Wednesday evening catch up

I am back to work tomorrow for a couple of days before then being on holiday for a week.  Hopefully I will also be able to bring my embroidery machine home as well as some other bits and bobs that I have acquired just recently.  I really am looking forward to getting to grips with this and then hopefully being able to produce some lovely pieces of work by way of presents for Christmas and birthdays; even if it is only simple things to start with will be a big improvement on what I am able to produce in the limited time I have at the moment. I still have ideas of what I want to do and what I would like to achieve and whether it is because I have slowed up as I have got older but things seem to be taking an age to do by hand.  I do prefer doing handcrafted embroidery items and cross stitch and other crafts like ribbon weaving and I also have the patchwork to get to grips with as well as kits part started and not yet completed.  Now the darker nights are here I am going to try and get myself sorted out a little more, like perhaps having a scratch tea one night and then have an evening of crafting and another night embroidery machine and then perhaps do stuff for preserving, the freezer etc.  Might make more of my time that way on and then maybe a night on the computer etc.  Just a thought at the minute but I think it could be effective.

With the autumn and winter nights I can load the slow cookers and then switch them on low and then get OH to finish off things when he comes home after walking the dog that way on we should be able to get tea fairly quickly and then load the dish washer up and then get prepped for the next day as well.  Good simple meals like Toad in the hole, liver and onion casserole (I have been craving this the last week or so), cottage or shepherd's pie, Suet Crust Steak pudding, Treacle Sponge, Eve's pudding, Lemon Meringue pie, Streudel, home made rice pudding etc.

As Saturday is one of my main shopping days, I thought that in the afternoons after the shopping is sorted  I might do some meal prepping for the week and also a little baking "something for the tins" and the pack ups during the week and maybe also some cake to take in for tea breaks for both our works.  At the moment I want to make a couple of chicken pies and also a couple of steak pies  to pop into the freezer and make a nice hot meal with a bit of veg for during the week.  Its a long time since I have made them and with cooking quite extensively the past week or so which I have enjoyed immensely I really do want to get back into the swing of things and get back to my roots which is simple family plain cooking the sort that is good for you in the long run.  I don't pretend to be anything else.  I am not so good on the presentation side but as long as it is tasty that is all I am concerned about at the end of the day.

I have had a reasonably lazy day for me today. It started off with Missy cuddling into bed with me and getting herself comfy whilst I was out of it.  When I woke she looked so cute that I decided to take a photo of her to pass on to OH.  She promptly growled at me turned round in a huff she was obviously having a Marlene Dietriech moment in that she wanted to be alone!  As the other half said she cannot cope with the Paparazzi. I have been called some things in my time!

I have been researching recipes, reading books, checking out some machine embroidery sites, writing some posts possibly for the future, walking the dog with OH, oh and dreaming; there always has to be room for dreaming; dreaming in a round about way starts to set your intent for the future.  Mine is not to work and be comfortably off so that I do not need to, and to have like a smallholding with a lovely big house and room for growing veg, having orchards, nuttery, fruit garden etc and to be as self-sufficient as I can with a few chickens, somewhere in the countryside the dream is down to Cornwall but in reality I do not know whether this will happen or not.  Its something to aim for anyway and something to keep me on course.  Everyone has got to have a dream something to reach for something out of the ordinary.

Right had better get a wriggle on.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

x