Random thoughts on a Thursday

I only seem to have random thoughts at the moment.

• I feel like I've lost my crafting mojo - I'm still stuck on an unfinished project without the inclination to finish or to start a new project. There's been pretty much no crafting around here for weeks!
• I feel like I'm scrambling up hill most days, trying to keep on top of the washing, the cooking, the shopping, the stuff, the dishes... This going back to work thing is beginning to feel like it is costing our family a lot in terms of my time, my energy - at least it means we can pay the rent though...
• I did a big load of dishes this morning and that made me feel so great. We have a little kitchen - the downside is that it gets messy really quickly, but the upside is that it usually doesn't take much to clean up.
• I love to put on an apron when I'm at home in the kitchen, whether I am cooking or cleaning (and I am usually trying to do both at once). It makes me feel like I am ready to tackle anything!
• I also took a mopportunity while little-miss-e was asleep and cleaned the kitchen cupboards which I have been staring at for weeks. 
• I love the idea of mopportunities - it comes from a friend and is the simple concept of doing a quick clean up when the opportunity presents itself. An example is mopping the kitchen after your daughter has poured water from her cup all over the floor, so you don't just mop up the spill, but take the opportunity to mop the whole floor. I pretty much clean only by mopportunity these days. 
• I am thankful for my lovely husband, my lovely little-miss-e and our lovely friends and family and our lovely church.

I am so glad I started writing out these random thoughts - I've gone from feeling negative to feeling positive over the course of this little list! From feeling the grey in the clouds to the sun shining through! Thanks to Sophie and her friend Ange for the topic

night flowering cacti

I inherited lots of things from my nan including, randomly a cactus plant. I've had it in my garden for a couple of years now, and not really paid it much attention. Until this week that is. For this week we noticed that it had sprouted - this weird long growth, and then it grew a bud on the end. It just stayed like that for a few days, then the night before last my lovely husband called me outside. It had finally opened up.

It was so pretty and smelt so lovely. We brought it inside to get a better pic.

And I'm so glad we saw it! By the next morning it was already starting to wilt, and with the heavy rain last night, it is now looking very sad and sorry for itself. But for that one night - it was a random thing of beauty. Lovely...

hello 2013: one word

Maxabella invited us to give a one word focus for 2013.  I've been giving it a bit of thought and I realised that for me, 2013 will be all about

home

because after our three month away adventure, it's nice to be home

because I have a least another 6 months of maternity leave left and will be spending much time at home

because we want to focus on de-cluttering, cleaning up, unpacking, throwing out and making our home a more usable space for our life

because we want to spruce up our front garden

because home and family are intertwined

because I want to work on feeling content with our home

because home is where our family relationships are built and strengthened

and because ultimately my hope lies in a future home, a new home - one with no pain, no tears and no death 

What's your one word 2013 focus?

image from here

my unsuccessful blog or blogging good enough

I read a post from Maxabella today that made me annoyed. Which was odd, seeing I usually find Maxabella enjoyable. But this post is titled "How to give good blog." It appears to be the first installment of a series on blog improvement. There was nothing in it that was intended to offend - she talks quite clearly about the steps one should be taking to blog successfully. So it wasn't so much the content of the post but the concept. (Ok so there is a bit of the content I will rant about too, but more on that later).

Blog improvement seems to be in fashion - Pip from Meet me at Mike's is currently running a blog school and there are thousands of posts out there on how to make you blog bigger and better and get more followers and more traffic or how to turn your blog into you job. And I'm ok with people who are keen to improve their blogs.

The issue for me is about they way most of these posts define blogging success, for by most of the criteria marjoryjane is unsuccessful. I am yet to hit 20 followers despite blogging at marjoryjane for years. I still frequently have posts that no one comments on. And when I didn't post much in 2011, I didn't receive a flood of email from my virtual community asking me if I was ok. In fact I don't think I received even one. I am a blogging failure.

Maxabella in her post advises against "just" blogging about your life. Apparently "blogging about yourself and your life" isn't enough to have a successful blog. It won't result in the much wanted traffic that will make you a success. "You have to have a hook"

Well, I blog about myself and my ordinary everyday life. I can't blog about anything else. I don't have an "interesting lifestyle". I'm not interested in "starting a business" and I certainly don't have the time to "curate stuff from around the Internet".

I crochet. I live in inner-city Melbourne. I wear black with splashes of colour. I like to op-shop. I have a lovely husband and now have a baby girl. I like to create stuff. I like to blog about the stuff that I make. I am aware that none of this makes me unique or necessarily all that interesting.

But you know what - I decided long ago that I blog good enough. I am content in my blogging. I am content with what I do and how I do it. I blog as regularly as I can about the stuff I am interested in. marjoryjane is where I record the things I make and it is where I connect with other ordinary everyday life bloggers. And I hope to blog unsuccessfully here at marjoryjane for years to come.

So here's to blogging good enough!

Flea market finds

So we went a-flea-marketing-today. It was so hot and sunshiney here today, that in the end we didn't stay long. Little-miss-e needed a sleep and there was no shade to be seen, so a-home-we-went again.

But not too soon, not before we got what we had gone for. See we wanted to get some handmade Christmas decorations as pressies for my family (as we will arrive back home shortly before Christmas). And we found these - aren't they lovely.

They were hanging from a wire baobab tree, and so we bought the tree too! Its going to be our African Christmas tree.

There is now just the small matter of working out how on earth we get it home...

feeling blessed...

... by the generosity of good friends...

 

a dozen homelaid eggs


a fruit basket full of limes and feijoas

an afternoon of food and chat and friends who are more like family...

two quick things

neither of which i made, but i just wanted to share: 

firstly, this knitted bike lock cosy, on the bike i was parking my bike next to this week. isn't it cute!

and secondly, this baby cauliflower, growing in our garden! i'm not the gardener around here, so i can't take any credit, but still, its so cute, and soon to be so yummy!

hope you are having a great saturday!

an october challenge

so, i'm not actually doing blogtoberfest. (despite the fact that i have posted pretty much every day this week). 

no, i've signed up for the salvo's nothing new challenge. it means that i am going to not buy anything new for the whole of october. given my everpresent love of op-shops, i didn't think it would actually be too hard for me to do (is that dodgy, signing up for a challenge cos you think it will be easy?), and it's been a good reminder of the fact that really, i already have a lot of stuff, and actually i don't need to buy anything new. 

my only problems so far have been presents for others. the first one was easy, my friend who recently got married wasn't keen on getting "stuff" that they wouldn't be able to fit into their place, so a bottle of my burnt fig jam was very well received. but i've got a someone else's birthday coming up, and the best plan for a present - you know, when you come up with the PERFECT present idea and can't wait to get it and give it to them cos you know they will love it... the problem is that i have to buy it new. its not something you find in op-shops. and there aren't any second hand ones available.

i have a dilemma. do i buy it new and break my pledge? or do i hold off and wait until november and thus give them the present late (which kinda feels like poor taste, given i am holding off for my benefit and they lose out a little)? and given that i am going to buy it in november, does it matter if i buy it in october, despite my buy nothing new pledge?

what would you do?