Slow Living - Doing It Old Style!

RHemmings

Wimbledonwomble said:

Hello all

Slow start to the day here. Few jobs completed  but mindfully. Coffee brewed ,just going to have a long soak in the bath with my Christmas present bath oil.

Many thanks for the sprouting tips which I will try. Does anyone have any tips on yoghurt making ? I've never tried so not sure how to start. I love natural yoghurt with fruit but it's so expensive.  
Happy, peaceful , slow new year to all 

I've made Yogurt in the past quite a bit. Currently when I make it I use the yogurt making setting on my Samsung combination microwave which takes about 7 hours. As I am vegan, I use plant milks and use a bit of starchy substance such as cornflower to get a thicker result. Any live yogurt that I've tried in the past has worked for me as a starter. 

To make it fruit yogurt, I stew fruit such as apricots and add to the yogurt. I eyeball the amount of cooled down stewed fruit to add, and I often add a bit of sugar too, and I find the result tastes really nice. 

Floss

Wimbledonwomble said:

That is one aspect of being suddenly much poorer that I had not anticipated.  Friends who are still working and often with 2 adults in the household seem unable to understand that I cannot spend as I used to. 

I find this with my colleagues - they are all married with working husbands while I live alone. My salary has to pay all the bills as well as cover any home improvements or holidays, and often there just isn't the money there to spend up to £50 on an afternoon of food & drinks. 

amber03

Couldn’t believe we had blue sky this morning. Freezing but who cares, seeing the sky more than made up for it. Spent about an hour in the garden, just tidying up a few bits, watched the birds and felt better for being outside. Going to get wrapped up and go for a walk. Thankfully we live a bit rural so plenty of woods to walk through. Friend just sent a photo of where they live and it’s so busy with walkers. Home to a roast later, a perfect day for me before normality resumes with minding GK’s whilst parents work.xx

zedonk

I would love to join you if that's all right? My goals for this year are to declutter, meditate more often, eat more healthy home cooked food, using up what I already have in, spend more time outdoors (hiking/gardening), and find ways to have fun that are free or low cost and sustainable. And all this should support me in paying off £5K of my debt.

I'm a working single mum so time and energy may be my biggest challenges. 

Today the kids are with my ex and I've had a relaxing day, went for a walk through the nature reserve and then did some tidying up in the garden. I had some garlic cloves left over in the kitchen so I've tried planting those as a free and fun experiment. (Probably should have waited and done it with the kids but it will be raining by then. ) It's getting dark now so I'm going to do a bit of tidying indoors and then curl up with a good book. 

London_1

CRANKY40 said:

@London_1 Jackie I started posting on these forums when the House Troll was a House Elf of only three years old and you were still minding little boys after school. Sixteen years later I have a House Troll (the transformation from Elf to Troll happened when he was eleven or thereabouts) and you have great grandchildren ❤️  He's not that bad most of the time but he has his moments. Today he has carried the clean laundry upstairs and also carried the christmas tree and decorations up for me to put away. He wore his pyjamas to eat Christmas dinner but he did sit at the table with me and also ate vegetables so I pick my battles carefully 😊

Hi there,  crikey how the time flies by those four little boys and one girl are now all grown up. The girl is married with two little girls of her own, and works as a part time ESN TA, she also helps run a respite place for children with special needs.
The eldest boy Ben is now 28 and courting a medical student, and is teaching in north London, the next boy down Jack  is also a teacher, and teaches at a private boarding school in Kent, the next one down from him Henry did finance and accounting at Uni and house shares with his eldest brother in Hendon, and works in the City as a Merchant Banker and the tail end little lad our 'young Mikey' is now a 6'2" second year student at Essex uni studying film and photography. They all tower over me now bless them but they are lovely lads and I'm very proud of them

Their Mum and Dad are still; working hard and this year we are hoping to sell up and the three of us move to our beloved IoW which was the long term plan once the children were off hand and established,

 Ive have just returned for several days over there this afternoon, where we were scoping out some properties We will be returning there in March and hopefully be making an offer DD has already been offered a job there and my son-in-law it thinking about retraining as a teacher himself, as he's already got his degree in civil engineering but really fancies doing something different 

I've grown older, and definitely greyer  and a wee bit slower, but still enjoy life and the few day we had over there from just after Christmas was great. Yesterday afternoon we were walking along the beach believe it or not in the sunshine at Appley Beach, which although was breezy was so pleasant and their three dogs loved it.

We sat watching the sea and the dogs and it was so tranquil and relaxing .DD had done a small picnic (old habits die hard when you've had five children on a beach )  when we were on the Fishbourne ferry coming back this lunchtime she looked so sad We really do like it so much and can't wait to move.

 The children are all happy about our move and know there will always be a place for them once we are settled. Ben especially likes it, as one of his hobbies is fishing.

Sounds like your house elf has grown into a sensible young man They all have their moments but get them through their teens and they then start to become the adults you always wanted them to be. But they grow up so quickly one minute its video games, then suddenly its young ladies and spending an extraordinary time in the bathroom and smell gorgeous, and where they were once four muddy little rascals playing footie and rugby they are turned into spotlessly clean young men who like to look their best for the ladies..

But its the circle of life, and I feel honoured that I was part of their lives for so long

Thanks to Nan they can tie their own shoelaces, tell the time, read, write, play chess and poker, and make a jolly good cuppa, they can all cook as well and wash up, so who ever ties one down will be treated as an equal and not expect to wait on them. :)
 Its a lot slower pace of life for me anyway now they are off hand no more dentist appointment for the kids or Doctors and I have seen so many Nativity plays but it has been great so slowing down and really stopping to smell the roses is well over due for both myself and my DD. 

Just being able to do what you want when you want is bliss  

I thought it was you when I spotted your post Happy New year to both you and you elf (now troll )

JackieO xx

mrs_motivated

Thank you for the welcome leftatthetrafficlights and laughing at the house troll cranky40 such a perfect description for that age.

The yogurt making sounds interesting too, will have to give this a go.

The last couple of days have not been a particularly easy life, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.  DD2, DD3 and their OH’s came yesterday so I spent the day cooking and clucking around them all and then we saw the New Year in together (well most of us managed to stay awake until midnight).  Today has been lovely though we all went out for lunch and then back to our respective homes.

Other than some journaling / planning / budget tweaking I’m not planning on doing much the rest of the day other than making Mr M and me a packed lunch ready for back to work in the morning.

Happy New Year everyone.

Florafauna

Wonderful experience watching over 300 Bohemian Waxwings who have flown into our local area. Saw them roosting, flying and heard their cute chirps. Nature is just amazing.
Made yoghurt overnight which I am currently straining and have also made a parsnip soup from leftovers. Going to make it luxury by chucking in the remnants of the Xmas day cream.
Happy New year everyone

zcrat41

What a lovely thread and I shall enjoy following along. 

I’m hoping to slow down a lot in 2024.  I’m lucky enough to have been able to take some time off work (although I’m married to a farmer so there’s always work somewhere!) to focus on the family. We have found our lives were so busy and stressful we just didn’t have time to enjoy the simple things. Although dh might need some coaching in this as he’s taken that to mean watching back to back Agatha Christie’s today!! 

Katiehound

waxwings- you lucky bunny! Where are you in the country?
we had a flock of them some years ago for about a week and they went around stripping all the crab apples & berries off the shrubs & trees  but they were such pretty birds. Oh and quite noisy too!
Today as I was hanging out washing I thought I saw a large leaf blowing / darting about- odd? it was actually a wren, great surprise.

Florafauna

@katiehound we are in Derbyshire. There were lots of people there with very serious looking cameras and telescopes. I couldn't believe how many birds there were - hundreds. They were having a great feed off the hedgerows and bushes.
My husband saw a small number in our garden last week, eating ivy berries