Recently PJ read a story about shrinking clothes in the machine.  We got talking about it and I thought it would be a good life lesson to see for real what happens when you wash at 90°C.

It took us a few weeks to find enough things to wash because I wasn't willing to actually ruin anything that wasn't already ruined in some way, and therefore no use even to a charity shop.

We got together a shirt, two jumpers, a pair of gloves, a woollen scarf and a white flannel.  That was thrown in to collect any colour runs.

We cut some bits off the shirt and the scarf and only washed one glove so we could visually compare the difference at the end.  We measured the other items.  LJ then commented that surely it would cost a lot of money to run the machine on a long 90° wash.  He was right, of course, but I told him that if it saved him ever doing it for real, it would pay for itself several times over.  I have ruined several things over the years, haven't you?

As predicted some things shrank.

The dark threads in the scarf shrank more than the white threads, so it ended up wavy and a LOT shorter than before.

Amazingly the shirt did nothing.  I think it was because it was already ruined and had no more colour to lose.  The white flannel came out just as it went in.

One of the jumpers shrank round the neck and by 8 cm across the chest, but one of the reasons I had thrown it in was because of the tomato stains which I had failed to get rid off.  The near-boil wash got rid of them!

The other jumper went baggy and grew a fair bit.  I had forgotten that could happen.  The applique designs ended up rather crinkled though.

They were quite impressed by the results.  I just hope it was a lesson well learned!

I found the following quotation by Charles Spurgeon over at Life at Oak Grove and I wanted to share it here too.  Having learnt the hard way that not all quotations are genuine, even when they are much quoted, I decided to try and get 'chapter and verse' on this.  I found it quoted in many places, but not one had a back reference until I went to the Spurgeon Quote Archive.  There I finally found where this quotation comes from.  It's in his 63 volume sermon set:  1214.53.  I'm not sure I'm any the wiser!!

"You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, and training them up in God's fear, and minding the house, and making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts."  

Isn't that amazing?  It really is food for thought.

Whilst I was in the archive I found some other very interesting quotations.  Here are a few of them which are all from his book Come ye children.  There were so many more.  If you have a moment you might enjoy a little browse through their archives.

Be sure, whatever you leave out, that you teach the children the three R’s,—Ruin, Redemption, and Regeneration.  p.90

Do not hesitate to tell the child his ruin; he will not else desire the remedy. Tell him also of the punishment for sin, and warn him of its terror. Be tender, but true. p.71

Before you can teach children, you must get the silver key of kindness to unlock their hearts, and so secure their attention. p.84

An ounce of obedience is better than a ton of learning. p.78 

 

This year we decided to join in with Operation Christmas Child.  

Operation Christmas Child is the UK's largest children's Christmas appeal and has been running for over 19 years. They deliver gift-filled shoeboxes to children in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Whilst I am aware of one missionary working in Eastern Europe who ended up with so many shoe boxes one year he had nowhere to store them, and not enough children to give them to; (a problem which was solved); the majority of these boxes do go every year to very needy children, much to their absolute delight.

I wanted the boys to begin to understand in a practical way that others do not have the blessings they have and that they can do something about it.  They agreed to each give a pound towards filling their boxes.  This wasn't easy as they are both saving up for some Lego and they realised it would mean at least an extra week's wait before they would get their new toy.  It's so little in comparison with what many live with, but it's a start.

I already had many bits and pieces in my cupboard which we looked through and chose from and then I went to buy sweets with a long enough sell-by date on them to get through customs.  I chose to do a box for an older girl, mainly becasue I found a lovely sewing kit which I thought would be a real blessing to a teenager in Africa.  It could help her bring in money for the family.  Then I realised that I wasn't allowed to put ANYthing sharp into the box, so no scissors and no pins or needles.  Agh!  I settled on several reels of cotton as well as a host of other little fun gifts.Packing.  The bit I found the hardest was wrapping the box lid and bottom seperately.  Took me ages!Filled boxes.  The idea is to put things in from 4 different categories, so toys, but also stationery, personal hygiene items like toothbrushes and perhaps an accessory like a cap or scarf.

Our main reason for our trip into town last week was to hand over our boxes to the local collection point.  There are several around here, but I chose the one in the Christian Book Shop.  My regular readers are smiling.  Of course I chose the one in a BOOK shop!

I had a lot to say about this special day last year.  My posts were about Remembrance day in terms of the country remembering and then it's personal significance. 

I need to keep busy today so we're off into our nearest big town and I'll let you know about it soon!

I got my hair cut today.  My appointment was supposed to be last week, but when I got there the place was crowded.  I had never seen so many people at my hairdressers!  I sat down to wait, confident that 'I had something to do'.

I got out my pen and notebook to jot down ideas for my blog.  Actually I can do endless things with a notebook and a pen(cil).  I like lists and can happily while away many minutes on various lists from the practical 'things I need to do today' list to the dreaming ' things I'd like to do before I die'.

On an aside, I made a list of '50 things to do before I die' when I was about 32 but only got to number 22.  Oops.  When I found the list a few months ago I was pleased to discover I had actually managed to accomplish 8 of those things - not bad.

Back to the hairdressers; after a few brief sentences my pen ran out.  It ran out.  My pens almost never run out.  I'm one of those people who buys pens in 50's.  I have a couple of 'posh' pens which do run out and I can get refills, but other pens I have in every room of the house and usually at least 2 in any bag.  They tend to get lost before they run out.  My pen ran out - argh!

For a good 15 minutes I people-watched - which I do like to do, but that day I wasn't in the mood.  Besides anything else I was the only person in there who actually looked like they needed a haircut!  I got so stressed I went to my stylist and asked him howlate he thought he was running and would he prefer me to come another day.  He is always booked up 6 weeks in advance - my first appointment with him I had to book over 2 months in advance!  I wasn't hopeful.

He, on the other hand, was delighted and couldn't quite believe I'd give up my slot.  He booked me for today, his day off.  So now I'm feeling grateful/guilty!  (When I got there today I discovered he'd booked a few other appointments for today so not too much guilt!)

Today I had the salon to myself (well, almost) and was done in less than an hour.  No time to even look for my pen..... 

Do you always take something with you 'to do'?

One of the great thing about driving through the countryside last week was the amazing autumn colours.  It put me very much in mind of when I drove to Poland with my Dad, and he reminded me of it too.  Yes, I drove all the way to Poland with my Dad.  (Compared to the huge distance people drive in Canada and the States, it isn't actually all that far.)  I was going there to teach English in a Bible School and it was about this time of year that we went.

Germany was the prettiest country we travelled through - mind you we were travelling in the dark by the time we were driving through Poland, so I guess that isn't quite fair.

The colours were fabulous, so rich and vibrant. 

It wasn't that long after the Berlin Wall had come down and we wondered for a while whether we would notice when we got into what used to be East Germany.  We noticed.  All of a sudden, after all the beauty, we rounded a corner and saw a large concrete town - all grey.  It was hideous in comparison with the autumn colours and the wonderful little traditional German villages we had travelled through.

I have been planning to get out and take some autumn photos for the last few weeks, waiting for the perfect moment, I suppose.  Well, the other day it was very windy and all of a sudden many leaves are gone.  I've taken one photo of our road, mainly as a contrast to the spring photo I took. 

Autumn

Spring

 One more garden photo to share.  Remember my new Acer? When I was repotting it the other day I found we had a special visitor..

The 'stick' is a critter.  I don't know what exactly, but a critter it is.  Very well camouflaged - the boys were most impressed!

For all we are told that inflation is very low, it seems to me (and my mother) that food costs are steadily rising.  I understand the problem is that inflation is based on a number of products including electronics, not just food and fuel. 

We're all aware that new technology comes in expensive and then drops in price and it seems to me that this skews inflation figures quite a lot.  For people like my parents, inflation is running high.  They never buy the latest faddy electronics, or most of the other things in the 'inflation' list, they do buy food and their bills have gone up and up.

I began to notice some weeks ago the little tricks that the supermarkets were getting up to, to try to make it less noticeable that food prices are rising.  For instance, my supermarket always sold their cooked meat in packets of 6 slices - 2 for £3.  Now there are only 5 slices in the identical looking pack (except for the 5) and same price.

I bought a new packet of straws.  Check this out...

they are all about an inch shorter than before!  Imagine how much money that must have saved the manufacturers - same price as before, or slightly dearer maybe.

Then I heard that there has been some research into this, I think by mySupermarket, which proves that I'm quite right!

After I wrote the above I went to photograph the straws and picked up our local newspaper.  It had a letter in it complaining that Weetabix have got smaller.  The writer was sure because some time ago they bought a special tin to keep them in.  They used to be a snug fit and now they are both shorter and narrower.

Have you noticed any 'creative' methods of hiding the truth of rising prices?  

We have just come back from a couple of days break near Birmingham.  Dh was going away and I thought we'd travel with him and then go off on an adventure of our own.  I had used Mapquest for directions and had about 10 sheets of printed out directions.

You know what?  I discovered that using a MAP is a whole lot easier than trying to follow those directions.  Are you shocked?  We don't have a disembodied voice in our car telling us where to turn left so I have been sucked into thinking that getting directions from the internet is a 'good idea'.  No, it isn't!  Buy a road atlas and use that.  It even has the added bonus of, if you end up in a traffic jam you can find another way to go!  We didn't get stuck at all, not least because we were probably one of the few people in the country using a MAP and therefore not congregating on the same roads used by every computing devices' instructions.

Okay, so I did have to stop a few times to figure out where to go next, but that was easier than trying to figure out whether we'd gone 1.4 miles or 1.5 miles (our milometer doesn't do 0.1).  And, on top of that we had two of the quickest answers to prayer I have ever had - asking the Lord for help and with 1 minute receiving an answer not once but twice.  I was surprised and I think the Lord was laughing with me about it!  When I was obliged to use Mapquest directions I was very glad that LJ is now so good at reading that he could keep me on the right road!

We stayed 2 nights at a hotel so that we could take it easy and enjoy a whole day at the chocolate factory - plus we were looking forward to the adventure of staying in a hotel and having a HUGE cooked breakfast for 2 mornings!

We found Cadbury World down more back alleys than I care to remember (I doubt most local people even know the way we went!) and then relaxed into chocolate delight.  Our arrival was greeted with a large packet of Buttons and a Curly Wurly each.  We then went through into the history of chocolate.  We had been reading up about chocolate so we already knew the basics.  The trail took us on to the Cadbury family who were God-fearing Quakers.  Being Quakers they were considered non-conformist and were not allowed to attend university (and so enter a 'profession') and as pacifists also could not contemplate a military career. This left them very little choice but to enter the world of trade. After choclate began to gain in popularity they moved their factory out of the large city and started a whole development of buildings and homes which is still known as Bournville.  As Christians they were very unhappy with the conditions many factory workers faced and they determined to do things very differently.  Every home had a garden, workers were encouraged to take time off and get involved in sport and so on.  To me, it is no great surprise that with Godly men at the helm the company flourished as it did.

We were able to visit part of the factory.  The smell of chocolate was quite amazing and a little overpowering.  I can well believe that people working there all the time loose their taste for chocolate.Here we were given MORE chocolate just in case we'd run out????  We did eat 2 of the Curlywurlys between the 3 of us, but that's all. 

We were able to write with liquid chocolate and then 'play with' liquid chocolate on a huge marble slab.

There was a ride through a 'bean world'...

and an area to play various games

including getting your silhouette made in chocolate (only on the computer though- sadly!)

Then came a highlight..... we went for a short walk (through the rain) into another area where it was explained how Dairy Milk chocolate was first made and were given little tubs of liquid chocolate.  It was so delicious.  Yummy, yummy, yummy.  Yes, it deserves 3 yummys.

We had a great time.  It was fun, tasty and even educational.

We decided to pop into the nearest supermarket on the way back to the hotel and buy sandwiches for tea - remember we'd had the huge breakfast and a snack and chocolate.. - and what did we find?

Well, we had to buy one each because we see them so rarely!  "Icing on the cake,"  I believe it is called!

I am glad I got my new plants into the ground a few weeks ago.  We have had some more decent weather, but the nights have been quite cold and tonight the temperature is set to fall below 0°C.  The plants are mostly growing well and a little frost at this stage shouldn't bother them.

The boys have had a project over the summer where they have planted and looked after some lettuce and carrots.They have grown very well and I've harvested plenty of lettuce.  I think we planted the carrots a little too closely together so we've had some tiny ones, but as we've picked and therefore thinned they have grown larger. These were some of the first we picked - yummy! 

As the autumn has developed we've had a lot of visitors to our garden, especially spiders who have been spinning webs everywhere.

We also spotted this lovely butterfly a few days ago. 

Has anyone else begun their Christmas shopping?

I have to admit that I am one of those people who buys their cards and wrapping paper in the January sales most years, so in that regard I started months ago!

A few weeks back I saw some pyjamas I thought my boys would love.  I thought I'd just make a mental note and come back and get them closer to Christmas - always like to have new pjs at Christmas.  Then I remembered last year's fiasco when I saw a toy we wanted and didn't buy it straight away.  We ended up getting it in March this year.  I bought the pyjamas.

Since then I have been buying little bits and pieces.  It does spread the cost a bit and helps me not to get too stressed out.  We don't over celebrate Christmas but we do celebrate and I really like thinking about what would make someone else happy without spending a fortune.  Some people are so easy - like my parents who are almost always delighted with whatever we buy for them, even it is something 'boring' - probably because it is something they actually need.  Others are much harder, because for me, it has to pass the 'useful and wanted' test.  I can't tell you how many times I've read recently in the press or on blogs that 'we need to stop buying rubbish for each other at Christmas'.  I never have done!  I guess a lot of rubbish is sold, but it isn't me buying it!

Besides all that there are some people I don't see very often for whom I like to buy a small treat - like my brother and sister-in-law in Canada.  If I can avoid posting these items it makes life easier cheaper so I will also admit to having wrapped several gifts already and having passed them on!