Saturday

The sun has been shining beautifully across the Fens today and the weather has been just glorious.

Shame that the YFG daren't venture out the back door for fear of spiders, or she could have hung the washing outside this morning instead of in the spare room, but I am grateful that she hung it up for me whilst I was in the bath!  It would have been great to have had the first line-dried load of the season done today - but there will be other days....I think Spring is in the air at last!

The YFG has her mocks for her GCSEs next week, so she is in the sitting room at the table with her computer and lots of revision, and I have been preparing tomorrow's service in the office on my laptop.  We did eat together some hours ago so we are not quite strangers.

Are we still being Frugal and thrifty? You'd be forgiven for wondering, I have to say.  And the answer is - not as thrifty as I would like!  Life has got stupidly, crazily busy this month, and I am desperate to sort out some free time one way or another.....I haven't picked up a knitting needle this week at all - but I have found out that a friend has started to volunteer at Jimmy's Shelter in Cambridge, so she is going to ask if they could use some of the knitted hats that my dedicated band of ladies are still churning out at a good rate - we only need 25 each year for the OCC boxes, but I have got quite a stash and have probably got enough for several years - and they keep coming!

More on that another time, I hope. And yes, the thriftiness is going on, just more quietly and under the radar.  The electricity remains at about 10 units a day, which is still good for us; we are not spending madly at the shops, and the fire has only been lit for a couple of days this week, in the evenings, as we haven't really felt the need for much heat some days.

But the EFG is putting me to shame with her meal planning - she plans two weeks and orders what she needs to be delivered from Sainsbury's and then freezes it until the appointed day.  Somebody upset the plan a little this week by relieving her of two slices of bacon, which perturbed her rather, but I am so pleased with her organisation and planning!

Enough wittering for tonight - have a good weekend and I'll be back tomorrow, I hope, with time to have a mooch around your blogs too xxx

That feeling......

(image from inspirationformoms.com)

'Fraid that just about covers it for today.

Work, dealing with a parent complaint at school, WWDP meeting [fab service!] and then gymnastics. 

Cue me in a heap in front of the tv watching the absolute drivel that is Gogglebox with the YFG and eating baked beans on a baked potato! 

Time for bed.....

Feeling weary

I've lost a bit of my oomph these last few days, I am afraid - the trip to Cambridge on Monday and all the rushing around wore me out, and the catching up I am still doing since then is tiring me out too!  I have still got to do some more hours on the phone to catch up with the hours I didn't do on Monday, and then there is the Women's World Day of Prayer meeting tomorrow - so I actually need to do one of tomorrow's hours, or at least half of one, today so that I can manage to get to that tomorrow.  This is turning out to be a hard week!

Anyway - thanks to Donna for getting in touch and now that I know where she lives, I am going to sort out a wee parcel over the weekend and try to get it in the post in the early part of next week. Don't hold your breath, Donna, as I need to get my mojo moving again...but it will come!

And spring is definitely in the air - we have had two sunny days here already this week, and I spent some time outside yesterday afternoon cleaning out the chooks in the sunshine.  I will have to sort out some compost and root through my seed box - I want to get planting something soon, and think I may have already missed the boat with the sweet pea seeds....never mind.  There's always next year!

Hope you are all well and keeping warm in the chillier climes xxx

Giveaway winner

And the winner, randomly selected by the YFG is................

Donna Perry!  

Thanks for joining in, and please send me a comment with your address details, Donna, which I won't publish.  Then, when I know where you live, I can sort out the prize - well, I knew it would be tempting fate to choose a nice solid book as the prize and then find that my winner was a lovely person from Australia......and cost me a small fortune in postage.  If you ARE Australian, Donna, it will be a carefully selected, but light, item!

I'm still recovering from yesterday's escapades, but I have had a meeting cancelled in the morning so that gives me some breathing space - phew!

Take care, everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow xx

Quick news

Got to get on with chores but just popped in to say that the YFG did well yesterday - it was a heck of a day - and managed to get a verbal offer of a place at the Sixth Form college for September. She has to have 7 A*- C grades come the summer to actually confirm the place, but given that she has already got two B grades in English and French, she feels optimistic!

Will pop back later with the *Giveaway* winner's name...

Aspirations on a Monday

Today is the start of a busy week, but perhaps today is the most important event of the week for the YFG: she has an interview for Sixth Form College in Cambridge, so we are off there this afternoon.

She was a little nervous last night about what the interviewer might ask her, so we chatted through a couple of the more obvious questions - such as why she wants to study the particular subjects she has chosen, and why she wants to go to that college - they seem like obvious questions to me!

And as for me, I have to wait until there is a circuit meeting at the end of the month for the agreement that the circuit will employ a lay worker - but the circuit treasurer was at our quiz night at the weekend and he is certainly working along those lines, so I am continuing to pray for the right outcome as God intends there.

As with everything in life - we have to wait and see!!  I'd better start praying for some patience, I think...

Pausing Again

(image from angalmond.blogspot.com)

Joining in with Ang over at Tracing Rainbows for this week's A Pause in Lent

This week, we were fortunate enough to have the new chair of the Methodist District here for the service this morning.  He arrived in Norwich from Yorkshire last autumn and seems to be settling in, with his family.  

His talk in the service resonated with me - he talked about identity, and how we can reflect during Lent upon who we are.  We can think about how being Christians impacts on our lives, and how it changes us.  I'm not going to replicate his sermon word for word, but I do think it would be useful to take a few minutes to consider, each one of us, what being a Christian means to us, and how our lives reflect our beliefs. Challenging ourselves to just stop and consider how others see us is a good way to reflect upon whether our lives really do show others what we believe.  We might come to the conclusion that there are a few changes we would benefit from making during this time of reflection and prayer.