Feather your Nest Friday and the Vicky Challenge 2017.

The first week of the year is not over yet and I feel so happy I was able to hit the ground running! The list I keep on my fridge is long!

As I wanted to set the scene this week for the whole year I have to face up to another change I need to make. Rachel prompted me by being a good friend! For ages I have known I can't continue to individually reply to all comments every time. It goes against what I think is important. I have followed blogs and commented, sometimes repeatedly, and never had a reply and felt there was no point commenting. I also think it's rude. I have always tried to read every comment and reply. I am so grateful for all the participation, help and ideas you share.
Rachel wrote to me and said "Annabel you cannot try to keep up with all this yourself anymore" (or words to that effect! And she is right. She also said she and others can help with replies and that is already happening quite often which I really appreciate!
I know this is all true and that it  takes a good friend to tell you the truth.  Unaddressed it will lead to me not being able to write the blog anymore due to the volume of replies and behind the scenes correspondence. (which is at least the volume of replies)
But I don't want to disappoint anyone and I still feel rude if I don't reply! And I love reading all the comments and this is how we get to know each other and gather so many new ideas. That is a joy for me as in a break I made a cup of tea and sit down to read what you have been doing and making!
I will still reply and read every comment, just the replies will be a bit less. And if you would help anyway you can by answering a question or offering an idea etc then that would be wonderful as this is a little community now with quite a lot of friendships formed.
Thank you for understanding. I don't like it. I just am facing that it is a reality I have to work out a way to manage.

That said, I got heaps done this week and still wrote my blog and my replies!

These are some of the things I did to feather the nest this week:

Yesterday I made soap! I have gifts made for week one!  Instead of pretty moulds like I used last year this year I was inspired by Lush which is a shop here that sells soaps and body products. I was also inspired by Mimi who made the most divine soap on A Tray of Bliss just before Christmas. You get chunky slices of soap and each one is quite large so it is a gift in itself. I will share how I did it next week but this is it so far...

I made a tray of bacon and cheese scrolls for Andy's lunches. I love making these as you don't have to cut and fill sandwiches the filling is in them already! And they freeze well.

I was given three bananas which I froze to make Banana Cake.

This is my Vicky Challenge for the week:

Andy saved us a lot of money. He fixed my Kitchen Aid Mixer. It was in big trouble bouncing around and leaking black oil! I thought it was dead. He watched this problem get fixed on you tube and spent two hours on it. It now runs like new!  Saving $200 in repairs. It kneads my sourdough bread for me and is a huge help. I could count a lot more for the cost of a replacement. This was a gift from my Mum and I hope to keep it going forever.

He spent an afternoon cleaning up the yard after the storm we had, go out the blower vac, trimmed, mowed etc. If we paid for someone to come in it would have been at least $180.

He cleaned out the gutters before the storm. If we paid for that it is over $100.

I had been bitten by bugs for several days. Mozzies don't usually bother me. Something was biting me all over. I normally don't like sprays but this got out of hand and I started feeling unwell. Andy bug sprayed the entire yard and outside of the house. It cost $60 in supplies but when I checked how much would this cost in Adelaide it was between $300 and $400. So I will say it saved us around $300.

Then he fixed a blind. It was a fairly major fix and it saved us buying a new one so that was $80 saved.

He also got a tyre fixed and the man didn't charge him anything for it!

All this was over the weekend and at the end I told him he had saved us $860 . He was amazed and I could see he felt good.  I also haven't had anymore insect bites!

As the week went on it got hotter and hotter. Yesterday I decided to put this to good use. I washed the underlay from our bed. It is very thick wool. I used the wool wash I made. It came up beautifully and smells lovely. Lucy gave me bluebird clothes pegs! 

It was completely dry in a few hours. I also washed the pillow protectors, bed skirt, quilt/doona, doona cover and all the linen. By evening it was all back on the bed. All the washing water was on the garden giving it a drink in the heat. Win win!

There is nothing like climbing into bed with all this fresh and smelling like sunshine. 

I googled how much is it to get a large doona washed in our city. $99! was the answer. And the same for the underlay.  (this sounds like madness to me but they are the prices)

The soaps I was copying are $6.95 each but mine are about double the size. I got 20 bars. Less costs this is a saving of about $120.  

I made two large focaccia loaves. Saving $12.

The scrolls, saving about $30.

I made a dress into a top. I never wore this dress but liked the top of it. I will call it a $50 new top!

I washed all the outside windows. My idea was to start the new year with sparkly windows! I googled this is $100 on average here. 

So I wrote $1342 into our savings book for this week which is massive.  Sharing this with my husband has really paid off. He loves it. 

I forgot to count lunches for a short week $80! 

So we had a week of getting heaps done, some major repairs, washing big things, cooking and the present making has begun! I am really happy with that!

Today and tomorrow are pretty hot.  I am getting out the sewing machine to sit and quietly sew while staying out of the heat. I am planning "use it up" pizzas on the weekend!

How did you build up your nest this week? I hope it was a wonderful start to the year.  

Have a great weekend!  On Monday we start our preparedness series for the year.  I am hoping by the end of the year your present cupboard will be full and also your pantry! xxx