Weddings...

DH and I are going to a wedding this Saturday. The bride is DH's god-daughter and the wedding ceremony is on the beach at Zilzie, which is near Rockhampton. It's about an hour by plane but DH and I have decided to drive up, with a stop-over for 2 days at Hervey Bay. Now once, if I received a wedding invitation, I would go on an endless (well it often seemed endless!) round of visiting dress shops and trying on lots of outfits in my quest to get a new outfit. Even longer ago, I would buy some special fabric and start to sew a new outfit. As I'm now, 'twice the woman I used to be' in terms of girth, this trying on of garments has become  more discouraging and even downright depressing! In the last 10 years, I have been mother of the bride twice and have also bought a number of special outfits to attend weddings...these clothes sit in the wardrobe and look pretty...I also have matching handbags and shoes for these outfits.

In particular, the outfit I bought for DD1's wedding was a LOT more expensive than I normally would pay...but it fitted...and it was the week before the wedding and I had not found anything in the months before had that fitted or flattered. A few years ago when I had started to be less enamoured of the consumerist lifestyle, I decided to wear that outfit again...to another wedding. I bought some new shoes though (at DFO on the 'chuck out' table) because the other stylish ones were horribly uncomfortable to wear. And that's the outfit I'm going to wear on Saturday. I figure that the more times I wear it...the more economical it was to buy! lol

#2 outing for the outfit, my nephew's wedding. DH and I are at the back of the 'Aunts and Uncles' table

However I do have a story to tell about when I reprised the outfit... We were standing around the side of the Catholic church in Ferntree Gully with a number of other people, as we were early, when my first husband arrived. DH and I greeted him politely then, in the loudest possible voice', first husband said..."I know that dress!...That's one of mum's! You're wearing one of my mother's dresses!!!!' The ground didn't open up and swallow me and I didn't say the rude words I was thinking...I just said between clenched teeth...'This is not one of your mother's dresses!' It's one of those occasions when with hindsight you think of witty and cutting things that you could have said. Of course he had seen the dress before...at our daughter's wedding.

In the carpark of the church after the 'run in' with 1st husband...note body language :-)

I don't expect any one to recognise the dress on Saturday, but if they did...'Frankly my dear...I don't give a damn!' lol

Junk mail and consumerism...

Junk mail from letterbox on Sunday

Junk mail from letterbox on Monday

Here in Australia we celebrate Fathers' Day in early September. I thought that after FD, the quantity of junk mail should lessen for a short time before the 'onslaught' on the build up to Christmas. Well silly me!!! As you can see from the photos...there's no let up in the pile of leaflets and sales brochures and catalogues in the letterbox. On closer examination I noticed that the supermarket chains are urging people to buy snack foods and soft drinks for when people gather in front of TVs to watch the semis and grand finals of the various codes of football. Not to be outdone, the electrical stores are urging people to buy wide screen Tvs and various other electronic gadgetry on which to watch these games. But the electrical stores are focussing on consumers who will watch all the games in the Rugby World Cup which is naturally a separate competition from all the Australian (and some NZ) finals and I guess a heap more games to watch!

This is where my junk mail ends up...

I love the cover of this book by Shannon Hayes!

This week this book became available from the council library. I first heard about it on someone's blog and when I found it in the library catalogue, put a 'hold' on it. I can't remember whose blog I was reading but the blogger was enthusiastic about this work by Shannon Hayes. The message that I've got so far in my reading is that people have become viewed as consumers (hence all that marketing through my letterbox) instead of being seen as producers. Many of the blogs I follow are written by people who are rejecting this consumerism and are growing food themselves, some are raising animals such as hens and many are cooking from scratch, preserving food themselves and turning their back on mass produced, preservative laden  pre-prepared foods. from my little corner of the world, I've started a similar journey and in particular I'm concerned with how in the 'western world' we waste resources especially with the built-in obsolesence factors with electrical appliances. I now find myself questioning 'how and where was this item made' and the obvious...'Do I really need this?'