Careless

So I've been a little carefree these last few days with my resourceful intentions. Will have to be very astute for the rest of the month. Cafe visits at the minimum. Making sure if hubby and I go out we take food and drink with us, and keeping an eye on the fridge, which I haven't been doing to the best of my ability of late, and several food stuff has found itself in the bin :-( 

What I've come to realise is that it is so easy to slip into lazy ways, which causes waste of food and money, so this month I have to pull my socks up and not get sucked into bad ways and thought patterns :-) 

We had a lovely day at Tyntesfield, (which is near Bristol) yesterday.Such a lovely place and one I'd go to again. It's definitely at the top of my house list with Stourhead and Dyrham Park. I did take a packed lunch, and plenty of flasks for hot drinks. We did have a cappuccino and toasted teacake in the cafe there though. Just couldn't resist it. Hopefully I walked most of, if not all, off afterwards.  I hasten to add the cappuccino was a skinny one :-) However, it wasn't cheap, and I was a little cross I gave in, especially as I'd bought more than enough hot water in flasks to make 'free' ones :-) Never mind, I did enjoy it, and it was a lovely day out :-)

Drop Spindle

Yesterday I went to a craft fair at Tyntesfield near Bristol. It was a Medieval one, and had spinning on demonstration. I got talking to a lovely lady who was there with her spinning wheel, and she sold me a drop spindle and some fleece for a fiver. I have to be honest, it's a lot harder to do than it looked, and I have so far been very good at making nice thick rope looking stuff lol. I am determined to learn this craft though, and will persevere seeing as I promised this lovely lady yesterday I would :-)
I also bought a felting kit. Again I was given a demonstration, and I got the picture she made as well :-) I'm going to hang on before doing that as I think my daughter will enjoy having a go as well :-) I though we could do that together :-)

My husband was pleased with the fair as there was some wood turning going on. I think we're both going to do a two day course and make a stool :-) I'm looking forward to that :-)

Tyntesfield

Books

I love reading. My Kindle is getting proper stuffed with books :-) That doesn't mean I don't read an actual book anymore, because I do, though not so much, as it is much cheaper to buy one on the the Kindle. Sometimes you can get a good free one as well. How ever, nothing beats the smell of a new book :-) and as much as I love the Kindle, it doesn't 'feel' like a book either. Never-the-less, I do tend to use my Kindle more than a book.

The real beauty of the Kindle is you can take it out with you and have a whole library of reads in your bag. I have a good variety of books on it as well. Recipe books, fiction/non fiction ones, bibles, Christian books and life style books, and others. I like nothing less than to go into a quiet cafe open up my Kindle, choose a book from the many I have and settle down with a nice cup of coffee and have a read :-)

I like to mix and match my reading.
I enjoy an easy read, which perhaps can be a bit of a 'corny' type book, which I will read in the bath, or in-between a more heavier read, which I also enjoy.
At the moment I'm reading a book on The Early Church Fathers, and one called Understanding Genesis. Both are interesting, and I'm enjoying them.

Recently I read The Lost Child of Philomena. That book moved me. Apparently the film is more centred on Philomena. I haven't seen the film. The book is more Michael's story. A very good book.

I'm considering getting the 'Quirke' books after seeing the author, Benjamin Black being interviewed yesterday. There's going to be a series coming on the telly soon, and I think I'd like to read the books first, or at least the first one, and see if I like it. I loved the Morse book, but not so much the series. I preferred the series of Frost to the books, and preferred the P.D. James Daglish books to the series. Although Martin Shaw's versions of the books he did were good.

One of my most favourite books is Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian. John Thaw did a good job in the televised version, but the book is so much better.

Not sure what I will read next. Probably The Shuttle by By Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Garden viewing

Last night we went to look at a garden that a friend of ours looks after.

Stourhead

A week goes by

Weighed in on Wednesday and had lost 2lb. That's 5lb in total now. I'm not going to do the Slimming World diet. I'm watching what I eat and trying to stay within a 1,500 calorie intake. I've found it easy not to eat between meals, and to have just the one sweet thing in the day. usually for dessert.  If I do feel hungry, I just tell myself I'm not and to wait until the next meal lol. If pangs do insist, I'll have a bit of fruit.

Last Saturday hubby and I went to Stourhead. We went to go to a craft show there, but it was a little disappointing. Stourhead wasn't though. It was a lovely sunny day, and the colours were beautiful. It was a very enjoyable day :-) I took a packed lunch and a flask of drink which we enjoyed when we got back to the car. We did treat ourselves to an ice-cream. Hubby choose a rum n raisin and I had a lemon meringue one :-)

Met up with hubby's family today for a meal . Went to one of those cheap and cheerful places. Two meals for a tenner type thing. I didn't have a dinner under that deal due to having had a sandwich before we went. Or a little time before we went. As meet up time was at 2pm, and I was hungry at 12pm, I had a sandwich as I thought I would be so ravenous by the time I got there and be at risk of eating stuff that I really shouldn't do. Due to the pre sandwich, I only wanted a jacket potato, and I struggled eating that, so hubby got his meal deal by doubling with his brother :-) We didn't do desert. We had a cappuccino instead. Not overly impressed with it. It was luke-warm, and the froth wasn't to brilliant. I don't think they used skimmed milk either. Or maybe they did and found it difficult to get the milk to froth. Hence rubbish froth. It was a bit creamy for skimmed.
A lot of cafes have problems frothing skimmed milk. I don't. My little whizzer thing does a brilliant job :-)

I don't know what it is, but I get more and more disappointed with meals out. I don't know whether it's because I sit there thinking I could do just as well, at a much cheaper price???!!!! My jacket potato cost £3.99 with cheese and baked beans. I could buy a bag of baking potatoes for less than that. It had been microwaved, and the potato itself was not a particular nice one. The inside was a bit 'slimey.' But then, it wasn't a top notch restaurant. It was a cheap and cheerful pub lunch type place, so it's accepting you get what you pay for :-)
In comparison,  I went out for lunch with my mum in the week, and went to my favourite little bistro/cafe in my town, and had a lovely lunch. Not cheap and cheerful though. A little more pricey, and yes I could have done exactly the same at home for a lot less, but it was lovely, and it's easy to not mind so much when what you are eating is yummy, which was a homemade fish finger sandwich with a side salad and crisps. The bread was fantastic. Salad is salad lol and I left the crisps. All was presented beautifully on a rectangle slate :-)
I think though, eating in, is going to be my more favourite eating out experience  :-) Or a packed lunch when we go out in favour of cheap and cheerful food.

Last night we were very spoilt. one of our daughter's who's back from Uni for the summer wanted to show off her cooking skills, and cooked us a cheese stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon with boiled potatoes, corn and green beans dinner. I bought the stuff, but it didn't come to more than £12-£13 and she cooked for 7, so taking fuel into account, the meal was about £2 each. It was lovely. She did a brilliant job :-)

Frustration

So, even after behaving myself really well, and sticking well in line with the Slimming World diet plan, and I know I did, and I know that plan inside out and upside down. My kids tell me I don't need to diet, and they're right really. Although I could do with losing some lbs, I'm not exceptionally overweight, but I still get hung up on how much I weigh. At nearly 56yrs old, and 13 children later (10 living two miscarriages one being twins) I still seem to think I should have a body like my 17yr old daughter!!!!!! I'm also becoming very conscious that the impression I give to my girls by my constant on off dieting isn't a good one, and I am aware of my 17yr old already unhappy with her size. and she is very slim :-( I am as I write this thinking that I need to discipline myself to eating healthy. Eating at meal times, and not snacking on cakes and biscuits in-between. Fruit being a better option to snack on should I feel peckish at meal times!!!

Today I managed to jam my printer up with paper, and it is determined not to budge. Spoke to a nice service lady who was helpful, and the final conclusion was that a little bit of gentle male brute force persuasion was probably what is needed. So a job for the hubby when he gets home :-)

Went and had a pot of tea in Costa. Signed up to a double your points thing that was ending to day. Hopefully I should soon be liable to a freebie :-) We have a lovely Costa here, very friendly. For a small town we have three very nice cafes. One I've got particularly fond of. It's by our little stream, and their coffee is more to my taste. It's nice to have the choice of where to go to though :-) As the weather improves, I will probably take my own flask cup with me, and sit on one of the seats by the stream. A little cheaper than cafe prices :-) lol

Going back to diets. I do wonder with some of these high profile type diet plans whether they have a deal with some of the main food manufacturers??? It seems these popular food producers are the only ones who can offer 'safe' foods to eat as much of and it ends up becoming very expensive. I was thinking this morning that if we eat smaller portions, and more sensible food, we'd lose lbs and £s quite cheaply :-D

Yesterday

We had a lovely family BBQ yesterday. Mainly hubbie's family members plus those of my lot who were around, and my lovely niece. My brother couldn't come do to my sister in law being very ill. It was lovely to catch up with hubbies family though as we don't see them much. Not because we don't want to, but times working out to get together is so difficult lol. It was a fantastic day, and the weather even brightened up, cold, but dry, so I'm not going to grumble :-)

Lot's of yummy food put together by myself and my head chef daughter. My sister in law (hubbie's brother's wife) bought a gorgeous vegetarian chilli. Very welcome after feeling a bit cold :-)

Despite the naughty yummy food on offer, I did stick very well to my Slimming World diet and stayed within my limitations :-)

Cardigan

I bought myself a couple of massive balls of Aran yarn on Friday. I'm going to knit a cardigan for myself with them and it's already on the needles and sailing happily up the first front :-)

My latest

New socks on the needle !!

Guilt free cake

A nice guilt free cake. This one I made last year, but I made one the other day which hubby and I have been enjoying for our dessert

A week on

It's just about a week since I started back on the Slimming World plan. I weighed myself this morning, and I'd lost 3lb, so I was a happy bunny. Good to see the scales on the way down :-)
Sadly, because of the diet plan, a lot of high syned foods had to go. As my hubby to has to lose a little tummy, I didn't want to feed him with it, so the bin had it. I consoled myself it was better in there than on my hips!!!!
I've actually enjoyed getting back into the plan again. I did last year, but my heart wasn't fully in it, and although I'd lost a good stone and a bit, I quit, and of course the lbs came back on, and a year on I was seeing myself back to where I was.
I'm not so keen on the Extra Easy plan. I used it on occasion last year, but I much prefer to use the green and red plans. Green being my favourite.

Slimming

So I weighed myself, and I'm a little over weight and need to lose at least a couple of stone. I've been an on off slimming world dieter since 2004, and have always lost weight, then abandon it and put it all back on, so now I'm going to make the resolve to stick at it, and get those 2 stones done and dealt with :-)
It's going to be interesting how I can do it at a decent housekeeping price, but it can be done :-)