A Simpler Life 2018

CRANKY40

Cream cleaner is also great for uPVC window sills and doors (outsides where they tend to get muckier).

RicardaRacoon

Evening folks

I just treated myself to one of my favourite dinners; spinach and a scrambled egg on toast. I am easily pleased... I would still forgo any fancy meal for scrambled egg on toast or a big plate of "potato crumble" which is basically mashed potatos and flour crumbled together and fried in some butter, soaked up in coffee. It tastes much nicer than it sounds!
And now I might or might not make myself a hot chocolate to enjoy while I'm knitting.

Fuddle, I like your plan with the cardi, it is always good to wear something you really love - and preferably made yourself - when you need an extra bit of confidence.
I don't like to go shopping with anyone besides my sister as we have a similar approach. Two years ago however I found myself on a 6 hour shopping spree in Lisbon with two friends. I would rather have seen the city but we somehow ended up in a huge shopping centre. I acted as their personal fashion adviser and helped carrying shopping bags and they seemed to be fine with it :-)

Ploppy; go for it with the knitting, it is such a lovely hobby and I am sure you will be back to it in no time! Plus nowadays you can look things up in youtube videos, so you can learn a lot of new techniques without anyone teaching you.

Dolly, I am curious how the ecoegg thing goes on. I am tempted to try but then I fear that my laundry will smell strange.

Have a lovely evening everyone!

System

RicardaRacoon wrote: »

Evening folks

I just treated myself to one of my favourite dinners; spinach and a scrambled egg on toast. I am easily pleased... I would still forgo any fancy meal for scrambled egg on toast or a big plate of "potato crumble" which is basically mashed potatos and flour crumbled together and fried in some butter, soaked up in coffee. It tastes much nicer than it sounds!
And now I might or might not make myself a hot chocolate to enjoy while I'm knitting.

Fuddle, I like your plan with the cardi, it is always good to wear something you really love - and preferably made yourself - when you need an extra bit of confidence.
I don't like to go shopping with anyone besides my sister as we have a similar approach. Two years ago however I found myself on a 6 hour shopping spree in Lisbon with two friends. I would rather have seen the city but we somehow ended up in a huge shopping centre. I acted as their personal fashion adviser and helped carrying shopping bags and they seemed to be fine with it :-)

Ploppy; go for it with the knitting, it is such a lovely hobby and I am sure you will be back to it in no time! Plus nowadays you can look things up in youtube videos, so you can learn a lot of new techniques without anyone teaching you.

Dolly, I am curious how the ecoegg thing goes on. I am tempted to try but then I fear that my laundry will smell strange.

Have a lovely evening everyone!

Yes that never occurred to me to look up stuff on You Tube...great idea.

suki1964

maryb wrote: »

I like to spray the worktops and wipe dry with a cloth otherwise they can look a bit smeary. Ecover is the only thing that doesn’t set me coughing

I have granite work tops and high gloss cupboards and the best thing I've found for smear free, is the microfibre cloths sold for Windows. Just rinse in hot water wring out tight and away you go. Works like a chamois on a car

GreyQueen

Guys, I have just been blown away by a TedX talk by Caroline McHugh called The Art of Being Yourself. I highly commend this to all of us in search of simplicity and perhaps in search of ourselves.

Plus, she has a Glaswegian accent to die for..........

Bluegreen143

Really interesting reading everyone’s posts

I’m 29 and I do feel there’s pressure on us to consume, shop, and most of all - have amazing experiences and make the most of every moment. Actually many of our friends aren’t into “shopping” or “stuff”; but we as a group are all into “experiences” whether that’s a trip to Thailand or Mexico, nights out and dinners at nice restaurants, sky diving/marathons, expensive gym memberships (not a waste, my friends are all really into fitness, but still expensive).

Becoming a mum I feel it 100x more though. None of existing friends had children yet (even though my husband is nearly 34) so we have another group of “Mum & dad” friends now. Lovely people but they are mostly much more well off than us and it’s hard feeling like the poor one of the group. It’s hard feeling like everyone else buys so much more for their kids - it makes you second-guess yourself even though I don’t think “stuff” is good for kids. My son went abroad for the first time just before his second birthday; we went away with a family member who had a free place for us due to someone else dropping out. Some of my friends had taken their 18month olds abroad 5-8x by then. I’m actively fighting against the prevalence of over-scheduling for tots by avoiding scheduled classes (I also don’t like pushing structured activities at this age and prefer to let him play). Even though I feel this is right, I find myself second-guessing my decisions constantly. I’m off with LB every day as gave up work to be a SAHM (the only one of this group of friends who has, despite being the least well off - but not poor enough to get tax credits). Friends who work 3/4 days a week nevertheless often take their toddlers to 2/3 or more structured activities a week (I mean expensive “classes” not church playgroups etc - £5-8 a class usually for toddler sports or music or art activities). I worry I look lazy or cheap or like I don’t care. A friend was frankly incredulous I make my own playdough.

I’m also aware that we do (DH & I) sabotage our own attempts to live simply and frugally simply because our expectations of what an essential is are MUCH higher than previous generations. I remember one winter as a teenager (in the 2000s!) we couldn’t afford to get the boiler fixed so washed in sinkfuls of kettle-boiled water for months. I have to be honest - DH and I wouldn’t even consider that as a possibility and it would go on a credit card as an essential if we didn’t have the money. I can think of numerous frivolous things we’ve justified as being an essential (things much less important than a boiler) or “we can’t live without it”. I’m trying to become self aware about these things and really think about why we think certain things are essential. It doesn’t help that DH isn’t quite on board with frugalising though. He’s not extravagant but neither is he willing to compromise what he sees as a basic standard.

Bluegreen143

GreyQueen, nice to hear you like the Glaswegian accent - I’m a Glasgow girl myself

GreyQueen

Bluegreen143 wrote: »

GreyQueen, nice to hear you like the Glaswegian accent - I’m a Glasgow girl myself

I spent five years living in Scotland as a student and have a very soft spot for all matters Scottish. Some of the most awesome women I have ever met have been Glaswegians, you must have something in the water up there!

Re expectations, I hear what you're saying. It's a lot worse than it was thirty years ago, there has been an endless ramping up of expectations in even a single generation.

I went abroad for the first time in my twenties, on my own shilling. Cheap trip to Paris (from Scotland, on a coach, with a crazy lass from Glenrothes). We were utter paupers and had such a laff.

Recently, I heard one young boy, all of ten, whining to his parents, Not DisneyWorld again, Mum! with such hostile boredom. I thought then, and thought now, what a miserable little ingrate he was, but he was the result of his upbringing.

I was tempted to tell his 'rents to take him camping somewhere like Rannoch Moor to teach him some appreciation. Heck, I was tempted to tell them to kennel him for a fortnight and take me to DisneyWorld! But I held my tongue, because that's what you do, right?:rotfl:

Gorging on experiences is a form of conspicious consumption which is very now. As a society, we tend to sneer at vulgar displays of physical wealth like gold taps and chandeliers and instead admire those who've travelled the world and who have the posts to prove it. And it's not enough to rack up the airmiles; oh no, the experiences have to be authentic, hand-crafted and probably bespoke.:p

Of course, these international travellers are just jumped-up long haul tourists and are probably mocked by the locals for their pretensions in a way that is more disguised than if the same people went vacationing in an industrial town in the UK. Which would certainly open their eyes to some authentic lifestyles and experiences.

I'm very uneasy with the idea that infants and very young children are being flown around the world. I can see a validity if this is the only way their grandparents could ever see them, being too ill to travel themselves, but for leisure travel? Is it really prudent to expose the very young to the soup of viruses, the recycled air, the physical stresses and the carcinogenic radiation?

Brambleberry

fuddle wrote: »

Chemistry was never my strong point (and shush monna with your 'neither was grammar!' ) so even the thought of mixing vinegar and bicarb has me worrying because I've read about your friend before GQ.

Vinegar and bicarb only make a salt solution and carbon dioxide, not much different to a Berocca or an alkaseltzer, so nowt to worry about fuds!

fuddle

Bluegreen take a step back and look at why, possibly, many parents take their children to so many classes. It could well be that the parent doesn't want to engage constantly with the child, is bored being in the house, is desperate to make friends or wants to be seen as a great parent. My guess is there will be some insecurities behind whatever motivates a parent to need to be busy in terms of not being busy one-on-one with their child. Parenting is hard and I understand completely not being able to be seen as doing parent like 'everyone else' but children just want to mess on at home, interact with their own parents, learning and experiencing in their own time with what crops up in the day.

I couldn't afford to send my DD's to swimming lessons and I beat myself up about it a great deal especially once in Primary when they went with school and they couldn't swim. But between school and us reinforcing it every now and again with a family trip to the pool they both can swim now. What did it matter. My girls didn't go to groups or classes when they were younger. Yeah I wished I had taken them sometimes but back then I was either working full time or surviving on very little money and trying to get through a destressing time.

I have two very different but we'll rounded girls who don't seem to mind, nor remember not going x,yz every day. Give yourself a little break but I get it.