A frosty start to March

There was a coating of frost everywhere this morning, with some local reports of snow but I didn't see any.  Now I do love snow at Christmas time but once January and February are done, I'm looking forward to Spring.  New shoot, new grass and a healthier glow.

Today my son is off school poorly so I'm working from home in between looking after him.  We are going to have the home made bread rolls for lunch which I must say look fabulous.  The test will be in the taste later today so I shall report back.  For now this is what they looked like when being made then after baking.

Not bad for a first attempt?

The cookies are going a bit too quickly so I've stashed them away - if they are not on display then they should last the expected 3 days.  Flapjacks are the same too.

Shopping came to £35 on Saturday from Aldi and that should last us for the week.  Tonight is chicken and pasta and tomorrow chicken in the slow cooker.  I have a budget of £150 for the month which allows me to make overpayments to the loan and keep the date planned to make the last payment.

I have decided to do a huge Spring clean when I am off work over Easter.  This is going to be a mini project and will be update regularly on the blog.  There are two reasons for this Spring clean, one because it's desperately needed as the house is grubby from the winter and two to de-clutter in preparation for the big move.  There will be another round of de-cluttering too but this is the big push.  So plans are a foot for the great spring clean.

GH has been partaking in a project at the bottom of the garden too, for the same reason of being ready to sell.  We have chickens and their shed has seen better days so we are getting rid of it and moving them into the other shed we have.  We'll have a little move around and get it looking better for when the time comes.  We need to turf and things so I shall post before and after shots in the coming days/weeks.

Happy Monday :)

Goodbye February, Hello March

Spring is definitely in the air and it's lovely to feel.

Today I have been to the stables with my daughter and enjoyed seeing her ride her pony and a friend's pony too.  Following this we all went to the father in laws for a lovely Sunday lunch.  This afternoon has seen me take inspiration from notjustgreenfingers' blog and whip up some chocolate chip cookies, flapjacks and currently in the bread-maker is a dough to make rolls.  Following her advice I will slice them and freeze ready to make up for the packed lunches.  Great idea!

I've been making bread in the BM weekly now when we run out of shop bought.  At the moment, we rely on shop bought to see us through the beginning of the week and I top up with homemade.  Eventually I may get to homemade 100% of the time but for now I'm happy with the balance.

It struck me the other day how far we've come since our journey had it's initial, dim spark.  I say dim as it's taken me a long time to start living a more frugal lifestyle but the fact is, we've come so far.  We don't buy things that we don't need, we make do and mend, make the most of free activities and generally live a happy yet frugal lifestyle. 

So this coming week I have my meal plan done, shopped yesterday to get everything I need for it and have the treats made to fill up the lunch boxes and after tea requests.  I'm going to make some rice pudding later in the week.  I think I will use the slow cooker as I've never done rice pudding in the slow cooker before.  That will be or Friday's soup and pudding night.

Two years time we will have our house up for sale and the farm will be in our sights.