What a week!

We’ve been on lots of adventures. Last weekend I had my first day out since having Bo. And my first wild festival day since long before I fell pregnant. I danced and I laughed and I nursed cans between my knees and sat on shoulders and danced and laughed some more with some beautiful friends. We left our babies with their grandparents and let loose. It was just the mothers day present to myself that I needed. It was freedom. It was awesome. How lucky am I to have such great new friends right here on my doorstep?

Bo and I ventured further south to meet with Jess and Jonny from Rebel on a Rainbow, which was awesome. It isn’t very often that we get to meet up with our internet friends. The nature of the blog industry means that connections and networks go above and beyond the bounds of countries or cities. Which means I have beautiful friends writing their stories from all around the world. When the opportunity came to get out of the house and go and meet two of the most inspirational people I’ve read about online, I couldn’t pass it up. It was spectacular.

We have had some wild weather this week so we’ve been hiding out in the house watching the rain, listening to the thunder, painting and drawing and playing dolls.  We’ve been dreaming of our future home, wondering where in the world it might end up. My answer? It’s still in the wind.

I hope your weekend is full of light and love and inked in colour. Bo and I will be snuggled up indoors for the most part and if the weather clears we might head out to the farm land to do a shoot and write an article for work. We’ll see. We don’t have much planned. Probably some lounge room picnic tea parties with some dolls, maybe some painting… definitely some far off dreaming.

Have you got a link you’d like to share with me? A favourite blog post that you’ve read or written? A video or a story you think deserves to be seen? Leave the link here in the comments, I know I’d love to broaden my reading a bit this weekend. Let’s share the love around!

xox

Everyone has a story to tell. Every single one of us is full of incredible stories and beautiful moments. Every one of us is inspiring and every one of us yearns to be inspired. When I find something that truly inspires me, that reminds me who I am and why I do the things that I do, I can’t help share it. And this is where these beautiful people come in. My friends, meet Jess and Jonny.

Jess and Jonny from Rebel on a Rainbow are living my dream life. Seriously, what I would give to buy a van and just drive, I’ve considered it a thousand times, and I still find myself throwing the idea around in my head on an almost daily basis. After working for years and years and committing to the daily grind and conforming to our societies norms, Jess and Jonny gave it all up for a dream. They sold their possessions and hit the wide open road. They are living their life, chasing their bliss, on their very own pursuit of happiness. Arms and eyes and hearts wide open to the world around them. Their passion for our country and it’s beautiful red land is inspiring.I’ve been reading their blog for a while, Jonny is a big fan of my husbands surfing and follows him on Instagram. Which is how I first discovered Rebel on a Rainbow. I was at first intrigued by the name and by a few of their comments. So I went on an internet expedition to discover more about these people, living a life different than one I had every lived with the same purpose that I have always held close to my heart. Gentle, kind and completely out of the box.

It didn’t take me long to decide that this couple were people who I’d like to meet and I put them quickly on my blog reader and followed them on Instagram (their photos of Australia are beautiful and unusual and full of love and light and dreams). Their warmth and genuine joy for their lives and for each other is something that I can only aspire to. They are lucky to have what they have, and they value it.

Isn’t love a beautiful thing?

We met for lunch at the beautiful Samudra cafe in Dusnbourough on the impressive Western Australian surf coast. It’s a pretty spectacular part of the world and one of the best raw food cafe’s I’ve been to in a long time.

It’s always interesting meeting people that you only “know” through their online persona’s. But Jess and Jonny were exactly as I expected them to be. Humble, warm and totally down to earth. Good food, good conversation and a lot of laughs lead to a drive down to Yallingup and a lustful gaze at the knee high swell rolling across the break.

Is there anything more important than chasing your dreams? Jess and Jonny don’t think so, and I couldn’t agree with them more.

We don’t want to have any regrets, we want to make the most of every day.  We are just a couple of kids trying to live our dreams…

All power to them. Life without regrets. Life filled with love and experience and joy. What is life it is not lived with passion? What is life if not to be enjoyed? What is life it not to be inked in colour and laughter and love? Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that this is something that I’m totally passionate about, I’ve written about it a lot. The pursuit of happiness.

Jess and Jonny are inspiring to talk to and I feel very blessed that Bo and I were able to spend such a joyful afternoon by the beach with them. We talked about the joys and challenges of van life and about the wanderlust that drives them. We come from different worlds and have very different stories, but our yearning for the path less traveled is the same. Our common desire to grab life with both hands and to live the absolute hell out of it, meant that we could have talked long after the sun set over the sapphire sea. I’m already dreaming of a little getaway to the east coast to see if I can catch some waves with these excellent people.

I urge you to head over to Jess and Jonny’s beautiful blog Rebel on a Rainbow, follow their amazing adventures and soak up some of the passion they have for our beautiful country, the love that they have for each other and the unbridled joy that they have for their life. It’s totally contagious.

Today you are 15 months old. Another three months has come and gone and with it you have changed and grown and become more of yourself. Every day you surprise me and you change me. Life is nothing without growth and change, and you intrinsically know this. you are still such a primal creature, you want for only what you need. Love and food and warmth and safety. All of those things I am so lucky to be able to provide you with ease.

Sure we don’t have our own house yet, we don’t have a lot of money in the bank, we don’t have a reliable car or a fancy wardrobe or any idea what the future will bring. But what we do have is enough. We have enough food and enough warmth and enough shelter. We have more than enough love to go around. We have each other. And kid, that is more than enough. Sometimes I wonder how I’m going to be “enough” for you, enough of a mother, enough of a leader, enough of a care giver. I wonder how I can do the job of two when I am only one. But then I see the way that you look at me and the trust in your hands when you reach out to me and the love in your eyes when you wave to me when you wake up in the morning. And I realise, I’m already doing it. We’re doing it together. And we are enough.

There are lots of things that I want to teach you, but every day you teach me twice as much as I could hope to show you. You are already role playing with your toys, you climb into cardboard boxes and feed them and give them drinks and cuddle and kiss them and sing your funny little songs into their ears. You show me what love is. You show me how to slow down and how to appreciate every moment even when I’m exhausted and weary, you are there, smiling, with nothing but laughter and joy (and hair pulling, with the best of intentions).

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past days, weeks, months, about what it is that I have learned in my 27 years about life that I want to show you. What it is I want you to learn. There are a lot of things, of course, and I’ve mentioned them in my past letters to you, but if there was just one thing…. what would it be? Then the other day I was having a bit of trouble with my own emotions. I was struggling with my own grief and my own fear about my future, I was having a bit of a private moment, as people do, I was overwhelmed by the hugeness of it all. I was searching for the answer. And I found it. I took a deep breath and I reminded myself to be kind, to myself. To be gentle with myself. And that’s it. That’s what I want for you.

If I am to show you anything it is how to be kind. How to understand your power as a human being and the great responsibility that comes along with it. The responsibility to be kind to the world around you, the responsibility you have to be kind every person you come in contact with in your life. The responsibility you have to yourself, to be kind to yourself even when life get’s hard, and it does. It really does some times. To be kind to yourself even when you make mistakes. To be kind to yourself and to others even when the world seems cruel.

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.” Pema Chodron

More babies will (hopefully) come to our family one day, but you will always be the person who changed me. The person that gave me the most important role that I have ever held in my life. The role of the mother. You will always be the person who changed me, who gifted me perspective and kindness and patience beyond anything I had before. Thank you, Bo. Thank you.

I used to yearn for adventure, and I still do, and we will go and do some amazing things together and separately. But I’m no longer searching, the wild I always searched for is in you now. You are my wild. You are my greatest adventure.

I love you.

Your Mama, always.
xox

My mother and her three.

“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

– Elizabeth Stone

Motherhood, it is the most difficult job in the world, but it is also the most rewarding. To my own mother (above) who gives of her space and her time and her love daily, helping Bo and I to find our new direction. Thank you, for everything you have done, for everything you do now, and for everything you will do for us in the future. I literally wouldn’t be here without you.

And to my beautiful daughter who gave me the worlds most precious gift, there are no words to express my undying gratitude. You are the only one who knows what my heart sounds like from the inside, and I will always love you with the ferocity that I did the very first moment I laid eyes on you. May I always have the strength and patience to be the mother that you deserve.

Happy (belated) mothers day, Mama’s.

Bo: Discovering the joy that is a fort made of blankets.

My favourite portraits this week were gorgeous little men. I couldn’t go past this laughing little dude, this boy and the amazing ocean and this little man in his papas chair. Beautiful boys.

xox

What have you been up to this week?

We were up in the city for the weekend and Perth put on beautiful weather for a trip to the zoo with my sister and my niece and nephew. It makes me feel very blessed to get to do such wonderful things under the guise of “work.” Bo was pretty stoked to check out the animals and a little less stoked to ride on the carousel (ok, she really wasn’t into that bit at all).

We lunched with the beautiful Peggy from Cake crumbs & Beach sand. It was so amazing to actually get to meet on of my blog-crushes in the flesh and chat and laugh and eat some amazing food put on by the team at Chefz Table. The guys who have just opened this “relaxed fine dining” restaurant are old friends of mine and young dudes in the fine dining business, and they totally deserve the rave reviews they are getting. They’ve done a bloody brilliant job of this restaurant and the food is fancy, delicious and totally impressive. If you’re in Perth, go and treat yourself to a fully interactive dining experience. It’s awesome. Seriously.

Since being back in our little home in the little town south of Perth, we’ve just been getting back into our daily rhythm. Days filled with rain and wind and thunder have kept us indoors. Painting, cooking and drinking tea and to be honest, going a little stir crazy. But I’ve done a fair bit of getting-lost-online this week and I have some awesome links that I think you’d love too.

I loved this article on the middle-class poor, it’s something that I see a lot of on my facebook feed, people with lots of opportunity crying poor. First world problems that aren’t problems. I think it’s really easy to become complacent, to cry poor and to feel hard done by. Forgetting there are people who are really struggling, and not because they can’t afford to buy a new iPad.

These family photos made me smile, Ashley rocks and is a seriously funny lady… if you haven’t checked out her blog, you should… in fact her Instagram feed has me snorting out loud periodically throughout the day and is definitely worth a look in.

This Ted Talk made me sit up and pay attention. If you haven’t seen this guy speak yet. You should. If you think that feminism doesn’t matter, you need to see this. And if you (like me) believe that this is a serious issue that needs attention, this persepctive will do nothing but fire you up even more. Watch it. Just do it.

It’s mothers day this weekend. I hope you’re all going to have some time with your mums and your babies and your families. Mothers day isn’t really about gifts (though a sleep in would be nice), it’s just about love. It’s just about saying, thank you to that one person who gave you life.

Thanks mum. x

There is no doubt that kids love craft. Bo has just entered her first stage of crafting love and will happily sit for half an hour and scribble on paper. Growing up in a very creative house I don’t remember a time where we didn’t have paint and pens and texta’s on hand. It is really important to me that Bo is given the same free access to crafts and colours and things to play with. But there are lots of kids paints that are branded as “non-toxic” but are expensive and still filled with chemicals that I’d rather Bo doesn’t ingest. And let’s face it, toddlers like to eat stuff they are not supposed to. There is no stopping it, but you can make sure that what they are playing with isn’t filled with nasties.

This recipe is cheap, easy and quick to prepare and clean up is easy too… which is a definite plus in my book. You probably have all of the ingredients in your pantry right now, I know I did.

Kid-Safe Fingerpaint recipe:

Ingredients:
2 cups of water
1/2 cup of plain flour
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of table salt
Food colouring (I used traditional, but you could also experiment with natural food colourings, like beet juice)

Method:
Combine all dry ingredients in a saucepan and then add the water. Using a whisk, stir contiuously over medium heat. As the flour heats it will start to turn into a thick sauce and then a claggy paste. Just turn the heat off when your mixture is the consistency you want. Mine was quite thick this time around, I think next time I’ll get it off the heat a little sooner so that we have a paint that is a bit runnier.

Transfer the mixture into glass jars or plastic cups and then add your colouring. The mixture will be very warm, make sure you let it cool down before you let little hands too close.The paint can be used with pop sticks, fingers, paintbrushes… whatever.

It doesn’t stain skin and is easy to wipe off furniture/the floor. I haven’t tried to keep it for extended periods of time but I’ve read that it doesn’t keep very well for long periods of time. No matter, this recipe makes just enough for a good painting session and clean up is really easy, just run hot water into the jars and the remains should wash away easily. No soaps or chemicals needed.

Enjoy! x

inspired by little monster (those colours!)

Note: There are similar recipes floating around the internet that call this paint “edible” finger paint. It is edible in the fact that you “can” eat it… but you wouldn’t want to. It’s still a good idea to instill a no-paint eating philosophy in your household, but you know that when your toddler sticks the paint his mouth (and he will), that it won’t hurt him.

I have my moments. Some days I love myself, other times I like myself and then there are some days I downright despise myself. As a teenager I thought it was necessary to not like yourself. As far as I was concerned it was part of the teenage angst code that I had signed up to uphold. But as I get older I realise every day that loving yourself doesn’t make you egotistical or selfish or arrogant. It makes you happy. Arrogance often comes from an underbelly of self-hate and a fear of being vulnerable. Embrace vulnerability! There is nothing wrong with being imperfect and vulnerable and scared… and loving yourself anyway. Right? Right.

There is a social dilemma attached to loving yourself. How can you stand up for yourself and give your opinion and be clear about your way without being seen as difficult? I think it’s all in the way that you present yourself, and the key? Respect. Respect for yourself. Respect for the people around you. Respect in the way that you state your opinion and respecting other people enough to know when to shut your trap and listen (it’s more often than any of us think, mind you).

I had an email from a beautiful friend who asked me how I stay true to myself in all of this craziness. How I stay true to myself through the pain and the late nights and the grief. After I laughed a little, I may have even snorted, because it’s only recently that I’ve started to find myself again. I was lost for a very long time. I snorted and then I was humbled… and then I sat down and I wrote this list. Tips (for myself) to staying true to myself and loving myself, bumps, lumps, imperfections and all.

Trust your gut – the gut is a powerful thing. It’s something that we are often taught to ignore in our fast paced modern world, but it is also something that in my traveling days I relied on heavily. If something doesn’t feel right, chances are, it’s not right (for you). Playing nice and going with the flow are great sometimes, but if your gut is telling you no… say no.

Stop taking everything personally - just because someone doesn’t agree with you, doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Who cares if a few people don’t like you? You do have to be respectful of everyone, but you don’t have to be everyone’s best friend. Some people just don’t mesh well, there isn’t anything wrong with that.

Let go of the moral high ground – This one is important to me. Growing up I was told to be the ‘bigger person.’ Let it go. Let it be. Don’t cause problems. But sometimes to really be true to yourself to really love yourself… if you feel shit about something you’ve done (or haven’t done) or something someone else has done it’s OK to feel it (or even say it). My husband is turning me certifiable this week. Seriously, screw the moral high ground. RAAAAHHHHH! Forgiveness is great in theory and it’s really important I think in the long run for self development and self preservation and sanity. But it’s not always sustainable day to day (or hour to hour)… sometimes you just have to be mad. Because sometimes life throws a giant shit at you and you sometimes have to stand there, covered in it for a minute and just fume… Then go and take a hot shower.

Value opinions (this includes your own) – Your friends have opinions and they matter. But so do yours. Don’t let yourself get steam rolled, treated like a doormat, or persuaded to let go of something that is really important to you. So what if you think collecting shadow puppets is the most important thing in the world. Who cares if your friends think it’s weird. Let your freak flag fly! Your opinions matter, you matter.

You are beautiful. You are worth it. You are important. But you are no more beautiful or worth it or important than any one else. Each and every one of us can make a difference, but we can make an even bigger difference together.

Loving ourselves might be a life long battle of wills. Us against ourselves. But that’s OK. It’s a war worth fighting. How can we possibly have a shot at teaching our children self-respect and self-love if we aren’t working towards the same things for ourselves?

Love yourself, because there isn’t anything wrong with it… right?

Have you ever wanted to make your own chai masala?

I had my first cup of real chai (the Hindi word for “tea”) when I was backpacking through India about five years ago. Sitting stooped on a low hessian sack in a dusty alleyway the vendor carefully brewed, steeped and mixed a tiny cup of deep brown, creamy tea. When I first tried it, I was suitably impressed. It was better than good. I drank it a lot, often ordering thirds and fourths at the stalls whilst I sat (drenched is sweat and caked in brown dust) and watched the incredible world around me (you can see a selection of pictures here and here). Cradling a tiny cup in one hand and my camera in the other. Just watching. Ever since then I have had a love affair with chai masala (and India). But the tea bags and the powdered mixes from the supermarket have never really had the right taste. So I’ve been experimenting. I looked up lots of recipes and tried lots of things and experimented and came up with the below recipe for chai masala.

The best thing about making your own chai is that you can adjust the masala (the spice mixture) exactly to your taste, adding or subtracting any of the myriad of ingredients that work so well in this aromatic drink. Mine is good for me, but you might like to shift the ingredients around so that it’s perfect for you.

Easy Chai Recipe:

Ingredients:

1-2 Cinnamon Sticks
Sliced fresh ginger (I used quite a lot, probably six or seven slices)
1 teaspoon of black peppercorns
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1 tablespoon of ground cloves (whole cloves work well too)
1.5 large tablespoon of ground cardamom (or 5-6 cardamom pods)
1.5 cups of water
1 cup of full cream milk (trust me, full cream is better, they use buffalo milk in India, but there is no reproducing that here – can also substitute with a nut milk or condensed milk if you’re feeling particularly naughty)
2 large tablespoons of loose black tea

You can add a whole range of spices to your liking, for a full list of Chai related spices check out this website (there is another different, but I’m sure equally delicious recipe there too).

Method:

Combine all spices (except the ginger) in a mortar and pestle and grind them up to release the flavour. You don’t need to grind into a fine powder, just give it a good smash. Add the ginger and give it a bit of a smash to crush it up slightly. It should smell amazing. This is your masala base.

Add the masala ingredients to a small saucepan and mix with the water. Heat until boiling and then add the tea and give a good stir. Reduce to a simmer and add the milk slowly. Allow the mixture to heat up but don’t let it boil. Once the milk starts to bubble around the edges turn the heat off and cover to let it steep for a while.

After about five minutes or so, strain the mixture through a tea strainer (of if you don’t have one, a piece of muslin works well too) and serve hot with a spoonful of honey to taste.

The best thing about this recipe is that it’s a good masala foundation. You can pump up the spices or add extra spices if you want it to be a bit punchier. It’s delicious, warm and extremely good for your body, in fact all of the spices in traditional chai have healing benefits. You can read more info on that here.

If you have a baby spice lover like I do, you may have to wrestle your hot cup away… like I do. I make Bo her own chai the same way, I just don’t add any black tea to hers, the last thing she needs is the caffeine! I just brew her a little pot of the spices with warm milk and she happily sits and drinks it with a spoon like a soup. It’s good for her, and she loves it. That’s a big win in my book.

I’m still in the process of trying to create the perfect pantry version of this recipe. It is a bit time consuming and messy to make, so I’d love to make one that is ground into a fine powder so I can just add a couple of teaspoons of the masala mix  whenever I want to make a pot. I’m guessing I’ll have to substitute the fresh ginger for powdered stuff? It’s a work in progress…

Do you have a great recipe?

Bo: It’s a big world baby. There is nothing more amazing for me than to watch you engage with this wild world with such awe and curiosity. You, like every other child on this planet, are destined for greatness.

My favourite portraits this week were all little girls. Little Olive made me laugh, could she be any sweeter? Penny made me sigh that mama sigh… nostalgia and love and calm all in one. And this little beauty, with the wind in her hair, transported me to another place and space in time. I could almost feel the crisp air on my own skin. Beautiful portraits from all around the world, as always.

xox