Watty's Awakening

Watty1

Another great suggestion for an easy meal. My freezer is virtually empty I think.  I will look later. This morning I'm going to drive to a nearby village that has a great butcher.  I'm going to buy a couple of their sausage rolls, Cornish pasties and a meat pie for options plus a few things that are easy (pork chops were a great shout, thank you..   I'll get some veg there as they have a small local veg stand and that with the meal box that arrives tomorrow will give me meals for the next couple of weeks.

Monday I have acupuncture.  I've also had follow up with the doctor, and, the conclusion is the way I feel is PTSD and stress.  Hmmm  Cannot help but wonder how many who read along on here might have already diagnosed that!

earthgirl2

Sounds like a (yummy) plan with food, and good to support the local shops too! Hope you start to feel better soon, and there are some ways to reduce stress. You have had so much in your plate for quite a long time now. Take care of yourself. 

Cherryfudge

Good call on stocking up at the butcher's, if I weren't full this evening that would have set me off wanting a Cornish Pasty! 

The GP visit sounds sympathetic and insightful. I've not diagnosed you (!) but it doesn't surprise me. Stress and trauma do affect us, even good stress is stressful and long term stress has a different effect than short term.

I'm impressed with that freezer space. What do you plan to put in it?

Watty1

@Cherryfudge I'm going to start doing some more bulk cooking in time and also pop to Ald! who do some super fish for salads that are really nice (and i can get salad stuff in the village).  The freezer needs to be easy meals really but I've been getting fussier over food, so I bought some sausages from the butchers and also 2 pies.  They make their own pies etc on site so I've those added. Then I will add some frozen veg especially frozen onions until mine come good with some frozen garlic etc.  

When I'm feeling more "on top of things" I'll go back to making a 'treat' food some weekends which I can freeze as that really stopped me binge eating biscuits and chocolates and also soups.

I've had a really restful day and a read up on here and some threads (especially Greyings) gave me some great ideas for food planning so I've worked out a rough plan for me that involves very little thought now.   Very simple in that it is just curry / soup and something  / omelette / stew in slow cooker or tray bake / salad with fish / sort of plan but it will work and I can now stash things in the freezer to make it easier on me.    The M/Chef meal box arrived and the VNM cooked us a pork noodle stir fry which was delicious.  He did say until I was feeling better, we could just get one every week and he would pay half which would certainly make the evenings we eat together easy, but, since I got my food budget down I'm a bit reluctant to spend that much every week.

Watty1

In other financial news I checked my pension pot.  That poor little pot that was ignored in the "paying off the mortgage" days because PPH assured me blah de blah - well that poor little pot looks most respectable.

I tracked back its performance, found a valuation for the day I left PPH and looked at it now and felt so proud of myself. I left in covid so of course the pension pot was hammered a bit by that and has recovered but  I have worked really hard to get back on my feet, and because it is the end of the month my financial review showed me the pension pot is just fine, my emergency savings will cover 4 months of bills and i have the money to replace my car as and when I feel up to car shopping. 

As it is the end of the 1st quarter I also reviewed goals.  Financially my goal was huge but I'm working my way to secure financial base and my business is thriving.

I need to work on my health goals some more and I need to spend more time with the horses and I need to finish the house renovations (put on hold because I was concentrating on building the finances)  As spring is here, I need to come up with plans for outside, that is the April goal.

daisy_1571

A lovely round up, you should definitely feel quietly (or indeed loudly) pleased with yourself   

Dxxx

earthgirl2

 You should be incredibly proud. So much achieved internally and externally. Just amazing. Well done! 

Cherryfudge

You really are doing an amazing job. The freezer is evidence you are making a system that works for you rather than the other way round. Great news on the pension too, and the savings.

Cheering you on for April and good health, time outside, time with the horses and progress on the house.

greent

Watty1 said:

@Cherryfudge I'm going to start doing some more bulk cooking in time and also pop to Ald! who do some super fish for salads that are really nice (and i can get salad stuff in the village).  The freezer needs to be easy meals really but I've been getting fussier over food, so I bought some sausages from the butchers and also 2 pies.  They make their own pies etc on site so I've those added. Then I will add some frozen veg especially frozen onions until mine come good with some frozen garlic etc.  

When I'm feeling more "on top of things" I'll go back to making a 'treat' food some weekends which I can freeze as that really stopped me binge eating biscuits and chocolates and also soups.

I've had a really restful day and a read up on here and some threads (especially Greyings) gave me some great ideas for food planning so I've worked out a rough plan for me that involves very little thought now.   Very simple in that it is just curry / soup and something  / omelette / stew in slow cooker or tray bake / salad with fish / sort of plan but it will work and I can now stash things in the freezer to make it easier on me.    The M/Chef meal box arrived and the VNM cooked us a pork noodle stir fry which was delicious.  He did say until I was feeling better, we could just get one every week and he would pay half which would certainly make the evenings we eat together easy, but, since I got my food budget down I'm a bit reluctant to spend that much every week.

Could you buy the ingredients to recreateb the MChef meals? We've had Goooosto a few times (always with a good discount) and have kept the cards for our favourites and recreate (ish) those at lower cost 

Suffolk_lass

I was wondering if you have an old butler style sink that could be deployed by a door to the house and have quick growing salad leaves, spinach and radish seeds sprinkled, so you can snip and pull them for your salads, It is honestly, so uplifting for me, to pick and munch as I weed, and top up a basic iceberg lettuce with my own snippings. It's also why I grow mini cucumbers - better quality than the SM ones and so lovely. Now is the time to think about these (a bit of protection is you don't have a greenhouse, you can germinate indoors in a little propagator) - we have mini munch and mini crisp indoors, full sized Marketmore and (heritage little tennis ball sized yellow) Crystal Lemon outdoors. Very easy and very satisfying.