Good Morning Dear,
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that the New Year will bring you health and happiness.
I can’t believe how fast time is going, even this early in the year. We had a very busy time over the holidays and both me and Edith are quite worn out. She hasn’t fully recovered from the injection-induced flu she suffered in my opinion. She’s much better but still tires easily. We had constant visitors for the entire festive period, and nice as it was to see everyone we were both a little relieved when the visits started to dwindle as they all started to return to work.
I have to say we have had some beautiful gifts. Fleece throws, a lovely knitted jacket each from our Paul, and I got a skin cream set, apparently, after using it for three months I will look 20 years younger! If that’s the case Edith wants some as she said she would be highly insulted if we were out and about and anyone assumed she was the mother and I was the daughter.
The amount of food we have here will last us a good part of the year, everyone that came brought food with them. We have had some excellent meals and have put so much in the freezer we won’t be shopping for some time. There will be some delicious stews and casseroles and a pie or two over the coming weeks, all made from the leftovers.
Delores, stupid girl that she is was only about to chop up the dark meat from the turkey for her cats, can you believe that? The cats are as silly as she is Tess, they are house cats, they never go out, they just sit on cushions and get fed…what’s the point in having a cat like that? They should be out mousing and earning their keep. This must be why her house never seems to smell really fresh, she never has the windows open fully in case the damned cats get out. I always wondered why little Ryan’s first full sentence was “shut the door”.
The girls from the crochet class made some beautiful things for me. I got a crocheted iPad cover…bright purple with pink butterflies sewn onto it, three knee rugs in different colors and a very clever bag to hang over the bar on my walking frame so I can carry things around, very useful that will be.
We have lots to do with the non-food leftovers. The wrapping paper is in a couple of black plastic sacks and we need to fold it so that it takes up a lot less room and we can scrunch it up as required as tinder for the fire. We will store it in a cardboard box under the stairs. The Christmas cards need to be recycled, we cut out the pretty pictures and use them for gift tags next year, the rest of the card gets ripped up and dropped into a bucket of water for a couple of days. When you squeeze the water out and let them dry they make solid paper balls that burn with almost no ash. They take an age to dry, we store them on a rack in the garage, the boiler is in the garage and it helps dry them out faster than putting them in the shed. We rarely use the boiler for heating of course, just for hot water. We have the wood burner for heat and being a single story house, a bungalow, we just open the doors and the heat spreads through the house.
Ernie always used to say that the first bungalow came to be because the builders ran out of bricks and decided to bung a low roof on it!!!!
The bows from our presents are all in a bag and will reappear next year, and all the gift bags have had the tags cut off and we will put our tags on them before giving them to other people next Christmas.
There are a few things we were given that we won’t use. We have made a note of who gave them to us and they will be given either as birthday gifts to other people throughout the year or saved until next Christmas.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, the teachers at school brought me a peg loom, a two foot wide one so as soon as we have caught up with ourselves I will be making a few little rugs and some rather trendy bags with shoulder straps that I have seen some of the girls with, those should make nice presents for people. The headteacher has gotten hold of some for the school crafting group so I can take my own along and show the girls how I am doing with my projects. I am going to have a go at making doormats with strips of plastic cut from black plastic rubbish sacks, our Janet showed me a video on the internet of someone crocheting them, if that works then looming them should be okay, I’ll let you know how I get on.
I was delighted to hear from you, the internet camera thing (Ed. Note: Skype) amazes me, it’s like you are right there with us. It was wonderful to see the children running around, so excited at what Santa had delivered. It sounds like you had a busy time as well. Make sure you take some time for yourself Dear, all work and no play makes for too much stress.
Regards,
Maud
Resources:
The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Through Any Disaster
The Pantry Primer: How to Build a One-Year Food Supply in Three Months
Sounds like a wonderful Christmas!
Note: we always saved the wrapping paper to reuse the next year. We had some paper that had been recycled for five years or more, it just “shrank” a bit as the tattered, taped bits were trimmed off. Between that, the dollar store and thrift shops, and going to the after holiday sales, I have almost never bought gift wrap at full price. Ditto ribbons.