I've said it once and I'll say it again. Sometimes minimalism is saying NO to the things that dark consumerism says you want, and finding an alternative. You have to use some willpower, and wait for the feelings of desire to pass. I really did desire that set of spice jars with bamboo tops on Temu, the advertisment that crept it's way into one of my social feeds yesterday. They looked so pretty

Being ill is the worst. While some say it's your body's way of demanding rest, like a warning sign, it doesn't make the experience any less frustrating. Especially when my bestie is visiting from Tasmania, and all I want is to go surfing with her.

To begin with, this is a story of a wife being right. 15 years ago, when we were planting the small seedlings of red mahogany (not a true mahagony, but a native gum tree known for it's red wood that's good for furniture) in a trio in the back paddock, my husband cynically said that we'll never see the trees grow that tall.

I've been wanting to go to Greece for years. I made it as far as Croatia about twenty years ago, but that's as far as I got. Jamie's always wanted to take me, remembering a holiday there years ago drinking retsina and eating kalamari, though he refused to eat octopus now.

I know what she's looking for - she's been searching for months. It must be in the evenings, now it's winter and the nights are predicatably longer. There's no distractions in a quiet house. It used to be around dinner time that he'd be playing guitar, or starting to watch something on telly and she'd be getting mad at him and telling him to wait til she was done with dinner, or playing music really loud.

sucks getting older. It's like walking a tightrope - if you don't look after yourself perfectly, there you go, hurtling to the pavement below. Splat. Tendons torn, liver overwrought, adrenals underfunctioning, hormones fucking with you in all kinds of ways, sleepless nights, aching joints, and so on.