£2013 in 2013

A Frugal Wife has been doing a '£2013 in 2013' challenge, and I thought I'd join in. I know I'm coming late to this, as we are already halfway through the year, but I think it's doable and will spur me on with my eBay adventures and might even make me do a boot sale later this year. I might not get to £2013, but it's worth a try.

I have a bit of a head start, as this week I collected together my old gold - broken necklaces, odd earrings, that kind of thing. My parents gave me a few bits as well, and I sent them off to Tesco's gold exchange, hoping for £50 or £60. I was delighted to receive £520!   There's a decent start to my project, then. I also have a bit of money put aside that we've earned through cashback sites, so we've £598.01 to start off with, as you can see in the nifty little widget over there on the right.  I'm hoping this goal will encourage me to have a sort out and start listing things on ebay, which I've been putting off forever. 

I will be counting money made from:

• Selling my old gold and silver (I have some more gold I don't want that I actually couldn't find. I know, how disorganised am I if I can't find my jewellery?! When it turns up, I'll be selling that too)
•  Ebay/Amazon sales
• Cashback sites
• ironing and cleaning work I'll be doing
• Anything left in our budget envelopes each month 
• Money made from the boot sale I might get around to doing!
• Anything else I can think of

Do or Dye

I have just coloured my hair. I have managed to get splotches of dye on the wall and on my hands and arms as usual, and I don't like the resulting colour of my hair. I don't know if I picked up the wrong box (I couldn't remember what I usually have) or if the formulation has changed but I think it's too dark, and looks flat. I am so fed up with colouring it.

I started going grey in my early twenties, and now, at 45, I believe I am considerably grey, underneath all the layers of dye. I am so grey now it is difficult to cover it all, and last time I paid huge sums of money for the hairdresser to do it, she did a worse job than me. I've been colouring my hair so long I can barely remember my natural shade. I do it every four weeks, and for ten days or so I am happy with it, then the white stripe down my parting appears and gets wider until I colour it again. I hate that and would rather be grey than look like a badger for three weeks out of every four. What's the point? I'm not prepared to colour it every ten days and it's not as if I'm fooling anyone, when the whole world can see the badger stripe more often than not.

I wish I could wave my magic wand and get rid of the hair colour overnight, but I know it's likely to take a year or so to grow it out, and how to deal with the ever-widening white stripe during the process? I have had enough of the mess I always make in the bathroom (and on my skin!), the cost of having it done at the hairdresser, the ever present stripe, the nasty chemicals, not liking the result. I've.  Had. Enough.

I just have to come up with a strategy to see me through the process of growing out the dye. I could cut my hair short, to make the process quicker....I hate my hair short, but it's a possibility. I could wear headbands and hats! That might be the route I go down, I think. Watch this space. 

making laundry liquid

I made laundry liquid yesterday. The kitchen was awash, I managed to burn lumps of soap on the hob, drop a tea towel into the dog's water and break my mini chopper (I knew I was optimistic thinking it would cut up soap, but it cuts up carrots and soap can't be much harder than that, can it? Turns out it is.)

On the plus side, it cost me more or less nothing to make 9 litres or so. For a while I've been saving little ends of soap in a jar, I had just enough to make almost a cupful of grated soap and I used half a cup of washing soda. Boiled it up on the stove with a couple of litres of water, poured it in a bucket with another 8 litres of cold water, decanted it into various containers, et voila. Laundry soap, enough for quite a while. I've hopefully saved more than a new mini chopper is going to cost me. 

One thing I am going to miss is Ecover fabric conditioner, I love the scent of it, but I do know that some white vinegar in the rinsing water does just as good a job of softening the washing, is far cheaper and doesn't leave a smell behind. Once I can source some cheap white vinegar, all my washing will smell of nothing except fresh air from being hung outside on the line. 

this weekend I have been...

What I've not been doing this weekend is taking photos, hence this random one, taken in London a couple of months ago on one of our drives. After I posted it, I realised the words at the side are particularly apt: today I'm making laundry liquid! 

• Eating: Nectarines. Not really ripe enough yet, but I couldn't resist. There were four in the box - the Prof got one, the Young Philosopher wasn't here, I managed to eat the other three. A chip butty with lots of salt and vinegar. Toast with jam for breakfast. A veggie wrap and crisps from Pret in the car with the Prof on our way out last night. Half a brownie with the Prof, also in the car. I am not sure we ate a proper meal this weekend, that seems like a lot of snack food, oops. 

• Drinking: full leaded coffee as the decaf has run out. Peach schnapps and lemonade, which I took up to bed with me to read in bed. Woke up this morning and took a swig, thinking it was my usual water. Peach schnapps not so nice first thing in the morning! 

• Doing: Lying in bed late. Knitting. 

• Watching: Wimbledon. Not much of a choice, the Prof's a fan - me not so much, but I will summon some enthusiasm (and some strawberries and cream) for the final next week, I expect. 

• Feeling: Tired, it's been a busy week. This week and next week are too, so I'm crossing my fingers and planning to eat well, get to bed early (and maybe grab an afternoon nap or two) and hope I can manage and I don't get ill. 

• Going: to the Royal Albert Hall (for the first time. Fantastic venue, what a lovely building) to see Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, I gave the Prof tickets for his birthday in April. The special guest was Marc Almond from Soft Cell, the very last person I would have expected to see singing Jethro Tull songs. Apparently he's a big prog rock fan, who knew? I love Tainted Love, it's always been my theme song with my friends - you know the song you always get up and dance to? Ever since I was thirteen! 

• Making: Finally sewing the poncho together. It's about time. I still have to knit a border around the neck, another around the hem and make a fringe. I've also been making a dishcloth to send to a friend. I'm feeling the need to cast on something else and I'm not sure what. 

How was your weekend?

Weekending with Amanda 

adventures for the summer

I've been thinking over the last few days of what I'd like to do this summer. Some of these are just for fun, others tie in with my plans for simplifying things.  

• Keep on decluttering
• Get outside more, even if it's just to sit and read on my bench in the sunshine
• Have a picnic
• Spend ten lovely relaxing days house sitting in the countryside 
• Get some wedding photos printed and up on the wall (it's more than 2 years since the wedding!)
• Pick lots of sweet peas from our garden to enjoy in the house
• finish knitting my poncho
• Make my own laundry liquid
• List some things to sell on eBay 
• Knit a jar jacket for Curly Girl (she wants it blue with clouds on - any ideas/patterns for knitting clouds? The only idea I have is sewing on clouds made from felt) 
• Have a trip to the coast  
• Take more photographs

I'm looking forward to all of these, especially our break in the countryside and taking more photographs. What adventures are you planning for this summer?

knitting and reading

Well the head wrap is finished, but you can't see a photo yet as I've taken about a dozen of myself and they're all awful. Something about tilting my head downwards to show you the head wrap elongates my nose to about two feet long and makes my face look distorted. I'll get the Prof to take one of me and post it another time. 

The baby blanket is finally done, it seemed to take ages with a lot of tinking (love that word), and this week I also knitted a few jar jackets. I saw them online and thought they were fun and I have been thinking about small craft items to sell on the WI stall at events, so I made a few as an experiment. I'd like to make one for a really large jar to keep my knitting needles in. 

I'm reading the Universe Versus Alex Woods for my book group. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I am persevering. It's not really my sort of book, being quite humorous. I don't like funny books, or very many comedy shows. My brother says I have no sense of humour. I don't know if that's the case, I do find some things funny, just often not what everyone else thinks is funny! It's taking me a really long time to read because I keep looking at it and finding something else to do instead. I don't really have to read it, I belong to the most laid back book group ever. We meet every six weeks ago and  usually choose three or four books for the next meeting, and then it's up to the individual whether they read one, two or all of the selected books. I've already read two, so I could be excused I think, but I will make the effort for a bit longer before I give up. 

I've also been looking at the Knitter's Year by Debbie Bliss, which I have had for a while. It's a lovely book, with 52 seasonal projects and there are several things in there I would like to make. I'm starting with a rather pretty bookmark, hopefully I will be able to post a picture of that soon. 



Joining Ginny's Yarn Along 

ramblings on simplicity

Just one of our five cluttered bookcases, and probably the tidiest!

I've been reading more of Down to Earth by Rhonda Hetzel and making plans around here for a simpler way of living. Last week I mentioned Rhonda's book and blog and quite a few people were interested so I thought I would let you know that today she has a very interesting post about running your home along the principles of Permaculture that's well worth a read. 

I've been interested in a simpler way of life for a long time. I want a slow life. I want more time in the fresh air. I want a more organised home, and I want a rhythm to my days, weeks and months. I would like to grow some of our own food. I want like our home to be a comfortable welcoming place for me all the time, for the Young Philosopher and the Prof when they come home from work, and for friends and family when they visit.  I want to make my own greetings cards. I want our home to have artwork painted by the Prof, and decorative and useful items knitted/crocheted/sewn by me. For a long time at odd moments I've scribbled these kind of random thoughts on bits of paper, along with more specific plans and ideas sometimes. Some of them come to fruition, but often they don't.  I've started collecting things together into a folder in a more organised way, and thinking about things in order of priorities. 

I think the key issue for us right now is clutter. I have always had too much stuff and been  slightly fairly a little very untidy, so it's a challenge for me to reverse that trait in myself to start with. Then add my CFS into the mix, along with the Prof moving into my two bedroom house with the contents of his three bedroom house and that equals a lot of stuff, much of it without a permanent home. The shed and loft are full to bursting, as are all the cupboards/drawers etc. Much as parts of the house need redecorating and I would like to landscape the front garden, grow vegetables, do more crafting etc, I am coming to realise that whilst things are in disorder, it makes everything else more difficult, and that conversely the opposite should also be true. Many years ago I read the book Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. In it she says something like, you are connected to every one of your possessions by a single thread. Imagine now the tangled mess of all those threads when you are living in a disorganised way. This idea really stuck in my mind and for me, that really is what it feels like most of the time, when I have so much stuff but equally, I mostly don't know where the item that I want is! 

I think if we can get rid of a lot of stuff, and organise what's left better, everything else will fall into place a little easier. Family meals at the table are easier when the table doesn't have my knitting and a pile of books on it. I need a nice basket to keep my current knitting projects in, and a side table or other place to put my books on. Clutter somehow clutters your mind as well as your house, don't you think? I know I feel like I have space in my head when the house is more tidy and organised. 

So that's the current mission then. Decluttering and organising and not stopping until it's done, just chipping away at it each day and week as I am able to. I will be donating things to the charity shop, taking some to the tip, and possibly using our local Freegle group too if there's anything I think someone might want. A while back I sold some books quite successfully on Amazon, I'd like to do that again and possibly venture into a bit of ebay selling, though that is a more daunting prospect. Any tips? 

I'm also working on a few other things. I've finally got around to sewing in the ends on some dishcloths I made months ago, as my old ones re getting tatty, time to move those on to cleaning rag duty.  I thought it would be a good idea to make some with narrow different coloured stripes, and they are pretty but I don't need to be sewing in twenty ends per cloth! They're ready to use now, anyway. I've been saving containers to keep homemade laundry liquid in, I plan to make a batch very soon. When I've made it in the past, storage was a problem and that put me off but I think I can find some space in the bathroom. Our bathroom is off the kitchen so that's not as inconvenient as it sounds. 

I'd like to get some money together for wallpapering and painting, and we have our eye on new sofas so I have started doing a little part time work for family, some ironing and cleaning, and plan to save the money. If I can make some more from my amazon and ebay adventures, even better. 

So that's what's happening around here. Lots of knitting going on too, I'll write about that tomorrow.