Totally confused and befuddled #fivefrugalthings

The observant among my regular readership may have noticed that my Friday round up is only just arriving on Saturday evening. This is because I lost two days this week! I genuinely thought it was Thursday and found out a couple of hours ago that it is Saturday. I have never felt so confused and befuddled in all my life.

Despite having absolutely no idea what day it is, I feel like I have had an OK-ish sort of a week. Like many of you I am sure, I have had a few down days. I know that compared to those who have lost loved ones, or who are working on the front line, I am having an easy time of it. Even so, I have found myself unexpectedly tearful a couple of times. 

I can’t watch the news. It makes me feel anxious. Instead, I limit myself to either reading it online once a day, or I listen to the basic headlines on the radio. Practising yoga every day keeps me on track mentally, even with a puppy trying to join in…

There is always plenty to do, but I am getting bored of just working, cleaning or gardening. Archie is a little sweetie and gives me a reason to go out for a good walk every day, but he is also a little terror, chewing everything in sight. If he goes quiet and is out of my view, I know he is up to no good. It is like having a toddler with ADHD and very sharp teeth!!

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Here are some of the things I have been up to this week.

Borrowbox

I asked on Instagram the other day for some inspiration for things to do, and somebody reminded me of the Borrowbox app. The odd thing was that I had clearly downloaded it in the past, but never used it. 

If you have a library card, you can get the app and borrow from a huge selection of e-books and audio books free of charge. It’s brilliant!

I am currently listening to Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, a book I read and enjoyed many years ago. It’s a really fascinating read, but also quite challenging, so I am enjoying listening instead. I definitely highly recommend this app.

Salad soup

I got sent a large iceberg lettuce with my last Tesco shop. As I am mainly just feeding myself at the moment, it started going very brown and sorry looking before I had got even half way through it. In addition, I had some slightly limp celery and a bag of mixed salad that my daughter picked up very reduced that was also past its best.

Well, obviously, I made some salad soup! It may sound odd, but with the addition of some good stock, a couple of carrots and some potato it was actually not bad. I really dislike wasting food, so this seemed a good option.

PC repair

When I sat down to write this post, already a bit stressed about being so lost on what day it was, I was dismayed to discover that the keyboard wouldn’t work. I couldn’t even sign in as the keys wouldn’t register.

Before I hit the wine or burst into tears, I thought I would Google a possible answer. The first potential solution suggested turning the laptop off, then hitting the power key then the escape key repeatedly.  At first nothing happened, but on my third attempt I got a message to say a repair was in progress.  After a minute or so, I tried to sign in again and it worked.

What a relief! I would be lost without it. There is a lot I can do on my phone, but it’s much more difficult. Hopefully this isn’t a sign of problems to come as I think my skills as a PC engineer are extremely limited.

Finding treasure

Since I have been missing all of my usual boot sales and charity shops, I ordered some more potential stock to resell on eBay. A You Tuber I enjoy, Shellsterooney, was selling large boxes of mixed costume jewellery at a really good price. (You may remember that she featured in my blog post 10 UK eBay resellers to follow on You Tube.)

I don’t know anything about jewellery, so thought it was a good opportunity to learn! Now I have quite a fun task of sorting it into lots to resell. A job for next week, I think.

Garden update

The vegetable patch is continuing to develop. We have the runner beans and the courgettes in the ground, loads of tomatoes coming along in the greenhouse, along with sweet peppers, broccoli, kale and lettuce.

Mr S put a gate across the garden to stop the puppy charging through destroying all our work. We have got a bit behind getting the carrots, beetroot and peas in. It’s tricky to do it on my own with Archie in tow and Mr S is only here a few days a week as he is caring for his mum.

I might put him on his extendable lead and try to get something done tomorrow. Then he can move about the garden but not get to the courgettes!

It’s the little things

This isn’t especially frugal, since it wasn’t an essential purchase, but I decided to cheer myself up this week with a new doormat. Since we can’t get on with decorating the hallway at the moment, I thought I could at least replace the worn out one we bought when we moved here 11 years ago! I think it is cute.

So that is my slightly confused and befuddled account of the week. Has anyone else completely lost track of time, or is it just me?

I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.