Author: Tulitha

Tiny House People
I stumbled across this film a couple of months ago and then this film today. Both of these creative endeavours made me proud to be (almost) able to call myself a tiny house person.

My favourite person was the girl at around 13 minutes along in the second film by Kirsten Dirksen. I loved her adaptability, her approach to her lifestyle, her creative storage and her use of a chamber pot! I love that she built it herself, and sourced her material from the tip.

I am anticipating the onset of tiny house living for several reasons:
- simplicity (not crowding our lives with stuff)
- simplicity (not filling our time with sorting/cleaning large spaces or large amounts of stuff)
- simplicity (not having to worry about or think about or chase after money)
- Quality over quantity. We have fewer, but higher quality items and fittings around our home, this makes us feel good. We are able to support ethical & often local companies.
- Adventure. We are not forced into a lifestyle of 9-5 work to pay off a mortgage or even have to save for an overpriced home (the honest truth is that housing and land these days is excessively, unnecessarily expensive – it’s not worth getting into debt over.)
- Autonomy. We can move as we wish, live as we wish. There are expenses along the road, but they are far less than rent etc.
- By far, though, the greatest benefit to living small is being able to be together, because of all the above reasons and also because the smallness of the space forces us together. It’s nice.
Currently we are struggling a little bit. We are just over half way through our bus build and while each step excites us there is still a lot of building to go. We are tossing up our living arrangements, unsure whether to move into a rental as there is uncertainty about how long this project will take. Sophia will/might be going to school this year and so plans are all ambiguous.

I am not someone unwelcome to changing plans, I am liable to toss a project in the air if it is ‘not working’, I guess it is harder for me to persist and while I am determined to persist with building our bus (there is no other option there) I am just investigating the different ways we could reach the end goal…all in one piece.

We will see what we will see.
January 19, 2014
Glenda

I took my sister-in-law out the other day and took some photos of her. I tell you, I am really in love with portraiture. I love helping another woman to feel beautiful. I know what it’s like to be on the wrong end of an unflattering photo and so I guess I really love that I have the capabilities of finding and then bringing that inner beauty out through photography and then being able to show that person how beautiful they are! I love that.

Some of my favourite shoots have been one-on-one with a gorgeous friend, I am learning how to direct models, it’s not something I’m naturally good at and so: practice makes perfect!

I also used these and other photos as impetus to set up a bit of a website. I’m taking tentative steps toward growing this, but I wanted somewhere that was specifically for my photography. I feel that I am finally getting good enough to start billing myself as a ‘photographer’ and it’s funny how that drive has slowly grown from my first response to a new baby, a big fat pregnant woman, families and special occasions being ‘can I come and take some photos?’ to getting so obsessed with getting that shot right that I forget about myself and how silly I might look and I just get in there.

January 17, 2014
Bus mileage

So, these photos are actually a little old – 23rd October to be precise. I’ve been meaning to go out to the bus and take some photos, but the many little jobs to be done and the extreme heat keep getting to me and slowing me down.

This should act as a a bit of motivation!

So here we see the cage that is our bathroom wall, Henry is squeezing expanding foam into the cavity so that (hopefully) the bus will be as cool as we possibly can make it.

He is standing in the shower receptacle and in front of him here is the frame for the shower wall. In the middle of the bus you can see the door which we had to build ourselves (we built three of these – from scratch – in total out of Aluminum framing, Alucowell, glue and insulation foam), it has already been hung here, while the walls have not even been built! Gee – I wish you could see it now, though! ….

And the wall is now on! Heaps of sikaflex to hold it. This was only the beginning – the roof was made from the same stuff and was a pain to both bend and put into place. And then of course we had the rest of the walls to put in.

And here is wall red and behind it you can see wall mirror and only just, just you can see the edge of the roof.

It all looks so different now, it’s actually pretty exiting to see these and realise that we actually have come a long way. Bits of the bus are actually starting to look brand, spanking new, slowly it is all coming together!

January 14, 2014
Braidwood: Where all is well

Braidwood really is one of those ideal little towns where you can feel like you are living in the pages of Country Style magazine, or other romanticised vision of country living. Full of boutique shops and cafes, Canberra’s well-to-do & hipsty crowd can feel quite at home here. It reminds me a lot of Bellingen up in Northern, NSW and it might be headed in that direction. Like Bellingen it has resisted instating many of the chain stores and this adds to its charm and ‘authenticity’ (though when a Mill goes from being a Mill to a guest house – well, the only thing authentic about it is its architecture).

Being a Canberran, I love Braidwood with all its quaint stone buildings and expensive stores, not that I can afford much of it these days, but it’s nice to window shop, my husband, coming from Country NSW does find it a bit trite and inauthentic as a country town, but there can be no denying its picturesqueness and beauty as a place to stay for a few days.

And so stay we did, my family and I, we managed to get all bar two (which is a good effort when there are a total 19 heads to round up) into the Braidwood Mill, which ended up being a great base for our venue and it worked out well this time around, but is realistically just a tad too small for our large family.

Braidwood proved the perfect wind down post Christmas, where we could spend time eating good food, walking off our Christmas indulgences, patronising our favourite Braidwood bakery, and carousing over a late night game of Articulate – which is just the funniest game to play with my family.

We made new discoveries like an exercise park which was as good for the adults as for the kids, a new swimming hole where we found (but did not take) large, freshwater mussels and spend a good couple of hours and I roamed the back streets of Braidwood discovering pokey old cottages at 5.30 in the morning.

I have a deep love for my family and investing in times like this is just so good. Of course my sister-in-law and her new little one were missed, but as we all grow and stretch out into our own paths coming back together now and again cements our place and who we are.

I keep coming back to the photo of me and my siblings, it amazes me how who we are is so different to who we were, we have all chosen such varying paths, in the mix we have a Horticulturalist, Photographer, Artist/Apprentice Chef, Accountant, Textile Artist/Children’s author/designer and Soldier. Some are frisbie mad, others into the family way, most of us are mad about traveling and if we haven’t yet traveled far we at least want to. Lovers of language, history and philosophy, books, art and music, good food, wine, beer, cider and every single type of cheese you can throw at us, board games, nature, good architecture. When we come together we know we can indulge in the things we love.

January 10, 2014
Christmas with family

Belated, but here it is for the record.

These picture are not the most attractive of everyone, but pictures like this are not about everyone’s individual attractiveness, they are a document of relationship. If I could only tell you the back story behind these photos, the memories they conjure up for me are (in order) 1. Lighthearted and fun. 2. Painful. 3. Refreshing.

I hate to be so honest, but this was one of the more painful Christmas gatherings I have had the privilege of being a part of with my family, for a great number of conjugating reasons, Just a few days later, however, we spent some time together in beautiful Braidwood and it was warm and comfortable and meaningful and bonding, just as we are usually.

I think I understand (though have to re-remember sometimes) that pain can be a good thing. Things get purged, stuff comes out into the open and then we move past it, we forgive, we forget, we take things on board, we might change, hopefully there is little trust lost along the way. Perhaps more objectivity is gained and once the serious stuff is all aired out to dry we open up a bottle and get merry and laugh about it all – just to remind ourselves that what seems so serious is not that grave and in fact the things of love and beauty and friendship and cheer and togetherness are more important than opinions or inner turmoil or overwhelming emotions that come and go or slips of the tongue. And that, in fact, we are more than what this mortality restricts us too.

January 7, 2014
Wedding Photos

Coming up, a collaboration with florist friend Alicea of Lily Grace Flowers, based in Canberra, ACT, with the most exquisite floral arrangements I have yet seen for a wedding. It was a lot of fun putting this together and I’ve had such a good time shooting and editing these it’s really got me thinking about kickstarting my photography business for good now, especially as my daughter will be going to school this year (something which will hopefully give me a little more time.)

Enjoy the preview, I’m nearly done editing and the full shebang will be up in just a wee while!

(Florist, hair stylist and dresses will be all fully credited in the full version!)

January 5, 2014
Camping at Christmas

Our Summer holidays camping, in which my hair bleached many shades lighter, we bonded with wildlife, relaxed in our new/old tent, read books, fried in the sun, adopted our summer skins,tried fishing, collected a couple of mussels, explored rock pools, ate only the foods we liked, welcomed cousins/family, went blueberry picking on a sweltering summer’s day in which my bag strap melted onto my top, drove down dusty roads, discovered elfin rain forest from the Gondwanan era & just enjoyed being a family all together and also, importantly, on our own, just us.

January 3, 2014
Shanghaied by Life

I don’t know if you ever feel like this, but there are times I have the bizarre sensation of being here…but not really. It’s like I have been kidnapped by life, that all the options which are possibly available to one human being have been funneled down, leaving me with just a few.

I laugh at the fate which has brought me here. The choices and options which have become limits and directions. It is like I am observing my life from outside myself. The me which hides deep inside this body and is shrouded by a personality which I did not choose, rolls her eyes sometimes at the blatant irony of life and at other times in utter frustration at life’s thwarting efforts…such as the constant interruptions of children…the reactions of friends and family…the allocations of money and opportunity.

I mean of course there are some things that we choose, but there is so much more that we do not. Consider; I did not choose my place of birth, my ancestors, my parents, my family, my body type, my children, my in-laws, my health predispositions, my personality, my neighbours, my natural talents, in many ways I did not choose my friends or even spouse as, in a sense, I selected these based on who was around me at the time, which was the most attractive option here, having chosen out of a limited bunch it is then my choice to build the relationship…or not. Of course I have choices; over my eating, my spending, which talents I choose to build on, choosing things like compassion, understanding, gentleness, discretion, love etc. etc.

When the tickets were going for auction did I choose this place and time myself for my arrival on this planet, or was it chosen for me?

There’s an acknowledgement in this that I am beyond this time and space, as I believe we all are. When I think about it that is the only thing that makes sense. We laugh at life as if it is one of the biggest jokes that we a) have the jiggly bodies we have, b) live where we live, c) struggle financially the way we do or d) do whatever it is that we do. It is all an acknowledgement that our value resides in a place beyond the circumstances, the physical limitations and the restrictions of personality which our existence here has thrust upon us.

When I see people taking life too seriously, when I myself take life too seriously, when people quite freely judge other people without any sense of their true worth, taking into account only the fragments that they themselves can see, well, it’s all a bit superficial, it fails to see the other person as more than what is seen.

The truth is that I don’t understand myself a lot of the time – let alone others – and I often wish so much that I had other dispositions, but what more can I do but laugh at this great joke which is life. Laugh and make the best of it, as we all must do, whether we are the poorest of the poor or the richest of the rich, the best, the greatest, the sickest, the healthiest, the most talented. All we can do is make the best of it and together make the most of this wild and messy life.

November 14, 2013
Keren and Child

There are some women who just do pregnant really well and my friend, Keren, is one of them, so I just had to take some photos of her shortly before the birth of her second child, Dulcie. Just see for yourself…

November 11, 2013
Mulberries

The Mulberries are in season in Young and we have been gorging ourselves daily. I can never understand those fad diets that exclude fruit. I mean…look at this! A tree bursting with fruit just cries out to be eaten. It is just plain common sense. I have been a fruit eater all my life and fruit is good. I have a healthy appreciation for all things fruit. Mm, Yum.

Eating fruit straight from the tree is a simple pleasure that is one of life’s luxuries. I am so thankful to my in-laws for planting these rows of fruit trees, they had a thought to the future and we are the benefactors.

This was a happy moment in our day, the kind of moment I relish as a family. I love being together but not…if you know what I mean. We are together enjoying some things, say the outdoors, the weather, food but we are also separately, happily interdependently, enjoying our own things. Sophia munching mulberries, Gunther having an outside bath and hubby and I watching and delighting/working on the bus. All happy, all together, but also enjoying the world around us, the kids gaining independence and learning to enjoy their own company, which is so important.

On the bus side of things we have made much tangible progress. Three bathroom walls are in, still wrapped in plastic (we can’t wait for the great unveiling and hope the colours all work together), and not shown here, one of the kid’s bunk walls are in along with the bottom bunk’s framing.

November 2, 2013