Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

Afternoon Sunbeams,
Oh my life, I'm boiling! Had intended a variety of garden jobs this afternoon but it turned out that I needed to clear greenhouse jobs so as to facilitate others. Think my make-up now only held on with soil, compost in my bra & I think I may have an ant in my leggings if not my actual pants. Productive day on the frugal activity:
*Recycled resources 1. Cardboard parcel packaging cut into a free moisture mat for the worm composter 2. Finished an A4 notebook I received as a gift. V lovely but had plastic dividers. Cut them into free plant labels - 116 of them! 🙂
*Finished meal plans for next week, grocery shopping list & town list for Sat.
*No effort cheapo meal tonight. Spaghetti with some of the chard & cashew nut pesto I made a few weeks ago.
*Knitted more sleeve over my lunch hour.
*Potted up all remaining seedlings.
*Potted up geranium cuttings which dropped off a previous list.
*Staked pepper plants with canes & tied them in. Also tied in 🍆 🍆 & 🥒 🥒.
*Checked propagator for squash progress. There is defo activity 🙂
*Got some plants ready to swap with bestie tomorrow.
*Fed sourdough jar ready to bake tomorrow.
*Made a nice salad for lunch which was basically an assortment of use-it-ups topped with some reduced-fat mozzarella. V nice!
Well I'm going to open a few more windows & remove the stray compost that is about my person. Landing smoke alarm has just gone off for no reason whatsoever, which usually means it will do it another 4 or 5 times, then again overnight. Good to know it works, but bloody annoying as I have to race upstairs to poke it with the loft-hatch pole while cats are freaking out.
Cheers m'dears,
F x

PennysIntoPounds

What a productive day and cutting 116 plant labels is excellent commitment to both the mse and environment cause.
That's a pain about the smoke alarm, I know you'll probably have checked but is it the battery, and/or is it on its last legs and needs replacing? Bit of a pain and small cost to do but safety first, and if it's eating up batteries then they cost enough for a replacement alarm to be an investment!

Makingabobor2

Our landing smoke alarm goes off a lot when weather is hot. The heat obviously rises. Just shows how effective it is, but it is a pain.

foxgloves

@PennysIntoPounds - Thanks Pip, no, unfortunately our smoke alarm is not one of the type which starts beeping when the battery needs changing. It is one of the more expensive sealed units with a long-life battery & when it runs out (about 7 years), that's time to buy a new alarm. I think I'd rather have the old more accessible type to be honest. 

@Makingabobor2 - If the blimming thing only started going off for no reason in hot weather, I'd assume that was what happened yesterday, but it has been doing it on & off for about a year in all seasons, so not weather or temperature related. It doesn't seem to be related to steam or anything else. Yes, it does work effectively if Mr F gets a bit enthusiastic with the toast or bacon & that's good, but these annoying spells where it goes off randomly, I think points to a fault, because it goes off about every 9 minutes. Resetting stops it very temporarily but it still starts up again & continues until Mr F climbs up & removes it from the ceiling. I can't reach even using the steps, so if he was at work, I would have to re-set it every 9 minutes until I went crackers. We are going on a working assumption that it's a fault & buy a new one. Annoying as they were about £42 for the pair, but we do need a smoke alarm on the landing as we don't have a door between our kitchen & stairs. Of course it is not still in warranty, typical!
F x

foxgloves

Well that was a bit moany, wasn't it, which I am not really today as have had a nice morning with best friends & been quite leisurely on the whole. Frugal bits as follows:
*Baked a sourdough loaf.
*Had a quick look at the grocery budget for this week, following last night's Week 3 shopping, & we are under our weekly target atm. We won't be by tomorrow, as we do have some things to buy in town - local honey, some refills of cleaning stuff at the eco shop & a visit to the butcher, but I think we will easily pull it back over the rest of the month.
*Best friends brought me some lovely birthday presents, including a tall metal obelisk for the garden. It will mean that I can move an older smaller one to an annoying gap in another border. With my past spendy garden centre history, anything that fills up a gap will help me resist the temptation of buying new plants. Even have some spare sweet peas to grow up it.
*Also did a little bit of a plant swap with my friend so we get a bit more variety. We do this every year, also with saved seed.
*Moved all geraniums out of the conservatory onto the courtyard ready for going in their summer tubs & containers. All seem to have survived so no need to buy any more.
*Staked greenhouse tomatoes & tied them in before they get to the falling over stage.
*Outdoor tomato plants were left outside last night & all seem fine. The flowers have started opening on one of them so the experience can't have been too awful. 
*Sowed more pak-choi. I did cut some of this before our holiday but it had started bolting by the time we returned so time for another sowing & to be moved to the shade.
It's Mr F's cooking night & he is doing something with haddock. I'm glad I didn't order another fish box because we do have plenty left atm. 
OK, still nice & sunny. I am going to have a potter around the garden.
Take care all & enjoy your Friday nights,
F x
Oh.....forgot to tell you the latest in the car saga this morning.....never mind, it will wait until later.

badmemory

A few years ago when next door was undergoing some work, thankfully I had a key & the code,  at 3.30 every day the door alarm used to go off.  So I let them know & went in to fix it.  I finally realised that the cupboard it was in no longer had a closed door & the sun was coming round & setting it off..  Told them & door was then shut & no more alarms.

Cheery_Daff

Our smoke alarm was doing something similar a few months ago (it's mains linked, with a back up battery). Put new battery in, did it again 🙄 I read it could be caused by dust in the casing 🙈😂 In our case I never did manage to clean it effectively and replaced it - and, touch wood, it hasn't gone off since...

PennysIntoPounds

How annoying, those sealed units get right on my nerves too. Is it worth an email to the manufacturer asking if this is a known issue?

rtandon27

FG - we had one if those annoying alarms at our previous house, that went off if it (and the hallway) got even a bit dusty - this often happened in dry weather as we were rural and had the luxury of windows that could open fully. We'd give it and the hall a good vacuum and it would settle down.

foxgloves

Thanks for your smoke alarm comments. Yes, they are so annoying. Had our alarm not got form for doing this completely randomly in any season, I would have put it down to the sudden much warmer weather, but we are thinking it is probably faulty & will be replacing it asap.
F