A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

stiltwalker

I'm a little baffled this morning as a form to apply for a blue badge plopped through the letterbox and I've not requested one! It seems a funny coincidence since I've just sent off DD's DLA form and I'm wondering if they send them out for HRM applications? Oh well I'm sure it will all come out in the wash. Don't really want to think of it as a good omen as I've psyicked (sp???) myself up to have to appeal as it seems pretty much everyone has to these days.

We had a lovely meal last night one the kids were in bed. Steak (which MIL had brought for us a couple of weeks ago when we were expecting a tough meeting with the paediatrician and I tucked in the freezer), jacket potatoes stuffed with garlic cream cheese and baked again, sweetcorn and salad. It was what OH cooked for me on our very first Valentines.

Today I am off to the dentist (fun - not) and then I must finish my essay.

Hope everyone is ok, hugs if not and keep well.

BigThelma

Hi Catbells, sorry, meant to reply properly to your kind post. DS is 9 months old now and this last month he has become really good at night, apart from the odd blip. He will probably have a bad night now having said that! Hubby has day off work tomorrow so we can both take him to the nursery - might be a bit of overkill but it's a first for all of us so a big event.

Have just started using his travel cot as a playpen so I can get some work done and it seems to be working really well, once he gets over his intial annoyance at being put there.

Ok, cat wailing and baby screaming so must go!

scrabbles_2

katieowl wrote: »

That's a good point Scrabbles...and kind of why I'm thinking of running a series. If I labelled them all for what kind of stuff we'd be doing that week, and I LOVE 'love your leftovers' may I pinch and use that line? My target audience as I've been loosely instructed is to encompass any groups of people who may be struggling, young mums, older people alone, people on benefits have all been specifically mentioned, I suggested that if we did it and sat down to eat what we'd cooked, the class users would get a meal out of it, which for £5 is pretty good (it's being subsidised) as well as some skills/knowledge to take home. I agree totally knowledge is power, and also the thing that Amy Dycyzn (spl?The tightwad gazette lady) says of all the things you have to spend your money on what you eat is the only one you have any real control over. One of the girls I work with has learned only a couple of things from me, and reckons I've cut at least a fiver off her weekly food bill....She no longer buys ready to use pasta or curry sauces, and her family all prefer the stuff she makes now. Her feedback, and the money I've saved in the kitchen at work are the reasons I've been asked to run these classes.

Lots of the money saving cookbooks that exist are either not really aimed at the truly brassic, making a salmon stretch for two meals doesn't tick the box (unless you get it whoopsied for a fiver) or pushing cheap stuff like offal, that the family simply refuse to eat are just pointless IMHO. Buying whoopsies in itself is something that a lot of people are iify about, as they do not have the knowledge. There is far more mileage in being able to do ten things with mince, or six ways to use leftover chicken, and understanding the basics of using stuff up.

Kate

Pinch away, I'm sure I inadvertently [STRIKE]stole[/STRIKE] borrowed it from somewhere else anyway! :cool:

Oh, and I love Amy Dacyczyn. Her books are a little dated now - I mean, little things like computers and the internet have changed EVERYTHING - but the theory is still sound and they're great for getting you to 'think' frugal and to think of moneysaving as a positive mental attitude rather than scrimping becasue you have to, I believe they should still be required reading for the newly frugal!

It's a great idea, there really isn't much out there that's frugal enough. Shows like Economy Gastronomy are great if you've hit a rocky patch and need to shave your food bill from £500 to £350, but not much use if you've got to cut from £350 to £100 (for example). It frustrates me no end when 'experts' (on MSE and in RL) smugly say 'if you cook properly you can easily eat good, healthy, nutritious food on benefits'. Yes, you can but only if you are given the appropriate tools, skills and knowledge. Few people really learn home economy at mother's knee any more and they're certainly not teaching it in schools! Poverty of knowledge is as real and as dangerous as poverty of money.

I would have a series of one-offs if you see what I mean. Then people can attend them all or just the ones that interest them most.
I have to admit, I would love to 'teach' frugal and I might still give it a go when I'm properly back on my feet again. I think there's a definite need in my area.

SDG31000

Hello Everyone

Gardenia- A very belated Happy Birthday :bdaycake: Can I suggest buying yourself something you really want/like and putting it away for next year. That way you know you have a present coming and if your memory is anything like mine, will have forgotten what you brought by the time it rolls around.
Byatt I hope you are feeling better. Remember that it's not a crime or a sin to put yourself first once in a while :grouphug:
katieowl I hope you and your friend are doing ok. Happy Birthday to your son I love the idea of the creative use of leftovers class, but £5 for one lesson might put some people off. I know my Mom for example would have viewed that as a lot of money when she was raising the three of us alone.
BigThelma Hello :hello: I remember that feeling well. DS2 didn't sleep through the night until be was 4 years old and I spent most of it feeling like I was trying to swim through porridge.

I've been MIA for a while due to visiting my DPIL and it being half term. I love going shopping with my DMIL. We generally stagger home under the weight of impulse buys that total around 10,000 calories (Her local town has a great market with food stalls).
DS1 has a throat infection, but thankfully he isn't in pain with it and has avoided passing it on so far.
DS2 is entering full blown stroppy teenagedom. The tone of voice he uses is driving me nuts. (The one that equals "God, you are sooooooooo stupid, why don't you just leave me alone to sulk in peace")
DS1 used to claim that he was never told anything and moan/create about plans that had been made sometimes months in advance. Now I tell him at least three times in front of witnesses, and during the weeks with a lot of things happening, make a list of what is happening when and pin it to the front door. That way he can't complain about not being told.
DH and I joke that we are only staying together as we would never survive their teenage years alone.

For Valentine's Day I got a new microplane grater and a near heart attack at the price of beef when shopping in Tesco. I told DH that I didn't want to cook and that I would be happy with a meal deal from Sainsburys. After asking him to take me there for 5 days, I ended up in Tesco yesterday afternoon buying a bone in rib joint for £14.14 :eek::eek::eek: DH definitely owes me a foot rub or 6.
I've now got an online Sainsburys shop ready to place once DH gets home with his debit card. Their large gammon joints(approx 2.75kg/6lbs) are half price at the moment, which works out at around £11 for that weight. I know the ladies on here could feed their streets for a week with that amount so thought I would pass it on.
I suppose I had better go and think of something for lunch before the monsters start complaining.

Take care and (((((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))))) to everyone

Mrs_Chip

Morning All

Another broken night's sleep - more furniture moving and box shuffling! So up at five and then guess what - fell into a deep sleep on the sofa and woke feeling groggy - must be catching BT!

But it did resplve me to do something productive so we have spent the last couple of hours sorting out our little cottage next door - AKA building site/junk store. Moved everything about (I knew all that thinking about it would come in handy!) and now hav several rooms with clear floorspace for depositing boxes and furniture in nice orderly piles (not if OH has anything to do with it - his usual trick, when asked to put something in a room, is to drop it in the doorway :mad:). That is one less thing to be mithering about.

Kate - one thing I have noticed when reading the OS board is that an awful lot of people do not understand the basics of when food is still ok to use. I think this leads a lot of perfectly good food being chucked. It might be a bit of a tricky area (you don't want them coming back saying the advice made them ill), but some practical pointers might be helpful? And also, a lot of people don't know how to, or feel they can, substitute ingredients or freestyle recipes. The best thing you can teach is the skill of knowing what works and what doesn't. Did you ever see those books called 'Rock Family Trees'(stay with me:rotfl:), they showed how bands evolved using a family tree diagram. Well I think of cooking like that - start at the top with the very basics then flow down in different directions - the different ways to adapt and use the same ingredients. Rubber chicken is a perfect example - start with the chicken and then expand out in all the directions you can take it. I don't think I have explained myself very well!

bupster

Katieowl - I think what Mrs Chip said is spot on. I sometimes read these boards and think "how can you not know that?" but there are so many things I didn't know till I came on here and lots more that I don't remember learning but must have - such as pork needs cooking right through but beef doesn't; that you can sniff meat to know if it's ok; that best before and use by are not the same thing; that you can cut the mould off the cheese :rotfl:

Teaching Chinese and Indian cooking would sort of undermine those skills, as the only people who would come would be the ones who could afford to buy lots of new ingredients. Learning how to batch cook and how to make a bottom-of-the-fridge pasta bake or soup; teaching people that bananas are still good to eat when the skins are a bit brown; all that stuff is simply not learned by a lot of kids and there's so much choice in the supermarkets that instead of teaching themselves, people buy food with the instructions written on!

There's a local charity in my area that teaches IT skills. The first two lessons are how to use a keyboard and how to use a mouse. It would not have occurred to me that anyone needed teaching those two things, but of course the people most in need of learning IT skills will not have had the chance to teach themselves like most of us. Cooking is the same. I'm confident enough to try almost anything and have loads of herbs and spices and a freezer full of food and more pots and pans than I can fit in the kitchen and hardly buy anything ready made bar bread, butter and the occasional lazy whoopsied pizza, and quite often make them at home too. But I'm not the kind of person who needs your help.

elizabunny

Rosanna79 wrote: »

Grandma247
Thank you so much for your helpful reply. I do sleep as low as possible as well with only one very flat pillow. Other people's experience of something like that does help put things into perspective. It just wasn't something I ever had to deal with as a nurse so I've been feeling a bit miserable with the pain these last few days. I will continue as normal and try pressing the worst spots as you suggest. As they say ' every little helps'!
Thanks
Rosanna

I have been suffering from neck pain since Saturday. I was literally just sitting there having my breakfast when this awful pain started in my neck. DH rubbed some pain relief cream into it and my shoulder, which was also painful and on Sunday it felt slightly better. However Monday it started to get worse again and finding a comfortable sleeping position was really impossible. So when I woke up on Tuesday the pain was dreadful and I felt really dizzy as well. It was agony, so I applied two more doses, during the day, of the pain relief cream again and applied a heat pad .

This morning it felt slightly better and the dizziness had gone. I've applied more cream today and I can only describe the pain as 'hovering' IYKWIM. I have absolutely no idea what has happened. Last Wednesday I sneezed and immediately developed a migraine, so I am beginning to wonder if all this pain started with a simple sneeze.

Hope you feel much better soon, sorry I can't offer any suggestions, but I'm struggling myself with this. I don't really want to bother our GP with it, but may have to if the pain doesn't subside soon.

katieowl_2

bupster wrote: »

Katieowl - I think what Mrs Chip said is spot on. I sometimes read these boards and think "how can you not know that?" but there are so many things I didn't know till I came on here and lots more that I don't remember learning but must have - such as pork needs cooking right through but beef doesn't; that you can sniff meat to know if it's ok; that best before and use by are not the same thing; that you can cut the mould off the cheese :rotfl:

Teaching Chinese and Indian cooking would sort of undermine those skills, as the only people who would come would be the ones who could afford to buy lots of new ingredients. Learning how to batch cook and how to make a bottom-of-the-fridge pasta bake or soup; teaching people that bananas are still good to eat when the skins are a bit brown; all that stuff is simply not learned by a lot of kids and there's so much choice in the supermarkets that instead of teaching themselves, people buy food with the instructions written on!

There's a local charity in my area that teaches IT skills. The first two lessons are how to use a keyboard and how to use a mouse. It would not have occurred to me that anyone needed teaching those two things, but of course the people most in need of learning IT skills will not have had the chance to teach themselves like most of us. Cooking is the same. I'm confident enough to try almost anything and have loads of herbs and spices and a freezer full of food and more pots and pans than I can fit in the kitchen and hardly buy anything ready made bar bread, butter and the occasional lazy whoopsied pizza, and quite often make them at home too. But I'm not the kind of person who needs your help.

Thanks for your response, these comments are really helpful to me, as I've always been pretty hands on in the kitchen, and I find it hard to believe people don't know basics too.

I think the observation about chinese and indian is interesting though, because a lot of people like to eat these cuisines and they originate in some of the poorest kitchens on earth! Basic Chinese food is cheap as chips to make, and fuel saving too. Indian stuff is often vegetarian, or pulses. And with both once you have a very small stock of basics, soy sauce, five spice, and some curry paste, you will make a lot of meals from those things. I was thinking of coming at it from a more 'ditch the take-away of ready meals' kind of angle.

I wonder whether the subsidy pot would stretch to a reduction or even waiver of the fee if the person attending was on benefits. I will definitely check that out.

Kate

greent

katieowl wrote: »

I wonder whether the subsidy pot would stretch to a reduction or even waiver of the fee if the person attending was on benefits. I will definitely check that out.

Kate

If it will, I'd personally suggest a reduction, rather than a waiver - a charity I'm involved with runs several courses and we tend to find that people prefer to pay 'something' - it's not a handout that way. Also it (in our experience) gives more commitment to the course/ event - a sort of ownership. Others may, of course, differ in their view

scrabbles_2

Sorry Kate I know you must have told us but who is subsidising? Could you try and get funding from local health authority or council?

I have a brain like a sieve today. Lots of pain even through the painkillers. I booked a day's leave from w**k as it's not bad enough to go off sick again, but didn't really want to go in. I am starting to feel a little down, so many times I have been promised 'we'll just get you on those tablets and you'll be fine', or 'after this surgery you'll be right as rain' or 'start eating this and stop eating that and you'll be a new woman'. But nothing ever changes. I know I've nothing to complain about in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like an old lady and I'm not even thirty for a few more weeks. I just want to sort my health out enough that I can get on with my life properly.

Anyway, end of moan. Sorry to offload.

I have decided to try and cheer myself up by rearranging the house - we have a tiny bungalow and lots of 'stuff', not clutter exactly but stockpiles, work-related stuff (we both have fledgeling home businesses as well as the day jobs) and life generally seem to take over all our space if we're not careful. Today it dawned on me that things are all stored in entirely the wrong places and it will be more efficient if I move things between rooms. I find that sort of thing very relaxing - tidy room, tidy mind, I guess - but it's perhaps not good for the physical pain.

Oh well. Huge hugs to everyone in need (or want) of one (((hug))) xxx