The Week that Was

This last week has been up and down, or rather there have been busy days and not so busy days. I had a lovely day on Tuesday when Wendy came to visit, bearing gifts! She's made the boys so happy with her gift of chips and snacks that I only buy occasionally. They've been put away for Christmas, New Year and Australia Day - here's hoping I can keep them put away because they know they're there :)

Cut out some Christmas presents. Did them in a production line system. I'll sew them up this week using the same production line method and get them all done in a jiffy - that's the plan anyway. I'm doing up some tutorials on these gifts to post later.

Dried the bread crusts on the cake racks overnight then whizzed them to make breadcrumbs.

Made a double batch of KFC Mix, ready for summer chicken schnitzels, strips and drumsticks. I save the crumbs from cereal packets, cracker boxes and so on to add to this mix rather than using good crackers - each batch is slightly different but always good. I save the liners from cereal packets too - they make great go-between in the freezer.

Recycled some gift wrap and tissue from bunches of flowers to wrap a gift. Ironing the paper on the wrong side with a cool iron brought it back to perfect condition.

Made a birthday card, a thank you card and a get well card using materials from the craft/card stash.

Caught the water from the kitchen sink and showers and used it to water the pot plants and top up the washing machine.

Dried the washing outside all week.

The heater has been off all week.

Gave in and put snail bait down in the zucchini bed. How is this frugal? The few pellets I sprinkled around cost a fraction of new plants, even if I grow them from seed. Started seeds for six more plants to replace the ones that have been decimated by bugs/slugs/snails/possums/birds/whatever it is.

Bought 10kg brown onions for $2. Spent 2 hours peeling, dicing and slicing and then put them through the dehydrator. Packed them into empty pasta sauce jars and into the pantry they've gone). I only used dried onion for spag bol, casseroles and rissoles so that's well and truly enough to last a year.

Gave the veggie garden and fruit trees a drink of worm tea from the worm farm to perk them up during this unexpected heatwave. Fed the worms with veggie peelings all week and added egg shells to the compost. Emptied the vacuum cleaner canister into the compost.

Found a lump of sausage meat in the freezer and used it to make sausage rolls for lunch Saturday and Sunday.

With the warmer weather I've been making Overnight Ginger Beer, using frozen lemon juice from the freezer. Icy cold ginger beer is my favourite hot weather treat and this recipe makes a 2 litre bottle for around 35 cents - much cheaper than even the cheapest generic soft drink (and nicer too).

As the oven was on for the sausage rolls I made double batches Cranberry Hootycreeks, choc chip biscuits and Lunchbox Cookies. Cooked half a batch of each, rolled the remaining dough into logs and froze it.

Tidied up another kitchen cupboard and dropped some glasses we don't use and an odd plate to the op shop.

Knitted some dishcloths using yarn I had to add to the cleaning hampers. I get 8 dishcloths from one ball of yarn so they cost around $2 each to knit.

And there are no photos because as I pulled the SD card out of my camera I broke it! The little metal thingys twisted and pulled off. AJ is away until tomorrow so hopefully he'll be able to fix it for me or at least retrieve this week's photos.