My Busy Life

sidneysmum

Yet another freezing day for us all today. How on earth are people supposed to afford fuel bills when its just so cold? I must admit i am lovely and warm at the moment - sat on the sofa in my pjs, with a blanket over my legs and a hot water bottle. Not a pretty sight but very cosy !!!
Today has been nice. When i got up i weighed myself and this week I lost....2lb. I dont think i will be lucky next week as i have got lots of plans and most involve eating. I will just have to be very careful and try and up the exercise. I got plenty of exercise today by walking to and from my belly dancing class. I then took the dog out for a short walk also. Did some more food shopping and bought a loaf of bread !! I wasn't kidding when i said i had enough food to last me till at least the end of February. This afternoon has been lovely. I have just sat about finishing off my book and have now started a new one - Gilda Oneill - "Our street". In am enjoying it already. All the books i have completed,i am going to give to a retired lady at my WI group who spends most of her days with a book in her hand. It also help with the decluttering !!
Last night before i went to bed i filled my slow cooker with braising steak, onions and mushrooms and put it on a low heat. When i got up this morning i had a wonderfully tender and tasty casserole which i have fed to my sons for their tea. We had it with new potatoes and butter beans. There is quite a lot left and i have put 6 small portions on one side to go in the freezer. It will be great to have it as part of a "ready meal" over the next few weeks instead of cooking a meal from scratch again. I have also got a few new potatoes left so i think i will have some again tomorrow. Not much else to report so..
I hope everyone has had a great moneysaving day x

vasseur

Busy as usual sidneysmum! I bet your house smelled lovely when you woke up to that casserole. Perfect for this cold weather.

sidneysmum

Hi Polesalot – Hope you and your daughter are keeping warm. The house did smell lovely. Actually it does now because i have put the slow cooker on again and am braising some liver and onions to use up more stuff out of the freezer !

Oh I am so glad yesterdays weather doesn’t happen very often. Loads of snow for us now. The knock on effect was that zumba was cancelled and dog walking was very difficult. After being out with the hound for about 45 mins, I headed home and decided to batten down the hatches. Apart from an hour when my friend called, I spent a large part of the day doing a jigsaw…….and I loved it. The day just flew by. I think once I have completed this one, I will be on the look out for other to do. Didn’t spend anything either which is good. Just ate up out of the fridge and freezer.
Today I decided to car share to work with a friend and we did different hours than usual. I didn’t get in till tea time so unfortunately the hound has had to make do with a good mooch round the garden instead of a walk. I will make it up to her when I am off after work tomorrow. Whilst at work, I rang my mortgage provider and got a balance which made me happy. Food wise I have eaten from my stocks. Homemade hummus on toast for breakfast and a small portion of gammon and pineapple for lunch. Tea has been a bit of a buffet but i am determined to eat up and not throw food away !!
On tomorrow to do at work is week. It great working part -time......except the part time wage. However if i can manage ok as i am, then that's how it will stay.
Hope everyone is having a great moneysaving day x

sidneysmum

Lets just say that today has got better as its gone along. I woke up very early and felt really out of sorts so decided to phone up work and have a days annual leave. This is something i have never done before and i have worked for the same organisation since 1985. Lets just say that morale is really bad at work and all staff are feeling down in the dumps. Anyway i just felt really low this morning. However......I decided that its no good feeling down in the dumps. Its no good letting work infringe on my very precious home life, so once i'd had a bit of a lie in, I got my act together and spent some money !! Well i actually did a morning of stocking up. Locally we have home bargains shops and they do bargain sacks of dog food so i bought 12 months worth. I bought in bulk last year and i haven't thought about buying any more till i got down to the last sack full. I also bought a couple of large bags of cat food but i think this will only last a few months. Luckily i have an outside wash house which has tons of storage. It has my washer, never used dryer, freezer, outside loo, boiler and is sidney's bedroom when i go out !! Anyway its now full of dog food too ! After a morning of shopping I took the hound for a good walk. We incorporated a few errands in our walk - collected a parcel at the post office delivery office, returned library book and bought a bag of potatoes and a couple of cucumbers for the tortoise. Sometimes i get a bit cross having to buy all this pet food. Apart from Sidney and my chickens, the other pets have been left by other people for me to look after. No to worry !
My mood has improved as the day has gone on. I have spent all the rest of my time doing the blessed jigsaw. I am hooked. It has kept me really occupied all week. I will be looking out for some more. I know my aunt has a cupboard full so i will be borrowing another off her. I am going to try and keep busy over the next few days as I want to feel happy and positive not down in the dumps.
Hope everyone is having a great moneysaving day x

vasseur

Ah sorry to hear you've been feeling down - there's a lot of it about! Sounds like you've had a lovely day in the end anyway.

Well done on stocking up on all that dog food :T

Onwards and upwards!

sidneysmum

Hi Polesalot - Thanks for dropping by. I feel a lot brighter today. I think a lot of people are a bit down at the moment. This weather doesn't help. I have been waiting of 2 payments into my bank account. One came today, the other is due tomorrow. I just hope it arrives. I think its easy to feel a bit down when you haven't much spare cash. I am trying to be very careful at the moment and have hardly spent anything since Christmas. Thank God for my stockpile of food. I know i am not the only person feeling the pinch a the moment and my life is good so i am very lucky indeed
Today has been good. I went out for a walk this morning for an hour or so with the hound and fed the ducks. The lake is iced over so they came running across the ice to get the bread from me. They are we cute. This afternoon i went to see "The last strand" which was an action thriller with good old Arnie in it. It was really entertaining and i am so glad i went to see it.
I think i am going to have fun and games for the next day or so. I am looking after a friend Yorkshire Terrier puppy as she has to go to a funeral at the other end of the country. Lets just say its a mad house here at the moment.
Food wise I have just been eating from my stocks - homemade spicy parsnip soup, and some home made liver and onions. I am so glad I decided to try to use up the food in my cupboards. I cant believe i haven't had a proper food shop since christmas. Yesterday I bought a bag of potatoes and i will be using them to add to other ingredients I have in the cupboard. I will be making cottage pie and corned beef hash. Brilliant meals for the cold weather.
I hope everyone is having a great moneysaving day x

sidneysmum

Where has today gone? Its just flown by. I have been looking after my friends puppy for 24 hours so she could go to a funeral at the other end of the country. Its been very tiring shall we say. I didn't take the puppy and Sidney out for a walk this morning because it was very icy and i didn't feel as though i could manage 2 dogs in such bad conditions. Consequently they spent a couple of hours out in the back garden just running around and tiring themselves out. At lunchtime i went to meet the ladies from the WI at a local cafe. We have a lunch club meeting once a month at a different venue each time. I pulled out all the stops and spent £2.25 on a BLT which was brilliant value. Most of the others had a full meal but I had already got a portion of salmon risotto out of the freezer for tea so i just had a snack. After the meal i went and did a couple of errands. All in all I was walking for a couple of hours so i felt quite tired when i got back. I had to do a bit of grocery shopping for the weekend - milk and a jelly - so I spent a massive amount of £1.29.
I am so glad I took the opportunity of getting some exercise as the weather has turned awful again. We have practically had a blizzard here. Everywhere is full of snow and we still had a few inches of snow before that came. I do believe we are due rain in a day or so - cant wait.
Other news is that the second payment into my bank account arrived today. I can breathe now !!! I can try and get back on my feet a bit. I really want to get on with getting a good emergency fund in place. I also made a pan of corned beef hash using up half a tin of corned beef out of the store cupboard. The rest has gone into the freezer till i make some more. The pan full of hash has now cooled and has made 3 good portions which are now in the fridge. I think hash always tastes better when it has sat for a day or so.
Not much else to report. I hope everyone is having a great moneysaving day x

vasseur

I will be glad when all this snow has gone. I can't get out on my bike or go for a run when it's like this and you know how miserable that makes me! I should have gone for a few walks this week like you do. We're supposed to get a load of snow dumped on us at midnight but then it will turn to rain and tomorrow is supposed to be a balmy 4 degrees!

Have a great weekend and don't let the hounds wear you out too much.

princesst84

Hi Sidneysmum
Glad the payment found its way into your bank account
Its snowing here too heavily and has been for the past four hours, just been out to brush the sky dish as we lost signal and it is so thick. A funny sight me and OH looked, me fully clothed with dressing gown, trapper hat and wellies, hime dressing gown and trainers :rotfl::rotfl:

Hope you manage to get out tomorrow for a walk, not looking hopeful with this weather!!

x

sidneysmum

Hi Polesalot and Princest84 - Like you I am so sick of all this snow. It has stopped me doing things. Yesterday morning I woke up to show that came over the top of my knee high wellies and after torrential rain last night and thunder storms, most of it has gone today. Bizarre !!
The last couple of days have just passed so fast - I haven't even had time to update my diary. Yesterday I was helping out at a little girls 10th birthday party. I am great friends with her mum, so i was roped in. It was great fun and i thoroughly enjoyed myself especially as i am mum myself to 4 boys, so am not used to girlie stuff. Anyway I had a day off the calorie counting as I wanted to be able to enjoy the buffet food without any guilt. So I did !!!
Today has been really nice too. I had Sunday weigh in ad had lost 2lb in weight so that's good news. I have lost 12lb in total already and i want to loose about another stone. That would take me as low as i would like to go for my height and build. Onwards and downwards !! Today was my closest friends birthday so we went out for the day. It was her choice what we did, so she choose to go shopping at the outlet centre about 50 miles away. As we went in her car, I gave her some petrol money as i thought it only fair. She is on a tight budget as well as me so it was the right thing to do. The only spends were some chocolates - a huge box for £2.99 which i am going to give to my aunty later this week when she has her hip replacement operation. When I got home from shopping it was great to be able to get some corned beef hash out of the fridge and put it in the microwave. It was wonderful and tasty - just perfect on a cold day like today. I still have quite a lot of food left and plan to make the following meals soon to portion up and freeze - tuna and pasta, cottage pie, chicken curry.
Tonight's plans are to get my feet up and have a rest before another busy day starts tomorrow.
I hope everyone is having a great moneysaving day x