sustainable living june

Well dear friends!! I finally have a spare hour to settle myself fully into this space. They've been a whirlwind in many ways these past 3 weeks, to say the least! Thankyou so much for the lovely comments that you left on my very quick 'just passing by' post. It really was delightful to read that some of you are still stopping by to see what I'm up to! 

I won't go into all the details of my absence because this post is supposed to be about all the happenings in June ;) Mind you, it feels like June was a lifetime ago and I mostly cant even remember what went on!!! However I did start this Sustainable Living post back then and really want to share it regardless of the lack of memory! 

nourish: Firstly and most importantly I feel, there is the food! There were a lot of nourishing vegan bowls of goodness in the last month. Ive been passionate about healthy eating for most of my life and am a firm believer in More Greens!!! I've also been striving towards a plant based or vegan diet for the past 12 months - which wasn't hard as we were vegetarian for over 20 years.

It's so easy now to be completely plant based as there is so much info and so many great ready made sauces and substitutes if you are short on time. I mostly make my own and the one above is a super simple cashew sauce as well as a quick guacamole. I make those a lot because a sauce can dress up anything! The bowls here have a whole baked sweet potato topped with a can of lentils (which I fried with an onion and some spices) baby spinach, chopped capsicum and the toppings. We've been having these types of dinners regularly - sometimes the base is quinoa or brown rice - and always there are lots of different veggies in there and some delicious saucy goodness on top!!

Oh, and I also made peanut butter! :)

lessen: One of the little quirks in my life is not liking to throw things out! Now that does mean that I tend to have a large stash of junk useful items tucked away in our Shed of Delights waiting patiently for their day in the limelight. It also means that when I or indeed any of the family require say, a metre and a half of fly screen or a book on batik dying or even a 1970's National Geographic magazine, they are sure to find it within those hallowed shelves! I used to feel a little weird about this habit of mine. I mean it's not exactly what everyone is into now is it? Just take the popularity of Marie Kondo and the minimalist movement.

In recent times however (like the last few months) I've been feeling at peace with my hoarding tendencies. I refuse to feel guilty any longer! I like being able to put my hands on some fabric to create without buying it new; I enjoy having a stack of mags if I feel like creating a vision board; I love to help my family out with whatever it is they may need for a little project. Of course, I don't have everything we need, stashed away in The Shed but often there'll be something there that we can make do with. And because I love to re-use stuff, it makes me feel really good.

All that to say that I used up a beloved and well used linen tea towel....and after a lot of stitching, turned it into 3 dishcloths. I get such a thrill out of this kind of thing - just looking at the pic makes me all excited!! Mind you, I think that was the only such remake that happened all month so I suppose it's a good thing to be excited about hahaha!!!

grow: See, I told you I cant remember much from June - I'm not even sure why I had a pic of my salad saved under the 'grow' category although I'm guessing it's because of the sprouts! Nothing at all growing here outside. The weather is doing it's wintery, sleety, windy thing and I'm tucked up inside growing the only garden I can right now! Sprouts. Delicious tiny powerhouses of nutrition.

create: I do remember creating these pyjamas for the three grandchildren! Mostly because I swore a lot and spent days arranging and rearranging the pattern pieces on the various matching bits of fabric that I'd unpacked from.....wait for it......The Shed!!! The plain pink was an old sweatshirt of mine and the rest were fabrics I'd picked up in op-shops over the years. Since they were for pj's I wanted to use only cotton fabrics rather than synthetic blends, hence the need to make it all fit. The two girls have matching pants (which they'd already taken home before I got the tops made) and then the tiny boy had to have a top and pants out of many scraps. I managed in the end but it was a near run thing.....as I mentioned, there was cursing and much gnashing of teeth. The girls of course are delighted to be all matchy with their new brother and I'm ecstatic once again to have used some of the Stuff!!!!


So, my lovelies! There you have it - what I did in June! I must say though that July has been a very different month indeed. I'm not sure July will even qualify for a sustainable month post actually!

Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment. I'll be popping in to see you all later on today, as my spare hour is up for now. ;)