Finally I have a mortgage I can start to pay off!

themadvix

Afternoon all,

Just catching up after a few very busy days.

We had Rick Stein's Bombay Salmon Masala on Thursday night - I think I mentioned that I'd had the book for 5 years but hadn't ever actually cooked anything from it. This was by far the simplest suitable recipe in the book! It was good but we know how to improve for next time (smoother coconut paste), and (and this sounds really sad) I learnt how to dissect and use a coconut! Extracted the flesh for the paste and used the other half to make coconut milk. The book is very good for explaining how to do these things at the back :T I forgot to put the rest of the paste or the coconut milk in the freezer (it was very late by the time we ate!), so we're having this tonight with Quorn this time and some other adjustments.

Yesterday I spent the day doing two fundraising things - one was a complete waste of time - no support from others and only £20 made; the other, a quiz night, was a success though - £350 raised and everyone had a good time :T Today I've been catching up with everything - diaries, baking, housework. Looked at the garden but it's cold and damp DH is now watching the GP in between getting his car ready for an MOT.

MS things:
* Liberated two teabags from the stash I donated to Brownies a while ago for our camping trip later in the month - didn't want to buy a whole pack, but loose tea is less than ideal for camping!
* Liberated some biccies us leaders were given at Christmas which we'd intended to use as a raffle prize (two of three leaders are perpetually dieting, but I definitely didn't need more biscuits then!) - discovered last night they were OOD. They looked fine when I opened them, but can't really use as a prize or give to the Brownies!
* NV and YG surveys done this morning (catching up involved clearing inboxes)
* Sitting here without heating on.... but not sure it's going to last much longer!
* Garden centre sent me *another* £10 off, no minumum spend voucher, so we popped up there - £1.80 actual cash spent, bought some flower seeds, some marrowfat pea seeds and a thyme plant. Slightly worried they'll be going out of business if they keep on this way!

Gratitudes:
* The support of my DH, Dad and Mum, and friends, as well as other Brownie leader in putting on the quiz and supporting all my fundraising efforts - it makes all the difference when others are less than grateful.
* The farmers at Riverford who doing their 'gardening' regardless of the weather to keep me in lovely fresh food.
* Relaxing Sunday pottering

Enjoy the rest of the weekend folks!

themadvix

Ooh, for long-term readers, you may remember I had a lot of balsamic vinegar to use up (3 bottles).... well I can announce that I've finally just got rid of the *first* of these.... guess I lost my way a bit with that! Still, one bottle less in the cupboard

Karmacat

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!

Busy_Mee1

Well done on the fund raising - £350 is a fantastic amount for a quiz.
I used to do a lot of fund raising for school when the kids were small and I think the trick is to identify the most efficient means of raising the most money....i.e those events where you get best return on the time and effort that goes into it. We maximised those events and dropped the things that take time but don't make much money.

Oddly the best money spinner every year was the school Halloween disco...the kids loved the opportunity to dress up and the parents liked the cheap bar

themadvix

Karma :rotfl: In fairness, I think I asked when I was running stocks down before the kitchen was done... and there was room in the cupboard for it afterwards, so what the heck?!

Busy Mee - thanks for popping in. You're so right about the effort/funds ratio. The morning activity was never going to be a big money spinner, but the lack of support from everyone except the two of us directly involved and the other Brownie leader was shocking. Even if they couldn't contribute, they could have sent a text to remind their girls' parents - that's all I did and we had a great response from them (which was all we got!). Was very pleased with the quiz night, but then I'm always bowled over by how generous people are when it comes to buying raffle tickets.... I'm such a tightwad, I rarely do (rarely have cash on me anyway, and would almost certainly rather just give the money than have the potential 'stuff' in my house if I win!).

Crumpets

Well done on all your hard work and fundraising efforts! It is hard work and sometimes feels like a relentless task but it sounds like you are really achieving something :T We always found the tombola to be most popular at our pre school fundraising events, people are always glad to donate clutter they don't want and if there were a few bottles of booze as prizes people seemed determined to win them, no matter what the cost! :rotfl:

Well done on the liberating of tea bags and biscuits I agree, loose tea when camping is one step too far!

themadvix

Morning all,

Busy week this week - lots of work on, going to a library event with Mum on Weds and then away with Brownies Friday afternoon. Also have a fridge engineer coming out (under guarantee) and someone fitting tyres on DH's car on Thursday.... what fun! Also hoping to fit a hair cut in with BIL's GF and we're out for dinner on Weds for BIL's birthday (will be watching the pennies though).

With this in mind, I spent yesterday prepping for the week - meal plan done, all the little jobs sorted, inboxes cleared etc., etc. So far so good. I need to pop over the road in a few mins (befor the rain really comes down) to post a couple of things and get some eggs. Other than that, it's crack on with work. Am currently waiting for a response to a query, so allowed myself on here.

Heating is off at the moment (I have my thermals on :eek: - it's nearly May!), but it'll have to go on soon as I have washing to dry/it's getting colder!

MS things:
* Meals planned and using up stuff - apart from eggs shouldn't need anything this week. Veg box cancelled for Thursday.
* MS rewards, SBs done, still waiting for VB poll
* MM survey done
* Heating off for time being
* No car day today/LSD
* Am reading Greying Pilgrim's diary (starting right back in 2013) and thoroughly enjoying it. Very inspired by all the veggie meals and determined to try making yoghurt when the manic month of May is over.

Gratitudes:
* Inspirational diaries and the wonderful support on here. The good stuff on the Internet surely far outweighs the bad stuff in terms of volume!
* Lovely time with extended family yesterday - much laughter (although didn't see Nan as she 'was having a day in bed' so very unlike the real Nan I know).
* Warming cat cuddles in bed this morning!
* The wonder of a bookmarks folder, so I can tidy my browser up without losing stuff!

Have a good day all, I'm off to brave the weather!

Busy_Mee1

Funny Crumpets I was going to say the exact same thing - tombolas were always a better money spinner than raffles. People only tend to buy raffle tickets once, but often return to buy more tombola tickets. You can also more or less work out how much money you are going to make, by how many prizes you have, and how many winners per strip you will have.

And of course you can get get rid of a whole load of [STRIKE]carp[/STRIKE] treasure as prizes :rotfl:

themadvix

Hey Crumpets, we cross posted! Thanks for the appreciation

Yes, I've lined up a bottle tombola for the weekend after this at the local fete. And even better, I'm busy doing other fundraising at something I'd rather attend, so have managed to foist this on someone else! I have donated 3 bottles of (gifted, not homebrew) beer, a bottle of gin I won and some spare raffle prizes to the cause. Hoping we'll have a better effort from parents for this!

themadvix

Ah, yes, Busy Mee, but raffles work better at a quiz night. And as most of the attendees are not the girls' parents (as they're not interested), but friends of mine and the other leader, they've got more money to give! Plenty bought a fiver's worth of tickets

I'm hopeful for the tombola... just hope the people running it have sense! Out of interest what would you suggest for ticket price for a bottle tombola? Some non-alcoholic, but hopefully mainly varieties of booze, all aimed at adults. £1? £2? It's not a particularly wealthy area, but not dire either.