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importance of prayer i m gifting you this embroidery pattern to download because romans 12 12 is exactly that a reminder that in hope or tribulation we should pray use the link below download the free constant in prayer pattern if you have an extra minute would you please also pray for blossom and her family who are having a hard time this year with ross unemployed these past six months and their current rental home up for sale second time in 18 months thank you hold fast to the lord because he never fails us and is our greatest hope in every situation rejoice in hope be patient in tribulation be constant in prayer god bless precious ones ps my etsy shop is always open so please drop by if you are in the mood for something new to stitch click here posted by jennifer reynolds jenny of elefantz at 2 21 pm 20 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels blogging break 2026 prayer requests 2026 thursday may 14 2026 an unexpected slowing a pattern and a tutorial i think many of you know that i ve been pursuing a slower simpler life for more than a decade now probably since around 2012 at first it was all about discovering who i was after many years of homeschooling and then a realisation graciously unfolded before me from the lord that i was now about to embark on a new season of life i was an empty nester no longer teaching and discovering life with just the two of us left at home held a great blessing and immense joy life in the home would be slower simpler and different though my natural i can do it all personality would thwart me off that track for many years slowing for me meant slow to learn but i have bit by bit found that slowing and especially living more simply is what my heart truly needed all along when i announced retiring from the blog last june it was with full intent to not return i spent the first two weeks shredding sixteen years of elefantz designs paperwork and the next two weeks working in the garden my heart soared in the garden the joy was indescribable and i felt perfectly at peace with my retirement decision it was as though a huge weight had been lifted and i was free to live a much slower paced life as a very contented homemaker and then i had an accident and injured my knee an injury which ten months later has not improved and is actually a bit worse than before i was shattered at not being able to move around the garden and follow through on the plans i had made for it and for our home there have been other health issues since then which praise the lord have now been resolved but the knee injury is the one which restricts me like no other back to blogging in november there was joy being able to connect with you again as i rarely see anybody since the injury and that helped me to put the disappointments aside and get on with life as a slightly much slower homemaker in fact i look back now and see all of this a blessing in disguise my heart s desire was to live a slower simpler life and god has used my unexpected physical limitations to teach me exactly how to do it so here s the thing i have been reflecting on this week when you can only walk slow everything in life slows with it as the months have passed i find myself not only unable to hurry but not wanting to either not as much gets done around the house or the garden in any given day but things eventually get done in time i have learned that there s no rush to housework no checklist to mark off at the end of the day and no feelings of failure when tasks have to wait the garden is coming along well because of those small increments of care given in pure delight and the preparation and care of making our sourdough bread over 24 hours every third day is an absolute slow joy after many years of baking a loaf within three hours when i look around our home i see a place that is lived in with a lot of love a sanctuary for my beloved and i to enjoy each other where we can close a door on the world outside i m noticing things that eluded me before and delighting in what once was seemingly unimportant when i do something like cleaning the oven i take my time and it can be many hours of slow work but i notice things which had been invisible before for example cleaning the oven this week i thought about what a home baker once said about putting dough to rise in the empty oven with just the light on that it would give a subtle enough warmth to help the dough rise and with milder winter days coming that setting would have been beneficial but alas i do not have an oven light then as i cleaned i thought to check the oven manual you never know what s right before you until you slooooowwww down on my oven settings there s fan bake ordinary bake rapid bake grill quite a few settings and i use them all for different things but in the manual it mentioned a defrost setting which can be used to defrost food from the freezer and to rise dough i walked slowly to the oven dials and yes there it was in plain sight and i d never noticed it i wonder what else i m going to discover that has been overlooked these past eight years living here there s so much to love about this slower life my friends yes it involves pain and yes it prevents me from driving the car but it has so many benefits to rejoice in and i choose to rejoice now this week i wanted to give you a couple of free projects one is an embroidery pattern that ties right in to choosing a slower life may it be a gift that blesses you and anyone you choose to stitch it for use the link below to download my free message to self pattern download the free pattern the second gift is a tutorial which was originally shared here during covid i want to share a few home focused projects with you in the coming weeks and this is a favourite of mine the farmhouse produce bags are simple to make and you only need a few things one of the them being a cotton tea towel i made two back in 2020 one for onions and the other for potatoes and they have stood the test of time because i still use them today six years on and they are still pretty still functional and have not worn out using good quality tea towels may be one reason for that but i also think the french seams have kept them sturdy we use brown onions and red onions but all this time i ve mixed them both in the same onions bag early this week that changed i decided the red onions needed a bag of their own so i followed my own tutorial and made one if you d like to make some farmhouse produce bags i have put the tutorial into a pdf file for you to download and keep these bags would be fine for storing other things too such as dried beans parsnips or whatever you like to store in cotton that will keep well use the link below to download the free tutorial download the free tutorial i completed the cushion made using the free bird in pot pattern i shared with you here and it s sitting in my leather chair by the front window where our dear kelly dog loves to watch all the roadworks which have been going on out front since january how are you have you had an experience which forced you to slow down but became a blessing in disguise perhaps your slowing is still fresh and its been very difficult to accept know that i am praying for all of you who are going through such a time remember always god sees you he is not blind to your struggles nor ignorant of your joys he is our father who loves us and his mighty hands hold us even through the fire the storm and the valley this season has taught me to not just pray for healing but to pray for my eyes to see the good in it and my heart to overflow with happiness and gratitude abigail i almost forgot to tell you that i have made the entire abigail bible study into one pdf file you can download it here god bless until next time my free newsletter is back just sign up here and you ll receive it every couple of weeks you will find loads of patterns for instant download here in my etsy shop posted by jennifer reynolds jenny of elefantz at 4 32 pm 19 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels abigail bible study free pattern 2026 gentle homemaking knee injury 2026 simple living 2026 slow living 2026 sourdough journey 2026 tutorial 2026 friday may 8 2026 the everyday life and contentment late autumn it s late autumn here in the far north of australia and though the early mornings are refreshingly cool at around 20 21c these days the noonday sun has been climbing to 32c at my place every day this past week though i would love for the days themselves to be cooler and they should do in the weeks ahead i am very grateful that the daylight hours are much shorter now and you know the evenings are already rather lovely in the garden i need to cover many of the fragile seedlings before the sun climbs over the nearby mountain and bears down on them a few hours after sunrise or i hide some pots under the elder tree where they benefit from the sun s warmth whilst sheltering under the long thin leaf laden limbs above my carrots especially love that spot when the sun sets i remove the covers allowing the cooler night air freedom to circulate easily next morning i usually discover more seeds have sprouted whilst those having already made their way through the soil a few days earlier have grown taller i never grow tired of the miracles displayed in a simple garden seeing the wonders of god at work still creating stirs my desire to plant grow harvest even if its only in our small backyard garden and not a field reflections in life from breadmaking over the past few weeks the steady ritual of making a sourdough loaf every three days has also brought much joy to my soul it took a couple of months to perfect a loaf which comes together easily in our climate and without many steps because climate matters a great deal when dealing with sourdough i am so glad to have figured out those things because now i need no recipe as its in my head i can work with whatever the weather does that day and the next and though there were a few mistakes along the way because i d forget the simplest things like scoring the loaf before it went in the oven or forgetting to lower the oven temp after the first 20 minutes it s all working fine now and we are loving our rye wheat loaf in fact we don t toast it because we enjoy it as is even on day three and we re even getting to the stage of not needing to butter it we just really love this bread praise god i was thinking about bread one morning last week as i waited for the dutch oven to heat before i placed the risen bread dough inside there was a time in the not too distant past when i spent far too much time and far too much money trying all different ways to make a meal whether that be stews soups cakes biscuits cookies international dishes doughs breads it was as though i needed to find the next best thing or a more perfect way of cooking something i d made for years i had way more cookbooks than i d ever use and a multitude of failed meals under my apron and still i would scroll online recipes borrow even more cookbooks from the library watch homecooks and chefs make amazing meals on youtube and spend on ingredients we could ill afford did not like or never used again apart from when my husband takes us on a sunday drive through the countryside i ve been predominantly housebound for the past five months only venturing out on my own three times this year so i ve had to rely on grocery deliveries as i cannot go to a supermarket what a blessing in disguise our income had decreased towards the end of 2025 due to changes at my husband s work so i was already being extra mindful of expenditure but as the months rolled on in 2026 and we needed to help family members for a while i challenged myself to not just lower the grocery and other expenditure but to eat even better at the same time even though we already had a healthy diet one way i achieved this goal was to stop looking for new recipes donating most of my cookbooks shopping from the pantry and freezer first planting the garden with a wider variety of vegetables and fruits and cooking simpler meals that we already enjoyed which brings me back to pondering that loaf of bread last week the recipe i m using is the only one i ll use it makes a lovely healthy loaf very tasty and a perfect size for the two of us to enjoy over three days so none is wasted there is no need to try another recipe or play around with this one nothing is wasted and we re very content to have this as our daily loaf no longer am i searching for new ideas i wrote up a list of the simple meals we have enjoyed regularly over the years and that s what i make my roasted pumpkin and garlic soup is delicious so why try a different recipe the chicken curry i ve made every month for the past six years is a family favourite so why try another my husband enjoys the same breakfast every morning sultana bran and fresh fruit with a banana smoothie and does not want a change i enjoy coconut yoghurt nuts and fresh fruit for breakfast and do not want a change can you see where i m going with this i have two different biscuit cookie recipes we always return to one basic scone recipe we ve loved for thirty plus years and then there s rissoles my husband s favourite porcupine meatballs grandkids favourite spaghetti bolognese noodles roast chicken or lamb with veggies or corned beef with coleslaw and chips these are the meals my man will enjoy and say that was yummy as he carries our dishes to the sink i make our jams relishes and pickles from in season produce and bake our own bread herbal tea is made from whatever is growing in the garden that season and we use honey and maple syrup as our sweeteners or sugar for biscuits cookies there s about eight or ten more meals bakes in my list of regulars but what i have found this year is that this is all we needed i restock groceries or buy meat that will be used in those everyday meals and snacks and its delivered to my door so i m not wandering the supermarket being tempted anymore i am so content with this new ordinary this simpler way of living and if i did not have this knee injury and become housebound and unable to drive i do not believe this lesson would have been so quickly or easily learned and this beautiful simplicity of days be lived out as it now is so this is my story and i know it s not something you might draw inspiration from but one thing about blogging these past eighteen years is that i share life as it is being lived here in my home and this today is me taking you along as i write what will be a journal of jennifer s life for my children and grandchildren because i wish i d had something like this from nana oh the wealth of old ways commonsense and how she was able to live a rich and contented life on very little that she could teach me share your life with your family dear friends because there are gems in there which may be lost before the little ones grow up and need them remember...