Which I kind of forgot when I put this outfit together but let me philosophise(my word clearly!) for you and we can make it work!

I’ve had this dress for AGES and it came from Shanton of all places and I hardly ever wear black – so this just goes to show how love works. It lasts and lasts, it can come across us in the most unexpected of places if we are prepared to look and it might be different from what we thought we wanted. (sound good Nin?)

I don’t wear this dress much but teamed up with my new(old) green beads and the awesome earrings I won last year I quite like it. I biked out to meet my friend for coffee in this the other night.

My approach to fashion isn’t really fashionable – I’m not sure what is even ‘in’ right now. I like variety in the way I dress and I’m not really even sure I have a style. Like love, the best wardrobe choice is one that works for you – there is no ‘one trend suits all’. Love what’s in your wardrobe and if you don’t spice it up with some accessories. (back next week with something I really love from my wardrobe)

Pop over here and check out the comments section to find out what other people love to wear!

While we were on holiday I recorded some of the boys stories in books for them. A half-page half-writing style for Bounce and full-page for Flip. Initially it was to keep Flip reading on holiday to keep his confidence up (I can write stories with a good sense of which words he will be able to read and they are tricky to find at the library). However, it has also created a wonderful opportunity to record the things we do.

So I am going to keep going with these books – once a week or fortnight I want to write a snippet of something we’ve done together. It takes such a short time and reading them together is so precious. I write/ they write then they illustrate and we share the story together.

What have you enjoyed with your little ones this week?

This year I am making more of a conscious effort to have quality moments with my boys. B.M.W.B (becoming the mama I want to be)  is my way of recording and hopefully inspiring other mama’s too. Please inspire me with the little moments you are snatching with your little people OR with ideas I could do with mine. If you have blogged about it please leave a comment so we can all visit and encourage each other.

Simple. Achievable. Intentional: becoming the mama I want to be.

These feature images from the story Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. I am happy to post to NZ or Australia.

Because I believe in the power of encouragement to enter this giveaway you need to email, text or twitter/fb an encouraging word to someone. A friend, relative, old teacher…. use the next minute to open a tab or your phone and send someone an unexpected piece of encouragement. Then come back here and leave a name, first name is fine or initials of that person.

Giveaway closes on Valentines Day so then I can send someone a Valentines surprise.

And just to really bring the love you can enter as many times as you like but each entry has to be a new encouragement to a different person. So send your ripples of encouragement out peeps. Here is mine to you – thank you for reading my blog, for participating in my journey and for commenting when you do.

The book - ‘Hannah’s Gift – Lessons from a Life Fully Lived‘ by Maria Housden – is however, exquisite.

It details the lessons and the journey of her experience losing her daughter Hannah to cancer at 3 years old.

I cried (of course) but the book was so beautiful, so poignant and didn’t cause a moment of gripping fear about my own babies. It was an amazing mix of real raw grief and true, experienced-life full and beautiful.

The sections – Truth, Joy, Faith, Compassion and Wonder – are profound and moving. I consumed this book in an afternoon but I know I will be processing its lessons for some time.

Here are a couple of my absolute favourite quotes from the book

Joy is the magic and stillness that stand on the threshold of every moment, the experience of giving and living fully, without expecting anything in return. Because joy knows no rules, it isn’t afraid to be imperfect, and it can surprise us even in the darkest places.

It was the quality of presence and attention that I brought to what I was doing, not the activity itself, that made it what it was.

Hannah taught me that there is a death more painful than the one that took her body from this world: a soul suffocated by fear leaves too many joys unlived.

Even if you aren’t a parent or you have never lived the loss of a precious person in your life I think this book will move you, encourage you and make you delight in the really aware of the great gift that life is. It also enforces my desire to be a more intentional and delighted Mama.

Even though I did a big holiday post this week I want to stop and be grateful for New Zealand.

The ease with which we can explore the outdoors (even though I’m an inside kind of girl!)

Especially I was so blown away by The Otago Rail Trail

Bridges

Tunnels

And do-able, if only a little stretch, by Flip an awesome thing to do.

And Moeraki those boulders are incredible and the beach beautiful.

And just the classic countryside of New Zealand

it is so easy to see why they could film Lord of the Rings and the Narnia movies here

We are SO blessed

and we need to be grateful and responsible for this piece of paradise we are stewards of.

Okay without sounding too vain I think this might be the awesome-est thing I have made. It could even be the awesomest lounge chair ever… that’s how much I love it.

I re-covered this year in 2010 (my first year of blogging) and although  I liked it at the time it never really worked. Here is the results first time.

Here it is in progress.

Last year I was inspired by some über expensive patch-work couches I saw in magazines and a friend even pulled one out to give me when she saw one. It was meant to be.

I tried really hard to get a smooth tight finish and use fabrics that had a bit of weight (one of my mistakes from last time).

I LOVE this chair. And it’s all stash apart from the faux-suede/leather back part.

Total cost about $6 for the floral suede/leather/pleather plus some money for staples, glue gun and thread.

Other cool creative types doing inspiring things over here. Wait til a bit later in the day when the new link is up and there are some things to see. My post always goes up a bit earlier than the link.

Nin’s theme for January is putting the New into your year. Pop over and have a look at what other people are wearing and join in – she’s doing prizes!!!

While we were away The Atlas sent me for a day in Dunedin while he and the boys went on a train adventure.

I bought 3 dresses at op-shops and this is the first. So this week I am incorporating a new item into my wardrobe – you know because you have to make it work with the wardrobe or what is the point?

The Atlas calls this look ‘glam punk’ – you know a bit of punk with a lot of pretty!

Dress: $12 Dunedin Hospice Shop (note do not crouch down in your undies in the dressing room the curtain ends at knee height – apologies to the woman waiting to use it!)

Brooch: $1 – touristy shop

Boots: $80-90? I bought them from a store in Chch about 9 years ago

Tights: Bought on a trip through Turkey for my sister and got them back as a hand-me-down

Top: $6 bought at the Lane Walker Rudkin closing down sale 2009/10?

One of the things I really focussed on was ‘keeping pace’. We did a few little walks and I felt the gentle pull in my heart and reminder to walk with not a few steps behind or in front of my boys.

I naturally hurry. I hate to be late. I like to be early – this doesn’t always translate to being really present in enjoying the wonder of the world through a 5 and 3 year-old’s eyes. I don’t want my boys to look back at their childhoods feeling like they were always being hurried places.

Wee Bounce often walks at a 3-year-old pace – distracted by something here and something there. You know, enjoying the journey rather than racing to the destination.

And so on our walks I slowed down, I breathed, I listened to him chatting and I kept pace. And that is the kind of mama I want to be.  I want to hold this reminder in my heart and to wander the journey with my boys rather than rush them from one destination to another.

What have you been doing with your little ones this week?

This year I am making more of a conscious effort to have quality moments with my boys. B.M.W.B (becoming the mama I want to be)  is my way of recording and hopefully inspiring other mama’s too. Please inspire me with the little moments you are snatching with your little people OR with ideas I could do with mine. If you have blogged about it please leave a comment so we can all visit and encourage each other.

Simple. Achievable. Intentional: becoming the mama I want to be

After our little burglar fiasco in November I like to not advertise our absence from home.

We returned yesterday and for a large portion of the holiday we were without internet.

I did check our emails a couple of times on The Atlas iPhone – which incidentally drives me insane how do you people do all your emails on them???

I was very proud of my ability to withdraw from the screen in such a mature fashion – and we didn’t have a TV either (which might be why I read 8 books!)

Anyhow, wonderful, wonderful time.

We did a classic road trip taking in Moeraki, Oamaru, Dunedin, The Catlins (rained the whole time, thankfully we were in a cabin there because the tent leaked!), Omakau, Wanaka, Fox Glacier and Paroa (just out of Greymouth).

I’d need a week of posts to do it all justice but hopefully you get some sense of it from these edited photos.

There is so much to highly recommend as well

The beach at Moeraki – stunning in a very pre-historic kind of way

Dunedin – The chocolate factory, the op-shops, the amazing butterfly room and discovery centre at the museum (where I had my one sporting achievement over The Atlas ever – I managed to score a goal with my brain against his to move a ball!), the boys train trip, pools and hydro-slides.

The Catlins – Catherdral Caves

The Rail Trail – we just did 10.5km with a very scary bridge and 2 incredibly dark tunnels. SO cool. Love to do more of it when the boys are bigger.

And there is a very cool shop called The Barn in Ophir where I may have bought some beads.

Wanaka – the campsite on the lake.

Puzzling World – very awesome. Even in the cafe there are cool tables of puzzles for people to just go in a play – puzzle geeks heaven. Playing by the lake.

Fox Glacier – walking to the glacier, bush walking to find glo-worms.

Paroa – biking, the pools at Greymouth, chilling out.

Other highlights/ memorable moments may include finding we had a flat a battery at 7am when we were all packed and in the car ready to leave, sleeping all together in a tent made for 3-at a push, Bounce needing to stop at every moment (opportune and otherwise) for a toilet break.

Sorry for the photo overload consider this a postcard for the rellies!

While we were on holiday I read 8 books in 2 weeks (this is why I hardly read during the year once I start a book I don’t want to put it down until I’m finished!).

Over the next couple of weeks I want to talk about a few of them.

Listening Below the Noise A Meditation on the Practice of Silence by Anne D LeClaire

I’m naturally a chatterbox. I tend to be the whole conversation at times and I make the lofty promise ‘Never an uncomfortable silence when I am in the room!’ So reading a book like this always feels a bit scary to me. I mean I know I should be quiet more but I have such a lot of good things to share with the world. (arrogance anyone??)

But I loved this book. It felt like a therapy and sometimes it even stung a little – like when the author challenges that sometimes we fill up the day with noise because we are afraid of what we might have to deal with in the silence. And that we think others need our wonderful wisdom instead of just needing someone to listen (boy I find that hard!).

Anne herself has for the past 9 years kept every second Monday as a day of silence and it has transformed her life.

As part of slowing myself down this year and listening to the voice of heaven I want to carve out some times of silence for myself.

This book is incredibly easy to read, a little like a diary in some ways. If you feel life is clanging too loudly and rushing too fast I would so suggest you take the time to read this book. Especially if you feel you have no time to enjoy life as it races past you.