Tuesday 18 February

Ta Das:

• emptied night buckets
• dirty laundry round-up
• put in laundry #1 (linen/towels)
• coffee
• put in laundry #2 (delicates)
• made breakfast; picked fresh blackberries to go on pudding
• hung out laundry #1, brought in dry laundry from shed
• put in laundry #3 (linen/doona), hung out laundry #2 in shed
• got into farm clothes, cleaned my teeth
• cleared more area for mulch (finished plum orchard, started cutting path around blackberries near goose shed)
• added another layer of horse poo to #3
• took Dan to psych appointment
• went foraging for plums and blackberries in the paddock with Dan 
• transferred frozen blackberries to container, put in more blackberries to freeze

To Dos:

• make compost smoothie for zucchinis, water any containers I didn't get to yesterday
• fill window box in Dan's courtyard with potting mix; sweep concrete pad, remove rubbish from courtyard, move hall stand to concrete pad, bring in big grey planter
• start laying out paths in food forest, mulch remaining beds
• do BotVC stocktake and plan, menu plan, shopping list

Rest of the week has increased chance of rain, so aim to do as much in the garden as possible today then take three days off to do the shopping and work on paperwork and costuming.

Costuming:

• finish copper overskirt (except for ruching)
• finish green skirt
• do duct tape bodice pattern

Paperwork:

• find or reconstruct Hugh's HESP
• do a substantial amount on Dan's

Monday 17 February

Ta Das:

• decided not to fuck up all my hard work
• coffee, not breakfast
• checked time for Dan's singing lesson, updated calendar
• discovered the idea of building swales on contour instead of digging and piling, using tree branches and waste from site clearing instead of digging - this idea may have much more promise for widespread use, given my physical limitations! (although looking into it, it probably still involves digging, but maybe not as much)
• got into farm clothes
• surveyed The Heap and decided how to adjust it before mulching
• make any changes that can be done without the brush-cutter (IN PROGRESS - involves digging and moving rocks to make terraces)
• harvested silverbeet, zucchini, carrots, snowpeas, beans and parsley; cooked brunch (scrambled tofu) for me and the kids
• logged/planned my food for the day
• did some more work on The Heap, got Eric to help moving rocks
• rest and rehydration break 
• did some more work on The Heap, finished the round terrace
• showered and got dressed; had a nap; went to Geeveston and played Wizards Unite
• watered all the raised beds, borders, potato beds and containers (need to double check with watering can)
• made hummus; helped Hugh make dinner
• helped set up/clean up after BBQ

Sunday 16 February

Woot. Have made some progress on the recipe folder mess, after resenting the heck out of it for months - all the reformatted and printed recipes Hugh did have been sorted, the old/dog-eared/food-stained originals removed, and I've started going through my folder on the computer and editing and printing out ones that ought to be in there. Go me!

Just noting that I also did a big chunk of the food forest - I finished prepping the ground (although I think I still have some levelling out to do of the heap in the last section so I don't break a leg) and mulched it until I ran out of mulch.

Friday 14 February

Priorities:

1. physical self-care (shower, clean teeth, make my bed, drink lots of water)
2. do a substantial amount of work on my costume
3. get on top of the laundry (not good to already be recycling one's underpants on the first day of one's bleed)
4. work at the batch cooking without spending all day on my feet
5. honour my fatigue and rest regularly throughout the day, but balance that with not being a potato by doing paperwork instead of procrastifaffing like I just did

Plan:
[11:45] put away drying up, dirty laundry round-up
shower and dress, clean teeth, make my bed
put in laundry #2
hang out laundry #1
bring in any dry laundry
[15 minute break] drink water, get everything set up to work on home ed paperwork
[12:45] do as much of the costuming as I can in 45 minutes
[15 minute break] drink water, go through one HESP and start making notes - need to do this as a separate long block and use the 15 minute breaks as downtime
[2:15] put in laundry #3 (no more pegs in wood shed and the forecast is for rain)
hang out laundry #2
manage laundry on outside line
cook something on my list

[15 minute break] drink water
[3:15] do as much of the costuming as I can in 45 minutes
[15 minute break] drink water
[4:15] cook something on my list
[15 minute break] drink water
[5:15] go through one HESP and make notes/changes


and continue for as long as I can...

List of costuming tasks to do:

• Green Underskirt [FINISH THIS WEEK]
  • unpick/cut away slip of green skirt from bling; remove slip
  • finish adding bling to front
  • finish sewing on lace [in progress]

•  Copper Overskirt [FINISH STEPS 1-6 THIS WEEK]
• hem sides of front (decided not to bother hemming the bottom since it's the selvedge so it won't fray, and will be ruched up so won't be noticeable)
• finish adjusting final width of unpleated front panels vs pleating, sew pleats to white linen waistband
• add linen waistband and heavy-duty belt loops (entire weight of skirt is held up by narrow leather belt)
• add interlining panels to strengthen front panels; attach ring-clasp to front of skirt to hold it together (not weight-bearing)
• sew first point of central ruching in place on each side

• Hat
  • finish blinging hat

[2:15] After a couple of long blocks, I've realised I need the mental relaxation of the 15 minute breaks just as much as the physical, so I'm going to have to rejig the plan so I can just pootle around in the breaks instead of driving myself to do the HESPs and not getting any downtime at all. Time to get back to it and do some laundry now, but I will add a long block where I can just look at the HESPs later.

Saturday 8 January

I need a day off from doing the brush cutting, and I also need to focus on food prep and cooking ahead as I have been getting unbalanced in that area. There are so many plates to keep in the air at the same time, and if I let that one in particular drop it makes the rest of them much harder to juggle. And I need to do a lot of cooking ahead for the family because otherwise I will drop that ball as well. So, cooking ahead lists:

• chia puddings (no cook, me/Hugh)
• briami (oven, me)
• felafels and hummus (food processor/oven, them)
• mac'n'cheese (stovetop/oven, them)
• lazy lasagne pasta bake (stovetop/oven, them)

[Break for washing up to happen and oven to be vacated]

• roast sweet potato and pumpkin dice (oven, Hugh)
• brown rice (rice cooker, Hugh/Eric)
• cauliflower-crusted silverbeet tofu quiche (food processor/stovetop/oven, me)
• lentil burgers (food processor/sandwich press)
• corn chowder (stovetop, them)
• TVP/cannellini bean sausages (stovetop, me)

[Break for washing up to happen]

• creamy coconut dhal with carrot (stovetop, them)
• green curry (stovetop, me/Eric)
• sweet potato red curry with silverbeet (stovetop, me/Eric)

After shopping:

• cabbagey mincey noodley thing with TVP (me/Dan) 

OMG. I have a sore back and sore feet, but I have cooked many many things... I dropped one or two things off the original list when I discovered I didn't have the right ingredients for them, but I've made everything except the TVP sausages. Go me!

Wednesday 5 February

Somehow it is already February, and we've just celebrated the first of the harvest festivals. I'm doing that thing of "Where the hell did the year go?" even though for quite a bit of it I can look back and see exactly where it went.

Done:

• coffee
• got into farm clothes 
• emptied night bucket
• dirty laundry round-up
• put in load of laundry #1 
• put in load of laundry #2 
• started daily Tummy Beast blog entry, finished shopping list
• did one tank's worth of slashing in top orchard/plum orchard
• put in load of laundry #3 
• screwed pipes of hoop house on #5 North to front of bed to keep hoop house stable
• harvested herbs, carrots, kale, snowpeas, zucchini and silverbeet for scrambled tofu
• made nettle tea and scrambled tofu
• hung out three loads of laundry (Eric)  
• did one section of mulching in top orchard
• showered, washed hair, got dressed  
• supermarket shopping, tip shop etc
•  
•  
• filled all the water bottles in the kitchen, made sure there are three in my fridge
• updated Trello 
• watered the indoor plants
• watered raised beds and containers in both courtyards
• worked on levelling/mulching Dan's courtyard
• rest and rehydration break, made mineral water
• put away shopping
• 9:30pm electronic curfew and bedtime

To Do - Inside:

• catch up on Monday phone calls/contacts
• work on HESPs and 2019/2020 online/hard copy portfolios
• printed out portfolio dividers, added them to Hugh's portfolio, sorted out existing content
• work on handwriting with Hugh  
• 15 minutes tidying up in my bedroom
• change towels, bathmat, teatowels, hand towels (Thursday)
• cook Mexibeans for Dan
• cook rice; make spinach rice pie
• make hummus
• clean out my fridge, freeze black bananas
• make rhubarb applesauce, and make some into chia puddings
• work on steampunk costume 
• reorganising my "study": need to go through the in-trays and file portfolio stuff, relabel Dan's tray, and declutter/stocktake stationery supplies
• change my bedlinen
• sort clean laundry and put away
• put in load of laundry #1 
• put in load of laundry #2 
• put in load of laundry #3 
• hung out load of laundry #1 
• hung out load of laundry #2 
• hung out load of laundry #3
• bring in laundry from wood shed 
• write to grandparents
• enrol Dan in MTC
• print/file dividers for Hugh's portfolio
  
• write an explainer for Dan's Patreon and the SPG fandom
• start 2019 reports, 2020 HESPs
• compile/print missing monthly notes for 2019
• January (less urgent)
• February (less urgent)
• April (less urgent)
• August
• November
• December 

To Do - Outside:

• emptied horse poo into #4 and covered with hay
• compost smoothies 
• do a bonus tank's worth of slashing in the bottom chook run
•  
• harvest silverbeet for spinach rice pie
• harvest rhubarb
• throw ash around the young plum trees (use a ladder)
• deadhead roses 
• by Dan's cottage
• in front garden
• block geese's access to the tomatoes in the courtyard with wire/netting
• give geese more bedding