Missing in action....

It has been almost 2 weeks since I last posted, for a mixture of reasons. We have been very busy, but not with all the usual summer type fun, more the kind of things that are meant to happen in Spring...ie cleaning!
The book, Organized Simplicity, that I mentioned in an earlier post, has been what's kept me away from my blog, through sheer determination to once and for all declutter my house from top to bottom.
We have tried to follow the 10 day plan from the book, not completely successfully as I am a creature of habit, and have my own way of approaching these things, but it has been a good general guide for the process.
The first step I followed to the letter; which is to go through every room and area of your house and just scan it for items that you know to be rubbish, or not needed/wanted anymore. No sorting or sifting, just going for what is clearly visible. I was surprised how much stuff there was in this category. Some was literally rubbish. The rest was either for recycling, charity shops or to sell. I am hoping that a friends offer to help me with a boot sale still stands.........I really need to do one, and the company (and her big car) would be much appreciated!
I have had to spend a lot of time in our new craft room trying to fit many many items into their new homes. It has been quite a trial and still not finished. Despite having a chest with 19 drawers in it, I am struggling to place the last few items. I know the room needs to be fit for purpose, and I am definitely in favour of 'a place for everything and everything in its place', but I don't want the room to look cluttered. It already is much more full than the original photo's show. One great addition is our new table. I have been looking for the perfect one for ages. Originally I had been looking at beautiful old pine scrub top tables, but when we mapped them out on the floor, they seemed to take up far too much space, and we were already enjoying the roominess! We didn't want to go for too small a table either, as we have been looking forward to a good sized work area for sewing, jigsaw puzzles, art etc etc. In the end I came across a really sturdy plastic table, 5 feet long, with the added bonus of folding legs. Now we are all happy that we can have the best of both worlds!
The decluttering and organising saga will continue, it just has to fit in with my energy levels, and making sure we all have some fun times too before Phil's new term at work starts.

After all feeling quite a degree of cabin fever, we did manage to get out in the sunshine for a few hours, and caught up with a close friend that I hadn't seen for far too long.
We went to one of our favourite haunts, Cockington Country Park.

There are many different aspects to Cockington. I would happily wander through the park all day, but William & Grace always have a different agenda. So on this occasion we tried to squeeze in a little bit of what everyone fancied. After a short wander the play area was a must........

Actually, I must admit, if I weren't depriving other children, I could also happily while away a fair bit of time in one of these swings!
Ice cream was also on their agenda, so we obliged and managed to force down a treat ourselves before having a quick look around the craft studios and then wandering back through the beautiful countryside.

We have also had to find space for a very special visitor this week. Grace and Fred have become firm friends........

We have never been able to have pets as I have severe allergies to animal hair and fur. Grace absolutely loves animals and has been desperate to have a pet, so I am very grateful to our lovely friend for letting us look after a completely hairless, and very amusing Fred for a week or so! He's quite adventurous, is Fred and there really is never a dull moment. He is even fascinating when he's asleep.

Fred also has a few naughty habits......like urinating in his drinking water, and releasing wind in quite a noisy way....(trying to put it politely!) This has of course caused much amusement amongst the younger members of the household!!

He LOVES his food and wolfs it down every morning.


We will actually quite miss Fred when he goes home, and wish that we could have a tortoise of our own, but we have no garden to speak of.
Having said that, I think Fred has had quite an influence on our Daughter, especially her reading material........

Who knew poo could be SO fascinating?! Still, it cheered Grace up yesterday as William went off for a long awaited sleepover with his friend. Grace was quite upset not to be having this kind of fun, so she made a den in her room with her pretty wigwam, and we treated her to a DVD and some popcorn.

We had planned to have a proper family day out today, but the weather has not been kind so far. We are hoping for the sun to shine through later so that we can get out for some fun..... somewhere!

Give us today, our daily bread.

Every morning when I sit down for breakfast, I am thankful to my husband for his gift of our daily bread. He makes all our bread by hand and it is delicious.
“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” --Robert Browning

We are lucky to have some great foraging opportunities right on our doorstep. Close to our home, we quite by chance, a couple of years ago, found an enormous fig tree! Today Grace & Phil went to see how the figs were doing. One of the neighbours came out and said they weren't ready yet. We felt really disappointed that someone else knew about the figs, but they don't belong solely to us. They are there for the taking. Unfortunately though, we discovered someone had taken ALL the damsons from the tree outside our house, so no jam for us this year. To make up for the disappointment Grace went to pick as many blackberries as she could from our back garden.

And then made an apple & blackberry crumble, pretty much all by herself!

The second of our store cupboard recipes was spinach and ricotta cannelloni. It's a real family favourite.

We used up some frozen spinach instead of our usual fresh, but it tasted just as good and was a lot cheaper. We ALWAYS make 2 cannelloni's, with the idea of putting one in the freezer. That never happens! We always end up eating the 2nd one the following night!
Cooking is pretty much all we did today, but it made the day special and we didn't need to spend any money. It was good quality time together and a nice quiet home day.
I am thankful that we always have food on the table and that we have each other to share it with.

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6 v 35.

Simple pleasures....

I am a woman of few words tonight. Writers block. But a day full of simple pleasures doesn't really need too many words.

We even caught William hanging about!

Loving nature!

 Their smiles..................

.........are one of my greatest pleasures!

Lamb Tagine & Herb Tabouleh...........



.....The first, and probably the best, meal on our store cupboard menu.


My day ended with just a little bit of chocolate. "It's my one weakness!"



What a difference a book makes.

We did manage to get out of the house today although it wasn't exactly what I had in mind!
I was envisaging driving beneath the dappled shade of trees arching gracefully above us, the warm sunshine flickering its golden glow through the foliage as we wended our way to a picturesque destination. Alas, no!
We sat in town traffic and spent the morning in Staples and PC World. Not particularly enjoyable, but necessary for Phils work.
Things did improve. We arrived home to see the postman leaving our house, however we had missed a package, so Phil chased after him to retrieve it. It was for me! I had received two much wished for books for my birthday from my lovely friend Mirjam. And it is these two books that shaped the rest of my day.

The first is about finding simplicity in your life and your day to day living so that the things that matter can really have your time and attention. It is about decluttering your home, but also your mind, and although this sounds all rather cliched, it is not one of those kind of books. Sure it does give some useful advice and tips, but it is about finding what works for your home, your family. Having just received the book today, I have only had time to dip in and out so far, but it has already inspired some changes that I would like to, and in some cases, need to try out.
We have really started to notice the increase in our outgoings lately. The obvious being food and petrol. But when I sat down this afternoon and started to really map out our current finances, I got quite a shock. We are not in dire straits, but we do need a plan of action. Where can we save money? What can we do without? Are there any bills we could switch to cheaper tariffs? And on the decluttering front, what do we have that we really don't need or use and could sell?
Having had a new room to organise and furnish, I feel very satisfied that I have mostly re-used or re-vamped items that we already owned. There is very little that we had to buy new. But we have also rediscovered items that we are no longer in need of, so our first step will be to sell those and achieve decluttering and boosting our finances in one hit!
I also needed to plan a new menu for the next 7 days, so with money saving in mind, I wrote a list of everything in our store cupboard and freezer in an attempt to get all 7 days covered with little or no shopping. I managed to plan 5 out of the 7 meals from the food already in the house; and before you ask, no, I didn't find 5 tins of beans!
The domino effect really started to kick in, and this got me making a very strict budget for our shopping each week. We will have a set amount and when it's gone it's gone! I do so like a challenge and actually find this kind of thing very satisfying when it works. When we were young, my Dad was made redundant, and I remember going shopping with my Mum, calculator in hand, weighing a single carrot or onion or suchlike and calculating the cost to see if we could afford to add it to the trolley. It was a good lesson to learn and I hope that I too am teaching my children the value of money.
Recently I made a schedule for some of the household chores, like laundry and vacuuming. It was in an attempt to try to get each of us doing a bit so that I would not feel guilty having my rest, but also so that the jobs would get done. When I'm not feeling well, the housework suffers and then I get down and so it goes on! I made lovely little laminated lists and it started well but has not been sustained, so I am hoping to revive them......sharpish!! My lists could go on and on, but you get the idea, and I don't want to bore you. I am quite excited about the challenge; in anticipation of a new found simplicity. I shall keep you posted!

I think I will have to tell you about the second book another time. This evening has passed all too quickly, and keeping in mind what I have read about today, I simply need to sleep. Goodnight and sleep well. x

A few days at home.

The last few days have been rather housebound and not really by choice. My last physio appointment on Tuesday brought unexpected news and a mixed reaction. I was not having a good day healthwise, although the pain in my back is still a lot better. I warned my physio that subjecting me to torture today would not be welcomed! Thankfully I got to just sit and talk; I'm quite good at that!
The upshot is that they no longer think the original diagnosis is correct and want to refer me to a specialist. Of course it does seem to be good news that it may not be this incurable condition as they first thought, but I'm afraid my instant reaction was, 'Oh no, now I'm back to square one!'. I'm sure that actually going to see a specialist is the best thing and maybe I will finally know what I'm dealing with.

Anyway, we've been at home since Tuesday, as I am meant to be resting. That hasn't been difficult as I've just had no energy whatsoever. I do appreciate how boring it is for the children not to get out. Thankfully having our new room has been a great help, they are rediscovering things that have had to be put away for ages, and a few new things too.

Last night we were treated to a stunning firework display, and all from the comfort of our own home....I think you'll agree we had a pretty good view!

I spent this morning sorting through and organising some of my fabrics.

William was happily settled at his computer, headset on, playing his favourite strategy game and chatting to other gamers from around the world. He didn't want his photo taken.
Grace has spent much time learning about her baby garden snails and making sure they are fed and well cared for. They have definitely grown in the last few days.

We tried a new recipe; Mediterranean Cod. It was a recipe from an advert in a food magazine. We actually did not use the sauce that was advertised, but made our own. The cod was cooked in the chorizo and tomato sauce and parsley added after. It was a good simple dinner, however, I would be quite happy without the chorizo. I am a fan of chorizo, but in this recipe it overpowered the fish. The children liked it, but there was maybe too much sauce for them.

I am hoping that I may have a little more energy tomorrow so that we can all be relieved of our cabin fever. Lets hope the weather plays nice and we can all get some much needed fresh air!

I shall leave you with another view from our house. The sky this evening was very pleasing to the eye, but all too quickly passed. We got this picture just in time.

Goodnight all. x

Miniature Monday.

We had a great trip out today with our local home ed group. The weather was very kind to us, and the scenery en route helped us all really relax into holiday mode. We went to yet another wonderful place that I have not visited before, The Miniature Pony Centre on Dartmoor. So thank you to Julia for organising it! We shall definitely be returning.

It was lovely to listen to William's friend talk so enthusiastically about all the animals. Grace is also a big fan of animals and wildlife and I knew that she would want to see everything today! William on the other hand, saw all the play equipment, saw all his friends.....and was off! We did manage to catch up with him now and again, usually when he was hungry or thirsty, but the main thing was that we each had a good day doing what we enjoy.

It was a pretty quick pony ride so I'm not sure how long that will satisfy Grace's desire to ride!  She very much enjoyed it though and we did manage to come home without any ponies or requests for one!
With William still very busy playing, Phil and I took a stroll with Grace to the pets paddock. Our timing was excellent as they were just about to bring out a few animals for the children to see.

Grace held a gorgeous rabbit called Silver, stroked a Guinea Pig called Cinnamon, and a very cute little mousey called Malcolm.
It was a shame that they didn't talk about the animals at all, the only thing that Grace learned from the experience was that mice are rather incontinent, and it was at this point that she was glad she only stroked the mouse and didn't get to hold it!

Don't blink or you'll miss him!! This is the only photo we got of William all day! Part of me wishes that he would join us in the exploring of all the different things on offer, but that would be giving me enjoyment, not William! He was happy just running around with his friends and that's ok.  I stayed to watch him with his friends for a while and Grace and Phil raced off to try to get prime position for the Falconry display.

Thankfully after a short while, William felt hungry and Phil had the food, so we were able to watch the rest of the display. It was quite magnificent to be so close to such amazing birds! Again, the information given wasn't too impressive. And telling children that the birds of prey like to eat small children was just silly, disrespectful to the birds he is supposed to be caring for (he kept saying how stupid owls are) and insulting to the children's interest and intelligence. I'll get off my soapbox now and put up some of Phil's photos of what really impressed us.....the creatures themselves!



A Wise Owl!



Harris Hawk



Golden Eagle



There was still plenty more to do including a walk by the ponds, that I just could not manage today, but I'm sure the children won't complain at having to return! It was lovely to catch up with good friends and meet a few new ones too.
One lovely friend wanted to make sure our 'miniature' experience didn't end there. Having looked after some garden snails for quite a while as an educational and fun experience, my friend's snails have had lots of teeny weeny babies.........Grace to the rescue!!!

All safely in their new home! We can't have furry pets in our house as I am very allergic......so slimy ones it is! Oh joy! Well they are still one of God's creatures, and it will be interesting to watch them grow, but I'm not convinced I'll love them enough to set them free in my own garden!