Recovering from lofty perils!

Well I seem to be back in "recovery" this week, this time recovering from clearing out the loft! 10 days of hard work and each day we managed to get 2-3 bags of "stuff" to our local Age Concern charity shop, recycling as much as we could! My husband is certain that the house has now raised itself up by a couple of inches! :)

Letting go was always a problem for me, letting go of the memories, of links to the past and the people we have lost. I really used to tie myself up in knots over this! Now after some thought and prayer I choose something small for the memories and hand the rest over to be of use to others. I seem to be a changed person! yikes!

We found some great treasures as well! My wedding veil, the box was crushed but the veil has been washed very carefully and is as good as new and my daughter is going to see if it will do for her wedding next year.

We are also sticking to the new rule - for everything coming into the house something must go. I found a lovely "like new" fluffy dressing gown, much nicer and longer than the one I had. That one was a charity shop buy as well, soft and fluffy but very pink and too short to be really warm, in fact I used to resemble a large pink marshmallow when I wore it! Now it is washed and packed and ready for the charity shop and the new longer burgundy one is washed and in regular use, and very cosy it is.

I found a super little rectangle shaped pyrex - perfect for small lasagnes, so a little blue patterned sweetie dish has left the building!

Lets hope I can keep this up because I never want to have to go back to sorting out that mess again!

Charity shops - be considerate when you donate

Recently we have spent a lot of time visiting our local Help the Aged Charity Shop! The "stuff" in our loft is shrinking down and the space available is growing at last!

All this has taken time, effort and energy. Not just the heaving bags of "stuff" down the stairs to sort out, but the washing/ironing of clothing, washing up of glassware and crockery, cleaning up of toys before giving them away to donate.

We have all by now perhaps heard the tiresome joke about what to do if your suit needs dry cleaning "take it to the charity shop - let them do it and buy it back"!
I worked in a charity shop (Cancer Research) as one of the many volunteers and they work very hard for no pay! These are wonderful, caring people wanting to give something back to the charity that has perhaps helped them or a relative with the illness. They are most definately not our servants!

The task of sorting out the donations can be a mixed blessing, some of the donations are a superb gift to the charity and help to bring in much needed funds, for which the charities are very, very grateful, but some items show a distinct lack of respect for the volunteers. Opening a black sack one day I found in amongst someones dirty laundry a filled nappy!!!!!! The whole lot had to be thrown away!

The charity shop I worked in did not have laundry facilities, if something needed to be washed and was worth doing, the manager took it home to launder at her own cost. We did steam iron some of the donations but that took up a lot of our time where we could have been sorting or helping in the shop. Some ironing is expected as often clothing is held in sacks for a while before sorting and the upright steam iron contraption was quite popular to use! :)

Now when I spend my pennies in the charity shops I think about all the work that has gone into the presentation as well as the bargains I find!

Clearing out the old!

Now this is something I have had great difficulties with! I wonder if others have found the same? We have spent today making a start on clearing out our loft space. We moved into this house in 1983 and within a year had a new addition to the family in the shape of our daughter. Anything remaining unpacked was quickly added to the growing pile in the loft. As each year passed by more was added and less taken out. I found it difficult to part with reminders of the past! Result - chaos!!!!!

Recently a friend was telling me that a major leak had ocurred in their loft space and totally ruined all that was stored up there! Enough!I cried, and decided that this week with husband off work, we should start clearing the loft. Today was the first day and we have already cleared about 1/4 of the loft space. 2 trips to our local Help the Aged charity shop ensued followed by another 2 trips to the dump (I have recycled everything else to within an inch of it's life I promise you!) Apart from pulled and aching muscles we both already feel so much better and all the keener to tackle the rest of the loft space! Hoping to find enough to inspire me to start selling on ebay and amazon so that we can put some pennies aside for the next wedding in the family!

By the end of next week I could be crying out for mercy and over-dosing on ralgex but it must be done! Tomorrow I have a few hours off though, as I am on a youth leaders course, run by our Church. Ah! bliss!

Apricot jamming!

Hello again! I'm back to blogging as and when the energy allows, a lot of changes have been made here but they are all for the better! For one thing I am determined to get the mortgage paid off within the next 3-5 years, so frugaling is now being taken up a level. Wish me luck.

To start with I have been making some jam, the jam maker was my birthday present last summer and is brilliant! So far this year I have made 12 jars of marmalade, 8 jars of blackberry jelly and now 6 jars of apricot preserve.






At long last I've got myself organised and opened one of the tins of approved foods apricot pulp. Really pleased for the outlay of around £3 for the pulp and sugar I managed to get 6 jars of apricot preserve and 5 freezer boxes of apricot pie filling. I worked out that would have cost me £17.54 to buy! I have another tin to open and use as well! :)

Yes there is such a thing as a free lunch!

Today Mr C decided to come home for his lunch and requested soup. Luckily the "freezer fairy" (as in tightwad Gazette) was full to brimful with all sorts of odds and ends (celery ends, cooked potatoes, half a tin of tomatoes, runner beans, half an onion, half a fresh tomato), so I tipped it all into a saucepan, adding some chopped spring onions that needed using up and a tub of stock from the freezer (yipee more space) simmered until soft, seasoned and then blitzed in the food processor.

Please excuse the state of my cooker, but it has been in almost constant use now it is chutney season! It has since been cleaned:)



Further exploration of the freezer resulted in some lovely tomato and herb bread, left from our last visit to the farmers market, which went down very well with the soup. We had ice cream for afters (left and rescued from the family barbecue a week ago) all items I, sadly, would have thrown away years ago, so a free and tasty lunch. What a blessing!

Needless to say the freezer fairy (an old tupperware lidded jug) is clean and ready for use again!

Breakfast- hm muesli and soya yogurt, tea

mid morning snack - a lovely orange from last weeks organic box

Lunch - as above hm soup, tomato and herb bread, ice cream

Afternoon snack - 2 little kit kat eggs (from apoproved foods - naughty but nice) tea

Dinner - hm veggie lasagne and salad - from garden and bottom of the fridge, hm fruit salad

5 a day - dried fruit, orange, various veg in hm soup, courgettes and tomatoes in lasagne, garden salad, hm fruit salad (mango, blackberries, apple, pears)

The approved food order has just turned up so I now have curry paste to last a good long time, organic carrots, dog toys (for Christmas gifts for friends pooches) cake mixes, sweeties for cake decorating, Christmas cake frills, fruit teas and coffees for Mr C! This was paid for on Wednesday last week!

Other than going out briefly to walk Penny on her first walk after the op (round the block) I have not been anywhere to spend any money! So no spend day

Todays harvest from the garden and a catch up

This is what I've managed to harvest today and I still have several courgettes and runner beans from yesterdays pickings to deal with! The freezers are filled to brimful so somethings got to come out of there! I think it may well be more of the frozen blackberries to make some more jelly! Just need to urgently find some more jars! lol!

I have been away from the blog for a few days while Penny has been getting over her spaying op! Poor little thing didn't know what had hit her and spent most of Friday night and Saturday whimpering. Thank goodness the vet gave us some painkillers for her. On the first day she was still spaced out from the general anesthesia. Several times in the night I woke to find her sitting bolt upright with very big eyes just staring into space! She has just had her first check up at the vets and is healing well, just 1 more week, another check up and hopefully back to normal Penny madness again.:)

A quick catch up on our spends:-

Thusday 3/9 - we ate out to celebrate a friends birthday.. Lovely meal and Mr C budgeted for this out of entertainments allowance ( can't go out again for a while though!) so for me it was a no spend day!

Friday 4/9 - spent the day searching for a replacement car (to take our minds of Penny having her op) very tired and short of time we stopped for a sandwich lunch at Wyevales - very nice but cost a whopping £14 :o we also shared a portion of fish and chips £5 in the evening as Penny needed our time and attention so total spend £19

Saturday 5/9 - Tea and toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch but a shared portion of chinese takeaway as we were still so very tired! total spent £7

Sunday 6/7 - Penny much better so visited a friends Church for Communion and discovered they have 2 collections! Also bought a couple of cards and stayed for a cuppa and a biccie (everyone so very friendly and had a lovely time) total spend £5

Monday (today)

Breakfast - hm muesli, milk and tea

midmorning snack - cheese and apple

Lunch - tuna salad

Afternoon snack - slice of lemon drizzle cake and an orange

dinner - butternut squash and bacon risotto
plum crumble (made earlier in week)

5 a day - plums, butternut squash, orange, apple, salad, dried fruits

total spends today £4.99 (I bought a toy for Penny at the vets! Had to take it away again as she was getting too excited and rushing around!)

Jammin

I've been busy recently making Jams and chutneys! I have been lucky enough to be given plenty of apples and plums from my lovely neighbour. So just the price of the sugar(which I had in) for the jam and the vinegar, onions and spices (already in store) for the chutney. The problem now is finding enough jam jars!

Todays menu was:-

Breakfast - hm muesli and milk for Mr C/just a yogurt for me (not feeling well)

Lunch - Cheese and chutney sandwiches, crisps clementine for Mr C/Soup for me

Snack - Lemon drizzle cake (leftover from party)

Dinner - Sausages (in the remoska) mash potatoes, runner beans and carrots followed by clementines and pears

Hot soy milk drink for supper

5 a day - runner beans, carrots, pear, clementine, orange juice

More runner beans from garden to freeze down - the veg draw in the freezer is nearly full now!

Church today followed by helping at toddler group so no chance to spend there.

Total spend - £20.44 on an approvedfoods order! well they had snowmen toys for dogs (4 for £1) so enough for all my doggy friends :) also organic carrots, choc, sweeties for decorating cookies/cupcakes for MS centre, fruit teas, coffee and christmas cake frills.