Reasons to be cheerful!

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, I seem to be chasing my tail a lot these days. Malcolm working full time again (yay!), my work schedule changing weekly to fit around school trips, sports days etc., new job jitters and general, everyday 'stuff' seems to have me more than usually frustrated and tired. 

I'm also trying to get my house in order, quite literally, but with each task I begin to tackle  I'm thinking of all the others still to be done! Add in the mountain of debt we're supposed to be trying to clear and......well....*@#*!!

Anyhoo, time to find something to make me smile :-)

I made my first sale on Etsy! These lovely little crochet pots are winging their way to a lovely lady in the USA, I do hope she likes them.

Don't get too excited, it's taken me a year to get a sale, but hey it's a start :-D 

The lettuce is growing well,

enough to make a salad to go with our quiche, they're sort of 'cut and come again' so I just pick what we need, when we need it, no more left over lettuce going soggy in the salad drawer,

and the spring onions are growing too. I know I should probably thin them out but it always seems mean to the ones I remove!!

The pumpkins have failed to put in an appearance, though!

I used Frugal Queen's idea of making an inventory of food in an attempt to get meal planning under control (we used to be sooo good at this!!)

Freezer	Dry goods	Tins/jars	Baking	Seasonings/spices
1 portion lasagne	¼  pack prawn crackers	Hoisin sauce		Fajita mix
Sm. Pot cooked, diced pork	Gravy powder	Wholegrain mustard	Golden syrup	Malt vinegar
4 bags fresh herbs	Cornflour	½ jar gerkins	Black treacle	Sea salt
5oz sliced crusty bread	Red lentils	½ jar pickled onions	Custard powder	Fish sauce
Sm. Portion hot pot	Star anise	¼ jar beetroot	Suet	Oyster sauce
4 flour tortillas	Cinnamon sticks	Branston pickle	Cocoa powder	Rice vinegar
7 homemade samosas	Box cloves	Pear halves	Gelatine	Dark soy
½ bag cooked mussels	Box dried red chilli	Sardines	Baking powder	Light soy
3 orange lollies	Box whole cardamom	Beetroot pickle	Bicarb. Of soda	Sesame oil
8 pack white rolls	Barley	Marmite	Cream of tartar	Chilli sauce
½ bag peas	Broth mix	Honey	100’s and 1000’s	Worcester sauce
½ bag sweetcorn	3 poppadoms	Peanut butter	Glace cherries	Balsamic vinegar
½ pack raspberries	½ pack lasagne	Chocolate spread	Easy bake yeast	Sherry
1 mini choc ice cream	Mixed pasta shapes	3 cartons chopped tomatoes	Mixed fruit	Ketjap manis
4 portions Bolognese type sauce	Spring roll wrappers	1 tin corned beef	Currants
500g lamb mince	Egg noodles	1 tin cannellini beans	Few sultanas
2 sm. packs beef mince	Basmati rice		Handful dried figs
500g pork mince			Sm. pack flaked & ground almonds
2x8 pork sausages			Vanilla extract
1 pack cass. steak			Jelly glaze mix
1 pack pork chops			Handful mixed nuts
Whole chicken			Plain flour
Ready made steak pie			Self-raising flour
5 chicken breasts			White bread flour
			Icing
			Caster sugar
			Demerara sugar
			Wholemeal bread flour
			Dess. coconut
			Ready to roll icing

 and as a result we also have two scrubbed clean and organised kitchen cupboards! Two birds with one stone - result!

Just a few reasons to be cheerful but I'm feeling better already! Perhaps the best thing that has happened this week is that Malcolm received his first full months pay cheque in three years and his self-esteem is well on the way to being fully restored :-D (I'm now off to pay the car tax!!)

Peace, love and marshmallows 

Louise x  

"It's the same sun...

that shines here!"

These words, or similar, were often spoken by my father-in-law when extolling the virtues of a British summer. Sitting in our garden, in the recent glorious sunshine, I have to say I totally agree. 

Not being a particularly avid gardener, I tend to leave things to Mother Nature rather more than I should. She must take pity on me at this time of year though, sending me splashes of colour from peonies, vincas, aquilegias and the like. The only other time of year my garden looks good is in the Winter when it's covered in snow lol!

Thanks Ma!

Peonies

Vinca

Aquiligias

Some of her choices are less welcome, but just as pretty in their own way!

Last year we let the brambles grow and had enough for an apple and bramble crumble, yummy!

                        

My kiwi plant has, up to now, only produced one fruit - and that was nabbed by a hungry bird. Imagine my excitement when my husband spotted these!

Now, what to do about those pesky birds?

I found a forgotten half bag of compost in the shed so decided to sow some left over seeds in a few pots and see what came up. The seeds were out of date so I wasn't sure, but it was worth a try :)

         The mizuna, lollo rosso and spring onions are coming up!                                          

                                                   

Still no sign of the pumpkins though!

I can't post photos of the garden without including some of our Labrador, Angel. She loves to sit in the sun watching the birds and the bees. However she also likes to 'help' with the gardening; if I prune she prunes, if I weed she weeds, if I dig she digs. She has also riddled the lawn with yellow patches, but we love her non-the-less!

My favourite photo!

It's thirsty work this gardening lark!

It wasn't me!

Love you, Dad
Malcolm will kill me for this!!!

                                                        
                                                   

The House-proud Sloven: An end to procrastination!

My New Year's resolution was to stop procrastinating This, I thought, would roll a multitude of possible resolutions into one - losing weight, paying bills on time, shaving my legs regularly - all the usual stuff including 

keeping up with the housework!!

As with every other year, I managed to keep it up for a week or two (well paying the bills at least, lol) then slid back into my normal way of life.

Now that I am beginning my 'cleaning journey' I realise that one of the easiest fixes would be to 

just get on and do it!

I need to stop wasting time reading blogs about other peoples amazing homes and how they maintain them, close my laptop and open my eyes as to what my own home needs!!

The other thing I noticed was the amount of time I wasted while waiting for other things to happen. Here are a couple of examples of this weeks remedies;

• while waiting for potatoes/pasta to boil clean down areas of the kitchen instead of watching bits of Only Fools and Horses (I've seen it a million times anyway!)
• tidy and clean the bathroom windowsill and sink area while dying my hair (I can read my magazine this evening without feeling guilty)

Blackberry ice-cream anyone? 

Something I have done occasionally is to use 'spare' washing up water for kitchen cleaning. You know how it goes, you wash a couple of glasses then, instead of wasting the bowl of hot soapy water, you wipe down surfaces etc. Well now I try never to throw away practically clean water without using it for at least one other job first. This way all those little jobs I previously put off are now getting done automatically :)

Here's the latest;

I cleaned out my glass cupboard and washed all the glasses. This is right next to the sink so there really has been no excuse ( the sloven in me left the top shelf coz it didn't 'look' dirty and we never use those glasses anyway - one step at a time right? lol!)

So far this morning (my day off) I have hung out the washing, changed our bed, re-loaded the washing machine with the bedding, washed the dishes, cleaned the kitchen table and mats with the left over soapy water, emptied the bathroom and bedroom bins and written this blog. Now I'm off to do a small pile of ironing - rather than leaving it to toppling height  - so that I can spend the afternoon crocheting granny squares and feeling pleased with myself!

A little P.S.

Earlier in this post I referred to myself as 'wasting time reading blogs'. Now as you all know, otherwise you wouldn't be here, blog reading is NEVER a waste of time!!!

Here are some great ones relevant to this post (and much more besides :))

• http://andreadekker.com/
• http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/
• http://housekeeping.about.com/cs/cleaning101/a/springclnngguid.htm

Have you any favourite cleaning blogs? Or any useful tips?

I'll be posting my first 'cleaning list' soon. I DO love a list, don't you?