A cat-astrophe

The 'kakakakaka' noise he makes is just like our cat when watching birds through the window.

Cleaning, laundry and other necessaries

jbcurio - flickr

Some One more of the 'ten posts' alleged in previous post...

Next thing that needs to get on track is cleaning, tidying, laundry and other necessaries. I am going back to a system that has been very successful in the past.

I don't do well with schedules. I am a perfectionist, if my schedule says, '12 noon - laundry,' and I am ten minutes late my brain is going, "FAILURE!". For all you relaxed non-perfectionists who are thinking, Well duh! Get a grip woman!" I just can't help it, that's the way I'm built. :P

The way I keep on top of things at home is by timing myself. Incidentally, this can apply to other work, not just household work. Although in the workplace I like lists and computer generated reminders - but that's another post I'm sure! :)

I shared in a Happy Homemaker Monday post, a couple of Mondays ago, that a great way to do a quick tidy up after the chaos of weekend (are all you mothers nodding your heads?), is to time yourself with no more than 5 or 10 minutes in every room. Your home won't be perfectly tidy and clean after this, but it will feel a million times better and then you can concentrate on laundry (the other post-weekend nightmare).

For the rest of cleaning, here's how I do it, (Flylady has similar schemes)[This can be done a couple of times a week, or once a week if your time is precious]:

1. Get a clock, timer, mobile phone - anything that you can time yourself with.
2. Starting in the kitchen after breakfast and my prayer/Bible time I start with 15 minutes, clean around the sink, stack the dishwasher, wipe the surfaces, clean the floor - as much as you can do in 15 minutes.
3. After 15 minutes move on to the next room - the aim isn't perfection, but just as much as you can do in 15 minutes. Carry a box or basket round with you and chuck stuff that needs to go into a different toom. Carry a couple of bags too, 1 for rubbish and 1 for recycling.
   
4. Depending on your energy levels, take a 15 minute break every hour (that's what I'm doing right now!).
5. Work your way round every room in the house.
6. Once I've done this, I move onto my 'projects' list. This is a list of things that I find hard to keep on top of, my perfectionism gets in the way and I spend far too much time on them. Here's what's on my list and the time I allocate every day to: windows (5 minutes - usually works out at 1 window), filing (5 minutes), ironing (30 minutes), shelves/cupboards/drawers in the kitchen (5 minutes), putting away laundry/ironing (15 minutes)...you get the idea.

Opps, there's my 15 minutes gone.

I'll be back! :)

Budgeting...

I have so much going around my head right now, I could write ten posts. But I'll try to condense all my brainwaves into a coherent post...

Perhaps if I wrote this with headings? Hmmm, ok.

Saving Money

We are unbelievably skint right now. Since hubster took his current job (after being made redundant in January last year - his current job is lower paid than his previous) the cost of living has rocketed. For example, a loaf of Warburtons is now £1.20 and supermarket bread is awful (hence me making my own bread right now), diesel is now £1.10 a litre (that, my American friends, is US$6.78 a US gallon), school dinners are now costing me about £70 a month, and our gas and electric bill for a MONTH is £124* (I have negotiated it down to £105, but more of that later). *I've been online and I've read two separate average gas and leccy costs - one said £149 a month and the other was £71 a month.

My budget is shrinking and shrinking. I won't say exactly how much hubs is earning a year, but it's not huge - however, neither is it tiny. I continue to look for jobs in schools - my next application is to be an examination invigilator at a local school.

So, what am I doing to save? Well, nothing spectacular.

• Moving to a cash only envelope system;
• Trying to use the tumble dryer less (although this is hard, as I have said before - particularly in autumn and winter. In summer I love using my washing line outdoors);
• Switching off appliances when they're not in use;
• Switching to economy on the dishwasher;
• Turning down the heating a degree to 20 ^oC (68 ^oF);
• Planning my meals for the week.
  

The hubster and I have discussed a variety of ways to save money. Trying to find an NHS dentist is one, so that we can cut out the dental insurance payments. The other is getting rid of my car, though hubs is against this idea. What I am going to do is see if I can avoid using my car for the next few weeks, to see how much I can save.

The one place I don't want to skimp is with food. Cheap meat, in particular, isn't as good quality as the decent stuff. Cheap ham, for instance, is 'reformed meat' - urgh! However, by planning meals, using ingredients we already have, and not going shopping when hungry (lol) I hope to make some savings. The average cost of food, apparently, for a family of 4 (two adults, two children) in the UK is around £100-£140 a week. To me that seems to be a lot, what do you think?

Oh and we're having roast cat tonight...she has to sacrifice too...hahahahaha JOKING! Seriously though, with all the redundancies, etc., during this recession, we are SO grateful to God that hubs has a job. As I have already said, I continue to look for term-time work and there are opportunities for me to pursue. We have family and a church that will always support us if we do get into trouble, we are mightily blessed!

Lol, run out of time...I will have to put my thoughts into multiple posts after all!


TTFN xxxxxx

Blog Frenzy

Anna Debenham Flickr

I have been rather immersed in blogland these past few weeks. Snow and what-have-you has left me relying on t'owd computer for company.

It was fun, but back to real life, I really need to cut back.

Foxtongue Flickr

I've been all of a 'ooh bloggy joy'. But all good things must come to an end...ha, not an end but a reduction at least.

Flickr
"Oh, what a simply delightful blog!"

I've read some fascinating discussions at a variety of blogs and forums, but I'm going to have to cut that back too.

Flickr
"Have you seen? She doesn't blog in black! Who doesn't blog in black? It simply isn't done!"

Lol I love these pictures. They're all, apart from the first two pictures on this post, from a group of pictures by a chappie called Mike Licht on Flickr - see the full set here.

Flickr
Doin' it right, Whistler's mother blogs in black.

Flickr
"Will anyone comment on my blog??" Sarah needs to get out more.

Flickr
"Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let's sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again".
Don't read a blogger by her blog attire - she's all rainbows and sunshine inside. :)

I'm going to go purge my Google Reader! Have you developed 'Winter Blog Frenzy Syndrome'?

Flickr
"Hello? Hello? You see, she can't hear me, she's blogging".

Happy Homemaker Monday

The weather in my neck of the woods:
Wet and muddy with patches of ice here and there.

One of my simple pleasures:
A lovely cup of coffee - black, no sugar please - and a good book.

On my bedside table:
The Stripping of the Altars and The Book of Common Prayer, You're Coming With Me Lad: Tales of a Yorkshire Bobby and my Bible.

On my TV:

• A History of Christianity with Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch.
• History of Britain with Simon Schama. There's more info. on Wikipedia, if you're interested. I'm up to 'Revolutions' 1649–1689. Britain after Charles I's execution, when Britain was led by Oliver Cromwell. This was really a miserable period in history - Oliver Cromwell wasn't the most jolly of chaps, and he did some fairly atrocious things.

On the menu for tonight:
Lasagne

On my To Do List:
Catching up with chores after the weekend.
Hopefully some reading.
Some washing and ironing.
Taking the girls to dancing.

New Recipe I tried last week:
Chocolate brownies, which were a partial success.
Beef and carrot casserole with cheesy dumplings from the recipe book From My Mother's Kitchen.

In the craft basket:
Nothing at the minute.

Looking forward to:
Getting to church tomorrow, I missed yesterday.

Homemaking Tip for this week:
To get scum off your bath, sprinkle washing powder (laundry powder) onto a cloth and use it as a gentle scourer. The scum should come off easily without scratching the surface of the bath.

Favorite Blog Post of the week (mine or other):
2010 - Living in the Future by Angela. I want this book! It's a book written in 1972 in which some chap predicts what life would be like in 2010. Angela links to a website devoted to the book. She also writes about her day in 1972. Ahh, it makes me all nostalgic...well I wasn't born until 1973, but anyway...penny sweets, long hot summers, our Vauxhall Viva, my Dad's big moustache...LOL!

And also, Simple Arithmetic by Monix. I have such a time with Chatterbox's maths because it isn't taught in the same way that I was taught...and I find it so confusing that it was good to read that someone else finds it rather befuddling too.

Favourite photo from last week:

Not one of mine:

Friends of Irony

Lesson learned the past few days:
Can I say 'lesson learned' when it's something I keep falling down on? Guarding my tongue (or my typing on the internet) is an ongoing lesson. And also not reading things on the internet I know are going to wind me up! Let it go Sarah, let it go! :)

Onwards and upwards one hopes...

On my Prayer List:
My dear friend who has cancer and is being put onto an aggressive cancer treatment. However, she is a walking miracle confounding doctors, they cannot imagine how she has carried on with her life. She is an inspiration - but does suffer so needs lots of prayer.
My Dad who has been made redundant and who finishes in March.
My family, my church and my friends.

Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses:
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Matthew 19:21 (NIV)

Hosted by Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom.

Happy Sunday

flickr

Hope you're having a happy Sunday. I was a bit ill this morning so I didn't get to church. I'm feeling better now though.

So I watched A History of Christianity, with the historian Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, which I had Sky+'d. It was very interesting. The first episode covered Christianity from the very beginning and its move east. It was very interesting indeed. For example, I'd never heard of the Syriac Orthodox Church, which parted ways with the main church in 481 AD over a disagreement at the Council of Chalcedon. The service in Syriac Orthodox churches is in syrian-aramaic, a language very similar to the language Jesus spoke (He apparently would have spoken Aramaic in a Galilean dialect, very different from that in Jerusalem, it is also possible that he would have spoken Koine Greek and of course Hebrew - the language of the majority of the scriptures).

wikipedia

I also baked a loaf of bread in my bread maker for the first time in ages. Hubs happened to mention the other day that he preferred home-made bread (who doesn't?), plus I'm trying to save money. Bread flour is 61p for 1.5 kg, which will make 3 loaves. Decent packaged bread (not the cheap rubbishy bread) is at least £1.00 so even with the salt, sugar, butter, milk, yeast and electricity used, it works out cheaper and nicer and less full of preservatives.

Lol this picture really made me laugh.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

As you may have surmised from the amount of pictures I post, I have a plethora of funny sites in my Google reader. If you're interested here they all are:

• Acting Like Animals
• Apostrophe Abuse
• Apostrophism
• Engrish Funny
• Epic Win
• Removed the Fail site...it's got decidedly dodgy of late.
• I can haz cheezburger (lolcats)
• I has a hotdog (loldogs)
• Oddly Specific
• The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
• There I Fixed It: Epic Kludges

My plan today is to update my profile with a few new links.

Have a happy Sunday!

Typically British Reading Challenge

Oh the possibilities! Hat tip to Pamela for this one.

I'm thinking, Elizabeth Goudge, some more Sherlock courtesy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Rosamunde Pilcher, Douglas Adams, Sir Terrance Pratchett (more commonly known as Terry), and perhaps I ought to find some English/British authors that I'm not familiar with?

The plan is to read a certain amount of British authored works of fiction over the next 12 months. There are 4 levels:

• "Put The Kettle On" – Read 2 Typically British novels.
• "Gordon Bennett" – Read 4 Typically British novels.
• "Bob's Your Uncle" – Read 6 Typically British novels.
• "Cream Crackered" – Read 8 Typically British novels.

I'm going for 'Cream Crackered'. I don't really read much foreign fiction so I think it will be fairly easy (that's if I'm not still reading 'The Stripping of the Altars' for the next 12 months!!).

To join in click on the image at the beginning of this post.