Onward!

The world changed for a lot of us in the small hours of Friday morning.
I have seen and heard since then such bile and hatred as I thought never to witness in our gentle, polite country.
But regardless of how we voted, regardless of the rights and wrongs, now is our time.
Those of us who for years, for no reason we could discern, have been frugal, backyard, part time farmers were put here - like Queen Esther - for such a time as this.
Fellow Frugals. Part Time Farmers, Growers, Steaders, Make do and Menders - the time is now.

Straighten your wellies and square your shoulders.

Come on, Britain. Follow us!

Zone One

It can be overwhelming, when you're trying to kick the butt of multiple problems, in a limited time.
It's a Permaculture truism that 'the problem is the solution' - but conversely, sometimes it seems the solution begets the problem.
We were (are) broke, up to our total necks in debt as a result of some sorry choices earlier in our lives. We made those decisions for all the right reasons, but they had all the wrong outcomes.
Thinking and praying how to resolve this, we got Neil out working at the old family trade, and he works long and hard hours, and it's going well. It took him off the farm, and we had to sell a lot of stock, but it started to help the situation.
Then my amazing new job came along, nothing short of miraculously, and before long, I'll be earning a lot more, too.
Fab, right?
Well, yes.
Except it's brought about its own problems.
Firstly, money comes in, but it goes out again, and unless you control it with a will of iron, it goes as fast as ever it did.
Then, you're short of time, and that can lead you to spend money. It can also cause you to lose your way. When I'm not gardening, or spending some time with the animals, or being outside a fair bit, I go a bit bonkers. On top of a full time job, I do the church notices, and run the girls hither and yon, I attempt to keep everyone fed, and take a rough stab at clearing the house up now and again.
I've decided I really need to take a hold of several areas of life, and I need a way to watch them all.

• Money
• Weight
• Garden
• House

to this end, I'm an avid Dave Ramsey listener,  I've rejoined Slimming World, I'm trying to schedule Garden Time, and I'm even toying with going back to FlyLady!

What I think I need is some kind of integrated approach - in Permaculture we talk about stacking functions, and that's what I need to do - I need to monitor my inputs and outputs on many levels, all at the same time!

I'll let you know when I figure it out!

Christmas Mitts!

It's taking a while!My boss has been away for a week, during which very much stuff happened, but we all survived.
I was ready for a break today, and baked bread, cleaned house a little, did the shopping - and started on my Christmas presents! No! Really! I found some very nice wool in Wilkos for a pound.
I made such a lovely pair of mitts from a pattern from the woolshop, and really luxurious wool a while back - I feel a bit bad about buying the wool in Wilkos but needs must, we are now in the land of uber frugal.
I don't think any of the prospective recipients read my blog so I'm safe to share:

The big thing about these mitts is they take just one ball of wool, so if I get it right, that will be a £1 present.
Unfortunately, most of our extended family are not very keen on hand crafted gifts and tend to turn up their noses. My lot are OK about such things, but Neil's, not so much.
We've gone mad and booked a holiday - we haven't all been on holiday together for a decade, and the girls have never been abroad, so we're off to France in August, house sitter (who apparently has now changed her mind! ) permitting. We also have to replace my car - I can't keep on driving H's little Peugeot once she passes her test! So we are living on air, and when we get back in August, we will be getting back to major frugalities, and serious personal finance stuff!
Menu plan done, not very exciting but four of us fed for £50 plus spinach, beans and salad from the garden/tunnel, milk from the goats and eggs from the girls.
Life is different now, but really very, very good.