Cal 2

More photo's of the CAL blanket form Attic24, I've just finished part 2

Fecking office politics

I fecking hate office politics.

I especially fecking hate it when other people playing silly buggers means extra work for me.

The last 2 nights I've got home around 5:30 & fallen asleep on the sofa until my L&M has phoned to say he's ready to be collected.

I've hurt my toe, it's painful & swollen, Monday it was agony, today it is merely uncomfortable, I wore slippers to work as I couldn't get my shoes on.

I'm eating loads of jacket potatoes, salmon &avocado's & I'm still knackered.

I've made some meals for DD2, her hubby is out of the house from 6 until midnight with work, the baby is colicky DD is awaiting surgery & in pain until the surgery happens. I took her a chicken casserole, cottage pie & sweet & sour chicken. It will save her cooking for 3 days, by which time her hubby may be backto normal working hours. If not I'll make some more meals for her.

Meal plan for a beginner

I offered to help a young couple who live near me, they want to economise by cooking instead of living on takeaways. 

During a conversation they were amazed to hear that I cooked every day, but as I explained, we eat everyday so that means cooking.

I tried to come up with a meal plan that wasn't too expensive or too complicated & included a couple of quick & east meals.

They only need meals for Monday to Friday as they eat with his or her parents at the weekend

This is what I came up with.

Sausage & Mash with beans, make double the quantity of mash.

Spaghetti bolognese, cook double the quantity of mince'

Cottage pie with frozen peas, using the leftover mince & leftover mash

Jacket potatoes with beans & cheese.

I'll be showing them how to make the meals after work this week.

Potassium deficiency part two.

Thanks for all your comments.
I haven't had my thyroid tested but when my potassium levels are OK, I don't get tired, so that has been ruled out.
Catriona, sorry to hear about your hubby, my appraisal has been delayed for a few days as there was a major panic at work, someone managed to book 4 events on the same day in the same venue so there was lots of rejigging to be done & lots of emails to send.
Jill, thanks for your suggestion, my kidney function test was fine.
Sarah, I was on a potassium drip last year & the on the ghastly tables for a couple of weeks afterwards. My potassium went back up & has now dropped again. I will check out the recipes on your blog.
Thank you Anon for the tea & soup recipes.
Hilary, I am on BP tablet, but the potassium deficiency predates these tablets by about a year so they aren't likely to be the cause.

My CAL blanket from Attic24

The first 12 colours in my blanket.

Result!!

Dr's appointment yesterday morning, more results, more questions than answers. My haemoglobin  is fine so whatever is growing in my colon isn't likely to be cancer.
Unfortunately my potassium levels have plummeted again, I could have a heart attack if it drops too low, this is why they had me on a potassium drip last summer when I was in hospital.
For now I'm eating bananas, salmon, spinach & any other food high in potassium.
The strange thing is that the usual causes of of potassium deficiency are anorexia, bulimia, long periods of diarrhea  or vomiting & malnutrition, as I am suffering from none of these, heaven knows what is causing the lack of potassium.
On the up side, I now know what is causing the weakness, exhaustion, muscle & joint pain, I can rest until the changes in my diet hopefully take effect instead of think I'm just a lazy slob!

As THAT time of year draws near

I'm writing a list

I'm checking it twice

No I'm not talking about Christmas, we celebrate Yule in our house.

I'm not talking about that either, no, it's the dreaded appraisal time again.

I think it's 2 poor appraisals & then it becomes a disciplinary procedure, hooray, what joy.

The training I requested has not been forthcoming, the shelving I was promised has not materialised, but the measurements for it were finally taken on Friday!

I have my paperwork prepared, I have many supportive emails from staff & various other pieces of information. It's now a case of wait & see, I have made my decisions dependent on the appraisal outcome.

Dreams

Funny things dreams.

A colleague came to my room on Friday & was telling me about some complicated dream she'd had about going to Bournemouth with her husband, only it was really her stepfather & she'd been her mother & not herself & they had had a row about visiting a prostitute.

I'd dreamt that I'd been shopping & bought only ready meals, both events are I gather equally unlikely, but at least her dream was interesting.

Oh bugger

Well lets start with the good news, my weekly shop this week came to £6 42, well it came to £20ish but I remembered to use my vouchers & they brought it down to £6.42, woohoo.

I've made soup for my lunch next week, it should have been broccoli & Stilton but! I didn't have much broccoli but we do have lots of cabbage in the garden so I added a handful of shredded leaves. I also didn't have any Stilton but I did have a piece of Cheddar with tomato & basil, so I added that instead, it tastes bloody gorgeous & will provide lunches for 3 or 4 days.

As for the 'Oh Bugger' one of my work colleagues has posted some very inappropriate comments on facebook about a job move that has just been announced. She will be in so much trouble if it is seem by her boss.

Leftovers for tea.

In the fridge there was a bowl of grated cheese left over from the  spaghetti  we had earlier in the week & a bowl of left over mashed potato that needed using up & I know hubby isn't  keen on mash just warmed up.
So I finely sliced an onion & softened it in a little butter, I added the onions & the cheese to the mash, mixed it altogether thoroughly, formed it into cakes & fried them in a pan with just a smear of oil. I found a tub of leftover sliced pork & stuffing balls in the freezer for my L&M, I had a poached egg with my potato cakes. A serving of peas each & it made a tasty & filling meal for us both.

How Much

Yesterday morning I ran out of tea bags , I had 2 packets in the cupboard & thought they were one each of decaf & ordinary, but when I checked there was no decaf. So on the way home after work I stopped at the local Tesco Express to buy some I wandered past the reduced section, this is usually empty as this Tesco's is only the size of a corner shop. To my amazement there was a chicken in there reduced to £1. I didn't need or want a chicken but I bought it anyway & rejigged the menu plan.
Instead of pork chops I did roast chicken with potatoes & veg, the pork chops will be eaten later in the week. We had chicken sandwiches for lunch today, I'm making chicken  & mushroom pasta bake tomorrow & I'm boiling the the carcase to make soup for the rest of this weeks lunches! 

Passed in a blur

We've had a lovely weekend, we had to of the DGC to stay from Saturday evening until 5:30 today.
We've done gardening 

And found  this rather grumpy looking pepper.

Along with these more normal looking ones.

We also did some baking, we made choc chip cookies, I forgot to take a pic & made two of these

I call them chutney cakes, no it's not made with chutney.

Every year a friend of mine makes a lovely Christmas chutney  & borrows my maslin pan to make it in. When she returned the pan she also gave me all the left over dried fruit that she uses in the chutney. This included cranberries, apricots, dates, figs & sultanas. So I made the cakes, the DGC have taken one home to go in their lunch boxes next week

Today in 2000

Today in 2000 my L&M & I met, we can truly say 'We met & there were fireworks!'

We've had our ups & downs, or rather our life has been full of ups & downs, our relationship has grown steadily stronger.

We've overcome financial hardship, mental health issues, bereavements, illness, family problems, in other words, normal family life!

No doubt there will be more good times & bad, hopefully we will carry on & weather the storms

Bloody cold this morning

Ye gods what a shock this morning, only 2 degrees, brr.
I need to find my scarf & gloves & dig out my winter coat.

I received two letters yesterday, one of them is advising me that I'm on the waiting list for treatment for my eye but no idea of timescale. The other letter was to say that I will be getting the lump sum from my state pension that I deferred for a year. £5000 to be paid off the mortgage & I'm treating myself to some new saucepans & some winter boots with the rest.

We've had a new heating system installed at work, of course it doesn't work, 11 years I've worked there, the heating's never worked properly.

I cooked omelette's for tea tonight, ham & mushroom for my L&M, cheese & tomato for me, I made mine big enough to do for my lunch tomorrow too.

I've managed to finished a green & white baby blanket, I'll try to take pics at the weekend when the light is better. I'm starting another one tomorrow, I just need to decide on the next colour scheme.


My L&M went to have his foot surgery checked today, all is well, no problems & he can return to work on Thursday.

On Friday I should be getting some test results through, but if the Dr wants to see me to discuss the results then I probably won't find out until Monday or Tuesday.

Nibbling away at the mortgage

In 2012 we bought a new three piece, we had the money saved up to buy it but it was offered on interest free credit, so we paid the savings into the mortgage account & paid for the three piece monthly. We've just paid the last payment so we've started a Standing Order for the same amount to be paid towards the mortgage. This is on top of another standing order we pay monthly towards the mortgage. We have tried to increase the mortgage payments themselves but the mortgage company like to make this as difficult as possible. 
I earned £60 dog sitting this week & I'm just waiting for another payment of £150 for my old car & one of £25, payment for Henry vacuum cleaner  to hit the bank account & then another £235 will also be paid off the mortgage. Sometimes we can go months with no extra apart form the standing orders coming off the total, other times like this month we seem to have lots extra.