Trying to live a pleasant life.

My no spend year is still going strong. I went on holiday with my partner and his parents and took what we had and had lots of picnics.  The food thermos was great, it kept ice cream frozen so we didn’t have to pay ridiculous prices while we were out.

I took out a free tastecard trial before we went so when we went out to eat it was 2 for 1, my partner and in laws love steak so and everyone saved a lot of money. 

I went fossil hunting and found some great fossils and shells as souvenirs of my trip and took lots of photographs. 

I’ve been making birthday gifts and everyone seems to have liked them, my felt mice are still popular.  I’ve been using my local library more and downloading free kindle books to read. We’ve been to the cinema a lot in June and July thanks to the sweet Sundays offer that was on. My friends have been coming over to play D&D and have board game nights and we’ve been taking advantage of the sunny weather by having picnics in the local woods. 

We’ve had lots of raspberries from the garden this year but tragically our cherries were eaten by very determined birds. Blackberries are starting to appear so I’ll have to go blackberry picking soon and make up some blackberry jam. 

I had to spend money on home repairs this week but that’s always going to be unavoidable. That’s the problem with older houses there always seems to be something in the house that needs to be fixed. We finally got two of the windows repaired which was expensive, it took 8 months to get a glazier to actually come out and fix it and now we noticed at least 4 more glazing units need replacing.

I asked my BF if he wanted me to bake him anything special for Easter and he asked for brownies. We went to his parents for Easter lunch which was really nice and spent the bank holiday trying to do a bit of gardening. I’m terrified of bugs so there was a lot of running away from bees. We got the pressure washer out (pressure washing decking is terrifying. So many spiders). The cherry blossoms are starting to fall off the tree so we’ll have to get a net over it to stop the birds eating the cherries. We brought the tree 4 years ago and in the 3 years it’s produced cherries we’ve only managed to eat 5 the birds have gotten to the rest. 

I went to the library and checked out some books so I have plenty to read. 

My sewing machine is broken but my mother lent me my brothers sewing machine (he’s studying abroad for a year) so I can finish my patchwork project.

This week I started a patchwork project so I’ll see how that ends up.

I’ve listened to a few audio books and reorganised my pantry so I can see how much food I have (I never have enough tinned tomatoes).

I baked cookies and stuck to a meal plan which helped reduce costs. 

I like to enter online contests and won some cleaning stuff which is useful. 

I had a free pack of veg seeds and compost disc in the post from innocent smoothies.

I had to request copy of a MRI I had had done to take to a new Doctor and found out that the hospital no longer charges for that. Yey!

The garden is filling up with birds so I set up a bird watching area by the kitchen window, a pair of binoculars, old digital camera and pictures of the birds who frequent the garden. Spring is a time of truce between us and the birds before our cherry tree begins to fruit and they eat everything. This year we have a net to keep them from the fruit but I’m not sure how we’re going to get it over the tree. 

So that's 2 months without buying myself anything new.

I'm enjoying making the most of what I have, crafting and repairing things.

This week was mothers day and my boyfriend's birthday.

I baked my boyfriend a tub of cookies and made him a birthday card.

For a mothers day gift I made a new mouse. This one is a gardener so I raided the house for old pen lids and string to make her accessories with.

I'm learning to needle felt.

This is my mouse made out of some old pillow filling and scraps.

I love him but I do need to make him a waist coat.

1 month down, 10 more to go.

First no spend month was easy enough:

*I had enough amazon vouchers to get shears to cut down the neighbours tree branches that were taking over the garden.

*I made a valentines day card and brownies for my partner

*I learned to make paper flowers and learned needle felting so I can make gifts for friends and have different flowers without spending £

When I as young I'd get books of rainy day activities from the library. As an adult I miss them. There's been a few storms here this week and it's probably going to rain tomorrow so here's my list of things you could do on a rainy day.

*Have an indoor picnic. YouTube some nature sounds, put the picnic blanket on the floor and relax

*Invite a friend over for an at home spa day

*Read a book

*Learn to make greetings cards

*Paint, draw or sketch

*Move furniture so your space feels new

*Listen to a guided meditation on youtube

*Play video games

*Do a jigsaw puzzle

*Sew an old item into something new. Pinterest has lots of ways to upcycle old clothes. I like embroidering constellations on the sleeves or pockets.

*Bake something. Cupcakes, bread, cookies yum.

*Make paper flowers (I learned how to make paper cherry blossom this week)

*Write a meal plan for the next week and do all the food preparation you can

*Have a film night with a theme and popcorn

*Make a youtube playlist of songs with lyrics and have a sing along with your friends/partner/family.

*Look online and see if anyone has a copy cat recipie for your favourite restaurant meal then make it.

*Do an excersise video online

*Bake treats for the week ahead

*Wear your softest pyjamas

*Watch a film you love

*Pick out your outfits for the week

*Play a board game with friends or family

*Go for a walk and see the spring flowers starting to appear

*Start a craft project

*Mend something

*Make yourself a fancy afternoon tea and use your favourite tea set.

*Draw or paint something

*Go for a bike ride

*Read a book

*Have a relaxing bath

*Watch a comedy that always makes you laugh

*Pick/buy yourself some flowers

My no spend 2019 continues!

I did need to get a tree prunner because next doors brambles have invaded the garden but fortunately I had enough points on various websites that I was able to get amazon vouchers and the tree pruner cost me nothing!

I'm seeing a friend tonight and want to give her a gift because she's my best friend and I love her.

As spring is here and she has terrible hayfever and can't have real flowers in the house I made some paper peonies and spray painted a bottle white to put them in.

I love old fashioned ways and taking pleasure in the little things in life that make a house a home. I grew up poor in the 90′s and didn’t have the internet, double glazing, central heating, mobile phones or a shower. Sometimes we didn’t have a washing machine, landline phone, TV or car in the family. I remember Ice ferns on the inside of windows, learning to type on my moms typewriter, one radio in the house as your only source of music, a single gas fire, a few cheap recipes being passed from mother to mother when they picked up the kids from school and getting a disposable camera and rationing what pictures you took because you only had so many shots and the cost of developing the film would have to wait until your birthday.  There are a lot of things I have today that I am great full for. 

Here is my list of modern innovations that my 21st century heart is thankful for:

Breadmakers with a jam making setting

Yarn that can be machine washed

Machine washable silk

Sewing machines

Online patterns

Unlimited recipes online

Easily sharing ideas

Online communities in general bringing people together 

Micro fibre cloths

Audio books and radio plays you can listen to anywhere

Power tools making it so that you don’t need to be a strong person with lots of stamina to put up a shelf

Central heating

Youtube tutorials 

Word processing programmes and computers in general

The ability to store and share unlimited photographs

No spend 2019/ simpler lifestyle 2019 is going OK. I made a card and some brownies for valentines day. A couple of months ago I got a safari holiday brochure in the post. I cut out the pictures of the animals and added have a good day animal puns (all terrible like “have a whale of a time today”). My partner leaves for work before wake up so I like to leave one stuck to the mirror for him each day. I had 40 but I’m now down to 8. I may need to go back to post its with silly jokes on them.

I planted some flower bulbs over the weekend, the blackbird that lives in one of our trees wasn’t happy with me spending so much time in the garden and cheeped loudly at me. I have a box of vegetable seeds I’ve misplaced so I’ll need to find those and I can plan my vegetable patch for this year. I’m in the UK so it’s cold but we have a conservatory where we can grow chillies.  

I made 10 portions of pulled pork in the slow cooker and put them in the freezer so there’s a quick meal I can defrost in a hurry.  I got my sewing box out and mended everything that needed mending. Wore my nicest pyjamas on Sunday for a change (they have acorns on them!) and immediately spilled a cup of coffee over them so that wasn’t great but I found the cookie recipe I’d lost when I was scrabbling for non scalding pyjamas.

Goals for the coming week: 

Losing that recepie card you need

Running out of wool

The chickens got into the strawberry patch

A very fat pigeon eats all the seed in the bird feeder

It's too warm for stew and dumplings

Rain means indoor picnics

Chased by a bee

Two squirels fall on you while walking in the wood

Something ate half your bluebell bulbs

Your apron is covered in sauce and your other aprons are still on the washing line

Your different chilli plants cross pollenated now you have no idea how hot they will be

You will never dig up every potato. They are infinite, your potato patch is located here forever

You've run out of flour

1 week no spend down.

Only expenses were groceries and bus fair to 3 doctors/hospital appointments. I'd have walked there if I could.

A nice week in all.

Listened to a few audio books.

Replaced the sealent in the window.

Started having a clear out of the books I'm never going to read and turned an old drawer into a blanket box/foot stool thing to store the throws in the living room.