Welcome to the Country

Isabel and Barney

  The latest addition to the extra curricular activities.
How can you say no to a girl on a horse?

Gess & Pokey

Keeping it Simple

Girls rummaging for strawberries in the garden

Well, school holidays are almost over and our goal to simplify our lives is about to be tested for the first time.
Thnakfully there is a school bus route to take the oldest 2 to high school and Isabel's new primary school is quite close but the requests for after school and weekend activites continues to grow.

I've never been the type of parent who seeks to organise activities for my children every day as I believe in the need for down time and creative time to amuse yourself and just enjoy the outdoors. However days just seem to fill up with sport, music lessons, self defence etc.

So now that we live further away I am determined that we are not going to spend every afternoon driving to one activity after another.  To this end I asked the children and Stefano to write out their wish lists of actvities and to rank them in order of preference.  Isabel listed only 3 but Emily has 6 and Gessica 10!!  The art of fitting in as many of these as our budget and sanity allows (and without the need for driving every day) around Stefano returning to University 1 day per week and playing oldies soccer should qualify me for any logistics job in a large company or defence force.

Clearly the art of living simply is also the art of efficient organising.  Improving this skill should come in very handy when I have to start my daily chores on the land. See very funny article on the last page of Organic Gardener Jan/Feb 2012.