We are well and truly in the depths of Winter here in Melbourne. This week the temperature has been between 11 - 15 degrees Celsius each day ( and much colder at night ) with lots of rain and cloud cover. It's been too cold to be in the garden so I've focused on indoor jobs to keep me warm.
Here's what I've been up to this week -
* Emptied the last of a bottle of shower gel into the foaming hand wash pump and added a little extra water. I had the bottle upside down for a couple of hours to make sure I got every last drop.
* Baked 3 loaves of wholemeal bread with extra goodness. I used recycled bread bags to store the bread in the freezer once I sliced it. I use these bags over and over again for the bread.
* Mended a coat and a pair of jeans. The fastener on the jeans had come off so I replaced it with a button.
* Dried almost everything on a clothes horse over the vent in our main bathroom. We rarely use this bathroom and keep the door closed so the washing dries within 24 hours.
* I did my monthly grocery shopping and used our Woolworths rewards card to get 10% off.
* I bought 'odd bunch ' carrots and potatoes from Woolworths to save a little extra money. The potatoes looked perfectly fine to me, nothing odd about them at all.
* The weather has been quite cold this week. I've kept the curtains closed except for a couple of inches so I can see where I'm walking. This has really helped to kept the temperature from dropping too quickly and keeping the heat in.
* Bought a new zip up hoodie jacket from Savers for $5.40. I've been on the hunt for a couple of zip up jackets which are great to wear to my cleaning jobs. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find them in the usual retail stores so maybe they are not popular this year.
* Saved the shower warm up water, washing machine rinse water and water from our drink bottles and reused it where I could around our home and garden.
* Used the solar lanterns most nights. With the weather being so overcast, there have been some nights when they haven't given much light.
* I bulk cooked honey mustard chicken ( 6 single serves ), veggie soup ( 11 single serves ) and cottage pie ( 8 single serves ) on separate nights at dinner time. We ate the meals as we usually do and the rest were frozen for future meals. This is much easier and less time consuming than setting aside a whole day to bulk cook.
* Baked the easy coconut slice I posted here a couple of months ago. Some was kept for our morning teas and the rest was taken to a family working bee.
LINKS -
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| Honey mustard chicken serve ready for the freezer |
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| Easy coconut slice. |
Winter is definitely here! The Winter where I live isn't generally as cold as where you live, Wendy. Last year, we didn't use heaters in the Winter but I'm not sure if we'll manage that again this year; it really depends on how cold it gets. It's great you can dry clothes over your vents as that would save using a dryer. At our place this week:
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* bought 4 x half price pies, two per pack, and froze them. Packs were $4
* made brown rice and veg rolls and scrambled eggs on toast for meat-free meals this week
* received two handmade wash cloths & two pairs of warm, woolly socks from
my lovely Mum.
* saved the wrapping paper to reuse for birthday gifts later in the year.
* picked a bunch of lavender to bring inside
* downloaded a free pattern, for a handstitched bookmark, to make as part of
an upcoming birthday gift.
* saved shower warm up water for wash machine and emptied water bottles onto pot plants.
* dried all our washing in the sunshine.
As it's school holidays now, I want to get started on making some gifts for upcoming birthdays and xmas. I want to make small things that are light and can fit into an envelope or small bag to save money on postage.
Meg
We have a tiny porch/veranda at the back of the house, it's around 3x3m and has the kitchen door on the left, the garage door in the middle and the neighbours' wall on the right. It has laundry lines (left by the previous owner) but they are useless, so I've put 2 'walls' from an old party tent on the 2 front lines. The party tent is long gone, but the 'walls' are keeping us cool in summer by stopping the afternoon and evening sun from shining into our kitchen through the door.
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