A while ago I read an article by Annie Leonard, author of the book ‘the story of stuff’. She writes that she gets accused of being against stuff. That accusation/question is often raised when prospective customers ring me. They are afraid that we will make them throw out everything. We don’t and we won’t and you shouldn’t let us.
What we do is asking lots of (sometimes confronting) questions and raising awareness about what’s needed and what’s just wanted.
With getting to grips with our own consumerism, we can model to our kids and others, showing them that live isn’t about stuff. Annie says in her article:” we have more stuff than previous generations could have dreamed of, but we also have less leisure time, fewer friends and spend less time with our kids.” A couple of the tips she gives for parents about how to raise less stuff cantered kids does apply to adults, too:
Be aware how often you get your wallet out. Just because the petrol station has milk and newspaper and sweets, doesn’t mean you always have to purchase something.
Create Community Seek out other people/families that value people based on their character rather than their stuff.
Bring back sharing  Share the lawnmower with neighbours (it takes up a lot of space in the shed). Borrow a tent for your first trial camping trip – you might not like it. Share the trip (and the kids) to the soccer game, piano lesson, swimming coaching… saves petrol and time.
Talk about it Cultivating a resistance to the constant barrage of commercial messages.
Create commercial free zones/times We simply must reclaim our physical and mental landscape from the constant barrage of messages telling us that we will be happier, more successful, and more loved if we buy more stuff. Watch public commercial-free TV, don’t buy magazines. Unsubscribe to newsletters (not this one, of course). Try generic products. Be aware whether you buy the label or the product. Don’t buy stuff on top of experiences. Do you really need a souvenir from the zoo? Merchandising is one of the things I get to chuck out a lot!

After the recent outback trip I decided to give my ‘Map and brochure Box’ a once over and chuck everything that is too old to be relevant any more, all the duplicated cycling maps we own and information about areas where we are not very likely to go in the next 5 years.
I use a suspension file box with a clear lid. Fits nicely under the shelves in my office, I didn’t have to buy any hanging files or clear tabs, because I use them anyway, and it gives me the possibility to create broad categories to easily find things to take on a trip or give to a visitor.
As with all filing  I strongly suggest to go for broad categories. If you are too detailed it gets hard to find the right spot for a document and you might give up all together to file that item away.
Living in Sydney I found these categories working for us:

• Sydney
• Cycling
• North of Sydney
• West of Sydney
• South of Sydney
• (a new one) NSW outback
• Canberra
• Rest of Australia
• Rest of the world (I am tempted to call that one East of Sydney)

I hope you have noticed, that it’s been 4 weeks since the last post– I hope you missed it??!!!!
During the Easter Holidays, our family went on a road trip to outback NSW. I took my laptop with all intentions to write some content, but you know, as soon as we left Sydney, I just completely lost interest. I was much more focused on taking in the landscape and watching all the wildlife that is abundant with all the rain we had.
We do camping, because it fits the budget and you experience nature much more first hand. And you are very flexible. Two times we just pitched our tents at the edge of a paddock.
The kids loved it: open fire, strange animals, cotton crops and 100 year old woolsheds.
I immensely enjoyed Broken Hill for its rich, very Australian history. I will definitely suggest it to all our overseas visitors – you can actually take a sleeper train there on Wednesday nights from Sydney!!
Back home it was de dusting and putting all the gear back in its proper space. Luckily, we own a pressure water gun; unfortunately, the washing machine broke down…
And then there are always the crates and boxes with mixed content that are so hard to get started on. However, much the same as I work with my customers, we just did one box at a time. The last one was mine, with all the minerals and real cotton balls, the national park brochures and maps. I even found a couple of stray chocolate Easter eggs in the bottom!

pitching the tent at the end of the day

outback NSW

That’s how they are called in our household – and with the soccer season starting last weekend, I have been in and out of this one quite a bit.
They are 50cm x 35cm x 27cm see through plastic with a lid that closes by folding over the handles. They are big enough for most items and small enough to not be overloaded. Because of their size, they are a bit sturdier then the bigger ones you get from hardware houses and container stores.
See through is good for labeling. I just slide some scrap paper with the content clearly written in big letters on it on the inside. Easy to change and no endless rubbing to get rid of last year’s labels.
It’s a excellent idea to decide on one main storage container for the whole household or office. (Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a couple of other fitting sizes, but the general purpose ones). It makes it easier to replace broken tubs or lids, the spacing between shelves can be adjusted with a minimum of wasted space – and I think it looks good if everything is uniform, even if it’s just in a garage.
In addition, these have been around at Woolies, Big W and SuperBarn for the last 15 years, and you can always buy more or replace bits and pieces.

Two weeks ago I  joined freecycle. Should have done it much earlier. I heard about it a few years ago through a friend of mine who, as it now turns out, is the ‘owner’ of the Sydney Central group. Other friends have been using it and rave about it. Finally, I had a customer end of last year who was using it very successfully.
You know how it is a lot of times. You decide to let go of something, it gets put in a pile or a box, then you forget about it or don’t have the time to move it OUT OF YOUR HOUSE. When I work with my clients, I always take all the stuff that might be of interest to a charity shop, but they don’t take everything.  Bulky items, stationery and toys are often left for the bin, which is sad and makes it even harder to let go.
And that’s where Anne put it onto freecycle, and it was gone three days later, to be used and hopefully loved by another family.

Here is how it works: Freecycle is a not for profit worldwide organisation. It is organised into local groups, so driving around is kept to a minimum. Their aim is to keep items out of landfill. All posts are moderated and there is a code of ethics so everyone feels safe and happy.
You can find out what regional group you would belong to here. You join through Yahoo groups and post with e mails send to your local group.
You can post things you want to get rid of, but you can also post ‘want’ items. The first things I posted where 8 unused cane garden torches – taken out of the garage during de clutter, we had a couple of weekends ago (our council clean up day is coming up). They were brand new and have been hanging around far too long. They are really not rubbish and someone picked them up and used them at a garden party (although, garden party is slightly unlikely with the weather we have been having in Sydney). I also posted a ‘want’ item, because hubby promised me to install new edging around my veggie beds for my birthday next month. Everything in the shops is just too expensive so this could be a great way to help me. He is going over to pick up some wooden planks in Leichhardt this weekend!

1. Go here and find the right region in Australia (sorry to my overseas readers – but it started in the USA so you are bound to have the same) http://www.freecycle.org/group/AU/
2. next page leads you to select a more detailed local group. You can check out what’s been posted and what’s wanted. At the bottom of that page click the ‘Join Group’ button and follow the instructions. A message will come to you to confirm your email address, then another asking for your suburb (this is to ensure you are joining the correct group)
3. once accepted into the group, you can elect to receive every post in a separate e mail, a twice daily digests, or just look it up on the site whenever you need something or feel like it.

At the moment I read the digest twice a day – . It’s an intersting read and good to know what other people post or want. We might have some of the ‘want’ items lurking in the shed or in my kids chaos(= kids bedroom)

Yesterday I, together with my blog admin person,  updated to a much newer version of this blog software. Mine was so old, it was almost impossible to find a plugin to save the content (in case anything goes wrong with the update!)

Luckily nothing did go wrong, and I hope that the other important plugin, the one that automatically posts to my Facebook page is working.

That’s the sole purpose for this post – to check it out. Oh, and I better find a photo, too!!!

With the first couple of school weeks under our belt – we start to see the weak points in our and our kid’s time management. I am a believer of nipping it in the butt early, so my kids start using a diary of sorts from year 3 onwards. I have drawn up our own A3 sized term planner: undated so I can photocopy the same template for every term for every child. They fill in the dates and colour in the weekends themselves. We then sit down and write in fixtures: like German lessons on Monday afternoons, or rowing on Sunday morning. As soon as homework starts we allocate days for the reappearing, every week tasks they have to do. For the older kids, we start back-calculating from assignment hand in day; to find a good way of project managing that task – which doesn’t mean me rushing to Officeworks on the morning it has to be in to have something spiral bound or laminated.
Again, different days of the week lend itself to different activities. If you know you don’t have internet access, what about creating a reading folder and take a highlighter to actually read through all the websites you found in your research. Try to do the physical acitve homework parts on the days they have extra curricular academic lessons like musik or language.
It works pretty well – although Mr. (almost) 9 prefers a little booklet he can carry with him and ignores the Term Planner – but that’s fine. Even kids have their own organising style and as adults, we just have to find a way of helping them find and use that style. It seems to work for him. He told me very proud in the car this morning, that, thanks to his diary, he didn’t forget his library bag!

P.S. If you want something to start with for your own term planner. I have a pdf version of ours I am happy to share. Just pop into the comments box and I’ll send it to you

There was a fair bit of media attention around hoarders in the last two weeks due to the National Squalor Conference here in Sydney. This little video was posted on YouTube by my dear college Wendy in Melbourne. She clearly is an expert on working with Hoarders.

I do know it’s a bit overdone by now, the New Year’s resolution thing y… But it’s never too late to improve a bad habit!

This product was invented and is produced by a colleague of mine and it’s one of these oh so simple things that could start a change to the better in your (home) office.

You can buy it through my website by clicking on “shop” on the left side navigation bar and some Australia Post shops stock it, too.

• keeps  your bills organised before, and after you pay them
• saves time  (no more sorting through piles of paperwork)
• helps you avoid paying late fees by keeping track of when your bills are due  (month by month)
• is  convenient and easy to use
• helps track your monthly expenditure
• is a helpful budgeting tool

$20.00 Incl. GST. Plus postage: $3.00 Standard Australia Post. Orders are sent by Australia Post within 5 working day To order please click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page

this is a small replacement of the not happening back to schoolpost.(If you are looking for one, why not check last years January post?)

My kids love it, although Mr. 8 got into trouble for doing creative things with the rubber band at his lunch break!!
Via: www.athomewithrealfood.blogspot.com
Stop cut apples browning in your child’s lunch box by securing with a rubber band.