No turning back now !!

Im officially in !!!

My Race number came yesterday #10737 makes it seem all that bit closer now - which it is of course 1 month away - Ive kept up with my training as much as I can through my coughs/colds/splutterings as well as the families germs and dealing with life in general - even through hubby sending me out on 10 mile walks and ignoring my pleas to 'come and pick me up' and .......'If you LOVED me you'd pick me up' but NO I had to walk the whole way !!

I must admit I am feeling better and have lost just under 2 stone in the process which is always a good thing - just a few more million to go now but we'll get there.. so now Im on the home stretch now then just the actual Marathon to walk (its ok if you say it quick enough :))

T Shirt that our nkotb team will be wearing:

Feeling so good that I am already looking for the next challenge - and I'm looking to run the race for life - debating whether to do the 5k or the 10k ? my thinking is - if I can walk a marathon it seems daft walking for 5k - so I think at the moment I'm going towards - - If I can run it (which is my next personal challenge) then I will do the 5k if Im still only walking I'll do the 10k - Ive still got a bit until I need to make my mind up so I'll let you know....

Friday Food for a Fiver (or Less)

I thought that I would share a recipe on a Friday with you, yes I know it has been done before for a £5 or less , but for a family of 5 that works out to £1 p/head and more often than not in our house when you have padded the recipe out it actually feeds us for the meal and enough to either freeze or for leftovers for the following day.

One Moan though to get it out the way, it annoys me so much (dont know about you ) but when you do get a great recipe and it promises to feed a family for £5 then,

1, It is for a family of 4
2, They are more often than not smaller portions which for a postman who is walking 7-8 miles a day in alsorts of weather needs more than sparrow portions

And 3. which for me is my biggest bug-bear

3, Yes it is £5 but that accounts for cost per amount of ingredient (ie 4oz of cheese etc) and doesnt take into account that you have to buy the WHOLE packet just to get the 1/2 oz that you need - which doesnt help one iota when you are trying to budget for family meals

So I promise you that any recipe that I use it is £5 to buy all the ingredients which means that if you have to buy a packet of onions for 89p for example and only use one the 89p is accounted for, which means that you have the rest of the packet for other meals throughout the week without any additional cost

So....

Todays recipe is

BOSTON BEAN BAKE

1 onion 78 (Asda smartprice 2kg)
200g ham cubed 1.24 (Asda premuim lean ham 200g)
1 can tomatoes 35 (Asda smart price )
1 can baked beans 40 (Asda own - not smart price)
125g mushrooms 77 (Asda Smartprice 400g)
1 x 15ml spoon pickle 25 (Asda smartproce pickle - Jar)
1.5 x 5ml spoon cornfour 75 (Asda)

Total £4.54 (all prices as of asda website 8.1.10)

Saute onion and ham in a pan for 2-3min, add tomatoes,baked beans, mushrooms and pickle stir well and simmer for 15-20min

thicken with blended cornflour if needed


you even have enough left over for some lovely fresh crusty bread for the ultimate comfort food !

obviously this is my recipe, please use, and adapt to your own tastes, you will probably find that you tweek it to suit your own family and dont forget the list of ingredients are for whole packets of food so the if you like it the only think you will only need another tin of ham and you already have the stuff left over for another go so that would be another meal for £1.24 - the cost of another can of ham or another idea if you can afford it buy 2 tins at the same time and then make double the amount and freeze, its no extra work because its all in one pan !

Hope you enjoy x x

Where do the years go?

6 years ago I was holding a tiny pink bundle in my arms all 9lb 4oz and introducing her to her big sister, she was a week late due 27th Dec and I remember spending the last two weeks of December leading up to Christmas Day willing her to come out and the 3 days of Christmas willing her to stay in !! as it turned out she hung on there until all the festivities ended.

Iwent into Labour Saturday morning, Mark was at work, Aimee was downstairs with her Step-Brother and I was trying to keep my voice and face steady so she didnt think I was in pain and worry, Mark came home, whizzed me up to hospital, where he proceeded to knock all the shelves off trying to put the radio on - to relax me !!!??, couple of hours later and I remember Westlife's 'Mandy' playing on the radio as she came out.

Now fast fast forward to today and we celebrate her 6th birthday, in the normal way in our household, decorations all over the house, breakfast served on a silver platter, with flowers in a vase for the birthday girl, and toast cut into her initals - she has grown and continues to grow into a loving warm caring child, she is like a little mother hen with her younger brother and is always open for a cuddle, sneeking into our bed for an early morning snuggle, I am so proud to be her mother - I love you Holly, Happy Birthday Bam-Bam x x x

method in the madness !!

Hi All,

I would appologise for being so absent again ! but it is the school summer holidays, we have been away camping, recharging batteries and to be honest it has done me the world of good, I sat in the tent just after the kids had gone to bed and have taken the time to sit and think and to take stock of various items that have been gradually been building up in my mind, and because we have so much coming up it was great to take the time to allocate memory space to all the things coming up and to mentally declutter, I think sometimes we all get so busy in day to day life that we dont manage to finish one topic before we go on to the next one, or even have the time to mentally process before adding another juggling ball to the collection. So any way now I have had the time to chill and relax I have processed and sorted my thoughts and am now bursting to share all my ideas and memories with you over the coming months, and for once in my blogging life I am ahead of myself when it comes to subjects to write about, - I look forward to sharing them with you and am going to try and commit to blogging at least 3 times per week, and hope that you will join me on the ride - I love you all for your patience !!

The Iron Men of Crosby

Over the weekend we visited what is locally known as the Iron Men of Crosby, which is in fact a series of statues by artist Antony Gormley entitled 'Another Place' this piece of art has been on the beach for at least 3years but is one of thoses things that people flock to see but because it is only on your doorstep, life gets in the way and time flies and lo and behold it is 3 yrs down the line.

For those of you who have not heard of the iron men, it is 100 iron lifesize statues of men, scattered along a mile or so of beach some further out than others.

Up until now all we have seen or heard of these iron men is that when they were erected the number of calls into the police and coastguard went up because the public thought that they were people stranded, or trying to hurt themselves, and again when the initial shock of them wore off they hit the news when the lease was up and they were due to be removed there was public outcry that they couldnt be moved and were part of the landscape now (rather like the 'superlambbanana' - which has been adoped by the people of liverpool - the artist has got NO chance of getting that back off us !!) so anyway the iron men are here to stay and we went to visit them.

To look at them you can see why all those calls were put in, they are so realistic that as you get nearer to look you expect them to move like the statue artists that you see in Covent Garden. and the way that some are closer to the beach some further out all looking towards the sea, it is an amazing sight, each one numbered so the kids had great fun running up to them finding out the numbers although the cultural side of it was lost on them because all the statues are 'naked' so kids took great delight in shouting across the beach to us that they could see it's willy, and obviously the tide being the tide brings in all sorts of seaweed, barnacles, and litchen that clings to the most in-oportune places, kids were in hysterics, nothing a quick visit to the iron doctor with some iron tablets wont cure !!!!!!

I can highly recommend it to anyone, may think twice on taking a picnic on the beach, may feel a bit uneasy with all the 'visitors' watching me eat !

family business

Well we are all back to full strength now - (touch wood!!) at least we like sharing things in our family.

Bizarrely though through this time of confinment it gave me the time to actually sit down and reflect on my life and my family. and I have come to the conclusion - I know that I have likened certain aspects to business life- but the running of a family home efficiently is exactly the same as running an efficienct business unfortunately without the sick pay or holiday breaks or any of the other financial perks that paid employment offers and again unfortunately home makers are still unpaid members of society. But still uses exactly the same principals, time management, people management, delegation skills along with the finance section and human resources department. I have drawn on times from when I dod work and have now applied those loosely to family life, we already had the diary/calendar underway a bare minimum requirement for any family, we have the finances under control sort of, and now have the HR dept sorted. only small changes needed to be done, but is surprising at how it has a knock on effect. The children used to have their breakfast on the dining table, but by changing them to eating on the table in the kitchen and by putting a notice board for each child any notes that they need for school or any lists of chores that need to be done can be put on here so that when they are at the reakfast table they are easily seen, I also put a copy of the weeks menu up on the wall so that there is no 'whats for dinner' all week and finally a shopping list is on the main notice board so that if anybody wants anything above and beyond the normal shopping list goes on here and I'll pick it up next time I go to the store. so that is us up to date I think - oh apart from I have also decided that my blog needs more structure instead of posting items as and when I have put a schedule in place so from now on it will be:

Money Monday
Time management Tuesday
Wipeout Wednesday (organising paperwork etc)
Family Thursday
Foody Friday (menu Planning)

So I will try and post something relevant to each subject on each day so that you (and I) know where we are

Speak to you all soon, take care x

Daddys birthday present

It is Mark's (my Husband) birthday on Tuesday 14th and I dont know about you but a homemade gift that the children have thought about and has taken the effort to create means so much more to me than any amount of shop bought presents and luckily Mark is of the same feeling, we do buy each other a present but we also try and get the kids to make something, we find that it gets them to really think about the person that they are making it for and the look of concentration on ther faces and watching them bursting to tell the recipient when they see them is priceless.

So that is what we were doing yesterday, put the baby to bed (only so much 'help' you need!) the we sat down to make the present and we made a loving memory jar cost was minimal which in the current climate is always grateful.




Needed

Pretty Jar £2

Paper Couple of sheets £ minimal

Ribbon £1

Memories £ priceless

With a drink and a snack to get the kids concentrating we sat down and all thought of the things that we love about daddy and the things we love to do when we spend time with him, each child noted about 5 down as did I and filled some in for the baby.

We then typed them out spaced out on sheets in a pretty font.

cut them into strips about 10cm wide each one with a memory on and whose its was

roll up and tie with a piece of ribbon into a scroll

put all the scrolls into the jar (I added a few of his favourite sweets (which happen to be love hearts - quite apt ) for good measure)

then everytime he is having a hard day or having a bad day with any of the children he can take himself off and remind himself that it is only a phase and that we all really do love him - which we do LOTS x x

budgeting planning

One of the additonal tools that I have implemented, is I have started to carry along 2 small notebooks, 1 for day to day spending, (or you can adapt your day to day diary for this) one of the problems that I personally have is that I have an amount of money in my purse and by the end of the day it has been frittered away and you spend the next half hour or so trying to recall where you have been throughout the day, that is where the notebook comes in when you have paid and are waiting for your change just make a quick note on how much the purchase was, you may get some strange looks from other customers but as far as I'm concerned you probably wont see them again (unless they follow you around to see what you are writing!) and you will then have at the end of the day a concise record of where your pennies are disappearing to.
The other notebook is what I do my menu planning in. One page, menu for the week, next page shopping list, and next to the items I write in a rough costing of how much each item is (or how much I want to spend up to) with being on a tight budget this gives me the scope to adjust the list to fit in with the budget. Finally when I get home, - and this may seem a pointless and thankless task - I go through the receipt and then list by each item the actual cost, and then to list seperately items that have been bought not on the list, this is where I normally find all the extras that have slipped into the trolley which is where of course all the extra pennies slip away. Although this may seem time consuming, its a task that only needs to be done as often as you shop. and if you are living to a tight budget or trying to pay off debts - or in our case both it needs to be done, make every penny count, and as the saying goes look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.

Budgeting

So we are coming up to the end of the financial year, tying up loose ends, filing all up to date, ready to be archived.

Right.... and then I woke up and smelt the coffee, unfortunately towards the latter end of the financial year things have gone a bit pear shaped, so another one of my mid-year resolutions is to get more organised, and to try and get straight financially.

I'll be honest with you this year has been a struggle, living from one pay day to the next, and for a family of five, with a mortgage and loan to pay off it really hits home.

The things that you do learn along the way are lessons that money cant buy such as:

1. who your friends are - your real friends are the ones who accept that things are tight at the moment and wont pressure you or treat you any differently

2. How to cook properly - I have always (as far as I can- and I do have the odd slip up !) made meals from scratch, even on junk food saturday we make our pizza, but I have learnt how to cook more creatively with leftovers, making stock and making up stews, bulking meals out with more vegetables and freezing leftovers and also turning the ratio to putting veg on plate first and adding meat as a side dish.

3. how to budget, although we are paying off loans, - if we stick to our budget plan (pear shaping taken into account ! we still aim to have these paid off by mid next year, I have also found a great web site that has great advice http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ advice and tips for claiming back any money due to you and up to date money saving coupons, and much much more

4. that any family can adapt no matter how young or old each family member is, you may have to explain in simpler terms but we try and explain to the whole family that there wont be any luxuries for a while and they seem to accept the small changes.

5. the wide variety of free activities that are available it may take a while to find them by searching various sites but the rewards are amazing.

6. Love of my family, as dramatic as it sounds - with my husband and my children by my side we are a team against the world, in times of crisis, be it financial, emotional or physical we pull together no questions asked, we as parents lead by example and if we manage to keep the family buyant then the kids are great.

anyway going back to my organisation for budgeting, in advance of 6th April I have, 2 lever arch files, one for wage slips/bank statements and the other for bills, a diary to write down any upcoming direct debit /standing order dates, 2 small notebooks (one for menu planning and one for day to day spending records) so we are all cooking on gas ready for the start of the new year and together we will do this - debt free future here we come hopefully - Ill keep you updated as we travel along this rocky road - wish me luck - Im going in !! x

Come and join me for the ultimate blog party,

I'm new to blogging and as far as I can see so far is still relatively new in the uk - certainly none of my friends do it or have even heard of it - so I hope to meet lots of new friends at the party.

follow my blog and find how one happy housewife from Liverpool muddles through life and hopefully comes out the other side smiling - I have my work cut out for me I am a mum of 3 ( 9, 5, and 2), a wife, and a housewife - and I love it !! hard sometimes but so rewarding, look forward to hearing from you all - love to you all x x