Get off your arse Thursday – week 8
Add article to favourites
It’s that glorious time of the week again when you are encouraged to knock something off your procrastination list. You know how great that feels!
The ‘rules’ are that your chosen task must somehow help you to reduce your landfill waste. Then you can come back here, gloat about how good you’ve been in the comments section and maybe even win yourself a cyber prize.
I had a ‘get off your arse Wednesday’ instead this week. I planted the last of the seeds for a little of the self sufficiency we all know and love. I’m a bit worn out after all the decluttering I’ve been doing, so I fully intend to bask in the sunshine for most of the day with Little Miss Green.
Last week Sarah was busying herself in the garden planting all sorts of goodies. Her aim is to reduce her long term food and packaging waste.
Maisie was rooting through her freezer and creating all sorts of meals from the treasures she found to prevent food waste from freezer burn.
Our blue eyed boy, John, was cleaning out his ‘fridge and was polishing off his food processor for future use.
Carole had to drag herself away from her new bokashi bins to thin out her tomato and basil seedlings. She had a moment of Divine Inspiration and started to cut the bases off her drinks cartons to plant them in.
Charity, who won our prize last week started a collection for foil and plastic bottles following the knowledge that her council now recycle these items.
Poppy rolled up her sleeves and cleaned her wheelie bin. Ewwww – what a woman! Not only that, but she recycled her Easter egg packaging and returned some unwanted junk mail to sender too.
Mrs J, superwoman extraordinaire, not only gave birth to her baby, but found the energy between tandem feeding to post up that she had organised her recycling from the kitchen!
It was great to see Just Gai joining in the fun! She was busy making a freezer inventory to plan last weeks meals around. It should have been an interesting week and I’m looking forward to hearing what she and her family ate.
Well, there is no doubt who the prize is going to this week! Yes, I’m extraordinarily biased, but a woman who 
gives birth, tandem feeds and within the same week, cares enough to log onto our site to share her recycling news is worthy of all our adoration!
Mrs J; congratualations to you; not only for the birth of your child, but at even being able to get off your arse and share your Supercalifragilistic news with us.
Your prize is the loan of Mary Poppins and her bottomless carpetbag. May your nappies be forever washed and your kid’s rooms neat and tidy. And when your brood gets too much for you, they’ll be carried off to the rooftops for singing and adventures while you catch up on some much-deserved shut eye.
Have a great Thursday everyone, and be sure to let me know what you’re up to today!
Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:
Don’t throw it away… That's rubbish, just throw it away ... How many times have you heard that or said…
Food See food waste in this section
It’s get off your arse Thursday! After my little outburst a couple of weeks ago about procrastination and overwhelm I've decided the…
Get off your arse Thursday – week 9 What a naughty bunch of zero wasters you were last week. Only two of you took…
Roundup of the “Use it up!” challenge From the Netherlands to Australia, we're saving food waste!
Hi Mrs Green,
Another huge effort for last week. A very good idea which might grow, and grow, and grow….
You missed out the “old” from the tag as the photo, taken by my brother Andy, was in perfect bright light.
A cautionary tale from the fridge cleaning. I left unopened milk outside the fridge for a half hour in cold water during the washing, internal fridge cleaning and drying. After opening and a single day’s use the milk was off, same for the stomach.
The upshot is that today is milk-free as I refuse to buy another jug with its plastic label. The lesson must be to always keep the milk fridged or delay buying until the fridge has been cleaned.
It is funny that when things go amiss the rubbish grows.
Special congratulations to the winner, Mrs J.
John maybe the milk was on the turn anyway as only leaving it out for half an hour shouldn’t have caused it to.
What did we do before fridges, I remember when going on holiday to my Nan’s caravan that we always kept the milk in a bucket with cold water which was changed twice daily.
If you haven’t already disposed of the milk, soured milk is good in scones or even bread.
@maisie dalziel: Hi Maisie, Thanks for that. The milk had 6th May on the date limit. It is also possible that the milk was “shop spoiled”. The type was different from the usual, Full Milk instead of Semi Skimmed. This might have been part of the upset but there was a definite smell off it.
It is good that you have a use for soured milk. My attitude was just to remove it to prevent further stomach upset.
Dairy products are my least favourite with cheese totally avoided and butter only in cooking and baking.
I’m off to ring Tesco, but fully expect to get the runaround! One of the tablets I have to take usually comes in a cardboard box with 4 blister packs of 14 tablets. This month the boxes are bigger and I was horrified to find that there are now 8 blister packs of 7 tablets! What a waste!!
I’ll be back ……….. 😉
Mmmm, they tell me it’s a short term solution due to problems with the other supplier, but they are intending to go back to the previous source.
Lets hope they’re back on track next month. I’m lucky insofar as I have the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard to store them, but I feel for anyone with less room 🙁
I’m going to take in inventory of all the food I’ve been storing in my freezer and note down the dates so that I use them up before it’s to late.
Aw thank you. And not forgetting fighting off midwives who insist that I give into formula. Luckily my son managed to gain 3 and not the 1oz they required to keep us home 🙂
@John Costigane: I think your aversion to dairy products caused the milk to sulk. it felt so unloved that it decided to really turn your stomach. Well done on getting the fridge cleaned though; despite the menacing milk story 🙂
@Poppy: Well done for chasing this up, Poppy. Let’s hope it is a short term solution and things are back on track soon.
@Kira: Great task, Kira – how did you get on?
@MrsJ: How are things now, Mrs J?
@Mrs Green: Better thank you. He put on more weight and we have a supportive health visitor who thinks I should consider writing to complain.
@MrsJ: Great news, Mrs J – he’s in great hands and I’m delighted to hear about the supportive HV 🙂
@Poppy: My migraine meds. Each one is sealed in a large individual plastic bubble, which is packed in an individual metallic paper sachet, packed 3 to a solid polypro box the size of a pack of cards. Each box is in a cardboard box, I get 2 of these boxes sealed in a plastic bag per prescription. Thankfully I now only get about one migraine a month!
@DIz: Oh my goodness, the packaging alone is enough to bring on a funny turn. That’s insane!