This time last week ...

Today it has poured with rain until the roads turned to brown rivers from all the mud being washed off the roadside fields.  

This time last week I was standing on top of Table Mountain - awesome!!

We have returned from a wonderful holiday full of terrific memories of places and people.  Stunning scenery, very hot (and sometimes humid) temperatures,  delicious food . . . a great time in every way.  The down side of a holiday is the sorting out on your return and I have spent the past few days getting stuck into  never-ending pile of washing - and an inversely proportional ironing mountain.  I'm getting there, just slowly.

Having run down the freezer and store cupboards before we went away (we had porridge for lunch and beans on toast for dinner the day we got home!), a shopping trip was urgently required to fill the kitchen cupboards again.   Back to keeping track of the pennies and getting good value for money.

We made the most of a couple of days of lovely sunny weather (before the rain!)  and did a bit of work in the veg garden, digging over the raised beds and sowing some seeds, starting with peas and spinach.  We're having to adapt things a little in the garden this year but the promise of fresh vegetables straight from the garden lin a couple of months has my mouth watering!



  
  


  

The bottom of the freezer

We finally ate our way to the bottom of the freezer yesterday.  At the start of the year, we hoped that there was enough food tucked away in the freezer to get us through January.  Then it looked hopeful that it might last into February, but I don't think either of us thought all those vegetables, so lovingly raised, tended, harvested and frozen from the garden last year would actually see us well into March.  We may have had some very interesting and different meals for the past couple of weeks - variety being the spice of (a frugal and thrifty) life - but those meals have been tasty, nutritious and pretty-much free.  It's been fun.

We've been enjoying some beautiful days again, bright and sunny.  Gosh, does it make a difference to how people feel.  The promise of Spring is all around - buds on trees, wonderful birdsong, and just a feeling of new life after the grey, wet drabness of Winter.  So many plans, so much to look forward to.

Bits and pieces

March's weather is, well, changeable to say the least.  Bright sunshine, pouring rain, sleet and hail, strong winds, fog and then more sunshine.  It keeps us on our toes, if nothing else.  

We had a trial run with the packing this week and were surprised to find we're not going to need all the luggage we anticipated; clearly we know how to pack lightly ;)  It was certainly a worthwhile exercise (even though we don't leave just yet) and a few duplicates and omissions became apparent.  Not completely 'back to the drawing board' but just a couple of tweaks needed.  

I'm putting together a hand-sewing project to pass the long hours of travelling, some English paper-piecing patchwork that will be easily transportable and not take up too much space.   Hopefully I shall come home with a finished wall-hanging.

I'm trying to get a few pieces of fabric from the stash washed each day - a little and often makes the enormity of the task a little more manageable.  And as I see all those fat quarters hanging out to dry, I'm beginning to see colour combinations and ideas for quilt blocks.  I will make headway with the stash!

Sunshine and sewing

Another day of blue sky and sunshine, light just after 6 in the morning and gone 6 in the evening before the curtains need drawing - there's so much promise of things to come at this time of the year.  There is a 'however' though, although that sun is bright, it's still mighty cold outside.  In fact, this past week we've seen more early morning frosts than during the whole winter.  In the shelter of the garden it's quite warm (in the conservatory this morning it was positively hot!!) but walking into town this afternoon was decidedly chilly - it called for brisk walking to keep warm.  

We get the sun on the back garden (or at least most of the garden) till early afternoon now, which is great for drying the washing.  Getting the clothes washed, out on the line, dried and put away again, all in the same day, is one of those simple little things that pleases me!  I'm making the most of these dry days by beginning the task of pre-washing all my quilting fabrics, a necessary chore which I should have been more pro-active about in the past.  Better late than never, and a few fat quarters washed every day will get the job done while the weather holds.

My marathon sewing session has come to an end, with my first foray into sewing with knit fabrics, so yay for my overlocker!  I've made a cowl-neck top that I think will become a wardrobe staple (i.e. comfortable, very versatile, neutral colours, goes with everything etc etc) but perhaps I should have chosen fabric without stripes for my first overlocking experience.  Next time I think I shall go with a solid colour ;-), but it was a good test for me and I'm pretty pleased with the resulting garment.  

We're working to a time frame at the moment, and it's amazing how it focusses the mind.  No time to be wasted, there are things which have to be done before we go on our much-awaited travels.  I'm trying very hard to make the most of small chunks of time - it's surprising what can be achieved while the tea is brewing!  It has made me realise how easy it is to waste time, and how much time I personally squander.  There's no point in me whining about things not getting done if I fail to make the best use of my own time.    It's something I need to keep reminding myself about.

Marching into March

I'm glad we got out into the garden on Monday because the weather has not been brilliant since, in fact today we had the nearest to snow that we've had all winter.  A mixture of hail and sleet left the garden white.  However, between the wintery showers I managed to get two loads of washing out and line-dried - it was very windy and retrieving the clothes from the line was a bit of a struggle.  

The skirt I've been working on was finished today - a very brisk walk into town to purchase just the right colour buttons as there was nothing suitable at all in my button jar.  If I'm honest, the fabric I used was really too flimsy for a skirt, but as the pattern (1981, so  practically vintage!) was for a very basic wrap style, I think I have just about got away with it.  Light and airy it certainly is, just right for warmer temperatures.  I was not looking forward to hemming this skirt as it's very full, and on the bias, but at the last moment I suddenly remembered my new overlocker has a rolled-hem facility and never being one to shy away from trying something new, especially if it involves a new sewing trick or gadget, I consulted the 'book of words' and had a go.  Wow!  It's magic!  A perfect rolled hem; I am simply thrilled with the result.  

The Head Chef has taken advantage of the rainy weather to start on the list of household maintenance chores that we drew up a couple of weeks ago.  Paint and brush at the ready for a bit of touching up in the dining room.  How satisfying to tick something off so soon.

We had to make a quick trip to the supermarket yesterday to replenish the dwindling reserves.  The Head Chef has done wonders creating delicious meals from the freezer and store cupboards but he was finding it increasingly difficult - the more we were eating up the less there was left to work with.  So just a handful of extra basics has given us a few more options.  

It's been a quite productive couple of days, things getting discussed, planned and dealt with.  There's a lot going on round here at the moment and we need to keep a bit of order to ensure we keep on top of things.  Clearly lists are going to feature!

Making the most of an extra day

The weather has been lovely today - bright and sunny - and we made the most of it by getting out in the garden.  Three of the raised beds have now been weeded and turned over, although I have no doubt that more weeds will appear in a few days' time.  But for now, the beds look ready to go.  It was such a pleasure to get outside and do some practical work again after such a soggy winter (we've had no rain for several days now, which has been a very welcome change) and we made some tentative plans for sowing and planting this season.  

The mornings are getting so much lighter now, and the evenings pulling out, but we've had more hard frosts in the past fortnight than throughout the winter - I suspect we may still pay the price for the unseasonably mild temperatures up to now.  However, longer daylight hours and bright sunshine certainly makes us feel like Spring is very close.

We are still eating our way through the freezer and store cupboards, although I think we may have to do a small shop soon as the cupboards are getting rather empty!  It has been a really interesting little challenge, and one which has made us appreciate the value of making meals from scratch, and also making the most of home-grown produce - today we finished the very last of the spinach.  I must congratulate the Head Chef on some very innovative meals, but nothing is going to waste.  We are not huge meat eaters (mainly chicken and fish) and it has been surprising just how far a small amount of meat can stretch when it is bulked out with a good selection of vegetables.  

I had a bit of a clear-up in the workroom last week - I could hardly see the floor for fabric, patterns and boxes - and time spent sorting through the dressmaking and quilting stashes proved to be time very well spent.  The storage shelves were reorganised, paper patterns folded back into their respective envelopes and stray reels of thread rounded up.  I have one dressmaking project still to finish but as there is not much fitting involved it will hopefully be completed in the next couple of days.  I think I still have a bag to make, and a dress to embellish, both relatively straight-forward.  Once I have finished both of those projects I really need to make some time to get all my fabric pre-washed.  It's something I keep thinking about and I know it will make sense.  The dressmaking stash (I'm not sure that the half-dozen pieces of fabric really constitute a 'stash' as such but it takes me feel like a proper seamstress!) has actually been pre-washed - I made a point of doing that as I bought the fabric - but hardly any of my quilting cotton has been washed.  There is nothing worse than washing a quilt only to find fabric shrinks or the colours bleed - all that time and work effectively ruined because fabric wasn't pre-washed.  So that will be a goal for the Spring, and hopefully it will then encourage me and provide the incentive to actually use some of those carefully stored and much-admired (but never used) fat quarters.  I don't have to create heirloom quilts, but I do need to reduce the stash.  By the end of this year, I think I need to have made some quilts.  Some simple quilts.

Living within our means

I'm a little behind times with plans for the 'Thrifty/Frugal February' posts I mentioned at the end of January, but although there may not have been anything actually written here, I have been giving the subject a lot of thought.  I  suspect there are many different takes on thriftiness and frugality, so I am just focussing on how we see it.

I think you start with a mindset.  For us, it's living within our means.  We are perfectly happy with this view, it suits us just fine.  'Our means' is the Head Chef's work pension, plus a small monthly contribution from my savings (no pension for me as yet!).  This total figure is less than a quarter of what we used to jointly earn when we were in paid employment.  However, we have not had a mortgage for several years, and have no debt.  This money covers, I would calculate, 95% of all our expenditure - household expenditure, food, car expenses, garden, travelling, and much more besides.  (There are a couple of exceptions  that are paid for from separate accounts).  We live very well on what many people would consider a relatively small income.  We don't  consciously try to be thrifty or frugal (whatever those terms may mean), but we do try to make the money work as hard for us as possible.  We don't waste it, and try to use it mindfully.  Our attitude is that we have worked hard for what we have so we don't want to waste our resources.  And we have found that we can live very well indeed.

I had planned to post throughout February on thrifty and frugal topics, but I have been in the midst of a sewing frenzy, the like of which I've not known before; I don't think I have done so much dressmaking for such a concerted length of time for many years, if ever.  It has been enjoyable (in a ' there's so much to do and I'm running out of time' way, lol!) and it is mighty satisfying 1) seeing the end results of all this time and effort, and 2) the money I have saved in the process, but there has been a downside, namely a very sore neck of the repetitive strain variety which has, on occasions, rendered me unable to move my head.  Not so great.   So whilst I may not have blogged much over the past couple of weeks, I have had plenty of time to ponder our lifestyle.  

We live simply.  If that means we are thrifty and frugal, I can run with that.  But mostly, we have simply simplified how we live.  We are fortunate to have what we need, and what we have is more than enough.  

I see evidence all around us of this simple life - homemade laundry liquid, menu plans, meals cooked from scratch, broken zips replaced, home-grown vegetables in the freezer providing us with food through the winter, supermarket 'own brand'  products in the cupboards - the list goes on.  It allows us to live well on a reduced income, happy and content with our lot.  We may be at odds with mainstream aspirations of 'more, more, more', but for us, less is so much better.