NST Joyful July

Hello,

today should be another SFD. HM lunch, bike at the gym, just cold cuts and bread etc for the kids dinner as DS will have a BBQ at the holiday club and DD gets a warm lunch anyway. For DH and me I'll make a chinese style noodle dish with some left over roast chicken from Sunday and pork rib meat form the BBq On Sat once he's back from football. The next three days I have to get a bit creative as there is not much left and I would usually go to the shop by now.

Loving the garden just now. We don't have massive amounts of fruit and veg growing but most days the kids can go out and pick sth.: mange tout, strawberries, snack cucumbers. Hopefully the beans, potatoes, carrots etc will be ready soon too.

No spend day. Stayed in weather is miserable.

Sorry for my absence, have been away on my holiday, managed to gain two NSDs whilst away so am now up to a small but mighty 3 with plenty of the month left.

Have become obsessed with making money online and have cashed out on a couple of survey sites, sold things on ebay and gum tree and through we buy books and ziffit and even a few things to OH which he wanted and wouldn't let me sell!

As a result I now only owe my OH £150 when a few months ago it was over £1000, and one of my credit cards is in a new hundred's bracket if that makes sense.

I go back to work tomorrow after a four week absence due to stress, anxiety and depression. I wouldn't say I am looking forward to it but I am not actively dreading it either. I will feel good about earning money again and knowing where my pay is coming from.

I currently feel quite good, I had a lovely time away, I have had the all clear on my leg so I did a park run last Saturday (and as a result had very sore legs for my holiday) and OH is taking me out for a meal or supplying me with a takeaway tomorrow night to 'celebrate' my going back to work.

I hope all of you lovely Turtles are well, well done Konta for those enjoying the tennis.

:wave:

) NSDs: achieved today so now 6 / 16.

2) At least one store cupboard menu week this month: longest run so far 5 days.
No extra dinner spends today, used frozen puff pastry sheet from freezer to make 4 x goats' cheese & beetroot puffs (one each eaten tonight and other 2 frozen for another time); hot herby new potatoes, baked tomatoes with garlic & peas. OH's flapjack and ice cream for dessert later. Matches 5 day run of no extra spending on meals over and above the shopping last week.

3) Try to up my own income in some way (legally of course)! Achieved! Extra weekend job has now started with a couple of training days this week, which I've frantically rescheduled my other work around.

4) My NST health goal: 10,000 steps a day (as total of 70,000 across a week)! ^^^This^^^ is the reason I haven't achieved this today ... trying to cram all of my other work this week into one less day so that I can go in for a training day means I've been very deskbound today. Hoping still to get dogs out in a bit which will boost steps somewhat but otherwise am stuck on just over 2800 today, which is just dreadful! Total so far 39,550 / 70,000.

:eek: Also skipped lunch and was so hungry for my dinner I didn't even do my abs exercises (and now can't do them as tummy full of puff pastry and beetroot)!

5) No FleaBay shopping for the whole month - achieved again today so 11 / 31. Am likely to be buying my breadbin soon tho as having no luck sourcing one from CS (very grim offerings) and am very fed up with OH just abandoning bread products all over the kitchen (which has almost no surfaces, so can't be doing with crumbs and clutter everywhere). Who'd have thought that a roll top breadbin could really straddle the line between need or want & cordial marital relationships or 'words'!

6) Frugal focus: sourcing instead of spending: remaining work in progress ...
* Valance in progress - one panel hemmed, still needs sewing to base.
* Doggy glove puppet in progress. ... it nearly has a noggin now!
* As above, have been trying to source bread bin from CS but no luck so far.

Simple pleasures:

Rain means less buzzy insects, so less neurotic "oh no it buzzes therefore I'm in danger" behaviour from smaller pooch! Peace at last!
Renewing library books online, so easy, so useful!
Lavender we took a chance on planting (we'd only been here a few months and weren't sure if it would like the conditions) has really come into its own!

Hope everyone else has had a fruitful day. PN x

Today was NSD number 4. Shopping came this morning so I did a little batch cooking tonight. Slightly overdid it on portion size estimates but I split it to make an extra portion instead.

Was also the first day back at work, and it was a complete nightmare tbh - everything had gone a bit t*ts up while I was off. Hopefully all sorted now as I wasted a lot of time today.

Somehow racked up another healthy day food wise, didn't exercise as I'm really feeling the effects of my riding lesson! Will work out in the morning. Night all.