April has been a busy month

Yes, April has been a busy month but my life seems fairly busy this year. I can feel the pace picking up and I'm not sure whether or not I am happy about that.

We went to Cambridge for three days and I pottered around while my husband had business meetings. I enjoyed that! We had a big family get-together for our eldest's special birthday celebration. We went to the Think Tank in Birmingham (the children really enjoyed that) and then back to my son's house and we all had a Chinese meal. The people who ran our local Chinese takeaway are friends of ours and they did us a fantastic meal. My daughter was really pleased with it and delighted when our friends sent her a bottle of champagne with the meal. How nice was that! They were retiring the following week and they knew it would be the last meal that they cooked for us so they wanted to make it extra special for her.

Easter week was filled with church things and I think I must have sung every Easter hymn and song in our music books... It was a good Easter.

We are in the countdown to our daughter's wedding as it is just three weeks away now. Exciting times! I've been out today and bought some shoes to wear with my outfit. However, coming home with them and seeing them next to the outfit, I am not so sure about the colour as I was in the shop. A rethink is needed there, methinks. And then there is the question of a bag. Hmm.

I'm am still souping every week for our church coffee shop. I did have a week off for Easter, though. I do find it funny that I am making soup for a coffee shop. It just doesn't seem right, somehow. I made pea and mint before Easter which people seem to have either loved or hated. It is good to have feedback but now I'm not sure whether to make it again.

I've had a mini clearout of a corner that has not been tidied for a very long time. So that means eight things have gone in the bin, two things are being dithered over, three bags of stuff have gone to a new home and a bag is sitting in the hall, waiting to go to a charity shop. I've got my eye on another corner to tidy and sort through so I'm hoping that the bag in the hall might well become two or even three.

110 items gone

End of March already

I've been busy making lots of soup for the church coffee shop, acquiring wood for the woodburner for next winter, looking after grandchildren, visiting friends, knitting little chicks that will contain Cadbury's cream eggs for Easter, knitting little jumpers for "fish and chip" babies in Africa....  and there might have been a little bit of washing and cleaning and looking after animals as well.

I'm running out of ideas for different soups to ring the changes at the church coffee shop. So far I have made tomato, carrot and lentil three times, leek and potato, carrot and coriander, parsnip and ginger, tomato and basil, broccoli and stilton, vegetable (tomato based). I make two to three gallons each time and it gets divided up into boxes and frozen to provide a variety of flavours. It must be vegetarian and not too expensive to make (so I won't be making any asparagus soup even though I love it). If anybody has any bright ideas, then please do tell me. Thank you : )

We are giving little chicks with crème eggs to the children associated with the church during the Easter week. We need around 200 and I have produced 50ish. I've lost count at the moment. The knitting is very straightforward but then they need sewn up, a ball of polyester stuffing put in the head, a gathering thread run round the neck and fastened off to provide the shaping for the head, eyes glued on, a felt beak cut out and stitched on, a flat bow made and stitched on. The finishing takes as long as the knitting does! I am feeling that I am all chicked out now.

We have managed to acquire various bits of wood to squirrel away for next winter. Some of it came from a couple of skips near where we live and some is from a medium size tree that was taken down in my son's garden. It was old and leaning badly and looked like a gale would bring it down anyway. It is amazing how much bigger their garden looks without it. Had it been in good condition, we would not have taken it down but we have not only prevented a lot of fencing being broken (at the very least) but we have also got more wood for next winter. Considering that this winter was fairly mild, I am amazed at how much wood we have got through and so I am happy at having more for next winter.

The hens are laying very well at the moment. Old Hen died yesterday. I shall miss her because she was one of my "characters". She was just a little brown hybrid hen but she was over seven years old. I was chatting to her on Monday afternoon and she looked so old that I knew that I would not have her for much longer . I have another hen that is seven years old but she is a buff Orpington and they are usually longer lived. I've never had a little brown hen older than five years before.

I had a lovely mothers' day. I hope you did too. My son turned up at our church with his family. It was meant to be a surprise so I didn't let on that grandson had let the cat out of the bag during the week when he was talking to me. When the two year old spotted me at the front of church, she ran as fast as her little legs would let her and gave me a big hug and said "Happy mothers' day". Then she went to Grandad and wished him the same : )   In the afternoon, the girls came to call with their families and then my son popped in again too. One daughter had baked me a loaf of bread with sundried tomatoes and parmesan and it was lovely. I do like presents that people have made rather than just going to the shops.

I've been pleased with my perseverance at clearing things out. I do really find it very hard to part with things especially if there is a chance that they might come in useful in the future. A little bit of clearing out leaves me feeling quite stressed. My husband tells me not to be so daft but I don't find that very helpful as a coping strategy...  My total has risen quite a lot now so I am only a little bit behind my target.

82 items gone

Decluttering

In 2015 I decided that I would lose 1000 things from the house. Well, I managed to part with just over 700 items. So I failed to reach my goal but there was a tiny bit more space in the house so I won as well because creating more space was my real aim. In 2016 I went for the same goal but failed miserable because I cleared just 365 items from the house. That is still one item per day but it falls far short of the 1000 I was hoping for. I had, of course parted with all the easily-partable-with things the previous year. This year I want to continue but I am going for a goal of 500 items. If I make it (and I am going to try really hard) then there will be 1500ish items gone from the house. Surely that will make a difference to the clutteredness in the house.

I am not good at parting with things, especially if there is any sentimental value at all but I must try harder. I know that when we are gone, my clutterfree daughters will get a big skip and everything will just go in it. I'd like to have a bit of a say in where things go.

My other aim last year was to write a post on average once a week so that I would have a diary record of happenings in my life for me to look back on. I managed 41 posts rather than 52 so I feel that I didn't fail as badly as at decluttering. It is my aim to post 50 times in 2017 too. I forget things so easily and it would be good to have a reminder. I remember the big things but it is the little details that don't stick - the ones that make me smile at the memory. Like parking in the church carpark earlier this week and hearing a little voice shouting " Ganny, Ganny". I hadn't realised that she would be at the church nursery school that day so it was a real treat seeing her at the nursery gates jumping up and down and waving and shouting to me. She is two and a half and not good at saying a 'gr' sound yet. I can't tell you how pleased I was to have such a welcome! And this is just the sort of thing that brings a smile but slips out of my memory so quickly.

I've taken a pile of carrier bags full of clothes to a charity last week so I'm pleased that I've got a total of items gone to put at the end of my post : )

38 items gone

This and that

We seem to have been doing lots of extra things recently and I haven't got around to blogging about them.  We have been looking after our youngest granddaughter as our dil has got a temporary job for this term. I really look forward to her coming and having a good excuse to play : )

One evening we went out to our friend's farm and helped with shearing the sheep. He only keeps eight ewes now and a ram so an evening was enough time. I'm sure the sheep were cold that first night but were pleased not to be wearing all that wool in those hot days last week.

I made lemonade (cordial) and elderflower champagne and posted the recipes for those.

My husband had a birthday and we had a bbq at my daughter's house as it was half term. That was fun. I do enjoy a family get-together.

We went away for three days. My husband had two days of meetings in Cambridge so I went too as it costs the same for a room and travel for two as for one.  It is a lovely place with so many really old colleges and churches. And I can't believe how many bikes there are in Cambridge. And I passed so many bike shops too. It is big business there for bikes.  The only problem was the humidity which made walking not as pleasant as it could have been. I love walking along the river and watching the rowers. There are so many pieces of green there which are not allowed to be built on and were covered with groups of young people chatting. this visit. Some are municipal parks now and some others are common land but it is so nice to see so much green inside a town.

My items gone total has crept up a little bit and I have another bag of things waiting to go.  It is much harder work this year and my natural inclination is to hold on to things "just in case". The trouble is that I find it hard to part with things especially when they have memories attached but still, some things have made it out the door even if I am way behind in my schedule.

191 items gone

Cats!

Cats! I've gone off them today.  Fred was careering round the bedroom chasing Barney when we were having our morning cuppa.  Fred knocked over my husband's untouched half pint mug of tea. It is amazing how far a half pint of tea will travel when knocked over by a cat at full speed. Lots of things got splashed but the real damage was done to a very expensive ( and now out-of-print grrr) book that my husband was reading. The paper soaked up the tea very readily and the book is not in very good condition now.

I've been trying to sort out a few more little corners in the house. My total of things that have left the house is creeping up very slowly. In fact I am about six weeks behind schedule already. Still, looking on the bright side, some things have already left so I'm still winning : )

164 items gone

Halfway there

502!

I promised myself that I would part with 1000 items from the house in 2015.  I reckoned that even if I didn't make it, then I would still be winning because I would have parted with that number of items. And here I am halfway there and just three weeks late.

Of course, I've already sorted through the easy things so the next 500 will be harder but I'm so pleased at passing 500 that I'm not deterred : )

: )