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"What have you eaten" Parallel Chat

So far each of our grandchildren in turn have had a jaw dropping moment and sat transfixed watching the Christmas mobiles: we have 5 or 6. skating scenes, big wheel, trains in tunnels etc. This year another one will be old enough to notice them for the first time and two cousins who will act as her explainers . How could one not enjoy that? I am sure Julie has added some new pieces based on the space provided by the new layout of this house. Just a pity there is no wood burner here for the carols, decs and chocolate the babes love. I love every thing I hear about about Em. Youtube had an excellent set of carols with Thomas Kinkade artwork which keeps getting blocked.
 
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Today a challenging start - after overnight cogitation we ended up ringing police and the safeguarding team re autistic sons current crisis. Not sure it will improve things or not but decided was only way forward with current situation. Felt better for doing something practical.
Reward after was a quick coffee in our local park in sunshine with a friend who is moving away in a couple of weeks - lovely to catch up and reflect on our friendship over the years and her lovely future plans.
Managed at a distance too to get emergency plumber out to mum and have had a call to say that’s fixed. Her kitchen was flooding and I had nightmares about her slipping......
Hoping to get some of my outstanding paid work done this weekend cross fingers for me I had hoped to do yesterday and today but didn’t work out as planned!
Would love early night tonight after my night of poor sleep but have a planned 12 o clock midnight visit to Waitrose website to get online shopping done for a reasonable delivery time! I’ve got my stuff in trolley ready so will just need to book slot and checkout they tend to switch over one minute after midnight so shouldn’t be too late up.
 
Same thing happened today as yesterday - stomach started playing up after picking at the pork dish so nothing else for the rest of the day. Em didn't come after all - just as well, the way I was feeling. Her mum picked her up from school and took her to town. Did a fair bit of food prep even though I couldn't eat, so there's lots of stuff to go into the freezer. Got the house ready first thing for my cleaner to come and do the floors but she phoned to say she won't be here until tomorrow. That's OK but I now have everything piled on top of the stripped bed and will have to sort that out before I can get into it. One of my worst jobs is putting a cover on the duvet! Still, if that's all I have to worry about, I'm doing allright.
 
Luckily we are with Asda for deliveries, originally only because we couldn't get on any other when the crisis first hit.
They have already released all slots up to Christmas and its such a relief to know we have one a week booked already
(Having a deja vue moment-have i already said this on here???)

@shelley262 so sorry for what you are going through. Sometimes there is no way of averting a crisis, it just destined to happen, bit like a pressure cooker. And its easier once its happened to be a good support.
 
@Annb thanks for the Rue update!
@ianpspurs MrZF is 6'2" and weighed 135 lb when I met him. Not so much any more lol. Also, how the HECK did you leave the 1960's without knowing at least a little about "The Dark Side of Oz"?
I am a sucker for Judy Garland's voice. We had the soundtrack long before I ever saw the movie, and I had it memorized by the time I was 10! Seeing the movie at 15 was quite a surprise, and I'm still just as happy with my own little movie in my head, go figure.
Whoa @maglil55 thank you for the gravlax info!!! That's fascinating.
@Mrs T 123 I too am grateful you found another job. Serenity prayer time!
@Annb good heavens where did your DIL's doctor get his degree from? Does he know we are living in a pandemic??? Can she get assertive in seeking help? And Em&sewing machine good heavens! Good luck with that one!
@ianpspurs again-- I am thankful I am not my SIL who has something like 17 grandchildren, and 4 great-grands. Every Christmas she sews each of them some item of apparel. The year it was pj's, she had to call out the Marines on Christmas Eve for assistance! And thank you for showing me that my memory of pYjamas as opposed to today's pAjamas was not a false memory...
People are putting up Christmas lights and decorating their yards early around here. DIL says bring it on, she needs some more joy in her life. Traditionally, here anyway, you start drcorating the weekend of Thanksgiving, so usually the last weekend in November. But Novembermas-- I like it. Except I'm not ready! Even though there is a radio station that starts playing 24/7 Christmas songs on Halloween!
@shelley262 my heart is with you-- you are having a rough time.
I am trapped with one cat on my lap, the other next to us, and it's time to start the two-hour foofaraw-before-bed routine. I so envy people who can take out their contacts or whatever, brush their teeth, and fall into bed.
 
Hi All
@shelley262 hugs for the challenging time you’re having. Hope things improve and you can catch up with yourself and sleep! @Annb hug for the tum issues and the bed issues...I think we all struggle with fitted sheets and duvet covers. Its funny how things that you just did years ago now seem that much more trouble.
I am hoping when Sainsburys release their Christmas week c&c dates I can get one.
Yesterday the cupboard was a bit bare and the fridge a bit empty so supper for me was fried finely chopped shallot, red pepper and cubed chorizo with a hint of paprika stirred through cauli rice. I can’t get to my hob today as Mr PM is painting the hood and side panels so it will be t/a supper.
I tried out the Lizza toasties yesterday. First plus point they are packed in twos and have a 6 week shelf life. They were thicker than I expected so I split one and made two bits of toast (1.7g carbs) and spread with chicken liver pate. Made a nice lunch with a mug of tea. They are VERY filling which I suppose is a good thing. They dont taste like bread like my HiLo in the morning but with a tasty topping they will be a useful if expensive addition to my armour. Although they are wrapped in twos they are 4 per pack. I bought 3 + 1 free so 16 toasties for around £20 incl postage.
 
I escaped the 60s sans Oz by being sport mad, mainly cricket, and by my not liking films, especially musicals. Granddaughter demanded to see WOO again yesterday and stayed stock still with Julie. I was happily in another room with my grandson watching Unspeakable on Youtube. (Very unflattering impression of your youth) Your SIL reminds me of Julie and her mum who seem to want to knit clothes for our/their brood. In her mum's case that involves collecting the fleece and doing all the prep through to knitting . Mr ZF seems about the normal size to me. I am recorded as being 6' 1" and a bit and weighing 175 pounds at my starting teaching medical. That seemed to me to be a good average size. I do not like this shrinking business one bit nor being unable to eat whatever I want whenever I want. Mostly, I dislike my dysfunctional spine stopping me running or exercising properly but others here have much bigger issues. Do y'all have a Stateside equivalent of grumpy old gits?
 
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I have worn sensors for long periods in the sea - both on the surface and diving. For me, the greatest risk to the sensor was donning and removing my BCD with tank in situ. They stick to me like limpets!
 

I found a decent santuko knife changed how I felt about dealing with swede and such like. A decent weight and inflexible blade really does it.

I have also used an oriental cleaver (in Asia they use them for literally everything - the bigger the better - shudder), but prefer the santuko. It lives in a knife guard for a reason.
 
Ooooer. I'm on a posting hat trick roll....... Go me!

I know we are a generous lot on this thread, and each do what we can to help our communities, friends and neighbours. Yesterday in Lidl, I noticed a new leaflet stand. Being the nosey sort, I had to go and have a read.

It transpires Lidl had launched a new initiative to help local foodbanks and those in need of food. They have always had a foodbank cage for customers to make their donations, but this is a bit different.

In brief, the cards are each for a food item - from memory, UHT milk, rice, a cereal, I think, canned tomatoes, pasta (I think) and a canned tuna. If you take a card of your choice through the checkout it will be scanned and the cost of the item added to your shopping. In the background your purchase is collated with others, and LIDL match whatever you buy and send it out. Rather a nice way of doubling each donation.

Personally, I never, ever put anything into a foodbank cage/basket that I wouldn't eat myself, so for me it was tuna and milk. OK, the milk was semi-skilled, but Lidl don't stock a full fat variant.

I just wanted to make folks aware of what they're doing. (This is in addition to their long term charitable bond with the NSPCC.)
 

Thanks for that. What a good idea. I almost always forget until I’m passing the food bank cage on the way out. Would be great to have the cards at the checkout in place of sweets etc.

Like you I always donate things I’d be happy to eat myself so canned meat/fish and the odd jar of unsweetened nut butter go in.
 

Not one of us know what could befall us at some point in the future, or when we might need to reach out for some help, so while we can, we feel it important to share a little of our good fortune.

The options are very limited, to just 5 or 6 products, but the doubling up is what captured me. I can always put other items in the cage, but often forget as I'm trying to get in and out. In our local store the cards are on the way into the main body of the store, adjacent to the bakery.

I also use the Lidl Plus Card, which give a(n electrtonic) scratchcard every time one shops. Prizes are anything from 50 - £100 . The foodbank scheme can have any winnings from that lot too. I do wish they could have an option to take or donate the "winnings".
 
My cleaner did come today, so my floors are all vacuumed and steamed clean. Didn't get the duvet cover on last night, so slept under a fleece blanket instead (lazy me!). I did, at least, get the bottom sheet on before I gave up in tears! Lifting the mattress corners really gets to my back. Must do it today.

Also have to give the GP a call on Monday - the chest thing is getting worse again. I was thinking that maybe my blood pressure was dropping too low under the influence of the extra diuretics, making me feel grotty, but Neil has an old fashioned set to check BP and it wasn't too bad, so it ain't that.

Just snacking on Stilton and a pear - lovely and light enough, I hope, to stop me feeling bad this afternoon.

That revised way of giving to food banks is a great one! It must be awful, especially when stuck in the house much of the time, to have insufficient food for your family. Any help that can be given is great. We do have a food bank cage at both of our supermarkets but I haven't been in a supermarket for many months now. I ask Neil to put something in when he shops, but don't check up on him. Pretty sure he would only put in healthy options. I wish there was a way that I could be more involved personally.
 
Morrisons have food 3 or so items packed into a bag at the entrance to the store. They write the price of the
bag on the top. You take it to the checkout and pay then pop it into the food bank. Our local food bank let the store know what they are short of so that they are not over run with some things and short of others.
 
@ianpspurs "Stateside equivalent of grumpy old git" sure! If you like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, watch "Grumpy Old Men". Crabby, grouchy, old fart, old geezer, old man... they'll all do! I had to look up "Unspeakable" but did not watch any or my youtube will be polluted forever. Kids on youtube do everything they do, just to gather as many views as possible, in order to become a revenue stream for advertisers, which in turn can make them millionaires before they're 16. So they are not necessarily representative of a huge slice of population. But what kid doesn't want to drop out of school to play video games for lots of money, right? MrZF likes to watch a pair of Australian guys, not kids, who have fun dropping stuff from great heights onto other stuff and seeing what happens. I use Youtube for classical music and ballet, which it used to be a whole lot better at!
@DCUKMod now I want a santuko knife! I use a wood-handle chef's knife and a ditto paring knife for everything except bread. The unfinished wood makes for a non-slip grasp, which I definitely need. Plastic gets greasy fast...your Lidl food bank initiative sounds great! I worked at a church food pantry for a couple of years, and our clients were definitely not in any kind of position to do any fancy WOE. We learned to put the rare dessert mixes in a shopping bag for families with younger kids. Our stores do similar things-- cash vouchers at the register, pre-packed boxes which you buy and they go off to the big food bank, each for a family, and at holidays big bins to put holiday canned food, or winter coats for the tv station+dry cleaners that collect, or toys for the Toys For Tots annual campaign. And in late July, backpacks and school supplies to go in them.
@Annb hurray cleaning! Bed making can be a real challenge. Hugs for chest thing-- I hope you get good help!
 

When I worked in big corporate, community, family and charity were big deals with them. They did (and likely still do) all manner of things, like supporting reading initiatives in schools, giving members of staff time off to participate (about an hour a week to read with children 1:1), matching sponsorships for marathons, or whatever. They also had a nominated charity each year.

Every Friday was was a "dress down" day (provided the role supported it), but you had to pay/donate £1 for the pleasure.

Every winter there'd a clothing collections for warm clothing for the homeless, and every Christmas we "collected" toys for the Salvation Army, for those children who might not receive too much at all.

I'm a firm believer in giving little and often. It really matters.
 
Another gorgeous fall day, but more seasonal temperatures. People out with their infernal leaf blowers (but it is a mature subdivision so the trees are old, tall, and dropping leaves!). We will again, for the forever-th year, be the ones with the rakes. MrZF loves to rake-- it allows him to zone out. This year is a first-- hardly any pine trees. Look up loblolly pine-- that's what we've raked the most of. The needles make great piles for kids to jump in, and help weigh down a pile of hardwood leaves so it doesn't all blow away. We rake to the curb (or ditch in most cases) and the city vacuums it up for a very reasonable fee.
The guy across the street is messing around at the front of his house with an 8' step ladder and a very long orange extension cord. I suspect Christmas lights will appear!
I'm having a very tired day. I think that I overdid this week powered by the "feel really good" period I always get from a flu shot, and am now crashing. I don't think I'll get to any of the HelloFresh boxes, and anyway My Freezer Is FULL! There is a great need for some wire baskets for organization in there. All I can find are smaller at the base than at the top. I want a sturdy wire cube, and can't find it arrgh! I am hoarding food in case things go south here. Hoping not!
 
@zauberflote hope you find more energy soon - I’m sure a good rest will help.
I’ve managed to get some paid work done today - thankfully it was a bit calmer today on the caring front! I’ve also eaten three smallish meals to keep me motivated and found it therapeutic to get back onto an outstanding project and get some results. Hoping to get catch up sleep tonight and finish more of the work project tomorrow.
Thank you all for virtual hugs and thoughts - what a lovely group of guys you all are.
 
Feeling dreadfully dull here in comparison. A bit of yoga followed by some back stretches and a toenail polish managed to fill most of the morning. A sudden mini migraine meant i slept the afternoon away, then we did an online quiz in aid of a local church. First time I'd used "a breakout room" on zoom which was interesting as I'm starting to work on some ideas to celebrate hubbys milestone birthday after Christmas and am assuming it will be a virtual birthday
 
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