Keeping up appearances.......

Honey_Bear

• Spendy, planned market and supermarket shop. I took cash and despite mega temptations I didn't flex the debit card. This is progress for me which is needed as I am absolutely horrified by the amount I spent in February.
• Zero alcohol.
• Sultanas, tomato (the first English ones of the season from the market, not irradiated or refridgerated! Yay!), broccoli, another tomato, prune juice, apricots
• Three mugs of fruit tea.
• No sugar. I dipped into the M&S sour cream pretzels instead and then looked at the nutritional information on the back. So much for that treat.
• No Fly Zone.
• Still waiting for the homecheck and I now see on f'book that someone has suggested that they use a local rescue centre because no one freelance has come forward.
• Still haven't made the phone calls.
• Way too much spider, but I was so disgusted with myself for not making the phone calls and playing too much spider that I tackled one of my started-but-not-completed tasks. Very, very pleased with it, although it'll be a week before I really know it was totally successful.

There, now your thread is totally colonised.

Honey_Bear

Sorry sorry sorry. I know this is unacceptable hogging of your thread, but I just wanted to say I've made my phone calls. 'Fessing up my sins earlier reminded me of how wimpish I was being so I dealt with the most obvious problem. Job done with many thanks to you, Happy.

I like this Magic March - any plans for Awesome April?

HappyNow

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Are you a veggie, Happy? I could do with some info on pulses generally, because every time I go searching for it, it seems to take an age to get a clear answer. The pea-soaking thing is such a case - some internet sites said you don't need to bother, others said it cuts the cooking time by 10 minutes. And adding bicarb is just such an issue. Nigella says adding it to chickpeas during soaking for her fabulous hummus recipie conditions the chickpeas but elsewhere I've heard it destroys the vitamins.

I am a veggie, but not the sort that knows much about cooking pulses. I'm more the tinned bean/chocolate/pizza-eating type . I have a few reliable chilli and curry recipes that I use a lot but other than that I'm a bit rubbish really.

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Sorry sorry sorry. I know this is unacceptable hogging of your thread, but I just wanted to say I've made my phone calls. 'Fessing up my sins earlier reminded me of how wimpish I was being so I dealt with the most obvious problem. Job done with many thanks to you, Happy.

I like this Magic March - any plans for Awesome April?

Yay! Bet you feel better for that. Awesome April sounds.... Awesome. Let's do it!


Quick edit to tell Honey that any amount of posting is very welcome and definitely NOT considered hogging/hi-jacking!

HappyNow

So, yesterday went well.

• No alcohol
• No spending - worked from home again so that was easy
• Can't remember what I ate for some reason, but I'm pretty sure I managed 5 x F & V
• Worked on the water intake and managed four glasses
• Two choccie biccies
• House gradually getting back to its normal untidy state
• No time for flying as I was far too busy playing Words
• Played Words!

Honey_Bear

• Nothing spent.
• Zero alcohol.
• Sultanas, apricots, carrot and lentil soup, courgettes and peas.
• Five mugs of fruit tea.
• No sugar
• No Fly Zone.
• Two of the collies I had my eye on have come up for adoption. Neither are absolutely perfect but one of them is deaf, and I love deaf dogs. Difficult, but I know she's happy in foster, so I'm going to let someone else have her.
• Three phone calls made. Go me!
• Some spider, and then I finished another of those overhanging unfinished tasks that irritate me. Very, very happy with that.

A better day, entirely down to Magic March.

Honey_Bear

I honestly didn't realise there were committed veggies out there that didn't know how to knit lentils, but I'm impressed with the chocolate and pizza diet!


Teaching myself how to cook with pulses has made me realise that a lot of the obsession with TV cheffy-cooking is actually about flogging stuff in the supermarkets, and massive food miles. Every winter I've learned more about root veggies and this year has been the best yet - we managed four root veggies at one meal and both of us realised it was gorgeous food. (I've also had a few disasters along the way but I don't want to be too hard on myself.) It's an improvement on the year we gave up on Riverford boxes because they kept sending us beetroot and I didn't know what to do with it. I would now.


Thank you for being so welcoming and hospitable. Posting pretty much daily has helped me enormously.

Honey_Bear

• Nothing spent.
• Zero alcohol.
• Courgettes, tomatoes, salad leaves, mushrooms, prune juice.
• Four mugs of fruit tea.
• No sugar.
• No Fly Zone.
• No progress on the dog front.
• Dropped off some samples at one of the premises I'm ringing back on Monday, as a follow up to a phone call on Friday. Go me!
• No spider as I didn't even turn that computer on.

HappyNow

Didn't get chance to post yesterday due to doing masses of other stuff, which means Friday's goings-on have completely slipped my mind. I'm pretty sure it was OK though. So, straight on to yesterday:

• Drank half a bottle of red wine. Mr H and I went out for pizza using one of the Tesco Flash Sale vouchers that I bought a few weeks ago (for one day only you could exchange £2.50 of clubcard points for two main courses at Pizza Express). We still had to pay for drinks and the inevitable chocolate puddings, but it totalled just £17.40 and was lovely. Bought two of the vouchers, so we will be doing that again soon.
• Spent £50.43 at Tesco, which should last us all a full week. Spent £58 on animal supplies, all essential. £30 on petrol for Mr H. Spent £15 at WH Smith on some storage boxes which will be used as part of my spring clean
• Two glasses of water (will do more than that today due to slight hangover!)
• Only three F & V - and even that included the pizza topping, which might be stretching things a bit!
• House tidied and hoovered throughout.
• No Words With Friends

HappyNow

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I honestly didn't realise there were committed veggies out there that didn't know how to knit lentils, but I'm impressed with the chocolate and pizza diet!

Every winter I've learned more about root veggies and this year has been the best yet - we managed four root veggies at one meal and both of us realised it was gorgeous food. pretty much daily has helped me enormously.

Ah, that's it right there, you see. I'm not really what you would call a committed veggie - I'm very much a half-a$$ed one. I eat jelly babies, and I eat chip-shop chips without asking what they've been fried in. At barbecues I eat veggie burgers, even when I know they've been cooked on the same barbie as meat. I also occasionally eat fish. Committed veggies would definitely raise one eyebrow at me!

Honey_Bear wrote: »

• Two of the collies I had my eye on have come up for adoption. Neither are absolutely perfect but one of them is deaf, and I love deaf dogs. Difficult, but I know she's happy in foster, so I'm going to let someone else have her.
• Three phone calls made. Go me!
• Some spider, and then I finished another of those overhanging unfinished tasks that irritate me. Very, very happy with that.

A better day, entirely down to Magic March.

I imagine deaf dogs might be quite hard to place? It would definitely be off-putting to me if I was looking to adopt or foster. Or maybe you mean that she will probably stay with the foster home, in which case if she's happy and they are too, it will mean less disruption for her to stay there.

Well done on making the phone calls and I see there's already a potential outcome from them. That must be a real confidence boost for you .

I don't have any overhanging, unfinished tasks, simply because I haven't even started them! For that reason I am going to make Awesome April a spring clean month. I'm going to work through each room, starting worst first (so the kitchen) cleaning and scrubbing and de-cluttering and re-organising. It will take more than a month, so I'm starting today with the target of completing the whole house by the end of April. I want the kitchen done by the end of March.

So, today I will decant our 'cupboard of doom' into either the bin or my new storage boxes. This is a kitchen unit but we call it 'the sentiment cupboard' and it's full of photos, old diaries, old birthday cards etc etc. Some of them I'm sure I won't even remember so they will be chucked, but the real sentimental stuff will be stored in a more appropriate place, giving me a kitchen unit back for kitchen use. Best make a start, it's huge.....

Honey_Bear

HappyNow wrote: »

Didn't get chance to post yesterday due to doing masses of other stuff, which means Friday's goings-on have completely slipped my mind. I'm pretty sure it was OK though.

I'm torn between :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
and
Yeah, right, of course it was.

Largely because anyone who counts Pizza Express's toppings as fruit and veg has an elastic view of reality, to say the least. Moving right along ....