31 July 2022

The Week that Was 31st July 2022

I am not even going to try and catch up with the weeks I've missed. 

Life has been busy. We have been sick. We've had a family reunion and an 80th birthday party interstate. We have worked in our garden. We have worked in our home. 

We've just lived our lives as best we can with the turmoil around us creating havoc.

This week I am grateful for:

*Good health. Wayne went back to work last week after isolation and really the only symptom he had of anything was a drippy nose.

*Wood for the fire. We had three mornings below zero, so banking the fire overnight meant the house didn't get cold at all.
 
*Sunshine. We had three days of the most glorious sunshine. God is good, He knows that sunny days motivate me to get things done.

*Freezer meals. I shuffled the meal plan around again and we used freezer meals two nights.

*A full pantry. With the cost of just plain food rising daily, knowing there are ingredients in the pantry to feed us is very reassuring. And it gives me wriggle room, or rather time, to wait for the sales to restock what we are using.

*Fuel apps. They made it easy to find the cheapest fuel in our area to fill up my car. I'm keeping it full, so as soon as that needle hits the 3/4 mark, I start looking for cheap fuel.

*Fruit trees. I've been picking a lemon or two a day straight from the tree for our hot lemon and honey drinks. They really do ease scratchy, sore throats, and they just taste good and warm you through too.

Ways we saved money, time and/or energy this week:

*Celebrated a family birthday with a by request homemade dinner of parmas, potato gems and salad (it's tradition in our house for the birthday boy or girl to choose dinner). Consensus by all was it was delicious. I used MOO KFC mix, MOO breadcrumbs and MOO tomato sauce.

*Stalked the woman at Woolworths as she was marking down meat. Scored chicken skewers for $4.40 a packet, bought all four packets. They are now cooked and in meal portions in the freezer. I use these in wraps, or with salad or with fried rice for quick meals.

*Scored marked down premium mince for $4/500g. Another lady and I shared the markdowns and had a laugh as we loaded them into our trolleys.

*Filled the thermos with boiling water every morning for hot drinks during the day.

*Put the washing on the clotheshorse next to the fire to dry. Even the sunny days, our back yard doesn't get enough sun to dry the washing completely.

*Used Hannah's WW rewards to get 12 cents a litre off diesel - brought it down to $1.97/litre.

*Charged my phone and laptop using the solar charger.

*Stuck to the one light rule as much as possible.

*Caught the shower warm up water and poured it into the washing machine.

*Saved the tea bags to dry for firelighters.

*Cooked all our meals from scratch or used freezer meals.

*Made a batch of raspberry jam.

*Planted lettuce, cucumber, tomato and zucchini seeds in seed pods (these are new to me, and I want to try them for starting seeds).

*Fed the garden and fruit trees with worm tea.

*Darned a hole in one of my socks.

*Made a batch of Miracle Spray.

*Cleaned the dishwasher with bicarb and vinegar.

*Cleaned the washing machine with bicarb and vinegar. Cleaning the dishwasher and washing machine are a once a month thing in my cleaning routine.

*Put bread crusts into the freezer to make crumbs when needed.

*Picked rhubarb and used canned apple to make an apple and rhubarb crumble.

*Worked on more gifts for the present box.
*Started to make Christmas cards for the nursing home and book club - I have around 150 to get done.

*Spent an hour every afternoon researching, script writing, making thumbnails and recording videos for upcoming shows. My aim is to get the recorded shows a few weeks ahead for when we are away later in the year.

*Took more lavender cuttings and potted them up. I'll sell these when they are established. The last lot sold in just two days.