NSK; February 28 Days Later!

mothernerd

The cabbage, onion and lemon makes a very good coleslaw base. I prefer coleslaw with a vinaigrette type dressing rather than mayo - more diet friendly, but this is the real pared down version. Chop or shred the cabbage and onion finely and sprinkle with lemon juice(dressing and stops it going brown). I presume I had a few bits in, a tin of tuna would have made it last 4/5 days + scrounge a couple of meals off mum. For a veggie version, it would be good with butter and/or kidney beans on top.

It still tastes good. DS3 ordered takeaway a few weeks ago. He's a student. When his grant comes he gives me my share. I know he has spent over £500 on paying other people to do the artwork for the six games he has in development (For the past 18 months he has been making little games which people download from the internet for a couple of pounds. He isn't self-sufficient, his biggest earner to date made about £600 but he's getting there slowly) and is down to his last £100. I don't like the amount of takeaways he has but he doesn't drink or smoke and it's really his business how he spends his remaining disposable income.

He had used an old order and got me Indian snacks and a curry (I didn't know about it until he came down to wait for it coming). I usually make a salad in a pasta bowl to go with the starter but had run out of salad leaves and other bits but I had half a cabbage so I made this (the only difference was the lemon juice was in a bottle in the fridge) and with the Indian snacks and yoghurt on the top it was delicious. The curry is always for the next day, excess oil blotted off with kitchen paper and often split in two and bulked out with veg.

I also like HM vinaigrette (a little oil, lots of (cider) vinegar and loads of lemon juice after the (grain) mustard and mixed herbs) on 'pot herbs' - don't know if they have that/ what they call it down south. It is just leeks, carrots, cabbage, turnip/swede and celery roughly chopped (lots of market stalls sell it here in the winter months, sometimes with a 'sprig'). You are supposed to add your meat/pulse/barley to make a stew. It can be done at home obviously but I like it raw with a drizzle of dressing.

I have been thinking about the Zombie challenge and how we should think about what was important to us and I think one of the reasons I have never got attached to this house in the way that I love my little old house is that in moving here I moved further away from who I wanted to be.

Living in a 2 bed terrace with 3 growing boys wasn't easy. As they grew older someone usually had to have the front room as a bedroom, 2 of us shared the big bedroom (with a wall of wardrobes down the middle) and we had to swop round at regular intervals so that whoever was doing the most important exams had the quietest room/ separate space. I often longed to be able to send them to their own rooms - if everyone was stuck in together and A and B were arguing and reaching the coming to blows stage, if I separated them, one or other would promptly go off and have a row with C.

But when I did my ecological footprint there I came out at 1 and a half Indians, which is fairly good for someone in the West (average 3 - ie would take 3 planets the size of Earth to sustain that way of life if everyone on the planet lived like that. Hope I am not patronising anyone but I realised part way through that some people might not have a clue what I was talking about - one has made assumptions about those of us following the Ninja Way).

Never had a car and as I was still in fairly good health and lived in the town Centre nearly everything came into the house in the big rucksack on my back (Are you going hiking? No. Do you know you have a tree growing out of your back? Yes. Re-building back wall, carrying 20kg sack of sand and cement from diy store. Yes). Bad points for owning cats and not being fully vegetarian - you try standing in the supermarket with a six year old blonde angel who is saying "Mummy, do you think we could perhaps have a chicken, please?" (As a change from endless variations based on potatoes, cheese and beans).

So this house has a lot more space (and at the old house I did get this nagging dream that as the boys grew and their possessions increased , I would one day be reduced to a wooden chair in the corner of the kitchen with one shelf for my books) which they have filled by dragging back every waif and stray they can find and bouncing back themselves at regular intervals. It has a bigger garden but soil is not good and has so far been less productive than my old back yard. But here I feel much less 'myself' if you know what I mean (am I supposed to use capital letters for that - will check later).

So for now I am simplyfying what I can (television broke 3 weeks ago, I haven't missed it, so I am staying tv free) and just wondering how much I am going to have to compromise to find something that suits me and mum (She looked horrified when I mentioned that the tv was going - please don't let her find me one that's been in someone's back bedroom for years and only picks up 2 channels if the winds in the right direction ).

I have taken up enough of your time, I have crates to collect - Sent DS1 to get them yesterday, he came back, on the bus and said they weren't any use for his packing. I hadn't explained that I wanted them for in the garden, after they had been used for his packing, so now, Dolly and I (dear faithful old truck) have to walk there and come back with crates tied onto dolly. At least it will give me some idea of how bad the exercise class is going to be. I have £7.98 in my purse and £7.50 in Tessimo vouchers and my challenge for the week is not to go over that - should have put the extra £5 in the bank but thought that might be stretching it too far and invite the sort of disaster (someone having to go to hospital?) which I would much rather avoid. Even this makes hopping on the bus at any point worth second and third thoughts especially as last week took me over my travel allowance for the month.

apple_muncher

Living_a_good_life wrote: »

Apple muncher - found this... http://www.instructables.com/id/real-green-eggs-and-ham/ think it is more due to chemistry than cookery!!

This is so cool! Thank you! Now I know why and how it happened.

Just been to look at the other 3 and they're each turning green themselves.... All on their lonesome. Although there are some unpeeled hb eggs on the same shelf - could be that they are changing colour in anticipation of meeting the egg whites....

shyspender

Spend day today.

Had to post a parcel for some birthday presents. As it was a spend I popped into L1dl and got some vegetable oil.

Not planning on spending now until Thursday. Payback for having a takeaway last week was that I put the change straight into my terramundi because it was left over money from last month. Which means that today when I needed 10p for parking, I didn't have any change. Luckily my boss did.

Managed to get 8 portions from the mammoth quinoa lentil curry including today's lunch. That's me sorted for lunches until almost the end of February I think!

TiptoesDB

Feel better Missyv30… and ooo, Thrifty, how exciting! what’s the dress like??

Well, some spends here but planned ones – petrol and the like. Total piggy day food wise, and weigh in at the weekend showed I had put on another 2 pounds despite having been much better and more disciplined with food in the past few weeks. Need to sort this out –am the heaviest I have been in a long long time. sigh.

Not much else doing, very cold and heading to bed soon with the electric blanket on to read my book and cuddle the cats!

Keep warm and dry all…

• 5/15 SFD’s
• £79/£180 food budget
• 5/20 exercise
• 0/3 planned outings

£ashcow

Evening all
Managed a SFD today, took LTW and de-cluttered one bag for the tip.
Presently cooking up yesterdays chicken bones for stock and using rest of the chicken an left over leeks to make parcels for tomorrows tea. Yum!
Love and light to all the weather worn out there.

ikesmummy

Pleased to be be to add another SFD (making my grand total 4 so still a long way to go) and another exercise session today. I also did good amount of de-cluttering in the bedroom, quite looking forward to going up there in a minute to relax with my book (free kindle). My budgets are still all within my reach although will need to work hard at avoid the temptation to spend money.

Billie-jo

NSD #6 and have de cluttered 11 items in total. Sorted out the fridge and found a couple of things had forgotten about.
Should be going out for a meal tomorrow (already budgeted for so hope for another NSD) but will see what the weather is like first. In some ways I would rather stay in as hate going out in the cold and wet when we don't have to.

PheoniX

Hullo peeps :wave:

Been missing in action over the last few days from working nights and now have a grand total of 3 days off before starting my next block of shifts! Such joy

Mothernerd I was saddened to read about the loss of your cat and how you cared for her that day.. It brought a lump to my throat and I wanted to give you a hug Im sure you must miss her very much..

IWillSucceed Hope your father in law is feeling better now..

Thrifty You were destined to get that dress! And getting it at a reduced price was an added bonus!

Apple mucher Your magical 'purple to green' witches broth incident made me laugh.. It was the eye of newt that did it!

Kat Lol I was tempted to play along with your comment but nooo I was merely saying Im also a zone seven resident

So, a spend day for me today but not on anything major though. I bought some brightly coloured orange stickers to add to my wall planner and I also bought a liitle notebook (to accompany my little black moleskin monthly money monitoring book) which I use to make little predicted calculations towards pay day. I also got a good deal on sunflower seeds at H&B, £1.99 for 500g! And got a discounted 49p mushroom stir fry from Waitrose :T

Before today there had been very litttle action on the exercise front! But the promise of a free latte on hot footing it to the shops was enough to get me motivated

I will need to do a small shop tomorrow to stock up on a few items and will have a mooch around Aldee to see what I think of it. I am very fortunate to have 6 reasonably distanced supermarkets to chose from (ooh Kat, a clue ) so the My$upermarket website gets heavily used in my search for bargains!

I should be getting my Te$co clubcard vouchers anytime soon and should also be getting $ainsbugs vouchers too from my credit card loyalty points which was an unexpected surprise :j. This came to light when I rang the bank earlier.. I was a bit annoyed to learn that I'd been entitled to vouchers for over a year and a half (not used the card in this time) and I hadnt been told about it! :mad: l also learnt there are no interest charges on the card when paying in full each month lol! I had never been in the position to pay in full before and could only make minimum payments that incurred charges, so this was a revelation! What a biff I am!

Right thats enough from me, have a lovely evening folks,

Over n oot :wave:

Fmess

Evening all

Thanks for the soup recipe dolly, can't wait to start making them.

SFD number 7 here today Walked the dogs for exercise and took lunch to work

Not much else to report today!

CEW

Hi All,

Not a very good day today challenge wise. Spend day as had to order fowers for a birthday. Paid £2 extra as I needed same day delivery. That'll teach me for putting off ordering. I could have saved a spend day as well as the £2 if I had booked them yesterday on my planned spend day :mad:

Didn't sleep very well last night. Woke up at 3am and couldn't go back to sleep until 6am after the alarm went off. So tired that I couldn't be bothered to make my lunch so lost a LTW day :eek:

On the plus side I decided to ask for the next 2 days off as holiday so no more work until Thursday :j :j

Want to rejig (is that a word?) all my budgets and check all the balances over the next 2 days as I think this along with some other household related admin tasks that I keep putting off has been playing on my mind which is interrupting my sleep.

The other positive is that I have kept up my pledge to post every day to keep me motivated :T

Back tomorrow

Chez x