The Week that Was

A bunch of beautiful roses Wayne surprised me with this week

I didn't get a lot done this week, a very dear friend passed away unexpectedly and that threw us all out of our regular routines. I did manage to do a few bits and pieces, most of them on auto-pilot. This has been a way of life for so long that most of what I do to save money, time and energy is habit and automatic, just like saving the liner from a cereal box to use as go-between in the freezer.

I carefully open them out (they tear really easily along the seams), give them a wipe with a clean dishcloth and hang them to dry. Then I cut them into squares to use between burgers and rissoles or strips to go between sausages or cut them in half to go between chicken fillets, chops, steaks and so on. They are also good for separating biscuits, cakes and muffins in the freezer.

Used reconstituted dried mushrooms from the lot I dehydrated last summer in the Stroganoff on Tuesday night. We didn't have any fresh mushrooms and I didn't want to go out to buy just mushrooms.

Collected the water from the showers and the kitchen sink and poured it into the washing machine, the floor bucket or used it to water the seedlings.

Posted off the cards for the September card swap.

Dried the sheets and towels on the clothesline for the first time in ages. It was nice to put the sheets away smelling fresh from the sunshine. The rest of the week the washing was dried by the fire.

Wednesday Bushy Park had oranges for 5 cents a kilo, so I quickly rang Mum to make sure she had freezer space and went and bought some more. At that price I can stock up and oranges may well be the only fruit we eat next year apart from what we get from our garden.

Stocked up on Nivea sensitive shaving gel for Wayne at $2.99 (half price and cheaper than Aldi) from Woolworths. Bought 6 cans, enough for a year.

Managed to spend some time every day pottering in the garden. Bliss!

Embroidered some initials on hankies for Christmas gifts - monogrammed hankies are expensive. It only takes a little while to work an initial on a hanky and you don't need any special skills. I found a font I liked, printed it in the size I wanted then traced it onto the hankie using tailor's chalk. Then I just worked over the tracing.  It was just the mindless task I needed this week.