Slow changes to help you stay in your home

We've come to the end of a two year period of renovations and home improvements. We did the work as we had the money, time and energy for it. Our goal was to modernise and safety-proof our home for our older age, and for our children to be able to easily sell the house when we die. While not wanting to sound morbid, that time is coming for us in the next 10 - 20 years and we don't want to spend that time on home improvements. We want to live life to the full, enjoy each other's company and provide hospitality when family and friends visit us. As it stands now, we both feel we've done enough to allow us to relax and live well although we'll continue to upgrade any safety concerns that present themselves in the coming years.

I need help from my EU readers

Hello ladies and gentlemen of Europe. Privacy laws are in a state of change at the moment and as a blogger, European Union laws require me to give European Union visitors information about cookies used and data collected on my blog. 

I must display a cookie and privacy notice on my blog and Google emailed me saying they'd added one as a courtesy.  However, as I'm not in the EU I can't see it - it only shows in EU countries. If you're in the EU, I'd appreciate you commenting here to tell me if you see this notice, or not. Tell me what country you're in as well, that may help identify problem areas if it's not on display. Thanks to you all.

No more comments needed. Thanks everyone. 

Weekend reading

It was delayed a short while but we're almost finished our final renovation project - a new tiled splashback in the kitchen.  I'll have more photos of our home next week but these two will give you an idea of what we've been doing (and when I say "we" I don't include myself in that in the kitchen 😊). We had a tiler help with the tiling yesterday and we're both very happy with the result.  What do you think of it?

The tiles are down but we haven't had a chance yet to clean up. I'll be doing that this morning. 

Simple pleasures

I had a wonderful week away from the blog. Hanno and I were going to work on a project but he had a sore back and I had a sore knee so instead we both slowed right down and tended to each other and ourselves. Late in the week, Hanno started on the project and prepared the area and tomorrow, it will be finished with the help of a tradesman. I'll post photos when I have them.  I'm so excited to see it finished - this final big job in our two years of on and off home renovations/tidy-ups/improvements/.

 Turnips and daikon.

Laundry liquid and general cleaning

Buying laundry and cleaning products can become quite an expensive part of grocery shopping, but it doesn't need to be. They are easy to make using ingredients from the supermarket. All these cleaners suit a simple home because they contain a tiny portion of the chemicals found in the commonly used expensive products.  I've included a couple of recipes below for you to try but first we'll start with one of my favourite cleaning processes - soaking.

Soaking and stain removal

I often look for ways to do my day-to-day chores without using any, or very few, cleaning products. I remember when I was growing up, my mum used to soak clothes before washing them. Sometimes she put them into a big copper boiler and boiled them while moving them around with a wooden stick. The washing took hours to do and often she did it on a Friday night after she finished her paid job.

I soak cotton, linen and poly-blend clothes too although I don't do it the way my mum did. If I have something that is badly stained, I fill a large container up with very hot water from the tap, add Disan, an oxy-bleach, dissolve the Disan with my laundry stick and drop the clothes in. BTW, my laundry stick is a spurtle - a scottish stick for stirring porridge. If you want to do something similar, a piece of dowel would work well. Many stains can be removed using this method. You can also whiten your greying whites this way as well.

Weekend reading

Hello friends. I want to take a small moment to thank you for your comments. Over the years I've tried to build the comments section into a valuable part of my blog. I want people to share what they do, I want newbies to see how many things are done differently and I want to know that my online neighbourhood is thriving. I don't respond to many comments because I don't have the time and mostly I want to just say a quick, "thank you" or "well done!" or "keep going". But if I did that, I'd be on my computer much longer than I'm comfortable with and the comments section would be filled with so many repetitive messages you'd think I'd lost my marbles. But I do think that way when I read what you write and it makes me feel happy and inspired and proud. So to all of you who leave comments, thank you, well done! and keep going. ♥️

Adjusting to modern life, or not

It's been a busy week here although I must point out it's not the same busyness we knew when we were much younger, working, looking after children and living life like there was no tomorrow. Now my busyness is marked by the fact that last week, I went out three mornings in a row. 😊 Oh, how we are changed by time. As you probably know, even though I'm not agoraphobic, I prefer to live my hours in my home. It's interesting and comfortable here and there is always something to do. Sometimes there are chores I don't like doing but I see it all as part of a big tapestry - the background is just as important as the main feature points and without work going into the background, the tapestry is unfinished and unsatisfying. I know the awful jobs will always be balanced out with hours of enjoyment and the ongoing process of making life what we want it to be.

 This is part of our living room now. I'll have more photos soon.

Washing and folding

Our laundries are mainly used for washing clothes and household fabrics but they also hold a place of importance as your home cleaning headquarters. I'm sure you don't like having too many harsh chemicals in your home and it makes sense to keep all cleaning chemicals in one place - this is vital if you have young children living in or visiting your home.  But today we're talking about washing clothes, next week, we'll go on to general cleaning and making your cleaners.

Weekend reading

It's unheard of around here but I've been out three mornings in a row this week. On Tuesday I went along to my GP for a flu vaccination and ended up having the Pneumococcal vaccine as well. Apparently it's a one-off jab that will help protect me from a few nasty diseases and along with the flu vaccine, I feel it was a good reason to head off into the traffic. Both these vaccines are free to all us Australian over-65ers and if you're in that age bracket, I hope you've had yours or have plans to have it soon. Apparently now is the ideal time to have the flu vaccine and with bad memories of last year's flu season, I think the visit to the doctors office is a small price to pay for the protection it gives us.