Fourth Friday in June

 Feels a bit like the month that wouldn't end, money wise, with one expense and another, and our savings getting completely mushed last month. We have birthdays coming up but I have bought most or all of the presents already, so low-key parties shouldn't cost too much. Looking forward to getting back on the straight and narrow, and a long, wholesome summer of outdoor activities. 

I have a whole bunch of PTA stuff to do today as well as sorting out my own house, and buy, then packing a supper for the girls to eat while I am volunteering. Been really up and down this week, or mainly down, really. Actually I struggle to remember a time that I have felt truly well since pre-lockdown. I wonder if I'll ever feel happy again or if the rest of my life will just be management?

I am going to bite the bullet and buy a brand new dumphone next week for £30 from tesco. I've had enough of using broken stuff that doesn't properly do the job and being frustrated. There will be a time when we've fixed or gotten rid of all of our broken stuff and have a simple, functional set up. 

Weather cloudy and cold today. Where is the sun?

Fourth Tuesday in June

 Suffering this week from a general unnamed dread, probably caused in part by holidaying with family and the usual tensions that brings, an afternoon at a friends house where they talked relentlessly about the apocalyptic future they are certain is on the near horizon, and various other minor but frequent daily upsets and anxieties. Generally lately I have been feeling more settled and secure so I am hoping that's a feeling I can recapture and retrain in myself and this current horror will be short lived. We have been taught to fear so much in recent years. Before the lockdowns I was afraid of nothing. I keep thinking of the Proverbs 31 wife who laughs without fear of the future. I know I would find comfort if I read more. These are not the darkest times. 

I would have been volunteering today but I have let them know I won't make it as I have so much to catch up on at home this week after being away, and I think if I can get my house in order my mind will soon follow. I woke up in the night with no recognition at all of my room, my husband, or myself. Something in me is overtaxed. 

Probably for all of the same reasons I am finding a shift in my clothing preferences in these last few weeks and months. Where I have been de-Stuffing a lot in my house (and need to carry on that process which has stalled lately), now my mind turns to my wardrobe, which although is now no longer extensive, still presents me with too much choice. I'm interested in putting together a sort of 'uniform', where I can just pick anything from my wardrobe without needing to um and ah, and it will all be interchangable. With the exception of Church and meeting friends I can happily live in either cycle shorts or leggings with a long t-shirt for most of the year. I have a few very nice skirts and a couple of blouses that are perfect for Church. I have made a few purchases lately to bulk out my 'uniform', so in a way my wardrobe has increased, but I am hoping the result will be less choice and dilemma. Lately I have bought: 

Thick maroon Regatta fleece - £7 Vinted **

Bright pink fleece lined Lazy Jacks gilet - £7 charity shop

Vibram walking shoes & okabashi flip flops - gifts from my Stepmum

Mountain warehouse trainers - £35-ish in the sale

Mountain warehouse mary jane-type walking shoes - about £15 with postage from ebay

3 or 4 long sleeved stripey t-shirts from various charity shoes - £2-3 each

12l backpack - £19.99 from Mountain Warehouse

White Stuff maroon treggings - £18 ish from ebay. I thought it would be good to own a proper, smart-ish pair of trousers. They are okay, I had to take them in at the waist. 

Now of course I'm feeling pretty guilty about making so many purchases, however of course the hope is that now I shouldn't really have to buy anything for the forseeable. My plan is to pack most of my other clothes away, not to get rid of initially, but into a box under the bed, and see how this new approach works out. I just want to be warm and comfy and to not really think about clothes. 

Time to go, I have everything to do. The main thing I want to get done is to tidy the girls' room from top to toe, I think it's gotten on top of them a bit. 

**(I downloaded vinted to see if I could work out how to sell a few things. I probably won't in the event, but I have been hunting for a fleece the same as one I used to own and donated years ago, and managed to find one, albeit in a different colour. Once it arrives I will delete vinted as don't really want to get into all that)

Second Thursday in June

 Feeling a bit like it never rains but pours, pours, pours.

All of the majorly expensive things that we own - car, motor, boiler etc. all seem to be dying or having issues all at once. Feels like a bit of a test of my resolve to keep my cool about Things. 

Second Tuesday in June

 Volunteering today, felt a bit odd and out of place for the first time, is it just me? Left an hour earlier than usual and did a kettle bell workout and had a sit down. Glad I did, and might do that every week as it's nice to have the buffer between volunteering and the school run. 

Smashing swim in the sea yesterday, high tide and the water was blue green. Saw a huge jellyfish and picked it up to chuck it out of the way, it was surprisingly weighty!

Keep getting the feeling that I should be doing something more. But I am busy and well-used here as a homemaker. And I am pretty satisfied. 

I cycled into town yesterday to run errands. I never use my bike in the winter so I forget I have it when summer rolls around. I usually walk into town these days so it was wonderful to cycle and get there so much faster. There is cycle path the whole way there. Bought a pair of linen trousers and a linen blouse from a charity shop, as well as a couple of pairs of shorts for the girls, some incense, a filofax refill, another 1litre insulated flask, and some fruit and veg, so it was a good trip.

As time goes on I lose interest in clothes more and more. Or my only interest in them is how comfortable and practical they are. At the moment I'm living in black cycle shorts and walking shoes. 

I don't have a lot of commitments for the rest of the week, besides probably one or two more swims. I have a lot of jobs and errands to run though so I'll be kept out of trouble. 

I finished knitting a pair of socks for myself yesterday and have started on another, I meant to go a size down though and forgot. Annoyed with myself, but it's not the end of the world. 

First Friday in June

 Swim in the bay first thing this morning. I so much prefer it in summer, rather than driving out to the other beach, which is better in winter. Had a lovely float with a friend before getting the girls ready for school. 

Busy day of doing not much today. It would be nice to feel more effective, but in a way I think I am getting there, reaching an easier, less stressed and stressful way of living. Pizza for supper tonight, always pizza on a Friday. Rather than buy vegan cheese, which I really think is probably very bad for you, I've made a sort of cheese sauce with cashews, tahini & lemon. We'll see how that works out, and how it goes down as well. Thicker pizza bases today because I couldn't be bothered to make lots of little pizzas, so must remember to eat less. 

I did a short kettlebell workout yesterday and have pulled all the muscles in my bum.

First Thursday in June

 A better week this week I guess? Although of course I'm still nowhere near on top of the chores. How do people do it and why can't I? There's something going on there. 

I have managed to make a few different recipes for burgers/patties for the freezer this week though, and a big batch of bean chilli & cheese sauce today. The chilli and cheese will be for burritos tonight, I just need to make the wraps, then the leftover chilli will be made into hotpot with homemade sausages at the weekend, and the cheese sauce will go with a pasta on Sunday. 

I went for a run this morning with a friend, at 6:30 (!!), and then a wonderful dip in the sea straight after. I also did a ten minute kettle bell workout - without a doubt the hardest workout I have ever done, I am unfit. 

I'm popping over to a friend's in a minute to drop off a SCOBY and teach her how to make kombucha, and she is making fish finger sandwiches so a big treaty break from my wholefood regime. 

The sun is out. It's almost warm. Working on living in the moment. Taking the girls to the park after school. They are growing up. Up and up.

First Tuesday in June

 Back to school for the girls today, and volunteering for me. The house is in its usual nightmarish state following a school holiday. I've done my best to at least make the lounge usable but the rest will have to wait until tonight or more likely tomorrow. 

We had a great weekend doing holiday type stuff at home, pool swimming and sea swimming, plus we took the dinghy out in the bay for the first time this year. Had a hoot jumping and swimming off it, drifting around, and even saw a flatfish. 

I took out a couple of books from the library. Both look quite trashy, I'll review on them (briefly) once I have read them, I'm a few chapter into the first though, and if it weren't set in Tintagel I'd have put it down by now, but feel a loyal need to see it through. 

I've been getting back into a recipe book that I've had for years - (The Guilt Free Gourmet by Griffin, Vicki B.; Griffin, Gina M. - ISBN 10: 1891041258 - ISBN 13: 9781891041259 - Remnant Pubns - 1999). I was in the states with my Dad when I was 19 and I think he gave it to me then, and I used and used it, and then when my Dad went veggie/vegan I gave it back to him as I loved the recipes in it so much. I doubt he ever used it, but I started to miss it so had to rebuy it and have it shipped from America. There are a lot of recipes in there that I went back to again and again, but a lot also that I never tried as they looked too faffy or had ingredients that seemed too difficult to get ahold of, like wheat gluten or nutritional yeast (bear in mind this was 10-15 years ago). I have been having fun making a lot of these recipes now, as I want more and more for us to move away as far as is possible from ultra-processed food - although we don't eat that much, the ideal amount is of course none. Maybe we'll get there. 

There are few recipes for actual 'meals' but lots of recipes for different components like sauces and dressings, cheeses, burgers etc. A lot of the recipes also make large batches with the suggestion that you freeze, which is ideal, especially if what you are making is a bit faffy or needs quite a few different ingredients; the last thing you want is to make enough or one meal, and then have a whole load of leftover ingredients you never get around to using. 

Yesterday I made a recipe in there for gluten steaks - they are breaded with cornmeal and are very similar I imagine to a breaded chicken-burger type pattie. They are very good and I have frozen 16 burger sized patties, and left the same again out for sandwiches and meals in the week. It probably took me about an hour to make them last night. At the same time I also made a large batch of oatmeal raisin cookies, which reminds me that I must freeze those too. As I am volunteering once a week now I will also need a lunchbox for that, and I found that I actually enjoy having a lunchbox and not having to stop and faff about with lunch, so I will try as far as I can to keep making one every day. 

I also feel that I am finally on a mission to lose the weight so perhaps I should write this here for accountability. Although I have no progress to show for it yet, I think the incentive I have been looking for and failed to find in the last four years since lockdown has delivered itself, in the form of aches, pains and exhaustion. I am in my thirties and I am tired. Yesterday I had a busy day and walked about 6 miles, which in my twenties would have meant nothing to me - until lockdown I walked 4 miles every day just for the school run - but I was dead on my feet by the evening and had to go to bed at quarter to 9. So I have just been trying to be busy and active, do at least one form of exercise a day, whether swimming, running, pilates, and keep more of an eye on my eating. I gained the weight (about 2 stone) in the first place when lockdown came along and my activity level plummeted, so although my eating habit have probably gone down a bit since then, and also need to adjust as I get older, I think being busy and active is the thing for me. I am also optimistic that it will help with my madness.

So on with the day. I have laundry to put out, then drop the girls off, then off to volunteer. It's my first day going when there's rain due so I'm not sure what will happen, whether we will get sent home or just soldier on. I don't mind the rain. 

First Saturday in June

 June! It's here! Please let it be ruddy hot. 

Busy week coming up, as is always the first week back at school. Monday is an inset, we need to go to the library, and I'll try my hardest to take out a couple of books I actually want to read. Tuesday is volunteering all day. Wednesday I'll try and make mass, need to do a food shop, general tidying and catching up, and then Thursday and maybe Friday I demand a swim, I don't think I've been in the sea for two weeks.