2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Given all the research on artificial sweeteners *increasing* sugar cravings, I stick to sugar and just try to use less of it... 

Had my first session last night on Zoom with a counsellor to work on my feeble self-belief, including my tendency to respond to decision-making by giving up, not doing either of the options and eating a ton of sugar instead...! She was incredibly helpful, and I've already managed a bi more than typical today, which is making me feel better... 

joedenise

Pip Sukrin is available in the UK via Ama*on.  It's made with Stevia, which when I used it a while back I found even sweeter than sugar!  I ended up giving it to a friend so quite liked it.

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

Given all the research on artificial sweeteners *increasing* sugar cravings, I stick to sugar and just try to use less of it... 

Had my first session last night on Zoom with a counsellor to work on my feeble self-belief, including my tendency to respond to decision-making by giving up, not doing either of the options and eating a ton of sugar instead...! She was incredibly helpful, and I've already managed a bi more than typical today, which is making me feel better... 

Big hugs, Laura.  The first step is always the hardest.  You are stronger for it.

Today is a sad day for me.  We buried a friend this morning.  (He died of a heart attack, not COVID-19.). Besides the family, there were 6 of us present “from the old days”, back in the 1990’s, including my ex-husband.  If I needed a salutary lesson in how far I’ve come, half an hour in my ex’s company did it.  He left emotional scars.  Fortunately, the wounds healed and then I met DH.

- Pip

TwibbleDee

PipneyJane said:

That is quite a recipe.  Would either Swerve or Sukrin be sucralose based?  They aren’t sold over here, but we can get Splenda.

I may just stick to doctoring a classic recipe, adding oats to increase the fibre content.

- Pip

They are both erithrytol based (I think - haven't done research on Sukrin).  Granulated Splenda is generally not used in keto recipes because they use maltodextrin to fill it out, and that's got a higher glycemic index than sugar.

PipneyJane

joedenise said:

Pip Sukrin is available in the UK via Ama*on.  It's made with Stevia, which when I used it a while back I found even sweeter than sugar!  I ended up giving it to a friend so quite liked it.

In which case, I will pass.  I tried Stevia and disliked the taste.

- Pip 

thriftwizard

Worsted is a weight of yarn in the States, but it's also a spinning method; yarn spun worsted is smoother and denser because you spin it with the fibres combed, so aligned and running lengthways into the orifice, which is where the actual twisting happens. Yarn spun woollen is where the fibres are fluffed up by carding and basically entering the orifice at right angles or thereabouts, which leads to a fluffier yarn trapping more air. Most of us spinners naturally do something in-between-ish, but can do either, and the resulting yarns are quite different, with different results on washing, for example, & would be used differently. And then there's Z-spun & S-spun (or plied)... 

Laura_Elsewhere

I am fascinated by spinning, but in such a tiny flat with so much stuff already in it, I just don't dare try it! I am amazed when friends post photos of miles of fine, even yarn they have spun... it's incredible to me that it isn't just all lumpy uneven suff and only a few feet of it, but no, give them a good tv drama and they'll spin a mile of laceweight! 

(I must make a decision about that needlecord, btw, assuming you haven't sold all of it yet!)

Cherryfudge

@Laura_Elsewhere, well done on making a dint in the issues you face. I think starting is often the hardest part, but it sounds as if you are gaining ground already.

@PipneyJane, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. Be gentle on yourself over the coming days.

As for me, I have made inroads into my coupons, though as it was online shopping these are subject to my keeping the items when they arrive. A sports bra (3 coupons?), leggings (can someone remind me how these are counted please? I mostly wear them for work with an oversized polo shirt), a cami top to wear as a vest (3 coupons) and a couple of tops (5 each). I was very good and put back a nice hoodie that I don't need and probably wouldn't get worn much.

I've also bought some door curtains: that's a lot of fabric so DH may have to contribute some coupons there! 66" x 90" x 2... non-woollen cloth measuring 36 square inches was 2 coupons so if my maths was right that's 24 coupons, of which 12 come from me.

I've been reading an old book on household management, from 1950. It's amazing how much mending went on! Bath towels were patched and so were cigarette burns on table cloths. I knew about darning clothes but I suppose after the war things were wearing thin and mending was mainstream till rationing ended.

maddiemay

@Cherryfudge mending and keeping clothes/household/garden/work equipment repaired continued many years after rationing ended. GB was technically bankrupt after the war and very few people had lots of money to spend. In the early 1960's I remember family friends who took me under their wing, were to my family's standards well off (he taught at grammar school, they had a car, holidays, nice clothes and a nice detached house [they had just taken out their first mortgage], still saved up for anything new, mended and made own clothes, had coal fires no central heating etc
Although I have lived in every decade from very late 1949's I cannot really pinpoint when in our society everything became so disposable, it crept up on me.

PipneyJane

maddiemay said:

@Cherryfudge mending and keeping clothes/household/garden/work equipment repaired continued many years after rationing ended. GB was technically bankrupt after the war and very few people had lots of money to spend. In the early 1960's I remember family friends who took me under their wing, were to my family's standards well off (he taught at grammar school, they had a car, holidays, nice clothes and a nice detached house [they had just taken out their first mortgage], still saved up for anything new, mended and made own clothes, had coal fires no central heating etc
Although I have lived in every decade from very late 1949's I cannot really pinpoint when in our society everything became so disposable, it crept up on me.

Most people would blame the 1980's but I think it is a more recent phenomena than that.  Certainly, in the 1980's we still had plenty of people with "hippy tendencies" who'd mend/reuse/recycle something until it died.  Few clothes were cheap to purchase, unlike today (even ignoring inflation, most things cost more then than they do now, while the average salary was about 30% of today's).  I remember wanting a pair of Levi 501's and they cost £50, about a 12th of my take-home pay in 1990.  At the time, if I needed new clothes, I usually made them.  

What is notable about the 1980's in the UK is that children were no longer taught the basics in school, since "Home Economics" was viewed as sexist.  Australia went down a different route; the boys in my class were all taught to knit, sew and cook, while the girls also had to do compulsory woodwork and metalwork, but not here.  Here the subjects were dropped or replaced with "technology" where nobody learned anything useful, like how to cook.  We're still living with that legacy today.  

In the UK, thing started to change in the 1990's.  I watched the fabric, yarn and haberdashery departments close in every department store chain except John Lewis. Despite B&Q and Homebase, finding a decent hardware shop became more and more difficult.  (Want your secateurs sharpened?  Can't find anywhere to do it now.)  People like me, who knitted and sewed, were outliers and generally viewed as oddities.  Yarn shops did start coming back in the 2000's, but they were rare enough that the opening of Loop made it on to BBC London's news bulletin.

- Pip (Excuse me.  I'll get off my high horse now.  For the record, I attended an "open session" of a climate change conference in 1989.  This was a conference hosted by the Australian Government.)