Building The Burrow!

in_need_of_direction

Great to have you back.

greent

Lovely to see you back again - glad you had a good time xx

Pearla*Merle

Thank you, lovely ladies.

Oops, I meant to post the below yesterday but forgot. :eek: Opened laptop and saw it sitting there. Shall add in extra news from today...

Slightly more industrious day - went for a wander, deposited a charity shop bag & a library book. So pretty & frosty outside! Loved wandering in the chilly air, surrounded by the last colours of autumn.

:www: MFW Wonderment: 5p roadkill into the kitty bank;

Listed a few bits on eBay. Down to the dregs/awkward-to-post things now. Hmm.

Today: monies moved around, will need to do more moving tomorrow as my 5% savings account closes, boo Went to work... stuck to the meal plan (chicken tacos with pineapple salsa)... booked holiday cottage and saved £30 for booking early (also money-saving to opt to go at a cheap time of year. Already plotting little bits & bobs we can take with us that'll help with self catering).

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: delicious home cooked meals (chicken pie last night, with filo pastry topping - so yummy); waking to a world caked in frost (definitely feeling Christmassy now!); candles in the evening and of course, a good book!

:heartsmil Burrow Building: booking the holiday has reminded me of our last one - and how lovely it was being in a minimalist cottage! Feeling inspired yet again to be utterly ruthless sorting things out. I've identified quite a bit of jewellery and clothing I'm going to move along... and a few decorative things that I always thought I'd hang onto, but now it's hard to see why I drag all this stuff around. :think: Feeling excited at the thought of living a lot more lightly

jodles16

You are so busy PM! Glad you had a nice holiday, I like to book early if possible, often people offer at this years prices which is always lovely!

Best of luck decluttering!

Jodles

Pearla*Merle

Thank you, Jodles!

Not much to report today - woke up at the crack of sparrows, went to work (all fine & dandy there), moved monies around, stuck to meal plan (sweet potato & spinach curry for tea with an extra portion put aside for my lunch tomorrow). Colleague gave me a lift so saved £1.something bus fare.

I've unearthed my super thick thermal socks, so feeling very cosy indeed.

Must think about putting aside time to write Xmas cards... I have a feeling the next couple of weeks will just disappear!

Kittenkirst

Sweet potato & spinach curry sounds delicious- how do you make that?

Pearla*Merle

This is the recipe, Kitten: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chicken-sweet-potato-curry

Feels like quite a cheat to use a jar or Korma paste but I daresay you could adapt to your desires

It's so incredibly yummy sand now a staple in our recipe collection. I can't work out how the sweet potato & rice doesn't feel like serious carb overload... they work great together.

Pearla*Merle

A busy weekend out and about - had planned to do some Christmas shopping but in reality we have everything sorted already so just soaked up the festive atmosphere instead.

Tree is up, the rest of the decorations are sitting on the side looking at me hopefully... shall try and polish those off by the end of the week. Decluttered a few rubbishy decorations and might have another purge at the end of Christmas... or at least slowly replace them (in laws gave us loads the first year we had enough space for a decent tree but some of them are very uninspiring - I'm a bit particular about decorations ).

Epic tidying sessions over the past few days - including a pile of papers and things of Mr M's by the sofa that resulted in two bin bags of shredded paper. :eek: Also replaced our huge present box with a smaller, more manageable version. Shifted stuff around on the shelves in the spare room which freed up a fair amount of space - which was immediately taken up by all the books that had been piling up on the floor. Am planning a few more sorting sessions over the next few weeks...

:www: MFW Wonderment: YS cranberry & pecan bread sliced up and stashed in the freezer for Christmas :A

Mr M & I had a brainwave as we don't want to encourage lots of new stuff from entering the house, so we've decided to put some of our present money for each other together and buy some a membership (or two) for something next year (currently thinking Royal Palaces and then something else). Very excited by the thought of an adventureful new year

Had a big money switch around today - brought accounts uptodate and made sure pennies were in their right places. Things are still looking on track which is all good :T Need to get some proper spreadsheets going in relation to new level of pay, might save that as some Christmas holiday fun :rotfl:

My spending diary keeping-up skills have been a bit all over the place this year, shall crack down on things again next year as think I've pretty much replaced all that needs replacing. Just need to find some new cardigans for work (shall scope out the charity shops!) and possibly some more wintry tights.

This week's meal planned was inspired by the bits we have lying about in the cupboards :T Finally starting to get the space working better for us. Also discovered some new recipes which required only the addition of some nuts or dates to our shopping trolly, looking forward to trying those later in the week.

Plenty of leftovers from tonight's curry for lunch & tea again tomorrow. Yummy.

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: watching lovely winter sunsets; frosty days; festive spiced tea; opening the doors of my picture advent calendar (this year's is a beautiful woodland wintry scene -http://angelaharding.co.uk/collections/cards/products/holly-hedge-advent-calander?variant=30002352396 - don't think I paid that much for it though!)

:heartsmil Burrow Building: had a moment of genius and put all our nice foodstuffs for Christmas (handily, most are packaged very prettily) under the tree. Looks rather lovely, and stops us buying loads as we can see what's already there.

Decluttered: Mr M's got rid of some more jackets, another towel, lego and some other random bits I forget (oh yes, random bits from present box that are a bit past it)

Pearla*Merle

£5 M&S voucher plus £2 off the gin I wanted already. Huzzah! Happy days

Leftovers for tea... helps pay for the gin

:heartsmil Simple Pleasures: erm, mid-week g&t?

Oh gosh, not much else to report! Worked... about three weeks til payday... should go in no time. Planning lots of sorting out & general catch-up admin at work, quite looking forward to relaxedly sorting things out. It should include lots of list-writing :T and spreadsheets :T

Pearla*Merle

Crazy busy end to the week and then a bit of a flat weekend (plus under-the-weatherness which has thankfully subsided somewhat) and suddenly it's almost a week after posting last, oops!

Well, the weekend wasn't a complete washout - I've set up spreadsheets for next year. A new spending diary and new savings one (that takes into account stoozed monies). Can't wait to start filling them in :T

I've tweaked my budget a bit, shall elucidate when we're nearer 2017.

Somehow managed to put together lots of Christmas packages today (with various festive concerts taped from Sky Arts on in the background - carols by candlelight from the royal albert hall was rather lovely ).

However, have found out that the PO plan on striking next week. Ho hum. Considering I went in there the other day only to find out that the two members of staff had decided to take an hour and a half lunch break and therefore close the shop I think this spells the end of my patronage. Have had a look around at various courier services, and actually it's cheaper to sending bigger parcels with those anyway. So will finish things up this week and hopefully get things sent off by early next week.

:www: MFW Wonderment: doing quite well at using up leftovers for lunch these days and was pleased to find out that the aldee super six this week contained bananas and apples (had initially thought !!!!!! when I saw they had coconuts ), happy days. Might pick up some more before the week is out.

11p into the Kitty Bank

Soup & toast for tea... really must, must remember to do this more often. I feel so much better from eating lighter things in the evening. We're also doing well eating smaller portions on our smaller plates (we're using big !kea side plates which - scarily - serve up a perfect 'recommended' dinner portion size). It almost means we end up with more leftovers which is handy for my lunches

:coffee: Simple Pleasures: ...or guilty pleasure? Salted caramel mince pies from Aldee! How can they be so good?! Must not make a habit of eating such things though...

:heartsmil Burrow Building: felt quite annoyed a feeling so blurgh so went on a decluttering rampage and have filled another couple of bags with things. Have meditated on my Konmari 'vision' and I've realised again that I've been hanging onto things I thought I 'should' or 'needed to' but actually - what a relief to get rid of things to get them out the house!

Only two weeks-ish oil payday. Gosh, that means even less until Christmastide. How has that come around so quickly? :eek: