Can't Cook, Won't Cook

We got off to a slow start today, except for No.1 Son who was up at 7am to have breakfast and get ready and off to school, myself, DH and No.2. Son all had a lie-in until 10am, (very lazy), to make up for our 5am start yesterday.

Having parcelled up all my eBay sales, I plucked up courage to walk into the village to the Post Office, where I am more than a little afraid of the Sub-Postmistress. She always tells me off for doing something wrong with my parcels. Is it a bit churlish to say here, that I have never picked her up on her mistakes, such as not writing the Postcode on the Proof of Delivery, or once when she printed the same label twice on the same square and then wondered why she was one label short, etc, etc.?

 

Following Fostermummy's example I also popped into the charity shop and bought two 'things' of wool, one cost 20p and the other 40p, to add to my new "stash". Not bad, methinks!

  As always today is Day One of the diet, (I really do have to get this one off the ground), so I had a 43 calorie soup for lunch, followed by a 98 calorie Muller Light yoghurt.

 This afternoon's activity was a trip to a local Forrestry Commission site where there are several bike trails but also this great Skills track which kept little Son quite happy for a couple of hours while Mommy sat watching from the car, crocheting more squares, (left arm is much better today!).

 

 The car-park cost £2 for 2 hours, which I didn't mind so much as I know it goes towards improving the facilities themselves, but I also ended up buying No. 2 Son a bottle of Ribena for £1.40!!! and myself a coffee for £1.95!! from the very nice Cafe. Frugal ladies, I clearly need to learn to anticipate these events and plan better to take our own stuff in future. This is the problem with not having had to ever think about it before and now having to think of every penny. Could do better!!

This evening I did spend an hour browsing through the Approved Foods website, as recommended by several people, but I am ashamed to say I didn't see anything on there that was remotely similar as a substitute to what's on our 'normal' shopping list. In fact, a lot of the things on there I wouldn't know what to do with. I think more work is needed to a) change our normal eating habits b) learn to cook from scratch so I know how I can use ingredients.

However the good news was I got my Tesco shop down to £65.92 tonight. I think that has to be my cheapest shop ever, a record!! However, I am now slightly worried that I have forgotten a load of things and am just going to end up popping in and out of the local shop all week, for extra bits that cost even more in there. I really have to watch this one.

 Just as amazingly, as that good news, I actually cooked today. It's absolutely unheard of, but I am trying to be inspired by people such as the wonderful Frugal Queen. I started off with something small, a recipe out of my Mary Berry Ultimate Cake Book. Ha, ha, yes I do own cookbooks, but they have moths in - tasty!

Mini Chocolate Buns

Measure 1.5oz soft margarine, 1 egg, 1.5oz self-raising flour, o.5oz cocoa, sifted, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1.5oz caster sugar together in a bowl and beat well until thoroughly blended. Easy, peasy! Bake for 10-15 minutes at 180deg.

The book said this would make 32 cakes using petit fours cases. I didn't have that size so I tried to put more mixture into less cases. However, the results were somewhat dubious, as you can see:-

Either they didn't rise properly or it was still too little mixture in each case as the cases aren't even half full. The other problem was the 2oz icing sugar and 1/5 tsp of water did not make enough to cover all the cakes, so there was one lonely chap left out. Still better luck next time.

I am extremely good at being hard on myself, that is made much worse by my current condition, so I am going to work hard this evening to congratulate myself on what I have achieved today.

Summary

The Bad News

I spent money on drinks out I shouldn't have - £3.35 overspend.

Cakes not a great success - I'd like to blame Mary Berry, but I think she's been doing this a lot longer than me.

The Good News

I sent off all my eBay parcels promptly.

I made good use of No.2 Son's last day of the holidays to do an activity he really enjoyed.

I reduced my calorie intake for today substantially. Day One of the diet starts again tomorrow.

I reduced my weekly shopping spend significantly.

I actually COOKED - me, cooking! It's a start, hey!

How was your day? Tell me, what did you start doing today?

Lots of love Arwedd xxx

 

 

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow ...

Welcome to my two new Followers. I'm delighted you've joined and hope you enjoy your visits.

Apologies for no post yesterday, our afternoon activity, led into an evening meal out and when we got back home at 9pm, the rest of the evening was spent preparing and packing the car for this morning's activity.

Yesterday

Some bright spark, I think it was DH, suggested that as my friend who was staying over always brings his walking boots when he comes to Devon, we should at least make good use of them. So I donned my boots too,

and we headed off for this lovely reservoir on Dartmoor for an afternoon walk in the sun.

Indeed it was nice and sunny when we arrived there, so we headed off down the trail, all looking the part, especially DH, who was wearing his new Gaiters. A Christmas present to replace the ones he had been wearing for the last 20 years, which were literally falling apart.

However, we were only five minutes down the track, no longer in sight of the carpark, when we heard the sound of thunder and we were immediately bombarded by thousands of hailstones. They do actually hurt!!

DH & No 1 Son sheltering under a tree

  Both sons, however, were keen to proceed so we were only allowed to shelter for a couple of minutes, before continuing through the hail. Half way around the trail a very helpful sign declared the path was out of commission and we were led on a diversion path through the forest. This turned our 4 mile walk into an 8 mile walk, through torrential rain and hail. Lovely!! To say we were soaked through when we arrived back at the car was an understatement. Sometimes, Lord, I'd prefer your Creation not to be so cold and wet - sorry! Having said that we were out in the fresh air and we had a laugh!

When we eventually dried out we turned up at another lovely pub, where our friend treated us to an evening meal as Thank You for letting him stay. How very kind of him.

Today

Having arrived home quite late we packed up the car with lots of stuff to take to a Car Boot Sale this morning.

The date for the car boot has been on my white board for a couple of months now, so we plucked up the courage and went for it. DH and I are both quite shy people and we are terrible sales people, so we were dreading it. The sons were none too happy at being woken at 5am, but we did make it to our pitch for 6am. The results? - we sold about a dozen items and made £32.00. DH declared it was not worth the effort as we had to pack most of our goodies back into the car and he would rather have had the lie-in!! Indeed, I'm not sure if £36.00 is good or bad for this kind of event?

However, recalling my earlier post here, our eBay items ended today and we have sold 10 of the 22 items for £92.52. This will go into our savings as we are extremely conscious our expenditure still exceeds our income at present and my notice pay will not go far.

Now the big debate has started, should we bother trying again with a different car boot sale next Sunday, in a different location??

Also in relation to that earlier post, for anyone who is interested the maiden voyage of the Hovercraft can be seen here.

Juat as an aside for today, I have got excruciating pain this evening in my left wrist and elbow. I am wondering if this is too much time spent with my left hand in the "crochet" pose.

Still I have made 21 granny squares towards a blanket project for a friend's birthday. I am quite pleased with 21 squares since last Wednesday, but am hoping progress will not be halted by using muscles I clearly don't normally use.

Tomorrow

No. 1 Son is Back to School tomorrow and is absolutely thrilled that No. 2 son has an extra day off, NOT. I guess the Primary school teachers need more rest!! Have been trying to think of something nice and cheap to do with No. 2 son, rather than "spend all [his] birthday money", which was his only request so far.

Will let you know what we come up with.

Oh, I nearly forgot........... I have checked the last two days and concluded I put my left sock on first. Didn't want to leave you hanging there with that one.

Off to iron school shirts.

 

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

Ebay, Crochet & Fly Away

eBay

Today I have managed to list 22 items on eBay. It took me from 11:30 this morning until 17:30 this evening. Admittedly I did stop for a bit of lunch in the middle.

Instead of feeling a sense of achievement, after all there are potentially 22 items which might sell for some money, all I feel is frustrated with myself that I have so little to show for my day. It leaves me sat here wondering whether it is my Black Dog that has me feeling that way or is it just a woman thing? Are we overly hard on ourselves with unrealistic expectations?

Either way, I am not convinced that the meagre amounts people will be prepared to pay for my items, are worth the effort which has gone into taking the photographs, uploading them to some software to crop and resize them to fit eBay's strict requirements, writing up the glowing descriptions, putting the item numbers on each bag of clothes so I don't get mixed up when I come to send them out etc, etc? I only list things when it is a free insertion fee weekend, but that means I need to maximise my listings and I was really hoping not to have to do any tomorrow, as it is a very special day in more ways than one. I guess I just need to be quicker at it and maybe less fussy over my entries. Am I the only one who struggles with this?

Crochet

I have been trying to teach myself Crochet over the last few weeks, but I'm afraid every book or set of instructions which are meant for adult beginners was still double dutch to me until I found this book :-

It may seem a bit basic to all the wonderful crafters out in blogland who understand where to put the hook and which bit you are meant to wrap around, but this book has been brilliant in teaching me the very first basic steps. Sadly now I am struggling again, as I have completed my brilliant book and there seems to be a chasm between that and the 'so-called' basic or beginner patterns I can find on the Interweb-thingy. So now I cannot get from this:-

to this:-


Round 1          Ch 6, join w/sl st to form ring
Round 2          Ch 3, 2 dc, ch 2, (3 dc, ch2) 3 times, sl st to foundation loop
Round 3          work 3 st, ch 3, 2 dc in space, ch 2, 3 dc in space, ch 2, (3dc in next space, ch 2, 3 dc in space, ch 2) 3 times, sl st........ etc, etc.....


No, no, hang on a minute, what?..... to where?............ I'm back to double dutch again.....


Thankfully I know a Fostermummy who can, and I can't wait. But for now, my crochet achievement so far:-

Hmm! What do you think people?

Fly Away

And what I hear you ask...... (actually I didn't hear anyone ask)..... was DH doing today while I was busy eBaying all our worldly possessions. One of the first things I learnt about Darling Hubby after I met him was that he had been building a Hovercraft for the previous five years, from scratch, I might add. We have now been happily married for 16 years and the still unfinished Hovercraft has travelled around the country as we have moved from house to house. It moves from one garage to another and occasionally gets tinkered with but never really gets very far.


Well since DH's "incident" it has moved up the list of things that we really must do before he 'dies' again and today for the very first time, guess what?.............


It 'flew'..... yes it really did 'fly'............. here it is flying................

I promise you it really flew, all of a foot forwards and backwards. Now all we need is a very nice farmer, to lend us a nice big field (preferably without any animals in it, as it's very loud) and all of the boys can go for a proper fly around with their helmets on. Then DH can tick that off his list and we can give it away to a Scout Group, or something, and I can for once in my married life have a normal garage like anyone else, without a great big Hovercraft in the way!!!!


After the flying, to celebrate, we had Spaghetti Bolognaise, the way my boys like it, without any tomatoes, onions, vegetables, sauce etc. Basically to you and me that's just fried mince meat and pasta:-

Tell me, does your family have any odd food habits? and now I just need to get my 7 year old to bed so I can wrap all his Birthday presents ready for the morning. As I am such a rubbish Mommy, I haven't got a cake or booked him a party with his friends so I am currently in the Doghouse, so I'd better not forget to make him a card aswell. Otherwise I might be well and truly disowned!!!


Lots of Love, Arwedd xxx