Blessings

As I mentioned in my last post I now have a mobility Scooter, I had been saving up for one when I was blessed with a windfall.  I might have mentioned that I lived in the UK for 20 years, when I applied for my NZ pension last year I was told that as I lived in the UK part of my pension would be paid by the UK govt as there was a reciprocal agreement, it is administered by the NZ govt so I thought nothing of it, but I did have to fill out lots of forms for the UK.  Well apparently the pension for UK women is 60 years and as I no idea that I qualified for it, I had a rather large amount, deferred. (5 years of back pay)  Whoo hoo!  I was a bit skeptical and was astonished when it turned up in bank account.  It has made such a difference to my life.  As well as investing some of it I have been able to buy things that I needed such as the scooter, a new fridge freezer,  new glasses and a new sewing machine, it has taken a load of my shoulders.

The scooter has blessed me so much, I have been able to make medical appointments without having to try and fit times in with the bus timetable and the biggest blessing is I have been able to shop around for bargains, and most of all go to the local market on Sundays, which is what this post is really about.

My town has two markets, an official Farmers Market on Saturdays, which really caters for the well to do and the weekend visitors that come here from Wellington, it is rather expensive and has posh stuff! Also as I observe the Sabbath it is a ‘no no’ for me. 

The other, really is a glorified Car Boot market run by the Lions organization in the council car park, locals flock to it as a number of lifestyle blockers sell their produce at reasonable prices and generally it is organic produce, there is a honey man, a free range egg lady, a lady selling mushrooms, several local nurseries two selling native plants, one lady selling perennial flowers, a couple of vegetable and flower seedling stalls, some ladies selling pickles and preserves and cakes, then there are the usual bric a brac stalls.  I love it, you get to know the people selling and they sort of become friends, it is wonderful.

This Sunday I took advantage of the good weather and set off on my Scooter, I hadn’t been to it for over a year as it was difficult for me to get to and one needs to get there early for the bargains!  And bargains I did get.

A big bag of figs for $2.50,  Ballarat (cooking) Apples, a heritage variety that makes the perfect apple pie, you cant buy these in the supermarket, But I got 5 for $1.50, a large wedge of pumpkin for $2, egg plants at 50 cents each they are at least $2.50 in the supermarkets.

A huge bunch of watercress for $2.50, I will put half in a bucket and put the bucket under the eaves and if change the water every week I will have my own watercress growing.

A large bag of button chestnut mushrooms for $2 in the supermarket probably cost me about $8.00!

Lovely bargains and it all is organic which is even more of a bonus!  I got some plants as well, a red hibiscus, a pink Japanese anemone, and a red and white ivy geranium; all for $10 at the nursery just one would have cost me at least $10.  I will shoe photos of these later as my batteries for the camera needed recharging.  I am going to have to start taking my camera with me when I am out and about as the town is looking lovely with its red and gold autumn colours.

So I think the scooter is a blessing in my life.  Another blessing is the new sewing machine,  it has made me realize how crappy my old one was, no wondered I put off sewing!  For a long time I had been wanting to change the curtains in my lounge diner, but as there were so many windows it would have cost a fortune for ready made ones and thrift shops don’t usually have curtains for three windows in the same material.  So guess what my first project was…

It has lightened up the place wonderfully, I have a feature wall in that red and having the red has balanced up the area very well.

And as you know once you start changing the colour scheme other things start to occur, like this throw I am crocheting for the lounge area…

What is marvellous I already had this wool in my stash!

Phew, I am so ready for my supper now!  I am having what I call stone soup, do you know the folk tale behind this?  If not I will tell all in the next day or so and hopefully I will have photos of my neighbourhood, as I am charging the batteries of my camera.

Being Flexible

Being keen as anything to get going on my challenge of cutting food costs, I made a menu plan and a shopping list, hah, that all went out the window when I got to the supermarket.  Normally, I would have used a brochure they stick through the letterbox in the weekend.  Somehow it didn’t arrive and I assumed that the usual specials would apply how wrong I was!

First of all I intended to buy lamb as that has been on special for ages, no it was up to $34 a leg!  No way! I cast my eye along the chiller, oh pork! Yippee!  A good price too.  Such a good price that I am seriously thinking of going to town after my physio on Friday, and get some more joints, as also (I discover that I can see the specials online) the legs joints are even a better bargain! 

There were quite a few bargains that weren’t on my shopping list such as avocados at 89 cents each; Jarrah coffee reduced down to $4.00, normally it is about $7, and potatoes they have been about $2.99 a kilo, I got a 2.5 kg (5 lb) bag for $4.00.  Maggi cup of sups for $1.99, (quite often I will just have a cup of soup and a piece of toast for supper.  Quite a quick and cheap meal, (there are 4 in a pack.) Tasty Cheese $10.00 instead of $12.00'

I quickly realised as I was going around the shop that my menu plan was not valid anymore and also that my actual needs for the next fortnight were only about ¼ my budget.  So I am able to replenish my stock as well.  Well mostly!  I did plan to make a quiche on Friday as I have a friend coming for lunch and she is vegetarian.  I would have used up the butter I have for the pastry, However I could not believe my eyes it was over $5.00 a 500gm block. (Normally you can get it $3.50, what happened?  So, I will make impossible quiche instead and save my butter!  I went on line and the other supermarket in town has it for $4.50, STILL!?!!

Here is my budget and menu plan, I promise, promise you I will not bore you with it every fortnight, I just wanted to list it to show that even when food is dear in your area, if you have a well-stocked store you can be thrifty. As a matter of interest Winz (state benefit people) calculate that when giving out a food grant to its clients, $100 for a single person a week is sufficient!  PLEASE I AM NOT SAYING IT IS TOO MUCH, THESE PEOPLE ARE VERY NEEDY and NEED HELP WHEN UNEXPECTED BILLS COME IN, THEIR BENEFITS DON'T MAKE ALLOWANCE FOR THE UNEXPECTED. (I have been there!) I am only giving this as a benchmark. Also I wanted to show that you can eat really well on my budget.  Yes there is an initial outlay to build up your store, but that can be done gradually during the weeks you have a surplus.

Fortnightly needs:

Pork 2 kg (4 lb) - $14.22

Chicken  1.3 kg (2 ¾ lb.)- $9

½ Cauliflower - $2.70

Eggplant - $2.49

Sour cream 250 gm (8 oz.) - $3.00

500 gm carrots - $2.22

500 gm Onions - $1.47

Total $35.10

Store cupboard

Potatoes $2.50 kg $4.00

Tin diced tomatoes - 80 cents

UHT milk 1 litre - $2.00

4 packets Maggi soup of soups - $8.00

1 Watties Tortellini Sachets 350 gm - 3.00 (stand by treat)

Jarrah Vienna latte coffee - $4.00 (treat)

Bread (el cheapo) -- $1.00 (I like to have a loaf in the freezer in case I don’t get round to making a loaf!)

Tasty cheddar 700 gm - $10.00, will cut it up into 4 pieces and freeze.

Total $32.80

This leaves $32.10 of my fortnightly budget of $100 (US $70) for perishables and replenishment of stores.

Menu plan

Tuesday – Roast chicken, potatoes, kumara, carrots and peas, strawberries

Wednesday –Cold Chicken, potato salad, lettuce salad, fresh peach

Thursday – Broccoli and feta fritters, garden salad and fresh peach

Friday – Impossible Quiche, garden salad and fruit salad with yogurt

Saturday – Chicken Pilaf, lettuce salad, yogurt and berries

Sunday - Roast Pork and the trimmings, Bread and Butter Pudding

Monday - Black Bean`Quesadillas, Fruit salad

Tuesday – Cold pork, broccoli, carrots and Jacket Potato, rest of Bread and Butter Pudding

Wednesday – Chicken curry and rice, yogurt.

Thursday – Stuffed zucchini (mince beef), rice, carrot salad, preserved apricots

Friday – Sweet and Sour pork, noodles and stir fry vegetables, apple

Saturday – Broccoli/cauliflower soufflé and garden salad, apricot crumble

Sunday – Chicken risotto, using last of chicken and stock made from the carcass, chocolate mousse  

Monday – remains of risotto made into a patty with a pocket of feta cheese, chocolate mousse

Breakfast is usually toast and vegemite or jam, or a cereal, such as cornflakes or weetbix, milk and preserved fruit.

Supper will be the cereal if toast is had in the morning or a cup of soup and salad sandwich. I will make ratatouille to have some days as a change.

Today’s main meal I had this evening as it was too hot to eat at midday!  I still haven’t eaten the peach, but will have it later perhaps.  I have planned for desserts but quite often I will miss them. They are there if I want them.

With this plan I have not used all my pork, I will have at least 6 meals lfor the freezer. And I probably will have some vegetables left.  There were only 3 meals that made heavy use of what was in store. 

The key to this is being flexible, go for the bargains and then plan your meals.  Take enough time when you are going around the shop to think what if I have that what else would I need.  This shop was done in only one supermarket; no doubt I could have pared it down even more if I shopped around more.  But we are in the middle of a heat wave and no way was I going to traipse down the other end of town!  I will check it out on Friday.

One bit of good news, the company that is fitting my heat pump in is doing it next Tuesday so if the heat wave is still here I will have air conditioning. Yay!

Crochet news – I have been working on a shawl from some wool I unraveled from an op shop jersey. I am using two strands and it is coming on well.  However I would love someone to tell me how to stop unraveled wool looking like spaghetti junction!

I fell in love with shawls last winter and I do have another one on the hooks, but have put it aside as it is too hot to handle wool comfortably, so, I have been making some doilies.

They are quick and fun to make.  This is made with no 10 cotton and a 1.75 mm hook.  I got the pattern from Ravelry, I must put a link to my project pages on the side bar.  I am not sure if you can see it if you don’t have an account with them, but for those of you that do, you can access the pattern links.

In the Garden

It is too hot to be in the garden much, but I have had to clear the bed against back of the house, so they can put in the unit for the heat pump.  I will start again as the plants are overgrown and rather shaggy.  The Geraniums had got taller than me!  So, a good excuse putting in a new plan for that area.

Tonight I will take some time out to read with a herbal tea, I am reading David Baldacci’s Zero Day, I love his books.  After I have posted this I will strip the chicken carcass and freeze the meat and boil the carcass to make stock. 

Life cannot get any better than this!

Thanks for visiting and have a lovely day/night.

Sharon

PS I want to thank Jane over at Hope and Thrift for inspiring me to take the plunge.

The 3 "C"s - Cats,Crochet and Cakes

It has been several weeks since I have posted!  I have been under the weather and had to rest up.  I took the opportunity to get stuck into my obsession – crochet.  One project which only took one hour or so and as a result have got hooked on washcloths!  This dish cloth has been in constant use and I will be making more.

When I was in the wool shop buying some cotton, I saw the many wonderful colours that wool comes in these days.  How I resisted I don t know.  Maybe it was the thought of all that wool in my trunk from my tapestry kit making days.  Needless to say I got some of the wool out and within a week had completed this small throw and a cushion cover  to match (Well to be honest I still have the backing of the cushion to crochet).  I draped the throw on the bed and went to get my camera.  Came back and what do I see my lovely cats firmly ensconced.  What is even more remarkable these two never sleep near each other.

Ever since it has been a battle to get them off it, Bro the black one usually spends the day outdoors, but for the last week he has been inside a lot on this little throw.  I have given up, it is theirs!

So, I fished out of my trunk some more wool, big hanks of Paterna wool.  There will be enough to make a proper sized blanket.  I have already made great inroads on it.  Crochet is so easy to do in bed or listening to the radio.  It is very addictive.

I am feeling a lot better now and yesterday was back firing on all of my cylinders.  But it was pouring with rain so I couldn’t get into the garden.  I have always wanted to make a teapot cozy, so trawled the internet for patterns.  I didn’t really want to do any I saw, I want a homey one!  There are some astonishing  tea cozies out there!  So decided to do a plain one and sew flowers on it.  How to do flowers?  Well I found a wonderful blog Attic 24 with instructions .  So I spent the morning doing Lucy’s tutorials with odd scraps of wool.  I feel quite chuffed; all I needed to do was make the cozy!  Completed last night.  Tah Dah!

So feeling pleased with myself this morning, I duck out in the rain to view what could be picked for dinner (I like to have my main meal midday,) and saw a few stalks of Rhubarb appearing.  Not enough to make a bowl full, but enough to make my favourite cakey dessert that my grandmother used to bake a lot.  The fruit can be varied according what you have on hand.  I didn’t really have enough rhubarb so added one apple.  (It is rather special if the fruit has a tang to it.)

Gran’s Fruity Cakey Dessert

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups s/r flour or plain flour with 1 ½ tsp BP

¾ cup sugar

120g melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

Topping – fruit of choice

2 tbsp. sugar

Method

Combine flour, sugar, butter vanilla and eggs.  Put in greased pan and top with chopped fruit.  Sprinkle the sugar on top and bake 180 Celsius for up to one hour.  Serve with custard, cream or plain yogurt.  This really freezes well.

All in all a productive few days.

See you again soon.

Update

Time flies doesn't it!
Needless to say I have been quite busy on the crochet front!

Lots of squares for the Bam2015. 

MAY SQUARES

May Main

May Filler

JUNE SQUARES

6 inch

June Main

June Filler

Also have been doing a fair bit of baby stuff for friends and family.

My kitty admiring the rabbit Lovey

See you again soon hopefully there wont be such a big gap till the next posting.

New Square

End of April, I was browsin g looking for some extra squares for my BAM2015 blanket as I am only using dk, so my squares are much smaller.  I did find some wonderful squares and will do them at a later stage.  But something took hold of me and I designed my own square, and I am so chuffed with it!

On a roll I decided to try and write the pattern, err umm I will never criticise designers again, it is so fiddly and difficult.  But I am nearly there I a have also downloaded a software for crochet symbols and will try that out too, so watch this space!

The above is the square done in aran to see if it is 12 inches and yay it is!

New Blankets

I have started another Sophie's Universe!  I really want a blanket that is in your face bright, sort of the gypsy look?  I think that this fits the bill.  I have to admit that I am loving it more than my brown, red and teal one.

I also want a lapghan for snuggling into while watching TV at night now that winter is fast approaching. I love squares and decided to do 6 inch ones using the BAM 2015 squares and any others that I see on Ravelry that I like. So this morning I got started, two done and dusted! 

Smoothfox's May flower the BAM 6" square for April

Shelley Husband's Garden Gate (Pattern on Ravelry)

This is the BAM 2015 April Filler, I love it, but it was a bit tricky, there was a lot of frogging at the beginning.

I'll be back soon with more crochet goodness.

Sophie's Universe Cal

I think I have OCD!  (Obsessive Crochet Disorder) A while back a friend showed me the cal she was working on, it looked so complicated that I thought I could never cope with that!  Yesterday that same friend was visiting and I was proudly showing her my blocks from the BAM2015 cal.  She looked at me  squarely in the face do the Sophie!  "I have some wool that I don't want but they are the colours you have in your lounge."  I hummed and hared, saying, "maybe".  Later that night she dropped off a bag it contained the wool.  So while watching TV I hooked this!

LOVE IT!

Caught Up!

Woohoo!  I have caught up in the BAM2015  challenge. 

Spiro

Now I can get some gardening done!  There's a ton of weeds waiting for me.

In the vegie patch I found this, amazing markings!

See you soon.

Some More Blocks

Prince Protea Square

I am moving ahead with my block a month squares, one more to do and I'll be caught up!  I have decided to add the occasional darker colours as here as I thought it was starting to look a bit too sugary.

Fall Blossom

I found the fall blossom block quite difficult and had to do it a couple of times before I got it right.  But I like it a lot and it was worth the effort.  I am so enjoying this CAL as it is pushing my skills to the limit.

Let me introduce you to my fur baby Alley.  My what big eyes you have Alley!

Lets Start Again!

Hello There!

Yes I know I haven't been a good blogger.  To be honest I didn't know where to go with this blog.  I realise you have to have a passion to blog regularity.  I do have a passion but I was trying to add too many facets like cooking, garden etc.  So now on I will just blog about my passion crochet!

I did have a period where I didnt crochet as I didn't know where to gbo after the grannie blanket frenzy ran out.  But recently I have discovered Ravelry and oh my was I a happy person.

This cushion has been sitting around for months, poor thing!  Mu mojo was lost.  I decided to do the BAM2015 in the rest of the wool that I intended to use for the grannie blanket.  So it is going to be a stash buster!

The passion is back!

I have discovered a group 2015 Block a Month and the designs are gorgeous!  Over the last three days I have completed 7 squares!

Pizzazz January's main block

Happy Hearts February's Main block

Emmalynn March's main block

I am using Double Knot wool instead of worsted - what's that anyway?  So my squares are 9 inches instead of 12 inches.

There are 3 more optional squares that I hope to get done over the next week or so.

Well thats Blanket no 1.  I have started no. 2 from last years and patterns from Look what I made blog BAM Tutorials.  This blanket is for my sister and I need to get it finished before her birthday.

Yes, the passion is back, thankyou Ravelry!

Monday

I really want to get into the habit of blogging regularly, so I have decided to blog every day till Christmas.  They say that if you do something for a couple of weeks repeatedly it becomes a habit.  So here goes!

Today I hope to finish sewing up the cushion I have been working on over the last couple of days.  For the back I am doing plain grannie squares.

This morning I went out and picked these from the garden.  Now I will have to think what to do with them!

It is a very cool still and misty morning.  I must see if my neighbours have any washing out and if not I think I will have a bonfire of all the garden rubbish I have accumulated over the last few weeks.

Three things to be thankful for today:

1.   The cats are asleep on the bed; they look so cute cuddled up together.

2.   Managed to get my housework done very early so I will have time for lots of hooky and the fire of course.

3.   A bountiful veg garden.

Be back tomorrow!