There's Always Someone Waiting to Help You Part With Your Cash.

Usually, I find, they appear to be approximately 15 years old.

I had to pop into Wilkinson's today to buy some hard backed note books. These are going to be cunningly transformed into beautiful beaded fabric covered gorgeous gifts. The recipients will be able to remove the inner book too, so it will last for years. While in Wilkinsons, I decided that it was time to look at the growing of my veggies for the year. Stores are now starting to get in their gardening stocks. I bought 3 packets of seeds, tomatoes, leeks and onions, all ready to be planted now. I made a gorgeous mess in the kitchen potting them in used egg boxes and I now keep running to the window sill to see if they've sprouted yet. Come on! You've been in for 3 1/2 hours now!

As suggested by the delicious Sara off of www.morethanbubbles.co.uk (do you like my shameless plugging Sara?) I have also "planted" some apple seeds in kitchen towel and a jar like we all did in school. These mini apple trees (Sainsbury's own brand Braeburn, since we've had the food Co-op snowed off for a couple of weeks) may well end up as gorgeous gifts, complete with a photographed "birth diary" to go with them! What a fab idea! Someone else suggested the little trees but that was the first time I'd heard of the Birth Diary.

So, after spending £7.50 on my supplies in Wilkinsons (I looked for little independent traders to buy these things from but I had no choice but to use Wilkinsons) and I was fairly happy with that. Then, said 15 year old needed a hair cut (in fairness, she doesn't have it done very often and she really did need one) so that £7.50 goes up to just under £30. Then, apparently a scientific calculator was needed by the same teenager, total up to £34, and then I had to buy a new data cable for my phone/PC connection as my other one is no where to be found.

That's £44. And I really don't have a great deal to show for it, but on the plus side, the teenager is incredibly happy, and I now don't live in fear of loosing all my data in a freak phone loosing accident. I'll get on with my beading then.

Spondoolics/Moola/Wonga/Dosh

Well, I finished the art folder bag for Meg, she's even quite pleased with it. Managed to squeeze a few sequins on it too! The old bed sheet was one that Husband used to have for his single military bed he'd have to take if he was on a course. It had barely been used, so now, it has a purpose in life. There's loads of fabric left too for other things so I might knock up a little tote bag to match it and she can put some of her other art stuff in.

My "to fix" pile is huge, so I've made a start on getting it down. I reckon there's 10 items of clothes that are currently un-wearable but with a little time and effort will be more than useful. I did a little research a while ago about how to rectify a brassiere with the wire poking out. Since then, I've saved myself a fortune by investing a little bit of time and effort and sewn some elastic of the correct color over the seam hole. If you stitch it, it just comes through again, but if you double some elastic and stitch it all the way around, it'll hold for ever.

I've found my most favourite book in the world, ever. It's an old book, not sure exactly how old exactly but I'm going to do a couple of posts about it in the next few days. It's called "Every Woman's Enquire Within". Basically a textbook for Ladies to offer advice and guidance on how to get through life. I've never really paid it the attention it deserves and there's never been a better time than right now. I'll be talking a lot about that book over the coming months, and I have a few ideas for something similar myself.

Tomorrow is all about tips. Money saving, house keeping, time saving, any tips really. We all love them, don't we?

I'm a big fan of Radio broadcasting, not just when I'm on it, believe it or not, and I was stitching the offending brassiere and catching up on a few podcasts I subscribe to. Radio 4's "Thought for the Day" is one of them. The Minister (I think the Podcast is a few days old now) was talking about Christianity being misrepresented when people say that "money is the root off all evil". The actual correct biblical quotation is that "the love of money is the root of all evil". Very few people would come out and say that they believe that money will buy them true happiness but so many people act as if that is the case. I think we're all guilty of that a little bit, aren't we?