Happy Christmas!

I have not written for a while now as I had a little accident and puled my pelvis muscles & ligaments. Don't ask how. It was all my stupidity and I paid for it for 3 weeks! I could literary not walk for a week and then I was walking like a 90 years old. My pregnancy is not really helping as I could not take any medication.
Now after 2 physio and 3 weeks I am feeling so much better. I didn't put anything on my blog as I was totally wiped out and also I didn't do anything!
3 weeks of rest.

I have managed last weekend finish the Czech Christmas baking.
See! It is much less of it then last year but I think that with damaged pelvis and 7 months pregnancy is a good reason! :-)))

I did about 8 different kinds of Czech sweet. You will not find anything diet about this baking!

DIY/ Homemade baby bib

I have made a start on baby bibs this Sunday. I have used nice soft flannel fabric for it. It is actually second hand king size bedding set ( only washed not used ). Cost me £7.50 for metres and metres of it! On one side is white + dark blue stars and other dark blue + white stars.

 

Pregnancy update 24 weeks!

We are past the magic viable 24 weeks. Also it means that I don't fit in any of my non pregnancy clothes.
Luckily I still have number of roomy jumper dresses (they can count as pregnancy clothes).

That is how the Home in Surrey looks now :-)

Where with coat hangers?

Our house is overflown with coat hangers. I will banish some to the attic and there suddenly is a sea of them again. I think that they are actually breeding here. Our wardrobes are overfull, washing basket has always some and I am not even talking about the underneath of wardrobes! They are hidden everywhere! To resolve our problem with them I have sew a little bag (meaning big one) for them and designated it to our utility room (meaning utility cupboard/ that little space in front of condensator) as we are here in England calling room even a 1m x 1m area of corridor.
So what do you think?

DIY grey & yellow chevron nursery finished!

This weekend I have been doing a last little bits for our nursery. It finally looks like one!
I am quite pleased with it. On low budged & sewing machine it is possible!
What do you think?

23 weeks pregnant & GYM

Yep, this morning I woke up and felt good. That means -  trip to the local GYM.
This is what I usually wear. Nothing special or expensive. Just my top is long one. Almost you can say, that I have a little bit of belly / maybe pregnant. :-)
Nobody yet asked me.

So this morning I did 45 minutes of treadmill ( only walk), cross trainer plus a number of machines.
I am quite proud of myself. The hardest is to get up, put some GYM clothes on and actually go there.
After that it is easy. I am planing to do some exercise as far as my growing baby boy will allow me.

 

Tomorrow maybe some more swimming.

Let it hang

That is exactly what I did! This is just a little DIY. :-)))

When we were thinking about "logistics" of having baby there was the question of laundry. We will try to use a cloth nappies so we bought nice nappy bucket, but for a rest of the clothes we didn't need to think long. I still had this Primark fabric laundry bag from before my husband. (I know I keep everything). I am glad that I kept it as it will be perfect for lots of tiny little baby clothes + muslins.
It just needed to go somewhere.
In the end I have just sew to it little tags and with a help of wall hooks put it on the side of our baby changing dresser. Perfect. When we will be changing baby the laundry bag will be right there.

 

Personalised towel on budged

After finishing our nursery chair I was left with a bit of offcuts of fabric. I had a idea how to recognise our baby's towel! I just put a piece of offcuts on the each end of the towel and voila! Personalised towel without any cost.

Nursing chair - revamp

I have finally finished our nursing chair! It took me quite a long time as stupid me didn't buy enough of the fabric!
Also I have been very, very careful with the pattern (the back is just on one side - the pattern is correct).
The old (dirty one) and the shiny grey chevron one.

Nursing chair before

Updated nursing chair

Sheep skin

We have been given 2 sheep skins by my parents. I have washed them. One survived but second not so. I have been trying to repair the damaged one and make it in something usable.
I have stuck with "cloud" design and just cut it. It will be hopefully nice rug for the nursery.
I think it looks lovely now. Also I have started our gallery wall. (and I have to really stop to making pictures in the evening! The light is no good.)

Nursery - decorative cloud

I have been "playing" with my sewing machine again. I am guilty as charged these days about it. I hope my husband Rob will not feel left out. I am usually camping in the dining room where all the mess can be contained. :-)

I thought that I will make our new nursery more colourful. There are lots of nice decorations on Pinterest and one caught my eye.
Cloud with colourful raindrops.

I have in the end made it in about 2 evenings.

Gone for swimming

Yes,
this morning I have actually got up and went for a swim.

I am paying the GYM I have to confess that I haven't been there for almost 4 months. That has to change! So swimming this morning before my work and then I have GYM appointment tomorrow morning for some safety. I hope I can manage some quick walking and cross trainer for a start. I have got really unfit.
So no any pictures of me today as swimming suit under office clothes is never a good look. :-)

Nursery continues

Slowly but surely we are doing up our nursery.
This is our progress. (sorry about dark photos - blame it on energy saving bulbs)

Sewing and sewing

Another little tick on "to do for baby" list done.
I have sewed a cot bed skirt. Just a simple 3 piece of white fabric covering the bottom half of the cot. It looks so neater now. What do you think?

E-bay and why I love it

I spent a lot of time on E-bay. Buying or selling I just love it. Where else will somebody pay you to take your "junk" away? :-)
We sold our 3 seater futon and it was picked up on Monday evening. The lovely buyer actually fit it in the VW golf! I would not believe it.
I see E-bay as big treasure box with a new stuff every minute!
With selling some high cost furniture there now maybe even the cost of the baby stuff will not be that bad.

There are some basic & safety rules when selling which is a good idea to follow.

Is your clothes ethical?

Yes, I know I have clothes from Primark. Not at all ethical, but I really like it. Their basics I mean. So soft, they actually last for ages (so no need to buy a lot) and of course the price. I like their basic t-shirts, tops and socks. I bought also some tops & socks from M&S, Tesco and H&M, but they do not last that long and they go "funny" after number of washings.
I wish the Primark was a little bit more "ethical" about their workforce, but did you look at your clothes lately? There is no any shop (on high) street selling clothes made in England or at least in Europe. The closest is "made in Turkey/ Romania". Even the more expensive shops have labels "made in China/ India/ Bangladesh.
So me being me, I see as being all ECO and ethical to not to buy "a lot of clothes" or buying clothes from charity shops & E-bay auction. Reusing & not having excess has to be the most World friendly. am I right? In the end I always get stuck between being ethical and being frugal.

Clothes & pregnancy & pictures without me

There is a lot of clothes shops and clothes are quite cheap here in England (compared to men clothes) so it was surprise for me that I couldn't find any maternity clothes! When I have found some (on Internet) they were twice a price of ordinary ones. For example basic top can cost about £6 - £8 (from cheaper shops) but add to it "maternity" (a few gatherings around a waist) and it is £16! Maternity is a magic word. Same as "wedding". It just means that the shops can charge more. Then on top of it, you have to buy it on line and pay the shipping.
I have just bought a few tops in bigger sizes from Primark and then bought proper maternity from E-bay (second hand, sometimes with labels still on - very ECO & frugal :-)|. Just a few items will do. All together I have spent £180 ( 2 jobs + clothes for home). The biggest purchase were the tailored trousers from H&M (new). So now I am literary living in 2 cheap black skirts from H&M and the black "expensive" trousers from H&M. I have bought proper maternity black trousers (second hand), but they are still a little bit big for me. :-)

It doesn't match!

Yep, that was when I was proudly showing our new nursery furniture!
Chair is a light wood, cot is white and our new/ second hand chest of drawers is a dark oak. Put it together with our solid Oak furniture in the rest of the house and it is not colour coordinated!

Chest of drawers & cot & bumper done!

This weekend we have picked up our new (second hand) chest of drawers for nursery. I have immediately started with sanding it down. I didn't want to have the very "orange" pine varnish on. Of course all done by hand. My husband helped me to take the handles off.

Also done this yellow chevron cot bumper.

Have it as on Pinterest or on budget?

That is always my dilemma. I start with "it will do" and I will use what we have (that 15 black frames in the attic could be redone in white for nursery) and then I see something on Pinterest or others blogs and instantly I want it all. Then slowly realised that that will blow any budget and I come back to re-do what I have.

Cats & pregnancy

It is really funny, but I am pretty sure that our cats have known that I am pregnant even before it showed on the "stick". :-) They both got more cuddly with me and as I realised they never leave me on my own at home. At least one is always in the room with me. Especially in the morning when I am getting dressed & putting makeup on. Sometimes even Meowgi (the boy) follows me to to bathroom at night and then back to the bedroom. :-)))

Mewogi's usual position.

Our new mortgage deal

We own our little house in Surrey for 2 years now. That means that our first mortgage deal is running out. I had a look at new deals with our bank to switch to and I was interested in their 4 years fix. We think that rates will go up so it makes sense to fix it for longer. I have popped into our local Halifax and spoke with manager. It looked like we were just above 60% Loan to Value (LTV). To get the best rate (which is below 60% LTV) I have paid £6000 into our mortgage (from our savings).

Source: Web

Baby cot update

I have almost forgot to put here update for our new (second hand) cot! I have bought the most ECO & baby friendly paint what I could find. It is from The Little Greene Company and it is just water based one with very low VOC. Bought it from Cane & Adam and it set us back about £23 per liter. :-(

 

Preparing for the winter

This weekend was another busy one. I have finally finished clearing our garden, cut the grass (hopefully the last cut) and covered the garden furniture. Also planted some bulbs for spring flowers.
Did the last of the coats on the baby cot. It is just drying now.

Called our local roofer so we can get the chimneys sorted out for the winter. Do you remember they were leaking! One is not 100% so I don't want to block stain our fire places again. :-)))

Another job was unfreezing our freezer. I am trying to do it when is not very hot or cold as in full Summer the frozen food will not last that long and when in cold the freezer will take longer to unfreeze.

Yep, we had there more "snow" than Surrey will get every winter!
Firstly, switch off the freezer. I do it in the morning so I can have all day to monitor the "ice" and to keep the food outside for minimum of time.

 

Preparing garden for winter

Last weekend I have spent almost 1 day clearing our little garden. I had to destroy our tomatoes plants & peas as they got grey mound. Our french beans didn't like September cold nights and started to die and broad beans got thousands of black flies on them.
I had cut all bushes down, weeded the beds and moved the pods in place of tomatoes. That is to stop cats making it their toilet over the winter. :-(
So this is how our winter prepared garden look like now. My Cornish lily is in bloom and my Sedum is beautifully red. :-)

Our second baby furniture - Glider chair

I have won it, I have won it! Yep, the chair on the e-bay! I started to look for some very comfy chair but they are really expensive! Even on e-bay the Glider or rocking chairs in good condition go for about £80! Used ones! So when I have found one very near us (3 miles) and bids were staying on £5.50 I took my chance. I stayed on e-bay until the last possible time and then bid the maximum what I would be comfortable paying for it. I bid £30 and I have won it for £23! It wasn't in the best shape.
Advertised as with stains and with pen mark :( I wanted anyway to make a cover for it as these chairs come with really ugly slip covers. So no harm.
I have borrowed our company van to transport it and when we brought it home it looked like this:

Dirty (found number of shreddies there + stains everywhere)

Our first baby furniture - cot

We have our first baby furniture! It was given to us by Rob colleague. It is just a simple wooden one and have been used before, but it is in good condition. We were so excited that we have put it together in the evening.  Also to check if everything is OK and working. The cot is from Ikea and it was quite simple to put up.

Visit of my workoholic family

What happens when you get a visit from your workaholic family? DIY and some more! Yep, that is what happened on the first day of my parents & both my brothers holiday in my house.
I was showing them around and last was the attic (here in England very important room) as it is the only storage what we have. My dad and my middle brother (I am the youngest one) had one look at its unfinished stage and started straight away on it! Asking me where is our jigsaw cutter (It needed some translating as I didn't know how it is called in English) and then sending me to Screw fix to buy one!
In all chaos I took some pictures. Please be warned they were working and not posing. :-)))

My dad doing the finishing of the loft hatch.

Review of budget

With a new arrival on the way I am in the process of reviewing our budged. We are already quite good with money. I am up to date with the best electricity & gas deal, broadband + rental line, we are aware of the cost of water and we are using water butt for our small garden. Our mortgage has the best deal (unfortunately ending this October). We buy food staples in bulk when on offer and I make the most of our freezer. Also my no buy year (OK half a year :-)) showed me that I actually have more clothes than I need.

Source: Web

New page on the blog

I have added a new page named: Pregnancy & baby. There will be the most important "staff" regarding our first.
So far I have been so lucky and didn't have the usual pregnancy symptoms. No running to bathroom first thing in the morning or staying in the bed for me! :-)
I have been only a little bit tired so going to GYM had to go and also I have rested more so no blog for a while. Now I am 14 weeks and I am thinking about going back to GYM. I can feel that my body isn't as strong as used to be.

Also we are thinking about slowly changing our second bedroom to more of baby room. We will sell our futon. It served us very well. Also getting rid of small TV and TV stand to make a room for some dresser for baby staff. We will keep 2 wardrobes (as there is my husbands clothes) and also the computer desk.
We will be buying cot/bed on e-bay and just getting new mattress. I am at the moment looking at dressers. I want just some long and made of solid wood. I will probably sand it down and paint it white. I am quite looking forward to some more DIY!

No clothes buy year - update 5

This is update 5 and unfortunately the end of my "no buy year".  I have lasted about 8 months but unfortunately being prego put an end to it. I just can't fit in any of my trousers or skirts! So we did a big pregnancy shopping last week and I have spent about £70 on clothes in one afternoon!

I have just bought some basics. Tops in 1 and 2 sizes bigger then 2 skirts with elastic waist, 1 tailored black trousers 2 sizes bigger, a pair of black tights and some sweat pants which can go under my expanding tummy. It will tie me up until I will have to buy a proper maternity clothes.

Very exciting news for Home in Surrey!

We have very exciting news here. Home in Surrey is prego!

That is why I didn't write anything for a month. To be honest I was so tired that even switching on my PC was too much!
We still finished all running DIY and I still did my second job but something has to give and my GYM and my blog unfortunately were put on hold.

We had a scan on 04/09/14 and this is our 12 week old! So far everything is good.

Now they are doing some blood test for genetics. We just hope that our baby is healthy.

Bad and unlucky day

Yesterday I had one of the "bad" days. You know the days when your luck just got lost and everything just go wrong. You will not get any warning. I got up as usually, had a shower and went to work. That is when it started. When unlocking my car door I have noticed a big scratch on my door! :-((( Another one?

I have already a number of them on my car. None of them my mistake! I would appreciate if other people had a little bit of consideration and stopped damaging my little runner. Somebody just opened their car door into mine.

Gluten free diet

My stomach upset sickness is finally over! I have been so unwell that I let go of everything not essential. It means that house looks like a bomb exploded, no GYM for like ever and only half job done at the work. Sorry but my almost daily Blog writing has to be put on stop too I really didn't have energy for anything than just trying to survive!

Source web

And why was it? I have been stupid! I have this gluten / wheat intolerance.

Homemade non toxic deodorant

I am making a number of cosmetics at home. I have homemade makeup remover, homemade soap (easier than you think) and also homemade non toxic deodorant.
The main ingredients is bicarbonate of soda. It "swallows" all smells so it is on its own good deodorant. Unfortunately I find it a little bit abrasive. That is why mixing it with other natural and non toxic ingredients makes more sense.

Homemade non toxic deodorant

New loft hatch

We are slowly progressing with your new loft hatch. I have found a few minutes to paint new cover. It is just a simple piece of wood. This loft is not going to be used very often. Just for a boiler flue check up. Also the loft got a coat of paint and i have fixed peeling paint on top of filler (where light used to be). It is hot here in Surrey( I know unusual) so paint is drying very quickly!

Lights are fixed and so, so bright!

 

Loft hatch as 2 coats of paint.

What a girl do when husband isn't at home? DIY!

Yes, Rob went to London for a stag do and I have all house for myself! Oh, just Rob's dad is fixing the down light in the utility room. Poor man isn't electrician so he has a fun with them. I have cleaned the house as usually, which is done on Saturday, did the weekly shopping, went to library, spent some time doing garden and also finally finished that "dodgy wall in the living room.

When we moved in our house all windows were single glazed and rotten! We are still finding a damage from it!

 This is our new radiator in living room. Pretty isn't it?

Bulling? Really?

I had very, very bad night yesterday in my second job. It looked like all went just from bad to worse. I don't usually get involved in "job" politics but unfortunately I have been on receiving end.

One of the "favourite" employees was trying to "push" me into leaving. It happened without any warning and left me really upset. I went from very surprised, to very upset to today very angry.

Very angry at myself that I didn't see it coming. Very angry at myself that I didn't protect myself from that happening! I will have to take action. I don't want be a victim of bulling. I am old enough to be able to deal with it.
Even with saying all of that It still leave me in very unhealthy state of mind. :-(

Limescale? - vinegar it!

We live in Surrey and unfortunately that means very, very hard water.

It is pretty annoying to see your bathroom 1 day after a  proper scrub having water marks everywhere. I am forever battling with limescale. I could go the easy way and just buy some really "effective" limescale remover from the shop, but what whey will not tell you is that they are quite TOXIC!

Bathroom towel hooks

It only took me 19 months to find a perfect towel hooks for our bathroom You know when you want to have something different but you don't exactly know what? You will just know when you will see it. That is how it happened with our hooks.

We had just ordinary silver hooks there to do the job but I was forever looking for something special. :-) And I have found it in little shop in Bude - Cornwall. When I saw them I have known that they will be perfect in our house!

My beautiful curtains - but so wrong

I have bought so, so lovely pair of curtains. They were perfect in size (no sewing needed) and I loved their horizontal stripes. The horizontal stripes didn't "arrive" in UK yet so it is quite hard to get curtains like this. I just loved them! But then we have woken up on Saturday morning and there was this strange yellow light in the room! Not nice! Everything looked dirty! My beautiful curtains went bad. I just could not leave them on. So back to ours simple stone coloured & short ones.

See here, they are just perfect.

Our new boiler

Our new boiler is installed and working! Such a luxury to have a hot water on the tap. :-) It takes about 3 second to get it. With our old one we had to wait about 10 minutes!
We are still not done with all the work. We do a little by little in every free time what we have. It is hard with both of us having 2 jobs. Also this weekend is full of birthdays and BBQ and visiting friends. I have attacked our garden and also managed to wash all windows. My husband was busy painting, sealing & ironing. :-)

We got boiler from 

New picture wall in our dining room.

We finally finished our new picture wall in our dining room. I have been really carefully about doing it right this time.
That is how we had it before. I liked it but it was a little bit empty. Also notice my husband put the "S" wrong way!
 

Third cat in the house!

We are having a few builders & boiler man in the house this week and they need to have our back door open. It means that our microchip cat latch is out of order. Our street has about 20 resident cats and they like to use our fence as nice walkway.

Curious cheeky ones have sometimes a little look around our house. It drives my husband crazy! :-))) You will turn around and there is some different cat in our living room! Our neighbour has this big white + tabby girl and she is very nosey! She get along with our cats (Meowgi loves her, but she is not very impressed by him). Fizzy likes to play with our cats toys and she loves cat nip bags.

Here is Fizzy (she has her name on the collar) scrubbing herself on cat nip bags.

Oh, the builders!

This week we are in the process of changing our 20 years old boiler.

Hura! (the Czech spelling). It doesn't go very smooth so far.
When they were the previous owners building the extension and adding utility room + bathroom, they did not build any hatch - access into the extension attic. It means that we had to first get that installed. Easy you say. We called the friends builders to do it.

Holiday in Cornwall

We have been in Cornwall for a few days. I actually never have been there before and I live in UK for about 10 years! Shame I know. We went there with my husband and his parents. Poor John was driving. It takes about 5 hours to get there!

We were staying in this beautiful beach hotel (Tommy Jacks). Their food was very good too and the staff was so helpful and nice. I can really recommend this hotel.

How to stay tidy & clutter free in our house

Writing yesterday post about selling unwanted stuff I have realised, that we apply quite a lots of "rules" in our home about everyday clutter and cleaning. We are quite tidy couple. We have to be! With our 2 cats we do a lots of cleaning! It is easier, if there are no necessary items around the house. Everything is washable or can be wiped down. Only non sensible item in our house is the cream carpet. Oh well, we inherited it from previous owners and it will be quite a expense to change it.

Even with our "rules" we still deal some days with clutter but I am more and more ruthless about it.
We have a saying that if we don't need it than we will not store it.
Here is the list how we deal with everyday stuff,  clutter and mess :-)

Selling and selling

We are making our house a little bit lighter. Over the 18 months of owning our home we slowly got more staff than we really need. You know when you get your first home you start buying a lots of decorations and kitchen utensils, blankets and cushions. Just too much for your little house. Then you start putting it in the attic, just in case of needing it. That is how our attic became really full. One day I poke my head there and saw all of that "not needed" staff. No! We are not keeping it.

Weekly baking - Lemon and Mango Cheesecake

This cheesecake is non bake but it needs a time for each layer to set.
I got this receipt from my colleague Alex. His cheesecake looked like from the shop. I tried to make mine to look as perfect as (for me) possible. :-)

Work and work to save

This week I got 4 shifts in my second job! It means that in 5 days I will be working about 60 hours. I don't usually do so many hours but if I have this opportunity I will do it. Only regret is that I don't go to the GYM, because to be honest I am totally exhausted after 13 hours of work.

Sealing Victorian quarry tiles

We have a Victorian quarry tiles in our house! 

Yes, not really inside as they are in front of our door and there are just a few of them. :-) Never less I am spending a lots of time a week with them. They need proper scrubbing every Saturday as the dirt goes inside of them. They have a little of wear especially the middle ones. I thought that if we seal them then they will look better and also they will need just a wipe dawn and not scrubbing every week.

Our front door looked like this. I have already painted them and also did a little design on our door mat. You can but see the tiles having different colour + texture as they are just used.

 

Weekly baking - Lemon drizzle cake

It is such a nice and warm weather here in Surrey. So I have baked something lighter this week.
Lemon drizzle cake is not difficult and it taste nice and summery.