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Times like these
Jul 13, 2010
So much for school holidays! Our household has been sick with the flu the entire time so far. And I mean SICK. We didn’t set foot out of the house for ten whole days! Still, it was a great way to save money – we had to cancel our trip to the movies, ten pin bowling, you name it, we’ve canned it! The poor boys were heartbroken but I promised to make it up to them and they’ve certainly been having fun since. With another week of holidays still to go, our house is full of ragamuffins of all ages, shouting, laughing and singing at the tops of their voices, not to mention chasing each other with water pistols and wrecking my house in general. I love to hear them all having fun, the noisier the better!
I enjoy it even more since I finally worked out that I don’t have to spend a fortune making everything ‘perfect’ for my children’s friends. For years as soon as I knew someone was coming over I would clean the house from top to bottom (because as we all know, small boys pay huge attention to housekeeping and inspect every nook and cranny for dirt and dust). Once it was polished to my satisfaction I would then hotfoot it down to Mr Patel’s to stock up on the most yummy and expensive potato chips, copious amounts of fizzy drink and some chocolate and lollies for good measure. It used to drive Noel crazy but I couldn’t see it. It never occurred to me that the boys’ friends didn’t care what our house was like or what brand of chips we had – all they wanted was to play with their mates and my part in it all was absolutely miniscule.
I didn’t realise how bad I actually was until Alex came over one day a couple of years ago and made a comment about how much junk food we ate (as he and Liam munched their way through their second family sized pack of potato chips). ‘We don’t!’ Liam told him, ‘we only have it when you come round!’ ‘It’s true, she always does it’, Noel said drily. Good heavens! Is that what everybody thought? I couldn’t bear the thought of the kids’ friends going home and telling their parents we eat nothing but rubbish!
From then on I have prided myself on feeding the hordes the smart way, no matter how little we have in the house. This week I made a huge pot of Rhys Mellow’s Vegetable Soup, enough to feed six of us twice and a double batch of chilli beef to go with our jumbo pack of home brand corn chips. We had plenty of powdered drink sachets to quench four thirsty boys for three days and I didn’t have to buy a thing!
It’s lovely to be up and about again and to see the boys running around and having fun. At least being comatose on the couch for a fortnight gave me heaps of time to catch up with all the new hints in the Vault. Have you checked them out lately? There are HEAPS of them! And just like the newsletter said it would, it’s given me heaps of ideas to help with my $50 challenge month!
You know, sometimes it’s the smallest savings that are the most rewarding. Take the other day for example. I was studying my own flu ‘enhanced’ reflection, admiring the bags under my eyes, the red nose and shiny complexion when I caught sight of my eyebrows. I had had them shaped a few weeks before and now I could see them growing back. Worse still, even Noel could see them so they must have been bad! Then I remembered a Vault hint I had read that very week, ‘which said just follow the beautician’s line’. She was right, I could see plain as day where the beautician had ‘been’ and straight away I knew what I had to do! I grabbed a pair of tweezers and although it took me a good few minutes amid lots of sneezing, I reckon I did a pretty good job. So good in fact, that I reckon from now on that’s one job I can take care of myself, saving $20 every six weeks!
There’s a lot to be said for small blessings, particularly as we’ve all been a bit down in the dumps lately, and not just because of the flu. As of this week we have been waiting seven months to move to Whangamata and we are feeling every day of it. Even more so since Noel has now started his new job and is commuting every day. On the positive side he is loving every minute of it! What he doesn’t love however is getting home every day and still having a house to sell before he can stay over there permanently. What really grates though is that two weeks ago we thought things were really moving at last. We dropped the price by $40,000 and a very nice lady came round to view the property. She spent over an hour looking around and I was pretty sure she liked it.
It looked as though I was right, as only ten minutes after she had gone the real estate agent called and said she loved it and wanted to come back in two days’ time with her financial partner. It looked as though they were going to make an offer! We tried not to get our hopes up too much but we were bubbling over on the inside. After so long it was almost too good to be true! Unfortunately it was. We spent all weekend keeping everything pristine in readiness for our special visitors but to no avail. Neither we nor the real estate agent heard from the lady again.
At least the place is looking lovely at the moment now the drought is over and the weeks of rain have dried out, leaving a gorgeous show of spring flowers in place of the puddles. There’s no nicer place in the world to live on a nice day and if Whangamata wasn’t beckoning we would never leave. As it is, we have no choice now. Noel’s job has started and we have to go. I just hope it’s not too long now! People ask us ‘why don’t you just rent your house out?’ but it’s not that easy. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the house but you can’t expect a tenant to look after two acres of land the same way that we do and it’s not as though we can offer a long term tenancy. So for now we’ll keep plodding on and hoping the right person will eventually come along. I was really excited a few days ago when a big four-wheel drive we had never seen before crawled up the drive and a nice looking woman with two small girls got out. Did they want to buy our beloved house by the lake? Unfortunately not – they were just a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses doing the rounds!
One thing I am proud of whenever prospective buyers come to visit is our homely country kitchen. It’s warm, it’s cosy and friendly and there’s always something going on, such as a big pot of soup on the stove, or the smell of fresh bread baking and tins full of inviting looking baking. It’s all thanks to Simple Savings and I know I’m not the only one, especially after reading this lovely Forum thread ’Who has been in your house lately?’ What a difference this site and its wonderful members makes to our families, not to mention our diets!
Just the other day I was having a soppy SS moment and couldn’t resist sharing it with Fiona. I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing it with you too! I wrote to her:
“As I write I have a huge pot of soup simmering on the stove. Next to it is a pot of home made chicken stock and on the other two elements there is a big pot of pasta and another big pot of chicken, white wine and cream sauce from the $21 Challenge book. Just wanted to say a big thank you to you and Matt for starting SS, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be doing any of this!”
Isn't it funny, how I still feel like such a Sad Sally - until times like these when you realise how far you've come!
That's my boy!
Jul 23, 2010
I can hardly believe it – my littlest baby is 12! Yesterday was Ali's birthday. Being the slack bunch we are, we believe that nobody should have to go to school on their birthday when they could be doing fun stuff instead. So I took the day off work and told Ali we could do whatever he liked. You want to go to the movies? I'll take you. Fancy a game of ten pin bowling? We can do that. His choice? He wanted to go fishing and try out the new fishing gear he got for his birthday. Unfortunately the weather wasn't suitable for taking the boat out but Ali was undeterred. 'The weather's fine for fishing off the wharf Mum!' he said happily after checking the weather forecast.
So we dropped Liam off at school (only the birthday person gets the day off!) and packed my car up to the roof with deck chairs, tackle boxes and buckets of stinky bait. Destination – where else – Whangamata! We arrived at the wharf to find the beach and surrounds deserted. We had the whole place to ourselves, bliss! I confess to being a very poor fisherman, I don't have a clue what I'm doing but Ali as always was in total control, setting up the rigs and baiting hooks. No sooner had we dropped our lines in the water than they were immediately set upon by dozens of nibbling fish. They stripped us of our bait time and time again but proved very difficult to actually catch. Unfortunately they weren't the only things biting either – we hadn't counted on the sand flies at this time of year!
We spent several happy hours just watching the world go by. In the end I caught three fish but none of them were bigger than your average goldfish and Ali deftly removed them and sent them swimming back to where they had come from. Lucky we had already made plans for dinner! Sadly the birthday boy didn't catch a thing but he didn't mind, he was just happy to be there. 'There's no other place on earth I'd rather be today!' he declared. The plan was to visit the Ocean Sports Club and have lunch there but he was content to keep on fishing. 'I don't need anything fancy Mum', he insisted. When it was time to head home we popped into the local bakery and he grabbed a cream bun and a gingerbread rabbit. 'This is so yummy – and much cheaper than the Ocean Sports Club!' he munched. I certainly wasn't complaining. This birthday treat had turned out to be much cheaper than anything I had anticipated and we were both having heaps of fun!
We arrived home in time to pick up Liam from school and the two of them spent the afternoon outside playing rugby until it was time for dinner. I've said it before but Ali is one young man who always knows what he wants and when it came to choosing his birthday dinner he was true to form. 'What do you want to do?' we asked him. 'Do you want to go out to your favourite restaurant? How about we get pizza? You can choose whatever you want!' we told him. Ali had only one thing in mind. He chose his very favourite meal – Pasta with Chicken, White Wine and Cream from the $21 Challenge book!
'That was my best birthday ever – and the best dinner ever!' he said as I tucked him in that night. 'That's great Ali! I had heaps of fun too', I told him. 'Crikey – he must have had a good birthday. He even gave ME a hug!' said Liam, still in shock. Ali's best birthday ever had been simple from the start. All he wanted was fishing gear, a new Thermos and something for his beloved dog Minnie. He did get a couple of extra surprises which made him laugh. Liam bought him a DVD of Father Ted and he fell about laughing when he unwrapped his Old Spice deodorant. If you're thinking 'why would a a young fella like that want an old fashioned deodorant like Old Spice?', you obviously haven't seen the ads. Yes, hard to believe but Old Spice has become trendy, thanks to this rather delectable chap helping them out with an ingenious ad campaign. As soon as Ali saw it he said 'I want to get that!' and took great delight in applying it liberally yesterday so he would 'smell like a real man'! Like I said, he's a kid who knows what he wants. The thing is, he doesn't actually want very much . Most of the things he holds dear are things that money can't buy - and we wouldn't have him any other way!