Portion control

Posted by louisa on Thursday 12 January 2012 in frugal | 18 comments

I was in a bit of a sleep daze when I had a shower yesterday and accidentally lathered, rinsed and repeated. I’m not a girl who usually repeats, no matter what the side of the bottle says, but it reminded me of an old article that I re-read recently.

The article was about portion control – not food portion control for dietary reasons but other things for frugal reasons. The article starts at the point where the author, JD, realised he could try putting two teaspoons of cocoa into his cup rather than the recommended three and seeing if it made a noticeable difference. It didn’t – or not enough that he cared – and would save him about 29c a day. It made him start looking at other things to spot the difference between the manufacturer recommended amount and what was actually needed – because obviously the manufacturers have a vested interest in people using more than they need. He advocates that people start reducing quantities of various things (like shampoo, toothpaste & washing powder) until they notice a difference – it’s not about compromising on standards, just not using unnecessarily big portions of things when a smaller amount will get the job done just the same.

I’m going to try experimenting with some things – especially things that are now said to be concentrated (squash/cordial & washing up liquid are two things that spring to mind) because I think old pre-concentrated habits can easily lead me to use too much. I think I’ll also drop the amount of shampoo I use – less for each wash and definitely no more sleepy repeats ;) – and face cleanser/moisturiser to see if that makes a difference. And in the kitchen, I’m going to play with using powder bouillon (rather than set size stock cubes) and stock dilution levels to see if it makes much of a difference once we’ve added all our other flavours and spices on top.

Have you noticed you can use less of something than manufacturers suggest? Have you tried reducing the amount of something – good results/bad results? Have you noticed having to change the amounts used as products get better/worse? Do you use too large quantities of things out of habit?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this!

She knows and is judging you

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 11 January 2012 in chickens | 0 comments

In a similar vein to the silliness earlier in the week….

In my life

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 10 January 2012 in meta | 8 comments

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done an “in my life” so here goes!

Outside my window it’s dark but throughout today we’ve watched squirrels, robins & tits, and Boron-cat & next door but one’s tabby enjoying the sunny – if cold – weather.

I am thinking about casting our next drama production – there are 40 kids & 40 parts in the play, which seems like it should be easy. But everyone wants to audition for at least two parts and some characters need to sing but not everyone is a singer, and of course not everyone is suitable for every role anyway… We’ve got to fit all the auditions into a small amount of time too so it’s been a logistical nightmare!

I am thankful that I got the above sorted – or at least everyone into efficient groups for the auditions – the actual casting is largely someone else’s responsibility. I thought it would take about an hour but it’s taken all afternoon – satisfying that it’s done but a little annoying that it’s a one time use thing.

From the kitchen, we’re having a expensive treat dinner – the organic sirloin steaks we got in our December Swillington Farm meat box – can’t wait :)

I am wearing my big green hoodie, which is funnily enough what I was wearing last time I wrote one of these! I don’t wear it that often, it’s just a coincidence!

I am creating … well, I should have been creating a fun new website but I got caught up in that drama thing. But generally this week I’ve been creating two new websites (ooh!) and a design/ideas sheet for our new living room.

I am going to switch off this evening. I have a lot of things on my to-do list but my brain, she is frazzled.

I am reading Enough: Breaking Free from the World of Excess by John Naish – a random library pick. One of my 2012 goals (which I still haven’t finalised/written about) is to review each book I read this year (even if it’s just a tweet) so I’ll write about it when I’m done.

I am hoping that all the drama kids are happy with the parts they get in the play and that they enjoy doing it – that’s more important to me than whether or not the production is a success really. I’m also hoping that the cut on Lily-dog’s paw heals soon as it’s painful when she walks on it outside but she doesn’t like missing her walks! And third, I’m hoping I manage to cook the steaks perfectly this evening :)

I am hearing John on a conference call across our desks and Lily snoring. A quiet relief from the noise of building work upstairs throughout the rest of today – John’s dad has picked up where we left off demolishing the fireplace and assorted issues.

Around the house there is a lot of dust – again, exactly the same as last time! — then it was because we were converting our coal hole into a mini-utility room and now because of pulling down old plaster in the living room. This is the last bloomin’ time I buy a doer-upper house…!

One of my favourite things of today has been how Lily-dog’s tail wagged when I sang her a new song this morning. Another favourite thing of today has been having a bit of a revelation which halved my workload for the week (hurrah!). A favourite thing of the week: a perfect cup of tea yesterday morning.

A few plans for the rest of the week nothing terribly exciting afoot – some living room renovation shopping/decisions to be made tomorrow, lots of drama stuff (we’ve got to get going on a smaller production as well as the big one), working on the new websites, some (ahem) World of Warcraft and maybe some laundry detergent making after Su bullied me into it ;)

What’s going on in your life?

#ChickenOwnerProblems

Posted by louisa on Monday 9 January 2012 in chickens | 2 comments

(A chicken-related parody of #FirstWorldProblems inspired by boiling too fresh eggs for our egg mayo lunch.)

My eggs are too fresh to make good-hard boiled eggs today. #ChickenOwnerProblems

The recipe calls for one medium egg but I only have extra-large and larger. #ChickenOwnerProblems

I have too many eggs to fit in my egg holder. #ChickenOwnerProblems

We don’t have any egg boxes to start seedlings in. #ChickenOwnerProblems

Our compost heap fills up too quickly. #ChickenOwnerProblems

I have to walk laps around the garden to clock up a food mile. #ChickenOwnerProblems

Our lemon curd ends up as yellow curd because the yolks are too golden. #ChickenOwnerProblems

Can you think of any more silly #ChickenOwnerProblems? ;)

Demolishing someone else’s living room

Posted by louisa on Friday 6 January 2012 in house | 5 comments

We cleared just about all our stuff out of our living room last night (bar the sofas, the coffee table, the bean bag and, um, a pink flip flop) as we were supposed to start demolishing our giant dated fireplace today.

Demolition has now been put back until this weekend but without our junk in it, we’ve just got a big empty room that doesn’t feel like ours any more. We have photos of us in the completely empty living room the day we got the keys for the house and it feels like that again – someone else’s home. We’ve not done anything to the living room really since we moved in — it’s always been on our “OMG must do!” list but because it’s likely to be a messy job and other things have taken priority for practical reasons, we’ve not got around to it. We were supposed to do it the first spring we were in the house – 2010 – so we’re only a couple of years late, which is pretty good for us.

The decor – which includes the strangely painted (polystyrene) coving and ceiling rose above – is … not our taste at all but we’ve been happy lazily accepted it over the last couple of years. We’ll be glad to see it go though – the fireplace takes up so much space considering how little space there is for an actual fire/stove and the panelling is really imposing.

It is going to be quite an expense but it’ll hopefully be more than just an aesthetic improvement – we’ll gain quite a bit of space where the TV stand thing is (we think there is a deep alcove behind that area), we will be able to get a bigger wood-burning stove (which will be more efficient at warming the house in general than our current little one) & more efficient radiators, and we’ll be able to get better curtains & a door curtain (there is an external door to the balcony just at the right of that top pic) which will stop draughts. From a comfort/usefulness point of view, we’re also going to get a new-to-us sofa that makes better use of the space. Plus demolishing stuff is really fun ;)

I can’t wait to see if our alcove predictions are true and what the original fireplace is like behind the nasty modern one — we found this in boarded up in our office:

We don’t think the living room one will be quite as big but who knows? An exciting weekend of discovery ahead!

What are you going to be getting up to this weekend? Will it include a crowbar too? ;)