fighting the winter blues the best way i know how – ginger tea!
Posted by: mooimadeit on: July 3, 2009
[image from flickr]
We are back from Bali and we had the most wonderful time. Ate ourselves silly and didn’t get Bali belly once! Had jumbo prawns the length of a dinner plate, fresh snapper right on the beach, delicious Balinese fair. Beautiful gardens. Massages every second day. Snorkelling amongst coral. So many friendly faces! Can’t wait to return.
It has been ever so hard to be back in bleak, cold, miserable Melbourne. Especially when I got struck hard by some kind of cold a week after returning, that wasn’t the swine flu but had me bedridden for a week, exhausted from coughing and light headed from blowing my nose. Proof I should have stayed in sunny, warm Bali!
Oh well, we returned with packs of ginger tea and Bali coffee and we’re determined to stay busy and avoid the winter blues slump we fell into for a month last year after returning from European summer. Must power on the best way we can – with cups of ginger tea, fruit muffins, dvds and for me, lots of sewing! I had Mum’s little baby workhorse Elna serviced for the first time ever – though they told me she had been very well maintained, but told me off for not using Elna bobbins. Who’d have thought it would make a difference?! I certainly didn’t know.
I’m rearranging the sewing room, splashed out and got myself a fancy ergonomic office chair which I have reupholstered already too. And will be trying my hand at some lingerie and fine fabric sewing the next two weeks.
Hope you’re all staying warm, my lovelies! More from me soon.
xo MOO!
bali bali bali… hai hai hai!!!
Posted by: mooimadeit on: June 1, 2009
We’re off to Bali tomorrow! We’ll be gone for a fortnight. Looking forward to daily massages, lots of walking and delicious food. We’ll be spending the start and end of our trip in Ubud, up in the mountains, doing a road trip to the east coast Amed region for the weekend and then taking the boat over to Gilli Islands and Lombok as well. Can not wait!
Will be taking lots of photos to share with you when we get back. And with any luck we’ll also be getting AA’s wedding suit made while we’re there.
Look forward to a much more relaaaaaxxxxxxed moo when we return.
a feel-good photoshoot fundraiser!
Posted by: mooimadeit on: May 28, 2009
This just arrived in my inbox. We have been on the quest for photographers for the wedding and I stumbled across j-studios via downtomysoul.
Jessie from j-studios is a member of an organisation called the Australian Community of Child Photographers. The ACOCP is a purely volunteer organisation that sends out professional photographers, free of charge, to families who have a still birth or who have a baby or child with a terminal illness.
What a brilliant idea! It breaks my heart to think of those families who have to undergo such an ordeal. But how wonderful is it that this organisation exists and is able to contribute in a small way so that these families have beautiful images to hang on to… something tangible to hopefully help ease the pain in years to come. How could I resist helping spread the word?
It’s an Australian organisation so I assume the offer is valid throughout Australia, or places in Australia that they have member photographers situated in.
URBAN MINI SESSIONS
Many of you know that I am heavily involved in the Australian Community of Child Photographers. The ACOCP is a purely volunteer organisation that sends out professional photographers, free of charge, to families who have a still birth or who have a baby or child with a terminal illness. The ACOCP operates without any funding and relies solely on membership contributions and fundraising such as this. We hope that you will consider supporting this amazing organisation by booking a mini session in June or July.
How it works?
We currently have 10 weekday mini session slots during June and July. When you are ready to book we select a date and time that works for you and then you pay your $50 direct to the ACOCP. Mini sessions last for about 20-30 minutes and are ideal for updating your family photo and getting a couple of great shots of your kids.They are limited to immediate family (up to 6 people) only. These sessions will be held in the Melbourne CBD or Docklands area. After wards we will organise a time for you to come and view your images (approximately 12-15 images will be shown from your mini session) in the studio for your ordering session. You will receive one complimentary 8×10in print from your mini session and you will have the opportunity to purchase additional images from our special discounted Mini Session packages or individually from our normal studio pricing.
I have already had photos done….How can I help the ACOCP?
You can forward this on to family and friends who may want a fun Urban shoot. Spread the word and hopefully j [studios] will be able to sell all ten mini session slots and raise $500 for the ACOCP.
Thank you for helping support the amazing work of the ACOCP.
Jessie Broome
j [studios]
Don’t let the sun go down on me
Posted by: mooimadeit on: May 22, 2009
A Rainbow at Sunset & a natural Palette by Monday Morning Photography from flickr
Oh woe. I had the best of intentions. This morning we had an assessor come by to assess our site for solar panels.
After getting very excited about the idea, following the info meeting I attended, my housemate and I went to have a look at the dimensions of our 2 storey roof by walking a couple of streets away where there was a clear view of it. It was then I realised I had totally overestimated our amount of roof space, forgetting that our second storey is much smaller than our first storey. And furthermore forgotten that we already have a solar panel for our gas boosted solar hot water, smack bang on the north facing second storey roof!
Anyway, I was still hopeful. The assessor climbed up to view our roof and did lots of measurements to figure out what we could fit. There are 2 types of systems available. The cheaper one (amorphous) require 8 panels to provide a 1kw solar power system. The more expensive one (monocrystalline – costing about $1000 more) require only 6 panels to provide a 1kw solar power system.
We do not have room for 8 panels, so it would be the more expensive system for us.
We could install it on our first storey roof, but it would have to be the WEST facing roof. It’s not due west, it’s kinda more northish-west but it’d still mean about 20% loss of capacity. Also, it’d hang over the edge of the roof alittle. Which means that when it rains, some water would just run straight off the panels and onto the ground instead of getting caught in the gutter. Not ideal really.
The monocrystalline system would cost us about $2500 after the rebate, or if we sell our ‘RECS’ (essentially carbon credits type things) we could get some money back and it’d cost us about $1800 all up. But, I have mixed feeling about selling the RECS. Basically I don’t want to sell them because they’d end up being bought by some evil company to boost their carbon credit quota. I’d much prefer to either surrender them or just hang on to them. But how about if selling them was the only way we could afford the system?
Furthermore, at the moment there is no obstruction to sunlight on our west facing roof. But behind the fence that faces that roofline, is a great big empty backyard and a very run down house that has been sold. Someone has moved in it at the moment but I can’t imagine it will stay there long, the place is falling apart and when it went up for sale it had preapproval to knock the house over and build two houses there. Imagine if we spent $1800 and someone built a two storey townhouse behind us blocking the sunlight! Plus I calculated (possibly not very accurately) that it’d maybe take us like 7 years for the system to pay itself off and who knows if we’ll even still be in this house in 7 years time.
Anyway, so after a long evening of discussion, debate, research, calculations and recalculations, I’ve come to the conclusion that we would be better off at this point in time to spend the money on getting a rainwater tank. It pains me to not be able to take up the government rebate of $8000 for our own 1kw system BUT we have a basic plan that we need to sit down and flesh out more and most importantly IMPLEMENT!
‘CARBON CRUNCHING CURTIN STREET’ ACTION PLAN
This includes:
1. GET RAINWATER TANK ASAP
- and use this to help us grown some of our own food throughout the year
2. REDUCE OUR ELECTRICITY USAGE
We already have gas boosted solar hot water which is good because hot water can really eat up electricity if it is electricity powered, so at least that’s something but we can do more:
Our current average daily use of energy is 8.33kw per day between 3 of us = about 2.77kw per day each. I have heard that the average Australian household (2.6 people) use on average 16kw per day = 6.15kw each. Yowch! What on earth are those people doing? Still, I know there is room for us to do better than 2.77kw per day each. I really wish it could be easy to install a system so that you could just flick a switch and everything in your house, bar the fridge, could be turned off on your way out. Anyone know of such a magic switch?
3. BUY GREEN POWER CREDITS
Monitor our daily electricity use and buy green power to 100% offset our carbon emissions and use this as motivation for us to further reduce our electricity use!
In the meantime I’m going to hope
- that our government will some day sooner rather than later, will look to our European counterparts and similarly provide Australians with a PROPER incentive programme to install solar panels
- technology will speed along and we’ll need solar less panels to generate more energy
- some kind of green renewable energy will become more readily available soon or
- maybe one day we’ll sell this townhouse and buy a nice big house with a big north facing roof that we can afford to put a 3kw solar power system on and generate all our own electricity and get paid for feeding it back into the grid, ala Gavin of The Greening Of Gavin blog!
Go Gavin! I totally have solar panel envy. Alas. In the meantime, getting a rainwater tank is a very good move right?
The delicate art of Ikebana
Posted by: mooimadeit on: May 13, 2009
On the weekend I had the priviledge of attending the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Melbourne Chapter of Ikebana International.
For those of you that don’t know, Ikebana is the ancient Japanese art of flower arrangement. But this is not simply putting some flowers in a vase. There are many different schools of Ikebana with different approaches, different rules, different philosophies… a whole world!
My Mum recently took up the mantle as president of the Adelaide
Chapter of Ikebana International. They have a small group of just 14 members but of these 14, 11 of them are active members – they are regularly invited to run workshops, run demonstrations, and display their ‘constructions’ at various events, flower festivals, gardening festivals, cultural events, art galleries, you name it!
The Melbourne Chapter if the biggest in the country. They have been going strong for 50 years and have almost 100 members.
Many of the members of the association are older, and what a wealth of knowledge and experience they have! Would you just have a look at some of their ‘constructions’ as they call them – and they really are constructions. Truly sculptural! As the members get older, the chapters are growing concerned about finding new and younger members to teach their skills to and to continue to promote the art form. Unfortunately it can also be an expensive hobby because flowers can be costly. Though in its own way this makes these artists think outside the square, and encourages them to use other found objects to transform in their pieces. This is especially the case in the Sogestsu school who seem to take a more modern approach
Who ever thought you could make THIS out of newspaper?
Look at these other beauties!
If you’d like to find out more contact your local Ikebana International chapter.
Melbourne Chapter have a website here.
If you are in Melbourne you may also be interested in heading down to the NGV to see the magnificent giant contemporary bamboo sculpture installation called ‘Five Elements – Water’ that is currently being completed by Master Tetsunori Kawana (who has been especially brought out from Japan to construct it). You can see more details on the NGV website here.
If you are in ADELAIDE and would like to find out more drop me a line and I will give you their email details.
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- Dress #1
- Designing a new vegie and native garden from scratch (part 1)
- BWOF! Signing up to Burda World Of Fashion
- A Sewing Room Of One's Own
- Setting up a native garden (part 1)
- No-Dig Potatoes are GROW!
- Can you help me? YES YOU CAN! (I hope)
- You are my sunshine, my only sunshine...
- Fabric shopping in Paris (Pt I)
- Freshly shorn
- amelia hannaford: hi there i would be interested to receive the email contact for the Adelaide Ikebana chapter to discuss the possibility of them doing a demonstration
- Gavin: Moo, I was so excited for you. Now I feel sad that you can't get some PV action happening at your place. Go for the rainwater. You will need it
- Lupinbunny: Oh... it happens, though. We aren't eligible for the rebate anymore which, while it means on the one hand that we are fortunate enough to have a subst
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