It's The Simple Things That Count

Materialism is an ever-constant assault on our senses. It's everywhere. All the time. Trying to convince us that happiness and contentment can be bought. 

I was scrolling through my archives and found this post that I wrote in 2015. I couldn't help but think how much pressure to 'have more to have happiness' has increased with the growth of social media and influencers since writing this post.

 

Honestly, it's exhausting to be constantly told how to 'find happiness'. Ultimately, the people who are trying to convince us of their wealth = happiness gospel are doing so because it has a direct correlation to their own bank balance!

So, I thought it may be a good time to re-publish this post as timely reminder to rebalance our thoughts and hearts on what truly matters in life.

From the Archives:

In today's post I wanted to share some lovely simple things from my week that have made me happy. It seems to have become a bit of a ponderous post for me though after our read-aloud time this morning. So instead of speaking about those lovely simple things, I will pen out my thoughts and pepper this post with pictures of them instead.

I am reading the book 'Daddy-Long-Legs' by Jean Webster to my girls during our read-aloud time. In today's reading the main character, Judy, writes to Daddy-Long-Legs of her first visit to New York. She writes,

 "I can't imagine any joy in life greater than sitting down in front of a mirror and buying any hat you choose without having first to consider the price! There's no doubt about it, Daddy; New York would rapidly undermine this fine stoical character which the John Grier Home so patiently built up."

Her very next letter sees her in a more rational frame of mind. Daddy Long-legs evidently sent her a cheque after reading her letter, but she returns the cheque with a note explaining why she cannot accept the money, she writes, 

" I am sorry that I wrote all that silly stuff about the millinery shop; it's just that I had never seen anything like it before."

I'm sure we can all find a time in our life when we felt like Judy. It is so easy to get sucked into a world of materialism. I usually try to avoid shopping malls that hold every top brand name, or those streets in London that house the same. It sucks you in and you begin to feel a little like Judy. I know what she means when she says that *New York (*fill in your own city/mall/shopping weakness here) would undermine her stoic character.

Materialism is a terribly enticing and bad master and the truth is that shopping up a storm or adding 'stuff' to your name does not make you a happier person. Unfortunately we spend our lives having advertising companies bombarding us with messages on why we will only ever be happy if we buy x-y or z.

The best way of counteracting this is to cultivate a spirit of thankfulness for what we have and appreciating the simple things in life. 

There are many, many things to be thankful for and appreciate if you just look around you. Here are some of mine this week:

* The good health of everyone in my family

* BBQ's on a warm spring evening

* Nature walks with my children

* New life springing out from all quarters every single day

* A roof over our heads and food in our tummies

* A good job to keep us in above-stated condition :)

* Being able to sit quietly and work in my nature journal

* Good friends to talk to

* Happy memories of family holidays and times together

* Living in England! I love this country and feel blessed to be here

* Seasons - I love the seasons

* Birdsong - how can you not be cheered when you stop to listen to them

* Buzzy bumble-bees and fluttery butterflies - all out in the sunshine

* Washing dancing in the wind as it dries outside on the washing line

* Freshly cut lawn

* Clouds scudding across the blue sky

* Blossoms and blooms - they are everywhere at the moment

* The feel of my fountain pen moving over paper as I write in journal entries

* Reading good books together with my children and for myself. We have many wonderful memories of books read together. I'm so grateful that I have given my children a living-books rich curriculum

* Jumping on the trampoline with my daughter and laughing until our sides hurt

* Eating ice-creams outside in the warm sunshine

* Seeing the Cowslips blooming - they are so sweet, I love them.

I could go on but I fear I might bore you LOL. But I'm sure that as you read my list you will see that none of the things I have listed as precious and thankful memories and moments have cost very much or anything at all.

In a world that seems to have gone half-crazy on materialism, I'm immensely grateful that its the simple things in life that make me most happy.

A blessed Thursday to you all...

Dandelion Yarn

I love how this time of year just keeps throwing up seasonal treasures week after week. Often these treasures are fleeting like the bluebells and others last a little longer like the cow parsley that is flooding the verges at the moment.

About two weeks ago the fields, lawns, verges and country lanes were awash with yellow dandelions. I just love this wildflower although my husband can't stand them as they pop up in the lawn faster than he can cut it. There's a myriad of things that you can do with dandelions, I've made dandelion jam and bread before. I want to try making a dandelion salve next year but this year I decided to extract dye from the flowers to dye up some yarn.

I walked down the little dirt lane that runs alongside our home (that's our house across the fields in the above picture) to go and harvest some of the dandelion flowers that seemed to have happily taken over this field.

Standing before this sea of waving blooms was just a delight. How can you not love dandelions, they just sing with joy and are abuzz with insects busily feeding off them, they are vital food for our early insects!

I set my basket amid natures gift and slowly gathered a mass of flower heads, pausing to breath in the fresh country air and rest in the suns early spring warmth. In the distance, I watched a train cut through the fields carrying its passengers to where ever it is they were going. As a child, I had pictured the English countryside just like this, except the train was a steam engine with billows of smoke trailing behind. These were the visions conjured up in my mind as my mother read The Railway Children to me and my sisters.

How much to gather? I wasn't sure so I just kept picking until the bottom quarter of my basket was full.

Reluctantly, I left behind the dandelion field and walked back up along the lane pondering on the process of extracting the dye from the flower heads and mordant my last three skeins of yarn. I have wanted to dye with natural dye forever. My original vision was to spin my own yarn from the sheep that we would have on our little smallholding and dye the yarn with plants gathered from the countryside. It was a dream. When I realised that it may take way longer than expected to achieve our little dream I searched to see if I could just buy the yarn in...and I could. The rest is history as they say.

I've been dyeing yarn since 2016 and it is only now that I am turning to the hedgerows for dye material. I feel like I am a novice dyer again, and for the most part, I am. There is a whole lot to learn about natural dyes and it's a journey I'm excited to be on. 

I popped the flowers into the crockpot and set it on low. I left it to gently bubble away overnight, then I switched it off and let it cool down. This is a slow process and that is part of what I love about it. Working with acid dyes is fairly quick by comparison. 

Once I drained off the dye, I put the mordant yarn back into the crockpot with the dandelion dye and brought it back up to temperature overnight then let it cool all morning. A quick wash, then out to dry and voila!

Isn't it just so pretty? I have listed them in my shop although I have to say I'm very tempted to keep one. The only thing holding me back is that my yarn stash really needs to be actually knitted up! I have so many projects on the go that I really need to work through to some sort of conclusion.

There are 2 skeins of sock yarn and 1 DK skein. Tomorrow I plan on making a whole lot of project bags for the shop. I found some wonderful fabric this week and I can't wait to sew it all up.

I have all this time to indulge in my little shop right now because I handed in my final law assignment on Monday - Yay! I've absolutely loved the first year of my law degree but am so ready for a break. I'm sure I shall be looking forward to hitting the books come September. But until then I shall be wild dyeing, sewing and creating right here Under An English Sky.

Blessings to you all today.

A Round-up of Summer Harvest & Preserving Posts

We are hitting our garden produce stride at the moment and when you have an abundance of something, whether it is homegrown or in season and available in the supermarkets, I believe in taking every opportunity to preserve the harvest.

This is one of the great summer rituals that stretches into autumn. My preserving year usually starts with making Elderflower Cordial at the beginning of June and finishes with an abundance of apple, blackberry and pumpkin preserving marathons in October. By the time Bonfire Night comes round the preserving season has drawn to a close and I begin to look forward to making Christmas cakes and mince for mince pies.

Over the years I've written quite a few posts on making preserves and harvesting from my garden so I thought a single post with a roundup of those posts would be nice. I like revisiting past posts sometimes don't you? So as we once again ready ourselves for this season of abundance lets take look at some of those posts.

Summer Harvesting and Preserving Posts From the Archives:

* Late August Harvest 2017
* Storing Summers Bounty 2017
* Summers Bounty: Harvested and Preserved 2016
* Of Hearth & Home: Preserving Seasonal Produce 2015

This link is not from my blog but it is an excellent post to read if you are new to preserving or canning. Read 4 Ways to Preserve Your Summer Harvest

Recipes

* Strawberry Jam
* Lemon Curd
* Elderflower Cordial

Most of my recipes and ideas come from the wealth of inspiration on Pinterest so check out my Preserving and Canning board for lots more ideas.

Recommendations

I have built up a lovely collection of necessary tools over my years of making jams and chutneys. I started off with a really good preserving pan and some recycled jars collected over time or foraged off friends. Slowly, I added some really nifty tools that I wouldn't be without now so if you are new to preserving and wanting to buy the basics this is what I would recommend:

1. Preserving Pan

A really good preserving pan is a must. You must use either a stainless steel pan or an enamelled one. Aluminium can react with ingredients like vinegar which can give your preserves an 'off' taste. You will also want one that can hold volume so something like this pan below would be perfect. For those of you who live in the UK, you will find places like The Range usually stock a great preserving line around this time of year.

2. Jam Funnel

This is such a help when bottling your preserves. Before I added this nifty little thing to my preserving tools I would spill sticky preserves all down the side of my jars and have to clean it up once it cooled. Using a jam funnel makes the whole process much more civilised.

3. Sugar Thermometer

I have to admit that I don't own a sugar thermometer. I'm sure that if I did it would make my job a whole lot easier and perhaps that will be this year's addition to my preserving tool-set.  I usually use the cold saucer method to check for setting point. Most often it works but last years jam was tipped over setting point and thus it is a stiffer, harder jam than I would have liked.

4.  Jam Jar Tongs

These are a must for handling hot jars! I use them to move around just sterilised jars as well as for handling filled jars while in the process of sealing them in a water bath. My first two years of preserving I did not have them and was trying to move hot jars with tea towels or oven mitts. I can't tell you how many times I tipped the jars over with this clumsy method and created a lovely mess for myself. Get the tongs!

5. Jars

Of course, this is a pretty important item to have. I usually recycle my jars like I mentioned but for chutney's and pickles you need to have new lids as the vinegar tends to eat away at the seals and lids. Don't reuse those. The glass jar is fine to reuse but buy new seals and rings if you are using Kilner jars, otherwise, you will need to invest in new jars each season for those more corrosive preserves

6. Wax Discs

This is used as an extra seal. You place them wax side down on the jam when it is still warm. The wax then melts slightly forming a wax skin which then hardens when the jam is cool. It is supposed to keep out the spores that can cause mould.

I hope that you have found this post informative but most of all I hope it has inspired you to give preserving a go. Remember, you don't have to grow all your own fruit and veg to preserve, take advantage of what's in season in the supermarkets.

Blessings to you all...

Frugal Friday :: Planning Ahead

We are a hop, skip and a jump away from July. More than halfway through the year already. The school year is drawing to a close, summer is stretching out ahead and as we stand on its doorstep it seems that summer will last forever. I don't want to be fooled by this illusion. I know that before we know it, we will be rushing around getting children ready for the new school year, we will slip into a new season as we hurtle towards the end of the year. 

 I've been watching my local farmer over the last few weeks. Do you know what he has been doing? He's getting ready for winter. Seems ridiculous but he is. I've watched up cut, toss, dry and bale the silage, fodder for his animals this coming winter. It got me to thinking about the cold months that will come sooner than we think and how I could be better prepared.

Usually, I don't give this much thought but this past winter changed that a little for me. We moved into an older, less heat-efficient house. Our heating system, like a lot of rural homes in England, runs off oil so I need to monitor the oil tank levels and make sure that I have enough to run the heating. It is rather surprising how quickly we can deplete our oil tank! I was rather horrified at our heating bills over winter and determined that I was going to put a plan in place for the next winter.

The second incident that has given me cause to pause and think was the unusual occurrence of snow in Devon. The snowfall caused a power outage in our area, thankfully it was only for about 10 hours but 10 hours can seem an eternity when you have no heating or way of cooking. We have a wood burning stove and if I had been more prepared I would have had ample wood on hand to ensure a warm home and a way of being able to at least make a cup of tea. As it turns out, I was NOT prepared and after a few uncomfortable cold hours knocked on my neighbour's door who very kindly had a whole lot of wood pallets that they gave us. A true and rather embarrassing story!

And finally, I seemed to struggle with finding a good cost effective way of getting all my washing dry. I started off hanging everything on clothes horses and using a blow heater directed at the wet washing. This sent our electricity bills through the roof. Then I moved the clothes horses into the orangery and had to re-wash everything because the plants that reside in the orangery make wet clothing take on a rather yucky aroma.

My Winter Prep Plan

1.  Our boiler pretty much gave up the ghost after the power outage and is running on borrowed time. This is a bit of a blessing in disguise as we are having a new boiler installed in July - a more energy-efficient boiler. I'm hoping that will help keep winter fuel costs down.

2.  Purchase a full tank of Oil now and keep putting money away monthly to fill it up again mid-way through winter.

3.  Collect firewood & Build up Coal store - I saw a man down the road today advertising free firewood. I will pop in over the weekend to find out more about that and load up as much as I can. What I can't forage I will have to buy in. I've found a good supplier to I will order a pallet of wood in August. I will also buy in coal in September. Spreading the cost of winter fuel throughout the year eases the financial burden over the long cold winter.

4.  I've already purchased a bigger clothes horse and I will be purchasing a few radiator hangers. I am trying to avoid buying a tumble dryer as these add to the energy consumption. Ensuring that the washing does not build up and making my heating sources work for me is what I will be concentrating on in this area this winter.

5. Winter curtains. In order to keep the heat in I will hang a curtain in front of exterior doors. These can be pulled aside in the day but will help keep out cold drafts.

Do you have any winter fuel saving tips? If so I would love to hear them.

Frugal Friday :: Cooking From Scratch

So I'm a day late in posting this post, my apologies for that. This week I started my new part-time job and on the same day, I had an interview for a voluntary role I hope to take on next year after my contract ends. More on that another time but needless to say I was a little preoccupied. Today I want to talk about cooking from scratch.

I grew up in a home where my mum cooked everything from scratch so it's the way I have done things in my own home. There is something quite satisfying about cooking and providing wholesome meals and delicious bakes for your family. 

Interestingly, I have found that a lot of people don't cook from scratch either because they don't know how or their lives are just so busy it's easier to by prepared meals. However, convenience food can prove to be costly both financially and possibly in the long term with regards to health.

By cooking from scratch I know exactly what is in our food. It's not laden with sugars, salts or preservatives. 

I like to take advantage of food that is in season. I try to put aside some time each week to do a bit of batch cooking. I spend a few hours baking and cooking simple meals like soup for the freezer. That way there is always a quick lunch or supper option for busy days. Fakeaway if you like...making your own fakeaways saves money spent on fast foods. 

I try to make use of what may be considered waste. After a roast, I pop the bones, leftover vegetables, add some onions, celery, root vegetables and a handful of herbs from the garden into my crockpot. I cover the whole lot with water and set it on low for about 8 hours. This makes the perfect stock to use as a base for hearty soups.

Another thing I like to do is prepare crockpot meals in advance. I put all the ingredients I need for a meal in a freezer bag then pop them in the freezer. Easy to pull out the night before to thaw then into the crockpot to cook on the day. No fuss, all the prep is already done leaves you free to get on with other things whilst still providing your family with a hearty and healthy meal come dinner time.

This week I prepared 5 crockpot bags and it took me all of 45 minutes. We had Apricot Lamb Hot{crock}pot, Chicken Curry, Hearty Beef Stew, Chicken Fajitas and Cranberry Honey Roast Pork. 

Check out my Freezer Meal and Slow Cooked Goodness Pinterest Boards for loads of good ideas. 

I thought I would finish off this post with my favourite go-to pizza dough recipe. It makes enough dough to feed 5 or 6 people and we love making our own pizza over buying ready-made. We can be as creative as we want and each person can customise their own pizza according to taste. In our home, Friday nights are always burger and pizza nights. One week we do homemade burgers and the following week Homemade pizza. Needless to say, everyone looks forward to Friday dinners 😄

Homemade Pizza Dough

1.5 kg flour
1 sachet yeast (7g or 2 ¹/₄ teaspoons)
15ml sunflower oil
10ml salt
10ml sugar
Warm water

Tomato Base

Tomato Passata
Raw Garlic
Oregano
Herbs and Spices of choice - mix all together in a bowl

*Place all ingredients in a large bowl. Add warm water, enough to make a dough. Knead for 10 minutes until the dough is shiny and elastic. Allow to rest a few hours or until double in size.
*If making individual pizza's portion out dough per person, roll out, prick dough base with a fork a couple of times and pre-bake in a 200 degree C oven for about 5 minutes. You want to cook the base just enough so that you don't end up with a raw base.
*Spread tomato sauce on your pizza base, add toppings of your choice, top with Mozzarella cheese and bake in the oven until cheese has melted and slightly golden.

Blessings to you all and may you have a lovely weekend. 

Frugal Friday :: Tackling Debt

There is joy in keeping a frugal home. I know that might sound a bit odd for some but I personally gain a sense of achievement if I have managed to stick to my budget, save on what I thought I might spend or better yet, make that final payment on a debt.

In this modern world, debt in one form or another is something few of us can avoid. I wasn't brought up with money-savvy parents, everything I have learnt has been through the school of hard knocks. I'm glad I learnt my lessons early for by-and-large, I have run a frugal home from the time my children were about 3 and 5.

I don't believe that we will ever reach that time of complete 'enlightenment & knowledge'. There always seems to be something new to learn, new ways to improve on things and that applies to personal finances too. My husband and I have decided that we want to become debt-free, not only debt-free but we want to build up assets (home) & finances that are healthy enough to carry us through our old age and while we are working towards all this we want to teach our young adult children these healthy financial habits too.

Let's face it, the world is all about material gain and image which apparently buys you happiness.

As with most worldly messages, it's a lie.

Materialism and keeping up appearances is crippling to your finances, your long-term future and your peace. Deciding to turn things around, no matter what age you are is the first step to carving out the life you want.

"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law." Romans 13:8

We are fortunate not to have overwhelming debt but there are a couple of things that we want to get rid of so that we can honour the Lord in this area of our lives. The debt we do have is taking away from not only our retirement years but also being able to help others which are honouring to God. 

It can be hard knowing just where to begin. We wanted a Biblical approach to looking at and handling our finances and Dave Ramsey fits that bill. I have purchased a copy of his classic edition of The Total Money Makeover. This is a GREAT place to begin. This book is full of solid practical advice, financial myth-busters, inspirational stories of people who have followed the steps and made a difference in their lives. 

I'm all about the how-to. Give me a clear-cut plan that makes sense and I'm there. If you are going to buy just one book on finances, this is it. Dave Ramsey does not promise a quick and easy fix, after all, generally, it's taken years to get into a pickle so it goes to reason that it's going to take time to get sorted out.

Dave Ramsey works in '7 Baby Steps'. I have a {not so} funny story to tell you about these the first of these steps. The first step (Baby step 1) is to save $ (£)1000.00 for 'Murphy' - you know how it goes, just when you think all is well and you are finally getting on top of things, Murphy pays you a visit just to remind you that he's in charge. This is SOOOOO true.

Well, we achieved Baby Step 1 which is that rainy-day fund to tackle whatever Murphy has to throw at us. One Saturday, we were having a conversation with our 20-year-old about the importance of having this fund and now that we had it sorted we could move onto baby step 2. Can you believe that within 30 minutes of having this conversation a warning light came on in my husbands newly serviced and repaired car! Was Murphy listening? He must have been. What a cruel trick to play!

Things happen in life and it is good to have a safety net in order to cope. I'm so glad for this good advice! Like I said, this book is full of wisdom. I haven't read it all but so far I'm loving what I'm learning. Part of being frugal is to plan for life's stormy moments. I don't for one minute think it takes that rather fed-up feeling away but it does help eliminate the stress and worry.

I'm hoping to make Frugal Friday a bit of a running link-up party. Is that something you would be interested in? Something that you would like to participate in perhaps? I love finding frugal ways to run my home. It could be anything from budget-friendly recipes to making your own laundry detergent to frugal days out with the family. I know that there are lots of blogs out there that focus entirely on this but I thought it might be nice for our little community to have a place to share tried and tested ways of practising frugal living. If you are keen to add your own links from your blog please do, I would love to pop on over and glean some of your great ideas and wisdom.

Blessings to you all today...

Join the linky party by leaving your link.

Goodbye August

It's hard to believe that today is the last day of the month! August has been lovely, we've had some lovely weather, lovely friends visiting us from afar and lovely seasonal observances to enjoy that are unique to August.

August Collage

We've enjoyed watching a family of hedgehogs fatten up for the coming winter, we stayed up late to catch the Perseid's Meteor Shower, We enjoyed Plymouths annual fireworks extravaganza, the long, warm summer days, and gathering in free foods from the hedgerows and trees surrounding us. It's been a good month. 

I feel that I have finished off the month in the way I hope to go on into September, feeling peaceful, content and productive. On Sunday I finished off this adorable little cross stitch which I will finish off in some creative way yet-to-be-determined and add to my autumn decor.

This is a free chart that I have on my Pinterest board if you are interested.

This week we started back at lessons so I spent Bank Holiday Monday putting the final touches to our learning plans. It was a glorious day - actually quite hot so I was glad to sit in the shade of the Hawthorn tree sipping coffee and doing one of the things I love best - planning.

While I was sitting here I heard some rather strange noises coming from the shrubs, upon investigating I found this little fellow tucked away sleeping. Perhaps he was having hedgehog dreams.

And last but not least, I finally got round to making my Apple Bramble Jam yesterday. Oh my goodness! Our family LOVES this jam. All ingredients save the lemons and sugar are gathered from the hedgerows which is half the fun and seems to make the jam taste better.

I used 400g of blackberries, 400g of apples, 500g sugar and the juice of one large lemon. Bring to a gentle rolling boil and let that cook down until the fruit has broken up and you have a thick sticky mixture that has reached setting point. Then ladle into null jars.

My fruit made three and bit jars - three for the grocery cupboard and a bit to enjoy right now on home baked scones. This is my youngest daughters favourite jam, in fact, she will only eat this apple bramble jam 😋.

Now I am super excited because... tomorrow marks the meteorological start of autumn! I am simply giddy with happiness. The autumn equinox (perhaps the official start of autumn) is only 22 days away, there is no doubt that signs of the season are already creeping in. I am completely tempted to crack open all my autumn decor but I will restrain myself and only do so in celebration of the equinox as is our custom. Until then, I'll be content with pinning beautiful and inspirational pins on my 'All Things Autumn' Pinterest board and keeping my hands busy with another autumn inspired cross stitch decoration to add to my autumn decor stash 😀. 

Blessings to you all this lovely last day in August.

Summers Bounty - Harvested and Preserved

Summer. Although it's not my favourite season (I tend to come alive with the onset of autumn) I have to say there is a lot offered up during this time of year to love.

Sweet Peas are one of those things. I have tried growing sweet peas for years with no luck - but this year I may have cracked it...

I have no idea what I have done differently mind you - but this is the third bunch of sweet peas so far and there are loads more to come. 

Hydrangeas are another of summers joys. I have two HUGE Hydrangea shrubs in my garden. One offers up pale blue flower heads and the other more pinky ones. Did you know that the colour of the hydrangea flower is dictated by the soil type it's in? 

My Hydrangeas are so prolific at the moment that we have bunches all over the house - just about in every room. My summer mantle boasts a beautiful big bunch...

I've heard that the flower heads can be preserved really nicely. I think I might try my hand at that this year. :)

Another of summers gifts ...

Apples and cucumbers are coming off the tree and vine right now. These are cooking apples so I think these particular ones are going to become an apple pie for the freezer. I found some apples on special the other day and bought a whole lot. They've become apple sauce which is stored in the freezer too. So far I've made apple sauce muffins and apple sauce and maple syrup pancakes. Can you ever have too much apple sauce on hand I wonder? :)

Red onions are always fairly cheap and one of our favourite preserves is Caramelised Red Onion chutney. I use it for so many different things. I spent some time two weeks ago making up a few jars for the pantry. It should be perfect to use right around autumn time.

I really do love to take seasonal food and use it as much as I can while it is available. Now I would love to say that I can grow all that we eat - but I can't. I don't have enough growing space and I think my gardening skills are average at best. BUT I am always on the lookout to take advantage of great deals in the grocery stores or at my local farm stall. So 'Harvesting' for me is not only using what I grow myself or gather from the hedgerows, it's 'harvesting' seasonal food from the grocery isles and farm stalls and then processing and preserving it at home. 

Getting out to the 'Pick-Your-Own' farms is a great way to get your seasonal food at it's freshest! During these months of abundance, I will make a few trips to our local 'Pick-Your-Own'.

 If apples, for example, are in abundance then I make applesauce, apple pies, chutney's and jams (my Apple Bramble jam is delish). Keeping the freezer and pantry stocked really gives me a sense of accomplishment and it really does save money as you are popping out to the store less frequently. 

The next month or two have a bounty of fruit and veg to offer and so I have been scouring my favourite cookbooks and listing recipes that will help me to take advantage of this productive time. I've recently bought a chest freezer and I intend to have it stocked with all manner of lovely things as we move into the colder and less productive months.

Do you take advantage of summers harvest at all - whether it be growing your own or harvesting from the grocery store?

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Homemade Bagels'

Bagels have recently become a firm favourite in our home. Everyone loves them for lunch and easily get through a few packets of them a week. So I decided that I would try my hand at making them myself - just for fun. 

For some reason I thought that they would be far more difficult to do than they actually were. The dough was easy - popped everything into my Kenwood and did the whole mixing, proving, mixing again process in it. 

Then I divided the dough into 12 equal portions, rolled them out into 'sausages' and pinched the ends together.

Next you pop them into rapidly boiling water for a few minutes which causes them to double in size.

Then into the oven for 20 minutes - so easy.

Best of all they tasted delicious and I have enough bagels to see my family through the week without having to pop to the store ;)

Monday Musings...

January and February are hard months to love for me. The excitement of the festive season has past, these two months are often the most dreary of the year, and those short days ... :(

These two months I generally have to work hardest at trying to appreciate. I make a concerted effort to get outdoors as often as I can during this time, even though we have miserable weather.

And around the home I fill vases, bottles and jars with flowers to brighten little corners up. I have two windows in my stairwell and both have got little bunches of daffodils. These happen to come from my garden but usually they are not in bloom around this time of the year. Usually a bunch of daffs are added to my weekly Tesco shop.

I love their bright sunny yellow, and their fragrance! So lovely. As I go up and down the stairs, catch their fragrance and see their sunny dispositions, it reminds me to think happy thoughts and have a sunny disposition myself :)

This week I couldn't resist these beautiful tulips...

Aren't they just beautiful? They are on the coffee table right in the centre of my living room where I can get maximum appreciation value from them :)

I have hung up my crochet flower heart wreath I made last year. I know it's a bit early but it seems a shame to only bring it out once a year for a day. Our Bible time this week is focused on love and love in action in our lives, so I thought that It was appropriate to hang it up in my hallway as a reminder to us all.

On the homeschool front...

I've been doing a little thinking about what is and isn't working and re-jigging things a bit. We follow the Charlotte Mason method in our home and one of the things things that we do is Picture Study. In our previous home all the artworks we looked at were pinned up on the wall in our dining room - which is where we did our work. But in our new home we are lucky enough to have a room upstairs dedicated as our school room. Only problem is that although we do sometimes work there, most of our learning is done throughout the house, of late book work has been happening downstairs in the dining room. So all our artworks have been pinned upstairs in the schoolroom and out of sight.

So this morning as I introduced our new painting, I suddenly thought that I should use the front of the refrigerator door as our 'art gallery'. That way we get maximum exposure to our artworks each term. I have to say I quite like evidence of our learning lifestyle scattered throughout the home - it's part of who we are after all.

This weekend is the Big Garden Bird watch in the UK. We participate every year and I absolutely love having birds visit our feeder throughout the year, it's a source of great joy to me. I'm always trying to think of ways to make my feeder more attractive to our feathered friends. When I was having a bird-feeder problem a few months back, I read that the more feeding stations you have in your garden the better. So today I set up a second feeding station. This one is set further away from the house and closer to the summer house and pond. Now I didn't want to spend money on more feeding equipment so after having a quick look on Pinterest for inspiration, I grabbed a water bottle out of the recycling, a couple of wooden spoons from the kitchen drawer, and made a new feeder. I hope the birds visit it!

Now I hope that all my American friends have kept safe and warm over the past weekend. Your snow blizzard was the hot topic of conversation on our British news channels! Your storm is set to hit our own shores tomorrow, but not as snow, rather as high winds and lots of rain. But as of this moment .... I am enjoying the calm before the storm so to speak. It's been a lovely day with a bit of cloud cover but right now we have lots of blue sky - a lovely afternoon :)

Hope you have a great start to your week everyone!