Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2021

MrsCD

I made three banana and sultana loaves and a jam sandwich cake this morning to use up some baking supplies and soft bananas.
This afternoon I minimized more of my dad's papers....I still have four box files to work through, but I'm getting there! 

YorksLass

Sewing notions sorted, all in one box and all in one place!  Hurray!  I think I must have done a sort out some time ago as there wasn't as much as I thought - whatever I got rid of certainly hasn't been missed.   

I used to do a lot of dressmaking but sewing nowadays is confined mainly to mending or perhaps alterations so my next clear out will be patterns and fabrics.  The patterns will be easy as I only use one or two but the fabrics could prove more difficult to let go of.  I have to be realistic though, common sense tells me I'll not use most of them - far better that someone else benefits.

London_1

Quite pleased with myself I made a point of sewing the frayed bit of my nice grey cardi sleeves up and then took the waistband in o my red cotton skirt It was actually quite relaxing listening to the wireless while I did the hand stitching. My mind went back to the days when my late Mum and I would turn sheets sides to middle many years ago she would be at one end and I at the other and we’d sit and natter and the wireless would be playing in the background well over 70years ago 🥰  I had my ECG tests and some other tests done this morning at the hospital and got home had a light lunch the sat down and got stuck into my bit of hand stitching. Really relaxed and enjoyed myself and felt quite virtuous once it was finished. Did a few more rows for my great grandaughters blanket. Tomorrow my eldest granddaughter Katie and her youngest litte girl Ida are picking me up and we are going to feed the ducks in Capstone country park. I’ve not been there for months so I’m looking forward to that lunch in the cafe there then home and I think I will find some more hand sewing jobs to do. I have an old towel that I want to cut up and convert into hemmed dusters as then are a bit threadbare no so some bias binding edges sewn round them and a loop to hang the up and some new free dusters and cleaning clothes sorted. Keeping busy and occupied make the waiting days go a bit quicker I think only 11 days to my op 👍🤞🤞

YorksLass

Minimise - The last two paperbacks have left the house today - yay!     I'll now start on the hardbacks that are too big/heavy to go in the small Little Free Library box.  There are only 11 so it shouldn't take too long for them to "disappear".  Two are definitely staying, five are definitely going so that only leaves four that I'm undecided about but I'm veering towards 'go'.

I've dug out all my sewing patterns - there are a lot    - and will go through them this weekend.  I'll have to make sure the instructions are in the packets first though before they go in the CS bag.  I have a bad habit of not keeping the pattern pieces and instructions together, they're probably in a ring binder - somewhere!    Whilst I can manage without the instructions, others may not.

I don't mind hand sewing and sometimes it's quicker and easier than dragging the sewing machine out.  It has to go on the dining table that we do use every day so it's a bit of a faff.  My DD shows no aptitude at all for sewing or knitting, despite my best efforts to teach her over the years.  My DM showed me how to knit and hand sew and her older sister taught me machine sewing.  They, and another sister, all worked in the tailoring trade and were all creative.  The 'machine' auntie was a dreadful cook though!

@London_1 - Pleased to hear all is on track for your op.  Fingers crossed.

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

My darning mushroom arrived today so I finished my last bit of mending - DH’s compression sock 😊 How did I ever manage without a dancing mushroom all these years 🤨 

YorksLass

@Mrs_Salad_Dodger - If it dances that's a bonus!     

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Very droll 😂 Although the mushroom didn’t dance I was still happy 😃 

London_1

I went through my cupboards and found some stuff to go to the food bank in tins, well in date, plus I sorted out some of the 'smellies' that I have upstairs in a drawer
 I have to use a special shower cream that I get on prescription for my skin, so a lot of very nice 'smellies' bath stuff and soap gets put in a drawer and often forgotten about. So I thought Hmm that can go to the food bank then maybe someone who would like some nice bubble bath, soaps etc.
I am grateful that people are kind and give me nice bits at Christmas etc but often I can't use it ,so its going to go to a good home and maybe cheer someone else up and free up some space.

I decided that I needed to replenish my UHT stock of milk, so went to Aldi's where a litre was on offer at 69p so got 6 cartons which will go into my top kitchen cupboards. Its dated until Feb 2024, so handy if when I come out of hospital I will have milk in store, I also nipped into Asda's as I really like their Just Essential chicken soup, I usually make my own soups, but at the moment standing for any length of time is tiring, so that too has gone for quick lunches when I've had my op . 

I've sorted out and listed all the stuff I have both in the cupboards and the freezer, and I'm ok for food shopping now until after my op,. and hopefully home and recovering. I've made sure I won't need to do much in the way of prepping stuff, and I have more than enough veg in the freezer.

My two super DDs will get me anything I really need until I'm back upland running again .

I made another small pile of books to take to the CS one day next week from my bookshelves, slowly weeding out the ones I've read and am happy to pass on to the shop across in the precinct from where I live.

I even mended my Radley shopping bag which needed a few stitches on the seam.I've had it a couple of years, and my DD brought it back from the U.S. its white cotton and has the wee dog on the front and it holds just the right amount of shopping, or knitting or book when I am sitting waiting for appointments.

Made do do with some spaghetti hoops for lunch as its all I fancied, I don't eat them often, but now and again they make a nice change.

Right off to eat the other bit of the huge slice of carrots cake my youngest DD bought for me yesterday its delicious and our local bakery is nice but their cakes are always huge to me so I have one half one day then the other the next.
Very dull wet and windy day here in Kent at the moment .

I had a phone call yesterday from my old friend in Dartford, and bless her she's having memory problems and won't drive anymore, so she's going to get her OH to drive down and drop her off for a few hours while he goes hiking round our local country park one day next week
Her Doctor has told her she should expect it at her age !!! bit worrying as she only 6 weeks older than me , but I've not seen her for a good while  and I thought last time I saw her she wasn't her usual bubbly self.

 I have known her for well over 50 years and she used to be my DDs childminder back in the tough days of the 1970s when we lived a few doors from each other, and our mortgage rates were 16.5% she would look after my two during the day when I went back to work, and in the evenings she worked at the local hospital.
So sad really as we had a fantastic 'Thelma and Louise' holiday touring the States in 2007 and had such a great laugh along the way. I've told her to keep her good memories, and discard the bad ones .She had a very acrimonious split from her first husband  who gave her a really bad time. But memory or not she is stilly friend and I look forward to seeing her

Hopefully the rain will ease overnight ,but i doubt it at the moment 

Take care all

JackieO xx

Laura_Elsewhere

@London_1 - something I've found useful is, when you're cooking any hot meal in the next week, cook for two, and then plate up the second meal, cover the plate with clingfilm and freeze it - it won't be as nice as when done fresh or done deliberately to be frozen, but anything like pasta and sauce, or meat, potatoes and two veg, lasagne, anything like those can be done as a frozen "ready-meal" on a (microwaveable!) plate, and then it only needs pinged from frozen, typically at the most just 6-8 minutes in a few goes, and you'll have a nice hot meal with no cooking/ standing/ washing-up... 
So you could have 2 or 3 'meals' ready to go, so you really don't have to think or make decisions, let alone stand about and stir things! Best wishes for a nice quick recovery  

Laura_Elsewhere

Minimise: eight thousand sheets of A4 paper gone to recycling. Yes, you read that correctly - calculated by size of the multiple boxes compared to boxes containing a quire of new paper, it was a minimum of 8,000 sheets. A lifetime of academia. Nine boxes of fiction books gone to good secondhand bookshop, and colleague will take the textbooks that are still useful to their students. 

Make Do: a long weekend of heavy labour, sorting and carrying books and papers, all done on quick cheese sandwiches because they were easy. It's astonishing how far a good cheese sarnie can fuel you... 

Mend: the broken heart from the end of my career in academia almost a decade ago... not mended just yet but it was time to let go of it all. I have a far better life now, far happier and better off too - but it's still hard to deal with the memories of how vicious and nasty things got towards the end before I walked away... 

It's a terrifying quantity of paper and books.