Getting Organised

As I mentioned previously, I really need to kick start my routine again, or modify it to fit our changed life.

I have been using Rhonda's (Down To Earth blog) wonderful books to help me along as well as the homemaking posts at Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth. I continued to use the fabulous resources on this blog while Jes was away, but I was so happy to see a few days ago that Jes is back! I look forward to seeing what other lovely ideas she has for us.

So here is a very rough schedule for the moment. I will keep playing with it over time, but this will certainly keep everything ticking along nicely.

Monday

Grocery shopping, post office, library, other town errands 1.5 hours

Morning tea projects 0.5 hour

Blog 0.5 hour

Vaccuum 0.5 hour

Mop 0.5 hour

Gardening 1 hour

Total of 4.5 hours

Tuesday

Morning tea projects 0.5 hour

Blog 0.5 hour

Bathroom 1 hour

Baking 1 hour

Etsy shop 1 hour

Big Projects 2 hours

Total of 6 hours

Wednesday

Morning tea projects 0.5 hour

Blog 0.5 hour

Dusting 0.5 hour

Vaccuum 0.5 hour

Clean fridge 0.5 hour

Gardening 1 hour

Big Projects 2 hours

Total of 5.5 hours

Thursday

Shopping, post office, library, other town errands 1.5 hours

Morning tea projects 0.5 hour

Blog 0.5 hour

Etsy shop 1 hour

Big Projects 2 hours

Total of 5.5 hours

Friday

Morning tea projects 0.5 hour

Blog 0.5 hour

Vaccuum 0.5 hour

Baking 1 hour

Etsy shop 1 hour

Gardening 2 hours

Total of 5.5 hours

I haven't included here all the everyday things that just tick along. Such as, I do laundry every day, obviously cook dinner every day, wipe over the bathroom every morning. I am just trying to have a bit more structure as I can tend to wander aimlessly, thinking what should I do now. Hopefully this will help me!

A few ideas that I have included are:

Morning Tea Project Time - Every day, 10.30 to 11.00, will be morning tea time. A cup of tea and three projects to work on for 10 minutes each. This way, I will be sure to work on a few things consistently every day. I will then choose one project that will be my TV/nighttime project for that day. This will, of course, get more time spent on it so I will rotate these around. It may not always be knitting. I am hoping to get out some embroidery and cross stitch projects that have been languishing as well.

These are the three I am working on this week. You have seen them before!

Hopefully I will get some finished quickly so that they will change at least a little each week!

Big Projects - I will focus on one big project at a time until it is finished. This is definitely an area in which I come unstuck, with half finished jobs being left. First up in this category will be to empty and inventory my pantry spaces. As they are spread out in different places, it is hard to know exactly what I have.

I am ashamed to but I will show you my pantries, as they are!

These two cupboards live in two opposite corners of the dining room, just wherever I could fit them in. They are just cheap flatpack cupboards so the shelves are bowing a bit under the weight!

I also have pantry items stored up in the top cupboards in the kitchen. But as we have twelve feet ceilings, you can imagine these are pretty high up! I cannot reach unless I stand on the benchtop or use a ladder!

So let's see how I can neaten these up a bit!

For cooking/new dinner ideas, I am adding the Recipe Book project - I read this post at Stay Home Instead recently. It really struck a chord with me when she said that recipe books aren't meant to just look lovely on her shelves, but "I believe you are actually supposed to cook from them".

Hmmm, I am definitely guilty of this! I have a terrible habit of borrowing cookbooks from the library and bookmarking the recipes I like. If there are quite a few, I think to myself that I may as well buy the book.

But as you can see, I have quite a few - more than will fit in the shelves in fact!

And then I have my homesteading book shelf, many of which include recipes.

Anyway, Fiona's idea is to cook through her cookbooks. What a great idea! :)

I am planning to choose a book each week and make one recipe from it. I am only committing to one recipe per week so I will actually do it! I may, of course, revisit books. Plus I have my vintage recipe project, cooking from each issue of Stitchcraft as part of Adventures In Stitchcraft.

I do tend to cook the same things as it is simply easier to cook what I know the boys like. But I think they can do with some broadening of their culinary horizons!

This week's book is Chicken and Egg, which seems to now be out of print. It is a book written by a backyard chicken owner so all the recipes are designed to use eggs (and chicken, as eventually you may need to cull). I have six hens at the moment, which is the lowest number I have had in ages. I lost eight hens to a fox just before COVID and haven't been able to replace them. Maybe I should hatch some? I haven't done that for a few years and it is so enjoyable.

I am drooling over some of the dessert recipes - Pumpkin Spice Cake with Salted Caramel Sauce, anyone?! Check back next week to see what I make! 

Please let me know if you have any other good tips for me! 

A Pantry Challenge!

I must admit to be totally hooked on challenges of all kinds! Give me a reading, knitting, gardening, anything at all, challenge and I will be there!

I love my reading challenge group over on LibraryThing - well, I am on more than one group over there. It is free to join in as LibraryThing very generously made all their services free to all in the last little while. I actually started over there as a place to catalogue all my books and then I discovered the Groups tab. Lots of fun reading chats and needless to say, my TBR list is growing all the time!

And of course I have my own challenge going on, with Adventures In Stitchcraft. I am enjoying looking through all my gorgeous Stitchcraft magazines to find projects to make. And all the advertisements and recipes pages are fun. You can look at the projects to date here. 

I just found a new challenge to jump into, and it looks relatively simple so I should be able to keep up! 

A Working Pantry is having a Working Pantry Boot Camp and Assigment 1 was posted yesterday. 

The first assignment is to add something green to your pantry. Your pantry can also include your freezer or anywhere else you store foods. 

Now I do not actually have a pantry! Our house is small and the kitchen is too small to have a pantry. Instead I have two of those white flatpacked cupboards in the dining room. I also use one of the kitchen cabinets for food. There is a chest freezer in the outside laundry. One day I dream of having a walk-in pantry, or even a pantry of any sort! 

One day!

My green plan will be to add six packets of frozen peas to the freezer. 

I have never grown enough peas to have any to freeze - we just tend to eat them fresh as we harvest them. 

These crazy times have certainly solidified my belief in having a well-stocked pantry. Although the supermarkets were open the whole time, I found I did not really want to visit them. 

The purpose of the boot camp is to focus on preparing a well-stocked pantry one step at a time. Lots of little steps add up!

Do you have a pantry? What are the most important items you like to always have on hand? 

Let's Talk Routine

Routine - do you have one? 

We have all seen those blog posts and Youtube videos about 'I lived for a day/week/month as a 1950s housewife'. Google it and thousands of entries come up.

And while we may not want to follow all the advice from 1950s manuals, I do appreciate the routine chores lists that these manuals contain. 

As I'm sure is the case for many others, my routine has undergone a few alterations in these crazy times. And I have been somewhat lax in establishing a new one. My primary focus has been the boys' schooling so I have pretty much been fitting my other chores in around this. Which has been fine - everyone has been fed, has clean clothes and bedding and a relatively clean house. But it is the 'extras' that have been dropped from the routine - don't even look at the ceiling fans! Lucky it is winter and we are not using them or they would just fling dust at people! 

When I used to homeschool 'officially', I was much more organised, I promise! But as this was just a temporary arrangement, I decided to go with the flow somewhat and not stress too much about the deep cleaning. 

My other problem is that I am a ditherer, a procrastinator. If I do not have a list to 'tell' me what to do, I tend to jump from one thing to the next and not settle down to actually achieving anything. 

So now it is time for a revamp of the routine to make sure I can fit everything in.

Here is what I am wondering - I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

• Do you do one activity per day or spread them out over the five days so there is a little bit of something on each day?
• Do you schedule your own 'fun' activities, such as reading or crafting, to make sure there is a spot for them? Or just hope you can fit them in the little extra pockets of time?

I am definitely a proponent of meal planning. I definitely find that the days run much smoother if I have meals planned out and do not have to think about them every day. 

Maybe not these 1950s meals though! 

And I need to fit in at least one day a week to work on my Etsy shop. Luckily I do this from home so I can fit in other things around it.

So this week I will take a look around the house and make some lists. And check out some of the many vintage cleaning routines online and see what I can pull together. 

How have your routines been during these crazy times? (my official term for that which must not be named!)

Monday's Make A List

So how did last week's list go?


Gardening and Homestead

• Pot up lettuce, kale and pak choy seedlings
• Dead head roses - I did half of the roses so will have to finish them this week.
• This week's moon planting is root crops so plant out garlic and sow radishes - also planted some beetroot and swedes
• Weeding - a never ending cycle!  I did four hours this week. I aim for three to four at the moment until I have things under control. 

Knitting, sewing and crafting

• Finish front of Prelude jumper - free pattern available here from Subversive Femme. 
• Sand back wooden dollhouse for granddaughter's birthday present

When my girls had this dollhouse, they painted it and the furniture themselves. My daughter asked me to revamp it for her daughter (as we are only doing secondhand or handmade gifts), so I thought I should update the paint job! I mixed up a blue for the lounge suite that is the colour I would love to have for my own lounge suite. I think it would fit in my 1940s themed house - one day! 

• Choose design for knitted cardigan for granddaughter's birthday present - I nearly have this sorted out. Now to choose colours.
• Sort out craft trunk - this may have to drop off the list if the boys' school is cancelled. Too much stuff to get out and spread everywhere!
• Dye and add to shop two lots of sock yarn sets  actually added three sets of sock yarn

• Plan project from Stitchcraft October 1932

Household

• Continue working on book inventory  I try to add at least twenty books a week to my catalogue online.
• Sort out boys' clothes for winter
• Tinned foods inventory

And now for this week. Who knows where we will be by the end of this week? It is still very much a matter of wait and see. 

Gardening and Homestead

• Finish deadheading roses
• Cut back rhubarb and mulch with compost and sheep poo
• Weeding!

Knitting, sewing and crafting

• Finish back of Prelude jumper
• Continue painting of dollhouse and furniture
• Finalise design for knitted cardigan for granddaughter's birthday present
• Sort out craft trunk
• Finalise and start project for Stitchcraft October 1932

Household

• Sort out boys' clothes for winter
• Tinned foods inventory

I hope you are all keeping safe and well. We just need to take this one day at a time. 

Happy Homemaker Monday

Joining today with Diary of a Stay at Home Mom for Happy Homemaker Monday.

On the weather front
Rain, rain and more rain! That being said, the whole of last week was sunny and warm. What a blessing for our week away at the beach. We definitely went away at the right time as now it is starting to really feel as though winter is on the way. The fire is lit and I have brought my camp kettle out of the cupboard to use on the wood heater. Bliss!


Reading
Do not expect anything deep here - I am definitely in holiday reading mode! Lots of light, enjoyable reading. Last week I made my way through three books - it is amazing how much reading you can do when you are not worrying about the laundry (that has definitely caught me now though!) and you are only cleaning a teeny tiny cabin. And the boys were happy to dig in the sand and explore rock pools for hours.


So I read:
Threads of Love by Judith Miller - historical romance in which a young girl is sent to be a nanny for children who have lost their parents. You can guess what happens! Enjoyable easy read.

The Chocolate Tin by Fiona McIntosh - historical romance set during and after WWI in England. Based around the chocolate tins that were sent as Christmas gifts to the British soldiers by Princess Mary. This became very much a side story though to the life of the main character. Very enjoyable read as it twisted off in a whole new direction, which, although predictable, was well written and kept you in suspense. I am looking at the library for some more of this author's books.

The Fence by Meredith Jaffe - written in 2016 and set in this time. Wicked humour in this one - loved it. Kept my interest the whole way through. Based on new neighbours and their argument over a new fence between their properties, which rapidly escalates into a full-on war. Such a simple subject choice but it is used to show how our behaviour can be so ridiculous at times. The ending is brilliant.

The Accidental Time Traveller by Sharon Griffiths - sort of a historical romance I guess, as the main character travels back in time to the 1950s. I am only halfway through this one and it is not grabbing me as much as other books. That being said, I am still finding it enjoyable, especially all the little slip ups Rosie makes in mentioning things from the twenty first century that just weren't talked about in the 50s.

Watching
I am still watching Victoria. I didn't get a chance to watch any while we were away and it is due back at the library. Looks like I am in for some marathon nights!

I'm hoping
To be able to convince my family that devices are not all that necessary! Unfortunately hubby included. There have been numerous books published about going back and living without modern technology of whatever sort, and believe me, I have probably read them all! Even in the book I am currently reading, The Accidental Time Traveller, in which the main character is a reporter, she admits that it is not a detriment to not have news feeds constantly at your fingertips. It is actually a blessing and makes for a much calmer workplace.
But the boys have literally become addicted to their devices and I can pretty much source any arguing directly to either phones, Xbox or TV - sharing them, who is on when, that sort of thing. I would love to call a complete withdrawal of all devices but hubby isn't on board for that (although he can see the problems they cause), so it will have to be a time-based withdrawal.

I don't know when this statistic is from, but I would say it would be a higher percentage than that and it is affecting them younger and younger.


How do you all manage device time?


I'm learning
I'm trying to learn how to simplify my life and rid myself of all the extra baggage, whether it is physical (think decluttering!) or mental (worrying over nothing, getting depressed over things I can't change, etc).

This will be a long work in progress!


Crafting
I took knitting away with me, but I actually didn't even get it out of the bag. Must be the first time ever! As mentioned above, I mainly read. So still knitting away at a few bits and pieces and sorting out yarn.


And I will try not to do this (but let's be honest, I probably will!)

Grateful for
My lovely little house and farm. It is always lovely to go away, but I find it equally lovely to come home again. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am and complain about it being too small (especially as oldest daughter is asking if she can move home again to save money!), but it is a gorgeous little house and I have a whole eight acres to play with.

I am definitely guilty of hitting the boys with that old chestnut - 'be grateful, there are children that have nothing.' But I also have to remind myself of that and make sure I am being thankful.


Dreaming of
Same as last week - always dreaming of my farm plans! Lots of colour planned, so many flowers in my head. Happiness is lots of flowers!

Favourite photo
Rock pools at Point Lonsdale.

Devotional, scripture, key verse


Not really a verse; just something to remember!

Have a blessed week, everyone!

Happy Homemaker Monday

Today is the first day of the school holidays here. Yay! I am looking forward to a lovely relaxing two weeks, squeezing in five days away as well.


On the weather front
Autumn is here! It has been raining on and off, so I haven't needed to water every day. The temperatures have cooled down and I lit the wood heater for the first time last week. Looking forward to some gorgeous autumn days.


Reading
I am currently reading The Illiad by Homer as part of my long-running hope to re-read classics.

Watching
Very excited that my turn FINALLY came to have Victoria Series One from the library. I watched two episodes last night. I was very tempted to keep going, but it was after midnight. I find that a real problem with watching series - it is SO difficult to turn it off!
I recently read the book by Daisy Goodwin (who also wrote the series) and loved it. I am a real Anglophile and British royal history is a real love of mine.

I'm hoping
That we all have a lovely, relaxing school break and a blessed Easter.


I'm learning
To bloom where I am planted. This seems to have taken me a VERY long time to accept and act on. But I am really trying now to live in the everyday moments and not wish my life away, hoping for things that it is fairly certain will never happen.
I always vacillate between trying to accept where I am and wondering why all the positive affirmation stuff, like 'dream big and it will happen' never does seem to happen. Does anyone else feel this way?

So I am trying to adopt this as my new motto!


Crafting
Mainly knitting projects at the moment - and attempting to sort out my yarn stash and finish stashing it on Ravelry.


Grateful for
A very special day spent on the weekend, celebrating my granddaughter's first birthday. It was a very precious day.

Dreaming of
All the huge plans I have for the garden/farm, now that the weather has cooled down enough to get stuck into some hard work without melting! There are lots of tree planting plans in the works.


Favourite photo
It will have to be a birthday one, won't it?!

Grandbaby with her youngest uncle!

Devotional, scripture, key verse

Independence Days Challenge: Week Twenty

'The fact is that some things will be lost in our new way of life. It is useless to pretend that the transformation to a lower-energy, lower-consumption society will always be painless and easy. Thus, the only possible way we can bring it about is to replace some of the pleasures we are losing with new ones - with rituals of non-consumption that offer us something to replace what is lost.'

Depletion and Abundance by Sharon Astyk pg 33

The author then goes on to discuss World War II and the national unity and sense of purpose that gave people the incentive to 'make do and mend' and 'dig for victory' and various other campaigns. These campaigns all seemed as though they would be a chore or a nuisance and make people very unhappy with their lot, but the opposite was often found to be true. Working together in this way brought real satisfaction that the work they were doing was important for the war effort and was actually achieving something.
This is what I feel is missing in our lives at the moment. People go to work in order to earn money to accumulate enough to indulge in leisure activities that don't seem to bring any long-lasting happiness or satisfaction. We seem to be mice running in a wheel a lot of the time!


So what have I been up to in the last few weeks? Unfortunately, not a lot in the garden/farm department. It has been hot, hot, hot for a long time, and too hot for being outside except in early morning/evening. So I have been pretty much keeping what I have alive at the moment and am waiting for autumn to finally arrive.


1. Plant something
I have planted some of the shelling peas that I saved from last year's harvest to see the germination rate. And they have all popped up! So I will be succession planting these over the next month to hopefully have lots of peas for the freezer.

2. Harvest something
This is my seed saving from last year - not very much but I am happy to be starting on my seed saving journey. I have started with some easy ones! Shelling peas, broad beans and peony poppies.

Those peony poppies are the best investment ever! I purchased one plant from our Christian bookshop two years ago. The man there propagates plants to raise money for a girl they sponsor in Papua New Guinea.
Last year I just let the plant drop its seeds and I had quite a lot of plants, probably 20 or so. And look how many seeds I collected this year! I am planning on planting them amongst my daffodils, so I need to start sowing them.


Other than that, lots of eggs. For 'old' chickens, they are laying so well. To think in a commercial operation, they would have been culled three years ago!
And herbs - rosemary, mint, sage, Vietnamese mint.


I have also been digging all my daffodil bulbs - phew! I have two big bags full and haven't finished yet. I am planning to transplant them all to one dedicated area for a mass display. Currently they have just been dotted around the garden where there was space.

I have been working on the weeding. Look, you can see half the garden and the paths again!

3. Preserve something


Not really preserving as such, but I bought lots of bananas on super special and put them in the freezer for smoothies.
I also made some meatballs in bulk for the freezer.


4. Minimise waste

I don't know about you, but school notices drive me nuts! Every week I seem to receive so much paper, which first clutters up my table and then has to be disposed of in some way. I have a huge pile of scrap paper as most of these notices are only printed on one side. So I keep them all to use for working out paper for homework, shopping lists, garden planning, etc. But this hardly seems to make a dent in the pile!
So I also shred the paper to use in the chicken nesting boxes or to add to the compost.
What do you do with excess paper?


5. Want not

Image from www.strangersandpilgrimsonearth.blogspot.com

I was reading this post recently on the importance of storing water for emergencies. For some reason, water storage has gone off my radar recently, as has most prepping. I am focusing on cleaning up and sorting out so I can prep in a more organised fashion. But then a bombshell hit me (duh!) - what if something happened tomorrow? I couldn't just put up my hand and ask the emergency to hold off for a while as I wasn't quite ready!


So I have added some bottles of water to my freezer. This has a few advantages:
 - it fills up the extra space in your freezer to make it run more efficiently
 - if the power goes out, frozen water will help the rest of the items stay frozen for longer
 - it is stored water you can use for drinking, etc.


I must making sorting my storage area a priority!

Strangers and Pilgrims On Earth will be doing a whole series on preparedness, so keep an eye out for that!




6. Cook something new


I made this chai tea mix. I love chai tea, so wanted to try out a few recipes. This one is very bitter, which I guess is how chai is meant to be. I have added more tea to the mixture to tone it down a bit. But still yummy!

7. Manage your reserves


More pantry organisation. I am hoping to collect enough glass jars to transfer all my pantry stores to glass - really big jars are difficult, although I was lucky to get two from a catering job recently.

8. Work on local food systems


This really is my let down area. Maybe it is because I am reluctant to put myself forward when my own home systems are not that fantastic. I have a definite perfectionist streak so absolutely feel that everything needs to be spick and span and perfect before I can be telling anyone else about local food systems.
This is my main goal for 2017 - to make some major leaps towards self-sufficiency.


Hope you are all getting some gardening/homesteading planning and work done. I would love to hear about it.

Not my garden, by the way! Soon!