Food and Budget: 19/12 to 25/12/2015

Posted on December 29, 2015 by nicdempsey

Christmas week!

I didn’t shop on the 19th because I had so much food left over from last week, we were in Watford at the weekend babysitting the nephews and I knew that Ma and I would get the final things for Christmas dinner on the 23rd, so I just went with what I had. The only thing I did need to buy was more coffee, Ma is a coffee hog and in November and December I went through 3 packets of coffee. Our current favourite is the M&S Rwandan coffee so I bought that and the rest of money from this week’s food budget went into that shop.

I spent £12.25 in Sainsburys and Ma spent £17 in Lidl (we had already bought the booze and the meat…). There was so much food…

I only really had Monday to Wednesday to feed myself and it consisted of food from the freezer, egg sandwiches and stir fries…

Ma and I are creatures of habit so I knew what we were eating over Christmas.

Christmas Eve dinner is Fish Pie (which we buy – I’ve never made a fish pie in my life!) and peas.  Christmas Day is smoked salmon sandwiches in the afternoon   and roast beef, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, brussels sprouts and yorkshire puddings for dinner. 

This was the last week of budget (I got paid on Christmas Eve) and because it’s the first month of the new budget plan, I thought that I’d talk a bit about how it went. In summary, really well, I was happy with the amount of food I bought and ate, going forward I need to incorporate healthy protein into the plan because cheese is delicious but not necessarily healthy in the quantities I would like to eat it! (Having said that, there is a cheese mountain in my fridge right now even though I sent Ma home with half of it!) Looking back, I was surprised that some weeks, there seemed to be loads of food and others not so much and realised that entertaining seemed to be the key factor here, which makes total sense but I didn’t realise the impact it would have. I will also need to be more organised in how I use my freezer but I’m pleased with the plan so far and am looking forward to seeing how it plays out in January, which confusingly started on 26 December!

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2015 Goals Round Up

Posted on December 28, 2015 by nicdempsey

At the beginning of 2015, I set some goals. Because missing or deciding not to complete goals is as important in understanding yourself as achieving them, this is the recap of the goals and how I feel it went.IMG_3580BODY 

  • 2 gym classes a week
  • 15 minutes of yoga every day.

This was a partial success. The gym going was great when I was feeling well and rubbish when I was sick and I was full of cold/cough and chest infection quite a bit this year. The yoga was sporadic for the same reason. There was definitely something going on with my gym attendance around embarrassment and shame. I was doing really well and then the routine changed and I couldn’t ‘get it’ and I felt fat and clumsy and all of a sudden there were lots of work people at those classes and I didn’t want to go. Which wasn’t good and I need to work on how to overcome that issue.

I managed the yoga for 50% of the year and once the foot is better, I want to make that consistent because it helped me relax AND it helped my knees!

There were other non goal successes this year, I increased my walking (thanks to the Fitbit I got as a Christmas present!), and I’d like to take that into 2016 because that had the most positive impact on my mental and physical health. I was so happy when I got a well done from the consultant on my walking before my osteotomy because he was impressed at how much I was able to do with my gimpy foot. I think it also had a lot to do with my low blood pressure and more cheerful demeanour at the end of the year.IMG_2646HOME 

  • To only buy 12 new to me books.

I did well on this one. I bought 11 books this year, I borrowed books from friends and used the library more, I learnt patience and waited for books that I wanted to read. What I didn’t do was make as much of a dent on the TBR pile as I wanted, but there’s always next year.

  • Work on deep cleaning the flat more.
  • Declutter and organise

Again a partial success, the house is tidy, I’ve even cleaned the oven a couple of times and I did have a massive declutter of my wardrobe but I can’t say I’ve had a massive declutter Marie Kondo style! It’s a work in progress but I like the space I live in, it works for me and it reflects who I am more than any space I’ve lived in, often this year I made the choice just to be in the space and enjoy it rather than clean it and I’m ok with that!20140914-204723-74843564.jpgSPIRIT

The word for the year was peaceful which I described like this

 It also means feeling calm and secure and content and trusting and joyous about God’s plan for my life and it’s also the place where I accept that I don’t understand or control all of it, which a big deal for me..

I feel that this year has been peaceful. I feel good about where I am and where I’m headed and I feel that I’ve got the balance between what I need to change and learning to live with what I can’t.

So 2015 is done. Time to think about 2016.

How was your year?

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Sunday Music: Hark the Herald Angels sing

Posted on December 27, 2015 by nicdempsey

I think this is my favourite Christmas carol, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

 

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Happy Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2015 by nicdempsey

Who is reading blog posts on Christmas Day? Go and do something that fills you with joy. Whether that’s presents, family time, drinking before noon, yummy food or chocolate for breakfast or just a day alone with the radio/TV/a good book.

This morning, I’m getting a huge amount of pleasure from my lovely tree that went up last night… 

 and the joy of a day spent in my ‘jamas…

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The Night Before Christmas…

Posted on December 24, 2015 by nicdempsey

This is something of a tradition. It’s the end of every Christmas CD that I make and would be in consideration for one of my Desert Island Discs..

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Thursday Links – 24 December 2015

Posted on December 24, 2015 by nicdempsey

We’re going a day early on links because of Christmas…

The Tories are unstitching the tapestry of our democracy. Last week, John Major was on the radio and I found myself wishing that he was still Prime Minister. I remember the years that John Major was PM and it was bad. I didn’t agree with his policies and I didn’t want him to govern but I did feel that he was a decent (if misguided) human being. David Cameron and George Osborne, they don’t have that. They seem to be completely void of all humanity and seem to have no understanding of the greater good. They will take us back to hypocrisy of the Victorian era where if you didn’t have money, you had no value. And now they are pretty much rigging it in their favour.

An Unbelievable Story of Rape. This is long and difficult but worth reading.

Food banks and giving.

Because that’s what austerity is: a battening down to bare necessities. Goodbye to pleasure and frivolity; top up the calories if you want to survive. That’s where the tinned macaroni cheese comes in – about 390 calories for 45p

Flint, Michigan and lead in the water – I heard about this on the World Service. Lead Poisoning is effectively brain damage in children. It doesn’t sound like an honest mistake when you think about the problems that Flint already has, it sounds like they thought they could get away with it!

Happy Books to cheer you up

 

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Christmas Radio

Posted on December 23, 2015 by nicdempsey

Christmas is going to be a low key affair this year, Ma is coming to me and we will conduct all of our usual traditions. We’ll decorate the tree (assuming I get one) tomorrow night, we’ll watch The Philadelphia Story, at some point I will watch Doctor Who on the iPlayer and Ma will get cross because it doesn’t make any sense. Mostly we’ll listen to the radio, mostly Radio 4 but here’s a brief round up of the stuff I’m looking forward to…

Stars of Wonder – because I don’t know a child in England who hasn’t been in a nativity play or Christmas concert and I think it might be interesting. (for the record, I’ve been the Angel Gabriel – nursery, one of the Three Kings, a street urchin and a narrator for the history of the school mostly because I was loud and everyone could hear me!)

The Educators – This is not at all Christmassy but it is interesting and it’s nice to be indoors to hear it.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols – this is when my Christmas actually starts.

Let’s Go Round Again – The Story of the Magic Roundabout – Because I am a product of my era and the Magic Roundabout was a part of that!

Soul Music – The Fairy Tale of New York – Soul Music does Christmas…

Saturday mornings are for 6 Music and Boxing Day will be no different. The Huey Show.

A Meaty Problem – Henry Dimbleby unravels the deep-seated attachment of the British to eating meat.

The Sound of Motown – This is about the Ready, Steady, Go aired in 1965, hosted by Dusty Springfield, it was dedicated to Motown and the line up, excepting Dusty, was all black. Which was quite a feat for then, could be interesting…

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Food and Budget: 12/12 to 18/12/2015

Posted on December 22, 2015 by nicdempsey

I was determined to put more fresh fruit and vegetables in my diet this week but I was also still getting back into the swing of meal planning, although with Christmas so near that may not properly bed in until sometime in January.

Here is the list and the receipts

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Lidl had a cherry tomato mix and pears for 59p each so I snapped those up too!DSCF5074Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.DSCF5075

Once I unpacked the shopping, there was just so much food. On Sunday, I made a batch of hamburger buns and froze 20 because they are handy to have, my plan was to use some stuff from the freezer and lots of veg.

Lunch that wasn’t leftovers was an egg roll and vegetables, I also took a pear and a clementine into work every day which worked as breakfast/snack and ate some of the fruit that work provides on Monday and Wednesday. Fruit became my breakfast/snack everyday.  I was determined to eat more vegetables this week so roasted veg (aubergine, onion, peppers and cherry tomatoes with capers is my standard mix) with flatbread and balsamic vinegar reduction (sounds posh, isn’t, just put some balsamic in a saucepan and boil until it’s syrupy!) was a brilliant dinner and the leftovers were lunch the next day.DSCF5085By Wednesday, I was beginning to tire and had a very easy dinner of baked potato and coleslaw. I took a quarter of each of my red and white cabbage, about 5 carrots and two small red onions and sliced & grated them (I love my magimix!), I soaked the onion in red wine vinegar to take some of the bite away.  I didn’t have any mayonnaise or any inclination to make any but I did have some of a bottle of Pizza Express Salad dressing, so I used that and felt virtuous about using something up! It wasn’t the most pretty dinner or lunch the next day but it was just what I wanted.DSCF5086Thursday is often a ‘make it up using any leftovers day’  and that’s pretty much what I did. Onion+cabbage+leftover baked potato+bean thing that needed to be used up+egg+cheese and cooked in cast iron pan = dinner.DSCF5088

Kathy asked me over on Friday, did I mention how much I love it when other people cook? I do, we had pizza, it was great.

I felt like it was a good week for food, that I ate well and didn’t waste anything, it didn’t feel like I was in a December ‘eat all the things’ place that often happens in the run up to Christmas, which was down to having good food in the house and being aware of when I was actually hungry and in need of food and when I was eating to distract myself. The one food thing this week that has nothing to do with the budget is that I didn’t drink enough fluid, so that’s my goal for Christmas week, drink lots of water!

 

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Life Happened – Aunty Duty

Posted on December 21, 2015 by nicdempsey

This week was a better work week, ok so I was grappling with minutes, which hands down, the least favourite of all my work duties but my head was a bit more in the game!

Also last week, I missed the office lunch that included the Secret Santa and got it this week. Clearly my colleagues know my interests, books and gin!I completely botched the Secret Santa because I forgot and couldn’t sort my life out  in time. So I brought in mince pies and cheese stars!   Friday night I spent the evening at Kathy’s, reading to her mad (and very cute) children, catching up with her and admiring the sparkly lights that Adam had put up!  On the way to Watford, I took note of how my hair is behaving with it’s new style
  Saturday was spent with the nephews (for me that was mostly with the littlest one), I was pretty proud of myself, Joe doesn’t like taking a bottle but I got him to take a full 7oz and got him off to sleep, it’s been a while but it’s good to know I haven’t lost my touch! The biggest nephew was out at the panto with his Grandma and I didn’t get a photo of him once he was back because he just didn’t stay still long enough. Over the last couple of months, it feels like Oli trusts us more and knows that he’ll have fun even if Mum and Dad aren’t there. He was great, showing me how well he could spell (I was genuinely impressed!), we watched Strictly and he did his ‘famous’ victory dance (once you’ve seen it, you’ll never forgot it!) when ‘his’ couple won, overall he’s just lovely and although I’ve always liked being with him, it’s nice to feel that he enjoys it too!

The only bad thing about my week is the vexing issue of my right knee. Because I’m leaning to the right on the crutches, I’m obviously putting the weight I can’t put through my left foot, through my right side. My knee has been niggling on and off since I started to get more mobile and I’ve been stretching it as much as I’m able. However, this week it’s in full on rebellion. It’s twice the size it should be, painful (like more painful than the foot was after surgery!) all the time but especially when I’m walking and it gives out under me. I’m not happy and at a loss what to do, painkillers, ice and stretching have all been applied with limited effect and it’s making doing anything tricky. My foot is doing really well, minimal swelling and feeling like it’s getting back to normal, but I’m going to have to see the GP which is pretty much a nightmare this time of year! It will sort itself out but the timing is frustrating.

That was last week. How was your week?

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Sunday Music

Posted on December 20, 2015 by nicdempsey

Last week, I heard this on the radio, I knew two things, first that it must be from Hamilton and second that this was George III because Farmer George was a bit manic about the Colonies…

I think that I may have to buy the soundtrack but I’m putting it off because I have a feeling it will lead to a huge reading jag about the early years of the US and honestly I’m not sure my brain can take it, I’ll forget something important, like who won the War of 1812 (we did, it wasn’t a draw, they sued for peace, we had to go and deal with the Corsican…again. And yes, just in case you were wondering I’m still sore because they bloody started it. Ok, we shouldn’t have pressed their sailors but they declared war to try and get Canada AND they killed Ned Pakenham….)

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