Slow Living - Doing It Old Style!

joedenise

Wednesday2000 said:

I don't fancy the outside swim in a lido in this weather, although there are meant to be health benefits from being in cold water. I was going to join a local wild swimming group when I moved the seaside (well, estuary) and I did meet someone who was part of the group (called Bluetits, lol) but I just can't stand the thought of it!

I am spending today mostly at home. I realised I have 13 books on my kindle which is ridiculous. I am going to read at least a quarter of a book each day to get through them. I did join the local library when I moved to this area back in 2022, but still haven't borrowed a book from there!

I have to do some laundry and while I'm waiting listen to the second half of a podcast and use my treadmill. It is nice enough weather so I will go for a a short walk after and then read my book for today. It is called Stolen Focus: Why You Can't pay Attention by Johnan Hari. I have read one of his books (about depression) before after I heard him being interviewed on Dr Rangan Chatterjee's podcast. I could do with being more focused. I am constantly checking this forum and the other one I'm on, if not that then checking Instagram!

I am going to make a tomato and basil soup today for lunches for the next few days. I have a part-baked baguette to go with it today. 

I think you might live near me!  The local wild swimmers where I live are called the “S*****y Bluetits”. Are the same ones I wonder?

Wednesday2000

I actually googled and I think there is one umbrella swimming group called Bluetits and they just have local FB groups. I live in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. 

I was looking for a local meditation group after starting that book today. I am really easily distracted. Even watching a show I like such as Reacher I am constantly looking at my phone usually googling where I recognise actors from and then seeing if they are married! I need to stop doing that!  I'm going to leave my phone outside the living room while I watch TV. I was thinking of going for walks without listening to music too.

mrs_motivated

Evening everyone I’m loving reading about all your slow living.

This morning wasn’t so slow as I was working, delivering governance training to a lovely group, but I’m full of cold and was struggling by the end of the session.  

Came home, had a warm bath and feeling much better.  I’m planning on a slow evening curled up on the sofa in my hoodie with the pooches and getting stuck into my new book and tomorrow will definitely be a nice slow day, but I haven’t made any plans to do anything and will just go nice and slowly with the flow and see what happens.  I got a lovely poem a day book for Christmas, which I started reading a poem a day on 1st of Jan….but I’m already about 6 days behind so I will catch up on that with my morning cuppa and then see what the day brings.

zcrat41

Morning all. 

We very much enjoyed my slow lasagna with friends last night. Kids are now overtired and more red wine than is probably healthy was consumed! 

Church this morning then to tidy the house. Lunch is leftover Xmas turkey and stuffing (frozen obviously!) before an afternoon by the fire hopefully. 

Have a lovely day everyone 

Florafauna

Great slow day here, lido swim and bumped into two friends. Coffee and hot water bottle in the car. Small shop at the sm. An hours decluttering, then made soup for lunch.
Now chilling with knitting and fire

Cherryfudge

Katiehound said:

Cherryfudge said:

  painted the middle tube from a lot of toilet rolls! The idea is to entertain some preschoolers constructively by making rice-filled shakers. I've still to sort out how to cover the ends in a way that won't easily let the rice trail everywhere (baking parchment and masking tape?), but they can use the white tubes as a blank canvas to colour or stick things on.

You could just glue double layer of  ordinary paper circles over one end of the tube & let it dry.

 Wall paper paste is excellent for this- amazing how the paper is so much tougher- or watered down PVA. 

 I think baking parchment may be a bit too tough/ hard to handle but greaseproof might work- or even another two circles of ordinary paper glued & dried.  masking tape, selotape even strong rubber bands (especially the variety dropped by the postie!) to hold the second end in place.

Thanks @Katiehound, I should have read this before I launched into the venture! In the end I used a wide masking tape, which wasn't perfect. The funny thing was how fascinated the little kids were with pouring rice into tubes! I needn't have bothered with anything as complex as a shaker - pouring was the place to be! Of course we also ended up with lots of sweeping up.   So if I do it again, it will be summer and we'll go out of doors so the wild birds can tidy up after us.  

Seriously - wallpaper paste would have been great, as would lining paper cut into discs. Cheap, too.

Cherryfudge

Florafauna said:

@Cherryfudge I am intrigued by the heartsease edging. It sounds lovely and will make your fleece into a beautiful item again.

@Florafauna, here’s the ‘recipe’. It’s in American terminology so I had to do a bit of translation, and as you can see, I didn’t use the intended yarn or colour, but it still works, just on a different scale.

I only took the pattern as far as the fourth row, as the rest is about linking one flower to another.

I would quite like to make some in jewel colours now. 😊

Cherryfudge

Sorry that came out absolutely massive - I must have missed the option to change the size!

Today I haven't done much besides the above-mentioned herding cats pre-schoolers, but we have treated ourselves to (yet another) large bookcase which was put up yesterday and I'm really liking having my craft books and projects set out where I can easily get to them. I hope that's something I can build on: order out of chaos sort of thing.

Stay safe this stormy night, everyone.

Katiehound

Cherryfudge said:

Florafauna said:

@Cherryfudge I am intrigued by the heartsease edging. It sounds lovely and will make your fleece into a beautiful item again.

@Florafauna, here’s the ‘recipe’. It’s in American terminology so I had to do a bit of translation, and as you can see, I didn’t use the intended yarn or colour, but it still works, just on a different scale.

I only took the pattern as far as the fourth row, as the rest is about linking one flower to another.

I would quite like to make some in jewel colours now. 😊

So essentially it is the centre of an Irish rose  with 2 'arches' to turn it into a pansy. Clever

Photos always come out huge- I don't think there isa way to make them smaller- well, if there is I haven't found it!!!

leftatthetrafficlights

@Smudgeismydog - I hope this week is a slower one for you! The deer and a sunrise on your dog walk sound lovely though 😍 

@Florafauna - I hope you had a lovely time having coffee with your friend and that your pesto lentils were nice! I made some pesto from one of Dr Greger's books recently- it was lovely and had nutritional yeast in it as well as miso so lots of extra nutrients 😉


@Cherryfudge - the crochet looks lovely! 😁 I'm glad you managed to sort the shakers and that the kids loved them - my grandbaby used to love making stuff but had the attention span of a goldfish so it was always a two or three part adventure! 😂 

@zcrat41 - I glad that your dinner with friends went well 😁 Reading with the kids is always lovely, I'm pleased you're enjoying the book 😊 

@Katiehound - good ideas for the tube shakers! 

@Wednesday2000 - that's a lot of books! 😳😂 I love reading but have to do it once I've done anything else that I want to do that day as I get so absorbed hours can pass without me knowing! 🤦‍♀️ the soup sounds lovely!! 😁 I know what you mean about checking stuff on your phone when watching stuff (not the married bit though!! 😉) I recognise people then spend ages finding out what else I've seen them in 🙄 I've started leaving my phone on the windowsill now so that I'd have to get up to look at it - it has definitely helped 😉

@Brie - I can't believe that someone would swim in just an average swimming suit in this weather!! 😳 obviously part polar bear! 😂 

@Floss - that's a crazy amount of books!! 😂 I can't read on a kindle - I need the paper version of books 🤦‍♀️ I need to rejoin the local library really, I'll look into that in a couple of weeks..

@joedenise - love that name for the wild swimmers!! 😂

@mrs_motivated - I hope you're feeling better, well done for making it through the training and I hope you had your slow day and read some of your poems 😊  

I had a quiet weekend - mainly lounging around chatting to dh and watching my fire. Yesterday I felt a bit ropey (too much alcohol on Saturday if im honest 🤦‍♀️) so dh painted the bathroom and kitchen ceilings while I mooched on YouTube and watched random tv stuff. He also shopped and cooked so I had a totally lazy day and recovered!! 🙌 

Today I'm making a menu plan - dh bought some veg at the shops so I'm going to incorporate those into the plan and also check what I can use from the freezer/storecupboard. I don't want to shop again this week - I'd actually like to get to February without buying any foodstuffs apart from dh's salad stuff and fruit. I bought some frozen strawberries and raspberries a while back to defrost and use on salads so that i wouldn't need to buy fresh, imported, out of season stuff but tried them at the weekend and they were so sour it was scary!! 😳 suffice to say that I'll not be buying those again 🤦‍♀️ I'll do without until the summer then go to the pyo place locally and freeze those 😁 

My veg seeds arrived at the weekend - I'm really looking forward to getting the first ones sown in a couple of weeks 😁 I've still got cabbage, cavolo nero, salad leaves and a couple of leeks in the garden to use (I also have sprouting broccoli but that's not ready yet) so despite not doing as well as I would have liked in the garden in 2023 its still producing for me 🙌 

Anyway, hope you all have a lovely slow week 😁