Getting Ruthless ... I'm Eating the Ornaments

Well Halloween has been and gone and the little pumpkins have been sat in the kitchen waiting to be used.  I didn't get around to making the soup the other day, so I did it today instead.

It was a simple enough job to slice the pumpkins in half, remove the seeds ...

... and then chop them up a bit smaller and add them to the Remoska with a chopped onion, some celery and a couple of big fat garlic cloves.  With a sprinkle of salt and pepper and then a glug of oil they were then left to their own devices for an hour while I read my way around blogland with my morning coffee.

Puttering away while I enjoyed my coffee.

Once everything was lovely and soft, I tipped the vegetables into a pan added some boiling water and a teaspoon of stock powder and left it to cook on for another 10 minutes before whizzing up to a lovely thick consistency.

So my two tiny pumpkins and their veggie friends gave me two gloriously colourful bowls of soup.  One for lunch immediately and one for tomorrow ... if I can wait that long.

And my little Halloween display has changed for a while ...

... to this.

My painting, the one done by my son which is usually on the wall here is currently at the framers being framed, so I thought I could get away with a little blue-ish display for a while.  I'm making good use of your card Sue.  😀

Sue xx

Less Books, Behind Closed Doors and Shopping Lists

 I'm loving my streamlined bookcase so much.

Sorting through the books and selling so many of them over the weekend has made a huge difference.  To you it may not look that much different, but I know what was there, what has gone for good and how it is making me feel.

I guess I need to go around the books I still have and have one final count of them, just to see how many have left the lodge.  I am seriously thinking of having a non-book buying year next year, or maybe allowing myself a set number so that I choose wisely and only buy the most important ones. 

 Yes, there are important books to me and there always will be. 😀 

Next on the agenda is checking once again behind closed doors.

 I did most of this before the table-top sale on Sunday and added things from under the bed and from the cupboards to the boxes of things that we took with us.  But still hidden away in there are the things that wouldn't have been saleable, and I really don't need all of them anymore.  My coursework for example for my nutrition courses and recipe files from the Happy Pear courses that I did.  I am going to go through all the recipes printouts and only keep the ones that I know I will use again and again.

I did the first folder this morning, this one was full of all the information that you are asked to leave for the house sitters when you leave them in charge of your home and pets.  We have decided that we won't be leaving the dogs with other people again now that they are older, instead next year's holidays will include them in our travels.  Ginger will be happy to go to Jason's house, or Jason will be happy to come to ours now that he's discovered that our Thursday market has a brilliant and very large bookstall ... and my son is as into books as I am.

I didn't waste any of the paper and recycled it for my own use as shopping lists or just scrap paper.  I'm going to have a lot more of these by the time I have gone through the other folders.  I may never need to buy note paper again.

Sue xx

Going, Going, Gone ... I Blame the House

 

By the time I managed to get to the front of the table to get a quick photo, some of the best bits had already gone to other stall holders.  We didn't mind at all of course, after all money is money, the general public and traders weren't allowed in until we had all set up our stalls and been able to relax with a free cup of coffee.  Then it was sell, sell, sell for the next few hours.

Virtually everything sold, and even at the very end when the village hall went quiet and virtually all the customers had gone home, we were still selling to the other stall holders once again.  We reduced our prices right down and others who did regular car boot sales and tabletop sales were buying off us ready for their next events.  

We came home with one box of books and one of assorted bits and bobs.  It made for a quick unloading of the car at home, which was good as Alan needed an afternoon nap before hitting the road for Berkshire and a day in the office yesterday.

My little place is looking much neater now, the top of the bookshelves no longer has a basket and bowl to catch my eye, and my lovely Welsh Bread and Cheese cupboard larder is minus its Spider plant and trug ... and I especially like the look of the bookshelves now that the books are all stood neatly instead of being stacked here, there and everywhere.  

Will it last?  For a while at least ... but you know me, I am always acquiring new books ... I do think slowly decluttering is most definintely the way for me and living with what you have and then realising that you can live with less and less and yet somehow get happier and happier for it, is even better.

I like that blogging about my home makes me more mindful of it and what I have in it.  Looking back over the years when we had so much more makes me realise just how much we have gotten rid of.  I blame most of it on moving into a big four bed farmhouse and the need we felt to fill it with stuff ... well blaming a house is better than blaming me for buying the bloody stuff. 😁

I'm off now, I need to see if I can turn two teeny, tiny pumpkins into a bowl of soup ... that waste not want not wartime rationing mentality is and always has been deep in my soul.

Sue xx

Pumpkins, Cleaners and Being Ruthless

 

I thought I better do another post to get all those photos of me off your sidebars, and I couldn't resist sharing my cute little pumpkins with you.  A silly little 59p purchase but they make me smile every time I see them ... which is worth every penny. 

Autumn, it came in windy and wet, it quickly turned too warm for jumpers and then just sunny enough to make us want to make plans and then reverted this morning to cold, windy and wet.  My first job this morning was to follow Alan to the garage as his car is being serviced, just so that I could give him a lift home.  On a fair day he doesn't mind the walk back, but today is definitely not a fine day.

I've missed this blog while I've been over on my other one, so it's a happy relief to be back ... although not a lot apart from rationing has been going on.  Well, I suppose really quite a lot has gone on but it's like when you ask your children on that walk home from school 'What did you do today?' and they just say 'nothing' ... at first my mind just goes blank.

Last week we helped Mum with lots of little jobs that needed doing after the deep clean of her bungalow, then we had Alan's sister and her partner who live in Scotland, to stay for the weekend and had a lovely catch up with them.  Yesterday we started the process for Mum of her ongoing Care Package.  Her NHS funded four visits a day which have been needed less and less are instead to be replaced with one paid for visit a day.  She chose teatime as the best time for someone to call on her, they will check her tablets etc and perhaps do the washing up for the day and any other little medical or non-medical things that Mum needs help with.  It works for her and sounds sensible, oh and she has now got a cleaner who will call every Monday for a couple of hours.

On top of this I have been busy sorting out my things.

 I keep thinking it will be for the last time but does sorting out and decluttering ever end?  I keep realising that there are still things that I don't need so I'm sticking a price sticker on them and putting them into the large plastic boxes we bought many years ago and used to move house with.  

We are booked into a table-top sale for this Sunday.  We did one at the same village venue earlier this year and the girl who runs it asked if we would be interested in doing another one in October as they are raising money for charity.  At the time we said that we would think about it as we didn't have much stuff left really, and what we did have we sold as a job lot on Facebook Marketplace the day after the sale.  When she rang out of the blue while Mum was in hospital and said they had planned one for this coming weekend I couldn't picture what I had left to sell, but something made me accept the table.  I just knew it would push me to be super ruthless.

So that's what I am being at the moment, super ruthless.  Even with things bought quite recently, I have had another of my must live more minimally mindsets going on ... and you would be super surprised if you saw how many books I have decided to jettison.

So now I'm off to be brave, lift the storage bed up and see what is hiding under there that simply will not be there next week.

Sue xx

Three Photos of Me!!

 

I sometimes wonder what photo Alan will choose to put on my little funeral menu card (order of service card ... if there is a service).  Will it be my most recognisable one to my friends on the internet.  Me and my beautiful pet cabbage.

He could always use the close-up version!! 

He could use this one and scare everyone.  😄

Or he could just go quite boring and serious, and share this one taken in August this year.

One of the few downsides to being a blogger is that the camera is usually in my hands and therefore I am rarely in the shot.  The poor man just doesn't have much choice does he.  😂

I dare ... indeed I double dare ... any of my readers with a blog of their own to share three photographs of themselves on their next post.

And I apologise if I have given you a shock with this very unusual post, calm down have a coffee and I promise normal service will soon be resumed!!

*If I had the choice, it would be the first photo. Just me in my normal attire of jeans and a t-shirt clutching a vegetable, what could be more Sue!

Sue xx

You Know Where I Am!!

 

All the up-to-date news etc is still over on my other blog at the moment.

My Modern Wartime Rationing

Sue xx

Lesson from Autumn ... and Apologies

 

Oh, I love Autumn it's my favourite season of the year.  

I mean what's not to love, you can eat all of the comforting food, wear all the snuggliest of jumpers.  Tuck your jeans into your boots and kick your way through the fallen leaves.

I don't mind that I occasionally feel cold, I would much rather be cold and be able to add another layer of clothes than be hot and be able to do little about it. I think I do need to get some warmer slippers as cold feet aren't quite so enjoyable, but it's nice to have my boots and winter shoes back in the wardrobe along with my warmer winter coat.

Oh, and my hot water bottles have already seen daily action ... I do love a hot water bottle. 😃

The dogs don't like getting their feet wet when it rains and they hate being towelled dry after a rainy walk, so I guess now it's time to dig out their little jackets for the wettest of days.  It's okay for Ginger, he just stays indoors on the colder, wetter days and only follows for a dog walk on days when the weather is more to his taste.

I won't be posting as much on here for this month as I've been posting every day on my other blog as my Modern Wartime Ration Challenge started last week and it will be too much for me to be able to keep both blogs going while I am also trying to visit Mum as much as possible in the hospital and keep things going here while Alan is intermittently working away.

So, apologies in advance if you get here and nothing has changed.

Sue xx