Humans are predisposed to avoid risk. It’s how we are all still here. If we didn’t fear anything, our species would not survive. We have an interesting bias, though, to avoid the risk of change. Change is unknown, uncertain. So often we take on an attitude of ‘better the devil you know’. I come across…
Dear Finley, I have been thinking a lot about what to say to you when you are old enough to ask about the climate crisis. I imagine that, shortly after asking about the climate crisis, you will ask the inevitable question: why did the grown-ups let this happen to the earth? I imagine you will…
Photo: Seedlings in my garden “I wonder what it would be like to love the world again so much that we are unable to ignore climate change because the world is crying out for us to love her again” – Sarah Bessey (from her latest newsletter) Environmental destruction is often talked about in terms of taking…
This is the new year. And I don’t feel like celebrating. Canberra is engulfed in smoke. I feel like I am suffocating. My eyes sting and my throat hurts. I feel an uneasy, helpless protectiveness towards my son, who is also breathing into young lungs air that is literally classified as ‘hazardous‘. I am considering…
I have lived in several remote places in which deciding where to do your grocery shopping is not so much a choice but a default. Because there is only one option, whether that is Woolworths or a local store. Even for people who live in urban or rural environments, options can be limited due to…
Lately I have been learning about GDP – what it measures and what it doesn’t. I made the following lists as a form of activism: to reclaim the inherent value of how I spend my life energy when I’m not making or spending money, and how I benefit from others doing the same. I hope…
I was getting ready to write my quarterly review of my reading life for the third quarter of the year, and I realised I hadn’t published the second quarter. Later, I found it hiding erroneously in the “published” folder of my “blog” folder on my computer. Very strange. I am posting it now with only…
I have started a new series called Money Talks. I am attempting to heal my relationship with money and I am bringing my blog readers along for the ride! In Money Talks #1, I reviewed three personal finance books I have read recently. In today’s post, I am sharing what I learned from reading those…
Lately my special interest has been personal finance. This has been sparked by going from ‘just getting by’, to having a reasonable household income. My aims are 1) to get rid of toxic beliefs and heal my relationship with money and 2) to manage our money responsibly so we are working towards achieving our financial…
My breastfeeding journey started when I was a child. When I was four, my mother gave birth to my younger sister, and breastfed her until she was one. My mother has always been an advocate for breastfeeding, and was never shy about breastfeeding in front of anyone, in any setting. My first memory of seeing…
“Adulting is hard,” Matt sighed as we whizzed through the Wednesday evening jobs. Wednesday nights are always busy, with a daycare bag to unpack and repack as well as the usual evening jobs, but every second Wednesday we also have to tidy up for the cleaner to come on Thursday morning(1). It’s true, adulting is…
I have been having a hard time lately, struggling to cope with the everyday demands of my life. I haven’t felt like myself, as a person or as a mother. I have been snapping at my husband and son. That’s not who I am. I resolved to enjoy Finley more, to take time to have special…
