Tag: monthly review

June turned out to be one of those months full of appointments and commitments; dentists, doctors and a few others. Between us we had so many that I had to rearrange my yearly appointment at the hospital in Leeds to July just so that we had a bit of a breather and could squeeze in a trip to Scotland.

And of course I have been attending the extra Yoga classes throughout June on a Friday afternoon. These have now finished as my teacher has to go into hospital this week so combined the last two classes into one. I enjoyed the smaller Friday classes (six of us) and individual attention and have learned how to breathe well and open up all those areas that we often don’t breathe into enough. Deep breathing using all the lung is extremely beneficial as I found out after only one session.

The weather here has not been very spectacular, mostly wet and dull and often quite cold (yes we had the heating on too) – some of our best days happened to be in Scotland. But the garden has started to bloom in the last week or two as the sun made a welcome appearance and the warmer weather has been so lovely. Nothing can beat cutting a few fresh flowers and herbs from the garden and bringing them indoors.

It has felt quite a disorganised month as months go – not very productive but plans have been made, plans that will help us as we move forward out of this ‘transition’ period and further into our new life of being at home and not in the workplace, of being reliant on pensions and savings and no regular salary.

So on with this month’s review – a summary of the intentions I did succeed in doing and those that got left behind.

But if there has been one thing we have done a lot of this month …..well two actually, it is gardening and meandering. But why not while we have the time – both are very satisfying.

As well as planting up the pots of annuals I bought two wooden planters to grow vegetables in on the patio and managed to sow the salad seeds and amazingly they are growing well despite the wet weather.

I have been collecting and drying the seed heads of some of the flowers in my garden.

I hand printed these tiny seed packets for my daughter’s wedding when we gave away some wild flower seeds as favours and they will be perfect to put the seeds in when collected.

The aim is to only have enough clothes for my needs, have them mostly hanging (save underwear and socks etc) as they are easier to see and select this way, and to have all the seasons in one space. So that is quite a reduced collection but every item will be one I love to wear.

I have already made a start on this – it is a work in progress though and I must say that some of the items are feeling rather tight which is a good indication that I need to eat less or watch what I am eating and lose a few extra pounds. My only two purchases this month have been a pack of trainer socks from Primark for £1.50 and some Skechers trainers bought in the sale to wear in the house as slippers but give my feet the additional support they need.

As it happens I have had little time to go shopping and having a bad knee has also limited the amount I can walk up and down shopping malls so this has been a bonus really for saving money.

Clean – not a lot of cleaning got done in the house this month – I blame my bad knee but as you might expect it didn’t stop me from doing the gardening, so a lack of motivation was probably the real reason. And I must hold my hands up and admit that my house at the moment is not a very pleasant sight and I feel like Mr Messy has sneaked in and been….well messy….and left me a few piles of stuff everywhere.

I was extremely impressed as our advisor delivered good honest advice tailored to our circumstances and we agreed that the action we need to take could be done without his help thus saving any fees for his time. At no time during the meeting did he try to sell us products or suggest moving pensions. Our finances are not particularly complicated but until I can draw my state pension next year money is tight unless we delve into our savings. He did say that stocks and shares are more worthwhile when you have a longer investment period than we have and therefore would only advise using our savings to buy shares if we had spare capital to play with and didn’t need to rely on having any of the income from dividends.

When we have a better idea of our day to day living expenses and any immediate capital expenses (like our new kitchen and pantry) then we can start to look at longer term investments for our future bearing in mind that one day we may need to pay for a care home or carers.

We also discussed ideas we have been thinking about for our little cottage and have spent a great deal of time this month focusing on this to get our plans moving again. I cannot go into details yet but at least there has been movement.

Looking back June has been a great month, maybe not such great weather but it does not appear to have stopped us doing very much and maybe it has been more productive than I first thought – that is the best thing about a review it gives you a better perspective.

Here’s to a wonderful July and warm summer days. x

April seems a long time ago now but I remember it as a very busy month; but then most of my months seem to be very busy…. I will reclass it as extremely, exhaustingly busy. By the end of the month I was flagging and ready for our few days away in Scotland. It was the party that made it both stressful and delightful in equal measures, colliding as it did with Easter.

But Easter Sunday was such a beautiful warm day and it meant we could hold the party outside; it was enjoyable too having an extended family gathering, lots of food and drink, lots of chatter and catching up with one another…. and an Easter Egg hunt. Just never again. How many times have I said that before.

So to recap on my intentions last month – did I have time to fufil them all?

All though it was a lot of hard work the party came together quite well and I even managed to make a few individual quiches; the cake not so well but it was passable and tasted really good beneath all that sickly green fondant icing.

As soon as I was thinking about changing our menus for something a bit lighter the weather changed my mind, so during the cold spell we continued making soup. I was hoping that May would be warmer but we are now well into the month and no positive changes yet.

With so much going on I didn’t manage to finish the little jumper for Sweetie but I have ideas and fabric for her Christening dress – I will keep you posted on this one later…

….and I did make some very simple Easter cards.

Health – the less said on this subject the better. I had intended to give myself a bit of a spring clean but time was limited and the house and garden won! Perhaps next month. I have continued with the Yoga class though – so that is a plus.

One of the highlights of April was an impromptu day out in Glossop – such an interesting place and not too far away from us – if you missed this post you can read about it here.

So all in all April was a success. The oven might still be ‘playing up’, the weather too, but the garden has started to come to life and that always lifts my spirits and I thoroughly enjoyed myself making things for Easter. Bliss.

As you may have noticed this is not my usual format – WordPress have just launched their new Block Editor and I couldn’t resist having a play around to see what it will do. I am not sure I will use this format for all my posts – it does allow you to switch back to what they call ‘classic’ but only for a while – it claims to do tables though which might prove interesting.

Oh…and there is no spellcheck/proof reader so any typos might just end up published!

I wrote at the beginning of March that we were beginning to lose that cold nip in the air…. but here at the beginning of April we have it back again and a possibility of snow.  Really isn’t it Spring now?  …..well it has hailed once or twice here and covered the grass with icy crystals.  March was certainly a busy month …I would even say a ‘far too’ busy month, and if I didn’t achieve all my intentions then it wasn’t for the lack of trying.  It is always a shorter condensed month at home when we spend some time in Scotland and usually I have to roll over some things I had intended to do.

Nothing new there then.

On the whole I was pleased with getting started on the knitting, a yoga class and attending the financial seminars – all part of my ‘transitioning’ plans for this year.

So looking back on last month how did I do?

appEArance

I joined the weekly Yoga class – I have done two sessions now, one of them last Tuesday morning.  Anita had kindly tailored this class around shoulder exercises which helped my restricted left arm and although it is a bit achy now it feels better for the movement.   I must remember to move more and not get stuck on the computer for long periods.

I have been doing some facial massage using the free facial oil samples sent to me by Neal’s Yard.  I am following some instructions I tore out of a magazine  – I am not sure I can see a big difference but it certainly leaves your skin very soft.   I think the wrinkles are still there though!   No matter how many times I thought about it I never got to mix together the ingredients for the facemask so that is next on the list.  I have a small avocado in the fridge to use up so I will add a sprinkling of oatmeal and lemon juice.

homestEAd

Both gardens have had the majority of our time and attention this month.  We bought new heavy-duty anvil loppers and have been severely cutting back some of the overgrown shrubs.  It takes time to get them into a pleasing shape and decide which of the buds to cut down to  not to mention dealing with the mountain of prunings afterwards.

DH put up the new cupboard in the garage to house our vacuum cleaner and gardening coats and remove them from what is to become the pantry.  We actually bought a new upright Dyson because we wanted a small lighter weight one (like we bought for the caravan) but not cordless and so we had to move fast as once the stock of these in the shops has gone they will be unavailable.  Our problem with the cordless is that the batteries are so expensive to replace once they stop charging properly as all these cordless machines do in time, and I like the flexible hoses on the corded vacuums for doing the stairs.

There has been no other work done in the pantry, and no paint put on the front door and no spring cleaning of the gutters and paths – these will be some of the roll over tasks for April.

clEAn and lEAn

I had intended to do more spring cleaning than I found I had time for so I am reverting to clearing out and cleaning in small stages and this is working better for me.

Instead of trying to tackle the whole office at once, which was a bit of an overwhelm, I began with the two desk drawers – the top drawer that houses all the stationery items, post it notes, highlighter pens, punch, calculator, ruler etc……and the lower drawer that contains anything money related – current receipts, card readers, some left over travel money and cheque books (that are rarely used now). I hope you can tell these are the ‘after’ photos as I had a big clear out and only put back the items that are frequently used.  Any infrequently used items have now been moved into the craft cupboard in one of those sectioned A4 storage boxes and the older household receipts are in a box file on the shelving unit.

Having only what I need to hand and getting rid of any surplus ‘stuff’ has made it a joy to open these drawers every day and easier to tidy my desk each time I use it.

Tackling the clear out and cleaning in small stages gives me chance to evaluate what I need and use and work with it for a few days until the space is simplified down to the basics.Moving on to the craft items my first task was to sort through the mass of ribbons I had collected over the years.  I had a stack of narrow ribbon hanger loops that are used to keep garments on the hangers in shops and I always cut them off – they are perfect for using on cards and tags and I have tied them up into neat bundles by colour range.

crEAting

March has probably been my most creative month since the advent period last December – and I have enjoyed it.  I finally got started on the knitting and made some cards – not quite so productive as many bloggers are but I am pleased with myself for carving out some time to just do something.I still have to sew the little knitted jumper together before I can finish knitting the hood.  I think I would have done it sooner if I felt I knew what I was doing – but ready or not I will have to have a go.

Now I have caught the creating bug I have been looking for new ideas.  I borrowed these two books from the library.The cards turned out quite well – they are not great works of art but they have reduced my pile of decorative papers and blank cards and will save me money on buying them – so a win win situation.

trEAsury

The ISA’s that matured last month remain as instant access accounts for the moment as we will be arranging a free advice session with the lovely man from Hargreaves Lansdown and hopefully have a better idea afterwards of where to invest it.

I will be posting my March financial tally soon to review how we coped financially through this month.  As readers may know I work out our finances on a calendar month basis and have found the four weekly pension payment to be difficult to manage – but this month I have I had a bit of a brain wave which will might just solve the problem  – I will talk about it more on the ‘Tally’ post.

fEAsting

I continue to plan menus in order to save money and food waste and have been making some of those good old-fashioned favourites like these Homity Pies and creamy rice puddings.   Spring might be upon us but needless to say with the recent turn in the weather we are still making homemade soup and have not yet swapped our winter meals for anything a bit lighter. On Shrove Tuesday I made savoury pancakes stuffed with leeks and mushrooms and baked in a cheese sauce.  This year to save money I didn’t buy the buckwheat flour and used ordinary, that was a big mistake as they came out a bit too ‘claggy’ for me; the buckwheat has a better flavour and makes a less ‘gooey’ pancake more to my liking.  I did eat them but did not enjoy them as much. Mother’s day I spent the whole day gardening at home – which is just what I needed after being away so much.  We had easy meals –  just DH and I together  – so for me this was a perfect day.  We had a visit in the evening from my elder daughter who lives locally and brought the beautiful bouquet; the day before we had been staying at my younger daughter’s house and she gave me gardening vouchers.  Libbie (Little L) chose the card with the sequins – they change direction to reveal a golden heart – I will keep it for her.  Of course both my daughters are mothers themselves now, so I try and take a back seat so they can enjoy Mothering Sunday with their children.

mEAndering

We had our trip up to Scotland.  We worked far too hard up there – we must learn to pace ourselves more now we are that bit older and that bit more creaky.  Apart from the aches and pains we did enjoy our time away and a stroll along the beach.  The sea air (or the Vitamin Sea) as Jill calls it on her blog ‘Land of the Big Sky’ is the best prescription after a long winter.

When mum was down here visiting we had our usual day out in Derbyshire; stopping for a picnic lunch in Foolow beside the duck pond. Afterwards we had a change from Tissington and went instead to the nearby little village of Hartington to test out their tea room of course.  I bought a knitted thermal hat for £4.99 in the sale at the Country Store for next winter.  I may need it now if it does snow.

So that was my month – full of ups and downs as most of them are but everyone managed to keep well and although the spring cleaning didn’t really get underway I am now the proud owner of an empty ironing basket;  the days of the ironing mountain are long gone – I am keeping up to doing a little each day and it feels so good to walk past the empty basket.  It has become such a habit I can now focus on something else that I wish to change.

back again soon with a new list of my April intentions.

have a lovely weekend everyone x