Menu Planning Monday

This was ready to go yesterday but then I came down with the lurgy so it did not get posted.


Monday :- Jacket Pot, cheese and salad

Tuesday :-Sausages and mash

Wednesday :- Fish -

Thursday :-  Veggie Pasta

Friday :- Steak, chips and Onion rings (Birthday tea for H)

Saturday :- Lasagna, Birthday Cake (Birthday tea number 2 for H)

Sunday :- Left Overs


Edited:  It's Tuesday now and I have no idea what we will have for tea as I am currently laid on the sofa under a duvet with the dog curled up next to me feeling very coughy (yes, that is a word!).  I suspect H will order a takeaway.

Making me HAPPY this week

It's that time of week again!

1) Waking up in bed this morning to find H still there.  Now, he usually wakes early, can't get comfy so gets up.  Indeed it was so nice that we lay for ages talking and I suddenly looked at the clock and saw it was 10am (I can't remember the last time I was in bed at that time, never mind with H).  Is it so bad I made him rush out of bed to get Anni?????  She got us back, after he let her out, she came up to say hi and immediately needed to go out again - so I got up to let her out.

2) Playing in the snow with Anni B.  I loved it.   Shame it didn't last - though we may get more next week.  H has always said that whatever hits the East coast of America usually gets to us about a week later.

3) Picking up the momentum on my 40 for 40 that I started last year and have gone quiet on.  I have made another scarf to send to Syria (parcel to be posted this coming week).  I have also made a scarf to go to a friend in America and am on another one for his wife.  To cheer them up as they have been ill recently.


4) Keeping to my menu plan last week.  I am starting to enjoy cooking - a little!!!

Playing in the snow

I love the snow, did you know that?  Did you know that the scaredy cat which is Anni also loves snow.....  well she is never so sure to start with, especially when it dares to fall on her.... how dare it....  but when she's off lead and is allowed to play she goes absolutely mental and charges all over the place.  We had plenty of snow on Wednesday and it was a real pleasure taking her for a walk.

Snow.......

C'mon chase me

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Think I love snow now.

 In the last photo she'd spotted 2 people getting off of the bus and she was convinced they were my parents, so off she charged to say hello (Mum she was sooooo disappointed it wasn't you!).

Dave thinks the final shot was some weird attempt to capture footprints -not that the dog was having so much fun, she was off.  She's just about in the photo!!!!!!!

Menu Planning Monday

Week 2 of the menu keeping wasn't as successful as week 1!  We gave in and had takeaway pizza one night and it threw the rest of the week out of synch.

I desperately need to defreeze the freezer so I am trying my hardest to eat up as much as I can as quickly as I can.

This week we will probably be having;

Monday :- Sausage & Mash (Hubby), Homemade Fishcakes (me)
Tuesday :- Pepperoni Pita Pizzas & Rice Pudding
Wednesday :- Quick & Easy (hosp appt at 4pm) Jacket Pots & filling
Thursday:- Beef Stew
Friday :- Lasagna & Salad
Saturday :- Chicken Salad (friends on diets!)
Sunday :- Left Overs

Linking up with Mrs M for Meal Planning Monday.

Making me HAPPY this week

Making me happy this week;

1)  Hubby getting into car and driving it to work.  He wasn't too scared after all - Whoopee.  So proud of him.

2) Snow at the weekend.  I love snow, but I worry about Hubby driving.  If he gets stuck in it, it's not as though he can walk to safety.  So on a weekend it's a win-win.  I get snow and he stays at home.  I do love snow - doubt I'll ever grow out of it.

3) Working in the LYS.  I do enjoy it and love knowing I am helping someone out who needs a hand.

It's been a long week without much heating and dealing with car sorting.  Am hoping that this week will be a lot better (and will have photos!).



PS Still no working boiler - driving me crazy.  Fingers crossed for this week.

Penny Saving Challange

Hello,

Hubby has gotten in the hire car and has happily driven to work and back for the past 2 days - hooray.  I didn't want him to quit due to an accident so am glad he hasn't given in.

I was blog hopping today when I came across a new Challenge that Hubby and I have decided to join in.  You are meant to save a penny on day one, 2p on day two, 3p on day three etc for a year and at the end you will have saved just under £668.

H and I have decided that we are going to do it a little different.  We only started tonight (so had 16 days to catch up on), so we went through our pockets and hunted through the house and picked a random amount for the past 16 days.  Indeed, we have already paid in the £3.65, I thought that we should save the larger amounts closer to pay day!!!!  I've run out of change now so heaven only knows what will be put in this weekend :-)

I'll add photos of the chart tomorrow as the camera need charging.

Menu Planning Monday

Week 2 already and I kinda stuck to the plans last week - Y'ah.  I did end up changing the nights around but we ate as I had planned so I feel pretty good about that.


I am trying to get less meat into our diets so would like to incorporate a fish dish (but cooking fish scares me a little) and a veggie dish each week.  If you have any easy dishes please let me know so I can up my confidence levels in these areas (TYIA).

This week I am planning;

Monday:- Lasagna and garlic bread

Tuesday:- Pita Pizzas and salad

Wednesday:- Burgers and chips and salad

Thursday:- tbd

Friday:- homemade Fishcakes and salad

Saturday:- Something vegetarian!

Sunday:- Chicken and Yorkshire Pudd and veg

Nearly a full week planned, even if the veggie option has to be discovered yet.  I do make a veggie pasta and tomato bake, but do want to increase my options.

Making me HAPPY this week

Ooh it's a toughy this week.  There have been highlights but there has also been low lights and yesterday I was completely fed up.   Can I please have some more highlights this week without the downers - talk about being tested.

My good things for this week:

1) Helping in the wool shop yesterday morning.  The reason I was helping isn't so great, but all was sorted and it feels good to be helping out someone in need.  I am also working tomorrow and I am hoping it's helping C's life a little easier.

2) Dad was 70 this week.  I think he was very happy with the bottle of something special we gave him.  Mum's birthday was yesterday (I have a zillion January birthdays).  To celebrate my brother, girlfriend, Mum, Dad, H and I went for a drink and then a meal at a fab Turkish restaurant.  There is just one large step to get in and they put a ramp down and help push H up the ramp (it's pretty steep).  There was a 70 balloon - which neither Mum nor Dad saw!!!!!, good company and fab food.  It even tried to snow whilst we were out.

With Dad

H and I

Mum & Dad

Bro and G/F - taken in the pub, a converted chapel.

3) Cake making- it didn't make me smile yesterday let me tell you, but it made my Dad smile and he started stealing the licorice allsorts straight away.

It was meant to be 2 layers of pink at the top and then 2 layers of red on the bottom but I failed big time with the red!!!  I also didn't buy enough of the vanilla topping as I thought too much would make it sickly, which I maintain it would be sickly, however, I didn't have enough to make the cake pretty........  still it tasted nice (topping excluded).

4) Finishing the blanket for my s-i-l.  So happy to be finished with this - start making one for myself tomorrow.  Whoop.  So excited.

5)  New boiler parts- who would have thought that would be a cause for celebration!!!!!  Sadly the heating does not seem to be working so well yet.  I am hoping it's just taking time to warm up but I have a feeling something is not well with it all - ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH.  Still I am thankful for the heaters Dad found and brought down (apparently Mum's idea- before she moans!!!).

Not making me happy this week?????

H was not hurt thankfully but is unsure about driving again - hopefully he'll change his mind.  He's had to miss 2 days of work (so far) whilst we sort out another car.  We'll see if he'll drive it when it gets sorted out.

Boiler Woes

Our boiler has broken down - again.  I hate our boiler, absolutely HATE it.  It's the worst thing we have ever bought- fact.

The day before the warranty ran out it caught fire!!!  It took me 6 hours on hold to get someone to fix it.  God, I cried in frustration that day :-)  I think it's broken down virtually once a year since we bought it.

Yesterday  morning it was working, yesterday afternoon it wasn't.  Blooming thing.  The worst thing is that I have never found a reliable repair man.  One guy who was sent broke it further and then said he didn't know how to fix it..........  Grrrrrrr and it has never been right since.

Thankfully Dad's neighbour has a couple of heaters in his attic, so at least we had heating last night.  Is it really wrong to be sat here in my coat?

Do you think someone has discovered the new heat source?

Menu Planning Monday

I really struggle with menu planning each week.  I tried to sit down with H every Sunday to plan for the week ahead but he is more hopeless than I am.  I also tend to make the same things over and over and over again.  So when I saw that Angel ome kind of fish dishGem angeljemscitycottage had joined in with menu planning Monday I thought I should give it a go.  I am hoping that it will inspire me and help me gain confidence in trying new recipes.

If you want to join in (if I have gotten this right) I think the original source is Menu planning Monday.  Go and check it out.

So this week we will probably be having;

Monday:- Bacon and cheesy pasta bake with salad
Tuesday:- Chicken curry  Fish and Chips (long day with boiler problems)
Wednesday:- Some kind of fish dish  Pizza and salad
Thursday:- Jacket Potato and filling
Friday:- Frozen Pizza and salad - well I can't be expected to cook every day in week 1 :-) Chicken curry
Saturday:- Birthday tea for Dad - he's 70.
Sunday:- Left Overs - whatever is left in the fridge bunged together - this may change as I gain ideas!!!

Can you tell this is a sudden decision on my part????  I will try and be more organised for next week.

What are you favourite things to cook?  Anything easy I can try?  As a child I used to be a really fussy eater- in fact I loved Christmas as the only veg I liked were brussel sprouts- how odd was I (shush Mum).

Off to find a cook book to get some better ideas, so this week's menu may change.

My favourite gift ever

Did you all enjoy Christmas?  Ours was quiet & healthy so I am more than happy. After the disasters of the previous 2 years I was not expecting much to be honest.  I am so thankful that the curse has been broken and maybe next year I will re-find my Christmas spirit which was sorely lacking in the lead up to Christmas this year.

Do you remember the present I gave H for his 40th last Jan?

Anni B the first week we got her.  She carried that towel round for weeks - now she's substituted it for a little rabbit from Ikea (we are on version 7 or 8 now, and only have 1 spare - anyone going to Ikea????).  You know when she is happy when she carries the Babbit round and huffs at you :-)

Anyway, I have been dropping hints like a crazy woman that wouldn't it be nice if I had a picture of my first dog Patch.  Then weeks before Christmas H casually asks me for the name of the lady who drew Anni (this despite me leaving her cards EVERYWHERE near where he sits.....).  So it got my hopes up.

Christmas Day arrives and all the presents are given out and there is no picture.  He says Merry Christmas, I say where is my last present.  (How spoilt do I sound???????)  He says you've got them all, I reply No, I haven't (I was thinking, please have asked me for Wendy Halls' name for a reason).

Seriously, he'd looked in his present bag and thought it was empty.  I was not impressed.  I told him to have another look and he "found" another present.  He was being serious, he'd forgotten the most important gift.  (That's a bad sign of MS, his forgets a lot of things).

Want to see it?  Meet Patch.

I cried for a good 5 minutes when I opened her.  This picture is not just a dog, it captures Patch to a T.  I keep staring at it thinking she's about to turn round to look at me.  She is so realistic and I think it's the best present I have ever had (excluding Anni B obviously!)  

Thank you WH.  You rock.

Making me HAPPY this week

Whoop, it's the first Happy post of 2015.  I would never have thought that I would still be doing them in a new year, but I do enjoy going back to reading them so here goes.  Can you believe we are on the first Sunday of the New Year?

Making me happy;

1) Staying up on NYE.  H went to bed at 6.30pm and got up 2 hours later so he'd make it.  It was pretty boring and we never even bothered with the champagne that I'd found on special (I am way too cheap to pay full price for champagne!!!!), but we did and we had fun.  In the past I have found myself awake with a dog waiting for the fireworks to stop.  I discovered this year, that Anni isn't that bothered about the fireworks as long as they weren't close by.  Patch used to stand int he yard growling back at the sky and I'd be up for hours with her.  Oh the irony.


2)  I have nearly finished A's blanket.  I just have 2 colours to go and then the border and I can give it to A.  It wasn't intended for Christmas -phew but I will take photos and post the story behind it when it is completely finished.  So glad I am nearly there though.

3) A bottle of Prosecco from J.  This went down a real treat one evening with tea.  What do you call your evening meal?  Apparently I am showing I'm a real Northerner by calling it tea :-)

4) A fab date night last night.  We haven't really spent any quality time with each other lately so we sat down with a glass of something cold and watched "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (or as I called it the Monkey film).  I really enjoyed it.  I have been told that "Guardians of the Galaxy" is worth watching, so I watched the trailer and it didn't appeal.  I'll wait til it's a free one on Amazon prime I think.


5) Anni - well she usually makes me happy - even if she has started hiding when I get the camera out.  When did she become a diva?

It's 2015

It's been a great start to the New Year today, though I didn't think that as I was whizzing round with the hoover and making lunch for the in-laws this morning :-)

It turned into a lovely lunch so that makes it all better.  I even made a stew - now for those who don't know me you will read that with a puzzled expression but I don't enjoy cooking so tend to the same things over and over and over..........  today I made stew, I think it's only the 2nd time I have ever made it and H gave it the thumbs up so I guess I'll be expected to make it again now :-)


Good news too Anni didn't Grrr at H's parents.  Now that's a first, she even took a biscuit from them and then hid in her bed.  Then when they had gone home she fancied a cuddle on the sofa - first time I've been warm in days :-)