I Like Cancelled Plans

 

I really do like all of the above, only with the rain falling like stair-rods and the sky as dark as a Winter's day, I think I'll give the coffee shop a miss and stay cosy indoors with the kettle being put on regularly.

Happily todays Booths freebie was two sachets of coffee ... it's as though they knew.  😀

I did do a bit of a top up shop while I was there.  So that's another £12.53 spent this week ... and yes I gave in a bought a cute little squash.  It can live on my shelf making me smile until Halloween and then it will be a pot of soup. 

Then life would be perfect.  😄

Sue xx

Dim and Less Sparkly

 

This weeks small top up shop with some more things for the store-cupboard.

I needed the olive oil and I needed the bleach the other things were not strictly necessary but good to have in.

I reached the top of my budget anyway, even if the shop was a small one.  The crossed off and disregarded items were things that I picked up for Alan.

A total of £24 spent by me this week.

That's just about all I can cope with doing at the moment.

Things have been full on and a bit hectic here. 

 Between work being a bit busy, Alan needing help with various things that he can't quite manage with his now recovering hand, and trying to organise things for Mum ... a lasting power of attorney, a nursing home with a vacancy, banking, bills, checking her bungalow (her neighbours was broken into a couple of weeks ago) etc etc ...  we finally thought we had everything under control and ready to go.  There were just final signatures on the LPA due to be witnessed this morning ... and then suddenly her hospital ward has gone into a complete lockdown at lunchtime yesterday due to a sickness and diarrhoea bug doing the rounds.  

Now we just hope that she doesn't catch it, as she can't afford to lose any more of what little weight she has left.  But the nurses and other staff are all absolutely brilliant and we have lots of faith in them to try and keep their patients safe.

So although I may be a dim and less sparkly version of myself at the moment, I am still the ever optimistic person that drives everyone mad.  😁

Sue xx

Food Cupboard - January/April and Now

April 2024

I promised that I would show photos of the food cupboard as it was in April and as it is now for comparison.  So for your delight and delectation here they are.

October 2024

At first glance there doesn't seem to be that much difference, but the coffee came up from the lower cupboard and I have eaten my way through a lot of the tinned salmon and tuna which isn't even visible in the April photo.

I honestly thought I had January photos of the bottom cupboard too, but I can't seem to find them anywhere, either in my photo files or on any blog post.  It's obviously one of those occasions where I think I've done something ... but I haven't!!

So you'll just have to take my word that this bottom cupboard was packed, so much so that things were balanced on top of things, all in a rather slapdash way.  There was no wood visible inside the cupboard and closing the door meant I had to put the catch on immediately to keep things from escaping.  Now everything is in a single layer, which makes it much easier for seeing what I have got, or haven't got when I get down to look.

The pasta basket was full to the underneath of the shelf, now it's more organised and even contains my noodles too.

Basket Drawers January 2024

I'd forgotten just how full these were at the start of the year, I had just about managed to make enough space to use one of them for my potatoes in this photo, and was proud of that.

Basket Drawers October 2024

I don't know why, but somehow I'm even prouder of them now.  

This is the same photo I showed you the other day, it's handy for comparisons sake though.  The Deliciously Ella order that Alan bought for me for Christmas will stay there until I have used up all the other 'Plants' jars in the main cupboard and then these might move over, it will probably be at Christmas time or even after before the others get used up anyway ... and then I'll have four empty drawers.  😁

It's very satisfying to see how things have gone down, it's been a slow process as I tend to buy things and use them first, something that I have to make a real effort not to do on a regular basis.  But trying to curb the spending for a while means that hopefully the contents of the top cupboard will soon be even lower, although I have decided that it makes a lot of sense to keep a little stockpile of the things I use most regularly in the bottom cupboard.

With the world and the prices the way they are at the moment, we all need a little safety net.

Do you have one?

Sue xx

Books Instead of Pumpkins

 

Although I love, love, love Autumn and all it's glorious colours and naturally available decorations, I have no intention of buying pumpkins, either real, woolly, pottery, fuzzy, string-like and all the other variations that are in the shops at the moment just to decorate my house.  Although, I might be tempted to get a couple to eat when the price goes down a bit. 

Instead, and by very happy coincidence, the three books that I have treated myself to this week are just perfect to add to my radiator shelf for a bit of Autumnal decoration.

I obviously had to get the new book by Nigel Slater, I have all his others after all and he writes so beautifully.  I picked up the Stanley Tucci book just for a flick through and it drew me in so that too was purchased the other day.  

The final book was something mentioned by MoggyMerlin56 on my The Books That I Read in September post.  It really caught my imagination so I had a look at it on Amazon, and then found a copy for 50p on there ... so it had to be mine.  😁

Now I have the dilemma of which order they are in the queue to be read!!

Sue xx

This Week's Shopping

 This new ... and long overdue ... way of eating is proving to be more expensive, but I also think that it's very necessary for me and my health.  

I think because I was determined to eat everything that I already had in the cupboards and freezer, and was trying not spend too much money each week, I have been eating things that were probably not the best, but purchased on a whim at different times.

I've pretty much got through them all now and now it's time to make a fresh start.

What brought me to the realisation that I needed to eat better was a simple box of Garlic Kyivs, gosh these were awful!!  Why was I topping up 'bad' foods with more bad foods ... I have no idea. 

I ate one of the Kyivs with rice and peas, and immediately thought 'never again' for this particular product.  I promised I would say what they were like when I had eaten them so that is why I am posting about them.  

Verdict - YUK!!

The other one went in the bin, which is such a rare thing for me to do, but totally necessary.

I'll take some photos of how my food cupboard looks now, and share it on my next post,  I'm pretty sure that it's quite a bit different from the first photo that I took this year back in April.

My total food spend for this week is £29.87 and I really don't think that I need anything else as I already have a full dozen eggs in the fridge along with leftovers from last week's vegetables, and there's still a few frozen veggies in the freezer.

Sue xx