Tag: shopping

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seasons ~ twixmas

I love this time of year so much I invented my ‘twixmas season’ – the interval between Christmas and New Year. Although not a true season of course, I can treat it as one as it is a very defined period that we don’t have at any other time of year; the Christmas festivities are over, the hard work done and the new year is a few days away – it is a good time to stop and catch my breath, a time to reflect and review and formulate plans for the year ahead.

My Advent calendar is fully opened now and very colourful, I might make another next year. Below I just thought I would show you the delightful Christmas card that Master Freddie made and the school printed them.

During these few slow days of twixmas my new notebook is being prepared – next year’s calendar pasted in, along with a note of birthdays and a list of intentions for the year – those endless tasks of home maintenance, self maintenance and any ideas that spring to mind for revamping the house.

There will be roll-overs to put down too from last year’s list….all those tasks that didn’t even get a look in – the ones where I wonder how on earth a year can pass and so many jobs still remain outstanding. After all, I really don’t remember lying in my bed all day….I am sure I was up and about ‘doing’ all day, most days – so why has so little got done?

I have known for some time what my focus word will be for next year, well actually it is two words, something that is much needed here; twelve whole months to Restore and Reset my life, in fact both our lives as DH feels exactly the same way. After the sale of the cottage last year and both daughters moving this year, we have both felt to be wandering a bit in the wilderness with no real objectives in mind.

Of course, I had to Google the differences between restore and reset and as I read through the definitions it has more than confirmed this is the right road for me.

Restore: is to put back something to how it was before or return to an earlier good condition. This is exactly what I need for my health, sleep, exercise, routines and systems that once worked well.

Reset: is to start again after a period of rest or change ( in my case definitely change) so you are better able to deal with life or a situation. If I were a computer it would be putting myself back to the factory setting!

I see reset as an opportunity to shake off all those bad habits that I have acquired recently and begin new ones that are more aligned to a better, healthier, less stressed me. I need to take stock of my life and identify the changes that have happened over time that are really not helping me, and restore anything that has worked before.

It is about recapturing the essence of any period of my life that was balanced and worked well. Since we sold the cottage last year we have not got into any routine here at home, other than shopping on a Tuesday….and now we don’t even have my friend K to pick up anymore, but Tuesday is as good a day as any for us to continue doing our shopping on.

In 2010 I came across the book ‘Everything That I’ve Ever Done That Worked’ by Lesley Garner. It is a series of short essays where she documents everything in her life that she has found to work for her, especially in times of stress and trouble. It started me thinking back then of just such habits, routines, systems, attitudes and behaviours that have worked for me in the past and those that really didn’t.

Presently, I can name a few unhelpful habits I have developed that will be detrimental to my health and well being (perhaps not immediately, but certainly in the future), and I need to get myself on a new and better path.

As I have pondered over these two words I have come to the conclusion that many of the RE words are going to be utilised within the bounds of Restore and Reset.

Rest, reconnect, recharge, reflect, review, recycle, rearrange, return, revamp, recover, reduce, reflect, relax, renew, replenish, research, resist, return and revisit.

I need to do all these, and no doubt more, to improve my life and now is a good time to start.

So I am taking the opportunity this week to recover from all the pressures that Christmas brings with it – often nice pressure, but even the accumulation of nice pressure is stressful.

Recovery for me isn’t lying down on the sofa watching endless TV, but rather having a good potter around the house putting everything slowly back into place and making plans.

Along with recovery, I went shopping today to replenish the pantry, mainly of bread, milk and fresh fruit and veg that we needed, but not before making a menu plan – that is certainly on the ‘it works for me’ list.

I used my personal Nectar discount offers that are given for using scan shop – I had 10 reduced price items, nine of them are items we normally buy and wanted, which is good…but when did I ever buy an Aero chocolate mousse? Sometimes, these computer generated offers are far off the mark.

My personal Nectar points were good too, 110 bonus points (worth 55p) on organic leeks, and 90 bonus points (worth 45p) on large organic tomatoes, organic broccoli and varying points on twenty other items. If I had used them all I would have added £4.15 to my Nectar points spend total. There was also 3 x bonus points if I spent over £120 but I certainly wasn’t spending that much. DH has his own offers of Nectar savings and points. We tend to just buy anything that is on offer each week where we can, and if it is a very good offer we will stock up with 3- 6 items depending on how often we would buy the item and how often Sainsbury’s put them on offer. I find their offers are very cyclical and come around every 3 to 4 weeks on main items like butter, tea and coffee.

Once I have done a bit more sorting at home I will be in a position to attend to any returns and the recycling.

I know of one or two bloggers who will choose a new focus word for the year and I am always eager to see what that word will be, equally I like to hear of those plans or (dare I say it) resolutions for the new year that you might have.

Do excuse me now I am off to the local pantomime, Beauty and the Beast with the family…my Christmas treat. X

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creating Christmas * day 9

The Nutroast

I like to make our Christmas dinner early as being vegetarian we don’t eat turkey. This year once again DH made our nutroast. It is a more elaborate nutroast that we have for Christmas, a recipe that my daughter found years ago from the pages of good old Woman’s Weekly.

Not only does it have to freeze well but it has to be transportable if we are dining elsewhere on Christmas day and this year we will be at my sister’s, I think, though we haven’t actually had a direct invite from her, but my daughter tells me she is expecting us. Let’s hope that is right and we are not a surprise when we turn up.

Each year I say to DH don’t cook the nutroast too long as we will have to reheat it, but I fear it might just be a touch too cooked, never mind it will still taste good and even better as he made it.

Today, we went supermarket grocery shopping. It is getting noticeably busier on each visit now and the carpark much fuller and there is a bit of a scramble to secure a place, not quite carpark rage but a lot of honking of horns and near misses.

We didn’t need to buy much of anything for the week’s menu plan, mainly all the fresh chiller foods and vegetables, so I made use of all the Nectar offers and stocked up a bit on anything reduced like the coffee and butter; these are such expensive items now.

I also had to pop into town to get a birthday card for my younger daughter for the weekend and look for a small gift to go with the money we will give her. I had a quick look in TK Max for something for her and saw a ‘possible’ that I might go back for later in the week. I had a quick look at their Christmas bits and pieces as they get some quite unusual things.

DH likes having a mooch around there too. He doesn’t generally like shopping but insists on going. I wanted to get some nougat for him for his stocking but today he stuck to me like glue and I could not shake him off long enough to go and buy some without him noticing.

It isn’t often he sees something he likes, but he showed me a set of four rather lovely little ridged flutes in quite a solid glass – quite inexpensive and they would be ideal for a kind of knickerbocker glory style dessert. I wasn’t going to say no to them as I like them too and I am already thinking of what I might serve in them.

I found some rather fun decorations for the tree too, brightly coloured iced biscuits (or are they cookies I am not sure of the difference). Not that we really need any more decor. I might split them between myself and my daughters.

I do like tissue paper to wrap presents in and TK Max and Homesense have had some lovely printed ones and this stocking design is great for the grandchildren’s presents.

And the calendar is so much fun – I will definitely be making one next year and might even see if they will appeal on the coffee morning craft stall.

Tomorrow is our visit to Mrs Gaskell’s house…can’t wait.

Back soon X

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dear diary ~ November…really….so soon?

I was just enjoying October too.

In October I felt like I had ample time to prepare for the upcoming event, which I think is OK to mention by name now and unlikely to offend.

I have one month to get a grip…. get organised, get baking, making, crafting…..go shopping and go shopping again for the items I dithered over, forgot or just couldn’t find.

I plan (in my mind at least) to get everything done in November so we have a calm, ordered December. I already know it won’t be – I don’t even know what we are doing or where we will be going this Christmas. Most of our family plans have to revolve around mum. In the years since her mobility is almost zero she has Christmas at my sister’s house (as she lives the closest to her) and most years the wider family of about eleven join her, but this makes it a big catering problem for her if we all descend.

With many of the family moving house or still to move or still to sort boxes from moving I am not sure what the Christmas arrangements might be. So until we know more I will turn my attentions to the things I want to make.

I have made a start. I bought a few crafting bits and pieces from Boyes at the weekend that I will might (possibly) turn into something for the Crisis charity craft stall in 3 weeks time. I picked up this printed card for free out of their cardboard packaging recycle bin. It seemed too good to throw out, though the shelf stacker did think me odd asking if I could take it! I am sure it will be useful for something.

Now Halloween is out of the way I can really concentrate on all the ideas I have had for making cards and gifts for Christmas, though the extent of my ideas will be more than I have time to make them.

Trick or Treat night went down well – I made some little treat bags to hand out to the early birds and thankfully we had just handed out the last of them before we had to rush off to see the murder mystery play I had booked for at a local village hall – A Prescription for Murder. The play was excellent and we were kept guessing all the way through to the end. Of course we knew there would be a twist but you never quite know what.

The pumpkins and lanterns are all put away now for next year and everywhere the poppies are appearing. We were in Yarm on Saturday seeing my mum and the local knitters have excelled with lamposts and bollards covered in wonderful red poppies.

It was a beautiful dry autumn day and the sun shone (an added bonus) and always helpful when we have to push mum in the wheelchair to the park. She had her usual sandwich, chocolate muffin and cappuccino…her appetite is good for her age, she can eat more than I do. On each visit we try and solve a problem for her, the bedside lamp needed replacing recently, then the control for the electric blanket and this time it was the ‘glow’ bulbs in the electric fire that had gone. She was adamant that the fire was not on because there was no glow and I could not persuade her otherwise. Thankfully, we were able to get replacement bulbs in Yarm and fitted them for her before we left. I wonder what will need sorting next time!

This all may be a bit of a waffle tonight, it has been a full on few days with a few late nights, (tonight being one of them) when I almost turn into a pumpkin myself.

Back soon, have a good week and thank you for all your comments on the previous posts- I love to have a little chat with you. x

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dear diary ~ down the bunny hole….

The weather is a little dismal here, but my spirits are high. Just managing to clear two of the three tasks I had set myself last week felt good. The sewing task is a bit of a fail as it is still waiting.

I decided not to keep adding a task to the list as one was crossed off as I know the most difficult one would just remain on the list of 3 for a good while. Instead, I will only make a fresh list of 3 tasks when all 3 are completed.

I did spend the weekend doing other jobs though – in fact I got caught down a rabbit hole – you probably know how it goes….I began before breakfast (though I breakfast late often as late as 11am as I attempt to train myself to time restricted eating) by mounting a few of the grandchildren’s lovely pictures they do at my house and then arranging some other pictures on the landing picture shelves DH has put up for me.

All good so far.

But then after breakfast I began clearing up in the kitchen and….. noticed the bin needed emptying and on the way to the back door through the laundry room….. I noticed I had a few bits and pieces to put away and that the washing had finished. So I emptied the bin and then hung out the washing and put in another load and then…. noticed the soap powder container needed refilling. Whilst doing that I also refilled the conditioner. Whilst refilling the conditioner….. I noticed that I still hadn’t got round to labelling the new container and one or two others in the cupboard (more for the benefit of DH rather than me). So I got out my labelling machine and duly labelled all the containers that needed doing including some new ones I bought when rearranging the cupboards in the garage a while ago.

Whilst in the garage labelling these new storage containers…. I noticed the pumpkins I bought over a week ago from Morrisons (a bargain at £1 each) and thought it time to put them outside by the front door…but I wanted to brush down the outside open porch area and wipe down the front door. DH gave me a hand and whilst outside….. I noticed some of the cosmos in the front garden which are still going strong and flowering away needed dead heading……

….And so my day went on!

But I enjoyed it – a kind of unscheduled pottering.

I am now out of the bunny hole and happy that many of these little tasks got done – unfortunately, once again the sewing one didn’t.

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Talking of bunnies, I loved this little surprise that the postman brought on Saturday morning. It is my vitamin order from Viridian. I have never ordered from them before as I prefer to shop in my local healthfood shop, but they were out of stock and Viridian and Solgar are my favourite brands. How lovely that they carefully package each one in this delightful printed tissue paper with flowers and frolicking rabbits and little sticky labels with messages.

I am also loving my new book Pots for all Seasons that I bought awhile ago on offer. I bought a few more bulbs on Saturday – hopefully I can get the bulbs either into a pot or one of the borders when it is dry again.

Yesterday it was back to my elder daughter’s house doing a little ‘more cleaning and clearing, I came away with 4 bags of washing that she has not had time to get to – odd things like a spare mattress cover and some throws…though the rain has set in here so some of it will have to wait until I can get it on the line outside for a good blow.

Today is shopping day and my dear friend K will be coming with us. I need to stock up with chicken, ham and fish fingers for the school holidays as the four grandchildren with be staying or coming to play for the day in a range of combinations. I don’t impose our vegetarian diet on them although Sweetie loves my nutroast.

I have also to check out a little denim style dress in Sainsbury’s for Sweetie’s upcoming birthday, and find a suitable little present that is small and flat enough to post to my 4 year old great neice with her card and then look to see if one or two grocery items are on offer this week – the ones that I never pay full price for if I can help it!

For the rest of the week DH has a visit to the dentist on Wednesday for his extraction…ouch! On Thursday we go to Leeds hopefully for a few bloodtests and then to pick up the girls at teatime at the motorway services as they have one of those school training days on the Friday (renamed inset days) and mum has to work.

So if there is a gap in my blogging you know I won’t be down a bunny hole this time but knee deep in tissue paper, glue and glitter with the children making lanterns for the lantern walk on Saturday night or baking Halloween buns and painting plaster models.

Thanks for all your lovely comments and welcome to my new subscribers.

Enjoy your week, back soon X