Books as Ornaments

 

Alan bought me a lovely bunch of flowers yesterday, just a happy thought or a guilty conscience ... we'll see  😄

Anyway they were really colourful, he forgets I like white, lavender and green and just abseils down the route of every colour under the sun.  So to calm things down a little I put most of them in my plain cream jug and rearranged the books underneath it to all white ones.

This books as ornaments thing makes me happy, and as the bookcases around the lodge are all full to capacity and beyond it's very necessary to use them as such.

Also making me happy when I took this photograph early this morning was the sun already streaming into my living room,  and watching The Cottage Fairy on YouTube as she shows us around her new home.

And here especially for Sue ... a clearer look at the titles I chose this time.  💖

Sue xx

No Food, No Stuff ... and Death to the Dust Bunnies

 

I think I'm sick of food!!

Eating the food, buying the food and blogging about the food ... so I decided I would start to do a bit of decluttering and sell a few more things instead.

I started to think about getting rid of stuff when I was dusting the other day.  Now dusting itself is a thing I do only when I have absolutely nothing else to do, I would prefer to read a book, play with a dog, talk to a cat, dig a hole ... anything except move dust from one place to another.  I wonder how much dust we make, churn up and remove in our lifetimes ... I would hazard a guess at enough to stuff a double mattress with.

Anyway as I dusted the bowl in the photo, the bowl that has sat there since the day I moved in and although looked very pretty was actually doing nothing except taking up space and catching some of the aforementioned dust.  I decided I had dusted it for the last time.

I took it's photo and added it to my Facebook Marketplace page ... it sold within two hours along with a folder containing 120 DVDs that I knew I would never watch again to the same lady.  The DVDs were for her Mum to watch and the bowl ... well I guess she'll either be selling it on for a profit or dusting it for the next few years.

Either way I now have £10 in my coat pocket that I can drop in the collection buckets for the people of Ukraine next time I go shopping or for a coffee at Booths.

And one less thing to dust.  😀

Sue xx

Everything was going so well ...

 

When I don't hear from my sons I know everything in their worlds is going well, and then the other day they both contacted me minutes apart.  I'm used to it and the lack of contact doesn't faze me at all, we all plod along in our own little worlds and connect when we need to ... it's just a boy thing.

The sudden double messaging and wanting to talk to Mum was a real 'sh*t hitting fan' moment for sure!!  

Are you allowed to put your boys up for adoption when they reach 35 and 41 ... no I thought not 😄😆😅

I'm only kidding ... I'm always here for them and they know it, they just need to learn to pace themselves and have crisis' that are more staggered and maybe give me slightly more than a ten minute break between having to offer an ear, advice and the voice of reason.

In a nutshell ... and not giving away too much of their personal information ... my younger son now has Covid for the second time (triple jabbed and careful when out and about so no fault of his own) and my eldest is right at the beginning of a split from his partner after it being verbally on and off for a few weeks.

It makes our home life seem very peaceful at the moment, I shouldn't say that should I something is bound to go wrong now!!  Enough of my waffle anyway but I thought I would make an appearance to tell you why there is a lack of appearances this week.

I'm going to write me a menu plan and do something 'normal'.

Sue xx

Be tender and fierce ...

 

There's not much to read here today ... so grab your coffee and visit some of my friends on My Blog List on the sidebar ... enjoy 💖

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Be Kind, Be Weird

 

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Me, Musings and Memes

I'm taking a couple of days to reset, to rethink and rebuild.

I also ... in a moment of madness and/or clarity ... booked us another smaller holiday for later this year.  I think it's time to look after ourselves in any way we can, while at the same time thinking how our lives impact on those around us and what we can do to help ourselves and others.

My first task in helping my own mental health was to make the decision that I must try to remember that everything is not black and white, and I should not get bogged down with this or that ... it could just be that the maybes and might be's are more than enough.  Perhaps I work best in the shades of delicious grey that inhabit the spaces in-between.

You'll get some memes that resonate with me at the moment over the weekend while I calm myself, nurture myself and relax.  But first I have to find some house-sitters for two holidays now ... oh well there's a task and a half for this afternoon.

 

Sue xx

Shopping for 54p ... and Donating via Nectar

I thought I went out in a 'stock up the cupboards' mood, but it seems as though I find it hard to buy more than I actually need at the moment.  I did manage to get two each of almond milk, tinned potatoes and the various purees that I use, some vegetable stock pots and a bag of penne pasta, all of which have long dates on them.

I also needed a couple of birthday cards for my Mum.

At the checkout I remembered my Nectar points and decided to pay for the shopping with some of them, making this a 54p spend.

I picked up a selection of the free magazines on the way out, I don't usually bother  but there were stacks and stacks of them.

On the way home I called to Booths to pick up this weeks cardholder free gift, a tiny little chocolate bar.  It usually retails at £1.30 which at first I thought was ridiculous ... but it is gorgeous chocolate and I actually think I would buy this again as a very special treat.

When I got home my phone pinged and I had an email from Nectar saying that you can now donate your Nectar points to Ukraine via the Comic Relief charity, so I checked how many I had left and sent as many of them as I could ... you can only use them in multiples of £2.50 ... off straight away.

I am still thinking about the future of this Challenge but as you can see from my purchases I do think it's over and my blog will revert to day to day life, with budgeting, food and growing here at Lavender Lodge.  Thank you so much for all the comments yesterday, reading each and every one got me thinking so they were really helpful.  Thank you.

Sue xx