Kitchen Shenanigans

So I vaguely had in mind to cook properly from scratch once a week and also bake something once a week. But this is me. 😂 I will say it was immensely satisfying to rejig my kitchen and it now feels like a room I like using again. ✅ 

The first Monday I bought Carrot Cake fixings and then realised I'd forgotten cream cheese for the icing. 😑 I made Courgette Muffins instead. They worked, but were too heavy on the veg so were overly moist rather than chocolatey. We both did eat some, but they didn't keep well and a few ended up binned.

For dinner I tried hamburger patties on the frypan (I haven't used the stove top for years!) and they were a big hit with Little X. ✅

I also made a dessert, white choc marshmallow with cereal pressed in. This was amazing. It's Rice Crispy Bars from the supermarket except more, and however you prefer it. I just made it up as I went along. Little X ate some but absolutely hated the sunflower seeds and that caused some drama. 🎭

The second week I cooked Tuna Mornay. This ended up with "mmmmmm" at high volume 😂 so I think we found another food she'll eat. We also had meatballs in savoury rice - not from scratch really but another food she will eat. ✅  For baking I made banana bread tonight. Ladies and gentlemen it's the fluffiest cake I think I've ever eaten. It's definitely delicious but the jury is out as to whether a cake this soft will stay edible after 2 days.

If it lasts that long.

She also enjoyed fresh pikelets this week. 😋 

I now have 5 defaults and 2 more say they will default me. As they do so, I am beginning a £2/month payment to each one. To my great surprise one debt recovery company wrote to me accepting £2 a month as an ongoing arrangement 😲 despite me not asking if that was OK 😲 and it isn't even the smallest debt. I am now hoping others do the same - they manage 3 other debts of mine so we shall see. 🤞

Microwave is an absolute disaster and I'm using it as little as possible. Air fryers are on sale this week for £25 🤔 and I am also pondering a £6 saucepan since I don't own one. And a £7 frypan as both mine are awful. 🤔 

The Decluttering Secret

I have decluttered about 90 bags or boxes of things from my home. Ultimately, I am aiming for 100, and I am now at the point where I can see everything left to pare down, in about 6 crates. 💪

So what's the secret? It's not what I always thought. I had always thought that hoarders are unnaturally attached to things of no value. But no. It is about being realistic with yourself. 

It's losing the "scarcity" mentality. The knee-jerk reaction to never discarding anything because you don't have enough of something and you equate "not having it" to deprivation, either physically, or mentally. 

I had a shocking habit of buying or salvaging anything I might need in future, doing it because I knew I might not have the money to buy it later, or it was an opportunity for me to sell it and earn money. Well guess what, stuff is not useful while cluttering up your valuable space. It's not helpful when you aren't touching it for months. And it isn't worth ANY money while sat in your house.

I took a more honest look at myself, was I really going to use it, fix it or sell it? If I'd had it a year, the chances I'd touch it were pretty slim, so I gathered my adulting and got rid - I'd just deal with buying one if need be. And I didn't need multiple projects that I wasn't completing. One or two is enough! 

This morning I binned a dozen microfibre cloths and ten tea towels. I can surely find a couple of pounds when they wear out. I literally threw five quid in the bin but gained a cupboard for the next five years. That's a win, imagine, a nice clear cupboard for one pound per year! Two pence a week... that's nothing. It's repeated every time I clear space. And it's an absolute bargain for how the clear space benefits my mental well-being. 🙏 

Score! x2

Little X's progressive anti-vegetable stance is attempting to branch out and she's started rejecting most fruit. 😑 Pay day has come around and I've decided to cook and bake. I've even hauled out the blender and I'm psyching myself up for courgette muffins, carrot cake and pea & ham omelettes.

While hunting for the baking paraphernalia I discovered two tins of food Best Before 2018. Both of them got binned. Old me would have eaten them. 😂 I also found an extra-large glass cutting board big enough to cover my stovetop. 😍 Yes thank you. I also sorted my tupperware. 👏 Feeling: energised.

I blended up carrot & potato waffle mix but they're too wet with not enough egg to set them 😭 which is a right pain with ten already portioned in the freezer. 😭 Unsurprisingly Little X went "no thanks" once I actually got it solidly cooked. I cooked one for myself and after 45 minutes under the heat I was annoyed. I loaded it with breadcrumbs all over and it was surprisingly nice alongside my HALF a pizza 🍕 (new me isn't eating a whole one). 🏆

In mentally preparing myself for shopping, I reflected that one shouldn't need to mentally prepare for an ordinary task they've done for years. Hauling the groceries about is starting to get to me, physically. Time's up. The weight needs to come off. Loads of salad veg came home in my trolley. It's day three of Not Being A Pig and I haven't made revolutionary changes but every day has involved a salad. Gotta start somewhere. 👍 

Duh Eureka

So my curtains have always felt like you're going to rip something as you pull them across, or actually break the track (because the plastic hooks are so tight on the plastic rail). But in a stroke of genius, or more accurately why-didn't-I-think-of-this-before, it turns out you can wipe the curtain track with machine oil and the problem is gone. 🤸🏻 It's going to be a pretty sunroom. 🏠 🌞 

It also turns out that one could very easily fall off that damned ladder. It was very, very close. I was looking down at the objects I'd be landing on. 🫣😵 I took it as a sign to stop working until the afternoon. But even then, as I painted a small section above my front door, wobbly legs told me, that's enough for the day. 🎬 

What I don't need: more than 7 of any clothing item. I never go a week without washing clothes, so why would I need more than 7? After my "Nobody needs three sets of sheets for one bed" moment last week, today I binned some underwear 💪 and I have my eye on the sock pile next. 🧦 🧦

Sold and out the door: Little X's cot (and sheets), J's fridge. Why can't I harness that kind of energy all the time? 😂 

Reshuffling

I've had a better few days. The mouldy curtains survived a wash, but unfortunately so did the mould. Miraculously, they then survived being washed at 90°C in a whole bottle of bleach, and are hung back up to dry, no mould in sight. ✅ I'm chuffed they are fresh again. I've finished priming that wall and there's one other wall patch to do before the top coats.

My cheap blinds arrived and I think I can make them work. ✅ 

The bathroom plastic shelves now hold shoes, so they're all neatly hidden away in the wardrobe. ✅ 

I cooked properly for the first time in ages. ✅ 

I finished washing my stored sheets, towels and quilt covers, and now they fit into my drawer. Several donated, several binned. ✅

I actually sat down and tried to do my life admin that's outstanding, but the website was down. I then forgot for three nights. D'Oh. I'm awarding myself a bronze Participation Award for trying. 🥉 

Funky Few Days

While scrubbing, sorting and tidying my bathroom paraphernalia I contemplated just how many invisible and unaccountable home maintenance tasks just exist. What a ridiculous amount of cleaning and tidying and stuff-organisation we have to do, tasks which leave absolutely no evidence you even did them. 🤔 And also for renovations. I will continue to scrub, spray, scrape, wipe, wash, prime, paint, install, and voilà. And at the end it will be a nice looking old bay window with nice features, but no indication of all the work involved or how it used to look.

It's being delayed right now as my knee has decided to cease functioning as a useful joint, so the ladder isn't happening. I've painted part with primer. It reeks, and there's not a way to keep the smell away from Little X, so I'm not doing the whole lot in one go. I also lifted the carpet in one corner. It's herringbone parquetry floor 😲 which should be a no-brainer to show off, but it's not level and would be freezing cold. I might remove a strip of walkway of it, see if it's good enough to paint white. Might.

I own far too many cleaning cloths, hand towels and tea towels. Perhaps I would have known this if I'd actually sorted out my washing pile before now. I really could solve linens taking up too much room by culling most of the spares...

Still procrastinating on my paperwork. Must find motivation.

Incremental Upgrades

Ever since I moved here I've been upgrading my furniture. I'm tired of temporary items, furniture which folds up, stuff which is meant for camping, flatpack products assembled from a hundred pieces.

My plastic bathroom storage was frankly putrid from dust and spilled lotions, shampoos etc. I was prepared to do a clean out, and I was despairing that it would still look awful. But this week I managed to snag myself a four-door wooden cupboard for free. 😍 It's old, a bit past its best, and needs a repaint, but it will do just fine at hiding all the untidy bottles and boxes. 

Currently pulling my old plastic shelves and drawers apart to clean them. I cannot wait to gift them, cleaned up and gleaming white again, to someone who can't afford fancy, and who sees them as a bathroom storage win. 🏆

I already gave away my open metal shelves. 💪 Next in my sights is losing my cage shelving. I haven't had it very long, but the stuff in it doesn't look good and doesn't need to be on show, and honestly, I'd just rather pare down belongings until it's unnecessary. Wish me luck. 🍀 

Received: my £100 from the council. ✅