Happy 21st Birthday Charlotte xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My lovely daughter is 21 today!!!

She loves zebra print!

I hope you've had a great day - shopping in Birmingham with your sister :)

Love you lots

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x



1000 page views!

1000 page views!!!

This may not seem like much, but at least I know I am not just talking to myself!

I have 6 followers, so I know that others read, but do not want to follow me. I am unable to comment on my favourite blogs and cannot work out why, so I'm unlikely to gain any further followers. I'm stuck :(

Thank you for reading this, it really makes me happy.

Mandy xxx

Back Pain Again!!!

Hi, sadly my back pain has returned!

This time I simply picked up a bottle of bleach, that was all then the pain and lack of mobility had returned. This happened a week ago and now I am at the stage where I can sit up on the sofa and walk around slowly. I was advised when I injured my back 5 years ago that recovery is quicker when you're active. I have learnt that actually I recover quicker by giving in and resting my back. I take ibuprofen and use my tens machine to ease the muscle pain and wait...

It is so annoying because I have loads to do and I have to rely on my daughter to do all my chores while I get to cuddle my grandaughter ;)

Hopefully things will be back to normal soon.

Some good news... the boiler man is coming round on Wednesday and hopefully the boiler will be fixed??? The boiler broke down at the beginning of the year and finally we can have the choice of putting the heating on. We have got by with oil radiators and the electric fire in the living room, but now we have to keep the rest of the house warm because we have an 8 week old baby here and mould is beginning to appear around the windows. Daisy-May has a heater in her room to keep her cosy. The rest of us wrap up warm and keep busy (apart from me with my bad back!), we have hot drinks and soup, blankets on our knees in the evening and hot water bottles.

I hope you are all keeping warm :)

Mandy x

Thrifty shopping and stocking-up the cupboards...Approved food

Approved Food Order

Hi, I have not had any time to blog lately because of our new arrival in the family. Little Daisy-May has turned our lives upside down (in a good way) and left no time for stuff like blogging. She is 6 weeks old now and absolutely perfect! Alice's pre-eclampsia has finally gone and she is feeling much better. I had forgotten just how much time is taken up looking after a new baby, but we are trying to get into a routine now. I did manage to make an Approved Food order last week...

There are all kinds of cupboard fillers here. I particularly stocked up on tins and packets for easy quick meals when I need extra time. I normally spend quite some time in the morning preparing the evening meal ready to be cooked later in the day, as I think it's important to cook from scratch.

Some items are to help me fill my chest freezer. I bought chocolate cake mix (even though I am quite capable of baking a cake) because cocoa is so expensive. This sack retailed at £14.99 and I bought it for £4.99. To me this is a bargain because my children loved the chocolate muffin mix we had before and I can fill the freezer really cheaply with cake for packed lunches and ready for pudding - chocolate pudding and chocolate custard : )

This is a good way of shopping for standby meals and so cheap. I only ever buy items in date which does prevent me from getting some fantastic bargains, bit it's an area I can't be frugal on.

I made 6 chocolate sponges earlier today, so I'll let you know how they taste!

Have you ever bought goods from Approved Food???

Hopefully I'll be back soon,

Mandy x



I'm a Grandma!!!

I've got a beautiful little grandaughter!!!

She arrived this morning at 2.55, safe and well.

Her mummy is not so good :(

Alice has pre-eclampsia, made a lot better by delivering her baby, but still poorly.

Yesterday was full of stress and worry, today is joy and relief!

She weighed in at 6lb which was excellent as her predicted birthweight was 5lb (and she was delivered early). She has been through a lot of struggles when she wasn't growing properly, but she came through at a healthy 6lb - our special little miracle!

Today is a happy day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mandy x

Look what I found in my loft... fantastic 80s albums!

Hi

I've been sorting through the endless boxes of stuff stored in my loft over the past few days and I found my beloved 80s albums!

Wham 'Fantastic'! I absolutely loved wham and this album is very precious to me because it was a present from my grandmother. Shirlie Kemp has a beautiful blog which is well worth reading - I love her style. This album is my favourite.

A-Ha were another band I loved. 

Next is the Housemartins. I loved this band and went on to love The Beautiful South too.

I love Madonna's music, but only the older stuff - my ipod is full of it!

Scritti Politti weren't one of my original favourites, but I did love their music and still do.

No one could understand me liking Bronski Beat, but I went on to love The Communards. I saw them at the Oxford Apollo in 1987.

These are just a small snippet of my singles collection:

*Tina Turner*

*Band Aid*

*Bananarama*

*Thompson Twins* (reminds me of babysitting)

*Whitney Houston*

*Tears for Fears* (my friend bought me this for my 14th birthday)

*Frankie Goes to Hollywood*

*A-HA* (I played this song over and over again!)

*Wham*

The first single I ever owned was by Dollar 'Shooting Star' - sadly I have no idea what happened to my copy. It was a birthday present when I was about 6 or 7.

The first single that I bought with my own money was Nick Heyward 'Blue Hat for a Blue Day' I can actually remember going to buy this in High Wycombe.

The first album I owned is pictured above; Wham 'Fantastic'

The first album I bought myself was the a-ha one.

Sadly I don't have a record player :-(

So I store my records in the loft and look at them every now and then. They hold positive memories for me. Music has been and always will be very important to me.

What was your first single or album

Thanks for reading!

Please leave a comment below or follow my blog

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Baking for the freezer, decluttering the loft and baby Daisy.

Hi

Just lately I've been doing a bit of baking. The problem is that everything seems to get eaten too quickly and then I have nothing left for the family pack-ups. So now I try to batch bake and put some bits aside to freeze. This has worked quite well and I've found that fruit cake freezes really well (I hate fruit cake!)

Today I have been really busy sorting out our loft, so it was handy being able to get a fruit cake out of the freezer for the others as I haven't had time to bake. I have found some really interesting things from my childhood - I am a dreadful hoarder! However, I have recently been inspired by reading other people's blogs to declutter properly. I obviously can't throw away items from my childhood because I have kept them this many years (I'm 41), but I have reduced the amount of birthday cards etc. I have been keeping them since I was 17 in 1988!!! Sadly there have been a lot of bad people in my life and I have felt so good to rid myself of them completely by throwing away those cards. These are people who only pretended to love and care about me and my family and now I have erased as much as I can. It may sound strange that I have thrown away my 18th birthday cards at this late stage, but the family I had then turned out to be pure evil (a strong word but a necessary description) and don't deserve to take up space in my loft or my memories, I still have numerous cards from my children and my husband, but that's about it. The loft sorting continues tomorrow...

On a happier note - my lovely daughter is having a baby and 2 days ago I felt her kick!!! We could see little flickers and feel tiny little kicks. She only weighs 2lb 10oz at the moment and has been predicted to weigh 5lb at most at birth. There have been many health problems along the way for Alice and the baby, but she is still growing and can stay cosy in her mummy's tummy for a while longer. Alice is being monitored every week by the hospital now and having growth scans fortnightly to check the weight gain and blood flow through the cord. We don't expect her to go full-term, but every week we get to is a bonus for the baby to be born healthy. I have bought some premature clothes ready and tiny little nappies for her. I'm so excited, it's just what my family needs, some happy news!

I had a bit of a 'use-up' from the freezer for tonight's tea:

Fish Pie

I took 3 portions of cod in butter,

(bought for Alice but she threw up one and now won't touch them again!)

and put them in a shallow oven dish.

Next I made up a packet of parsley sauce (approved food)

and poured over the fish (adding a little milk).

I sprinkled on some frozen peas and then

I boiled and mashed a large pan of potatoes and spread over the fish.

I made a pretty pattern with a fork and put it in the oven for 45 mins (180 oC)

I served it with carrots and broccoli.

(Alice had a chicken breast instead!)

My husband said it was really nice which I wasn't expecting because I was just using stuff up before it went out of date. I have a huge struggle trying to get my children to eat fish. No time to make pudding today, but this is what we had the other day:

A strawberry victoria sponge cake with fresh cream!!!

Thank you for reading and please follow me ;-)

Mandy xxx