Tuesday

Having moved the computer upstairs and turning the corner of my craft room into an office, I now sit here each morning with my coffee, feet up on the radiator, facing the window, watching the clouds roll by, the birds going about their business and staring at the roof tops as I decide what to do today.
Just checked the receipts that I picked up at Asda yesterday but none of them have come up trumps. Had a browse through the vision2learn website to see which on line courses they are currently offering for free and printed off the swimming schedule at the local swimming pool, so now I am going to nip down there and buy a discount card for regular swimmers and start my spring/summer preparations :)
I was going to gather top soil and leave mould this afternoon to continue filling the hole in the garden but my wheelbarrow tyre deflated and it wont pump up again. In an attempt to make it look like I had actually done something and make me feel as though I hadn't wasted an afternoon, I uprooted all the spinach in the garden that has been killed off by the snow and cold weather and threw that in the hole.

Well, I was informed today that I haven't been granted the allotment that I applied for, so there's only one thing for it. I need to move house and find a bigger garden. Haha, yep, just like that.
I think finding the right one might take a little longer than the decision to move though.

Things That Make You Go "Hey hang on a minute"

Post Office
So when you go to the post office to mail a package, they test to see if it will fit through their standard letter box template. Invariably it doesn't, so they charge you more money.
However, when the postman delivers he stands there with his foot behind the package and rams it through your letter box.

McDonalds
I finally discovered a use for the fast food giant. You know the little pots that they have so that you can decant your own sauces? Well, they make perfect stock pots for freezing. Now you don't need Chef Marco, you can ask the kids to pick up a handful each time they visit Maccy D's and make your own.

Cold Hands
The beauty of having dogs is that when you come downstairs in a morning and sit there with cold hands, you can call the dog over and shove your hand under his armpit. Hey Presto, snuggly hands and fingers.

Aliens
Whenever you watch films with aliens in them, the little sods are always farming human beings for food. We do that with animals, so if aliens ever landed on earth would we be in trouble? Or would they just say "Ahh what the hell, we do it"
Anyway just to hedge my bets I decided to become more vegetarian in my eating habits. It might not get me off the hook completely, but I might get a job as director of  food education or something like that if they come down to earth and take over.
Or, all of the above could be something to so with the fact that I discovered an Asian supplies warehouse and picked up a book on Asian cooking the same thickness as my back door step and quite a few of the recipes are vegetarian.
I like my meat anyway so I would never succeed in being a non meat eater. I could probably go as far as just eating fish because fish are not cuddly like cows are !!!!!!

Trying to settle in

Second day back and still trying to get into the home life way of thinking again. At the moment I think I'm still trying to clear up all the bits and pieces of being a full time worker and seem to be forcing myself to relax, rather than go with the flow.
Thank you for the welcome home messages and the laugh I had reading them.

Frugal Living - The rice wine and vinegar thing is completely new to me and I'm not too sure if the vinegar portion of the trial will work, but if you would like to try yourself here's the link that I'm following
How to make Rice Wine

My house seems to be getting colder rather than warmer. I went on a draught hunting safari earlier today and by far the worst one was the hole in the wall where the phone extension cable comes through. Silly me forgot to plug it up when I moved the computer upstairs.

The Wanderer Returns

Today I have mostly been cleaning windows.

Let's start with a bit of humour shall we.

 

Well for what it's worth I'm back. The past month or so has been a bit of a sod. A return to full time work meant that I had to create a schedule and have some organisation in my life, something that I'm not fond of at the best of times. I did it, but I was left without any time to myself. Or at least it seemed that way and I didn't particularly like it.

Then I made the mistake of getting involved, rather than just doing what I was paid to do and suggested an idea to create more passing trade. "Great idea" they said "Go for it. It's your project"

A week later, last Wednesday to be exact, we were all made redundant.

OOPS

So here I am, back where I was enjoying a relaxed but productive frugal existence. I have some rice wine and rice wine vinegar on the go, my house is once again spotless, made a new bed for one of the dogs, installed a new telephone line into the craft room so that I can move the computer upstairs, made 3 litres of Chicken stock and 2 bowls of soup to freeze, enjoyed a couple of hours of trudging through the snow with my doggies (they are happy this has happened :)) and here I sit at half past 3 in the afternoon trying to decide what to do next.

Being back at work full time made me think about the future and the fact that if I do accept full time employment in the future it will be for a non profit company. The upside to the redundancy is that the company I was working for have offered me free training courses for the Assessors Award and also for Petals training, a course which I was actually booked onto and had to cancel due to starting work with them.

I can now get back to volunteering at the community base and I have also volunteered to help out if possible with the local Soldiers Off The Streets venue.

I also need to contact the tutor at the dress making course to see if it's still possible to enrol.

I am still looking for a log burning fire or stove. I nearly gave in and went around the shops looking to buy one but my eagerness was stopped in its tracks when I saw the prices that were charging. HAHAHAHA £400 for a mini log burning fire? What are they on for god's sake? 

So it's back to freecycle and word of mouth for me mi dear.

I will be spending a few hours catching up with all your blogs over the next week, so don't yell at me if I ask a dumb question because I missed what's been happening in your life, hee hee

Strange Place For Foraging

We had a leak in the bathroom at work. Initially we thought it was the heating boiler, but on closer investigation we discovered that the leak was coming from the waste pipe on the loo and had a bit of a surprise.
Now by all means call me fussy if you like, but I really don't think that these should be growing behind the toilet bowl in the work place.

On the plus side, we were informed yesterday that as long as the office is manned, we don't all have to be there, which is cool because we can now work out a rota so that we each do a 2 day week followed by a 3 day week and maintain the same salary.

Finally tonight, because I'm not very chatty and still busy with one thing and another; here's a little something for the bureaucratic fools who have been getting me all wound up today.

Pringles

My poor old washing machine is dead. Despite my best efforts it doesn't want to play any more. I tried all the usual stuff, changed the wash cycle to try and fool it into working, kicking it, swearing at it, speaking softly and stroking the door, stop using the filter as a piggy bank, but still it doesn't want to play.
The washing machine is dead......Long live the hand wash
Well, for this month anyway. The MOT is due on the car and I have a bad feeling about it this year. Fingers crossed tightly.

It looks like I spoke too soon about Christmas being over. There was a knock on the door last night and when I opened it J was standing there smiling, with this Christmas cake in her hand. Marked down to 50p.
Ah well, get out out the crumbly cheese and cut a slice of cake.

I have had this Pringles tube sat on the shelf for months now whilst I try and come up with a use for it. I have failed. I was going to throw it out but thought "Hmmm, it's been there for months, it would be sods law that if I throw it out, I will need it" So what do I do. Throw it. Or save it.

What Should I Do

As yet we don't have any takers for Frugal Come Dine With Me. If you would like to join in, drop me a line and I will add you to the list. Which is currently empty hee hee

Frugal Come Dine With Me

Well the holiday period has come to an end and it's time to get back to normal life and my daily jog. Usually it's a muddy affair because I jog in the countryside rather than the roads so that I can let the dogs loose whilst I'm jogging so that they don't yank me backwards when one of them stops for a wee.
A week ago I found a new place to jog and have been training the dogs to run alongside me on the lead, without stopping. Basically that involves throwing a stick around for a few minutes and letting them go to the loo before I start jogging. Then it's back on the leads and off we go, happy family, keeping fit and tiring them out before i go to work. Well that's the theory. What usually happens is that by the time I have got out of the shower they are ready to go again and I feel guilty.

I am seriously considering keeping my eye out for a sofa on freecycle for these two. I'm fed up of turfing them off MY sofa  and having them give me that sideways glance every time I want to relax.
Bless them, don't they look comfy?

On the way home I made my usual stop at the Coop to see what had been reduced and didn't find anything that I haven't already got or could use. There were half a dozen packs of Cornish pasties at 39p each. Four to a pack but the lady who was at the chiller as I approached scooped them all up and wandered off, giving me a glance as she went. Not that it bothered me because I already have plenty of dog food in the house. All that good food on offer and she opted for 24 Cornish pasties. However, I had an idea whilst I was looking at all the stuff on offer.

Who would like to 'Come Dine With Me'

How about we have a little competition involving the reduced section at our local shops?
Anyone?
Oh come on it will be fun.
Honestly.
It's easy. All we have to do is make a 3 course dinner party, purely from things on offer. Okay I lied....a little bit.....we have to do it for £1 That's right just 1 of our British pounds, or if you are blogging outside of UK, 1 of whatever currency you use. Oh come on, where's your sense of adventure? Look, there's plenty to go around, we just need to get creative.

Rules

1. There is no time limit. We just tell everyone on our blog when we are ready to hold the dinner party.
2. The meal has to feed 4 people
3. We are not allowed to use anything that we already have in the house/garden apart from sauces, seasoning and condiments. Drinks are allowed but not mandatory
4. Foraging from the wild larder is not allowed either, so I don't want to see any Venison or Peking Duck on the menu.
5. We have to post pics of the food that we bought and pics of each course. If anyone wants to get really creative and do Entrees, palate cleansers etc, go for it. (If you do a lime or lemon finger bowl, you must have got the lemon on offer and included in your £1) ha ha, no cheating folks.

Okay that's enough rules, this is supposed to be fun.
If you want to take part let me know and I will add you to the list. Once I have a list, I will draw names out of the hat, make groups of 4 people and announce it on my blog. Just like the TV program you award marks out of 10 to your host for creativity and best use of their £1.
I will try and think of a prize for each group at the end of the competition but don't get too excited, it will probably just be a certificate or something that I make on a desk top publishing program :D


I want smileys by the way. Why haven't we got smileys on blogger?

Bookshelves

nnnnnngh


There's a good word and I have been saying it a lot today.

I sometimes wish that I never learned to read. Then I wouldn't need bookshelves, would have more room in my house, wouldn't have to play librarian every month and gather them from all around the house to put back on the shelves and wouldn't have to ring around friends when I realise that books are missing, to find out if they have them.
Ha ha, whilst I was sorting my books out I got a text message from J asking if I could help her move some furniture. When I walked into her house, the furniture was............bookshelves. So I started all over again :)

This morning I saw a chest freezer advertised on Freecycle and emailed the poster to see if they still had it and could I collect. An hour later I was having coffee with J and she said,
"There was a chest freezer on freecycle this morning and I applied for it but he hasn't got back to me yet"
We really must co-ordinate our efforts.
Following that little episode we sat down and figured out which seeds we want for this years planting and sent out the word to friends and family by jungle drum, or as it's more commonly known, mass email.
J is busy making little plant pots from old newspaper so that the seedlings can go straight in the ground, paper and all without disturbing the roots.
Between us we made a tidy profit from Asda's 10% cheaper deal by taking in the vouchers, buying clothing, returning it next day and splitting the cash between us. Not sure how long this will last though.