Il pleut!

Lovely lovely rain is falling. And I've been sitting inside relaxing with H. I've been passing on the art of the heel, passed on to me by Ms Spider. Like we did in Spidey's sock workshop, I got H to just knit the heel part of the sock on it's own, so that when she gets up to that bit in her actual sock, she knows how it goes and it's not so scary. Then I passed on my very limited carding knowledge for some lovely brown alpaca fleece she's inherited. Then we did ear-candling! Weird, but relaxing!

Went to the ANU Food Co-op today for the first time ever. (I'm so embarassed that I've never been there before!) All this wasted time!!! What a great place to shop. They have an amazing range of natural foods, yes, but it's just a pretty cool place to shop, atmosphere-wise. You feel like you're back in a pioneer-days general store! What a contrast to woolies with it's excessive packaging and stuff we don't need and screaming children and grumpy check-out chicks! I'm sure the stuff is more expensive (not sure just how much though, need to compare that)... but is it worth it for the pleasurable shopping experience, and the lack of packaging?? (you take your own bags and jars from home to put stuff in).

Sorry... still no photos. Have to pack for my yoga retreat now, I'm leaving first thing in the morning.

See you in a week... hopefully all chilled out!

Thoughts

My beautiful friend H lent me a book last weekend. It's called Laurel's Kitchen, and was written in the seventies. It's all about nutritious, healthy eating and lifestyles, and vegetarianism. Unlike other books on the same subject from the same era that I've read, it's not at all preachy. The main author has a beautiful 'voice', and is very down to earth and honest.
Anyway... this book feels life changing for me, but I think that's mainly because it's come at a time when so many factors have been converging for me. The more I learn about and practise yoga, buddhism, meditation... the more they all resonate with me and agree with and support each other. And I spose I've always felt like ecologically, being vegetarian - or close to it - really makes more sense... but I've always loved meat too much to follow through with it! But now, with all these things coming together I feel like being vegetarian is just part of a whole way of life which makes sense. OK... I'm potentially not making sense... but this is a big thing for me at the moment, so I thought I would try to express it. Thankyou H for sharing the book with me. You're a lot more like Laurel than you think.

Next week I'm going on a yoga retreat at an ashram just north of Sydney. I'm really excited just to have that intense, reflective time (at least that's what I'm hoping it will be!). I'm not really sure what to expect... I've never been on anything like this before. But with all the work for the festival, and my life being very much focussed on supporting someone else's endeavour at the moment, to have this time for me will be a real gift. Apparently as well as getting up early in the morning and doing yoga, and listening to talks and stuff, we do gardening and baking bread and stuff and contributing to the general ashram life. It all sounds pretty good... kind of a pampering for the soul rather than for the body!

Neglect

Poor neglected bloggy (there are some flowers to assuage my guilt!). I've taken blogging without obligation to a new level... I call it 'Not Blogging with absolutely no Obligation whatsoever!!' :)
Life continues to be crazy. Being part of organising a festival... and being engaged to the head organiser apparently takes up a lot of your life!

Combine that with long work hours where I'm nowhere near a computer and come home as wrecked as spending the day with 20 two year olds is likely to leave you, and my blog has fallen by the wayside a bit.
Anyway... I'm still here. Still knitting... in between sleeping and working bees up at Corin every weekend!
I'm enjoying the socks I'm making with my hand dyed wool... they're going slowly though, because I think I was getting a bit bored and in need of a new challenge. So I've started a cardigan which hopefully I can finish sometime before the end of next winter. It's with a really pretty wool... but no pics today because the camera's not here. I'll also have some pics soon of the gorgeous purple merino all spun up.
Instead I'll share some pics from my Christmas break.

After Chrissy, I had a lovely week AT HOME (miraculous). I got to catch up on a lot of stuff I wasn't getting done, which had been hanging over my head for ages. I also got to do some yummy baking, which I had been having withdrawl from, having not cooked anything exciting for many months. Here were the results:

Ginger Caramel Crunch cookies out of a Womens Weekly. Sooo yummy! (those are whole Werthers caramels melted on top!!)

Blueberry, Ricotta and Almond Cupcakes from the Cupcake Bakeshop blog. Also incredibly yummy. But mostly, pink and cute! :)


This is where we spent a good part of New Years Day after New Years Eve up at Corin. Cooling- off in the pool at the top of Gibraltar Falls. It was a sweltering hot day here, so the cold water of the falls was a beautiful relief! And not a bad view either!!

Sorry for my absence from SnB, lack of commenting etc... miss you guys and will hopefully catch up soon!!!