My Challenges, Your Challenges

 

 

There are so many of us challenging ourselves to do so many different things this year.  It can be an amazing whirl around Blog land to gather inspiration.  Most of us are doing the Challenges to help us save money and also to focus on aspects of our lives that we want to improve on.

 

My sidebar is full of fellow Bloggers and Blogging Buddies and their challenges, and I love, love, love to visit them regularly to seek inspiration and as so many of them are similar to things that I do myself they also help keep me on the straight and narrow.   

 

Just to pluck three Blogs out of the air I can think of SFT's  Life After Mortgage and her amazing on-going Sealed Pot Challenge, it's being involved in this that has given me the inspiration for this and last years main Challenges, then there is Elaine over at Mortgage Free in Three with her mission to pay off her mortgage in just three years (we are now rather excitingly into the third and final year) and the similarly titled and equally inspiring Stacey over at Mortgage Free Journey.  These and lots of others including the royalty of frugal blogs Froogs (Frugal Queen), Ilona (MeanQueen) and another favourite of mine Laura at No More Spending, with her brilliant monthly round ups and 'food porn' pictures give me and so many others ideas and useful tips.

 

What's your favourite Blog read of the moment?

 

(And please don't cop out and say it's mine, I'm not after praise, just knowing you're here reading and commenting is praise enough ... you really are keeping me on the straight and narrow.)  

 

 Is there a Blog you have just discovered or that has just recently started.  If you love your own the most or would just like a few more folk to visit it to make their own minds up about it please don't be bashful ... let us have a link to it, (or by simply leaving a comment we have the ability to find you through simply clicking on your name). 

 

Lets keep the inspiration flowing around Blogland and save money in the process.

 

Sue xx

Check Your Bags Before You Leave .....

 

 

If you come to stay with us you'll have to check your bags before you leave ....

 

 

... look what Jason found in his.

 

She loved being next to him all curled up in his bag while we sat drinking coffee and chatting away.  So don't be alarmed if you are frisked after a visit to us, we would hate the newest member of our family to depart accidentally with our guests :-)

 

*** *** ***

 

For those of you who have been asking, and thank you for your interest in her, Mavis is continuing to settle in well.   She gets on great with the other dogs and with Ginger the cat, has naughty bad manners when it comes to the chickens , note to Mavis ... they DO NOT like their tails being grabbed as they exit the henhouse ... and is generally making herself one of the family.

 

She is getting used to squeaky toys (they used to make her jump), loves hide chews of any description and her favourite hobby is finding someone who is sat down to cuddle into.  If you sit forward in your chair for a moment, do not sit back suddenly for there will be a little doggie occupying the space the minute you move :-)

 

The only problem at the moment is that she cannot be trusted outside off the lead AT ALL, if she escapes from the house she makes for the hills, as Lovely Hubby has found to his cost on a couple of occasions, it's not good chasing a Jack Russell through a bramble patch!!

 

I think you can see it in her eyes and her stance that she is much more settled and she's thankfully lost that 'haunted' look.  She's home for good.

 

Sue xx



The New Blog

 

The new Blog is really keeping me on track, making me stop for a moment and re-think everything to do with food. 

 

 

When you have little or no money to actually spend on food you don't waste a single thing. 

 

Earlier when rolling out slightly thinner the pastry in the pack above,  which has been languishing in the freezer for I don't know how long, I did my usual thing of putting all the tiny trimmings, and there really weren't many, straight into the bowl to take out to the chickens later.   I quickly pulled myself up short. 

 

 Luckily the bowl was clean so I fished them back out squidged them together in my fingers and rolled the little ball of dough out flat, taking a large pinch of grated cheese I pulled the pastry up around it and then re-rolled so the cheese was trapped in the middle, then cutting out with one of my smallest biscuit cutters I managed to make five of the cutest little savoury biscuits you ever did see.

 

A quick brush over with a trace of milk and a sprinkle of Paprika and sesame seeds and I had a perfect little snack for later .... unfortunately the chickens missed out on their favourite little treat!!

 

I've put a link in the right hand sidebar to get you (and me) over there quicker.

 

Sue xx

Clutter ?

 

Looking at the shelves in the kitchen it's beginning to look a little cluttered.

 

But somehow for me clutter in the kitchen is not the end of the world.  I like to have my things around me, I like them to be within easy grabbing distance when I am getting on with things.  I like to look at what I have and remember when I used them last.  But saying that if something has not been used and is not earning it's place on the shelves it won't stay for long.

 

There are a couple of things on the shelves that will be going soon if they don't either get used or have a use found for them.

 

 

Something that is definitely staying is the little mini Aga, it was asked about in the comments the other day and I forgot to answer - sorry.  It is in fact a lovely little tin full of shortbread biscuits that my Mum bought me when we were out together just before Christmas aren't Mums lovely.  It's just the same as my big Aga that it sits next too and makes me smile every time I look at it (well they both do really).   :-) 

 

Something else that I will be keeping forever is this new handmade bowl we bought when we went to River Cottage last Autumn.  The words around the edge sum up the way we want to live our lives perfectly.

 

As a couple of you have already noticed I've started a new page at the top of the Blog to help me deal with the clutter again this year.  Called simply 'Decluttering 365' it is to inspire me to jettison at least another three hundred and sixty five objects from around the house this year.  Hopefully they will all be sold at a car boot sale in Spring and the money added to the mortgage overpayment.  So I'm aiming to sort out at least fourteen items a week for the first twenty six weeks of the year ready for selling.

 

I better go and get sorting then :-)

 

An answer for Sarah.  Yes, I bottle my pasta sauces similarly to making jam, sterile jars (heated in the oven), piping hot sauce poured in and then the tops put straight on.   As the sauce cools it draws the top down and creates a vacuum, thus preserving the sauces for a long long time.  I always have a couple of those tops from commercial jars that have the little dimples in the middles then you can hear the 'pop' as it pulls down and you know it's worked.

 

Sue xx



Too Much Rain

 

When I very first published a photo of the view from our new house, someone asked me if we had a lake opposite and I said no, in the distance we have the River Conwy  but no lake.  Now I have to take that back .... we have a new lake.  In encroaches on the fields directly across the road from us a little bit more each day and changes the landscape dramatically.

 

Unfortunately I do not have a boat or I could go for a little trip straight into Llanrwst and not have to take the car at all. 

 

 

The chickens are hating this weather, I can almost see the reproach in their eyes, they have not had a single completely dry day since we got here,.  The underneath of the henhouse is the most used area of their new Chicken World.  This morning was so funny, they ran down the ramp when I opened up the henhouse at first light and then quickly did a U turn and went straight back underneath the house.

 

Poor girls!!

 

We have had a casualty since the move, one of the 'Gang' of Hylines decided she didn't want to live in this wild, wet world any longer and simply decided to die, chickens do this very easily ... if they don't want to live they just wont!!  She is now buried with Archie with the rhubarb, and if we dig a hole we have to fill it fast before we end up with a little paddling pool such is the power of the rain.

 

 

I was asked for a picture of my finished loaf in the comments under yesterdays post so here it is.

 

I decided to make myself a nice little loaf in my 1lb loaf tin ...

 

 

... of course that meant I had half of the dough left over, so I made three pizza bases to pop into the freezer.

 

I debated whether to just pop the lumps of bread dough into the freezer as they were, but decided that three flat bases would take up less room and be ready to use directly from the freezer when we fancied a quick pizza.  By the time I have got the toppings ready the dough will have started to thaw anyway being this thin,

 

Yesterdays lunch, homemade Leek and Potato soup and a slice of the loaf, lovely simple food and very in keeping with my new 'back to basics' mind-set.

 

Sue xx

Back to Basics

 

I decided the sub-title of the Blog this year should be 'Back to Basics', it's something we are really striving towards.  In many ways we are starting from scratch and briefly I had that in mind for the sub-title, but in other ways we are expanding on or making better use of things we have or things we already do and we want this to spill over into keeping everything simple and easy and well .... basic.

 

For instance the very basic of foodstuffs - Bread.

 

Last year I bought in bulk enough flour to make a couple of loaves a week, to keep us in homemade bread and stop us from buying mass produced supermarket bread.  It kind of fizzled out as these good intentions sometimes do, I baked bread on average once a week and bought loaves when they were on offer.  So I still have lots of the bread and yeast, and although the yeast is not as strong as it was it is still working.  So while the stocks are edible and okay to use I will continue to do so but I will obviously be making as much of our own bread as I can to save money on my other Challenge.

 

 

I mean it's not that hard, Ken takes the strain, kneading away with his dough hook for the first five minutes ...

 

.. then I take over ever so briefly to knead and then shape the dough before popping it back into the bowl with it's fetching shower cap on for the first proving.  It's down there now doing it's thing .....

 

 

..... the kitchen is obviously the place to be.

 

It's a lovely sight to see, all three dogs with their full tummies after breakfast, curled up in beds, not their own as is usually the case.  The smaller bed was Suky's puppy bed and she seems to have claimed it back from Mavis, but as long as they are happy so am I.  Looking at the photo they all have their favourite things in front of them, Rosy a ball, Mavis a squeaky pig toy and of course Suky has a bowl half full of food.

 

Which is amazing, she now seems to have copied Mavis and has taken to leaving some dried food in her bowl for later, and even more amazing she doesn't always eat it .... I've seen Mavis having it after finishing the food she leaves in hers.  I wonder if dogs realise when a companion needs food more than they do, a nice thought.

 

Sue xx

Mavis Joins Us

 

On the 29th December late in the evening during a heavy rainstorm there was a knock at the door.  A very wet and bedraggled man stood there with a desperate look in his eyes, asking him in out of the rain a rapport was quickly made between him and Lovely Hubby as he recognised LH's accent, it turned out they both knew a chap in Scotland famous for being excessively tall.  (Where do men get these off the wall conversations from?)

 

 

Anyway after a few moments chat out came the reason for the late night call, earlier he had found a very wet and scared Jack Russell wandering on the main road, he took her home with him and started phoning around, someone mentioned that the new folks on the hill had a Jack Russell and could it be ours?  So he came a calling.  When we answered the door with our lovely Rosy very much in evidence his face fell slightly, but we went out to his car with him to see the little lady in question.  She was a sorry sight with scared eyes and a shivering body.

 

 

As he said there was sadly no way he could keep her we said we would think about adopting her if her real owner couldn't be traced.  His daughter put an appeal on Facebook and after a day and a half her owner was tracked down, Brian phoned him immediately and his response was 'keep her, I don't want her' and the phone was put down.  He called him back for some basic information about her but not much was forthcoming.

 

 

Well as you can see from these pictures she is now ours.  We couldn't let her go anywhere else.  The pictures above show the first meeting with our dogs, she was very brave, but that scared look stayed with her.  It had almost disappeared by next morning but then as we loaded all the dogs into the back of the car for a trip to the beach she once again started shivering and she huddled into the seat cushion not knowing what was ahead of her ... poor thing.

 

Returning from the walk and being towelled dry she made at once for her bed and slept off the trauma of thinking she was about to be taken somewhere else.

 

And as this photo taken last night shows she is relaxing into a home where dogs are wanted, are cuddled, are treated well and kept warm and cosy.  She is losing her scared eyes and relaxing into her new home.

 

She watches what goes on but with an interested rather than fearful expression ...

 

... and she plays.

 

Joining in and even initiating games with the other two, it's lovely to watch.

 

 

I had to do something totally girly and buy her a waterproof jacket, seeing her on that first doggy walk soaked through and totally bedraggled and seeing just how thin she was under that coat of wiry Jack Russell fur I knew too many walks in this horrible weather would surely give her a chill and we don't want that ...

 

... and anyway she look gorgeous in it.

 

I'm looking forward to the day when she grows out of it.  Having her checked over at the vets on Friday we weighed her, she weighs just over 4kgs, the vet agrees that as a small boned Jack Russell, unlike our Rosy who is much chunkier, she should be about 6 - 6.5kgs so we have a bit of slow building up to do and it something we can do very well in our house.

 

 

Mavis ...... welcome to our world, I hope you're here to stay for a long, long time..

 

I've just had an email asking me if her name was always Mavis and if not do I know what her name was before ... her name was 'Pit'. I have nothing to say on that one except to say it's not her name anymore ..... she's Mavis and she's already answering to it !!

 

Sue xx