Slowly getting back to normal just in time for xmas

Catch up

Well things are slowly getting back to normal here Brads behaviour seems to be calming down a little and I have been fortunate enough to have only suffered one MD attack in the last 2 months. Brandon is receiving disabilty now that we have a formal diagnosis of his Autism. So I now officialy have 2 autistic children. Although we have known this for years its nice to have it recognised professionaly and hopefully he will now start recieving the help he so badly needs. A while ago I wrote a post on the cut backs I would be making in my household with our media and telephone packages. Im pleased to say the changes have now taken place and we should start seeing savings on next months bill. I was paying £55 a month for our internet, landline, and t.v package. I have now got that down to £10 a month by getting rid of the landline as we never used it anyway, purchasing a mobile broadband dongle where you pay in advance £30 for 3 months internet usuage, and we have got rid of the tv package and are having freeview installed in 2 weeks time. I am lucky enough to have a very talented step father who can turn his hand to anything he will be installing it for me free of charge and the freeview box itself I had in the shed from several years ago so all I will need to buy is an ariel. In the meantime we are making do with videos and dvds and watching the odd bit of tele online. With my mobile phone I was going to cancel my contract with them and go onto pay as you go. However when I called to cancel my contract with them they offered me an awsome deal that will match what I would have payed on pay as you go. I was given a brand new touch screen phone with lots of apps and internet access and I now recieve 100 mins talktime, 350 texts, unlimited internet usage for just £7 a month. Of course with vat added it will work out to about £8.50 a month providing I dont go over my allowances. I was paying £25 - £30 a month for my mobile service so this is a saving of £21.50 a month. In total I am saving myself £66.50 a month which works out a whopping £798 a year an awsome saving.

Xmas preperations

I have been preparing for xmas the last few weeks and am hoping to make this one the best yet for the children, myself, and Lee. It is our first xmas all together so its going to be a special one. I have almost finished buying all the presents I still have a few more to get and will take care of that this week. I have been doing an hours present wrapping every night and will continue with this so that it will all be done in time avoiding a mad present wrapping session xmas eve as I have ended up doing the last few years. I seem to be a lot more organised this xmas than I have been in the past I think its because I have Lee in my life now and he helps out with chores whenever he is here decreasing my workload by half. The xmas decorations were put up on the 1st of December a combination of old and new. I had to buy a few new ones as some of the old ones were broken. We did put up our tree but have had to take it down again as baby kept climbing up it and pulling it down. Lee and I will put it back up xmas eve and keep baby out of the front room little monkey she is. As far as the xmas shopping is concerned we dont go overboard like a lot of families do. I will do my normal weekly shop but include the ingrediants needed for xmas dinner with a choice of christmas cake, mince pies and cream, or chocolate cake for pudding. On boxing day we usualy just have a buffet laid out for the day and a box or 2 of sweets so I will be buying this in addition to my normal weekly shop again I will take care of that this week. It does make me laugh the way people food shop for xmas the amount they buy is crazy. I know my mum is the same she spends a small fortune and ends up eating a lot of the treats she buys well into January or throwing a lot of it away which is a terrible waste and as good as throwing money directly into the bin.
I have also been working on my xmas house clean I always give the house a good decluttering and clean in time for xmas. The boys have a total of 5 toy boxes and a very big book basket which has hundreads of books in. I went through all the toy boxes and threw away any toys that were broken. I also sorted out the toys that they no longer play with and sent them to the charity shop. So there is now plenty of space for all the lovely new prezzies they will get for xmas this year. I also did a general decluttering of the whole house throwing away things that were broken and sending anything we no longer use but is in good condition to the charity shop. The house is looking a lot more tidy and spaceous now which is lovely. I have also taken down and washed all my nets and curtains and will be stripping and washing my sofas this week also. Which will just leave washing down the walls, doors and paintwork again I will take care of that this week as a friend is going to give me a hand doing this for an hour sometime this week. Providing all goes to plan I should be on top of xmas by Friday this week which will then leave me free to enjoy the festivities with my beutiful family.

Hope everyone elses preparations for xmas are going as well as mine and if I dont get to post again before xmas
From me and my family we wish you all a very merry xmas.

Much Love
Claire xxx

Autism, Menieres Disease and Me

Although my MD has been really good to me recently (no attacks in nearly 4 weeks) Autism has been a big issue in the house recently hence why ive not been blogging the last 2 weeks. I am having a lot of trouble with my eldest son's behaviour at the moment. Brad is 14 and severly Autistic and goes through phases where his behaviour becomes out of control. This is the point we are at right now. None of the usual deterants are working with him even Lee has tried talking to him but to no avail. I have spoken to my ex husband and asked him if he could talk to Brad about his behaviour which he has now done so im just waiting to see if this has an impact (fingers crossed). I have also decided to get him some councelling to try and deal with the anger issues he seems to have. He hates being Autistic and different to his peers and just wants to be "normal" whatever normal is. I am so thankfull to god for keeping my MD at bay right now as I really dont know how I would cope with all this if I was having attacks on top of it all. So this is where we are at right now just getting through each day as it comes the best way we know how. Hopefully now Brads father has had an imput things will calm down a little and we can get back to normal around here and I can start my blogging again.
Much Love
Claire xxx

Day trip to Bradford On Avon

 

Today Lee took me and the boys to Bradford On Avon for the day. Its about a 10 minute train journey from here and although I used to drive through the village years ago when I was still driving I am ashamed to say I have never spent any time actually visiting the village untill today. The village is beutiful and completly unspoilt by the commercialism of todays world. All the shops are housed in the beutifull old original buildings that have been there for possibly hundreads of years. We had great fun looking around and taking some beutiful pictures.

 

This is a lovely little restraunt housed in one of the old buildings.

This is the River Avon.

This is the local church but the picture really does not do that beutiful large stained glass window justice at all.

I am so blessed to live in an area with views like this to take my breath away.

 

 

 When we got off the train at Bradford On Avon there was 3 boxes of videos and a box of green plastic pots which said free on. We had a look through and there was 3 videos I liked so I had them and several of the green pots which will come in handy for cooking and crafts total cost £0.

 

 

 

In celebration of the olympics gold post boxes were placed in all the towns were a gold medalist winner was from and yes there was one in Bradford On Avon. The gold post box in Bradford On Avon is to honour the Olympic achievements of the town’s kayak king Ed McKeever who scooped top spot in the K1 200m at Eton Dorney.

 

 

I was also very pleased to see this shop although we had a good look round there was nothing that I actually needed this time around so we left empty handed but I am so pleased I am now aware of it so I can use it in the future.

 

 

It also happened to be market day today. I got a lovely cook book that I wanted rrp £16.99 I paid £6 bargain.

And I got this lovely handmade knitted hoodie for Brandon. It is knitted using alpaca wool so is lovely and soft it cost just £18 a snip considering all the work that has gone into it. I have taken the ladies card and will be putting a custom order in for the older 2 boys before xmas and I may even treat myself to one of her beutiful shawls.

 

 

We had lunch on the water which was lovely and the boys were really excited by it.

 

 

This was the view out of the window behind us.

 

We all had a really enjoyable day and will definately be visiting the village of Bradford On Avon again.


We have made a decision recently that is going to save us a LOT of money. I currently have a package with BT my tv, internet, and landline phone is supplied by them and costs £55 a month. We never use the landline and never rent movies so I just could not understand why it was costing soooo much money. I spoke with the boys and Lee as he will be moving in in the new year and we have decided to get rid of the whole package. We will use our tv to watch videos and dvds only and if there is a tv programme we wish to watch we will watch it online instead and as I say we do not use the home phone anyway. All we will need to make this possible is a pay as you go dongle costing £15 a month which is a saving of £40 a month / £480 a year. I also have a contract mobile phone which costs me between £25 and £30 a month. Because I am partialy deaf I very very rarely make calls I always text people instead. I have been looking at various different tariffs and have found one that suits my needs much better and will also save me money. I will be going for the pay as you go unlimited texts package. You top up £10 a month and the next month you get unlimited texts for free this will save me between £15 and £20 a month / £180 and £240 a year. So in total I will be saving around £60 a month / £720 a year quite a saving im sure you will agree.

I also want to share with you a money saving tip which I have just used myself to save a small fortune on xmas presents for the boys. Lee was given a voucher today to get £30 off of all orders £60 and over with very.com. They also have a huge range of toys on 3 for the price of 2 at the moment. Also when you open an account with them you get 10% off of your first order this is what I got and the price breakdown.

 

£15

£15

£22

£15

 

£20

£20

 

 

Total cost £107 plus £3.95 p&p = a total cost of £110.95 I paid just £43.25
This is how I did it I got a discount of £30 for the 3 for 2 promotion you get the cheapest items free.
I then got 10% off of my remaining order using code 29U99 a further £7.70 off
I then used the voucher Lee was given today code 2BLZX a further £30 off
Quite a saving im sure you will agree.

Well this post has become slightly longer than I had anticipated and I have so much to catch up on where we have been out for the day so I really must get on.

Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

 

 

Catch up in pictures

 

I made up some family meals for the freezer this week.

This is Chicken mush and is rather yummy.

Some yummy choc chip fairy cakes.

 

I went to watch my god daughter in Alice in wonderland.

She played a lobster and did really well I was very proud of her.

We went shopping.

We went trick or treating.

 

 

Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

Frugalism vs Simple Living are they one and the same

Ive been asking myself this question for a while now and I still dont know the answer so comments are more than welcome on this one. I have been living a frugal life for around 3 years or so now and I like to think of myself as being pretty good at it. I gave my car up 3 years ago and bought a bicycle instead, I moved to an all electric property in the hopes of installing solar panels at some point so we can live off grid, I started shopping at charity shops, started using sites such as Freecycle/ Freegle/ and JFTLOI. I learnt how to shop more wisely and price check everything, I learnt to look for vouchers and coupons on items and events, I learnt how to repair items instead of throwing them away, and I learnt crafts so I could make things by hand either for gifts or for my familys wants and needs. All this said ive noticed a trend in the simple living blogs I read. They all seem to have veggie gardens, keep chickens, and will buy only local produce with a concern on food miles. I have tried many times to start a veggie garden and been unsuccessfull every time. I would love to keep chickens but just can not afford the start up costs at this moment in time. I would love to buy only local produce and support local business's and local farmers but at this moment in time my purse just will not allow it. Here in the UK food prices are at an all time high and set to rise even further. That combined with rising fuel costs, rising energy costs, rising public transport costs etc etc I now buy what I can afford not what I want and im affraid morals have somewhat gone out the window. My priority right now is reducing my debt as quickly as possible so that we can afford to have morals on food miles and buying local produce again. So that I can afford the start up costs of keeping chickens. So all this said am I living a frugal life or a simple life or maybe some where in between ? Maybe in order to live a simple life you have to follow a path starting with frugalism in order to get to your final destination of simple living I know I still have a lot to learn and am so gratefull for all the blogs and writtings avalible to me nowadays teaching me how to move closer to my goal of simple living. Please feel free to comment on this post all CONSTRUCTIVE critism on where Imay be going wrong is more than welcome.

Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

The Start Of A New Week

We was very busy yesterday (Monday) as soon as I got up I got the children ready for school and tidied the house whilst Lee had a lie in. He has been working a lot of 12 hour night shifts recently so I didnt mind he needed to catch up on his sleep. I did some more washing had a shower and got myself ready. I really wanted to go out and get a few things in town but felt mean waking Lee up so waited untill 11am before doing so. We went into town and had a look in the charity shops where we got some nice items. I got myself 2 pairs of shoes, a pair of trousers and top, a jumper for Brandon, and a lovely Thomas the Tank engine night gown for Brandon. I have put the nightgown away as one of his xmas presents and I just know he is going to love it. I also got some more wool for the scarfs I am making as xmas presents and a plastic funnel for the homemade toiletry xmas gifts I am making this year. I also got some foil containers that I wanted as I plan to make up some family meals for the frezzer this week. By this time we were tired and hungry so we treated ourselves to lunch out. When we were finished we came home and unpacked just in time for picking up the boys from school. Lee went to collect the boys for me as Baby had an appointment at the vets for her vaccinations. I always feel mean taking the animals to the vets but I know its for their own good in the long run. When I got back from the vets it was time for dinner I made a yummy carbonara pasta bake with cheesey garlic bread which was delicious. Then it was bath and bed time for the boys. Once the boys were in bed I sat down to write my weekend blog post, did a little knitting, and did a little housework before going to bed myself.

My etsy shop is now open just click on the ad in my side bar to view the items I currently have in stock.

Remember these

 

 Well this is what they look like now

 

 

 

They are avalible in my etsy shop at just £2.99 each. There will be more stock added just as soon as I can get some decent photos of it.

Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

Our Weekend

This weekend has been pretty quite as Brad and Brandon were at restpite and Lee was at work which left just me and Ben at home. I love the times I get to spend with my children just one on one I get to focus purely on them. I have managed to get back on top of the mountain of washing that had accumalated whilst I was unwell using my homemade laundry detergent. Some of the boys white school shirts were so badly stained that they did not come up in the wash. So I decided to bleach them overnight and rewash them in the hope of saving them. Im pleased to say this worked and saved me having to get rid of 6 good school shirts.

Washing to be done

 

Washing to put away

 

 

 

I was also inspired by a post written by Rhonda Hetzel at her blog Down To Earth entitled Junk Drawer Challenge. You can find the post here http://down---to---earth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/junk-drawer-challenge.html#comment-form
I have a drawer in my kitchen that the boys use for their stationary and colours which it has to be said was a complete mess here is a before picture.

 

I just recently bought Brandon some new pants and the packaging they came in was basicly a pencil case so I saved both packets and used them for this task. Here is the packaging I am refering to.

 

I emptied out the drawer and put things into piles all the pencils together, all the crayons together, all the other items such as sissors / rulers / rubbers etc together. I put all the pencils in one set of packaging, all the crayons that were not broken into another set of packaging, and all the other items into a pencil tin that was in the drawer already. I pulled the drawer out and gave it a good clean before putting everthing back and this is how it looks now.

 

I had a large number of broken crayons left over so decided to make some teddy shaped crayons for the boys using these left over broken bits. I put them into piles colour matching as closely as possible.

 

I then peeled the paper from the crayons leaving just the wax crayon itself.

 

I then cut up the crayons into small pieces and put them into my teddy bear silicone moulds.

 

 

 

I put these in the oven at 240 for about 10 minutes untill the wax had melted. I then took them out of the oven and using the end of a paint brush gave the wax a good mix to get a solid colour as opposed to a rainbow effect colour. I then left them to sit on the side for a few hours to cool and solifiy and then poped them out of the moulds and this is what we had.

 

Some fun teddy bear crayons

 

 

The boys were very impressed with these and have been having great fun using them. I have also been busy catching up on my blog reading. I have around 6 blogs that I follow religously and had not read for about 2 months so that meant a lot of reading. It was just what I needed to get my head back into the zone of frugalism and simple living so thank you ladies for your inspirational posts.

I also made a start on one of the 5 scarfs im hoping to get done as xmas presents one for each of my 3 boys, one for Lee, and one for my god-daughter Leia. Appologys for the picture quality my camera has been playing up a bit recently and I need to get Lee to take a look at it for me. I will post a much clearer picture when I get the chance.

 

 

Hope you have all had a good productive weekend at your homesteads.
Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

Very Very Unwell

Over the last few weeks I have been extremly unwell with my Menieres Disease it has completely stopped me in my tracks and a lot of the time I have had to rely on help from my partner Lee and several of my friends just to get the day to day things done in the house. I have had 2 ambulances called out to me one of which wanted me to go into hospital which I declined as there is nothing that can be done for my condition in hospital that cant be done at home i.e medication and lots of rest. Several doctors appointments and an urgent referral back to my specialist and it looks like im going to have to have more surgery on my ears something im really not looking forward to. So as you can see frugalism has been the last thing on my mind recently and as such im afraid I have very little to report in that respect. I do have some news though Lee and I have decided to live together we have a few things to sort out first but we are aiming for early 2013. New year new start as they say. It will be so nice to have him here all the time especially when I get sick he has a way of calming me down and getting me through the worst of MD attacks. Today I am feeling a little better and the eldest and youngest Till's are at restpite and Lee is at work till tomorow evening so its just me and Ben at home for the weekend giving me time to get back on top of things. Especially the mountain of washing that has accumalated while I have been unwell. The plan is to get back to my frugal living and start my blogging again. However MD is very unpredictable so if I disapper for a while again then you can be sure the MD is upto its old tricks again.

Much Love
Claire
xx xx xx

Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow how busy I have been recently that combined with my MD playing up has not left me much time for blogging. Brandon had his first day at big school I was very brave and managed not to cry. Here are some pictures of him in his school uniform he looks so grown up.

 

 

The teddy bear you see in the picture is one that I made for him it was a prototype if you like as im hopeing to sell these in my etsy shop. Here is a better picture of it.

 

 

It was a friend of mines wedding anniversary so I made this card for her I was very pleased at how it turned out and her and her husband loved it. Its the first time I have used the foil embelishments but I think I will be using these a lot more in the future.

 

 

Ive also been busy making more knitted patches for my bed topper I am making, and some jewellery for the shop. (pictures to follow)
Baby has settled in with the family just beautifully she has such a lovely temprement and its so nice to have her sitting on or next to me when I am laid up with my MD. I had to share this picture of her fast asleep on her back with her paws in the air it really is very cute.

 

 

Here is a video of baby watching the washing machine something she loves to do again very cute.

 

 

When we got baby she was riddled with fleas and worms. The lady we got her from was not the most house proud of people and there was a huge amount of kittens, cats, and dogs all in the back garden. At the time baby was only 5 weeks old and really should not have been out. Im pleased to say she is now flea and worm free because of her age I had to have her treated by the vets but the price was very fair and totaled £10 for the 2 appointments and 2 treatments. Unfourtunately when the vet was giving her a routine health check he noticed she has a heart murmur which is going to make getting insurance for her at a reasonable rate a little tricky.

I am currently working on an upcycled bracelet that will be avaliable to buy in my etsy shop once finished. I bought a pair of shoes from a second hand market stall a few weeks ago for £2.50. They were a very nice pair of blue wedges with beading detail across the top. Unfourtunately the straps on the shoe ripped and the shoes were beyond repair. The plan is to remove all the beads and turn them into a bracelet. Here is a picture of the beaded straps.

 

 

 Finaly I found this picture on facebook and wanted to share it as it really does make you think about the little things we can do that make a big impact on the environment.

 

 

Much Love
Claire xxx