Can You Juggle?

I'm not so good at it. I suppose if I was to practise I might get better. What about life's choices- how do you go juggling those? Even within the framework of the topics this blog discusses, there are so many choices.

Here's the 'objects' as I see them-
1. Health- choosing healthy food, personal care products and cleaning goods
2. Budget- I love a bargain and need to keep costs low in our single income family
3. Sustainability- no explanation needed here
4. Self-sufficiency
5. The local factor- food miles, supporting local business and agriculture
6. Time factor/convenience

There are more, like education/homeschooling; matters relating to my Faith; concerns of the extended family. These impact in round-about ways on the above. All the 'balls' that need to be kept up in the air.

Here's where the juggling comes in. I recently purchased grocery items online from an organic food provider. This was not what I would call budget-friendly. It also was not local! My bottled fruit pieces came from Sri Lanka and the pasta was from Italy. I experssed my concern to the company. They said they can't source organic made-in-Australia product that is at a price people would be willing to pay. Hmmm.

Living in a large regional city, we have don't have the fantastic farmer's markets of capital cities, nor the roadside stalls of small rural towns. The Terrible Two supermarkets and the Two Dollar Stores have the market stitched up.

I can save money at Aldi and their fresh food is usually local-ish and quite good quality. Many of their other products though are foreign and I've noticed some have more preservatives and artificial ingredients than their supermarket counterparts. I simply don't have time to shop here and there anymore.

I would like to say convenience is not a major concern but realistically, it is. Life with children at home is busy- I look at my schedule regularly to see what I can prune but most things in my life need to be there. This means I'm often pressed for time and that means cooking from scratch, gardening and other aspects of self-sufficiency are virtually impossible some days. I'd hoped the spring/summer garden would be supplying a large percentage of our vegetables this year but I haven't done the preparation and planning. Something is eating my peas down to the ground as soon as I plant them and I have no idea what it is. Gardening at the moment works something like this:
I'm outside hanging washing- it isn't raining. I look sadly over at the vegie patch. Ooh, there's that punnet of spring onions. I think I can spare 5 minutes to scratch a shallow ditch into the soil and plant the little seedlings. Now, if I can remember to keep them watered and if they don't appeal taste-wise to my mysterious garden marauder I may have spring onions in several weeks. Its not enough- nowhere near enough.

Some days I make bread, some I buy it. Some weeks there are homemade treats, other weeks there are Tim Tams. Bicarb and vinegar isn't working on the grout in my bathroom so I've recently bought a 'product'- supposedly earth friendly. Its not actually working either. I'm keeping my ears and eyes open for a solution.

Mother-guilt has taken on a whole new dimension. I used to think I was doing well to find a bargain. Now the bargain is no good if it was grown in China or if it has too many numbers on the label or if it packaged in plastic.

Keeping all the balls in the air is not easy. I don't mean to be negative in my tone on this post. I suspect I may not be the only one who drops one for a while every now and then.

How do you go? Can you juggle?