Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2019

I cooked soup from a pumpkin that was given to me by my neighbour, and that I had cut up, grilled, mashed and frozen in portions a few months ago. Together with 1 ball of frozen spinach (it tasts weirdly sweet on its own, but in soup or sauce it's fine), and a sachet of chicken noodle soup flavouring (dd2 likes the noodles with normal instant chicken soup, so I keep the noodle soup flavouring sachets for myself). Delish!

Working on emptying the freezer, and defrosting a small portions of gooseberries or redcurrants everyday, to have with breakfast. This is a make-do (homegrown and frozen instead of shop bought) that I really enjoy

The mending pile is growing; I am gathering the courage to tackle it sometime this week.

Make Do: Usual of meals from freezer & cupboards. Some, er,"interesting" combinations but nothing disastrous so far.

Mend: Have sewn up 2/3 children's knitted jumpers - one to go - but need to get a wriggle on as they are for birthdays in 2 weeks' time.

Kettle de-scaled, something I probably don't do often enough, so thanks to frizz2 for mentioning it!

Minimise: Cut DH's hair this morning, quick buzz cut with the trimmers and he's happy. It's free and he doesn't have to wait in the barber's. (I think it's a man thing.;) )

Still haven't made it to the cs with carrier bags of unwanteds and now I have 3 instead of 2. Hopefully they will be gone by the next post!

Very pleased to discover that the extra heel caps provided when i have bought high heels in the past can be fitted by me! Very pleased to have been able to repair. Well loved pair of work shoes.

A bit of brute force from OH, some online videos and £16 and the time and cost a trip to town saved this time, just from being brave !

Welcome Raphanius and well done with the sofa (and budget!) mending! It's amazing what you can accomplish with some creativity and determination :beer:
MMMing has been a bit on the back burner here for a while, we had a hectic last few weeks 'oop north', listing our home for sale and packing for the first trip of our planned year-or-so of travelling the UK. Managed to eat up most fresh foods and pass on the rest to my parents before we left so nothing was wasted. We have now sort-of started our travels - house/dog-sitting in Devon for a couple of months and enjoying the change. We'll return to our home in March, possibly just to regroup for a few weeks or possibly to start packing up if there's any promise of a sale.
I'm hoping to get a bit of MMM-ing in while we're away - though probably not much minimising! It is interesting though to observe what i'm actually using of the clothes etc i've brought with me, and will help me make better choices when packing for our future longer trips.

Mend - I've got a bag of mending, knitting and crochet that i brought to do in the evenings, although not had much chance yet. Also noticed several socks that i packed without realising they have holes in, so I'll borrow a rounded glass to use as a darning-mushroom at some point. Maybe that counts as making-do too I've also done a good sort-out of half of the pantry where we're staying - it's a huge house but very 'full' of the owners' stuff so we are struggling a bit with where our stuff can live while we're here! It's not so bad in the bedrooms as there's floor space, but in the pantry i was finding it hard to stay separate from their stores. However i've now rearranged enough that we have half a shelf, some floor space and the vegetable rack which will have to do!

Making do - We've been left various fresh fruit and veg by the people we're house-sitting for so have been using that up before buying new. I'm also trying to make do with walking to the supermarket (nearest is just over 20 mins each way) and use the car as little as possible. At home our nearest is almost an hour's walk so this feels much more doable!

OH and i are still settling into our new routine here with work, a large house to look after and a little dog to care for, and trying to make our priorities cooking healthy food from scratch every day and spending time out of the house together as a couple. We've not got the balance right just yet (we always end up trying to do too much in a day and eating dinner about 10pm!) but we're working on it!
Happy MMMing all xxx

YorksLass wrote: »

Have shredded quite a lot of old paperwork - pity our Council doesn't want it in the recycling bin. Apparently it clogs up the machinery so it has to go in general waste.

A friend of mine gives it to a friend of hers to use for her pets (apologies, I can’t remember what particular pets) as bedding which when soiled goes on the compost..