DVLA, Menu Catch Up and a Nice Walk

Hello friends

I've notices a couple of new followers, welcome.

I did my weekly grocery shop this morning and whilst I was loading the car I noticed a van driving slowly around the car park. A bit sus I thought. But then I saw the sign on the side, DVLA, I suppose they were looking for cars without a current tax disc or MOT.  I didn't know they did that that sort of thing. My car is book for its MOT this Friday (I do hope it passes)

Last week I did my first menu plan and found it quite useful and remembered to get items out of the freezer in the morning so that it could defrost in time for tea/dinner. I have just done another menu plan for the next 12 days but I won't bore you with the details.

Sunday we went for a walk here after seeing Mum's pictures here. Some of our pictures:

 

 

 



I'm afraid I can't take any credit for these photos. M took the first two and L took the last two. I wonder who those shadows belong to? It was a nice day but a bit hazy for picture taking.

 

Right I'm off to do some more boring chores - ironing.

 

Thanks for dropping by. Have a nice day and week.

 

Carolx

 



 

 

Menu Planning

Hello friends

How is everyone? Grab yourself a brew and sit yourself down.

I've just gone through my freezer to see whats in it. I read a few blogs that do menu planning for a week so I thought I would have a go from today and this is what I've come up with.

Thurs  Evening Meal  L - Peanut Butter Sandwiches with carrot and cucumber sticks/slices
                                     M/me - Bacon and potato layered with peas and carrots

Fri - EM -  H/M chicken burgers in a bun with side salad and oven chips.

Sat - Lunch  M - H/M pea and ham soup + sandwich
                     Me - H/M chicken and veg soup
                     L - Peanut butter sandwich and something else
        EM       Some kind of chicken and salad wraps

Sun - Lunch  M/C chicken and veg soup + M has a sandwich
                       L - Peanut butter sandwich and something else.
        E/M        Lamb meat balls in a lamb and mint gravy with mini dry roast potatoes,
                       carrot and swede mash and broccoli

Mon - E/M    L/M mini chicken keives with oven chips and L salad and M peas
                       Me H/M chicken burger with oven chips peas and salad
 
 L Needs an early tea tonight as she's off on a school trip to the Lancaster Grand Theatre to support the schools drama group. The school entered a competition called "Northern  Beat" and the theme is about Exploitation and Vunerability. They are one of six finalists in tonight's show. Hope they do well.

The menu looks quite a mish mash. L is quite a fussy eater and often complains about what is on her plate.  M likes beef, I don't but I will cook it for him and freeze the remainder. I've recently discovered that I'm lactose intolerant so have to watch what I eat and check lables. (It's quite a learning curve).
I make sure that if I have the oven on all the dinner will be cooked in there so that I'm not messing with lots of pans and trays and then all the washing up after. Looks like most of this weeks dinner are from the oven except the potato and bacon layer, that will be done in the microwave and finished off under the grill.

I've got to get ready for meeting mum at the library for our craft club so must dash.

See you soon and thank you for dropping by.

Carolx




            

Mothers Day

Hello Friends

 

Happy Mothers Day

to

Mums

Everywhere

 

Carolx

Crafty Fun

Hello Friends

Hope everyone is well.

This week has just flown by. Anyway grab yourself a brew and I will share with you some of the crafty fun things I've been doing.

Over the weekend I spent some quality time with L and we made these. L sorted all the sequins into colours in cake cases. We got the polystyrene eggs from some £ shop.

L's Egg

My Egg

We already had the sequins and the pins and the ribbon came from some of my vest T-shirts. Every year we have an Easter Tree so these will hang on it. We had a lovely long chats about all sorts of things and we had sore thumbs and index finger when we had finished. It was fun though. M was watching the TV and playing on his Ipad thingy.

I finished this blanket off for my SIL who is due to have a baby in April. She gave me the white and yellow and I added the pink (yes, she is having a girl). I did it in single trebles all the way round instead of making a big granny square. I finished it off with a shell edge.

 

On my needles at the moment are these triangles. I'm using up my bits and making some bunting. Some time later in the year, at the craft club I go to, we are going to celebrate World Knitting day with some graffiti yarn bombing around the local library. So that what the bunting is for. Also we are planning a party (at home) in the summer so I thought I would decorate the garden with some bunting and other things not yet decided on. I still have some very small amounts of yarn left so I'm making some crochet roses and flowers. Can't show you them yet as they need stitching up. I did complete one and stitched a safety pin on the back and gave it to my mum.

 

I need to get back to work now. I half emptied the box room and sorted out lots of things for the bin/charity/sale etc. I now have to put things back all nice and tidy. No pictures, no way still the other half to tackle. Possibly next week.

 

Thanks for dropping by and I'll see you after the week end. Have a great Mothers Day. L is doing a reading in church, on Sunday, with the Guides.

 

Carolx

 



 

 

February's Decluttering and No Spends

Hello Friends

How are you doing? 

We have just come back from Fleetwood. We went to the market to get some material for L's Prince Charming outfit. It took a while to find the right materials and I'm now £65 lighter. Now we need to see a dress maker to see about getting it made up. I could do the dress but so of that material is being used in the jacket and I'm not confident about making the jacket so best get them done together I think. Then we had a short walk along the sea font and guess what?          I forgot my camera and it's such a nice day too. I really must keep it in my handbag.

Well back to the subject in hand. I didn't do to well with the decluttering during Frebruary as you can see below. but my dad and I have now got a better routine now for looking after mum so March could be a better month. I had 16 days of no spend which is only 2 days better than January. I think I can still do better.

	Jan	Feb
For Sale	2	0
To The Bin/Recycling	45	19
For Charity	50	4
For Car Booting	17	0
Total	114	23

 March should be an interesting month with sorting the garden and planting veggie seeds and some flower seeds. The seeds will have to be started off in a cold frame so that is why they are later than most peoples.

Something else I'm going to do this month is sort out the types of meals/soups/lunches we like to eat. I don't menu plan because most of the meat I buy has a yellow label on it so I don't know what I'm getting until I get to the meat isle at the supermarket. (That's a thought, maybe I could menu plan after shopping. Might give that a try.)

It's my mum's birthday tomorrow, she will be 75. We have got her a lavender plant for the garden. She loves the scent of lavender.

Unfortunately I can't hang around gassing today. However it was nice of you to drop by and I hope to see you again soon.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Carolx

Homemade Laundry Soap

Hello friends.

Hope you had a good weekend. We had a quite weekend and didn't do a lot.

Welcome to new follower Jacqui from Tipeetoes. Why not pop along and have a look at her blog?

A little while ago I made some laundry soap. I won't bother you with a recipe as you can find lots on the Internet.

When I made the soap I followed the recipe but I only add half the water because I wanted make it into a concentrated soap. BIG, BIG mistake because when I came to use it, it had set solid. That really was not a good idea.
I had to use a sharp knife  and cut the bottoms of each bottle and emptied the contents in to a my large pan and melt the soap again. luckily I had more empty bottles.
After the soap had melted I half filled the new bottles with water (my pan in not that big and I didn't have a large bucket)I then topped them up with the warm soap, put the top on and shook the bottles to mix up the contents.

I have used the soap quite a few times now and feel that it doesn't matches up to the top of the range laundry liquids but they are way too expensive. However I do think it's equal to the shops own brand. Our clothes don't get very dirty so I think for the time being I will continue with the homemade soap. Occasionally Items of clothing do get stains on them so I use washing up liquid on it. A trick I learnt when I once worked in a dry cleaners. Works a treat.

My washer is housed outside in the outhouse along with the stock of soap and fabric conditioners which means during this cold spell the soap is setting so I'm keeping the open bottle indoors.

I haven't made fabric conditioner because I really like the shops own brand I use.

Has anyone else made their own laundry soap? How did you find it?

I enjoy your company/comments and hope to see you again later in the week.

Carolx

 

Half Term

Hello friends

By ek it's cold! Just come in from hanging out the washing. Don't suppose it will dry much. Oh it's just started snowing, defiantly won't dry now. Guess I'll bring it back in. Why not help yourself to a brew and I'll be back shortly. Mines black no sugar. Thanks

I'm back.

Its been a busy half term this week. On Tuesday I had an appointment at Wigan hospital. It was the follow up from having the polyp removed from my tongue. The department I was referred to was for facial cancer. I had no fears that the polyp that was removed was cancerous but it was still tested. It was clear and I've now been discharged. M drove us there and L came with us and after the appointment L suggest that as it was such a nice day why don't we go for a walk in this park she had seen near to the hospital.
We had to find the main entrance as the one near the hospital was the back and not good for parking. The park was Haig Hall Country Park and Golf Course. Sorry didn't take the camera. It was a lovely walk and will be much nicer in the summer when the walled garden will be planted up with the summer flowers, the paths through the woodland might be drier and the mini train might be running. There are lots of places for picnics and there's also a cafe and toilets. We are thinking of going back in the summer after visiting Wigan Pier.

Wednesday was L's show day and we had to leave home at 3.30pm to get to Middleton Arena for 5pm. We took sandwiches and drinks with us for our tea and munchies for on the way home as L is always hungry afterwards. The dance show was brilliant and the costumes were stunning. All the dancers were presented with a trophy and then special achievement awards were given out.

I won a raffle prize of some bronzing powder and lip gloss (I don't use it so will donate it to different raffle later in the year) I donated two items for the raffle as part of my decluttering, one was a photo frame and another was a picture I'd made.

It doesn't look it but the frame was silver coloured.

I took this photo before I'd finished so that I could see the layout after I'd done the embroidery of the leaves and flowers in different stitches. I then stitched on the lace and buttons. The material was from an old skirt.

 

Thursday is craft and chat morning, where I take my mum, at the local library and L came along too. One of the other ladies was teaching L to work with parchment and gave her some bits so that she could finish off her picture and lent her some books. On the way home we called in at a craft shop that is closing down and bought two tools so that she can have another go. One for rubbing the parchment so that it has a raised effect in whatever pattern you choose and the another is for piercing holes. These you can get as a one spike, two or more spikes. We got the one spike thingy.

 

Friday L and I went shopping for new school shoes and to look at some boots suitable for a prince charming. We also got some coloured plastic bin liners for decorating the gala float. We'd had a meeting earlier in the week and a theme was decided on so now it is a matter of collecting and preparing everything before we can get started. 

 

Looks like it's snowing a bit heavier now. It's not sticking though. No snowmen for us.

 

Hope you all have a good week end and thanks for dropping by. See you soon.

 

Carolx