These are the links I have been hoarding recently because they made me laugh, cry, despair, hope or jump for joy…
(First up: a reminder that my little prize drawer for the ever so lovely Homemade Gifts Vintage Style ends tomorrow so now is your last chance to enter!)
Happier At Home
Really, really looking forward to seeing Gretchen Rubin shift her happy focus on to life at home…
What I Do When I Waver
Penelope Trunk on why it’s ok to let our kids have free reign with the games console.
Feng Shui Your Internet Life
From the wonderful Tao of Dana.
Wherever you go There You Are
For this paragraph alone:
This is one secret of the ladies who lunch, who pay to have someone pour their water and knead their tired feet and smooth oil over the unloved skin of their necks and shoulders, who sit naked under plush bathrobes and enumerate their trigger points to smiling women with strong forearms while Enya plays softly in the background: no one else touches them. I have friends who have stopped having sex with their husbands, overwhelmed by the tactile demands of motherhood. Their only chance to be free of clinging hands is when they lay down to sleep. Intellectually, I get it. Whichever side of the fence you have to mow, the work is demanding, and sacrifice is required. Emotionally… emotionally, I pay people to listen to my problems for 50 minutes a week and to run their hands over my body a few times a year, when the gulf between me and the human experience gets too unendurably vast. Emotionally, I write an anonymous blog and cry every time I hold a brand new baby.
The Invisible Mother
Spot the Mummy hiding underneath a rug in these incredibly bizarre, spooky portraits of Victorian children.
Seven Ways To Turn Your home Into a Health Retreat
The Oil cleansing Method
If it is good enough for Simple Mom it’s good enough for me!
Apricot and Lavender Fruit Leather
Sounds divine… roll on Summer please!
And finally can I leave you with this: a video I saw on The Bedlam of Beefy and haven’t been able to get out of my mind since. We spend so much time talking about minimalizing consumption and trashing the unnecessary in our lives, that when we come face to face with what it really means to lead a truly simple, beautifully unadorned life, I for one find myself both fascinated with it and deeply intimidated by it and finally end up meditating on all that we surround ourselves with that is clearly surplus to living well…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDbrUk2xYBo]
Other Things To Do At BrocanteHome
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Life Love & Vintage Housekeeping the by BrocantePrintables on Etsy
Create your own Brocante Life Book, plan Christmas, set up routines and rituals or live life the BrocanteHome way with my guided workbooks and planners.
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Goal Setting for Homemakers 
The Brocante Round-Up! 
The Brocante Round-Up! 
The Autumn House
Wow, some great links! The invisible mother is just eerie and quiet odd, especially in the images where she literally is just covered with no attempts to disguise her as a backdrop. Love the video, I wish I could be brave enough to attempt to live like this, the yearning is definitely in there somewhere. I have been using the oil cleansing method for a few years on and off after coming across the same link and it is wonderful, it is only my laziness on getting hold of castor oil and rushing in the shower that prevents me using it everyday. It really does make a huge difference though, especially to my over oily skin. (BTW, the health retreat link is linking to the scary rug ladies too!)
My recent post A.W.O.L and more cake!
Thanks for the heads up Lisa, it's now fixed! Off to coat my skin in oil. Have a lovely day!x
My recent post Scrumptious Links For Today
I'd be down for candlelight, and even cooking over a fire, but with four small children I GOTTA HAVE MY WASHER.
I've been doing the oil cleansing method and I really like it! I was going to try buying some fancy oil cleanser like Josie Maran, but tried the DIY method first and I'm glad I did. A book I'm sure you've seen, but maybe not… Babushka's Beauty Secrets. I think you would love it!
My recent post Week 36
Feel guilty complaining about my 2 up 2 down with conservatory ! No more !
I love these links! Actually I love all of your links!
My recent post Why I love TKMaxx!
Hmmn, I wonder if infact that is the NANNY under the rug, hence her invisibility in a "family" photo…
Interesting links especially the invisible mother topic. To me it's kinda creepy or maybe it's because the old times don't have the high-tech way of cropping hence the odd pictures.
My recent post Meet the Newest EcoTools: The Buffing Brush
Having lived a year with the Amish, I can tell you that there's really nothing simple about having no electricity. It requires a great deal of effort and pre-planning, even for very mundane tasks. While you do get used to it after a while, the first few times of having to find matches to light a kerosene lamp to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night really made me wonder what I'd gotten myself into.
My recent post My Pleasure In Creases