Greatitudes 542 - 570

It generally all boils down to boys and buns here! Admittedly for most of the last week it has been about nothing much more than boys and bugs (of the tummy variety) but we are now all most well. And that is an extremely good thing. But otherwise there is nothing, still as yet nothing, quite as calming to a houseload of sun-filled, sun-stoked suns and other people's suns than a batch of buns and a table load of icing and things. This is another extremely good thing while it lasts. Friends of suns are also an extremely good thing. That's fabulous when going well. So well done to Troubled Sun for being nearly at the end of a trying year on the suns of other people front. I may have been a little bit blank to one of these people at the level crossing hiatus today. This is not an extremely good thing.

When do buns become cupcakes anyway? Is it when they are properly iced and enormous and you could look at them for a long time before daring to eat- with a small fork, obviously. We had lots of those, not made by me, at last week's Mums in May. Now this is a huge source of gratitude on my part. I managed to organise a Mothers' Union event. Phew. Slightly absolved after a year of inept muddling! More gratitudes- people came and brought friends, they all brought more food, they must each have donated double the suggested amount for the work of Irish MU, the sun shone and shone and shone! The sun has in fact just stopped shining, which is nearly a tiny relief given that we are people of a frozen clime and a fortnight of South of France temperatures is definitely more than Calvinists deserve!

Are YWAM folk Calvinists? I didn't get much of a grasp of the work they were doing out and about this week. We were hosting a little family, so Strawberry Land was wholly concerned with falling in love with Layna! Layna discovered Charlie and Lola, which was a fine excuse for me to sit down and revel in Lauren Child. Not that I ever need much of an excuse... Such a novelty to have a house full of something other than boys and buns.

Now the above illustrates what happens when actual cakes become cup cakes! We have decadently celebrated two Bean Birthdays in the last fortnight. We don't physically go to the Bean Coffee Shop for birthdays anymore- we take the birthday to crafting person's home and invade it and put up the personalised banners and eat the personalised cakes by Lorna, and eat all the other food we've brought as well. Sometimes we hook. Usually we just eat. It's like having your eighth birthday all over again, except that your brother doesn't pull your hair, or your best friend run off with your new Sindy. And you get to blow out the candle without having to light it again for your children. I love it! Happy Birthdays, Niqi and Cathy!

Hooray- the Willows have not only arrived safely at Carolyn's glorious place of Mess, Muddle and Fun, but they are exploring the Lake District too. Do visit and comment!

Now finally, Thrifty Thursday has a confession for the group. She has been most careful during this Year of Living Small, and it has indeed been a time of living very large in the wonderful provision of He who provides, and in the kindness of friends. She has shopped locally and cannily and kept within budgets. She has made do and tried to mend! She has used everything to hand, and has moved in an environmentally responsible manner. However. Due to the very wonderful amount of substitute teaching that she was given at just the right times, and having helped pay some big bills and taken the strawberries away at Easter for PC's birthday, Thrifty made a spontaneous decision. Do you remember those? You used to do them before you had children. Maybe you don't recall. It certainly took Thrifty by surprise, but believe me, given the right opportunity, you would be amazed at how fast you could text back simply, "Yes." No thought required!

Tune in next week. I'll be there before you, Willows!

Thrifty Thursday's two-in-one Childlike Christmas!

Thrifty bakes more at Christmas than usual. Only the love of the notion of the Friday Cake Bake spurs her more! She can never quite believe how much more for your money you must get from packets of everything falling about snowily in the baking cupboard. Or indeed quite how many people you can feed at Open House time!

Hopefully baking is a farily established part of my children's Christmas. Admittedly Joshua did have That Year with This Icing...

But generally all is much better managed come Christmas Eve, when special preparations must be made!

Spot the well-loved Farmer Duck, now out to pasture.

Our traditional GH gingerbread made, and spoons dutifully licked.

And even sometimes rolled out again when invited to a New Year's Eve party! (See how long it is since I've successfully managed to get to one of those!)

Thrifty Thursday's Top Tips for Christmas

Well, Thrifty's Christmas shopping is done and wrapped and is sitting under her tree. It all came in well under her usual spend and this year for once doesn't sprawl out from under the branches and threaten to be trampled to fragments before distribution to relevant recipients.

The reason for this pleasing phenomenon is quite simply that she didn't buy very many presents! She knows this sounds Scrooge-like! But when she took from last year's list the presents that are really quite rubbish, because they fall within a budget that doesn't buy very much for the teenagers/distant relatives/people she doesn't see but has always bought for, suddenly the whole business was transformed. The cumulative amount for her was vastly more significant then the token sum on an individual level.

This was openly discussed with the folk/parents of folk concerned, all of whom were (mostly) in very enthusiastic support. And in some cases Thrifty has been making presents with materials from the box under the bed. And that has certainly been giving her much fun over the last two weeks.

It all stems from here, and culminates in her annual Mince Pies and Mulled Stuff bash on Sunday afternoon, when time and presence (and yummy things) will be offered to friends instead. So, that's Thrifty's confession, in lieu of an actual Top Tip!

Thrifty Thursday's Top Tips for Christmas

Angela will be very proud of Thrifty this week. She has two Top Tips and both are very thrifty indeed!

On the first of December have a Prince Charming or equivalent who will take you on a surprise excursion to your local converted-Mill-now-Council-HQ. Stand in the cold, dark air to sing carols, admire Peter Corry, see That Man arrive in a vintage car with a sack of red hats for all, wander past all the sparkling trees through the (artificial) snow and wrap your hands round a cup of mulled wine. (Last bit not so thrifty, admittedly, but the rest was free!) Very magical!

Now this. This is superb! It comes from ...the sight of morning... The original idea is to give it as an Advent calendar, but Thrifty is going to adapt it as presents for Sunday School teachers, and theme it for the Twelve Days of Christmas. The little tags will be print-outs of the twelve gifts in the song, and she is going to pin on hot chocolate and cappuccino sachets as well as speciality tea-bags. She does need to purchase the sachets and mini-pegs, but remains muchly, muchly excited about the gorgeous simplicity and loveliness of an achievable project! If she has enough "ingredients" left over, Thrifty may even hang one up for herself, and sequester a few stolen moments every day to sit quietly and sip contentedly!

Thrifty Thursday's Top Tips for Christmas

Thrifty highly recommends that you get your hands on a copy of this book before next Thursday. A certain Internet auction place has 65 copies ranging in price from 99p to £24.99, and some even have this cover, which is by far the most satisfying edition because of the embossed cover and the gorgeous pictures inside.

Thrifty bought this in December 1997, and bought copies for all her friends that year. She spent the whole of Christmas Day devouring it, and was consequently late for dinner at her fiance's family gathering. Thankfully he still married her.

Last year these two read it in installments for the first time to their children who raced to bed all month to be ready for the next chapter. Even on Christmas Eve was this the main reason for bedtime!

It is the story of a magical advent calendar told in 24 chapters so that the book itself becomes a magical advent calendar. You can read little bits here and here and here.

Another Tracing Rainbows production!

The third and by no means final chapter of The Chronicles of Ms Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty has been being thrifty, this being the Year of Living Small and all. She just hasn't been blogging about it, given the lurgy that has struck her woolly and flat!
When finally she sent her giveaway to the fabulous Betty the Wood Fairy, she re-used the box that had previously come from Princess Pom Pom, which pleased Thrifty immenesely, because obviously all the Pom sparkle and love went down the chain too!

Thrifty also has been experiencing the great delight of living large being a direct result of living small- one very small act on her part had huge and really very lovely consequences for a wonderful young woman, whose dad (Nedboy) appeared next day with a more huge bouquet. And another very small agreeing to help has resulted in almost daily deliveries of home-grown tomatoes and windfallen apples. Rumble crumble!

Also on the subject of seasonal harvest, Thrifty did some good old-fashioned bartering and exchanged one of her pots of damson jam for a pot of crab apple jelly. The satisfaction of this was immense!

All in all Angela's School of Thriftiness, was a source of great inspiration for the year ahead- these were wise woman of experience and good sense.  Thrifty does not promise to achieve so much, but will continue to emulate! Aided and abetted by Ms Efficiency Everyday with whom Thrifty has been going supermarket shopping and splitting Good Deals, and also sharing buttermilk to prevent waste. Happy sigh...

The Chronicles of Thrifty Thursday: Chapter 2

It did not begin well as Thrifty set forth on the second week. Cycling down to The School for Sun 2 in stormy windy weather, she was blown from her bike! Hurt, beginning with damage of least importance, was sustained to her ankle, her trousers and her pride! The huge hole in her only pair of jeans remains a challenge to the rules of Thriftiness...

She was, however, highly successful in following the previous week's suggestion that no food should be bought until all existing food was used. This led to fabulously innovative meals, and an evening of hilarious entertainment- banana buns by Mum, cloud scraping decoration by Jo. She even began her Waste Not Exchange project with Ms Efficiency Everyday and handed over the half of a butter milk carton that remained from the baking of said banana buns.

Thrifty had been much impressed by blogtales of chutneys and jams and preservings of all wondrous imaginings. She knew, however, that rushing out to buy ingredients, not to mention a technical thermometer thing, would not at all be in keeping with The Year of Living Small.

But wondrous Nedboy of the country manoir has supplied another harvest, and Thrifty can feel a little bit thrifty after all!