Birdoosh

no-blue mondays

I love my large, noisy family - that goes without saying - but come Monday morning I also love the quiet and solitude. Sometimes I wonder if it's because I'm an only child that I am happy in my own company.

Whatever the reason, I'm glad because it means that I am largely self-sufficient. I've had other women say to me they could never stay at home, they would be "too bored". As if, by being happy at home I am somehow less. Less intelligent? Whatever, I just nod and smile and secretly think "poor you".

Because needing to be with other people a lot must mean, I guess, you know yourself less. Plus, I need to be at home doing things like changing the beds and ordering food because if I'm not, these things don't get done.

It's not all work and no play. I get to listen to plays and features on the radio, I can pop to the potting shed and pot on some tomato plants, I can even have a book to hand, ready to pick up in a spare ten minutes. Oh yes, there's something delicious about reading during the day.

Come Monday morning from about 9am, barring school holidays, poorly children or inset days, I potter. Throw open all the windows, retune the radio, make myself a lovely breakfast, put the dishwasher on for a second time, sort out laundry and generally exhale.

With the coffee machine grinding beans in the background (oh! the smell!), I check the diary for the coming week, scan the Sunday papers for good book/exhibition/recipe recommendations. I find my Mondays at home grounding and lovely.

It's not all I do, of course. But it's my general first-thing routine after I've dropped the children at school. What I need to do, in that old fashioned but efficient way, is have more of a routine. This on that day, Tuesdays for x, Wednesdays is y day.

Oh, I know all about Flylady and I do use some of her ideas but I need a simpler routine (from what I can gather hers changes a lot) and I need not to spend ages navigating and reading a website. I get a bit rabbit-in-the-headlights by how much information is there!

So while I ponder what I should or could be doing on each day, tell me if you have a routine? I'd love to know...

:: If you've visited from Down to Earth welcome and thank you for reading (and commenting!). I am trying to get into a blogging routine but while the sun is shining and there are seeds to be sown, it's hard! ::

:: Last week at Carrots and Kids I sowed sweet peas with my sweet, we talked about children and allotment safety and I reviewed a children's garden craft book. Phew! ::

making your grocery money stretch

 

 I'm usually a head-in-the-sand type of person. I don't watch the news (primarily because I don't want it beamed into my little ones' lives) and I listen to Radio 4 Extra a lot because - yes, you've guessed it - it doesn't have any news bulletins.

I have even stopped buying a newspaper (except at weekends) because they are so relentlessly grim. When I do read one, I can get ranty while my family look on, bemused. So it's better all round if I avoid the news.

Of course, none of that stops me knowing what's going on. It seeps in somehow (Twitter, I'm blaming you). And so I try to turn my anger into action by signing petitions and printing off posters.

And I turn the knowledge that fuel is due to increase in August, that food costs keep rising, that things are not going to get easier or better any time soon, into a battening-down-the-hatches-type action.

Or at least I try.

Sometimes I forget and drift about as if, really, life hasn't changed. But then when I struggle to make our monthly food budget last, I'm reminded.

So here's a list of things that I currently do or am going to do in an attempt to feed the family healthy and nutritious food as cheaply as possible:

• Cutting out processed food: I have to be organised about this and am starting to succeed
• Starting up a whole food co-op: I'm working on this in a bid to buy organic whole food more cheaply (I'll blog about it when we've ordered and received our goods)
• Stockpiling: I've written about this recently
• Growing our own: after a rubbish 2011, I'm getting down to business and getting serious. Carrots and Kids details my attempts
• Online shopping: I'm caught between doing a weekly "big" shop online or shopping little and often. I'm currently favouring doing my shopping online as there is less temptation and I can keep a better eye on what I'm spending
• Shopping from the outside: when I do visit a supermarket I try to buy most of my food from the outside (the expensive, processed stuff is kept towards the middle of the shop). Is this true? I think so
• Avoiding supermarkets for fruit and veggies: this is easy if I'm organised, we have a farm shop and a market nearby and I've started getting a veg box delivered. Buying these items in a supermarket is expensive
• Eating less meat: it's expensive so I'm trying to build more of our meals around beans, grains and vegetables.

Of course, there are other things I can do like making a chicken last for two meals. Well, actually with so many of us I can't but I know many other families do.

I want to add that I'm not sharing what I do from any "aren't I clever" stance or putting myself on some sort of Expert Pedestal but sharing information is important and good. So if you have any tips that I've not thought about I'd love to hear them.

fighting overwhelm with yoghurt

 

It's fairly easy to guess the state of my mind, if you were to come round for coffee spontaneously, by having a quick peek into my sink.

A bit grimy and full of stuff to be stacked in the dishwasher? Having a bit of a tough time. Sparkling? On top of things, with added bounce.

And today? Surprisingly clear but could do with a good scrub. I would love to reach the efficiency of annoying things like unhelpful emotions not railroading me but what can I say? I'm human.

At the moment I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. It obviously doesn't take much. (I was going to say "it's not as if I have a stressful job" but here's where I stop sounding and feeling apologetic, as if not working outside the home invalidates any feelings I may have.)

I have to remember that what I am doing here is not entering in some kind of race. But as the work of staying at home is fairly relentless (didn't I just clean that Aga?) I feel like I'm running just to stay on one spot. It doesn't feel like any progress towards the life I want is happening at all, let alone at a snail's pace.

So I thought about one tiny thing that I could do that would, if nothing else, make me feel better. I don't mean, feel better in an "eat chocolate and sofa surf" kind of way but something that would make me feel that I can do the stuff that I'm keen to do. That I can make changes.

Enter home-made yoghurt. Something fairly easy, I thought, that I've been meaning to do and that can be slotted into my routine.

I did a bit of research online and got scared off with tales of thermometers and things. Then I remembered that I had a wholefood cook book I bought in New Zealand, one of the first recipe books I ever bought. And see, it was wholefood and I was 22, twenty years ago. Like I said, I'm a bit slow...

It had a very simple recipe that was perfect involving dried milk powder, milk and some yoghurt to start. And no thermometers. I wrapped the glass jar in a scarf (as instructed) and placed it somewhere warm. And there it sat, at the back of the Aga all night.

The only fly in the ointment of this tale is that it's a bit lumpy. As in, children will probably not eat it lumpy. Me? I'll eat anything but this stuff is hard going. I added some wild blueberry fruit spread and some vanilla essence and it's ok. But not anything that will ever pass my children's lips.

So maybe I do need a thermometer (sigh). And to make some pureed fruit for the children to add. I'd like to move away from the shop bought kids' yoghurts that contain high levels of sugar. If I make my own, with the puree, at least I'll have some control.

Even though the yoghurt is a bit of a, well, disaster, I don't feel remotely like I've failed. The power of home-made yoghurt - who'd have thought?

coming home

I'm finding that when you slow down, live a bit more in the present and mindfully, you have the time to really look at your life. It's like arriving at your destination and having a really good nosey.

And what I'm currently peering at is the corner called School. Actually, in our life it's rather more than a corner. Oh that it were.

No, school seems to take up a lot of room in a family's life. Even with all the holidays, what you're mostly left with is the dog ends of the day.

There are also weekends, although school manages to creep in there with its projects, spellings, reading, maths, Big Talk initiatives (right there at the dinner table), handwriting and phonic work to name just a few things my five and seven-year-olds are currently grappling with.

Which is all well and good if school is an addition welcomed by everyone, doesn't impose too much and is well behaved without leaving a mess behind.

But sometimes it's not like that and so you have to live with this extra in your lives but in a way that's acceptable and healthy.

That's what I'm currently doing. Oh, I know you can give School its marching orders but sometimes the alternative is not going to be a reality so you have to live with it as best you can.

How do you lessen the impact of our education system on small people for whom it's not always the most healthiest or best of options?

I've recently read this post about reducing after school play dates and activities which gave me food for thought.

I'm also looking at:

• boosting their immunity with nutrient dense foods, supplements and fresh air
• encouraging imaginative play through lessening screen time and reducing the number of toys
• sorting out our craft cupboard (again) to make it easier to be creative
• avoiding pushy parents and their whining
• keeping to a regular, early bedtime
• ringfencing weekends for family fun instead of homework.

I know not all small children struggle with school and I'm aware we do have a choice. When I look at some of the little ones as they walk out of class, laden with lunch bags and book bags I do wonder what we think we're playing at.

Because without doubt we start our children on a pressurised educational path at a younger age than seems ideal, healthy or right. And if they're thriving in that environment my job is to see they continue to and if they're not my job is to help them and to provide a bit more of a protective barrier.

Which comes down to the same thing really.

grounding

 

 

It's quiet but the house looks like a bomb's hit it. Yep, the children have gone back to school after the half-term holiday and the husband is back to work after a (rare) day off for his birthday.

I did think about writing more posts while the children were home but it was, obviously, impossible. And as I'm now all about simplifying I don't want to make this blog into a chore, another To Do on a long list.

Really I just wanted to be with the children. And I was, really present with them. It was a lovely break from school, from everyone although we did have a couple of play dates and lots of time at the park. But mostly family time.

I missed them all when they went back to school and work. But the time soon fills up and it wasn't until yesterday that I had any decent time on my own at home.

And boy - did I need it. I've always needed lots of time at home to feel a bit more centred. When the children were little and our social life was busy I had to factor in a couple of days in the week in the diary as Home Days.

So I put on my apron (yep), re-tuned the radio to Four Extra and chopped, stirred, mixed and baked.

 

 

Apart from myriad mundane (but strangely satisfying) chores, I made Mary Berry's chocolate tray bake. I'm trying to make our cakes healthier and made a small step in this direction by substituting half the white self-raising flour with wholemeal.

I also made soup, some of Sue's veg hash and roasted some veggies to store in a jar in the fridge for lunches this week.

All the while I listened to Agatha Christie, Hancock's Half Hour and a bit of Dickens while thinking, repeatedly, I do love my life. 

 

 

Bizarrely, I've worried about writing that last sentence as if The Universe (or whatever) will think Ha! See how you love this. Silly I know. But it's true, and I don't mean to be smug but it is just a heartfelt, grateful, kind of love.

Blimey, see what a day stood at the Aga can do to you.

I'm loving right now...

It's certainly true, for me at least, that the older you get the easier it is to find happiness or contentment in small things. Oh, I'm not denying that being whisked off to New York for a romantic weekend wouldn't make me estatic but as it's never going to happen there seems little point in hankering after it.

The latest thing to make me happy is so mundane I hestitate to tell you for fear of being laughed at. Then I remember that I've decided not to give a rat's arse what others think.

I am currently loving my label maker. It is one of those old fashioned ones, that you can still buy new, that involves twisting a dial to emboss your chosen letters on a strip of sticky tape. It is simple and I love it.

My glass jars containing things like beans, pulses, various sugars, wheatgerm and ground flaxseed on the kitchen's messy open shelves have been labelled extensively.

I wasn't one for being too organised and for some bizarre reason thought I would instantly know the difference between wheatgerm and flaxseed. Well, yes, after studying the remaining contents of a couple of open bags I did.

You could, of course, use a permanent marker on the glass or write on a white label but I'm all about how things look too, especially if they're on display so I've opted for black labels.

I love that it's a bit of an old way to label things and I love that the letters come out a bit wonky. I also love that it gives me a feeling of being organised, even if I'm not.

What little things are floating your boat this week? What do you use to label things?

can you ever have too many books?

 

 There are lots of things that make a house a home but bookshelves are one of my most favourite ways to make spaces homely.

The trouble is, with the advent of cheap books, how do you manage to keep control of them to prevent their inevitable creep over every surface?

Or maybe you don't? One of the quickest ways of making our living room look tidy is to neaten and dust the bookshelves so I am keen that they are contained and in order a bit.

I did go through a phase of organising them in colour co-ordinated lines but, as predicted, that made it impossible to find anything and was quite tricky. What to do with those four extra black-spined ones?

Nope, life's too short for such things. So they sit in sections. Like a library. Crafting over here, gardening books squeeeezed in there. My friend loves babysitting as she spends a while browsing, describing it as her personal library. I have stopped short of issuing her with a card and stamping the books.

The beauty of this ordinary system is that I can find what I want in an instant plus it's a constant reminder that if the gardening books I've got really need two shelves then maybe it might be an idea not to buy any more.

I have also started to de-clutter ever so slightly. I find it so hard to get rid of books, so only a few have gone but it is a start.

The library has come into it's own although keeping track of those books is an art in itself and, in order to resist buying any more paperbacks, I have been through the shelves and written a list of the ones I have yet to read. There is a surprising amount but should keep me going in books for the rest of the year at least, not including book group choices.

Of course, there might be someone reading this who is currently screaming "Kindle" at their screen. I know that is probably the way to keep books under control but I don't think it would help with the buying and budgeting. A new book is literally seconds away.

Plus, while I appreciate how many books they contain, I love the simplicity and feel of a paperback in my hand. Then there are my beloved second-hand-impossible-to-get-on-Kindle choices.

I can see in the future houses being a bit, well, stark. They shall probably look back on photos of how we live now and despair at all the stuff.

But let's face it, where would I be without my lovely bookshelves? In a less homely home, that's where.

 

wholefood eating

It's always good to have a project on the go and one of the most pleasurable things about the internet, for me, is the wealth of knowledge and experience I can tap into.

Mostly I do this via online e-courses. They are, quite frankly, genius. I have done a few but one or two stand out as being the best.

In the summer I took part in Heather's 30-day vegan course. I love her blog, it seems so gentle in a way, that I knew I would love her course too. And I did. She announced then that she was working on a wholefood kitchen one that would start in February and last for three months.

Bliss.

Now, I don't mind winter too much but it was really rather lovely to have something to look forward to. As is the way, this week, when the course started, has been particularly stressful and busy.

But no matter. There is a lot of material to chew on and a forum to jump into when and if I feel the need.

I would love to say at the end of April I feed my family a wholefood diet but I have to take into consideration their tastes and ideas.

Once you have children it's never quite so easy to instigate major changes to your lifestyle. And once they're teenagers, it seems even harder. Sometimes I wish I was about to embark on becoming a mother now, at a time when I have so much more information literally at my fingertips.

But it is what it is and all is not lost. There is inherent in family life a large dose of compromise. And, of course, as I am in charge of family food...

 

Stockpiling

I admit when I heard the phrase "stockpiling" in connection to food shopping I wasn't particularly interested.

Squirrelling away food in case of an emergency? Not really my thing, I thought. A friend used to do just that; she had an Emergency Store in her cellar containing bottled water, tinned goods and water purification tablets. I thought she was a bit mad.

Fast forward a few years and here I am, thinking about stockpiling. Only mine isn't in case of the world stopping but more to make life simpler.

Rhonda talks about it a lot on her blog but I was still a bit unsure if it was for us. There is also the added problem of fitting in a store of food into a house that is, well, if not bursting at the seams, a pretty snug fit.

But then I started reading "The Green Kitchen Handbook" (review to follow). The author, Annie Berthold-Bond says:

"In fact, as you will soon learn, if you have a well-stocked pantry, make a quick trip to the market once a week for fresh food, and reduce your garbage as much as possible, then you can conveniently maintain a green kitchen."

Admittedly, I am a bit slow but I now realise that having a stockpile will make my life simpler. As I was putting away the food shopping today, it struck me that I have already the beginnings of a such a wonderous thing. Except, it's a bit higgledy, not so well organised or documented.

So I used one of the printouts from Rhonda's forum and have started to list what we do have. Of course, just a pen and paper would do just as well. At the moment it's all being stored in a cupboard off the kitchen but I have Plans for a Proper Stock Cupboard.

And next time I'm in a supermarket I'm going to check out more thoroughly the special offers. Usually, if I don't need them pretty immediately I by-pass them. Now I'm going to look through more thoughtful and organised lenses.

I'm also going to investigate starting up a whole-food co-op. We used to belong to one but when my friend, who organised it, moved away it folded. Man, she was ahead of the game. I feel like I've just woken up to this sort of thing.

But it's stupid to berate myself for my shortsightedness. Starting from where I am will do just fine.

Do you have a stockpile? Or do you shop weekly?

Yay. It's The Weekend

When you don't work out of the home you lose that Friday feeling. Which is okay as you also lose that Sunday night one too.

But since my youngest started school I have been feeling a bit, well, despondent about weekends, which I truely need to sort out.

I love having everyone home but a cloud of inertia descends over me. When they're all about, I don't feel like doing any of the things that I usually like to do.

Stacking the dishwasher, hardly hard, becomes something that I resent fully. Hoovering? Forget it. Even baking loses its appeal.

But with everyone home these jobs become even more important. And while they all do their chores (such as they are), it doesn't seem to make any difference to how I feel.

And if I lounge around on the sofa with them watching a film I invariably fall asleep or feel grumpy at the lack of doing. Funnily enough, as I type the snow is falling and I'm looking forward to a Sunday when going out, except for a walk, will not be on our agenda.

We do go out at the weekends but as the children get older it gets trickier. Social lives step up a gear, interests divide and even having a hot drink and a sticky bun out puts quite a dent in the budget.

What I need, I'm starting to realise, is a new routine or way of doing at the weekends. Perhaps minimal chores to keep us ticking over, with regular Saturday morning crafts, a walk and proper afternoon tea with dainy sandwiches, cake and tea in china cups would fit the bill. A different kind of doing, but one that would hopefully be fun without spending too much money.