Feather Your Nest Friday, 30th November, 2018.

The last day of November!!  Once is is December Christmas is here!

This was a MUCH better week.

Thank you for the overwhelming and beautiful response to the prayer request.  I can report that J is home from hospital and doing well.  There have been some very promising signs and good days.  If you will keep her in your prayers for healing from her past trauma that would be wonderful.  Her Mother is very grateful to you all.

Some of the ways I built up the household this week included:

I had left over strawberries that needed action fast.  They made up on lovely jar of jam.

Over a year all my little batches of jam add up!  I can always but together a basket of different jams for a gift.  I used one of my tiny dried rose buds as decoration.   During the week I used a dried rose bud and string when wrapping a birthday present and it looked so pretty.  

Chloe gave me an owl to add to my guardians on the veranda.  So far the cockies have not got into the veggie patch so my hawke and owls may be helping...

She also gave me a heap of rose images from books for my card making...

We took a day trip to the farm that Lucy and her family are moving to in January.  It is two hours south of here.   It was a beautiful day and such a pretty drive.  First there are vineyards and roses along the sides of the road that just go on and on.  There there are pine forests.  We took a picnic with us.   We saw Emus running between the pine trees.

Half way is a town which is my main regional town for shopping etc.  This is where we pick up mail that needs a signature (other mail comes to our post box out the front) and the town is so nice.  It is like stepping back in time.  Gentlemen open the door for you, everyone chats.  I love it!  

At at farm in the south we had a good walk around.  The home is a huge old homestead.  There are roses everywhere.  Obviously I picked some!! 

These are so strongly perfumed they scented the car and the house all week.  They are heavenly.  There were hundreds of roses in lemon, creamy peachy colours, pink...

There were two huge fig trees covered in the largest figs I have ever seen!  They were not quite ripe enough but I think maybe two weeks and we will go back because we also found a cherry tree, covered in cherries!!  I am guessing two weeks on those too.  So if we plan a picnic we could come home with a car load of fruit and flowers!  

During the week I went over to Mum and Dads.  I picked a big basket of fresh Bayleaves.

I am drying these to package up as gifts.  Most cooks use Bay Leaves.... they are full of goodness and expensive to buy.  And Mum's are organic! 

I made a cheesecake in the slow cooker.

We have a hose dripping on one fruit tree at a time.  I move it every evening to the next one.  While I am there I inspect the trees.  Each night I can see that fruit growing! 

Andy bought a cupboard in a second hand store.   While there I was looking at a pile of bags... they were like a shoe or veggie bag and very old.  A very fine cotton like a voile.  Each had a number stencilled on it.   I was jus thinking mmm what could I do with these?  The man said to me do you like them?  I expressed my interested in using them to make SOMETHING and he said "here take a heap!" and handed me a pile.   The pile turned out to be 22 of them.

I am going to make Santa sacks and gift bags from them.

This week we had our first Kangaroos in the paddock out the front.  First there was a huge one hopping across the paddock.  Then a smaller one.  The next day the smaller one was back and came up close to our yard.

I cooked a big pot of spaghetti sauce.  I don't need to cook tonight and have some for Chloe and Luke as well.

Janine very helpfully sent me photos to show me what a bakery is charging for very small fruit cakes.  Cleverly she put her purse next to the cake to show just how small this cake is..

Look at the price!  A cake a little bit bigger is shown in the next photo.

This is so good to see.  We constantly under value the gifts we make.  When I work out my savings for the week I try and guesstimate how much I saved on the things I made.  Keeping up to date on prices is helpful when doing this.   It gives us an idea of the enormous savings to be had.

Thank you so much Janine!   Next time you make a tray of scones, biscuits, cakes... calculate what they would cost to buy!  

I did some Christmas wrapping.  Some of my essential oil gifts are now wrapped and ready. 

I had saved nice little boxes to package them up in.

I worked on my crochet edge kitchen towels and got a few more finished.  I am also learning a new stitch so I can make decent looking hand towels and face washers from crochet cotton.

Maria's daughter is having a C section to deliver her third baby next Friday.  She has had a lot of trouble with her past babies deliveries so they are feeling nervous.  Anyone who will pray for that family please do as they have had a very hard year but they have a Christmas baby coming! 

Tomorrow Chloe and I are heading off to a small town that is having a Christmas market.  The tiny market I went to a few weeks ago was just wonderful.  This one is miles bigger!  It seems everyone has a side line, grows, makes and sells something.  I am so excited!  The last market I met three people I have kept in touch with and that have made me things to help my own Christmas crafts.  One make me labels for bottled gifts, one made me gorgeous essential oil bracelets.   I hope to get lots of ideas and maybe come home with some seedlings and who knows what else!

This will also be a change to explore a town not too far away which will be really good.

How did you feather your nest this week?  I hope you found some savings,  got ahead somehow and found a way to add to your pantry.

Have a wonderful weekend! xxx