Crazy Cat Lady Chapter 4 - The Aftermath

crazy_cat_lady

I just made Jack Monroe's carrot cake porridge for breakfast and it is AMAZING! As well as using up 2 carrots and 2 apples, lol. So I'm confidently predicting I'll have no problems at all getting my 5 a day today (there's 3 in my porridge). This is the most indulgent breakfast I can remember having for ages - it kind of beats my marmite on toast habit I'd fallen into, I forget how much I like oats.
There's plenty of chicken broth for me and the kids too so that will do for lunch or dinner. Although there aren't any dumplings left, but I think I can add more (I'll check with my mam) or I can try and find a scone recipe somewhere and do some cheese scones (that's right I can't even make scones),
I've woken up today feeling more motivated than I have done in ages so I'm going to get on and do a load of work while the want is there...

Sunshine_girl2

Delurking to say you are doing an amazing job with teaching and homeschooling DS . 

Plus thanks for the Jack Monroe carrot cake porridge idea, I have just made some for breakfast tomorrow and Thursday it smells lovely. 

MeandO

I'll have to look that one up CCL, carrot cake porridge sounds lovely!

crazy_cat_lady

Morning all
I had a trip to the dentist yesterday. That is a massive deal for me. It's about a year since we were last there and we saw a different dentist to our usual one then and she was just awful. We went from 10 years of no problems at all with our teeth to all of us getting told off for something, and I have a real thing about the dentist - I lost part of my two front teeth when I was 7 and had an awful lot of dental work from a very young age which I think has left me a bit traumatised. Anyway, we had to see another new dentist as our practice has been bought out, so I was very nervous. But she was absolutely lovely. I told her as soon as I got through the door how scared I was and what a horrible experience I'd had last year and she put us all at ease straight away. And the kids went back to having no problems at all and no telling off - but unfortunately my filling needed to be replaced (last year's dentist had said this but I didn't believe her and I was terrified so she wasn't getting anywhere near me with a drill). I could only get an appointment for the end of the month but felt ok about it as she was so nice (unfortunately £65 that I hadn't budgeted for though). I'd been home less than 20 minutes when they rang me back and said they'd had a cancellation for that afternoon if I wanted to get it done straight away. So back I went and had the filling done yesterday. It actually wasn't as bad as I remembered. although the mouth injections are awful, and watching her in full PPE Darth Vader mask, visor and pinny was quite scary. She has said it was quite deep and I might end up needing to go back if I end up with a lot of nerve pain. Oh god I hope not, but if I have to then I will - I really liked her. She said she had thought of me as soon as the cancellation came through because she knew how anxious I was and didn't want me stressing for a fortnight.
Managed to get my exercise in yesterday by walking to and from the dentist twice in heavy snow (thunder snow at some points). I feel so grateful that I got round to getting my wellies because although it was freezing my feet stayed dry and I didn't even get wet when I stood in snow that was about 6" deep. Car isn't going anywhere short term, and I'm hopeful that the brakes haven't frozen on because it's -7 degrees out there at the moment. Also popped to Herr Liddle while I was out because I needed basics, and I had a £5 voucher as well. Bought things that are not supplied by butcher or veg box (like lots of dairy things, stock, salad dressings). Managed to spend enough to use the voucher, although am going to confess that things are now looking quite tight for the rest of the month - particularly having to find dentist money as well. However, I have loads of meat, fruit and veg and am confident that we can get at least to the last week of the month. Plus hopefully I'm not too late to get any overpaid tax refunded for the end of the month. That will really help Oh. And I'll get my £29.12 child maintenance  during the last week of the month. It's pitiful but will help when I'm broke. 
Have beef casserole on the go in the slow cooker, quiche and salad prepared for lunch, and more carrot cake porridge for when I'm ready for breakfast. One thing I do notice when I get round to cooking and prepping stuff like veggies I am far less likely to snack on sugar based snacks. You'd think that would be enough for me to stay motivated to cook wouldn't you? Unfortunately not. As soon as I cba or get too busy I just don't cook - and having kids that won't eat my food doesn't help. However, I am making good use of the veggies and starting with the fruit. The random berries are still sitting in the fridge though, waiting for me to do something with them... meh. After I've done my morning's work I'm going to look through my BeRo book and see about finding something nice to make with my fruit (or cheese scones that I never got round to doing yesterday - we had the rest of our broth with savoury goodies from Herr Liddle). Wish me luck!

janb5

Sounds yummy CCl...very impressed with all your cooking! And fab for braving the dentist.....no mean feat!

slm6002

Well done on the dentist - i hate them and have to be completely knocked out to have anything done.  You were very brave.  As you like too good to go app, have you looked at Olio app.  It is people saving food from supermarkets and giving away for free.  Might be worth a look

foxgloves

Well done for your dentist bravery, CCL. I've also been this week. I had a traumatic childhood experience of dentistry too, so I'm sure that's where my fear originated.
F x

apple_muncher

Have a gold star ( or should that be a good crown?!) for seeing the dentist. Twice.

Tescodealqueen

It's obviously the week for the dentist. Had to go at lunchtime for a filling behind my my front tooth. My nose is still numb. They were teaching a  new dental assistant who was having trouble with the suction thing and kept catching the inside of my cheek. Guess you have to learn on real patients. I am ok with the dentist but when I was in the forces the dentist there spotted a wisdom tooth coming  throughout a check up and after proclaiming "you don't need that" proceeded to extract it with his knee on my chest after loads of injections. He flew across the room like something from a comic book. My did it hurt the next day. Anything the dentist does now seems tame compared to that, even the extraction done without anaesthetic because it wouldn't have worked because of an infection below it and the antibiotics wouldn't clear it. Such a relief when that tooth came out i can tell you, when I came down from the ceiling

f0xh0les

@Tescodealqueen get on the caffeine if want your numbness to go. It flushes the anaesthetic tout of your system.

CCL, if you are worried about possible nerve pain, get some teething gel in, works wonders. 

Freeze your berries until you need them. I just throw them in a sponge mixture and the kids eat them as breakfast muffins.