Becoming a parent

When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, I was picking mangoes in the sunshine hinterland. At the time I was convinced it was the mosquito lavae in the tank water!! oh how naive of me. 
Once the test confirmed that no, it wasn't the lave but a baby, a sense calmness had taken over me, I knew instantly I was going to keep this baby. At the time we were on our travelling journey around Australia, even though we had talked about having kids, it was not in our immediate plans.We stayed on in Queensland for a couple of months, we were living in a caravan, on a property whilst we were picking. We had decided to come back to Melbourne and settle to be around family and friends.
I worked until I was about five months pregnant and then decided to stop and focus on myself and my baby. I walked everyday, did yoga at home, meditated, read books, and educated myself on all things baby.
It can be a trying time, preparing yourself for the unknown, I mean how do you really do that? At the time none of our friends were having babies, it was just us.
There was one thing I knew, I wanted no drugs, I was determined to have the baby naturally, unless there was complications.
I had decided that knowledge was power and I needed to know everything about birthing and labour. So I read books, got in touch people that had babies, read some more. 
I had discovered like I'm sure some of you have that, there are more horror stories out there about labour then positive.
The conclusion I drew was, it was how you looked at it, if you thought of labour as painful, it would be painful, it you thought of it as hard work, it would be hard work, if you attached negative emotions to it you will have a negative experience.
Through meditation and visualisations I taught myself to think of my labour as  a spiritual journey, and that's exactly what I had.
I was in labour for sixteen hours. My mind was elsewhere.
I had found endurance that I thought I never had, I let my body do, what it was meant to. I let go.
I know this might sound far fetched, that is why I am writing it, you can make your birth and pregnancy what you want it to be, and I wanted to share my story, because it is a positive one.

Culture,what's it mean

The last week or so, I have been pondering over my family history.
My family has been through some turmoil in it's time, and at times it has been a treacherous journey.
But now that I am a parent and I look back at my upbringing, I question what is culture?
When I was growing up, at times I felt like, here I was, compared to some of my friends of Anglo Saxon decent, my traditions, be it food, or language or festive traditions, they were polar opposites. And yet we all seemed to get along.
And within my families history and my own cultural background, what am bringing forward to the next generation, to my children.
 When I was growing up and my mum used to try and get me to watch her cook. Me being the self obsessed tween, just wanting to hang out with her friends, had no time for cooking these extravagant Macedonian dishes.
But now I crave them, now I want eat those dishes, that fragrant smell that will take me back to memories of mum cooking a abundance of food, the concept that there is nothing put to waste, recipes that had been passed down, from generation to generation, from daughter to daughter.

Within the Macedonian community there can be a this judgmental mentality, where by you have to look a certain way, behave a certain way and have materialistic gain. At times  it can be superficial.
That side of things I'm not interested in, and never have been. I always have looked the way Ive wanted and been who I am, I do not strive to material gain, I strive for self knowledge, and awareness.
A sense of culture can come through in multiple facets, it doesn't necessarily have to be your ethnic background, to me culture is a common thread you have with people, it can be  social, ethnic or behavioral.

It's the perception of belonging.

I have taken what I wanted from my cultural background, a sense of family and community, and a sense of spirit.

Pruning a wild Jasmine

As the moon is in waning this week, there is no planting or sowing in the garden.Ive decided to tackle the untamed jasmine that is growing. A few months ago in a crazy wind storm, it got blown over to the other side of the wood oven (see pic below). The problem with the Jasmine is it has quiet a few climbing roses intertwined in it. So it's getting a haircut and some kind of support structure to stop it from blowing around.
I have a a gardening question.There is a amazing climbing rose,(see picture below), it has these black brown spots on it and I don't know what they are, I found little bugs on it but they are all dead.Any idea on what it is and how I can get rid of it would be great.

painting

My daughter and I spent some time together, we decided to paint,this was the outcome. I really love her painting.

My Culture

I grew up in the west of Melbourne, during the 80's. We lived in public housing for a very long time. It was a melting pot of cultures back then, people from all over the world, were your neighbours.
Life was never dull, to say the least, what I remember vividly was, the sense of community. Sure you had your interesting characters, but everyone looked out for each other, especially the kids. And we were out and about until the sun set, riding our bikes, rollerskating or skateboarding, without a care in the world.
However it wasn't all peaches and cream, life presented it's challenges.
My first language was Macedonian, my parents spoke very little English, in fact hardly any at all. I look back now and I wonder, how they did it, to migrate to a country where they didn't know the language, didn't know the culture and they didn't have their family or community. 
When I got to school, I could speak English, but I struggled. What was hard for me, was having parents that couldn't help me. In fact, I was teaching them. Hard gig for child.
In the primary school years, we moved around a fair bit, until we settled into a house in a suburb further west.
I guess why I'm writing this post, is to get people talking about, trying to fit into a society when you come from a different cultural background.
For me I found it extremely difficult, my parents strict Macedonians.
Through high school I had friends from a variety of cultural backgrounds.We all got along, each of us having issues with our parents, which teenager doesn't!!
The struggle I had, was trying to live with the values my parents tried to instill in me from their culture and trying to incorporate that into Australian society. Everything I came across, made me question, what my parents were telling me. It was a confusing, confronting time. It felt very restricting, and I pushed the boundaries. I wanted to extend my frontiers, and in a way, I still am.

This is just the beginning of this post, but I want to hear from you. Where do you come from? What challenges has your culture presented to you? And how did you manage.
Cheers or na zdravje!!

Gardening

My role at my work consists of running a gardening program, with children aged 3 and 4 years of age.
I  know a little about gardening, as I have always had a veggie patch going, just not on such a large scale. My love for nature was born, on my travels around Australia.I always thought of myself as a naturalist, even as a young child, helping my parents in their patch,growing huge tomatoes. But actually working the land, when I was working as a picker, definitely fuelled my desire for knowledge on the natural world.It also pushed me to brink of my sanity,both mentally and physically, and only when you have worked as picker,you would understand what I mean.
Anyway, back to my current garden.We have 10 raised beds.There is also a ancient fig tree in the other part of the garden.My challenge is to try and get

things growing in and around the fig tree. Another challenge I have, is a embankment between two peppercorn trees.There had been a few natives planted there,but they are not thriving.I can post some pictures.

At some stage, I would like to incorporate a bush foods garden, now that I am excited about.
So if you are a gardening/landscaping guru, or anyone with gardening tips, I would love to hear from you, or just tell me about your garden.

Parenting

For those of you that  don't know me, I have two children, my daughter is turning 8 in a couple of days.I have a son who is 5.
 Many years ago my partner and I ( husband now) packed our kombi up and began our traveling, working journey throughout Australia.Whilst picking mangoes in Queensland, I fell pregnant. I can write countless posts about that part of my life and I will at a later stage.

Many years later, here I am, about to host a 8 year olds first sleepover, birthday party!!!
How has 8 years pasted, I could not tell you,  the cliche that everybody says, blink your eye and you'll miss it, holds validity when it comes to watching your children grow. I could write and write and write about this, but I have a eager little miss waiting for me to start preparations for the festivities. I would love to hear, how parenting has changed you.


 

Little crafty things

I have not been very crafty lately, however I do want to share with you, some things I have made in the past.These little folk, I made for a gift.
I sourced the pattern from a http://weefolkart.com/content/freebies-home.