Christmas Packaging - What can you Recycle?

Over Christmas, the UK population generates 25% more waste than normal. With waste collections becoming less frequent and rubbish bins getting smaller (in our county, anyway!), this can pose a real problem for households. Add to that, the strain on the environment, and this means it is even more important than ever to up our recycling and upcycling game to try to keep landfill to a minimum. This post aims to sort out the facts when it comes to recycling your Christmas packaging, as well as what you can do to ensure you don't end up with a lot more landfill waste this Christmas and some alternatives to traditional wrapping.

How to Declutter and Still Be Sentimental

 I've never considered myself to be a hoarder, but I do like to hang onto things. Not necessarily out of sentimentality, although that is often the case, sometimes because there is no real reason not to keep something. I look after things and keep them in good condition, so why not just let it all stay? Like most people, though, my house is not huge, and recently I've found myself dreaming of a bigger place even more than usual. Something had to give and it was time to either buy an awful lot of lottery tickets or get tough. I started with my dressing table, which I talked about in Creating my Small Space Home Office and I've carried on from there. Here's how I decluttered my whole house successfully, without losing my mind, or anything I didn't want to. 

10 Easy Ways to Relax in Just 10 Minutes

 When we entered lockdown back in March, everyone talked about having so much free time, but this wasn't the case for everyone. We might have been home more, but educating children, working from home, and other new unforeseen demands all meant that for some, life never really slowed down. Now we're back in another lockdown, and it's worse because many are still at work, but the kids are getting sent home for isolation, so there's that, Christmas needs preparing for, with pressure to make this Christmas special to make up for the rubbish year (especially for me, because my son's birthday was the first day of the first lockdown and it sucked!) and it's all so stressful!! Here are ten ways to relax in just ten minutes. I'll be over here, under a blanket.

Five Fun Long Distance Lockdown Date Ideas

 

“If the two halves of a couple are currently in separate households, ideally they should stay in those  households… for quite a significant period going forwards, they should test the strength of their relationship and decide whether one wishes to be permanently resident in another household.” This was Dr Jenny Harries, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, answer to a question on whether couples who lived apart could socialise under new restrictions. My heart sank when I heard her answer, not for us, but for the couples who are just starting out, who might still be showing their best side only, not daring to fart in front of the other and now their very new, shiny relationship is about to hit a mountain size road bump, completely out of their control.

Antique Jewellery - Why and How to Buy It

A hot topic right now is fast fashion; cheap clothes which may be a bargain but don't last very long and have to be frequently replaced. This is obviously not good for the environment, as the cast-offs often end up in landfill, but have you ever considered that the same can apply to jewellery? When I decluttered to make my office space recently, I was surprised at how much of my jewellery had quickly become tarnished and unwearable, because it was made from cheap metal. Cheap metal goes from shiny to shoddy very quickly and often has a limited lifespan. Here's how you can look for quality when you buy a piece of jewellery and how antique jewellery, such as the collections you can find at Carus Jewellery, could be the answer to sustainability. 

Creating my Small Space Home Office

I had to take a long break from 'serious' blogging, due to ill health and a certain global virus that has turned everyone's lives upside down, one way or another. In many respects, the enforced break did me good, and I've come back with a renewed determination to make the most of my little slice of the internet. So, I did something I'd been talking about for years, I set up a home office. The fun part was, I had zero available space in my little house, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Here's how I got creative and created a quiet, comfortable working environment, without taking any space from the room layouts I already had. 

Little Lifts: 9 Easy Ways to Boost your Mood

I don't want to state the obvious here, but the last few months have been really tough for lots of people for all sorts of reasons. It has become harder for even the most upbeat personality to stay positive and anxiety and low mood have become a lot more common and harder to shake off. It may not be possible to do the things you normally do to make yourself feel better at the moment, so here are my favourite ways to lift a low mood, within the confines of your own home. I hope they help you too when you're feeling down and please feel free to add your own tried and tested mood lifters in the comments.

50 Fun Activities for Families in Isolation

Normal life naturally inclines us to spend some time apart from our nearest and dearest but now, in the midst of the Covid - 19 Coronavirus pandemic, we are suddenly required to spend all our time together. It's an anxious time for many and keeping busy is going to be paramount for our mental and physical wellbeing during this period of social distancing and isolation. It's not always easy to come up with ideas to amuse a whole household every day, so I've compiled a list of activities to distract and amuse in these challenging times. You could work through the list for fifty days, or just scroll down to the ones that interest you.

How to Handle Difficult Relatives at Christmas

In an ideal world, relatives would be like other people, we would be surrounded by the ones we like, and not obliged to spend time with those we don't get on with. Sadly, it doesn't work like that and Christmas is probably the prime time for testing the tolerance levels of the average adult, often to Hulk-esque proportions, but you can make it easier on yourself. If family politics (or personal guilt) rule out going away for Christmas, pretending to have a highly contagious disease, or faking your own death, here are some suggestions for helping things go more smoothly when difficult relatives threaten your Christmas spirit.

Giving Up Sugar - After 2 Weeks

I'm very pleased to have got through and survived week 1 of giving up sugar for lent, but it has been a lot harder than I expected and I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I ate a lot more sugar than I realised. So far, I have not cheated at all, despite the headaches, which I'm really pleased about, but it hasn't been easy. I'm still having small amounts of sugar in some meals, but I have stopped eating all sugary snacks and soft drinks, which has meant I've needed to really think about what I am going to eat. Week 2 has been a lot more stressful than week 1, with a lot of different challenges and this is a diary of how I coped with the side effects of giving up sugar during week 2.

Giving Up Sugar - After One Week

I always try to give up something for Lent. I think it's a really good opportunity to remind myself that there are people in the world who don't have things to give up, and how lucky I am to have a lifestyle where I'm able to have little treats and vices. It's usually something like chocolate, but I've been finding that giving up one treat is a bit of a cheat really, because there are plenty of other sweet treats to fill the gap, so this year, I've given up sugar. I have made it a bit easier, in that I don't count the hidden sugar in meals, but I have stopped eating any sugary treats. No cakes, biscuits, chocolate, nothing and it's been interesting. Here are the highs and lows of my first week, which was a lot harder than I expected.

Surviving a Cold, What Worked and What Didn't!

Bugs that arrive via our children, or air-conditioned virus-circulating offices, are always at their worst in winter. If I'm going to catch one, it is usually in that depressingly bleak lull between Christmas and Spring, when everything is particularly cold and miserable. This year's offering was especially unpleasant. Flu-maggedon hit our household like a ton of snot and I can genuinely say, it is the worst cold I've ever suffered. So, by way of explanation for my blogging absence and to help anyone else who gets it, here is a run down of how I survived the onslaught, what worked and where you can definitely save your hard-earned cash.