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Friday, 30 April 2010

Hello

I've just realised it's over three months since I last did a proper post (as opposed to the automatic posts from Diigo). How did time go so quickly?


While I've been MIA in the blog world, we've had the worst winter in my lifetime here in the UK. For those of you who get lots of snow every year it probably doesn't sound that great but for us it was lovely to keep waking up to snow. It almost became normal to wake up to a new layer of snow! Admittedly though we didn't suffer adverse effects of the snow because my husband works as a gardener so wasn't having to get out to work and we live in a well served village so can get to shops for essentials on foot.



Now that summer is on the way, I have been working on our garden. Last year it was more like a wild meadow (see the first photo on my "Summer Days" post) but now that it has been tamed I am putting in some vegetable patches. The plan is to do one 5'x20' bed this year, prepare another two ready for planting for next year and maybe do a fourth the year after. Plus a narrow bed along the fence. I've almost finished double digging the first bed and tomorrow will hopefully do the fence one (which will be about 1'x20') and plant my seeds (some direct and some in pots for transplanting once the frost risk is gone). We've also managed to remove the pampass grass visible in the picture below and currently that space is temporary home to two rhubarb plants. I'm so looking forward to eating rhubarb!


We're also currently in the throes of a general election here in the UK. (Not that it's much of a battle here - apparently I live in the safest Labour seat in the country.)

And I've been getting very annoyed about abortion. But I'll save that for other posts.

Monday, 19 April 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Monday, 29 March 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 21 March 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 28 February 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 14 February 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 7 February 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 31 January 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 17 January 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Wednesday, 13 January 2010

Garlic, Honey and Coconut Oil Cold Prevention/Remedy


The last two years within a week of my husband starting his Christmas job, all three of us seem to have come down with really bad colds. This has resulted in disturbed sleep and has made it much harder to deal with the change of routine and extended working hours.

This year we decided to be proactive in trying to prevent this so he and Little Girl both took a mixture of garlic, honey and coconut oil at least once a day. (I didn't take it because it causes me to spend the next twenty minutes in the bathroom because I feel like I'm about to throw up and anyway it's always them who gets the colds first and then pass them on to me.)

About two weeks in, I had the mildest sore throat I've ever had for a couple of days and my husband had a very mild cold about the same time. Right at the end of the month, Little Girl had a cold and slight cough for five days which did make us think that it hadn't been that effective but then two weeks after she caught it, the children she had caught it from were still obviously quite ill and all had terrible coughs so we concluded that it had had an effect after all.

How we make it:
  1. Put 1-2 tbsp coconut oil in a jar and melt it either by leaving it on a radiator or putting it in a bowl of hot water.
  2. Add 2-3 tbsp honey and stir in.
  3. Add 3-4 pressed cloves of garlic.
  4. Put jar in cold water and stir vigorously until mixture is emulsified.
  5. Store in fridge.
Between them, coconut oil, garlic and honey have anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. From experience we have found that if we wait until we have a full blown cold it has little effect but if we catch it earlier it makes a big difference to the intensity and duration of our colds.

At the moment, Little Girl usually has one or two teaspoons a day and my husband has anything from one to four depending on how he feels and whether he remembers at the right time. It has to be taken on a full stomach because otherwise it makes you feel sick.

Since it makes me feel sick regardless of when I have it, what I usually do is wait until I think I may have a cold coming on and then I press half a clove of garlic onto my dinner plate before dishing the dinner out. Even though this is more garlic than I would have in a teaspoon of the garlic/honey/coconut oil mixture, it seems to be fine so I presume the difference is that it is more dilute when I mix it into a meal but obviously it is less convenient which is partly why I haven't been doing it all the time as a preventative measure.

Find more tips at Works For Me Wednesday.

Wednesday, 6 January 2010

"The Sweet By and By" by Sara Evans and Rachel Hauck


I received The Sweet By and By through the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogger programme. The story is about 29 year old Jade who is about to get married to the man of her dreams. It follows her in the run up to the wedding and her relationship with her semi-estranged mother through a combination of "present day" commentary and flash backs to relevant past events.

Although I didn't hate this book, it wasn't that great - indeed I only completed it because it is a requirement of the review programme to do so. I realise that it can take time sometimes to set the scene but more than half way through the book I was feeling bored and waiting for it to get to the point. Maybe they were trying to create suspense or something but it didn’t work for me.

I felt that a lot of the Christian bits in it seemed contrived almost as if someone had been deliberately trying to find every opportunity to put things in rather than them flowing into the story naturally.

When the story ended, I wasn't satisfied. The story was complete and it stopped at a natural point but it just all seemed to end a little too nicely especially considering what had gone before. It was just all a bit too syrupy for me. Perhaps if you like reading "chick-lit" you would enjoy it but it wasn't really for me and I would hesitate to recommend it.

Sunday, 3 January 2010

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 27 December 2009

My Web Wanderings (weekly)


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Thursday, 24 December 2009

A Two Year Old's View of Christmas

I did say I wasn't going to do any more posts this year but I just had this conversation about Christmas with Little Girl which made me smile so I thought I'd post it:

Me: Tomorrow is Christmas Day - what do we do on Christmas Day?
LG: We eat Christmas cake.
Me: Yes, and what else do we do?
LG: We eat little Christmas cakes. [Christmas pudding]
Me: Yes, we eat Christmas pudding. What else do we do?
LG: We eat goose.
Me: Yes.
LG: We eat dinner.
Me: Yes, we eat Christmas dinner.
LG: We eat goose and Christmas dinner.
Me: That's right, we have goose for Christmas dinner. And we give...
LG:...thanks to Him and pray.
Me: Yes, we always give thanks to God don't we. Do we do anything else?
LG: We eat pineapple. [drink pineapple juice]
Me: Pineapple? Oh yes - we're going to have pineapple juice at breakfast time. And what do we give?
LG: We give presents to Daddy!

Christmas Card 2009

This will be my last post of the year (apart from a possible auto post from Diigo if I boomark anything) so I thought I'd close with a copy of the front of our Christmas card this year along with the text from the inside cover.



For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:20-23

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John 1:14

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned
John 3:15-18a

Wednesday, 23 December 2009

Annual Newsletter 2009

As we come to the end of the year, I thought it would be nice to share our (slightly modified for being online) annual newsletter:

Sinner Saved Family News
Our most exciting news this year is that in May we bought a house. We are two miles away from where we lived previously and we now have the benefit of a garden for Little Girl to play in. The house needs a lot of (mostly cosmetic) work done to it but it is nice to no longer be at the mercy of a landlord both in terms of what is done to the house and whether we are allowed to stay. Our new village is well provided for as it has all the amenities we had in our old village within five minutes (adults) walk plus additional shops and (to Little Girl's great delight) a part time library.

Hubby continues with his gardening work and Susan looks after Little Girl at home.

Last year Little Girl learned to walk; this year she has learned to talk and is quite a chatterbox when not pretending to be shy. She retains her love of books and requests to go to the library almost every day.


Little Girl enjoys reading, drawing, painting, going for walks and pretending to be Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Postman Pat and whoever else she thinks of. Horses frequently pass our house which always provides plenty of excitement as do the weekly bin lorries.

Little Girl is a great helper and she loves to cook and clean (either real or pretend) although sneaky sampling tends to be the most popular part of cooking. She also enjoys helping Daddy outside in the garden although this "help" usually involves picking flowers while Daddy does all the work.


Monday, 21 December 2009

Whoops a Daisy (slightly not using freezer stash)


Although I was supposed to be not buying meat at the moment due to my rather excessive stock of it I managed to buy a 2kg (4 1/2 lb) leg of lamb on Friday. It was reduced to £3.50/kg because it was going out of date on Saturday and that is a very good price for lamb (plus I didn't have any lamb in my stash) so I figured it was worth it. I cooked it overnight in the slow cooker so we could have it for lunch and then I made stock from the bones (also in the slow cooker) some of which I used for the spaghetti bolognaise I had already planned to make with some mince and liver from the freezer. We ended up with five meals worth of spaghetti bolognaise in the freezer (i.e. 5 x 2.5 portions) and a huge heap of lamb to use up before Christmas so this week's plan features a lot of lamb:

Mon: Ham and lentil soup from the freezer.
Tues: Lamb and spinach risotto.
Wed: Lamb, mashed potato (with parsnip in) and veg.
Thurs: Lamb pasta.
Fri: Christmas Dinner: Salmon and cream cheese parcels. Goose, sausages wrapped in bacon, carrots, sprouts, peas, potatoes roasted in the goose fat. Christmas pudding.
Sat: Same as Friday.
Sun: Freezer meal.

From the freezer stash this will use the goose and the sausages in bacon (both of which we specifically bought for Christmas obviously) and probably some frozen veg depending on what fresh veg we pick up. Other than the usual rotation of home made bread and fruit loaf, we shouldn't be adding anything to the freezer this week which will be good.

Friday, 18 December 2009

Snow!

This is what we had yesterday:


Then today there was even more. It's still less than two inches but you never know - it might be all we get this winter. Little Girl was so excited this morning she wanted breakfast straight away so she could go and play in the snow. She was planning to make "scrambled egg on toast, pancakes and porridge" but since we already had baked porridge from yesterday we went for that.



Apparently she is "digging like a man". (I think she means digging like the workmen who are replacing the water pipes in our street.)

Monday, 14 December 2009

A Funny Old Week

Last week my husband had extra work on Monday and Tuesday which meant he finished his Monday shift at 0200hrs on Tuesday and then started his Tuesday shift at 1000hrs. So that he could sleep in on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, he slept in Little Girl's room when he got home and when I went to bed I took her to sleep with me. Unfortunately the first night she took ages to go to sleep and then by the time she got sleep I couldn't sleep so I ended up with only three hours sleep that night.

By Thursday we were all pretty much recovered from all the sleep disturbance but we didn't have water on those two days so we tried to go out in the mornings to minimise the time at home without water. (I say "tried" because we were unsuccessful on Thursday due to the car having a flat battery but we managed to jump start it on Friday.)

Between sleep disturbance, going out and not having water my menu plan got thrown out the window a bit although I did manage to use everything which needed to be used and make a nice big batch of lentils and rice. On Saturday I did manage to bake bread, fruit loaf and muffins most of which I somehow managed to jam into the freezer and amazingly despite the lack of water I managed to keep up with the washing.

Since everything has been so busy recently and the freezer is still somehow overflowing (despite the fact I've only spent £20 on food this month most of which was milk, eggs and fruit) I've decided to make this week a freezer meal week instead of doing "proper" cooking and a menu plan.

Monday, 7 December 2009

Menu Plan Monday (Operation "Use Freezer Stash" #2)


Mon: Chicken, potato, cabbage and squash.
Tues: Cheesy pasta and veg.
Wed: Veg casserole with lentils & rice and fresh salsa.
Thurs: Chicken, potato, cabbage and carrot.
Fri: Meatloaf, potato, carrot plus other veg as yet undetermined.
Sat: Same as Wed.
Sun: Freezer meal.

From the freezer stash this uses one chicken, 1/2lb mince some frozen veg and three freezer meals (Wed, Fri and Sun) but probably creates two or three 1/2lb portions of lentils and rice depending on the size of the soup.

For more details, you can click to view my paper menu plan:



NB. The start of the week is changed from Thursday because when we had a veg box delivery it was on Wednesdays so I used to plan Thursday to Wednesday.

Feel free to leave comments or ask questions.

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