My To Do List for the next few months

Well, here in Melbourne, Australia we are experiencing typical early spring weather in late spring. Our summer officially starts on Saturday! Christmas-New Year is rapidly approaching and I am busier than ever with community work and trying to do some business marketing too.

I am getting a bit anxious as next week I am part of a team of 3 presenting a talk on Permaculture Gardening, on behalf of our local council, to around 100 people. I used to do sessional tutoring at Monash Uni but never lectured. That was 18 years ago and I am feeling very out of practice I must say.

My part is a quick rundown on Permaculture before my 2 colleagues show how it is applied in urban gardens. Permaculture is such an expansive subject area. It is best presented at least partly in the outdoors. We have to present it in an auditorium, so less than an ideal setting.

My involvement has also got me on a steep learning curve of some of the more finessed aspects of presentations – when I was last at University, there was no Power Point! There was not even email or the internet for public use.

So, more specifically, my part is a quick rundown on “What is Permaculture”…. in about 30 minutes max! It is nearly 12 years since I did my Permaculture Design Certificate. That taught me What is Permaculture and how to use it in 72+ hours! (I even got to teach one small portion of our PDC.)

I love teaching but I’ve always presented to smaller groups so I am feeling challenged. Our presentation is not yet complete. One of my colleagues is taking care of the presentation slides. So, at least that is one less thing to stress about.

We are doing the presentation as representatives of our local Permaculture group – South East Suburbs Permaculture. The group is part of Permaculture Victoria. We have started forging a good relationship with the council since applying for (and receiving) a festival grant.

The group also recently launched a Beehive Hosting scheme. It is a community project to get help maintain healthy honey bees in the region. (Australia is very fortunate to have little beehive health issues.)

After next Wednesday I’ll take a couple of days breather and then I must get my head down with my Food Coach studies. I have a lot of work to do and I hope to get it all done by end of April 2015.

Over the summer I also have to put together another presentation for the council on Green Cleaning. I get to do that one on my own. I’m not sure if that is a good or not so good aspect.

On the more personal side, my husband’s family celebrates Christmas so there are two events to go to – the extended family and the immediate family. On my side we have a wedding. My sister is getting married in February.

We homeschool the kids so that means there is always something needing our attention. Having 5 chooks also tends to result in needing to stop them destroying something in the garden. (Sometimes they are assisted by the kids!)

On the business side of things I have plenty to do too. Update the webshop a bit. Launch my new project – Australian Raw Food Network. I am also setting hubby up with something too.

How about you? What’s on your agenda for the next few months?

Peace to all,
KISS for Life,
Miriam.