Frugal Frump to Fab - 2015

maman

Rummer wrote: »

No need to ever apologise for offloading on here That is one good thing about forums is that you can say how you feel without being interrupted.

Love it!!:rotfl:

indiepanda

maman wrote: »

WOW!! How I can identify with that. Fortunately not to the point of it making me ill. I'm not blaming others it's just that I am independent by nature so that's how people perceive me. It's how I want people to perceive me most of the time but makes it difficult when you're feeling a bit vulnerable.

I wonder if that's what makes threads like these so helpful. It's great to be able to offload to virtual friends while keeping the public face intact IYSWIM. Maybe that's a bit philosophical but it works for me:).

I know what you mean. I don't want to be seen as vulnerable and in need of protection and then have people worrying too much about me. Having said that, I remember a quote, can't recall who from, which went something like "every virtue when overused becomes a vice" - i.e. in my case being independent is good to a point, but struggling along alone when you really need help is not clever.

In any case, whilst some of my friends might be interested in decluttering, getting fitter / healthier / taking more care of oneself others wouldn't be so interested in chat about that. My boyfriend would die of boredom if I went on about diet - though he is very supportive of any sporting / exercise endeavors.

MissRarr - will bear you in mind for the amber jewellery - might not be for a little while yet - wanting to deal with the messiest stuff first and my first pass through the jewellery means that part of my bedroom isn't the messiest now. I hope work improves for you soon.

I've taken a few months off work (not sick - it's unpaid career break) after my last stressful project. I figured the last time I'd had a summer off I was 15 as I worked all my summers after that when on vacation from school/college/uni and then been working for nearly 21 years with only two single weeks off between jobs - both times I relocated in those weeks too. It's been great unwinding - all my friends say I look so much more relaxed now. Just got to carry some of this feeling back to work with me in the autumn...

Rummer

OH and I went out for a lovely long cycle through the local park and along the river which was stunning and we were lucky enough to have a wild deer leap across the path in front of us. It was good to get out and about and I think we covered about 6 miles which was challenging and my muscles are a bit wobbly now :rotfl:

Just about to start my pampering session

maman

Rummer wrote: »

OH and I went out for a lovely long cycle through the local park and along the river which was stunning and we were lucky enough to have a wild deer leap across the path in front of us. It was good to get out and about and I think we covered about 6 miles which was challenging and my muscles are a bit wobbly now :rotfl:

Just about to start my pampering session

Sounds lovely rummer but a 'wild deer' jumped in front of my car a few weeks ago and it has to go in for repair all next week to get the dents out of the bonnet and bumper fixed. So they're not my favourite creatures at the moment (and definitely won't be when my insurance premium goes up next year).:(

sweetcheeks33

Same happened to OH last car- front end was ruined- poor bambi I until I seen renewal and he had to pay excess to claim- ouch!!

lessonlearned

Good evening everyone.

Hope youve all had a good - or at least as good as it can be - day. So sad that so many of us are struggling at the moment. Just keep going and it will all come right in the end.

Sounds trite I know but what's Important is not now many times we stumble and fall but how many times we get back up,again.

Well I did my best for Fab Friday, not so much as drop dead glamour as just neat and tidy, but neat and tidy is good too, especially with a spray of perfume and good posture!!!

Like the old Val Doonican song "Walk Tall and look the world straight in the eye." Look strong, powerful and confident even if you are quaking in your shoes.,Do it often enough and you will grow to feel strong, powerful and confident.

It's all psychology in the end.

today I took Dad to the cottage for what is hopefully one last sort out. I'm not doing another, if he wants to go through yet again then he needs to find someone else. I haven't the time, the energy or frankly the patience any more. I have spent so long on this, I cannot be agonising over every scrap of melamine shelving, bent nail or rusty screw any more. Enough!!!!

I'm gojng to have to employ a few white lies and tell him I'm storing stuff or have given it to the boys when in fact I will be taking stuff like that to the tip.......What possible use is a blunt rusty hand saw, rusty scythe or garden shears that have seized......:rotfl:

Yes I know they can be cleaned and repaired and that there are probably subsistence farmers in Africa who need hand tools but i doubt there is a charity shop that would accept them, it would contravene health and safety rules. Sigh...... So off to the tip they go.

My dad does have a point they are all perfectly good useful objects and it is such a waste to dispose of them but I have neither the space or use for them. Im not strong enough for hand tools, and every trades person I know uses power tools, the only exception being carpenters or decorators.

Speaking of waste I watched a film tonight called The True Cost - it's about the Rag Trade. Now I'm no innocent abroad and I know about sweat shops etc but I hadn't fully grasped the scale - the deaths, the injuries, the effect on families where mothers see their children just a couple of times a year., the vicious brutality whenever the workers try to protest for better conditions.

I knew about the appalling conditions in clothing factories but hadn't really thought about the growing and production of cotton, the use of chemicals on crops, the devasting cancers, neuroligical conditions, deformities etc.

Then of course there is the pollution and environmental destruction caused by the tanning of leather, the effect on not just the workers but the people who live in these areas, the catalogue of illness and death is truly horrifying.

It's on an epic scale.

I know the argument runs that the third world is going through its first industrial revolution and that the conditions they endure are roughly similar to those in Victorian England before the reformers set to and the growth of trade unions etc.

What I hadn't fully grasped though was the sheer scale, we are talking about hundreds of millions of people, all over the globe, including Texas where middle aged cotton farmers routinely die of brain cancers caused by the chemicals they work with.

This is the 21st century .........is human life so cheap, that people have to die so the likes of Primark, H&M, Walmart, Zara can feed our insatiable lust for cheap fashion.

By the way I heard Something very interesting the other day..

Zara are not particularly cheap here but as you may know they are a spanish company. Their goods in Spain cost a fraction of what you pay in the UK.......A top,which sells here for £10 to £20 sterling, will cost 4 Euros

Someone somewhere is making a huge profit on those margins and you can bet your boots it's not the worker in Bangladesh.

One startling stastic In that programme.......

If you doubled the garment workers wages it would add three cents to the price of a T Shirt.

Three cents .........:mad:

I don't know the answer - boycotting may well make matters worse - but I know it has strengthened my resolve to be a more thoughtful and less wasteful consumer from now on.

lessonlearned

Deer can do a lot of damage to a vehicle .......so can dogs.

My husband once ran over a large dog who had escaped and just ran out in front of him. He was so upset he hadn't got the heart to claim off the car insurance because he knew the insurance company would claim from the dogs owners.

It cost a small fortune to repair the car.:o

indiepanda

LL - It is quite shocking the treatment of people in the rag trade. One of the frustrating things is even if you buy more expensive things it doesn't guarantee the person who made it has been treated well - I am sure some of the pricey sports brands have been caught using sweatshops before too.

It's hard to know what to do for the best - boycotting is only likely to lead to change if it's on a mass scale and it's made very clear the reason for the boycott. And you need to have good information about which companies are guilty v behaving well. Even buying less clothes and really getting use out of them doesn't improve conditions for the workers.

My economics teacher used to say "The misery of being exploited is nothing like as bad as the misery of not being exploited." - i.e. when the alternative is unemployment and even greater poverty, most people take the exploitative job in countries where there is no safety net.

These days I tend to see trade unions as a menace more than anything else (most Londoners do - the tube drivers are very well paid for their skill level - especially compared to bus drivers - and it's all down to Bob Crow and his successors), but in the past when conditions were bad in the UK, they were instrumental in improving standards. Problem in a global economy is any country that starts to become unionized and demand better conditions could face companies just shifting production to another one where the unions are less powerful. Not an easy one to solve.

I've done parkrun this morning and am going into town to meet friends for lunch - we met on a juice detox retreat run by the Juice Master company out in Turkey in May. We're going to the Wild Food Cafe in Neal's Yard nr Covent Garden - should be fun. Have a good day all x

lessonlearned

I love Neals Yard .... I always have a mooch round Covent garden whenever I visit London - one of my favourite places. I also love Greenwich market and all the little shops there.

In fact I love London - just wish I could afford to live there. A nice Georgian house in Chelsea......:rotfl::rotfl:

Just need to find a Russian oligarch - maybe not.....I'll just have to settle for the wilds of Derbyshire or a half decent town house in the city.

It's funny but I'm getting to,like Ds2s house more as time passes. Ive just spent a happy hour weeding the garden and trimming the shrubs. Although it's in the city it's lovely and quiet.

It's very hot and sultry here today.

Just going to have brunch and then do a tip run, other than that no real plans.

A nice relaxing weekend - hopefully.

Rummer

Just back from the beauticians with a classic french manicure I had a lovely pamper session last night and I am looking, if not a million dollars, a lot better. My aim over the next few months is to look polished