Smart Life
Making our life just that little bit more fulfilling, less stressful and rewarding.
All Jumbled Up! Organising a ‘Good Old Fashioned Jumble Sale’!
So we have just organised our first school jumble sale – apparently the first in our village for about 50 years! There were mixed reviews – the professional ‘jumblers’ who had been queuing since dawn were disappointed that we didn’t sell adult clothes, and that our prices were ‘high’! If you call 5op expensive for a top quality Boden dress then I would have to agree with them, but overall I felt that we were giving stuff away.
Read more »Recycling Your Christmas Tree!
If you are planning to un-deck your halls this weekend, as is the tradition, then please consider the options for disposing of your rapidly disintegrating Christmas trees! Here is our WNWN Guide to responsibly recycling your Christmas tree!
Read more »Back to School the Resourceful Way | The Waste Not Want Not Guide
Whether you are looking forward to it or not, the time has come to think about getting those kids back to school! And it can be anything but straight forward given that our children simply don’t grow in a uniform manner – nature has not contrived to have them conveniently grow out of 6-7 year old school uniform in July of one year, ready to start the new school year in size 7-8!
Read more »Summer Holidays Survival Guide Part Two | My Three Key Tactics!
So, I am a self confessed struggler of summer holidays – I find it extremely stressful and I really do find it hard to understand why. I only have one child, and she is generally quite well behaved. I don’t actually work at the moment. I have help. I always want to be productive or making progress – failure to do so, makes me feel like I’ve failed! And therein probably lies the cause!
Read more »My Summer Holidays Survival Guide | How We Plan Ourselves Happy!
Okay, I admit it – I dread the summer holidays! I can’t help it – I am a creature of habit and routine, and whilst not having to get my daughter out of bed to go to school is nice, I then drift into the realms of oh god, I’m not being productive, the house is a mess, my child is bored!
Read more »Collect Your Stamps for Charity
There are those of us of a certain age which will no doubt remember with fondness being urged to collect postage stamps for whichever Blue Peter Appeal was applicable at the time. It was almost a way of life. Blue Peter always made the best of what everybody else was going to throw away, whether it be cereal packets, the labels off of Heinz Baked Bean tins, or postage stamps.
Read more »To Sew or Not to Sew..Uniform Labelling and the Joys Thereof!
So, if you’ve managed to get your head around the uniform buying part of the ‘my little one is starting school in September’ equation, you’ll be ready to face the next conundrum..name labels! Yes, I know. Who knew there was so much excitement involved! For some reason this never caused me any grief at nursery – sure, I popped a few iron on labels in her cardigans, because cardigans are like gold dust and yet such an essential part of any little girl’s wardrobe! But she generally went to nursery in her trashiest clothes and it really didn’t matter if they didn’t come home.
Read more »Let’s Take the Humbug Out of Christmas & Still Have a Resourceful One!
So this year more than ever, there seems to be a backlash against the excesses of Christmas. I’ve never seen so many low waste guides to Christmas, and this is all great to see. But before I go on I would like to celebrate at this juncture the human trait which sends us a bit crazy at this time of year. Believe it or not, I’m talking about the actual ‘good’ in all of us that wants to make one day, in particular, such a special day.
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