Becoming Domestic

Ok I’m not strictly qualified to write this post just yet as the house move has not yet been successfully completed but have a few choice gems to share from others who have recently relocated their family home and am so pleased I listened to their advice.

1. You can never have too many strong boxes and suitcases. Send messages out via Freecyle and local chums that you need every box, basket, crate, case they can spare. We were lucky enough to have a friend move a few weeks before us so I have been unashamedly inviting myself over to her house to help unpack and as each box was emptied it was flattened and squeezed into my car.

2. Take digital photos while you are packing boxes which look different to the rest (most of mine are exactly the same). So you can scroll through the pictures after the move and recall which set of things are in which box.

3. OVER LABEL each box. My poor chum who has kindly donated her supply of 50+ boxes had the removal firm complete her packing while she was away with the children. She had the annoying problem of having a tower of about ten boxes marked only with ‘KITCHEN’ with no idea where the wooden spoons, casseroles might be hiding. Having learnt from her I am now taking care to itemise with a big fat marker pen (’Blue heavy casserole’, ‘chopping boards’, ‘contents of left hand drawer’)

4. Overestimate how much time it will take you to pack. We started the moment we agreed to rent the new house just 4 weeks ago and although it feels like we have done so much we wil still have to work really hard to get the remaining kitchen items, bedding, bathroom bits and pieces into boxes in time for the removal firm’s arrival early on Thursday morning

5. Have at least a couple of brown tape machines for extra fast assembly and sealing of boxes. Also have plenty of fat marker pens as the house gets really messy and chaotic really quickly and it is very irritating to need to label a box whilst you remember what is in it but then have to run around the house peering over boxes trying to locate one of the marker pens.

6. Create a moving folder which lives in a handy place - keep removal firm phone numbers, letting agent correspondence and this terrific checklist from www.helpiammoving.com

7.Have kids pack a box for themselves so they have easy access to some of their favourite toys while the big unpack is being done.

8. Assume you will not be able to find anything you NEED for a few days and pack all essentials into overnight bags for each member of the family. My lists go something like this:
5 year olds = Favourite snuggly toy, underwear, pyjamas, slippers, dressing gowns, sheet for bed, school uniform for new school, other clothes lunchbags, water bottles, hot water bottles, small book, colouring things, story book.
Baby = Travel cot and sheet, sleeping bag, baby clothes, nappies & wipes, rattles, book, baby food, beaker, baby monitor
Me = Washbag, clothes, underwear, makeup, tin opener, purse, camera, sheet for bed, address book, mobile phone & charger, notepad and pen.

9. Do not pack the kettle, mugs, milk, tea, coffee and squash also buy a tin of biscuits as removals is thirsty hard work.

10. Work on the principle of ‘little and often gets the job done’. Do 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there and gradually everything gets packed in an organised fashion, the old house gets cleaned, all the people who need to know the new address details get notified, monies are paid on time and everything goes well.

Here’s hoping…

November 24th, 2008 | Category: Home Management, Top Tips | Comments (3)

Free gifts in a pretty Christmas basket

I’ve been given two great thrifty money saving Christmas ideas from the wonderful newsletter produced by Sue at www.nomoreclutter.co.uk

1. My favourite idea is to use a pretty basket and pile it high with newish things you have around the house and can easily can say goodbye to (eg. paperbacks, unopened makeup, booze, newish DVDs, computer games, toys, pretty jewelry, scarves etc) perhaps tying a bit of pretty ribbon around each thing. When a Christmas guest arrives you are able to invite them to chose a gift for themselves from the selections. Apparently the official name for this is re-gifting. I love it.

2. Like many people who find it hard to let go of stuffI have a ‘present box’ which always seems to be full as I buy little bits and pieces throughout the year from charity shops or special offers and also add to it the things we are given but are unlikely to use. This year I shall attempt to empty the box by giving the things as presents or by adding to the open re-gifting basket. Some of the things in my present box have moved house with me once already and have just been packed again for our next house move this week. I’ll be darned if I’m moving any of those same treasures a third time when we move house again!

3. Another thrifty idea for gifts came to me in our beloved local library this afternoon when the children and I were looking through the Usbourne Treasury of Christmas. It has recipes for heart shaped peppermint creams (which are even easier to make than my ever popular playdough recipe). I’m not sure who will get the most joy - the kids while making them or their grandma when receiving them and eating them… I shall be making the smallest token nods towards christmas present making afew jars of pink grapefruit curd (like lemon curd only more original and prettier in colour) for our extended family members.

Peppermint Creams Recipe

Ingredients:
White from one large egg or two small eggs
8 oz icing sugar (one cup of confectioners’ sugar or frosting if you live in the US)
Small amount of peppermint essence
Food coloring (optional)

Beat the egg white in a bowl with a fork and sieve (sift) in 6oz of icing sugar (frosting). Add pink, green or blue food colouring (a very steady, adult hand is required for this, and the tiniest sprinkle of food coloring will do the job). Mix well with a wooden spoon and then sieve in more icing sugar, a little at a time, until you have made a stiff paste. Shake a little icing sugar on the work surface and empty the paste onto this.

Add 3 - 4 drops of peppermint essence and gently knead until you have a smooth paste. Have a taste of a small piece and if the flavour is not strong enough, add a few more drops of peppermint essence.

Sprinkle icing sugar over a rolling pin to prevent sticking, and roll the paste to a quarter of an inch (0.5cm) thick. Cut out individual peppermint creams with a star, circle or heart shaped cutter, or, if pressed for time, cut out small squares with a knife.

Cover a plate with non-stick parchment or greaseproof paper and place the peppermint creams on the paper. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave overnight in a cool place (but not the fridge). Store in an airtight tin or jar.

November 19th, 2008 | Category: Saving Money | Comments (2)

Having considered a huge range of possible cures for our itchy feet Bealers and I finally found a house we may move to in a few weeks while off work this during this half term holiday (all five of us laid low with stomach bugs and filthy colds).

Possible options have been wide ranging and have included taking the family travelling for six months to a year, living and working in an intentional community (very appealing in many respects), helping my dad complete his renovation of his home in France, buying a reasonably priced plot of agricultural land to start a smallholding on in west Wales or just to move to a new rental house which meets more of our needs than this present one does.

Our minds were kept well and truly open until we heard of a house for rent in a very pretty, very rural location not too far from where we are now but too far for the twins to continue at the school they have attended since we left London two and a half years ago. We had seen the house advertised about six months ago but had ruled out viewing it as it was beyond our rental budget and also seemed too far from ‘everything’.

Since first advertising the house the owners have emigrated and have now dropped the rent so we drove out to see it as on paper it seemed to have a good number of rooms, a large garden and orchard, countryside views, is near to a very small rural school (just 40 pupils on role) but yet near enough to Bealers offices to be a possibility.

We knew fairly soon during the viewing that although it wouldn’t be a financial downshift (more a financial sideshift as the rent will be slightly more but the house is doubleglazed and has a woodburner and its own woodland area so hopefully heating oil costs will be lower), it could be another move towards a much more simple lifestyle away from the relentless pressure to shop and consume.

The house and school are both surrounded by fields, rivers and woods. We saw more than ten pheasants on our drive from the main road to the house, a buzzard flying overhead and horses, cows and sheep in the distance. As a long term aim we both still hold a desire to become more self-sufficient in a more remote location but by renting this house first we are able to see whether we do actually like living so far from a town environment.

One thing which initially concerned me is how much I might miss the facilities of the small town I use everyday after dropping the children off to school - the butchers, the bakers, the Co-op, the charity shops, the bank, the chemist. In the potential new village there is just a (lovely) little shop, post office, one pub, the village hall, the church and school. After a few days of pondering I remembered how I once realised that it is easy to live in the countryside and enjoys all of its benefits but one has the ability to visit the nearby town whenever one wants to but harder to do it the other way round (to live in a town but to truly appreciate the benefits of rural life whenever one fancies it). I’m more than happy to try it out for a year or so. Especially because the house itself has a few extra rooms so we can have a dedicated guest room and baby bedroom.

If the headteacher of the possible new school says that she has two places for the kids then we are likely to move house in the first week of December. I found a fantastic website today with loads of checklists and advice for people moving house called www.helpiammoving.com I particularly liked the ‘How to move with children’ section and will borrow a few of the books they recommend on the subject to read to E & M. We’ll start the long job of packing, getting rid of stuff we don’t need as soon as I’ve spoke to the headteacher to confirm the school has places tomorrow but luckily the decluttering task will be lessened by the fact that we moved not so long ago and I have been slowly getting rid of surplus books, clothes, toys, ornaments whenever possible.

I’m also going to follow our friend L’s expertise and make sure that on the day of the move itself the kids are looked after by someone they know while we scurry around and get the children’s new bedrooms looking wonderful and inviting at the very least.

Initially I thought that the best time to change schools would be after the Christmas break as they wouldn’t want to miss all the lovely activities in the run up to the holidays at their current school. Then I realised that actually it might be best to start at the new school when it is all carol singing, pantomime trips, Christmas fayres and parties. When the new term starts in January it won’t be a horrid bleak unfamiliar environment it will be saying hello to friends they started to make in the fun time prior to the Christmas break.

November 2nd, 2008 | Category: Family Life | Comments (4)

Last night we returned home from a weekend away. On the journey we had been discussing the fact that we’d like to move to a smaller, more energy efficient house to further reduce our costs. Because we rent we are able to move whenever we want to with very little in the way to stop us. We’ve been here for two years and although it is a lovely house we feel it is actually too big for our needs in some ways.

Each room seems to be filled with Stuff. The kids have way too many clothes, toys, a lot of books.  The baby was given a lot of baby related paraphanelia which she is already too big for and we have far too much furniture stashed away in each room (four sofas, loads of chairs, a couple of extra tables for parties, extra bedding for guests, suitcases etc etc etc).

It has been a dream of mine for ages to stop feeling overwhelmed by how much we have and instead start saying goodbye to it in advance of our house move so we no longer have to pay for it to be moved or need a house big enough to house so many things.

I’m setting myself 30 minutes this morning to Freecycle several things that have not been used for over a year or are taking up space (a noticeboard, a 1960s melamine laundry tud, an over sized houseplant, baby gym) and give them to people who want them.

Last night I made a list of things we actually need as opposed to just like to have (beds, bedding, towels, some clothes and shoes, good non-fiction books, our photos, toys and art materials). It was a much shorter list than I’d anticipated and made me feel free instead.

I’ll try to sell a few high value, easy to post things on eBay but hopefully as the next few weeks progress I’ll be feeling that instead of living with a constantly growing mountain of things I’m in a clearer space which requires far less in the way of tidying, dusting, sorting.

The final remaining job will be to gently hint to the lovely grandparents that the children would prefer to spend time with them and days out instead of ‘treating’ them with piles and piles of plastic clobber.

[Update since drafting this post an hour ago... I've filled a bag to take to the charity shop - mainly cheap and nasty children's toys and books - especially those which have small pieces and may be a choking hazard for the crawling baby, people are coming to our house pick up unloved houseplants, baby clobber and large unused household and office things, I've created a pile of things which will probably sell well on eBay and aren't too much hassle to post, have had a quick rummage through my kids' wardrobe and found loads of too-small school uniform which we can pass back to the second hand uniform lady from whence it came. I feel much better and know that the task in hand is not insummountable and it does feel really good having a clear out]

October 20th, 2008 | Tags: Downshifting | Category: Decluttering, Downshifting | Comments (4)

A day late but not too late to write a post to participate in blog action day 2008.

The book I am reading at the moment is yet another on the now familiar and alluring theme of family self-sufficiency. ‘Living the Good Life: Changing the world from your own backyard‘ is Linda Cockburn’s diary of her young family’s pledge to spend 6 months not spending a dollar. It naturally includes several examinations as to why shunning of ‘normal’ consumerist lifestyle is a good exercise including the following shocking list on ‘Consumerism versus Humanitarianism’

Consider the priorities in global spending in 1998

Global Priority (US$ billions)

• Basic education for everybody in the world (US$6 billion)
• Cosmetics in the United States ((US$8 billion)
• Water and sanitation for everyone in the world (US$9 billion)
• Ice-cream in Europe (US$11 billion)
• Reproductive health for all women in the world (US$12 billion)
• Perfumes in Europe and the United States (US$12 billion)
• Basic heath and nutrition for everyone in the world (US$13 billion)
• Pet foods in Europe and the United States (US$17 billion)
• Business entertainment in Japan (US$35 billion)
• Cigarettes in Europe (US$50 billion)
• Alcoholic drinks in Europe (US$105 billion)
• Narcotic drugs in the world (US$400 billion)
• Military spending in the world (US$780 billion)

Appalling statistics.

This blogpost was written as a contribution to Blog Action Day. More than 9,000 bloggers worldwide have joined together to raise awareness of poverty and the issues related to it.

October 16th, 2008 | Category: Bits and Bobs | Comments (2)

My aunty told me on the phone that they were not sending Christmas cards this year nor buying gifts. Hooray for her - not especially green, frugal or thrifty but just a nice lady.I’ve decided to do the same and request that people actively exclude us from their shopping/sending lists. It stresses me out having nowhere to put the cards and feeling sorry for the resources used to produce them (printing, card and fuel to distribute).

I searched on Google for ‘thrifty Christmas’ and found myself on the Simple Living website which I hadn’t visited for a couple of years. It has loads of great ideas, tips and words of wisdom - one of which is above (their poster) and another below (a collection of simple suggestions that will help restore our eroding sense of community)

* Turn off your TV
* Leave your house
* Know your neighbors
* Look up when you are walking
* Greet people
* Sit on your stoop
* Plant flowers
* Use your library
* Play together
* Buy from local merchants
* Share what you have
* Help a lost dog
* Take children to the park
* Garden together
* Support neighborhood schools
* Fix it even if you didn’t break it
* Have pot lucks
* Honor elders
* Pick up litter
* Read stories aloud
* Dance in the street
* Talk to the mail carrier
* Listen to the birds
* Put up a swing
* Help carry something heavy
* Barter for your goods
* Start a tradition
* Ask a question
* Hire young people for odd jobs
* Organize a block party
* Bake extra and share
* Ask for help when you need it
* Open your shades
* Sing together
* Share your skills
* Take back the night
* Turn up the music
* Turn down the music
* Listen before you react to anger
* Mediate a conflict
* Seek to understand
* Learn from new and uncomfortable angles
* Know that no one is silent though many are not heard. Work to change this.

October 14th, 2008 | Tags: Frugal living | Category: Simple Living | Comments (5)

My lovely green and thrifty friend Emma has always used a hanky for her nose as Father Christmas has thoughtfully given her a new one each year she now has over thirty in her collection. Yesterday I noticed our other inspriationally green and thrifty friend, Janet, also uses a hanky to dab at any sniffle she has.

As a Big Fan of washable wipes (for the baby’s nappy changes and for all three kids when face wipes are needed) and someone who can never find a sensible place to put the big ugly boxes of tissues (somewhere where the kids can reach but where they don’t clutter up the place to badly), someone who hates spending money on unecessary disposable things when there is a reusable alternative I can’t believe I’ve had snotty nosed offspring for this long without remembering the hankerchiefs of my childhood we all used to carry.

Thankfully my running out of tissues and the kids enduring never ending runny/blocked noses made me search for hankchiefs on eBay and we are now the happy owners of some pretty Irish linen hankies which came in their original packaging but were marketed as being 1970’s!.

They are so much softer on the children’s noses than paper tissues, they don’t turn into a soggy mess after a few blows and as I have the washing machine on at least once a day I can always ensure we will carry one up our sleeves every day (can’t promise to iron them like my mum used to though) and we’ll not be spending £1.70 on an unsightly tree-wasting box of tissues anymore.

(Before I wrote this post I found this blog post from another like-minded blogger. It made me laugh
Using a Handkerchief Makes Me Feel All Funny)

October 4th, 2008 | Tags: Frugal living | Category: Being Green, Frugal living | Comments (6)

Brushing two new little teeth

I heard a couple of really sad and scary tales recently of young children (friends’ of friends) having to have rotten milk teeth removed (one child was having to have twenty removed the other needed five taking out). I couldn’t believe it and wondered whether it was parental ignorance rather than negligence to blame.

Loads of kids at the school my children attend seem to be taken regularly to the bakery or the sweet shop after school for a snack (we head home for bananas, milk and peanut butter on toast). Some kids have squash in their water bottles instead of water (a drink they are meant to have with them in the classroom) to slurp on throughout the day. We frequently get given gifts of sweets when a classmate has had a birthday or has been on holiday. My generation of parents seem to be losing the knowledge that lots of sugar = bad teeth.

I was not given many sweets as a child due to the fact that both my parents spent their childhood muching on boiled sweets, gobstoppers and toffee. They now have a mouth full of filings and crowns and have to endure frequent agony at the dentists. We had a box of Quality Street at Christmas and also Turkish Delight. I used to get a small amount of pocket money and used to spend some of it on sweets at the local shop. They were not banned just not around as a matter of course. We never had fizzy drinks in the house but were allowed as occasional treats.

On hearing the sad tales of children with rotting teeth I wondered what I could do better to ensure my kids learn how to take care of their teeth and to make sure I am doing the right thing.

Improvements to be made:

• Dilute fruit juice (recommended dilution is 1:10 according to dentist literature)
• Stop buying squash
• Help with brushing their teeth morning and night - I do a ‘Mummy brush’ after they have attempted to brush their own teeth
• Ask grandparents to no longer buy sweets as a treat
• Suggest kids don’t spend their pocket money on sweets but take them to a charity shop for little toys, a book shop or a toy shop (or eBay as they love browsing the toys on there!)
• Remind them ‘Oooh we’ll have to give your teeth an extra good brush after that’ if they have been eating sweets at a party to help them remember the connection between sugar and bad teeth
• Book 6 monthly dental check ups for all the family
• Use old fashioned disclosing tablets occasionally to show them where they need to do better brushing (they think these are brilliant as they temporarily turn their mouths bright bright blue)
• Set a good example (only scoff chocolate when they are in bed!) and don’t have sugar on cereal, in coffee etc.
• Remember that dried fruits such as raisins, apricots, banana chips are also high in sugar and they are sticky so the residue can remain on the teeth.

September 24th, 2008 | Tags: Children | Category: Good Parenting, Health | Comments (6)

I’ve just read another attitude-changing book, again borrowed from the library but like other inspiring reads this too will be bought for the home bookshelves and most probably as a Christmas present for other similarly minded friends or family.

We have rented a house in the countryside between three English towns for two years now we are in the process of thinking ahead and wondering what sort of environment we would like to raise the kids in when/if we buy a place of our own.

It is well documented that we do love living in the the countryside (the space, the sounds, the quiet, the ability to produce our own food) and have felt until reading Ian Walthew’s account of his move to a small village in the Cotswolds that we should probably not move too far away from a commerical centre and the so called benefits they bring (namely shops, leisure centres, cinemas and according to my five year old son the constant lure of fast food establishments offering ‘free’ toys). Reading his book has radically changed my mind and has helped me to realise that I have no real affinity to large towns any more and actually the small town we live in has the few things we need/like as a family (a lovely village school, a playground, a doctor, a chemist, a butcher, a greengrocer and a charity shop). If we were to move further away from such things it may mean we have opportunity to experience the pleasures of other things we haven’t even dreamt of yet.

A Place In My Country has opened my eyes further to the turmoil modern farmers are in.

I feel I’ve learned so much about his neighbour’s small old fashioned farm, the hard, hard relentless physical labour he has put in day in and day out since he was a small boy and now only to earn a few pounds per animal or per quantity of grain but despite this there is no question that his neighbour would ever consider farming another way or  selling up.

Modern farming methods are rapidly destroying our soil structures (with their heavy reliance on chemical fertilisers instead of spreading manure to enrich soil structures), our wildlife (most modern farms comprise of huge swathes of land managed by one person with enormous machines, many hundreds of acres without hedges, dry stone walls where wildlife would have once resided) and these smaller farms are now a minority which are disappearing fast along with the knowledge, skills, experience and the wide variety of crop and animal breeds which once meant we enjoyed a diverse range of products instead of the monoculture governments are turning this country towards.

Throughout the book there is a sense that no-one in a position of power is thinking rationally about the future of our land and what will happen to future generations of people wishing to live and work in a rural environment. The people who are struggling to maintain a living from the land are continually up against legislation and the push for producing cheap food on a huge scale (as well as the weather, poverty and people with more wealth wishing to build housing estates on their land). It’s a really well written book which manages to be both informative, moving and hugely entertaining too.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/

NB: While I’m waxing lyrical about books I’ve recently read about life in the English countryside I also read another moving and inspirational account called ‘The Fight for Fordhall Farm’ by Charlotte and Ben Hollins.

It is their story of how they saved their fathers delapidated organic farm in Shroshire, UK from being bought by property developers and turned it into a community ventre by sheer determination, hard work and positively refusing to give up when it looked like they would never be in a position to raise the £800,000 required. Given that they were only 19 and 21 when the events unfolded it is an incredible tale.

Both these books give us non-farming readers a tiny window through which to peep through into a world where people are giving their whole lives’ effort to  work with nature not because it will earn them a fast car or a foreign holiday, new fashionable clothes or the latest gadget but because it is something they love from the core and would not give up without a lengthy fight.

Both have made me want to do more in the way of producing our own food and aiming towards an even more simple and self-sufficient way of life before our nation is forced to re-examine our unhelthy dependence on oil.

September 22nd, 2008 | Tags: farming | Category: Country Living, Downshifting | Comments (1)