the month of June do a mass sprinkling but  I will need your help!

This would involve YOU doing some sprinkling and if you are willing to help me out with either 10 or 20 sprinkle packs for you to hide. They will be ready made up and I will send them out to you. I am hoping to get out between 80 and 100 packs this month. There is no need to go to extremes you can 'hide' or leave these packs where ever you like, you can keep it simple or be creative. It would be great if you could take a few photos but you needn't take photos of every pack you release. I will just keep all packs with the word Happiness on them for this month. I would love it if you blogged about your experiences on your own blog and also let us know how you went!

If you would love to help me either email me at  paul.fidler5@bigpond.com or leave a comment.

So I am particularly shouting out to:

 Ali- in the capital (you so gotta help me girl)

Sami are you still in WA??

Nicole- would you do some locally??

Julie are you still around??

Anyone else?? Feel free to jump in, I will love you forever :P

So I will take the first week of June and Nell will be doing some where around the week of the18th of June.

Are you up to being a fairy with me???

Today

Right now: I am staying positive.
I am right in the middle of toilet training Luke and we have had some major breakthroughs.
I am learning a lot about Sensory Processing Disorder, had you ever heard of this disorder cos I hadn't!
And while I am learning a lot about this disorder Luke is just learning and becoming a new little boy.
I am not pushing him at all while we are toilet training- we are not doing any of his OT or speech, there is enough learning going on.
He actually asked me to go to the toilet this morning and then did #2- we have success :)
We have had our accidents and bad moments but today feels amazing so I'm just going with it.
This last weekend we had a big cook up and I made enough meals for the rest of the week, yippee no cooking for me (unless I want to) so nice to have a break, we don't have takeaway where we live so that's not an option for busy times.
I am hoping that we get there.

Why Kindness is so Amazing and some Sprinkles

With everything going on with Luke lately I have been reading and discovering a lot about the brain. I am never going to understand it completely and will really only understand the basics but oh my goodness what an AMAZING  muscle the brain is! Atm I am reading '10 mindful minutes' by Goldie Hawn, I found that the book is much more helpful for my parenting with Blake and not so much with Luke but it has provided some basic knowledge on how the brain works and right now I am really watching Luke's brain make many new connections in his brain everyday. I also came across a book in the shop the other day that was about people who has had severe accidents or were retarded etc. and they learnt to connect different parts of there brains so that they could function in everyday life. If they can do it then I am sure that my healthy little Luke can  connect as many pathways in his brain as possible to get everything working better!

(last week I put a pack in a book and returned the book to the library)

It is possible for the brain to do many many things but one of the things that sparked my interest is that you can 'literally grow your brains ability to care' by performing acts of kindness you release dopamine  and activate the brains pleasure centres and the effects last over a long period of time!! Isn't that Amazing. Research shows that by doing five acts of kindness a week can boost our mood, reduce depression, increase optimism, we feel less isolation, we have greater joyfulness, we create more resilience within ourselves AND it strengthens our immune system and boost our health!

That is a lot that you get back from doing something nice for someone else!

(Luke taking a break in the car)

These acts of kindness can be simple things like:

Helping someone at work or school.

Cheering someone up.

Opening a door for someone.

Letting someone go in front of you at the checkout.

Give a friend a hug.

Telling someone that they did a great job.

Helping an elderly person (cross the street, or with there bags or up some stairs or put there shopping trolley back!).

Give a smile.

Say thank you to the people you see, make them feel appreciated.

give someone a bunch of home grown flowers.

Why not get creative with your kindness!

Remember that by doing acts of kindness you get so much back but also in turn often the recipient will pass it on in some way because you made them feel good. Share what you did with your family  because it is such a great thing for kids and adults to learn and sharing with them also boost there happiness because they imagine how you felt when you did something nice and they then get a happiness kick themselves.

Do you wanna do some acts of kindness with me?

Love and Wishes

I am a little behind with my sprinkle packs (are you really surprised?) ;) but last week I did hide one on the Amy Gillet Bike track. As you can see from the photos it was a beautiful day!

 And inst this tree just magical with its autumn colours, so beautiful.

 This tree was hanging over the path. I so hope that someone finds this one!

It was kinda nice hanging wishes on a tree.

Did you find it, if you did leave a comment!

What are you wishing for?

Do you still wish upon a star?

Wishing is such a child like thing isn't it?

Mothers Day Catch up :)

Today I walked 7.5kms in the Mothers Day Classic!

Yay I can tick off one of the things that I committed to this year. Even though I promised myself that I would be running I very quickly realised with everything going on with Luke that I just wouldn't have the time. I did what I could. And I am happy that I managed to be in the event!!!

Some other things that have been going on around here:

 Currant buns made in the bread maker, they were yummy for breakfast.

 Some little succulents were planted as our very first indoor plants.

There has also been a bit of scarf wearing happening here now that the weather is getting a little cooler.

The autumn colours here in the hills are really beautiful.... I will have to show you next time!

Hope you had a happy mothers day with lots of mummy cuddles!

Sprinkling: Love and Joy

I had a bit more fun with this one I was so nervous with the first one mostly because I am trying to leave them without anybody noticing me, it would be nice if people are a little surprised when they find them.

 We left it in Nairne and I really hope someone finds it. I hope it got found before it rained and got all wet!

I hung it from the flying fox at the play ground.

Luke wanted to say a big hello to the person who finds it!

Hope your having a joyful day. xxx

Sprinkling: Love and Hope

Oh boy we have had a busy day today, Luke had OT and then we had to get some food shopping done. When we were finished I thought what better place to put the first pack than attached to a shopping trolley because most people don't really love shopping. 

I thought hope was an appropriate word considering this is the very first sprinkling to be released and I have lots of hopes that this brings a smile to someone's day!

Introducing a Sprinkling of Fairy Dust!

If you haven't already noticed from recent blog posts there has been a level of frustration  and really with some of the things going on in our lives I have been too often getting upset and feeling like things are just so unfair. Dealing with Luke's problems is becoming increasingly more difficult. We are dealing with more and more people who are overworked and who generally just don't have time to care. Over the last few months my frustration became 'what can I do to change this?' Paul and I had many many conversations about what could I do and all I knew was that I wanted to bring more love into our own lives and to others, I wanted to remind people about love and happiness and that we can care for each other, it is simple.

 Even strangers can share a moment of love.

It doesn't have to be big it only has to feel like a little fairy dust sprinkled on your day.

It is time and I have to do something about it, from my heart in my own little way.

Say a big happy warm HELLO to A sprinkling of Fairy Dust!

I am going to be releasing between 100 and  200 (4 to 6 a week) of these packs between now and the end of the year.

For the first month I will be focusing on leaving these little packs around Adelaide.

I am really excited about this little bit of love that I am going to be leaving around the place. And am even more excited that someone might find these and check in here and let us know if it bought them a smile or made their day a little brighter.

Each pack will have its own word relating to love so that we can track each pack- a word is far more personal and meaningful than a number.

I will post a photo of each pack here throughout the week and if you find one feel free to either leave a comment or email me and let me know about your find!!

I will be setting my first packs free tomorrow when we are out and about

Next month I would love this little project to travel a little further so leave a comment if you would love to be a fairy too.

pretty things in our sky

We have been noticing changes here. We seem to be going from butterfly season.

 To rainbow season.

And Luke is always the one to spot them!

Today I Love

Today I am loving mango smoothies made with frozen mango and spelt apple and blueberry crumble with organic yogurt.

 I am loving the new lime and lemon trees I bought yesterday and wondering how long till we get some fruit from them.

 Loving freshly cleaned drawer in my kitchen.

 Loving that we finally have some capsicums growing in Blake's little greenhouse, I have tried to grow capsicums so many times, this is the first time we have had any.

 As always I am loving having fresh flowers on my table.

 Loving getting out my sewing machine and making some new cushion covers with my old curtains.

I'm also loving that Blake and Paul have gone to the movies today, Blake has been talking my ears off so it is nice to have a little quite. :)

Thoughts

We are officially in the first week of school holidays here and I the boys and I have had a lovely time playing, catching up on life around the home and taking a sigh of relief from all the stuff going on with Luke. Apart from spending some time each day doing a bit of 'homework' with Luke I have been able to have a rest from the thoughts surrounding the issues with Luke and now that I have had some breathing space there are many things that were talked about during the last ten weeks that are circling around my mind.

During this break from 'Luke thoughts' there has been alot of thinking about our journey to a simpler life, there is always a lot of talk about it around here in some form or another from the extreme dreams that I am totally not ready for like owning a farm to finally getting us some chickens to spending more time bush walking and expanding our veggie beds. Lately there has also been a lot of talk about the hierarchy of food that we buy. I already have my own system but I recently bumped into the zero waste home and discovered that there is more that I could be adding to my list. Here is the order that I usually purchase items in:

1.Local and organic

2.Local or Organic (depending)

3.Then Brand name- hopefully an Australian brand

4.Then Home brand

We are still buying from leading supermarkets, which I am not super happy about but has really been our only option at this point with Luke. Because taking him shopping is an undertaking within itself and it is simply impossible to take him to more than one shop. So we have been doing the best that we could but on the horizon is the thought that he will be at school soon and this will free up more time for me. And although we live quite a way from where we could get what I really want the time may be soon there to go further. Anyway I do worry that at some point these supermarkets will simply only sell there own brand products and we wont have too much choice because we have voted with our dollars  to buy the cheapest option for too long.  Not to mention that in Woolworth's especially I notice that they are not putting other Organic brands on the shelves to meet demand but are putting there own organic home brand products.

But the next option to add into this is no packaging. It now seems obvious that the energy put into the packaging could well be more than put into the product itself and then the packaging goes straight into our landfill or worse still into natural environments killing it. My six year old is already aware of this through movies like happy feet and finding nemo as well as wildlife shows and is constantly ask questions relating to it. I have been questioning where I can get all of the above options without having to go to a gazzillon different places. I realise that I am going to have to put some systems into place if I want to not be bringing in more packaging.Yesterday I spent some time sewing up some veggie bags so I no longer have to use plastic so the question is: Where can I get Organic Local Not packaged goods mostly in one place????

Back to Luke and those circling thoughts...Luke is in a position where we need a group of people to help him on his way and to make a diagnosis, not just one person will be able to give this. But Luke has more than one issue, he is a whole being and has a whole group of issues and one thing may be able to help connect those dots for him so that the other dots can be connected easily. Luke is at an amazing Kindy with a fantastic team who have in the last few weeks fought tooth and nail for him. And I am so extremely thankful that they have done that for him, he needs it. He received 6 hours of support! Amazing! But what completely baffles me is that he only received this after a fight, after being firm, after tantrums were thrown. With other children being completely left by the wayside.

Is that not so ridiculous!

The government completely refuses to fund help for these children just because there problems seem small.

Although the government will end up paying for these children ten fold in the future. Are we not supposed to be fixing the problem not just waiting to patch it up later.

Not only that the system is so screwed that if you choose to go private and pay a whole pile of money you will no longer receive public support- even if your child really needs both or even if this would help your child get there faster and therefore relive the problem sooner.

Now you will have to choose between the care that you get in our instance we are choosing some public and some private. Private can become super expensive especially if you need more that one type of person. I would love to switch Luke over to private speech because public speech is simply sparse in that you might only see them twice in 10 weeks but we cant afford to put one more person on the private list.

We are the lucky ones, we can afford this although we will take a hit we will be ok. Luke will most probably be diagnosed with a developmental delay or a  form of mild autism but what if you were dealing with more than that. How on earth do you pay for the help you need?????

Then you do pay for the help you need and you get doctors who are over worked who are slotting you in amongst the 50 other patients they are seeing today.

I am giving myself a headache.

To me the Luke thing and the Food thing are the same THING.

Because I could take an environmental standpoint or I could take a political standpoint and may be these ways would get me further. But I am not a fighter! I see others taking that route and it doesn't inspire me. 

When are humans going to stop doing things with only money in there mind.

When are they going to stop thinking in dollars.

The only lens I can look through at this is love.

If we all just started to care about each other, it would be so different.

When you care you do the right thing, when you put love in you make love come back to you.

She Scraps!

Yesterday while the boys were at the table, Luke was doing homework- putting pegs around a paper plate, this is a new fact I learnt about Luke that his finger strength is pretty minimal and Blake was unscrewing an old toy (as you do :P) and pulling all of its pieces apart. I found a few moments to scrap!

Yahooo. I took this photo of Paul and I a few weeks back, yeah another self portrait. That pink colour of the butterflies just refuses to come up on my camera and the misting was totally inspired by Ali!

It always feels good to get some crafting into the day.

We made it!

We made it through super crazy appointment week! Yippee! Although I was super tired by the end and only had one free day on the weekend Paul was determined for us all to do a hike. So we did a local 4km bush walk to get us going since we hadn't hiked in quite a while. Luke walked almost all the way, Blake led the way and thought it was super easy and I enjoyed looking at my feet for 4kms as I always do on our bush walks otherwise I trip and fall and it is so not good falling off the edge of a cliff!

 Can I tell you that I was POOPED! Then we all got colds. 

But anyway now that the craziness is all over we should make it into a smother rhythm now. Appointments will be more spread out even though we still need to add in a physiotherapist and a gastroenterologist (if thats even how its spelt) cos yup he also has poo problems that my Doc cant sort out. 

 The OT has been really great, she thinks Luke could catch up in a much shorter time frame than I imagined possible. We have speech homework and OT homework and are probably gonna have to get our hands on a few 'tools' to help Luke.This week I am going to be doing a toy clean out to get ready for Easter holidays and sort out the stuff that will help Luke before I buy him a few new things like a kids size fitness ball and some fancy pegs both to help his muscles. 

Things are looking hopeful.

Right now we cant take Luke into many public places so I will know when we have 'caught up' when we can take Luke out for pizza! That would be amazing!

You know what else would be amazing....some posts here not about Luke. Seriously missing crafting!!

At my own pace.

Today I am reminding myself to take things at my own pace. 

Next week Luke has 5 appointments in 5 days! Its going to be a busy week and I am nervous and worried even though I know that I have no reason to be. It is going to be mentally very draining. Each new person wants to know exactly what has happened from birth till now and they also want to know what the person before has offered, what assessment has been made and what has been done. It will be tough, I'm not great at remembering details.

 (on my table, a chocolaty milky drink and a home-made banana muffin)

We will have two, possibly three assessments one of them we are half way through.

We also have a haircut this weekend which can still be tricky.

We will make it, I will have a good cook up on Sunday so that I don't have to cook so much this week.

(in my kitchen- roasted pumpkin for pumpkin soup)

 I will remember that it doesn't matter what little amount of cleaning gets done or how big the washing piles get all that matters is that we are all happy and all feel loved. That we are together.

(in my garden- Blake has his own little green house going)

There could be some amazing results from this next week. Results that could be the beginning of changing our lives for the better. I will take what I can at my own pace. The rest will be what it will be.

Today I Love...

I am so loving all of the roses that are blooming in my garden, this one is super special

 I am so smitten with this new blue wall that we painted last weekend. I wasn't sure if I would love it cos well its just not pink but it truly makes my heart sing, especially with the pink bunting on it!

 I am loving this top I bought on the weekend,  I had three tops that fell apart all at the same time ones I wear all the time. So when I went looking for a couple of tops blake chose this one for me and I am loving the birds on it, flying around reminding me to be happy.

And yes that pink wall is in the same room as that blue wall. Love it!

Love this smile

Who could resist this smile?

This little guy has so much to teach me. I get so frustrated but he is making so much progress. Often to me it feels like we are taking two steps forward one step back but he is coming along so far. We are far from a diagnosis, we still need to get many people involved: an OT, physiotherapy and someone to sort his bum out. But do you think he cares? No this little guy is happily oblivious. He is such a joy to be around. He is a gift. he loves unconditionally. Of course he is a kid and he has his moments, he gets upset sometimes, he gets tired and grumpy  but mostly he just wants tickles.

The biggest thing that we have noticed lately is that he answers questions now! He used to parrot the question back to you, repeatedly. He still does but it is getting so much better he is beginning to answer even if it is just a yes or no to a question he doesn't quite understand- it is an answer. Amazing!

I am back

Over the past month I have had my mum staying with us after a fairly major operation so life has really been just about looking after her and keeping on top of things. Finally last Sunday I took her home and I am just starting to feel like I am getting back to normal.

 Since I have been away from this space for so long I was really beginning to wonder weather I should continue here or not and I have spent a long time wondering what I am supposed to do here, where is this heading? Not just for the last month but far longer than that. You see this blog started out as a scrapping blog, a place to show my srappy stuff and then I began to question why I was scrapping (can you tell I stress way too much!) and when I was scrapping I was even questioning 'why am I putting this embellishment here' so I stopped and I began sewing more. Recently I haven't been sewing as much I started questioning again- why am I making this, what's the point?

In the past few years I began reading more sewing blogs and more gardening  blogs I began to read more 'sustainable living' blogs and I began to really enjoy them, they fit in with things that I do around here. But recently I have been noticing many extremes on these type of blogs and although my life is geared in this general direction of becoming more sustainable and having a simpler life I really don't believe in being so extreme I believe being so sustainably extreme is like being religiously extreme you can start to tread on dangerous territory just because you are so single minded . And within these extremes I see a lack of love. 

 And somehow I find myself in a different category altogether. I am not a blog with stunning photographs, I garden but am not a gardening blog, I craft but right now I am not a craft blog, I cook but I'm by no means a cooking blog, I write about my children but this is not a parenting blog, we are headed towards a more sustainable life but I am not all about that, I am not forced in to a sustainable life due to finances, I find it hard to blog because I feel undefined and I don't do enough of just one of these things to blog about it all the time.

 Life gets complicated no matter how simple you try and make things. And after a lot of thinking about it I decided that the answer is the same on that always pops up in my life, to quote Jack Johnson

 "love is the answer to most of the question of my heart like, why are we here? and where do we go? and how come its so hard?" 

What I want to be here is the truth about me, honest. Not worrying about what anybody thinks. Not worrying about what you think.

Focused on LOVE

A little Cooking

There has been a little cooking going on around here. Cinnamon scrolls were made for the boys to take to work and school. I used Melissa Goodsell from 'Day to Day's' recipe.

 And made cheesy mite scrolls too using a recipe from the Woolworth's ap. But it was basically the same recipe, a simple scone recipe flattened out rolled up with the topping of your choice in it.

 There were some spelt pikelets made on the weekend, Yum! Seriously love spelt!!!

 And there have even been roasted home grown tomatoes.

There has also been some Nigella inspired cooking and a bit of fish going on around here too :)

A Treat.

Today was Luke's first day at Kindy for the year so with both the boys off my hands and after I had done the food shopping I took myself to the book store and treated my self to a few books. I have been hanging for a good read and then I also came across this awesome crafty book, I couldn't leave without it. There may be a few hours spent in the hospital next week, my mum is having an op and then staying with us for a few weeks to recover so its the perfect time for a new book.

If only I could have treated myself to some fabric so I could actually make some of the things in the book, but Christmas money only goes so far :)

On My Table

There have been lots of flowers from the garden. We have 1/2 an acre of land and I have a very small patch of daisy's, roses and a few other little bushes and a small veggie patch.

I guess that is something more that I need to commit to- spending more time in the garden, cos I sure do love bringing in flowers from the garden