Food and Budget Update: 27/02 to 04/03/2016

Posted on March 9, 2016 by nicdempsey

Hello, this update is late because I spent Sunday night being ill (yes again!), Ma had something too so it’s not just me but it is annoying. Anyway, this is last week’s recap..

SHOPPING 

Here are the shopping lists…

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They didn’t have any pesto in Lidl and I forgot to pick it up in Sainburys. I did have some basil and oil cubes in the freezer so used those instead, which is what I should have done in the first place. I opted for peaches instead of apricots and forgot to pick up the Sainsburys receipt here’s the Lidl one

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Total spent was £13.25 and here’s what that bought OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

As ever it seems like a lot and at the same time not very much!

I also bought a whole bunch of stuff for the Mother’s Day lunch on Saturday. That kind of entertaining doesn’t come out of my weekly £15, instead I have a £30 budget and I bought double the amount of pork shoulder I needed because I’m an idiot but I’ll talk about that a bit more in next week’s recap!

COOKING AND EATING

I grazed over the weekend. I have noticed that I don’t talk about what I eat at the weekend and that’s because unless people are coming for dinner, don’t really sit down and have set food but generally I have toast for breakfast and leftovers for lunch/dinner or I forget to eat. I also had a lazy weekend and my food prep was not as organised as usual, I also had two days working from home this week so was a bit more relaxed about it. I made yoghurt/granola pots for breakfasts and winged it a bit for lunches. I used the leftover quinoa egg muffins and ate them with salad on Monday, had toast on Tuesday and was out for lunch on Wednesday. On Thursday, I took a salad into work and was out on Friday.

Monday night dinner was baked eggs

 Tuesday night was pork ragu with rice and roasted broccoli and I forgot to take a photo of it (I was hungry and it’s not photogenic although it tastes amazing)

Wednesday, I was still so full from lunch, I had a salad.

Thursday was fend for yourself which basically means no plan and yet again no photo

Friday should have been FNP but I ended up at Jo’s later than I expected and stayed for dinner, which was lamb tangine and cous cous followed by rhubarb tart. I’m not sure that I would have been able to think straight enough to prepare a meal for 16 people that just needed to be heated up after a funeral and funeral tea but Jo and Deborah did!

LESSONS LEARNED

Weekend food prep is really important otherwise I wing it and the results are not always good and I need downtime. I knew that anyway but this week, I was busy and it showed!

 

 

 

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Life Happened: Families

Posted on March 7, 2016 by nicdempsey

So lets talk about last week. On Monday, I popped around to K and A’s on the way home to bring Adam emergency apple and blackcurrant squash. A was out with a stomach bug and K was coping with the boisterous Baxter babies. I chatted to K and read stories to the babies until bedtime.

Tuesday was a WFH day and it was lovely to have a lie in and still be at my ‘desk’ by 8.15am! The VPN was less co-operative though, everything takes a bit longer than it should.IMG_3865 Tuesday was also the day I managed to get splashed while cooking, resulting in a blister ON MY FACE. It didn’t show all that much, but I wasn’t happy about it.

Wednesday and Thursday were standard work week days, with no drama, as a team we’ve been slightly all over the place, with people in and out of the office on odd days, I think Wednesday was the first day that the whole team has been in the office all at the same time! Oh on Wed we went for lunch at Sardo Cucina, where I had an amazing pizza and therefore did not have to eat for the rest of the day, it was very good!

On Friday, I worked from home again in the morning, which meant a big pot of coffee and on Friday afternoon I was in Putney. Originally the plan had been to go to the memorial ceremony for Jo’s dad. When my dad died, I remember feeling very alone and I also remember that none of my friends were there, because of that my general rule for these things is to show up if I can because sometimes you just need to know that you’re friends are about even if they can do nothing to help and you’re going to be too busy to talk to them. As it was, Ms T was struggling with it all so I stayed at the house with her.IMG_3873We chatted and put out teacups and then when everyone got back, I made tea and coffee and washed up. It was a compulsion and I didn’t get home until after 10pm, I stayed for dinner and got a lift home. When people you care for are grieving it’s really difficult to know what to do for the best but that was something I could do so I did it!

On Saturday the family came for lunch to celebrate Mother’s Day. It was lovely, Oli and Joe are delightful, Oli and I spent some time reading a book and I chucked him on the bed lots, which he finds delightful…he’s a boy. Joe has just got to that stage where he wants to be in everything so that’s always fun!IMG_3886One of the things he was very interested in was his Daddy’s pudding….IMG_3901Sunday was Mother’s Day, Ma had stayed on Saturday night, so I made breakfastIMG_3895We were going to go to the cinema but Ma didn’t fancy it so I after she went home, I had a quiet afternoon and then an early night.

I’ve ended this weekend thinking about families and love and connection. On Sunday my social media filled up with people lamenting not having their mothers with them, a bunch of others being smug about being mothers, sometimes both in the same post and the other set thanking their mothers for being their best friends. (My mother and I are close so I even if I had been so inclined that would not have happened because, Ma would not have appreciated it.) I’m going to link to the thoughts I posted last year.

Mostly, they still hold. Families are the people you love and support who love and support you and if you’re very lucky, they’re also the people that you’re related to. It’s so easy, especially on days like Mother’s Day, to focus on what other people have and you feel is lacking and I get that. I’m not a mother and yes that often stings, but I focus on what I do have, a mother, Oli and Joe and various other assorted children who I can spoil and who don’t wake me in the middle of the night. I also concentrate on what I can do, I can see those children, support the parents I do know, basically I get the time and space to be part of the village it takes to raise a child. No, it doesn’t entirely dull all the pain of not having the life I imagined, which did include children of my own but it’s not nothing.

I’m not advocating for being cheerful all the time or in the face of disaster. Sometimes life is truly, deeply rubbish but failing to appreciate what is good in our lives is a poison to that life. All that to say, I ended this week deeply appreciative of the families in my life, the one I was born into and all the others that I am part of to a lesser or greater extent. Mother’s Day isn’t hard for me because I am part of those families. I am so lucky.

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Little Goals – March 2016

Posted on March 5, 2016 by nicdempsey

How are we into March already? This month is Mother’s Day and Easter which is quite enough excitement and includes Easter Bank Holidays…yay!

HOME

 

Spring cleaning. It’s time to do the boring stuff, deep clean in the kitchen, windows in the living room, that sort of stuff.

BODY AND MIND

Limited drinking. I did pretty well with this last month and I want to carry on being mindful about it.

Yoga 4 times this month. I totally sucked at this in February, but I need to start testing my foot a bit more.

Stretching: This is slightly different from the yoga, I have stretching that I should be doing for my knees and I just need to remember to do it every day.

Exercise. I need to start walking a bit more so I’m going to get off the bus a stop earlier on the way to work and on the way home, just to get that daily limit up…DSCF4423

LENT

We are still in Lent and more of the same, I may not make it to Grace in March ’cause of the structure of it but so far I’m pretty happy with how Lent is going so I need to carry on with it…

 

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Friday Links

Posted on March 4, 2016 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! Some reading for your weekend

Middle-age is mostly about being anxious. I disagree, I’m less anxious in my 40’s, my 20’s and 30’s were anxiety ridden and in fact although I think that I’m less secure financially nowadays, I’m more certain and now. Because really, there’s no point worrying about whether I have it right or not, or what everyone else is doing. This is who I am and I’m where I am and honestly I don’t have enough fucks to give about what other people think or what the future is gonna look like. I’m doing what I can and after that point you just have to get on with it….

Lauren Lavern on daughter-hood. Funny, Ma and I were talking about expectations the other day. Ma always expected me to be able to cope and get on with stuff in a way that she didn’t expect Ben to not because I was the eldest but because I was the girl. I just get on with it and Ben gets on with it too he just makes more of a song and dance about it. That pans out in interesting ways, I have as much use for stuff I don’t want to do as Ben does, at school I seemed very compliant but wasn’t and Ben was kicking off. Ben cooked dinner on Boxing Day and it was lovely but you would have thought he was on the first manned flight to Mars, I cook for all of us a couple of times a year and don’t make nearly as much fuss about it! I think I’m conditioned to just do domestic chores and Ben needs to be recognised for anything he does (and to be fair he does quite a bit). Overall though, I think that I’m a ‘good’ daughter and Ben is a ‘good’ son.

El Salvador is asking women to not get pregnant for two years.  In a country where abortion is illegal under any circumstances and contraception hard to come by and frowned upon by the Church. Not a recipe for disaster at all….

Trump is not Obama’s fault.

Trump validates the maxim that in presidential primaries, the opposition party tends to choose a candidate who differs temperamentally from the incumbent. Obama is an adult. Therefore, Republicans are nominating a child.

A different take on the popularity of Trump. The rise of authoritarians. This is a long read but make the time for this one….

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Pink Grapefruit Marmalade

Posted on March 3, 2016 by nicdempsey

I’m on a huge marmalade kick at the moment. After my triumphant orange marmalade I decided to have a go at Nigel Slater’s Pink Grapefruit version.I’ve made it twice now and while it doesn’t have the same heft as the seville orange version it is well worth a try as it’s fairly simple and pink grapefruits are easier to find than seville oranges.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s making weekend breakfasts much more fun

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What I’ve Read – February 2016

Posted on March 2, 2016 by nicdempsey

We are two months into the year and you can see what kind of month I had by my choice of reading material.

Shards of Hope – Nalini Singh (library book)

I went to the library to pick up a reserved book and found this on ‘the books just in’ shelves, which I can never resist having look at and this was here, as I’ve been waiting for more of the ‘book crack’ I was delighted and snapped it up. I’m at a point with the Psy-Changling series where I’m more interested in the world than the romance so this worked for me. I want to know where it’s going and although I don’t think she has an overarching plan for it (which could be dangerous given that this is book 14 and 15 is out in the summer). Singh has a particular style, the same when she’s write contemporaries or the Guild Hunter books and as I have read so many, I’m very aware of it, there’s lots of men being men and dominant  and characters often have the same flaws, this can grate but I don’t feel that it interferes with the bits of the story I find interesting and given that the overarching world is moving forward (unlike say the Anita Blake books which I gave up somewhere in the middle of book 9 because I was just tired of her sleeping with everyone and everyone wanting to sleep with her!).  Will I read the next one, oh yeah, I’m not bored of the world and I’m still interested in what happens next, also I get the feeling that the next book will catch us up with all of the various couples and move the plot along fast. We’ll see.

Carry On – Rainbow Rowell (library book)

After Landline last month, I put this on reserve at the library and it turned up this month (it was the book I was going to pick up when I grabbed Shards of Hope). I was a little bit worried about this one, I’ve liked all of Rowell’s books except Eleanor and Park (I know I’m a monster!) but this was set in England in a school called Watford, which I can’t quite reconcile as a place of refinement and taste given that my brother lives in a town called Watford. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. Really, really enjoyed it. It was both funny and sad and it had an ending that worked and also although the reader got the answer to all the questions, the characters didn’t which is pretty much how it goes. I liked the friendships as well as the romance, points for not being afraid to tackle the ‘Am I gay or do I just like kissing this boy?’ issue. Penelope clearly needs her own book and although there were a couple of Americanisms I found that I wasn’t really thinking of this book as set in England so it didn’t pull me out of the book. Go and read it’s fun.

Trade Me – Courtney Milan (library ebook)

Courtney Milan goes contemporary new adult and of course I read it. As a story it didn’t quite hit the heights of other books of hers that I’ve read but it was good. Lots of other reviews mention that it gets a bit melodramatic in the last quarter but I didn’t think it was melodramatic as too quick and too easy to resolve, I suspect that it isn’t because there is another book about them planned. So what did I like? I liked that Tina’s experience of poverty was honest and real, in so many books the heroine says that they are poor but I don’t see it, a lot of Tina’s issues come from having no money, really having no money. One of the things that you see a lot in NA is problem parents and this is no exception but I liked that both sets of parents loved their children and that it was obvious, even when they fucked up. I struggled with Tina’s parents more because her mother drove me bats because…..well because I lack imagination maybe I just don’t know people who behave like that. I liked Tina’s best friend and am looking forward to seeing more about her in the next book too.

The Turn of the Story – Sarah Rees Brennan (free internet story)

This is an example of an author getting carried away (long may it continue if the author is Sarah Rees Brennan!). I’ve been meaning to get around to reading it but you know, not getting around to it and saw a quote from it;

‘And he did not want to be loved as a second choice, as a surrender. He had spend his whole life not being loved at all, and he had thought being loved enough would satisfy him. It would not. He had never been chosen, so he had never had a chance to know this about himself before now; he wanted to be chosen first’.

So I had to go and read it as soon as possible, which was Valentines Day. I love most of what SRB writes, it’s funny and silly and sad and happy all at the same time. This story features gender flipped elf society where the women are the warriors and the men ‘sweet, gentle virtuous creatures’, a bi-sexual mouthy and extremely grumpy ‘hero’ and it all generally delightful. Now I need to go and find The Wings in the Morning….

Lord Dashwood Missed Out – Tessa Dare (library ebook)

A novella set in Spindle Cove. When I read the first of these I wasn’t that keen, nowadays I really enjoy Spindle Cove books because they are silly and easy to read and funny.

Make It Right – Megan Erickson (free book)

NA set in college, I actually liked this one more than the first. The H/H actually had some stuff to deal with and apparently I really like it went a character knows they’ve done badly and tries to do better. I also think that the author has a thing for teachers as this is the second book in the series and characters has decided to become a teachers in each book! I also liked that the hero was able to take instruction and direction from the heroine with no alpha male nonsense…

First Last Kiss – Lia Riley (free book)

Woman gets divorced, leaves the big city to go back to her hometown and meets the first boy she ever loved. I know what’s gonna happen, but this had some interesting issues, ie the town became the place she could live in because of gentrification I was more interested in what was going to happen to the town (cause you know it’s not going to go well for the people already there!) and more interested in the downsides of small town living than I was in the heroine’s crisis of confidence and decision making.

Blitzing Emily – Julie Brannagh (free book)

The more I think about this book, the more confused I get. The book seems to take forever to get anywhere and stuff that was supposed to be a big deal just got brushed over and not resolved, which is just annoying. I don’t mind characters not knowing but I really object to readers not knowing. My major issue is that it feels like a first draft, not a finished story.

A Duchess in Name – Amanda Weaver  (free book)

I mostly really enjoyed this, but I had issues with the hero who was a whiny, whiner and needed a smack upside the head. First he needed to use his words and second I’m not sure there were enough apologies for what he did. So other than the fact that he was a git, I really liked it!

Heart’s Desire – T. J. Kline (free book)

I’m going to damn this with faint praise because I finished it but all the way through I was mild irritated by everyone in the story. It felt old fashioned and at times I was reading while muttering ‘get to the point’ and ‘use your bloody words’

Wish Upon a Star – Sarah Morgan (TBR list)

I find Sarah Morgan delightful and this is I think Mills and Boon Medical. So old-fashioned, it reminded me of being 14 again and reading these all the time, we had a chart in the library at school for repeated phrases and ‘___’ would have gone on the wall….

Made me thankful to live in more enlightened times…

Midnight at Tiffanys – Sarah Morgan (TBR list)

A novella that kicks off her new trilogy, which I will be reading at some point. Fine in that I read it in an hour and want to read about the girls in it

Among Others – Jo Walton (library book)

I cannot express how much I loved this book. It totally nails the reading teenager, the odd mix of  being really clever about some stuff and totally naive about the other stuff. Ultimately, it’s about becoming a person and making friends and overcoming hard things and I just adored it.

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Food and Budget Update: 20/02 to 26/02/2016

Posted on March 1, 2016 by nicdempsey

It that time of the week! Here’s this week’s recap on what I ate and spent on eating…

SHOPPING 

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I got all fancy this week and did three lists! I didn’t buy carrots, peppers or mushrooms this week because I didn’t use much last week with the whole not eating for two days. Onions and parsnips were on offer and I needed to replenish the frozen vegetables (I always have spinach and peas in my freezer and usually have corn, broccoli or cauliflower and green beans. I also prefer to buy them from Iceland because the spinach is whole leaf and it’s easy to get everything there knowing it’s all £1 a bag)

Here are the receipts
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Got everything on my various lists and came in at £14.93. Here’s what that looked like…OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALidl have started carrying wholemeal bread flour as well as just white so I bought both colours.

COOKING AND EATING

I’m trying to shake up my breakfasts a bit or I’ll get granola and yoghurt fatigue and stop eating breakfast. I saw a recipe for quinoa egg muffins and with some adaption (added vegetables, basil instead of mint) made those, I ate those each morning with some carrot batons.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALunch was noodle salad (made with spelt spaghetti) and spinach. I had pineapple and a marmalade muffin as snacks. I also had fruit from work too.

Dinners were more varied. I was out on Saturday and we had Indian takeaway, on Sunday I think I was still full from the day before because I didn’t notice that I’d skipped dinner until about 8:30 on Sunday night and it was too late to eat then!

Monday was a mixed of vegetable (spinach, onion, peppers) and quinoa with chickpeas and an egg (and I really didn’t realise how bad that photo was after I took it – sorry!)Tuesday was roasted vegetables (potato, carrot, onion and parsnips) with baked fish.

 Wednesday was pasta with vegetables and the leftover fish from Tuesday

 Thursday was sauted potatoes and vegetables with an egg… Friday Night Pizza was a repeat of the sausage and spinach and was fantastic!
LESSONS LEARNED

Shopping is easier the earlier I do it. I was up and out of the door before 9am on Saturday so I could get it done before I left for Watford and the whole experience was better. I won’t be able to do that next week but I do think I should make it the first weekend chore that I do every week.

I also need to check my work diary, this week was another week where I planned for 5 days but I had a work lunch, it wasn’t a problem I just ate the spare on the weekend! I also have noticed that some weeks it seems like there are loads of options and some weeks not, this is more to do with what else is going on, work was pretty straightforward this week and I think maybe my brain had more space for thinking creatively about my dinner!

 

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Life Happened: A normal week

Posted on February 29, 2016 by nicdempsey

It’s not that I’ve had any really abnormal weeks this year it’s just that last week has been so normal.

Honestly, nothing really happened. No dramas at work, I was in before around 8am each morning, got the work I needed to do done. Went home.

I was quite tired and made a concerted effort to make sure that I did everything that needed to be done before I sat down because on the one night I didn’t, I fell asleep on the sofa and then had to get up and put the washing up away

I finally have nails that are in good enough shape to paint, which made me happy! 
On Friday we had another team lunch to use up the budget and plan what our team page on the intranet should look like (I told you it was all fun, all the time this week!) and I renewed my annual travelcard (goodbye £1520.00 and thank god for work travel loans!)

Ma’s cold prevented her from coming over for pizza as planned so I had a cheeky cocktail and made pizza. 

 The weekend was quiet, I met Sarah for coffee and a chat  Made marmalade  and read a book, Among Others by Jo Walton, which I loved   Next week will be less boring, I have a busier work week, a funeral, family lunch in Saturday (I’m very much looking forward to hearing about Oli going to Beavers and seeing Joe who is standing now (or as my brother says growing up too soon!)

Aims for this week, keep on top of the flat so I’m not running around on Saturday morning, library visit and getting enough sleep… 

 
 
  

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2016 Goal Recap – February

Posted on February 27, 2016 by nicdempsey

When my Oli wants to draw your attention to something that he thinks that you ought to have done but he doesn’t want to outright ask and appear rude, he starts a sentence with “Do you remember…..”. So at lunch for Ma’s birthday last year, he started with “Aunty Nic, do you remember that the last time we were here, you made lovely garlic bread?” (I did, I hadn’t made it that time, I will make sure there’s some for Mother’s Day lunch in a couple of weeks!)

Anyway in the spirit of that, I’m going to re-start this post with a question. Do you remember that I finished January feeling that I was in a really good place (despite the mouse and the Januaryness of January? That I’d achieved things and was ready to move into a positive February?IMG_3723And I’m going to tell you that I feel nothing like that about February, which frankly felt like a struggle. I’m not sure why but if I had to pin it on anything, I’d blame the ‘back to the grindstone’ feeling of this February. At the end of last year, I had a new nephew to coo over, six weeks off work and therefore not being terribly SAD because I could sleep in more, I also saw more of my friends, then there were reduced hours at work and the need to be really careful of my foot, the excitement of Christmas and then thinking about what I wanted to do in 2016 and challenge of making it through January with my brain intact.

This February has been much more dreary by comparison. My foot is better more or less but I can’t do everything I used to, I’m back to the grindstone of work and home and laundry and sleep. It is getting lighter in the morning but it’s still too damn dark for my liking. You know you can make all the plans, dream all the dreams but eventually, you just have to buckle down and do what you’d said you’d do or wouldn’t do. And it’s boring.DSCF5121Until I sat down to write this post I was pretty sure that February had been an abject failure but that isn’t entirely the case. My focus on the goals for the year has been strong, I’m on track financially, the house is clean and under control, I’m gradually increasing my walking.

But the little goals, I have almost completely flunked them. I remembered to stretch, but the exercise and the yoga, nope, nada, zilch. I have cut down on my drinking and been under my 14 unit limit every week but one, when I went right up to it but not over. The cupboard did not get sorted nor the freezer defrosted.

I managed to get to the Grace big service but so far none of the weekday evening stuff and I managed the first seven days of daily reflection on 40 Temptations (one of which aptly was called ‘You will fail’)

It doesn’t feel like February was a successful month at all. However, Monday is the last day of February and therefore I have a couple of days to re-frame my perspective, February was not a disaster, I’m still on track and I have two days in which I can finish strong and ready for the challenges of March!

 

 

 

 

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Friday Links

Posted on February 26, 2016 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! I am more or less avoiding this week’s two big new items Brexit and Donald Trump. This is ’cause we have months more to think and talk and read about them and I just can’t this week…

Happy reading!

You can’t sell freedom of movement to people who are insecure.

If, politically, you have no answer to how a regular person under 30 gets to live in a regular house when 91% of the country is unaffordable on the median wage, then you need to find an answer. You cannot make a case for immigration, on either economic or humanitarian grounds until you’ve recognised the economic pressures on, and the human rights of, the people already living in the country. That recognition has to progress. It isn’t enough to describe how hard it is to get a house; you need to be able to describe a future in which people can afford housing.

What hope has Pope Francis offered to women exposed to Zika? None That’s about right. I keep pointing out that for all his talk, nothing has changed.

I turned the weird internet dating messages into comics. This is why I’m not keen on internet dating, I really would rather be single…

Republicans in Charge of Considering Supreme Court Nominees Say They Will Not Consider Supreme Court Nominee. When inflexible constitutions go wrong….the American system relies on people being reasonable which is not something their politicians are managing (although a look at the House of Commons will tell you that’s not exclusive to the US!)

Michael White on the rise of the left and what Blair (and others) don’t understand.

The Money-Empathy Gap. Interesting.

Romance and the trope of the alpha male. Funny AND worth reading..

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