Feather your Nest Friday, 12th February, 2021.

 I am happy to be here looking over the week.  Thanks to photos and notes I remember things I would forget otherwise. 

Many of the things I did fell into the "putting things to good use"  category!  Over at The Tuesday Afternoon Club  this is a weekly theme.  It is amazing what we can put to good use.

My Aunt sent me a lovely present.  It came in a beautiful box from a department store.  I was planning to make some packs of cards for gifts and I had two rose books from op shops that I had saved just for card making.   So everyday I made a few cards and I covered the box with roses as well.

I love boxes to store things in.   When I was little Mum was always covering boxes with pictures.  I loved this.  Even now the girls baby things are stored in boxes covered in pictures from magazines back when they were tiny!  All that glue made the boxes last forever and they are so pretty.  

Cutting and gluing pretty flowers all week was very nice.  I made full size cards and also smaller little cards with tiny envelopes.

Then eventually I made them into sets of six and packaged them up as gifts and tied them up with ribbon.

This gives me a couple of gifts I need right now and some for the present cupboard.  Everyone needs cards, right?  

Some of the other ways I built up the home and got ahead were:

I cooked up two pumpkins and pureed them for Thomas.  I think it was 15 little containers of pumpkin. And he really likes it! 

Chloe asked if I wanted an old cupboard.   It is gorgeous and I said yes please!   Then I had to think fast where to put it and what to do with it.    My laundry has too much stuff in there.  Stuff I don't know any other place to put ... like piles of egg cartons and garden fertiliser and random things! 

So I had the cupboard go in our porch area which is mostly closed in and I keep my plants and a little table and chairs to pretty it up.   Because the cupboard is lovely it fits right in.   I now have all the garden stuff, egg cartons and other odds and ends in it.   This liberated my laundry and I spent so much time re arranging it.   As you know how it goes when you start moving things around.  It seemed like every item in the house moved one to the left.   But it is really so much better.

In the evenings I worked on crochet edgings on kitchen towels.  I sewed a few more pot holders.

The ham I cooked was all used up and the last of it went into two big quiches.

I had bananas to use.  So I made small banana cakes (12) for the girls for school, one for Chloe and Luke and a Gluten Free one to cut up for the freezer.

Chloe gave me a box of jars.

Everyday I picked tomatoes.

My neighbour gave me a beautiful old birdcage.  Andy hung it up for me.  I love it! 

I better include an animal photo.   My cows come up when I call them for a biscuit.  Laffie has a new hair do.  I think she discovered gel? 

I was given Rhubarb by Wendy and red apples from Chloe.   Today I filled the slow cooker with them together and then made two huge crumbles and portions of stewed fruit to freeze. 

The crumble is delicious!

I really added quite a bit to the freezer.  And gave my pantry a lot of thought.   I need to re arrange my freezers and have an inventory.    

I've said it before but here we go again...  I think we are all news tired and crisis fatigued.  Because of this I hardly watch any TV.   (I am a snoop and a researcher though. haha.)     But what seemed to be "just like that" there are severe and sudden lockdowns again.   Scenes of supermarket shelves emptied out and panic.   Reminders of why we keep our pantries well stocked and that things can change so quickly. 

"She looks well to the ways of her household.." Prov 31.27

"The wise see trouble ahead and avoid it."  Prov 22.3

This involves being watchful.   And time after time I have found to trust my feelings.  If you feel something isn't right, it isn't right! If you feel strongly to do something then do it.  I felt so strongly to build up my pantry and I still do like never before.     I pray all the time to know what I should be doing. 

I am also always quoting the old saying to do what you can, with what you have and right where you are!  

To take every opportunity.

To pray to have eyes to see opportunity.

To put things to good use.

And to have a beautiful time doing it.  

A lot of people are really having a very tough time.  We can try to add goodness and kindness as it is really needed.  Often very small acts of kindness count for far more than we imagine. 

I hope you had a good week. How did you build up your home or get ahead in anyway?xxx