Cheery's buttling diary: tea in one hand, plant pot in the other, running shoes on

Cheery_Daff

Hopped in an emergency bath and spent an hour in bed with a hot water bottle! :eek: Not sure I can handle this for another couple of months - the pain's bad enough but it's so bloody inconvenient having to stop whatever I'm doing.and jump in the bath or bed. What if I'd been in.the office, like I am for the next two days?? Takes 2 hours to get home from there!

Trouble is, I'm not sure I can stand the thought of any of the alternatives so just crossing my fingers that this settles down sometime soon...

My grandma apparently went through a trouble free and painless menopause at 36 so at the minute I'm holding out for that :rotfl:

starnac

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

My grandma apparently went through a trouble free and painless menopause at 36 so at the minute I'm holding out for that :rotfl:

My mum at 56, is desperate for the menopause :eek:

I wonder why this one affected you like this when the others haven't? Maybe pull a sickie tomorrow?

Karmacat

Between the coil and the cold, Cheery, I think a sickie sounds necessary!

I get stuck in a rut with food - I ring a few changes when I can - I recently discovered the idea of putting peanut butter in porridge, thats nice The flavourings seem the most important part - herbs, tomatoes, dried mustard, as well as my beloved pesto (which is what I'm stuck on ).

Take care of yourself.

Cheery_Daff

Yep starnac, my mum is 56 and also desperate I imagine I'll follow her rather than my grandma...

I'm certainly considering working at home rather than going all the way to York :eek: Don't *have* to be there until Wednesday and at least this way if I'm fine, I'm fine - and if I'm not, I'm in easy reach of a nice bath and a cosy bed. We'll see.

Ooh, peanut butter in porridge :j Sounds lovely Looks like Mr Cheery's bought 3 bags of porridge but no peanut butter so that's one to save for another day. Have to say I don't use dried mustard - really should try! And I' ve not eaten pesto for yonks, Mr Cheery can't handle the oil really so we don't do it. But that's no reason I can't have some! :j

Thanks for the cheery ideas :j I also need to get some tahini - I did a whole foods course where the woman made this AMAZING sauce by mixing tahini, garlic, lemon juice and soy sauce - had it on EVERYTHING for weeks :rotfl: :rotfl: Completely forgot about that

I've been out to a meeting, and got there half an hour late, like an idiot - shows how much my brain is working! :eek: Still, I took a hot water bottle and it was actually a welcome distraction from feeling sorry for myself :rotfl:

Off to sort out YNAB before I get paid tomorrow :j :j

Cheery_Daff

Whoops, didn't do YNAB last night, just doing it now.

Checked bank - seems I have a pay rise :money: :j :j This is the month I started work 5 years ago so I've got an annual increment each year at the end of June as I've moved up the steps on the pay scale - although I thought I was already at the top... perhaps this is a cost of living thing?

Anyway, who cares - £77.54 extra a month after deductions :j :j :j which is £930.48 a year - what a joyous thing!! :j :j

Think I'm going to whack the extra to the Patchwork Fund each month before I get used to it :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Right, July's budget done :j :j and all looking good :j

Bit of a spendy June with one thing and another (lots of frittering on food :eek: and we've both treated ourselves to a small amount of books/guitar pedal type things) but that's all been pilfered from the house maintenance fund so we're all square again now

Just added another £300 to the Patchwork Fund (should be £511 a month now with my extra wages but I'm keeping some out to pay the roofer who *should* be coming this month...) = £6708.55

Other funds...
Car repairs = £191.53
Home maintenance (roofer (£400) and possibly plasterer this month) = £498.70
Holidays = £381.95
No Quibble = £315.86
Christmas fund = £60 :rotfl:

We're actually going away for a no quibble night this weekend :j :j VERY much need a night out of this chaos Won't be too far though, so diesel will come from normal diesel funds, and won't spend more than £100 of no quibble fund.

Going on holiday on 31st July :j :j :j Not sure where yet :rotfl: a cottage somewhere by the sea for a couple of weeks, depends where we can get something at this short notice We'll combine holiday and no quibble funds for that, (which will probably just cover the accommodation), then we'll have August's holiday/no quibble money (£150) plus the VSP (currently at £65.91) plus the normal treats budget to spend while we're there :j All good

I've allowed myself £80 to spend this month, which will hopefully work out This is just stuff for me - tea in cafes with pals, swimming, clothes etc. Last few months I've spent £141, £69, £244 :eek: £176, £125, £141 so I'll need to be quite careful... Don't have any big social things planned though - but I'll need to keep some aside for summery clothes, of which I currently have NONE after a big cull last autumn :eek: It'll all be charity shop though :money:

Right, so that's where we are - off to update signature :j :j

Cheery_Daff

Oooh! :j :j And I'm VERY pleased to report our YNAB 'net worth' report (sum of all money in all accounts) is now showing at £10,408.68 :j :j :j

SO excited to have 'proper' savings for the first time in my life - so exciting to see them creeping up each month too :j Makes me want to save even more

The net worth figure has been creeping up between £100 and £700 each month - measured on the first day of each month (so the day after payday for me). Some months it doesn't go up much if, for example, we've had a few annual bills go out in the same month (car insurance etc) that we've been saving for all year - not a problem as that's what we've been saving for but it *is* nice when it takes a big £700 leap like it did this month

(mind you, next month won't be so pretty as we'll have had to pay the roofer AND the holiday cottage - both of which we've been saving for but it might make the graph take a temporary nose dive!)

Right - MUST go and make myself useful. Fingers crossed for a day less plagued with coldiness/midgey bite scratchiness/coil-induced pain peskiness :eek: :rotfl:

Have a good one all - I'll be back later with my plans for an exciting tea after having a cathartic moan about boring food on Greying's thread this morning :rotfl:

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey cheery :wave:

Thank you for your lovely post on mine this morning. I agree that not everyone enjoys cooking - and my mind is filled with nothing but food and cooking, I'm a food bore But I thought I'd try and answer you over on yours - I've just done a long waffle on mine, so it's better I come over to yours

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

I never know where to start with looking though Do you start by looking up things you have, or looking at things you fancy then going shopping?

Both. Say for example, I will think that I'll do curries x 4 (for the month). OK, what curries do we like? Have I got any new recipes to try? Have we been gifted a glut of veggies or have I got some YS'd produce that needs using up? What curries haven't we had in a while? I ask myself those sort of questions and by the end of it, I usually have 4 dishes that I can put on the planner. And then they are ordered accordingly through the month, so if the gluts gotta be used up, that'll be the first curry on the list!

Sometimes I fancy certain ingredients, or DP will ask for something. Seasonality comes into it - what's the weather doing? Do I need comfort carbs or light salads?

I (like you) have a storecupboard and a reasonable idea of what's in there etc. But I do need to get BETTER at this bit. I said that Tilly had made me think about how I put together components that I have, for a meal. I do sometimes get overwhelmed by the 'components' and can't see a meal that can be made with them. This needs to improve - hence this month's TTT Thursdays

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

I know we've got a few of those little Stork margerine ones from the 1950s- including one called somethig like 'Stork goes on a caravan holiday' which gives meals for an entire week!

I have never heard of those books Cheery! Stork was always in our house Didn't bake with anything else.

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Wonder if I've still got 'Vegetarian grub on a grant' from when I was a student? (suppose they'll have had to think of a new title for the later editions :eek: :rotfl: )

LOL at the 'new title needed' - but yes, I really rate my student veggie cookbook. It's got some really quite sophisticated tucker in it Our veg and bean soup for dinner tonight was out of it.

Hope you're feeling better - awesome net worth figgies btw :T

Greying x

Cheery_Daff

Thank you Greying for taking the time to post a reply to my slightly moany post earlier Much appreciated. I've thought about you, and menu planning, all day (when I should have been thinking about work! :rotfl: )

Had a rummage around and all I can find are my Rose Elliot book and River Cottage Veg, which I got as a present last year and have never used I'm sure I never threw the student one away so it must be around here somewhere, but it's impossible to find anything in this house at the minute! :eek:

The Stork books are these - we've got all of the ones listed there (the caravan one is 'away from it all with Stork') There are all kinds of bizarre convoluted recipes we'd probably never even consider now, but they're such fun to look at with cheery little drawings. I've made a few of the simpler baking-type recipes (like popover scones) and they were great :j Don't know where they've gone now (the books, that is - I know exactly where the scones went! :rotfl: )

Well, I didn't use a recipe this evening, but we did have an experimental tea :rotfl: I think I mentioned the few little floury apples that were slowly getting mushier in the bottom of the fruit bowl... Well, I chopped them up small, fried with onion and mushrooms, and mixed with a packet of some kind of vegetarian lentil protein stuff that they were selling for 30p a few weeks ago, sprinkled with a bit of 'grated hard cheese' (knock off parmesan) and bunged in the oven Had that with boiled new potatoes, and a colourful salad of grated carrot, red cabbage and pea shoots from the garden :j :j Made just enough to take for lunch tomorrow too :j

So thank you for the inspiration I shall have another rummage round for my other recipe books and see what I can come up with

Greying_Pilgrim

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Well, I didn't use a recipe this evening, but we did have an experimental tea :rotfl: I think I mentioned the few little floury apples that were slowly getting mushier in the bottom of the fruit bowl... Well, I chopped them up small, fried with onion and mushrooms, and mixed with a packet of some kind of vegetarian lentil protein stuff that they were selling for 30p a few weeks ago, sprinkled with a bit of 'grated hard cheese' (knock off parmesan) and bunged in the oven Had that with boiled new potatoes, and a colourful salad of grated carrot, red cabbage and pea shoots from the garden :j :j Made just enough to take for lunch tomorrow too :j

Perfect! Tasty, used up ingredients, you had colour on your plate and there's some for lunch tomorrow. Perfect!

Those books look ace! It is funny how recipes have evolved though isn't it? Some of the early vegetarian books are :eek: in comparison with what we eat today

Greying x