It's been over a week since Martin shaved. The blade on his shaver broke last week and it's taken a while to get a replacement.
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It's been over a week since Martin shaved. The blade on his shaver broke last week and it's taken a while to get a replacement.
Posted at 03:16 PM in Another day in Steelsville | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I've spent the last few days in a state of suspended action, all revved up to do a million wonderful things on my ever increasing to do list. Then I had a thought. Realistically, based on past experience, how much will actually get done? So I thought I'd write the list and cross off the things I know won't get done over the next two weeks before I end up flogging myself over not doing them. I guess it's my way of dealing with my scanner tendencies before they deal with me.
Posted at 07:40 PM in Another day in Steelsville | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
It's funny. When you make a decision in your life, and it's the right one, the universe will show you somehow that you're on the right track.
In my last post, I talked about how I never wanted to be a big businesswoman, working all hours and damaging my health and relationships. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will probably know that I had a bout of chronic fatigue a couple of years ago around the time I started this blog. It knocked me out for 3-4 months. I never really discussed the circumstances around it, although I have said I passed out one morning and then made changes to my life.
The chronic fatigue was caused by overwork. At the time I was working up to 90 hours a week and my stress levels were made worse by a client who was the Owner and Director of an advertising agency. He was rude, abrupt and very stressed himself, leaving him prone to angry outbursts and insults. He would smoke endlessly to cope with the stress - the whole office used to stink of ciggarette smoke. He would work on me relentlessly to drop my prices all the time, so two years after working with him I was earning much less per hour than I was in the beginning, meaning I had to work more hours to make up the money. He would also accept my estimates for timing then once I had begun writing chase me constantly because he had made unrealistic promises to his clients, which created even more stress.
That fateful morning, I recieved an email pushing me to complete a huge job - I think it was 40 page brochure - in a third of the time I had quoted for.My stress levels suddenly spiked and I passed out. When I came to, it was with complete clarity of thought. He was not that important, the money was not important and I was happy to lose the job and him as a client. Which I subsequently did. I handed the job back and walked away.
Yesterday I received an email from his account manager, asking me if I was still a freelance writer and even though we parted on bad terms would I consider working for them again. That there had been "changes" at the company.
A few minutes searching on the net and I found out what those changes were. According to the local newspaper, the Director and Owner of the company had died of a massive heart attack at the age of 48. He was smoker with asthma and worked extremely long hours. He was also found to have relaxants in his body - notably cannabis and the tranquiliser ketamine.
If ever there was an incident that made me realise how right I am to put my health and enjoyment of my life first, that was it. I'm only 36, but if I had carried on like I was I've no doubt I'd one day end up like him. He had a plan to build the company up and sell it one day then retire somewhere with his family. He'll never get the chance now.
Posted at 10:40 AM in Another day in Steelsville, Financial meanderings, Personal development | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
It's the new buzz word - apparently it's now really cool to be frugal hence the new word. Thank God. Finally I'm in fashion. I am Frucool. Excuse me if I don't buy the T-shirt, but paint my own.
Talking of buying, is it my imagination or is this country's officials getting a teensy bit scared that we're not spending any money at the moment?
I keep seeing column inches devoted to this minister or that civil servant imploring me to go on holiday or start buying colour TVs. It's not that I don't have the money. I do. I just don't want to spend it right now thanks. There's no law that says you have to spent all of your income. By not spending money on unnecessary consumer goods, making do with what we have and recycling what we can, I believe we have tremendous power and freedom. Hence the frustrated squeakings from the government and retailers. I think this poster sums it up:
Photo by Georgina Coombes
I also thought this was quite funny....
Besides not spending my money just to annoy government ministers, I also don't spend money because I equate every pound I spend with having to give up a certain number of minutes of my life working.
Once you start to equate consumer goods with the amount of time you'd have to work for it, things suddenly stop looking too attractive. Well it did to me. I used to earn £9 an hour after tax when I worked in an office so every skirt I bought for £40 cost me 4.5 hours of my life. Spending £65 a week on food when I was single because I didn't budget, meal plan or buy smart meant almost one day of my working week was spent grafting to feed me - and a shocking amount of that food ended up in the bin because it was an inpluse buy and I didn't get to eat it before it went off.
Over the last seven years, I've learnt to value time much more than money. If I get the work done that pays my bills I can then spend time with Martin. Or the chickens. Or in the kitchen garden. Or knitting. All things to me much more worthwhile than killing myself to get more money to pay for a bit of consumer tat. I don't believe in building a business with staff and offices and stationary and stress and long hours just for the possible reward of being able to sell it at some point in the future. My life is happening NOW. I'm not putting it off for some mythical date in the future when I can get loads of wonga, by which time my husband has left me, my family are gone and I'm probably too ill too enjoy it.
No thanks. I think I'm going to have to stay as I am, no matter how much those ministers sqeak with fear.
Do you want to join me?
Posted at 06:23 PM in Current Affairs, Financial meanderings, Personal development, The Environment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thanks for your lovely comments about the laundry bag yesterday guys. I definitely think it was appreciated, as it is on permanent display hanging on the outside of my mother's clothes cupboard door. In fact, I think I want one for myself now so I'll have to get to work on another one shortly. Just as soon as I finish the needlepoint cushion I promised you all a couple of weeks ago. I haven't forgotten!
Just as we were leaving my parents following afternoon tea at the weekend, my father produced this little beauty and wondered if it was worth anything. It's a vintage 1950s Roberts R200 transistor radio that came out of a cupboard full of radios in my grandfather's house shortly after he died in 1991. Hoarding and collecting run in the family and apparently the radios were stacked floor to ceiling and the door wedged shut so they wouldn't fall out. I never knew that my father had kept one of them. I always assumed he got rid of them all to a collector.
With the imminent switch over to digital next year, analogue radios aren't worth a great deal anymore, which is a shame because something like this feels like it should be. But it's a great piece of history to look at, and I'll see if my father will exchange it for an extra large batch of rock cakes.
Posted at 09:44 AM in Thrifty finds | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Inspired by Rhonda's example of homemade gifts, I decided Mother's Day would be an appropriate time to venture further into the world of anti-consumerism.
My mother is not 100% sure about the whole homemade gift thing. I'm not sure whether my efforts in the past have been a bit amateurish, but I can detect - just occassionally - the slight wrinkling upward of her nose when a homemade package arrives.
However, I'm determined to perservere, so this Mother's Day saw me working on a drawstring laundry bag for her so she has somewhere to put her smalls when she goes to stay with my sister. The outside was some Ikea fabric I bought a few years ago, the inside a simple beige lining. On the outside, I sewed on a patchwork hexagonal flower and added a ribbon for the drawstring.
To add to that, a few weeks ago I found a great watercolour of some Sweet Williams in an auction for a shockingly small amount of money (let's just say you'd spend more on a bottle of pop than what I paid). Although stretching the boundaries a little, I still consider this homemade, just by someone else!
I also tucked into the present basket a huge slab of Cherry Almond cake. It was all well recieved with big smiles. Does that suggest I've turned a corner with my sewing skills and can now make things that look semi-professional and not like it's been hacked about by a kiddies scissor class? I think so.....
Posted at 09:21 AM in Crafty pursuits, Special events | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
In my haste to get everything going in the garden I neglected to chit my potatoes. Never mind, I thought, they'll just have to be harvested a couple of weeks late and maybe covered up with some fleece to make sure the cold doesn't get them.
Au contraire.
The potatoes got fed up waiting for me to remember them in the box by the front door and took matters into their own hands. I spent an hour cutting these babies out of the netting yesterday afternoon.
Posted at 08:48 AM in Grow your own | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Curry in the slow cooker (just about to serve hence the lid is off!)
I said in my last post I'd talk about how Rhonda's blog has made a difference since I've been reading it. I've felt for a while I've been ready to move onto a new level in my quest to be a bit more frugal and self sufficient, so the timing couldn't have been more perfect.
The day after reading Rhonda's post about being frugal with utilities it crossed my mind I really hadn't been watching the meters since about November. Normally I'd pretty sure about what we spend gas and electric-wise and check the meters a few times during each billing period, but with the arrival of the hedgehogs and the need for constant warmth for them, I accepted our bill was going to be higher than normal. And with that, for some reason, I stopped monitoring it.
Posted at 06:07 PM in Financial meanderings, Recipes | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Oxo has recovered again. After some daily crop massage, tons of yoghurt and some anti-fungal powder, she finally managed to....ahem...'move' a crop blockage a couple of days ago caused by twisted rotting grass. After what I saw she left behind in her night nest, trust me when I say you did NOT want to be a chicken in the coop that night. No wonder they all fell out of the coop at speed when I opened up that morning.
Just one week of good weather and the pace in the garden and house seems to treble. All those jobs that you store up in the back of your mind to do when it's decent weather very suddenly push to the front and demand attention as the first rays of sun break through.
Posted at 09:55 PM in Animal tales, Grow your own | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
One very sick chicken
After looking so well for a few days, Oxo has become poorly again. No rhyme or reason to it. First she's well, then unwell, then well, then unwell.....There's nothing like a mystery to engage my brain cells so Saturday saw me on the case again finding out what is wrong. The conservatory became a temporary vet's surgery and Oxo was confined to her bed for the weekend.
Posted at 02:55 PM in Animal tales | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)