Building The Burrow!

Kittenkirst

Oooooh Katsu curry sounds delicious!

Pearla*Merle

It's become a staple in this house, Kittenkirst Found a great little sauce recipe in a book by Joe Wicks - essentially an apple, stick of celery, curry powder cooked up then blitzed in blender. Yum

Talking of food, found the most a-m-a-z-i-n-g food blog today http://www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com full of just the most mad, beautiful yet rather healthy recipes. Literally don't know what to try first :think: This caught my eye though http://www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com/2016/09/magical-superfood-cheesecake.html

Pearla*Merle

Madly busy week - lots of projects going on at work that are culminating throughout the month so have been working flat out (and will be more of that same this week). All good stuff but coming home and utterly flopping. Usually by the time we've made tea it's immediately time for bath and bed.

Been a bit migrainey and unwell again over the weekend, not so great when we had visitors but oh well. Literally at a loss to know if it's the weather, dehydration, bad air quality in the house, hormones, sleeping or sitting in a weird position (keep getting sore shoulder/neck/hip), because I need new glasses or all that cake I ate. Or a combination of everything?! Eye test this afternoon, so hopefully that'll sort at least something out. Dentist in a few weeks, which will answer whether my toothache is toothache or sinus-ache

Am seriously back on the straight and narrow with foodstuffs now as no doubt the the sugar/chocolate was contributing. Have lots of healthier snacks in the cupboards (carrots, crackers, bread, dates, sultanas, fruit etc) so no excuses not to munch on those things. Even bought a wholemeal seeded roll when we were out the other day (and it was very MSE as it was half the price of a flapjack/crisps etc :money:)

Lovely luncheon today of pilau rice with a concoction of cooked up black beans, carrots, onions, chopped tomatoes, garlic and curry powder. Tasted rather yummy and an extra portion is in the fridge for my lunch tomorrow.

Am trying to be much more health conscious all round - have begun heading for bed around 9pm, so I can read for a bit and then get a better sleep. Once I get into the habit I'll try and get up a bit earlier in the mornings and so some mini workouts (or maybe just yoga - am very much not one mad morning activity :eek:). Have even been (very nearly) religiously flossing my teeth & using mouthwash (hope the dentist approves ) and generally trying to put 'taking care of my body' first.

:www: MFW Wonderment: popped into !kea at the weekend - found a lovely rug for the living room (we'd only had £land rag rugs in there before) - we were quite pleased it was only going to cost £39 (for a beautiful, soft and rather large rug) and then we went into the discount section and found the exact same one for only £30! The only reason it was reduced was that the packaging had been opened. Chuffed with that, what are the chances!

We also dropped by Kostko, so I'm once again furnished with a large tub of almond butter, lots of flapjacks and I splurged on some Cacao powder (shall be making truffles with all the nuts/dates I have kicking around).

Resisted LOTS of temptation in book shops at the weekend :A Especially pleased with myself as I felt so rubbish it would have been very easy to completely crack and cheer myself up with books.

Used our railcards during the weekend and unbeknown to us, it was Heritage Open Day, so we got into a couple of places for free :T Must remember to put in diary and go on a wild trek around as many places as possible next year.

My health plan thing came through, so I can start claiming on that - so should get back any money spent on dentistry/glasses this month

Awaiting around £5 from TCB which should take me to over £130 in Amazon vouchers = very flipping happy with this stash! Should cover most of Mr M's birthday and Christmas pressies, which means everything I'd normally spent can now go in savings, huzzah. So glad I've managed to get that to stack up over the year.

Spending diary and tracking budgets all uptodate - switching to Mondays for logging things has definitely helped. I've increased my clothes budget from £5 pw to £10. I was doing ok on £5 for the last few years but despite hoping I could just make do with what I have at the moment I've realised that there has just been so much to replace that I might as well give myself a bit more wriggle room for the rest of the year. I'll try and re-KonMari my clothes at some point and then revisit the budget at the end of the year. Actually - thinking while I type - I might run this budget a little higher for the next year as I really need to get back into feeling more like my old self (and wearing well-fitting clothes contributes massively to this - I'm short and curvy which makes clothes buying a bit tricky tbh, and wearing ill-fitting things does silly things to my state of mind). So maybe loosening the reins wouldn't be a bad thing and then I can retrench when the wardrobe is in a happier working order. (Of course, if I get myself slim again then I'll have lots of clothes I could fit back into - so will try and focus on this as a first point of call!)

Forgot to say before - Mr M contacted a company from whom he'd received some questionable customer service and he ended up being sent two pairs of fancy socks by way of apology (one pair for me - yay!).

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: a weekend wandering around a pretty town and visiting gardens; colourful flowers in my garden; a grownup rug :rotfl; a tidy house (visitors enforced mad tidying-up spree - is amazing to see the place without random piles of bits all along the skirting boards :rotfl:

:heartsmil Burrow Building: a spot of gardening this morning, all my pots are doing insanely well and so many new flowers have come up. Can't believe we're back up to almost 30*c, it's utterly mad.

Took all those bags to the charity shop - gosh it feels lovely to get back into the space and have room to sort even more stuff out. Have lots of visitors over the next month so can't get totally stuck in without causing utter chaos but will do what I can to siphon more stuff out of the house.

Pearla*Merle

Eyesight all fine - whew, tbh! With the migraines I thought something awful might be going on, but all is ok. Definitely going to get new specs though as my prescription has slightly changed. Also need to get sunglasses and then may get the glasses I already have reglazed not long after.

Just need to hunt down the best deal as the ones that suited me best in the shop had a ridiculous price tag on them Mr M is on the case and has already found them for circa 50% less :T Shall also pop to Azda as my last lot were from there and they were pretty good (& super cheap).

Used my £5 birthday voucher from Papierchase :T Though they won in the end - I spent £2 more than I intended But the notebook that was procured will also double as letter-writing paper, so actually, probably not a bad buy in the end.

Picked up a few tubes of toothpaste & mouthwash (all around 50% off :T) and Mr M nabbed some free handcream via O2 :T So we're stocked up again for a while.

Can't get over how hot it's been here today, completely mind-boggling. I don't know how I'm going to cope when it properly turns cold again, I've completely forgotten how to dress for it :rotfl:

Pearla*Merle

Nonstop day! Waiting for dinner to cook... emergency freezer chicken & microwave rice with smattering of veg, oh dear.

Picked up YS bread goodies in M&S (fig & hazelnut loaf, mmm) - shall slice and freeze.

Can't see an early bed tonight, still need to hang laundry up and put some away. I'd say roll on the weekend, but I have to go into work on Saturday :eek:

Pearla*Merle

Brief respite at work today - feeling a bit calmer now some big things have been ticked off the To Do list.

Bit of a weird 24 hours though with a mix of good things and odd things happening. It mostly flip flopped like this at work, but I also had a good chat with a close friend who has been MIA for a while, and while it sounds like life is much better for her generally I also learnt about some horrible things she'd experienced which was quite sad.

Had a completely bizarre walk home with epic thunderstorm rumbling overhead. Don't think I've ever heard so much thunder at once - it sounded like there was a war zone not far away, quite creepy. Managed to skip inside before the heavy rain started though :T

Really not much moneysaving news to report... checked out my accounts, and paid Mr M some money I owed him for various bits (alas ). Still all looking healthy in there though which is wonderful.

Leek & potato soup with delicious YS soda bread for tea.

:heartsmil Simple Pleasures: baths with lavender oil!

apple_muncher

How are the wedding plots and plans coming along?

Kittenkirst

Ooooh soda bread- I've not had that in years since my mum used to make it.

I'm off to try and find a recipe now thanks!

Pearla*Merle

Hope you enjoyed your soda bread, Kittenkirst I absolutely adore it, my grandmother used to make it so it's a bit of a staple round this way. Which reminds me - we picked up some lovely stoneground flour from a National Trust place recently, must put it to good use

Pearla*Merle

apple_muncher wrote: »

How are the wedding plots and plans coming along?

At a rather snail-like pace, apple. :rotfl:

I hadn't thought about it at all, then thought I'd better do something about it. Got as far as thinking "ooh, could have a small party in a nice village hall nearby and could organise little get togethers with friends and get them to help with particular items that need planned" (everyone lives very far away) and then one of my close friends mentioned that she was going to four weddings next year so if I was doing mine she might not make it due to monies.

So, that didn't exactly make me feel great. Also, that's been a bit of long term thing with her - I'll help her out with everything but there never seems to be quite the same push on her side to do things for me. So had a bit of a meh moment about it all as I've noticed similar things with other friends over the last few years. But another friend came down to visit and that cheered me up no end. Still feeling a little blue as I don't have lots of close friends and with living away from everyone for so long I kind of feel out of the loop with them all... I guess I just need to go out and be more social and find some new people, truth be told!

Anyhoo, it's made me think that maybe just going abroad is a good idea. On one hand that might be cheaper and easier, on the other hand I'd be sad not to have a party with friends. But I'd be even sadder to have a party (which would certainly be a certain amount of expense) but then if not many people were fussed about coming that would be quite gutting I might just have to steel myself against such happenings and let the chips fall where they may.

Oh dear, huge quandary all round. Maybe easier to stay engaged for now and revisit at a later date :rotfl:

Lol, sorry for the novel It's helpful to write it down though and put my thoughts together.