Final day off

Its my last day off from work today. So this morning I popped over to see my brother and sister-in-law. As my brothers present didn't arrive for Christmas and I knew he would need it tomorrow to bike to the station. (It was a bell for his bike)

We spent about an hour with them and then we bought some fresh rolls for lunch on our way home.

We then brought all our pillows and covers downstairs and watched movies together and then we played games together. It has been a delightful way to spend the last day of the holidays together.

The children are still off school tomorrow so they have a list of things to do whilst I am at work like getting their bags organised, polishing their shoes etc. And if they complete their jobs and its not raining then we will be going to the park when I get in.  This hopefully will wear them out so that they sleep well.

As I told you yesterday I have decided to organise and tidy my bedroom first, and I intend to start this tomorrow after the park. The plan is to clear out my bedside cabinet which has lots of rubbish in it. I'm hoping that I will be able to bin most of the stuff in there. I plan to take roughly two weeks per room to fully clean and tidy them and will show you the before and after photos so you can tell me what you think.

I also intend to log my exercise and food from tomorrow. So its a whole new start.

Well I am off to work on a healthy menu plan that the whole family will eat. This could be interesting.

Take care xx

Ok hands up I haven't done much!

Hello dear friends,

Ha ha I bet you are wondering what I have achieved today...A big fat nothing.

I walked for a whole mile yesterday, yes, I can hear you cheering.

But seriously, I really haven't done much at all today. I have decided the first room that I plan to clean out is going to be my bedroom. But I can't decide whether to get rid of the clothes that are too small or as I am trying to lose weight whether to keep them and try and get into them. What do you think?

I tried to be good with what I eat today and had Alpen for breakfast, I know I shouldn't have done but I missed lunch and had chicken and noodles with Chinese vegetables for tea. Unfortunately I also had a couple of chocolate chip cookies too.

I haven't drunk anywhere near enough fluid today and this is normally an issue for me as I only tend to drink about three cups a day.

I had planned to take the Christmas tree down today but hey it looks pretty so it can stay up until Monday. I have to work for three hours on Monday morning so I think I'll take the decorations down in the afternoon.

I have had lots of lovely cuddles from my beautiful children and as we speak I have one of my boys snuggled up on my legs. I should really be sending them up to bed soon so they get into the habit of going to bed ready for back to school in a couple of days but its so cosy with him sitting there and I don't want him to go.

I checked my Nectar card today and I currently have £2.40 on it, I also have £4.40 on my Boots advantage card. I will keep a monthly update for these cards.

I'm off to read stories with my little ones before bedtime.

Take care and have a nice evening xx

Aims for 2016 - Not Resolutions

Hi, well here we are 2016. I am glad to say goodbye to 2015 but I want to welcome 2016 with the enthusiasm that was missing from last year.

I know certain things that brought me down last year are not going to get any easier, my dad will still be terminally ill but instead of being scared of losing him, I need to treasure every moment that I still have with him.

I know that my sweet boy, that is very unhappy at school, is not going to become miraculously happy but I need to make sure that I continue to support him as much as possible and try and make decisions that are right for him. (This had a massive effect on me last year because I work at his school and saw him alone and crying on a daily basis)

But now its time to get down to the things that I can do something about:-

1. I want to lose weight and become healthier. At the latter part of last year as most of you who pop in and visit will know I became very poorly and if I'm honest I'm only slowly on the mend now I think this was partly due to being so low and partly due to being not very healthy. This upset my children tremendously and they have begged me to become more fit and healthy this year. My children are my everything and the last thing I have ever wanted to do is make them worry.

I have joined Iona at meanqueen to walk 1000 miles in a year

I have been given a fitbug orb which monitors the exercise that I do and you can also monitor what you eat etc. Unfortunately the app does not work on my phone so I might need to download the app to my eldest sons iPhone.

I also plan to log what I have eaten on here so you can either congratulate me or give me a good talking to if I need it. I promise to be brutally honest because realistically the only person that I would be cheating is myself and my children.

2. I desperately want to get my house clutter free. I can't stand mess it stresses me out and with five children mess can accumulate very quickly. My aims for doing this is to take one room at a time and clear out everything in it into piles of what should be kept because it is truly wanted or needed, what should be donated or sold, and what is only fit for the bin! And systematically work my way through each room.

3. This year I want to save as much money as possible. To achieve this I aim to menu plan, only buy what is needed and to get what we need at the best possible prices. I would also like to cut down on the new items that we buy and get the best savings possible on things like nectar cards.

Organise big expenses like the children's birthdays and Christmas in advance and take advantage of offers on things that they would like when they arise. I am hoping that I will make extra money from the things that we don't need and I intend on putting this is an old jam jar together with money that I find. (I stole this idea from my dear friend Nathalie)

 

 

 

I hope you will join me on my bid to a happy and healthy 2016.  Over the next few days I will be planning exactly what time scale I want to reach each goal in and would love any advise or ideas that you may have.

 

Enjoy your evening and take care xx

Happy New Year

Happy new year to all my dear friends.

I hope you have a fun evening and a healthy, happy and prosperous new year.

Our New Years Eve will be spent playing games with the children and watching the fireworks on the tele at midnight (although we may be in bed watching them, I'm tired already).

Today, I treated myself with some Christmas money to a pair of half price boots. They are furry and warm so should the cold weather arrive I should now be fully prepared. And at £15.00 I couldn't really go wrong!

In the forthcoming year I would like to :-
Lose some weight
Become a bit fitter
Save regularly each month also linked with reduce our spending
Monitor everything that goes in and out of our accounts and where it goes
Relax more
Finally but possibly my favourite have as much fun time with the children as possible (they are growing up quickly and I don't want to miss out)
Pop and see my dear dad (and mum) as often as I can


Have fun and take care xx

Daily ramblings

Hi, I hope you are having a good day.

Every Christmas and Easter my darling mum makes my children a chocolate house. She tries to make them different every year. Today the children started to eat this years so I thought I would post a picture of it.

Isn't it lovely, sadly it now has no door, no tree, no little men and only half of the roof left. But I guess its made to be eaten!

Yesterday, I said I was going to try and get some yellow snickered food to help get though January, so tonight I popped to Asda to get some milk and found a Chicken and Gravy pie for 15p, a four cheese ravioli dish for 10p and six eggs for 10p. So I picked these up and popped the pie and ravioli in the freezer and I thought we could have scrambled egg on toast for lunch tomorrow.

I was very lucky for Christmas this year and received lots of lovely bath smellies and shampoos, as did the children so for the first couple of months of the year I should be able to get away without buying any toiletries other than toothpaste. Yippee only food to worry about then and hopefully I can be really clever about how I shop and get things for as little as possible.

I have also been quite inspired by my dear friend Nathalie who uses her store bonus cards wisely and gets quite large savings from doing this. I did manage to get £25 off my Christmas shop by using my Sainsbury's Nectar card and I got £12 off some beanie boos for my daughter by using my Boots advantage card and as the beanie boos were on three for two I also got one free. But next year I intend to monitor this more closely and see if I can use these cards more effectively.

Well now I am going to pop off and have a nice warm bath an early night and read a bit of The man in the high castle.

Take care and sleep tight xx

Menu Plan Monday (ok its a day late!)

We are starting a day late this week, so only a six day week this week.

Tuesday - shepherds pie and veg (carrots and parsnips leftover) update chicken pie mash and veg (my mum has just made this and dropped it over) lucky me!

Wednesday - Gammon, mash and veg

Thursday- Gammon, chips, eggs and beans

Friday- Roast Lamb, Roast potatoes, veg

Saturday - Cold meat, Roast potatoes, salad and pickles

Sunday - soup and bread

I am going to try and keep my shopping down to a minimum this month to make up for the expense of Christmas. So this may well mean trying to get as much yellow stickered food as possible and freezing as many leftovers as I can manage.

I also plan to make soups (as these are cheap) for my lunches when I am back to work.

If anyone has any cheap recipes that they can think of please let me know and I will give them a go.

Take care and talk soon xx

After christmas update

Hi, I hope you have had a good holiday.

Have you done any sales shopping this year?

We live near a retail park and I had to drive past it today to drop Christmas presents to my lovely Aunt and Uncle who spoil us rotten every year, the traffic went on for miles. Then when we returned home a couple of hours later the traffic was even worse.

I'm not a big fan of shopping but I honestly could not think of anything worse than sitting in traffic to get to the shops, struggling to park and then battling against people to get the things you want. Yuk!

I don't normally have New Years resolutions, mainly because I probably wouldn't keep them as I don't have much willpower. But I do intend to try not to buy too many new items this year.

With charity shops and places like Ebay, items can be picked up at a fraction of the price of new items these days. I also intend to try to reduce the amount of things we have in our home.

Because of being so poorly these last couple of months I have realised that I put an awful lot of pressure on myself because I can't stand having an untidy home (and having five children it can become a mess very quickly). I can't change the way I am, so I need to change the amount of things we have to clean up and put systems in place to avoid the mess.

I have also never really asked my children to do anything but over the next few days I am going to put a chore plan in place. My mum suggested this because she believes if they are doing part of the work then there is less chance they will want to mess it up. Ha ha we shall see!

Well I am going to head off now and try and come up with a healthy menu plan for the rest of the week using leftovers. After Christmas I always fancy soup! I'm not sure the rest of the family will
 want that though.

Talk soon xx