The Hardest Thing

Sometimes the hardest thing can be knowing when to let go.  When to say no.  When you're doing too much.  Especially if most of those things give you pleasure and joy.

This post has been a long time coming.  At least several months.  I just keep putting it off, hoping that by some miracle things will change and I will magically discover three hours (or so!) of free time each week.

But it hasn't happened.  So I am having to make a hard call.  Something has to give, and it can't keep being me (aka my health, my sanity, my stress levels).  About the only thing that I can give up is this blog.  So as of today I will no longer be blogging.  I'd love to say that this is just a temporary lapse.  I've thought about just saying I'll be popping in randomly, when I have time.  Maybe I can.  But I doubt it.  The thing is that even something you absolutely love can become a dead weight around your shoulders if you feel like you are pushed into a corner over it and doing it because you 'should' rather than because you 'want to' today.  I just don't have the time for blogging.  Working 15 hours a week, looking after an under 2yr old in between while his daddy studies, running a household, trying to garden to lower our food costs, the list goes on.  I feel like I am constantly chasing my tail just to keep up.  By the time I can work less hours, I will be back into study again myself.  Blogging is a joy, but only when I have the time to contemplate what I write, to take nice photos, and to spend some quality time chatting away with you all.  There's also this really exciting opportunity to launch an idea I've had with my church this year...looking at it, it could be really truly amazing, but it needs a bit of time and attention over the coming months to get it set up right.  I'm really excited and in awe at the same time.  But again, I need the time I would have been blogging to do that (and about ten thousand other things, so it seems!).

I have been hanging on, not wanting to be another one of those blogs that comes and then goes.  But there's not really anything else I can do about it.  Except to say I'm sorry.  Thank you for being my faithful readers, for taking the time to listen to my ramblings and sneak peeks at my life.  I'd especially like to thank Maxine and Elizabeth for all your comments.  I had meant to write a post about it.  Sigh.  Along with a great many other posts about a great many other things.  Deep sigh.  Anyway, thank you.  It means so much to have received your feedback on my posts.  While I know other people read my blog, it really does make a difference to actually hear it.  So, dear readers, fare-thee-well.  I pray that the SoonArmy blog has been something positive and helpful for you in whatever you have been going through. 

God bless and keep you.
Amy

Friends

I have worked out how to be friends on Freerice!!!

Simply follow the instructions under the FAQ page.  Duh.  All that time I spent fishing around trying to work it out for myself.

Here tis:
Easiest route if you are already part of our group, is to click on the name of each person in the group.  Then when their profile page comes up, click the little green button that says "follow".

Wah-lah.
How easy is that?!

If you want to find someone else, then

To add friends, go to your profile (http://freerice.com/user), click on the option to "Edit your profile".
Scroll down, above your Friends list you will see two options:
- A search box to search for friends already members on Freerice. Start typing their names, you can click on their name and choose to follow their activities on Freerice.
- A link to invite your friends on Facebook to join. You will still need to follow them on Freerice once they join using the search box.
You can also click on other Freerice player usernames and choose the option “Follow User”. This means that you will see updates in your Friends Activity list and see their ranking in your friends' ranking list.
Players are not notified when you follow them.

Now that we are friends (you did decide to follow me, didn't you?!), whenever you go onto Freerice you can click on the Friends Activity (beside Groups on the pale green toolbar) to see what I've been up to.
 
Have fun!  I wonder what cool things you'll learn this week.  I'm trying to get the countries of southern Africa sorted in my head.  And central America.  And Europe! Grin.
 
Amy

Kids

Kids.  You gotta love 'em.

They sure do take a lot of work, so it's a good thing they come cute.

My baby is currently asleep.  Which is where I want to be too.  Where I plan on being shortly.  Afternoon nap time.  Bring it on!  Yay!
But I've been writing letters to our sponsored kids today.  And was horrified to realise that the last time I wrote was in OCTOBER.  Ugh.  So not cool.  These kids really don't take much of my time (unlike my own small fry who seems to be a time sponge!).

The thing is, these kids live and breathe for our letters.  Sure, it is great to give them money, help them get to school and have clean water and all that sort of stuff.  But you know what they need even more?  Hope.  Knowing someone believes in them.  Knowing someone out there thinks the world of them, prays for them, cares enough to remember their birthday and send them a letter from time to time.  Can't say I've been particularly good in that area.  I have it written in my to-do list every few months, but it is all too easy to put off, thinking it's too hard.  Thinking that it won't matter if they don't hear from me just yet.

But if you think about it, their families are usually on the brink of survival.  And that is not just Amy exagerating to make it more impacting.  They are.  They are just getting by, day by day.  If they can manage to pack their kid off to school today, they are doing well.  If they all got to eat today, they are doing well.  If there was ANY money leftover for tomorrow, that's a bonus.  So I don't imagine that people living in these circumstances manage much in the way of "You can do it.  You are amazing.  Follow your dreams." for their children.  They are probably too tired.  And too worried.

So that's where we come in.  We do have time.  We do have energy.  I know you think you don't, but believe me, you do. 

It takes me about 1hour to write to three sponsored kids.  One hour.  Every four months (when I remember to do it regularly enough).  Now, I know we are all busy and we are all stressed.  We do live in the modern world.  But seriously, we have half an hour every few months to sow into the life of another person.  You may be the only encouragement this child EVER receives.  You may be the difference between them finishing school or giving up, between believing they are valuable or worthless.

We can't change the world.  I wish we could.  I so want to!  But we can change one child's life.  The power of our words can change their life. 

So, I encourage you, write to your sponsored child today.  Don't have one or can't afford one right now?  You can still write to one.  Tear Fund is crying out for writers, for all those people who sponsor but don't communicate with their kids.  You could be a penpal.  Half an hour, every four months.  Change someone's life.  Isn't that amazing?  Such a simple, easy task can literally change someone's life.  And through them, their family, their community, their world.  And let me tell you, it is so nice getting a letter back, buzzing with excitement!

Amy

ps - Are you (like most of the people I talk to, myself included!) not sure what to write about?
How about some posts on ideas...things to write, easy things to do for your sponsored child, templates, etc?

Drumroll Please!

Are you drumming?


It is with great pleasure that I announce the Supreme Chocolate Fish Award for Freerice Week 2012!

The winner is................




BOYO!

With over 55,000 grains of rice donated in the week, he left us all in his dust.  He was also the only one that referred a friend, and to top it all off, got over 20,000 grains in just one day!!!

Consolation prizes are also hereby awarded to Maxine (3,000 grains over the week although only 1,000 show in our group - congratulations!), Aynsley (5,280 grains - stirling effort!), and Grads (160 grains, signed-up-during-the-week award!).

Boyo's official total shows at 52,150, but he also had some technical glitches getting into our group, so his first 3,000 aren't listed.

He has already scooped up his prize, proudly displayed beside his armchair in the lounge.

Three chocolate fish (bigger than the little minnow in the photo, just in case you are wondering!  That was all I had available to photograph earlier in the week!).

Maxine and Aynsley can look out for your prizes in the post soon.  Yum, yum, yummy!

Thanks so much for participating, everyone.  I hope you enjoyed it, learnt some new things, and felt the thrill of helping someone in incredible need.  But don't stop now.  Keep at it, our few grains of rice each day or week really do make a huge difference to someone facing hunger.  And if you didn't sign up during Freerice week, you still can!  Get on Freerice, and make a difference!  You only need a minute, seriously.  Now who doesn't have a minute spare from time to time?!?

Amy (off to do 500 grains now, seeing as it has been a few days!  Then I think I will go to bed - Munchkin has a cold, and while he is a happy sicky during the day for the most part, he is NOT at night!!!  I can hardly keep my eyes open after two nights up with him and two days at work!).


My inspiration for chocolate fish comes, as always from Mrs Thomas in Mog and the Baby (by Judith Kerr): "You are a baby saving cat, and you deserve a reward." 

Playdough

Munchkin and I made some more playdough last week.

Mummy's playdough (in the making):

Munchy's playdough (flour creation):

Loads of fun.  Munchkin loves playdough so much, he runs to the fridge as soon as I say the word!  The only downside?  Trying to prevent an under two year old from scoffing while playing.  All that salt is not so great for the littlies.  We made this batch a nice bright green and added a drop of peppermint oil.  Yummy.  Our favourite things to do with it (other than eat it!) are putting round balls into containers, and cutting out little shapes.  We have a dog, a cat, a heart, and a star.  Munchkin likes them all.


Amy

Sleeping the Night Away

Life has been somewhat crazy round here lately.  Not that it has been peaceful, serene, or boring for quite some time!  But recently, it has been busier than even our usual busy.

Sleep has been a problem.

Sleep is still a problem.  Well, not so much sleep, but a lack of it.

With starting work so early, I am up at 5:15am four mornings a week.  Boyo was coming to bed around 1-2am.  Munchkin has been waking one or two times most nights.  On Friday night, it was FIVE times.  I broke out the pamol to add to the teething arsenal (he has a teething and a sleep remedy which usually work quite well).  Today I bought more bonjella.  The bottom two molars are definitely feeling more pointy than a few months back.  I hate teething.  I really, really hate teething.

Of course, I've been adding to my lack-of-sleep problem too.  Movies.  Why is it that most movies seem to finish after 10:30pm these days?!?  Yet there I was, watching them.  You see, I'd spend so long tidying up, doing washing, putting food in the fridge, and so on after getting Munchkin into bed, that I'd then feel like I needed to vegetate infront of the tube for at least an hour before I could possibly go to sleep.  My mind gets too wound up.  Yes, even by doing the washing.  Annoying.  But then of course, I'd lose an hour or two of sleep.  Now, an hour or two doesn't sound like much.  But when you compound that by two or three or even four nights a week, it all adds up way too much.  And when you aren't actually getting enough sleep to start with, before any late-night movie watching.  Well.  Silly me.

So here is my resolution.  I have taken drastic measures.  Firstly, I am telling all of you.  So that I will feel like a total hypocrite and really bummed if I don't follow through.  Grin.  I am hoping you will hold me accountable.  Ask me in a few weeks if I did what I said I was going to do on that blog post.

Secondly, I have set a recurring alarm.  New mobile phone, which means I can actually do that (my previous one only let you set one alarm at a time, this one I can do up to 6, and choose which days of the week they are for, amazing!)!  My alarm is now set for 9pm.  That is my reminder that whatever I am doing, it is not as important as sleep.  Very difficult to remember when faced with a huge pile of washing, or the deep and burning desire to read one last blog post or sort one last batch of photos before heading off to bed.  So my alarm will hopefully help me remember that there should be no work after 9pm.  Movies are out.  They go too late.  I must be in bed, with the light out, by 10pm.  That's a whole hour to get ready.  Surely, even for my waffly bed-time routines that should be enough (I drive Boyo nuts with how long I take getting ready for bed - he takes about 5minutes).  I figure that if I get to 9pm and feel like I haven't wound down enough to go to sleep, then I can do something for half an hour that is relaxing, with the deliberate intent of calming down.  Do some wordfinds, sit in bed and knit, that sort of thing.  But I still need to be in bed by 10. 

I am also hoping to have some shorter lie downs during the day when Boyo is at Polytech (starts next week, yikes!).  Just half an hour, maybe 45minutes.  Enough time for me to rest, but without taking too long out of my afternoon. 

So there you go.  That's the plan.  Whatcha think?
Amy

Crafar Farms

I’ve been thinking about the sale of Crafar Farms a lot recently. I don’t normally watch much news. In case you are like me, the brief is that Crafar Farms is being sold to a Chinese company. This is creating some ah, controversy and angst across New Zealand.
What bothers me about the sale is not that it is going to foreign ownership. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want foreign ownership of NZ farms. I’d much rather have NZ farmers own our own farms.

What really worries me is how ignorant we seem to be (myself included) about this issue. And how unsupportive, even downright nasty some of us can be towards the government that we as a nation have elected. A government that may or may not be making great decisions, but who is trying. I just feel that whether we like a politician and agree with their motives or methods or not, they do at least deserve our respect. They have taken on an incredibly hard task, and one in which they are never going to please everyone (and are pretty much guaranteed to only hear from those who are disgruntled!). They have opened their private lives to public scrutiny and media frenzy. That takes guts. It deserves at least our grudging respect, if nothing else. And our prayers.
So, the ignorance.
Anyone would think, listening to some folks, that the sale of Crafar Farms is all the government’s fault. But they seem to forget a few things. Here’s the gist of it (thanks to Boyo for some of the research!):

Crafar Farms is privately owned.

It has been in receivership since 2009. That means it owes a lot of money (specifically, it owed $200mil to two banks and a rural finance firm – plus interest during the three years it has been in receivership).

It has been poorly performing. Which might account for why it is in receivership! Apparently the Chinese company looking to buy it (Shanghai Pengxin) are going to put in XXX$mil in the first xxx years alone in needed upgrades to get the farms producing profitably. While it is looking like it will have to be sold to this company, they sound like they plan on having NZ Landcorp management, use Fontera infrastructure, and help promote NZ dairy products more in China. So while things may change later, it does at least look like they are trying to be friendly in their take-over bid!
I feel that while the NZ government has had to approve the sale of these farms due to the rather large price tag, they are not the creators of the problem. Therefore they cannot be the solution either, despite our deep desires for them to ride in on white horses and save the day. The receivers turned down an offer of $170mil from NZ business man Michael Fay to take the $210mil offer from the Chinese firm (which is quite possibly still not going to cover the debt, depending on how well these farms have performed the past three years). If you were going to be out of pocket by $40mil would you worry too much about who was going to own the farms? Probably not. And lets just be realistic, we are dealing with banks and finance companies. Money is their business. And they are probably not NZ owned anyway (do we have any NZ owned banks left???).
What really bothers me, concerns me in all this? That we are so quick to blame our government for allowing overseas buyers to take over farms that we as a nation do not seem to have the capital to run, while we will sell our own homes to foreigners any day of the week. Yup. Ever thought to check when you sell your house whether it was bought by a hardworking Kiwi couple, or an Australian investor? Probably not. See, it really doesn’t enter into our heads most of the time. Then there are all the other times we sell our country cheap. Bought any appliances lately? Made in….wait for it…CHINA! Hmm. There seems to be a bit of an anomaly here. All up in arms about sale of land to China, yet here we are running off to the store every week and buying Chinese cars, Chinese tvs, and even Chinese food.
Have you read a few food labels lately? You’d be surprised just how many of them state “Made from local and imported ingredients.” And the scary thing? By law, they don’t have to state what or how much was local and how much was imported. They don’t have to say the country of origin. Which means that we are blithely eating food produced in conditions that are less than healthy (not wanting to make this entire post about China, but I do have to say that I’ve read disturbing reports about pesticides/etc used in Chinese food – exploding melons, heavy metals, etc – low industry regulation, low voice by those who grow the food, and high need for income results in poor standards).



Rice bran oil, doesn't say where it is made!



Crayola felt pens, made in USA, assembled in Australia!



Pams jam, one of those "local and imported" cocktails!

We just don’t seem to realise how big an impact all these small purchasing decisions have. We are worried about a large scale farm sale, which we probably should be. But we are not concerned at all about how often we are buying NZ made (or rather, not buying NZ made) at the shops. If we want to ‘go off’ at our government, then we should first look at our own lives. Stop buying anything that is not produced in NZ. Then you have the right to tell off the government for allowing the sale of our land. Seem a bit extreme? Maybe. But I am really serious here. Governments made decisions. Some helpful, some not. We can’t really control how they go about making those decisions. Despite democracy, they sometimes decide to do things that most of us disagree with. But what we can control, is what we do with our own money. And if every Kiwi household started really supporting our local growers, local artists, local businesses, and local industries, they would flourish. Our nation would grow more wealthy, and then maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about whether there was an NZ owned business wealthy enough to purchase a large group of farms in receivership!
The question is, are we prepared to pay more? Or is it all about the bottom line, and the perpetual what’s-in-it-for-me? I bought NZ raised bacon this month. Have to admit, I nearly didn’t. There was other stuff on sale, but it didn’t say it was fully NZ produced. I so wanted to buy that cheaper bacon. I could have saved several dollars. Several dollars that I could have spent on more food. But I chose to buy the NZ made instead. But if it was a bigger purchase, could I still have done it? Would I choose something at $200 if it was made in NZ, over something half that price that was made in Indonesia, China, Thailand or somewhere else with cheap labour? Why do you think so many of our NZ industries have either curled up and died a slow death, or moved production offshore? They don’t get enough support in order to remain a New Zealand made product. We bought a stroller this month too. Made in China. Now Chinese workers need wages too, I seriously am not trying to point the finger at China here! But it scares me that I didn’t even stop to consider where that stroller was made. I only know where it comes from because of the shiny bright sticker on the brake bar! We bought it because it was a good stroller. But mostly we bought it because it was a really, really good price. I feel just a little bit materialistic, money focused, and not very pro-NZ. The sad thing is that if I’d not been reading about Crafar Farms during the same time frame, I’d probably never have even thought about where our stroller comes from.

The truth about our fabulous new stroller, a well-loved US brand, but made in China.

So that’s what has been going through my head in recent weeks. Wondering just how many of our smaller decisions reflect the bigger things we as a nation tend to get riled up about. Wondering how much of a difference my small purchasing decisions make. I think they must make a difference, all add up somehow. After all, there’s a whole lot more ‘clean and green’ products on the market now than there were seven years ago when I first started buying plant-based cleaners and personal care products. Most of that is probably due to rising consumer demand, as they’d not be able to create these products if enough people weren’t buying them to make them financially viable.

Anyway, just some food for thought. How patriotic are we, really? How much do we take our beautiful country for granted?  How often do our actions provide jobs and a future for New Zealanders, and how often do they undermine that?
Amy



Ps – some of the info about Crafar Farms if you want it here and here.