Garden

While we are distancing from the world I am working to make improvements to our home. I started today with the garden. I have cut the free grass, it was so long it took me nearly two hours but its done now.
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I then weeded some of the vegetable beds. I built them from old pallets when I first moved here, they are starting to rot now, I'm thinking of removing them and just having them as open beds now they are quite well established. 

Once is pulled the weds out I found some lettuce, I sowed the seeds at the end of last summer and nothing happened but now I have some

Made me feel very happy to find this. 

Tomorrow I need to do some more weeding. I'd like to plant some seeds as well but I have ran out of compost so I'm trying to decide what's best to do now. 

How are you filling the days? 

Rubber chicken update

Today I made our final recipe for this week's rubber chicken-chicken and noodle soup.

It was very tasty, I got 4 portions of this which brings the rubber chicken total up to 12 meals, I'm very impressed to have got this many meals from a small £2 chicken.

*chicken, jacket potato and salad x2
*roast chicken x2
*chicken pie x4
*chicken noodle soup x4

I used every last bit of the chicken, made stock from the bones.

In other corona news it was my day off today, so I wrote myself a list as ir ealsied I had been awake for 3 hours and not moved once lol

Chicken pie, lockdown day 1

It's hard to imagine that there is so much unknown and uncertainty in the world right now when I can walk the dog, albeit once a day, to some so peaceful as this:

It was so peaceful out that we walked 2 5 miles played hunt the dummy with the dog for ages in the woods and then headed home watching the tractors working in the fields as we walked. A normal walk, in what appears to be a normal day, but isn't.
Very surreal and disturbing to think of the situation the world is in.
What are you doing to keep yourself well in this time?


In other news, rubber chicken is going strong. Tonight's tea was chicken pie

Yes I did slightly burn the crusts but it still tasted good, and there are 2 generous slices in the freezer for another day. So that is 8 meals so far, and still more in the fridge from that one little reduced chicken. 

Rubber chicken!

No, my cooking has not got that bad! I am going to see how many meals I can get out of one small chicken. It was one I bought on yellow sticker for £2 last month. I cooked it nice and plain in the slow-cooker yesterday.  Teengirl and I had some with a jacket potato and salad for dinner, we had one breast shared between us. Today I am cooking some potatoes in the airfryer and steaming some veg to go with some more of the cooked chicken. I have saved every scrap of the chicken and plan on doing something with all of it. No waste!

This is what is left after yesterday's dinner. The bigger tub is the chicken, then the bones and then the juices left in the slower cooker after I took the chicken out. I'm determined to use it all- any suggestions on any of these?
What do you do with all of the left over bits from a roast chicken?

I'll fill you in as the week continues to what I do and if I use any of your ideas.

What is going on?

The world feels a very sad place right now. I think with my job being in the most rural part of the area I live in I have been a little sheltered. I very rarely go into town, I don't like shopping and prefer to stay in the village I live. So I was a little shocked when I went to the supermarket early on Saturday morning. Of course, I had seen social media posts about the state of the shops, the lack of food, but I honestly thought it was an exaggeration. Hence standing in a supermarket at 7am holding back the tears. I'ma monthly shopper usually so as it's heading towards the end of the month and knowing the virus is getting worse in my area I transferred some of my savings to get some shopping in. Not hoarding/panic shop. Just food we need kind of a shop. So to get to the shop that early and see aisles and aisles of bare shelves just made me realise just what a situation we are in. It's real. Basic, cupboard foods are gone. I have food intolerances so what was there, I can't eat.

This is the shopping from the first supermarket. As you can see most of what I have there contains milk. I can't eat it but my children can. So had a very small amount of food for them. I started to panic when I realised this was all I could buy, and nearly cried, a lady saw me and just stood chatting to me for a little about anythign and nothing and I managed to calm down. If she had realised how upset/ concerned I was feeling at that point then it was lovely of her to take time out of her day to help me. If she didn't still very lovely to see some human kindness in the midst of the madness.

I then went across the road to the other supermarket:

A few more bits, more that I can eat and bits to make some meals with using the ingredients I have in the cupboards at home (tin toms etc). This really made me think, and worry, though about others. I am fairly young, I am fit and able, I have a car and more importantly right now a stable job.This shopping, tiny amount though it is, cost more than I would usually spend on a weekly amount of food. How on earth are others who are not in my position able to get food. The bits I have bought are of a higher price than I would usually buy (apart from those cheap, gross noodles in the first picture. My children love them. That's the teens lunch on the two days a week I am in work!)

People get a grip- stop the panic buying and think of others. There is plenty of food in the country, if you stop being selfish about it. I saw a man when out walking the dog, he drives the big trucks for the supermarkets. he said there is loads of food in the warehouse types places (I forget the real word!) but they can't get it to the supermarkets quick enough due to the way people are shopping. Even at Christmas, or when it snows I have never seen the shops look as crazy as they do right now. I get it, you're scared, we are all scared. But the actions of a few are being really detrimental to many. 

Stay home, wash your hands loads, and only buy what you are truly going to use. Then we can all get through this.

My New Journey

I've debated long and hard on posting this but I think it will help give perspective to how things are now, and the new journey I am on. I went from being a single mum as a student when I started this blog to working full-time as a single mum. I felt a lot of guilt around the fact I worked from home whilst Dylan was small, yet Stephanie had been in nursery from around 18 months old. So when I started work I wanted to treat them and give them everything which made going to work purposeful. The reality of this is, I couldn't afford to keep up with this and got myself into debt. over £15000 worth before I hit my crisis point of realising this is not going to get better/go away as things stand. I realised the I'll sort it next month, no really next month wasn't happening or helping me to make changes.
So just before Christmas I stopped using my credit cards- around October/November. Then in December I looked at my statements and realised just how much I am paying in interest, and actually just in minimum payments each month. It was time to get a grip.
I started  by saving up a £500 emergency fund so I have a buffer whilst I am paying off debt, then if something breaks I don't use credit to fix it.
Now I am using all of that knowledge about saving money and budgeting that I learnt as a single parent student to attack my debt. I am not in a position currently to transfer my debts and reduce the interest so I have to attack them as much as I can. I am using the snowball method and throwing everything I can at the smallest debt currently. Watch this space as I get myself out of the financial hole I have dug myself!

Wow!

Ok. so I am on a slightly different journey these days. I was thinking about beginning a blog to show our current life and to help me face the new challenges I have. I was googling around to see what blog websites are current as it's been a while since I started one- 10 years it seems! What do I find, that this one is still live. I had no idea!

What has changed- well I now have a full-time job and am no longer a student. I have been in my job for 9 years. The eldest (boychild) is now 21, studying, working part-time and has a serious girlfriend. The Girlchild is now in secondary and is a dreaded teenager- although currently she's not so bad!
Oh and we have pets now. One rabbit and a Cocker spaniel pup. Life is very different now with all of these changes but it's our life and I love it. Peaceful, calm and comfortable. An old friend recently got in touched and asked how life is going. When I gave that description they asked is that a good or bad thing. It's definitely a good thing. I'm happy.

I think instead of a new blog I will resurrect this one. It shows our journey, and thanks to some daft mistakes over the years some of my old habits are about to become refreshed for this new decade. Watch this space to find out more!

For now have a picture of our pup- this was a couple of months ago, he's grown a bit, as have the rest of us. I'll update some more once I've had a mooch around and reminded myself of all the fun we used to have in this little corner of the web.

Welcome back!