Home Living

Yesterday I read a lovely post from Linda at home living.  The title of the blog was A Home Making Class.  Oh how I wish there was something like this when I was growing up, well even now for that matter.  Growing up my mother was sick a lot so my home skills are largely self taught or I learnt from my father, we lived along way away from my extended family and my grandmother who started to teach me how to knit and sew on her holidays wit us passed away when I was 11.  You see my mother did not know how to cook or do anything when she married my dad, as she had a lot of challengers as a child and her parents were told she would never move out of home if she lived past her childhood years.  So she was never really taught home skills, my father is an amazing cook and he taught my mum who now is  a great cook.  But having a mother who was ill a lot while growing up, meant that I had to learn how to keep house and cook at a young age.  By the age of eight I could cook most meals including roast, lasagna, bake bread, cakes, milk the cow and goats, could do washing, ironing, most cleaning jobs. 

I think it is so important that we teach our children cooking and home skills, even if they do have a disability, you never know what will happen in the future.  As in my mums example by the grace of God she achieved things in life that people and her doctors never expected her to.  Not only did she get married she also had a child, was a pastors wife and a great writer.  

I am trying to teach my children things while still letting them be a child.  This is something I have really struggled with, I do not want to rob them of their childhood, but I also want them prepared for life when they leave home.    

A class like this would have been so great, for both teens and us married ones, the older generation have so much wisdom and knowledge to share.   Rhonda has a great blog called down to earth she shares lots of great ideas on home making, baking, gardening, craft and much more.   It is great to find an Aussie blog like this.  Laurie from Tip Junky, also has lots of great ideas.

In Australia our high schools provide a subject called home economics, this is compulsory for year eight and then is an elective for years 9 to 12.  It focuses on cooking and sewing/craft.   I did home economics from years 8 to 12 but only really learnt the basics.

Yesterday I went op shopping with my children we were looking for curtains or something that I could make into curtains for the kitchen but instead we found...... A brunch coat for me, a near new school dress for my eldest for $6 which is amazing as she goes to a Christian school and it is unusual to come across any of the uniforms in op shops.  And a shelf.

 Yes a brown old used shelf.  But with a coat of white paint a little sanding here and there and some pretty things it will turn into a kitchen self for my kitchen bench.

Some ideas of what I might do with it once it is painted.

And while I was looking for the paint in my very messy craft/junk room I came across this picture frame I have been meaning to paint.

So two more jobs to add to my list.