Food Waste Friday - 29 April 2011 and days 3 and 4 of holiday

I do have some waste this week but mostly as a result of finally admitting that a couple of things that were in the fridge were never going to be used and just biting the bullet and getting rid of them.  Pure waste.

A small amount of wild garlic cream cheese.  Why did I not just eat this with some of the soda bread I made last week?  No idea.  I had to get rid of some of that bread as well as it went inexplicably rock hard within a couple of days - gone to the ducks in the park so at least not a complete waste.

The olives and gherkins have been there since, I think, the end of January.  I brought the jar to a friend's house for a potluck dinner and she insisted I take the remainder home with me.  I sort of assumed I'd drag them out the next time I had someone over for dinner but haven't had anyone here since then.  Although I like olives a lot I really can't stand anything from the gherkin/cucumber family and the olives in that jar have a gherkin taste so that means I have no interest in eating them.  If I was starving I would.  But I'm not.  So I won't.

And finally a small carton of sour cream.  Which I bought for a specific recipe that never got made.  The expiry date was from the end of February so although it's sealed and it's sour cream (which the internet tells me can stay usable for baking well past the expiry date if it's unopened) I've gotten rid of it.  I'm not likely to do anything with it in the next few weeks so will err on the better safe than sorry side.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Other than clearing stuff out of the fridge I've done a few bits and pieces around the house.  Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom, kept up on the washing and the washing up and otherwise read a lot and went for my groupon neck massage and pedicure then watched a very silly film in the evening.  Today I woke up ravenous so the idea of spending an hour doing housework before breakfast did not appeal at all.   I ate breakfast and read for an hour then tidied up the fridge, did the washing up and swept and washed the floors.  Along with more washing, folding away the dried stuff and hanging up more to dry. 

The friend who lived with me last year for a few months left some stuff here, among other things clothes and bedclothes.  All of which, although clean, still had the damp musty smell from his old flat in them.  So I washed a few just after he left and then forgot about them.  But I wanted to start using that wardrobe properly so it needs a good cleanout and I finally got the last of the stuff washed today.  I think I've done two washes every day this week to get through it all but as the weather has been warm, it's drying quickly so that's good.  I'm packing it away into a suitcase as it drys - have no patience with him taking up my usable space anymore but since I can't afford to hire a car and drive the six hours or so to where he lives, I'm just going to pack it away and let it sit out of sight until someone else is visiting him. 

After a nice lunch of bread and cheese with some chutney, I read for another while, waiting for three o'clock to roll around so that I could put the washing machine on again (not supposed to run it or do anything else noisy during half-twelve and three).  I also phoned a few recruitment agencies to start getting a move on in that respect.  Have to email them my CV and references and we'll see where it goes from there.

And then I started sorting a few things out in the sitting room as I wanted to put away the rest of my bedclothes and they live in the blanket box which also serves as my coffee table.  Rather than just moving the stuff off the top of that onto the couch, which I have to admit I sort of planned to do, I just started sorting through it.  There were receipts and things from the last couple of times I emptied out my purse and instead of just putting them to one side I took out the folders with my bank and credit card statements and actually sorted them properly, attaching them to the relevant statements and even clearing a similar pile from my desk while I was at it. 

That ended up taking far longer than I thought (as it always does) - over two hours.  I also sorted and cleared away all of the choir stuff that has been lying around for a few weeks (I was looking for a particular piece of music and ended up starting to sort years worth of stuff out and then getting sidetracked and just leaving it all in a messy pile on the couch - and the concert I needed it for was in mid-March so it was past time to get rid of all that stuff again). 

So, all of the bedclothes have been put away - I've taken out a lighter sheet to swich over from using the heavier flannel that it's getting too warm for and will change that tomorrow.  Since that meant the big couch was nearly free of mess, I cleared everything else off it too, took off the cream cover (which was only supposed to be temporary while I got the other one cleaned - the one that sat down in the cellar for about a year and a half and only got washed this week) and put back on the newly cleaned red one.  Feels good to have things starting to fall into place again.  I still have two very large piles of papers and stuff to go through but it has been a good start.  I was going to head out to the launderette to get the cream sofa cover cleaned and we had a massive thunder storm with torrential rain.  I think the rain has just about eased off now so I think I'll have dinner and do it after that.  They're open until after ten I think.  Will post photos of my newly cleaned space tomorrow - although it's not raining the clouds are still very dark so I'll wait until sunlight to take pictures.  Oooh, there's some more lightning and the thunder is following it almost immediately.  Might wait until tomorrow to venture out.