[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!

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.

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.

FROM J-STUDIOS:

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]

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?

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.

Just a quick post to say I went to an info night at Maribyrnong Council last night about a solar panel group-buy proposal from Eco-Kinetics and I’ve registered my interest in getting a 1KW PV system! Fingers crossed we meet all the requirements for the system but I’m pretty sure we will.

If we do, that’s what AA and I will be using our stimulus package for. To stimulate the economy and the planet!

I’m by no means an expert on this topic. I only happened to stumble across the info that the council were even having a talk when I saw it on the council homepage last week.

I read the FAQ and the Group Proposal documents and thought it sounded interesting. I had also heard people talking about it on RRR a few weeks back and had been meaning to look into it a bit more.

For those of you that don’t know the Government are changing the current rebate system for solar panels as of July 1. And if you are able to claim the current rebate (it’s means tested and you need a combined income of less than $100k/ py), the new system isn’t going to be anywhere nearly as financially attractive to you.

So it’s bit of a last chance to be able to claim the $8000 rebate under the current system. If our house and set up means we can have a standard installation for a double storey house, it will cost us about $300 for a monocrystalline system after the rebate or $2050 for an amorphous system (but the latter requires more roof space).

We have a double story house. We are eligible and come in under the means test and haven’t claimed a rebate for this before etc. But now we have registered a site inspector will come out and give us a quote and see if ours will be a ’standard installation’ which includes a number of things such as if we have 8m2 of north facing, non shaded roof space (I believe we do), roof pitch les than 25 degrees, tile or metal roof (no slate), existing switchboard wiring conforms to Australian standards and a few other things. Fingers crossed. If we have 12.5m2 of north facing, non shaded roof space (hm, don’t think we do) we could go for the cheaper system.

Anyway if you live in Melbourne and this is something you want to look further into here are some links that could help. You need to get onto it pronto though. With Eco-Kinetics for example, registrations of interest need to be received by 15th May in order for the site inspections and quotes and paperwork to be done by June 30.

CHOICE article ’solar panels – counting the costs’
Maribyrnong Council:
Maribyrnong Council: Solar Panels Bulk Purchase Deal for Maribyrnong Residents
Solar Homes and Communities Plan Rebate
Eco-Kinetics
FAQs

If you don’t live in Maribyrnong but are still interested in seeing if you’re eligible, I suggest giving Eco-Kinetics a call and seeing if your council is involved coz they seem to be doing it for quite a number of councils across Melbourne. Or just call your council and ask if anyone is organising a group-buy of solar panels.

Eco-Kinetics – Nicole Hind (03) 9708 6714

www.eco-kinetics.com

Under The Tree from flickr

• Beginners Guide To Compost And Worms (Yarraville) $25
• Beginners Guide To Chickens (Fitzroy) $25
• Living Food: Wild Fermentation And Raw Foods For Your Health (Yarraville) $100
• The Backyard Ecosystem: Organic Pest Control And Adventures In The Microcosmos (Fitzroy) $25

Ever wanted to grow your own edible produce at home, but don’t know where to start? Never fear, the solution is here! Sustainable Gardening Australia is running a series of “Yummy Yards” courses in Victoria throughout May, to help you get going and keep on growing!

The autumn series of SGA’s very popular Yummy Yards course are scheduled to run as follows:
Series 1. West Footscray Neighbourhood House, Footscray on Tuesdays, May 5th and 12th, 2009
Series 2. The Horticultural Centre, Forest Hill on Wednesdays, May 13th and 20th, 2009
Series 3. Sandybeach Centre, Sandringham on Thursdays May 7th and 14th, 2009

Workshops run from 6:30pm to 9:00pm each evening, and the cost for both evening workshops is just $135 (including GST).

• Backyard Chooks
• Permaculture in the ‘Burbs Pt 2
• Preserving Olives – the Italian Way
• Produce In Pots
• Worm Farms From Scratch
• The Art Of Bonsai

In an Aquaponics system, nutrient rich water is seen as an asset instead of waste and is utilised to grow useful plants. Once the plants have used the nutrients the water is returned to the fish tank clean and ready to be recycled again. The plants help the fish and the fish help the plants.Aquaponics is the most water efficient agriculture known, and there are near zero environmental impacts.
Aquaponics is a high density organic food production system

• European Cushions $30
• Choose Your Own Kidswear $150
• Circular Skirt
• Winter Pinafore Dress $150
• Women’s Waistcoat
• Street Satchel $93
• Feature Class: Patternmaking for Skirts $105

AND they are also bringing their Social Sewing Night. You’ll be sure to catch me at a couple of these.

Seriously. Their course guide is here. I have my eye on a number of the cooking and dance classes, they are always fun.

Oh man, looking at this course guide almost makes me want to move back to Adelaide. Look at all this stuff! And the classes are SO CHEAP! Must be government subsidised or something, they are about a third of the prices of courses at CAE in some cases.

CHECK IT OUT.

I do believe it’s my Moo Day! My Moo-niversary.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since I’ve joined the blogger community! What a wonderful 12 months. I love getting comments and emails from readers around the world. It blows my mind that you have stumbled across my blog.

I do apologise for the lack of posts this year though, wedding planning and work haven’t left me much energy left for gardening, sewing and blogging about it all but hopefully things are settling down.

Now that we’ve booked our venues for the wedding we will have a whole 12 months to do the fun crafty stuff of making things to make it all look pretty like. I also plan to make a dress for wedding as well as alter (possibly rather drastically) a vintage wedding dress I have picked up.

So onwards an upwards I say. Thank you all for blog-friendship and providing inspiration to keep growing and sewing.

xx Moo

[vegetable garden baby originally uploaded on flickr - click image to link to source]

What a week! It’s only Wednesday and I AM EXHAUSTED – physically, mentally, emotionally SPENT. Do I sound mildly overdramatic? Well, I have to tell you, our Bali June trip could not come quick enough.

So AA is on school holidays from this weekend. We have both been working around the clock and last week we agreed that we’d spend Saturday night doing a big wedding planning brainstorm because we’ve been meaning to for ages.

And then while looking at venues for the bazillionth time online last night, I saw that one of the places is open for inspecting couples this weekend so were planning a trip up to the ranges then.

But… then… I followed up with Permablitz about a compost bin/ worm farm I have to offer them and saw they have a fantastic sounding blitz going on this Sunday. I had SO MUCH fun at my first one and learnt oodles of useful information … it really does sound like the kind of soul restoring activity that I could really do with. And… much more fun than looking at wedding venues after a super stressful week.

I mean sure, my garden could really do with some nurturing but… who can say no to this?:

All are welcome at this Permablitz to help transform the backyard of Steve and Emily. Steve has been to almost ans many blitzes in the last year as anyone, and Sunday is also his 30th birthday!

Please rsvp to permablitz@gmail.com if you’d like to come along.

NOTE: This permablitz is being filmed by an SBS television program. All are welcome, but if you do not wish to be filmed you may like to skip this event and come to the other upcoming permablitzes.

On the day you can learn on the job as we build vegie patches no-dig style using horse manure from the nearby racetrack, plant fruit trees and berries and install water catchment systems and add a worm farm. There will also be a range of free workshops – it’s set to be a great blitz!

The blitz is at 38 Macgregor St, Malvern East. Close to the #3 tram, and a 10 minute walk from Carnegie station. (See map)

Lunch is provided, and you are encouraged to bring along something to share for morning and afternoon tea if you can. And if you have any spare seeds/seedlings please bring them along.

For more information contact paul@veryediblegardens.com

(Note: the North Fitzroy date which was also proposed for this date will be in late April)

I just think sometimes there’s nothing like a good ole’ community building activity where you get your hands in the dirt and help build a rad edible garden to nourish the soul… and planet. Do I sound convincing? What do you think? Should I go? Or am I just procrastinating on wedding stuff?

Just a quickie update on my first laser acupuncture treatment today coz I’m so excited.

*ALERT – a little bit of women’s health talk in this post. Nothing too gruesome but I understand some people don’t like health talk and if you’d rather not know, I won’t be offended if you just don’t read But I think it’s important to talk about these things to let other women know. It would have fast tracked me knowing where to ask for help if I had known more about these things I reckon!*

So, as I mentioned yesterday I was recommended this doctor via a work colleague of my friend. They both work with GPs at Melbourne Uni so are excellent to get health professional referrals from because they all know who has a good reputation and good track record. And when it comes to potentially having needles stuck in you, you want to make sure those things are properly sterilised!

I googled the doctor’s name and found a couple of news articles he had been featured in and saw there he was featured in that article I mentioned yesterday, about laser acupuncture. So I was hoping maybe I’d be offered that but wasn’t sure. At least it would probably be less painful (though I have heard the needles don’t really hurt that much anyway) but also infection wouldn’t be an issue.

When we had a chat at the start of my appointment and told him about my hormone headaches and described when I get them and what they are like. He said he has treated many, many patients for headaches. Menstrual migraines and hormone headaches can be a little trickier to treat however, as it can be harder to ‘curb nature’ ie fluctuating hormone levels. However he said it would be apparent whether or not it would be working fairly quickly and if it’s going to work it should be obvious by about 4-5 sessions. They wouldn’t continue to treat for several years just because it seems like a good idea. If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you! But he did say he has had some excellent results with a couple of female patients lately, and one in particular with similar symptoms responded well after just one treatment.

I also mentioned how I recently discovered I have to go in for a laparoscopy (key hole surgery) later this year because of 2 benign cysts – 1 in one of my ovaries and 1 at the end of one of my tubes. I found out he is also a GP and also specialises in gynaecology and obstetrics! So everything really did fall into place and he really the ideal person to be treating me.

He showed me the laser acupuncture probe he uses and got me to take my shoes and socks off. Treatment was on some spots on my foot, a spot on my tummy, one on my back and one on my right wrist.

All the spots, except the one on my tummy, were sore spots that I had just assumed were unrelated… general sore spots? I’m full of knots so I don’t really question when they arise. It just really intrigued me he knew exactly the spots to treat and they were exactly the spots that were sore – it’s not like he was feeling around for them and then treated them.

The spot on my back one was one of my big knots. And the spot on my right wrist is one that is ALWAYS getting sore. Sometimes there’s a real little knot in there, it’s so sore it feels like a little ball of hardness. I told him that and said I had been thinking it was just RSI from using my mouse at work! He laughed and said it’s quite an integral blood flow spot… just goes to show EVERYTHING is related.

And I had no problems relaxing because he was so casual as he was treating me. He held the pen looking laser device on the spot and stood there with his other hand on his hip while chatting with me about other treatments for hormone headaches etc – just to make sure I was aware of them but not necessarily saying I SHOULD go with them. I’m not a big fan of taking medication if there are other treatments available but it was the responsible GP thing of him to make sure I knew. And he also asked me what I knew about the accuracy of ultrasounds (for my cysts) and I told him I had 2 because the first wasn’t very clear and he told me he treated a woman with what looked like a 9cm cyst on the ultrasound and when she went in for a laparoscopy it turned out that they were wrong! So just goes to show.

About a minute after my treatment, as we talked about my follow up appointment, my face was all warm and flushed and he said it’s a sign that the treatment has started taking effect. The only side effects, he said, would be some possible tiredness. I’ve been at work all day today and can’t say I’ve noticed it that much. I’ve been rather warm though, but I’m not sure if that’s me or this weird Autumn weather we have here this week.

Anyway. Got me thinking about the other weird muscular knots I have, so next time I go to see him I am going to tell him about the impenetrable knot I have in my left shoulder. It’s so hard that it’s NUMB. I have massage people staggered by how hard it is and it’s odd, I can feel it, but it’s so tight that it’s also numb to me. That can’t be right huh. And seeing the appointments aren’t exactly cheap ($90 initial $60 thereafter, so not completely outrageous) I figure I may as well get my monies worth and let him know about them too and see what they are about.

AA asked me if I thought acupuncture might be able to help him with his perpetually COLD FEET. I guess that’s a circulation thing, so probably yes. Will have to ask about that next time too.

Anyway, I’m quite amazed from today as you can probably tell. I have high hopes, my life would be so much better if I could get rid of these damn headaches. I can’t tell you how debilitating they can be sometimes. And the odd thing is, I have a shocking pain memory. When I’m in it, it is just horrendous but a week later and I can’t even remember properly how he felt. But when it strikes it’s just awful. I had to pike out on the second half of my own engagement party because I had an awful migraine. Imagine if that happened at our wedding! It’d be a disaster!

So fingers crossed – my next appointment is in a fortnight so stay tuned…
*If you’d like the doctor’s details please just send me a private message and I will be happy to forward on the details. I’m in Melbourne, Australia.