One of these blogs is “Small Notebook, for a simpler home.” I have always enjoyed the warm way in which Rachel Meeks shares her life experiences, stories and struggles as she raises her two lovely children and manages to balance writing a successful blog while not missing out on her home life.

Like many of us Rachel has struggled with the juggling act of finding time to keep up with her busy family life, not let the house-work overwhelm her and also find time to blog. Now she has written a wonderful new e- book entitled Simple Blogging: less computer time, better blogging.

Simple Blogging: Less Computer Time, Better Blogging by Rachel Meeks

Whether you are new to blogging or have been writing a blog for sometime now I think you will find something in this book that speaks to you. The tone of writing is not overly techy, neither is it too simplistic so Rachel has found a great balance here, making it a comfortable read whether you have years of blogging experience or are brand new to the subject.

It’s broken down into 17 well focused chapters so that you can read it through from start to finish or simply pick a chapter to focus on something in particular. There are questions at the end of each chapter which you can use to help focus your thoughts about your own blogging.

There is a wonderful bonus chapter which has thoughtful insights from 7 well known bloggers: Nesting Place, Simple Mom, Life… Your Way, The Happiness Project, Owlhaven, Made by Rae and Inspired to Action.

Rachel has done her best to keep the price low and this book is only $8 which is great in these days of tight budgets. It is available to download immediately so there is no waiting around or running to the bookshop…

Click here to find out more or to buy it now…

If you do decide to buy the book I would really appreciate it if you used the affiliate link above, it’s the first time that I have tried out an affiliate link and I would be so excited if you buy this great book through my blog

I find that some web-pages are distracting and that it takes longer to read the story that brought me there or that it is harder to focus on the story and ignore the background images.

This situation can sometimes lead me to click on other links that lead me astray and then I become frustrated about wasting time or loosing track of what I was researching/reading.

There is a great solution to this distraction and I love it – it is called Readability and works simply by clicking on a button on your shortcut toolbar – and the web-page magically becomes simplified.

First you need to visit the Readability website and make a choice about which page format you prefer – you get to choose from a variety of styles, sizes and margin layouts. Once you have decided which style suits you best you simply add the bookmarklet to your bookmark toolbar and the next time that you are faced with a web-page like this…

Very Busy web page, lots of distraction

and turn it into something much easier to read, like this…

Clearer page, simple with just the relevant text and pictures

World Poetry Day was declared by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999 “to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world”  identified as “the unrestricted pursuit of truth” - and presumably the enjoying of poetry throughout the world.

Well, it managed to happen again this year without any of my help because I have only just learnt of it. I did however find an enjoy a lovely post about it over on the CAT blog and I so enjoyed this particular offering that I am going to copy it here -

Less is More, was written by Matt Harvey; poet, writer, broadcaster and Wondermentalist, inspired by the Schumacher conference of the same title:

Can less be more, can more be less?
Well, yes and no, and no and yes
Well, more or less…

More bikes, fewer cars
Less haze, more stars

Less haste, more time
Less reason, more rhyme

More time, less stress
Fewer miles, more fresh (vegetables)

Fewer car parks, more acres of available urban soil
More farmers’ markets, less produce effectively marinated in crude oil

Less colouring, more taste
More mashing, less waste

Fewer couch potatoes, more spring greens
Fewer tired tomatoes, more runner beans

More stillness, less inertia
Less illness, more Echinacea

More community, less isolation
Less just sitting there, more participation!

More wells (not oil ones, obviously), fewer ills
Fewer clean fingernails, more skills

More co-operation, less compliancy
Less complacency, more self-reliancy

Less competition, more collaboration
Less passive listening, more participation!

Less attention defic…, more concentration
Less passive listening, more participation!

(Less repetition)

Less of a warm globe, more a chilly’un
More of a wise world, at least 34 fewer parts of C02 per million

Less stress-related cardio-vascular and pulmonary failure
More nurturing quality time in the company of a favourite clematis or dahlia

More craftsmanship, less built-in obsolescence
More political maturity, less apparently-consequence-free extended adolescence

More believed-to-be-beautiful, known-to-be-useful things
Less cheap, pointless, petroleum-steeped stuff

So Yes, less is more – and enough’s enough…

My blog posts have always been written using renewable energy  because that’s the energy I have – we use a home made wind turbine and a photovoltaic array to provide our electricity.

I was always keen to have this blog hosted on a server that also uses renewable energy however it was not easy to find a solution that I was happy with – until now…

This particular entry is called “Love of Home” and it was the last paragraph that gave me pause for thought – It buoys me with proof that one person with one shovel can change everything, given a guiding vision of a more abundant life, a life more intimate with the gifts of its place.

I would encourage you to go read the post in it’s entirety so as to have the excerpt in context. It has me think more about last nights post and whether to become more actively involved in politics, not actually running for election or anything heady like that, simply whether or not to join a particular political party in order to help change it’s focus.

I like that one person with one shovel can bring about great change, it’s more in line with my current thinking, to just do what you do and let that be enough.

Knowing that it is enough is key.

Knowing that it is enough to just do your best doing what you do and let that be.

Letting it go and not try to influence or change anyone else, just do your own thing and trust that it will work out…

Easier said than done…

A friend came to visit to help us build our house and the house building did happen, it’s just that the work we were doing was slow and really only needed two people for most of the work so she was a little bit at a loss as to what to do.

We had finished the foundations so while we were setting out the house frame and playing with string and maths she busied herself with one of the many bath tubs that we have collected.

We have often thought of organising an outside bath and I have just the place in mind – it’s a wee hollow near our stream with a beautiful whitethorn (hawthorn) tree growing at it’s edge. One night that I stayed outside to watch the full moon move across the sky ’til dawn  and I sheltered in the hollow when a north wind blew for a while, it was a beautiful place to shelter and felt really magical.

Nice and all as that spot will be for a winter or spring bath it is too sheltered for a midge season (summer) bath so my friend and I walked around a bit and found a great spot for the bath tub when it is humid, misty and midgy.

I went back to working on the house project and my friend got seriously stuck in to building up two clay banks to hold the bath and supply insulation. She also dug a fire hole under the bath and then dug a channel to drain the  fire hole as it is likely to fill up with rain.

She made use of two lovely little stone walls which were simply sitting in the middle of the field to support the clay banks. The walls also now make a great place to put a mug of tea and a night-light for night-time baths.

The fire was started with local fire-wood gathered in the woods and then we used turf to keep the fire going. It’s a job for patient people, the fire was going for about four hours and the job of walking down to the stream and carrying up water also took some time.

It’s great when friends come to stay and bring great energy and motivation with them!

Eventually the bath was piping hot and as the evening was coming to a close I got the pleasure of being the first into the bath. It was a windy and rainy evening and it did seem a little odd to be going into the garden in a bathrobe and a hat when it was raining!

It was SO worth it! What pleasure it was to be in a hot bath with the rain gently dropping all around – glad I wore a hat to keep my head dry and warm because the wind picked up and I found myself in the bath-tub laughing as the wind blew my hat off, the rain became heavy, the water was piping hot and the turf smoke wafted around!

After some time the rain stopped and the sky became blue with white billowy clouds gently moving across the rainbow above me, as I lazed in a hot bath enjoying the view.

Aw, the simple pleasures in life…

The book is called Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs, by Patrick Holford and Jerome Burne.
I think it would be a very informational read for anyone in healthcare or a caring situation. It may help you understand the drugs being prescribed for yourself or for someone you care about

I am still working through the book and will probably do a book review of sorts when finished. It is fascinating stuff although I have to admit that the beginning of the book, which concentrates in the pharmaceutical industry had me fairly angry, huge parallels to the energy industry and the oil/nuke boys wanting to control the entire market and have us all entirely reliant on them – oops - think that’s another post?

The book goes into quite a bit of detail about “blockbuster” drugs such as statins, high blood pressure pills, pain-killers and anti-inflammatories, anti-depressants etc. I found it fairly shocking really that so many of these drugs do so much harm, for example in Britain more people die from prescription non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) than from some cancers.

I have become aware that I don’t know what sort of drug regularity structures we have in this country, do we rely on US FDA recommendations? I must try to educate myself more. The FDA and the British body MHRA are scarily inept and often the people in charge have links to the Pharmaceutical industry, until recently it was not illegal in Britain for MHRA decision makers to be on the payroll of pharmaceutical companies – hard to believe!

The majority of these “daily” drugs are designed to deal with symptoms, not causes. If we never deal with the cause of the “unwellness” then we will always need these drugs to maintain the status quo.

Not only are some of these drugs designed to be a part of our daily lives, some of them actually produce a need for more drugs! Some NSAIDs (including aspirin) are so hard on the stomach lining that they require the use of another drug to protect the stomach and at worst sometimes cause gastro-intestinal bleeding.

I bought the book to educate myself about arthritis aches and what nutritional advice I could follow to protect myself from these aches without resorting to prescription drugs. Anyway, so far I have discovered that the usual healthy food advice applies in reducing the aches and pains.

Supplements such as chondroitin, glucosomine, msm, omega 3, epa and dha (healthy fats) are all advised for daily consumption to ease inflammation and should be just as useful as taking a daily NSAID.  Naturally daily exercise is also important.
That’s what I gleaned so far, I had skipped ahead and had a quick look at the relevant chapter after I bought the book so that I could do some supplement shopping too before heading home and now I am reading from the beginning.
I am hoping that about six weeks from now I will know if the new regime of supplements and taking nuts, seeds and hemp oil will help ease the aches I have started to feel over the last two months.
I am guessing that doing all those healthy things would help delay the onset of the aches for some people. Obviously these are just my opinions and should not be taken as advice to anyone.

Snow Deep

I had a lovely morning, I reckoned that the rain would come at some time today so I was enjoying the snow while I could. I did all the morning jobs listening to that lovely crunch underfoot as I filled water buckets to feed the big pot on the stove for hot water for dish washing, decanted spring water from the large outdoor containers into the container that we use indoors, fed the cats and swept the snow off the PV (photovoltaic) panels.

Sweeping the PV Panels

I did the morning jobs at a nice easy pace, enjoying the work, knowing that I would go for a walk when I had finished, knowing that I would walk uphill a bit today to see the views from up higher before the fog moved in.

The Hill Road

Before I emptied the compost bucket into the compost heap I had to clear the snow off the waiting heap first. I knew that the cut grass pile that we use to cover the compost heap was running low, I had intended to move a few of the smaller grass piles closer to the compost area but the snow made that difficult so I emptied the ashes from the fire over it instead.

Snowy Views

I went in to light the fire and I was watching the morning weather forecast say that it was raining whilst it was still snowing outside. However I suspected that they probably would be right eventually so I grabbed a banana and the camera bag and headed off for a walk in the falling snow.

The Tree Line

The Snow Fence

Then we went to the cinema and watched The day the Earth Stood Still. Warning - If you have not seen the movie yet then don’t read any further because I will be giving away the ending although you may have seen or read the old science fiction story anyway.  We had fun on the way home discussing what would happen if we lost all technology as the earth did in the film ending, if we had no telephones, no vehicles, no power lines transmitting energy etc.

We have become so accustomed to easily travelling about as and when we want. just think how it could take for a letter to reach friends or family you thought nothing of hopping in the car to go see?  Staying in touch these days is so easy with a text or email no matter how far away we live from each other. Thanks to computers, social networking and blogs, we even stay in touch with people we have never met in person.

How many towns, if any, would have enough food being grown locally to survive? How long would it take for local food industries to get underway?  How would people even get clean drinking water? We have lost so many of our very basic life skills. Obviously we have different set of contemporary life skills now – how to use a computer, how to walk through cities avoiding eye contact etc.

I don’t mean this as a depressing piece, we just started wondering about these things. I think it’s great that so many people are interested in learning the more basic life skills like growing food and making clothes, even if just to keep those skills alive.

Hurray for the basics…