Simplifying household stock and introducing routines

GreyQueen

Being TV -free for three decades now has protected me from a lot of advertising hype so I'm able to observe the beast without being too emotionally-involved with it.

My take is that advertising is constantly promising to save us time and effort, or to make us look or feel better and we're suckers for this stuff.

I was flicking through one of the upmarket decor mags in my dentist's waiting room yesterday. You've seen the kind, where Jocasta the interior designer and Simon, her architect husband, invite us into their bespoke, artisanal, carefully-curated world, with their two/three curly-haired blonde urchins competing for photogentic gold.

It' s a load of Farrow & B@lls a lot of the time, isn't it?

Bumblebear

Hehe, I like farrow and b@lls as an expletive!

I know the lifestyle magazines you mean greyqueen, they don't tend to appeal to me because ironically, I see too much stuff! My idea of perfect does not involve fashionable, decorative, faux-functional* niff naff!

* faux-functional, I believe I've just come up with this, to me means the "vintage" galvanised wire basket skillfully angled on a reclaimed driftwood shelf, that contains 15 apples. Apples, lovely, healthy - but will you really get through all 15 before they go manky, and where do you keep everything else?! Where are the aldi 25P sauce mixes, washing up liquid, chopped tomatoes, the tapioca flour that just won't end?!

GreyQueen

Something I made once featured in one of these magazines (years after I'd made it, no thanks to me, I'd given the blanket to Hoxfam) which amuses me vastly.

I like to play games with these mags, counting how many repetitions of 'bespoke' or 'artisanal' I can get in one issue. Both phrases tend to move me to acts of great personal [STRIKE]violence[/STRIKE] err sarcasm.

Meanwhile, back in CountryLivingHousePornWorld, Jocasta is quietly having a nervous breakdown and the eldest urchin-angel has been caught torturing the family chocolate labrador and refered for psychiatric assessment. Simon-the-architect has been busily curating the au pair and they are about to take off for South America with the funds he has defrauded from the architectural practice. Public humiliation (and rising damp) threaten at any moment.

Ain't no amount of galvanised flowerpots, bell jars or artisanal cushions gonna protect them from the fallout of all that.

Planning_ahead

I do like to completely use up all my cosmetics. However sometimes there is something that does not suit, I rescued a perfume that one of my daughters was throwing away. I used it for a while but it did not suit me it smelled like toilet cleaner. There are times you have to give in and throw it out and not feel guilty.

katkin

Planning_ahead wrote: »

I do like to completely use up all my cosmetics. However sometimes there is something that does not suit, I rescued a perfume that one of my daughters was throwing away. I used it for a while but it did not suit me it smelled like toilet cleaner. There are times you have to give in and throw it out and not feel guilty.

That's when I use odd body sprays, perfume gifts that I loathe for air fresheners and for around the litter box housing :rotfl:

Bumblebear

Planning_ahead wrote: »

I do like to completely use up all my cosmetics. However sometimes there is something that does not suit, I rescued a perfume that one of my daughters was throwing away. I used it for a while but it did not suit me it smelled like toilet cleaner. There are times you have to give in and throw it out and not feel guilty.

I did this ^^^ this week, I had a mini mascara that was making no bloomin' difference, I have short lashes and no time for mascaras that don't work. Felt guilty for a while but I'm glad it's not just me that sometimes simply doesn't get on with things.

My mascara of choice? LashLength from Natural Collection at Boots, £1.99

Cheapskate

Have just stumbled across this thread, and it speaks to me! Although I've always been an advocate of having a well-stocked pantry, over the last year I've amassed too much of one thing or another, due to being disorganised, being in a real mess due to recovering from major building work, and longstanding MH issues adding to the mix. We are spending this spring simplifying everything in our lives, from finances and food shopping, to food production and kondo-ing.
Still clearing my mum's house more than 12 months after she passed away - it's not untidy, but SOOO much stuff!!! :(

A xo

mardatha

Just now, my stash cupboards are empty apart from a few sad tins. I run it all down in summer and start filling up again at the back end.That way I don't end up with stuff that's two years out of date, like I did at first

Slinky

GreyQueen wrote: »

Something I made once featured in one of these magazines (years after I'd made it, no thanks to me, I'd given the blanket to Hoxfam) which amuses me vastly.

I like to play games with these mags, counting how many repetitions of 'bespoke' or 'artisanal' I can get in one issue. Both phrases tend to move me to acts of great personal [STRIKE]violence[/STRIKE] err sarcasm.

Meanwhile, back in CountryLivingHousePornWorld, Jocasta is quietly having a nervous breakdown and the eldest urchin-angel has been caught torturing the family chocolate labrador and refered for psychiatric assessment. Simon-the-architect has been busily curating the au pair and they are about to take off for South America with the funds he has defrauded from the architectural practice. Public humiliation (and rising damp) threaten at any moment.

Ain't no amount of galvanised flowerpots, bell jars or artisanal cushions gonna protect them from the fallout of all that.

Oh GQ I love your style, you really should write some books. I'd buy them; perhaps they should only be available in libraries and charity shops though?

Molillie

I looked at a blog which featured cleaning and organising a pantry a while ago. This involved discarding most of the dry goods as out-of-date, and cleaning the containers to restart. It seemed so crazy, and that was someone who was well-organized, with nothing that went out of date in the last century.
I now only buy one starchy thing like rice or pasta at a time, it's currently barley, as the cheapest, and won't buy anything else until after it's gone, even then I also have porridge oats and bread flour plus about a million types of herbs and spices. My plan is not to have crammed cupboards, just a few pantry items that will all be used quickly. In my head, I am in a country cottage, and bake every week, with huge jars of ingredients. In reality, I live in a small space with little storage, but a huge range of shops within ten minutes of me. Cutting down on pantries does seem so counter-intuitive to anyone who wants to live economically and cook from scratch.