New thing I am going to do

In 2023 I am going to keep a log of what books I read.  I do have a Book Review blog, that's here.

I do review books for this company Graff Martin, and the site is called Nut's About Books.  If you click on the name there is a link if you want to apply to be one of the reviewers.

I write reviews over on my book review blog about the books I receive from that company.  Though I do read a lot more books but don't review every book I read; maybe I should?  I don't have a problem with doing a log, but am lazy at reviewing 😉

I will probably add the list on my side bar with links to the books and go from there.

I have just read this book:

Here is a link to the book overview on Amazon; it was a very light read, I call it a shopping list book, where you don't have to concentrate too hard to understand the story, I can also be thinking of other things.  

One other thing I am going to do, is I don't like a book after reading 25% of it, I am not going to fight on with it.  There are too many books in the world I haven't read, why read something you don't like?

One of my goals this coming year is to read what I have in the house, donate the books, and then use the library to borrow books.  Since covid I have been very lazy in using the library and have been buying them instead.  Granted I try and buy them from either Book Outlet a site I highly recommend or I buy the 3 books for $10 at Chapters/Indigo here in Canada.

Book Outlet has both a Canadian site and a US site.  The only snag with looking on Book Outlet, I can be on that site for hours...LOL  I have a weakness for books.  I do though read them only once then donate them.  Rarely do I read a book twice.

My genre of books is historical fiction.  However, I find my tastes changing and love a spy/thriller/mystery/murder type book every now and then.  

Do you read books more than once?  Also do you love reading?  What genre of books are your go to?

WIP

 WIP means work in progress.  

Now for those of you who craft I bet you have some WIP's somewhere waiting to be completed?  I know I do, and 2023 is going to be a "Complete as Many WIP's as possible."  It is also a use up what you have type of year as well, with crafting supplies.  I was looking for some black Aida (cross stitch material) and stumbled upon a few pieces of WIP's and various other things I had forgotten about.

I have the same issue with books.  I have a pile of books I want to finish/read and I will not be buying any more until I have read some.  By the way I still post regularly in my book review blog here.

With the price of everything going up, this is a good thing to do.  Everytime I finish something that was previously started I will make an effort to post about it here.

Here are just some of the things I need to finish:

Dishclothes to knit, book to read, bookmarks to cross stitch and Evan's first year quilt to finish off.

Since I wrote this post a week or more ago.  I have read the book, yes it was really good here is a link to read more about it on Amazon.

I finished the book mark:

I out interfacing in between the felt backing and the front bookmark and sewed them together for stability.

I have also knit a dishcloth and have another on my needles:

I also ended up buying some more of this yarn individual balls I paid $1.06 per ball.  Just got a flyer from the same store and on Friday it will be less than 60 cents per ball, so may end up going and buying more!!

Do you have that problem; lots of things that are not completed?

A no recipe, recipe

I make this soup on a regular basis, but there is no actual recipe/amounts.  You use what you have!!  During winter I love a hearty soup on a cold day.

Curried Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup

Ingredients:

1 small butternut squash, diced

some carrots, diced I use around a pound or so

1 onion, diced

Garlic to taste

Chicken or veggie stock, especially if you want it to be vegetarian

Tablespoon of marg/butter/oil

Curry Paste/powder or spices

Salt & pepper

Milk/Cream/Coconut Milk/Milk alternative 

When you read through what I did you'll get a better idea of how much I used of everything.

Prep the butternut squash, carrots, and onion.  Smaller you dice them the faster they cook.

Melt marg and saute the diced veggies and garlic on medium hear for around five minutes

Add the curry paste/powder/spices along with salt and pepper and saute for another minute.  I use the curry paste and used a heaped teaspoon as I like things to be mild.

Cover the veggies with your stock.  I used around 3/4 of a litre.  Bring to a boil, turn down the heat to a simmer and then cook for 20 to 25 minutes until veggies cooked through.

Blend the soup until it is nice and smooth.  Now "thin" the soup with milk, or milk substitute until you are happy with the consistency.  Some people like it thicker, some people like it thinner.  I personally like a thick soup.

This will feed four.

Produce Box

With the price of food sky rocketing on a daily basis, I have decided to get a produce bag once a month.  It is $20 per month and I have been pretty pleased with it.  Above is what I got in December.  This month's seemed heavy on the fruit and other than the cucumber no salad items.  

Have you seen the price of lettuce, you need to take out a second mortgage to buy one!!

We used to live off salad, but due to the higher prices I am having to adapt our diet.  The pepper's I used to make a pepper and onion quiche.  Carrots were used in soup and mashed carrot and turnip.  I have been making baked potatoes, both stuffed and plain.  The onions were used in various things.

I managed to get some bagged salad on sale so topped that with diced up cucumber.  By the way am I the only one who gets a bad stomach when I eat cucumber?  The only way I can eat them now is peeled.  It's something in the skin that upsets some people's stomach.

All the fruit was eaten raw as is, except the apples, and I am not fond of apples, I don't hate them just not something I buy often, so will probably make apples sauce with them.

Are you finding the price of fruit and veg crazy?

Before and After

First let me say I generally put up our Christmas decorations after Remembrance Day; so by mid-November.  By Boxing Day I am over it ...LOL  This year we are not hosting anything, nor expecting anyone.  As hubby was back at work on Boxing Day I decided to go from this:

Too this.  Now mind you I have not stripped the place down to give it a good clean.  It only got a quick clean.  I will strip the place down next week.

I do believe you should leave something up until the 12th night, so am leaving the small tree out until then.  I will remove it on January 6th.  It's not that big that it will get in the way and along with the Christmas arrangement it looks pretty.  Also I have enough bad luck without creating anymore by packing away all the Christmas things😊

When do you take down your decorations?  

Boxing Day Sales....

For as long as I can remember Boxing Day has been the be all and end all in shopping for deals.  I am sure our kids remember going out on Boxing Day with their Christmas money ready to hit the sales and get more for their money than if they had shopped before Christmas.  I loved to hunt for that perfect deal of 75% off and getting a bargain.

I remember the kids getting up at "stupid o'clock" to line up outside of Best Buy as they wanted some sort of electronic.

Fast forward to now and I remember reading that some people say that Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales are better than the Christmas sales.  I certainly see more items on sale for longer periods of time.  Now you don't have to wait until Boxing Day to get those deals.  50% off signs are everywhere.  Is this a sign of trying to garner more business after the two years of covid?  Retail suffered such a lot during that time.  

Add into "shopping" online and less people are hitting the stores.  You don't see as many lines outside of stores like it used to show on the news stations.  I for one shop more online than in store.  Not sure if that's a sign of the times or I just can't be bothered to line up in stores.  Plus after covid, I hate being in a crowded situation.

I still look for certain things on Boxing Day, in my case wrapping paper and gift bags, as those are things I use every year.  It used to be Christmas cards as well, but I haven't bought those in a few years, as I had a stockpile.

Do you go out and/or shop online on Boxing Day?

Merry Christmas

 this poem says it all.  Have a lovely day:

We got a flower arrangement from family, here are some photos:

Confirmed, what I already knew!

A group of us try to get together every year for a catch up, a meal etc.  We generally do a gift exchange and this year we had to buy something that we love and give that to everyone, with a $10 limit.  As a side note, I think only myself and my daughter listened, the others went way over🤨

One lady gave us these painting supplies along with a candle.  As you can see she even included how to's on painting Christmas pictures, they are all for beginners.

I have been stressing about this for the past few days.  I kept looking at the instructions and I wasn't overly fussed about doing a Christmas painting.  So I looked at online and decided on something else; flowers.

Here is what I did.  Now don't feel you have to comment or tell me it's fine for a first attempt I know it's pretty miserable.  I am no painter.  Painting is not my thing.  I over think it all.  Realistically I am a paint by numbers type of gal.  Being told where to paint and with what colour.  Funnily enough I have even looked at those paint by numbers kit as I think that would be fun.  This wasn't fun for me it was stressful.

After looking at it over the day, I decided it looked better this way round?

Our daughter regularly does those online paint nights and does a super job.  The girls had a water colour artist come into their school and they both did super.  In fact here is Nora's painting and she is only 9!

So I am going to quit while I ahead.  I can say I have tried it but it's not for me.

Meanwhile below is the tutorial that inspired my painting.

Quick and easy

I love hand knitted dish clothes.  I had bought this 5 pack of antibacterial dishclothes from Lakeland Plastics when we were in the UK earlier in the year.

(photo credit)

Now while they are okay, nothing beats my hand knitted ones, so I spent a couple of hours knitting this one yesterday.

This one is called the Mossy Dishcloth from Mockingbird Knits.  It's a free download from Raverly, here is the link to it.  All you need to know is how to knit and purl.  I will never be a great knitter, but I can do the bare basics and this is a perfect pattern for me.  I find I cannot knit for too long, as the arthritis in my finger joints get very unhappy if I do too much.

I purchased the large ball of yarn from Michaels.  I worked out it would probably made 8 or 9 dishclothes and with the coupon it worked out a whole lot cheaper than buys the smaller balls of yarn.

I know my kids don't often use dish clothes in their homes, I personally could never be without one by the sink.

Is a dishcloth something you use in your kitchen?

Christmas Cookies

I haven't made Christmas Cookies in a couple of years.  I wanted to gift a single man something little, so decided on some cookies. I had most of the ingredients in the house.  Had the Christmas tin and the Christmas parchment paper, so set about doing a bit of baking on Tuesday.  

Had to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and despite only making three things, it was relaxing.

All I made were shortbread cookies using this recipe:

I am on the fence with that recipe.  Yes it works, but I have made better.

I made chocolate chip cookies using this recipe from the Hershey's Chocolate Chip bag:

Again, these turned out okay, but I have another recipe I prefer.

Finally I made Christmas Crack.  I love this, it's both sweet and salty, as I use saltine crackers for the base.  I used this recipe.

The good news in all of this, is that hubby took some choc chip cookies to share with his co workers for their coffee break.  I put a couple bags in the freezer.  Had enough Christmas crack to snack on for a few days, I keep mine in the fridge.  Plus we had the shortbread cookies to snack on as well.

Believe me, I will be back on my less sugar diet after the Christmas holidays.  However that is another post in itself!!

Do you like to bake and do you find it relaxing?

Some Christmas photos for 2022

 All very British themed, no words needed.  Merry Christmas to you all........

Stay Tuned.......

I am going to come back to blogging.  I miss it.  I miss the interaction with everyone.  I also like blogging as a form of remembering........more so now that I am getting older........what was I writing about!

It's been a year since I last blogged.  I do follow other people's blogs and keep up to date with them.  I rarely comment though on them, who wants to read what I have to say? 

Lot's of things have happened in the year.  Some good, some bad; but thankfully we are all alive! 

As I write this the Tuesday before Christmas 2022, my mind is busy of things I need to do and plans I have to make for 2023.

So stay tuned, and with that I will be back, but not before I bake a few little Christmas treats.

See you very soon!