Come one, come all ,to the countdown to Christmas 2019 Thread 1

[Mrsmadevans]

Welcome to the first thread for the 2019 Christmas countdown m'dears

Thanks everyone :) Wheels you should go for it! it's nice having something that you can spend a good amount of time, feels like a real achievement.

wreck I love both lentils and dhal, great meal :) I do something similar lot too along with rajma dhal - beans instead of lentils for a quick cheap meal or when we're all out of everything as we often are!

Fluffy I started with a hoop but it eventually got ditched and I just did it by hand so to speak, I would have no room for a stand and the toddlers would destroy it!

mrsmad I'm hopeful that the visit next friday proves very productive, you really need help despite being great at doing what you're doing, I'm amazed at how much you do for them.

Philomea I love chicken chow mein too! I've never found a recipe that tastes right, do you have a recipe you could share?

We (ds and I) made fish pie today, he did most of the prep work so it took ageeeees whilst the younger two destroyed the house played.

Our heating is controlled by hive so it's just the thermostat kicking in, I really want to get a separate one so I can have upstairs set to much lower in the day - higher downstairs and visa versa at night but it's an added expense.

Seafood I like this one, but I don't really measure amounts, and the ingredients might not always be the same.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7769/chicken-chow-mein

We keep upstairs cooler than downstairs as we all prefer cooler bedrooms. We have TRVs, so can do that. It's hit and miss what temp we get though, as nothing is certain with TRVs!

We had kidded ourselves that 18 was fine (max temp before!) but it is a little chilly and it cooled too much overnight (the heating goes off at 6.30 before the kids go to bed as they hate the noise in their rooms!). 21 is nice. Any warmer is way too hot!

Our house is Victorian and the floor is cold due to the air bricks allowing air into the cavities, so it can feel cold where a more modern house wouldn't!

Hi everyone! Back from the doctor! It went really well. They are going to put in a surgical GJ tube. It will go into my stomach and have a long tube that will go into my intestines. They'll have me in patient for 2-3 days as I adjust to it and stuff. They'll call me Monday or Tuesday and get it scheduled. He's also going to have an ultrasound done on my gallbladder to see if it's causing me issues.

Mrs You deserve a good nights sleep after the day you had! You did a lot!

The weather here is warm right now!! Does not feel like winter and it makes me grumpy. lol I need my snow!

wreck Lentil Dahl sounds good. I miss eating good foods haha

seafood I was just thinking when I'm inpatient at the hospital I think I'll take a big cross stitch project. Would be nice to get something done while there at least.

Our heating is controlled by one thermostat in the hallway. Today my front room is very very hot because the sun has been shining in the room so it's like a greenhouse lol

I tried to get everyone! I'm sorry if I missed any of you! We only have one more day of Christmas! I'm sad about it but in this thread we can have Christmas every day!

Ahhh that recipe looks fab PSB !
Seafood, thank you m'dear. l truly hope we may get somewhere with the caring for the parents. Hope your fish pie is delish!
Fluffy we have TRV'S TOO but we don't do anything with them mwahahahaha haven't got a clue
DH bleeds the rads a lot , he bled them so much one time the BG man did a service and said there was barely any water in the system thank Goodness it was September and we hadn't needed the rads working

Wheelie that is brilliant ! oh l bet you are so relieved bless you
I am sure you will be fine with the tube and it will really make you feel better . It is so cold here honestly you would not be able to get over it! The sun coming in is always lovely , like a sunny hug l always think. It will always be Christmas in our hearts m;dear

Mrs I'm sad it's not cold here. Because that makes me worry about climate change. Usually by now it should be cold and we should have a lot of snow! Thankfully it looks like next week our temps are going to drop. Usually if have a mild December February is our bad month.

Hopefully we'll get our snow soon.

And very good point! It will always be Christmas in our hearts!

Wheelie there is nothing we can do about climate change imho. Not when you have super powers like China having a huge industrial revolution. l try to not think about it because if l did it would play on my mind terribly. So look forward to the snow coming very soon if you are lucky m'dear . l don't think we are going to get any snow here somehow , we did have snow last Winter and it was lovely

Wheelie it'll be so much better, you'll put weight on in no time! Most of DS1's calories and nutrition come from his night feeds now.

You can have our freezing temperatures if you want!

Mrs Thankfully we will probably get at least one or two before the season is out I hope. Usually we do get snow pretty late in the season lol

psb I'm sure hoping so! The doctor seemed to think when we found a good formula I should have no problem putting on the weight and then I can eat at home still on top of the tube so that's nice too!

It's now looking like rain! The sun was out and it was super bright and warm but now it's cold and dreary lol

Bah Humbug to the rain Wheelie lol

Mrs My house was nice and toasty when the sun was out but now it's dark and gloomy so we turned on our fireplace heater! LOL so yay fireplace!

The back bedroom doesn't get much sun it is so dark , we have to put the heating on for the DD1, it is so much cooler in there than the rest of the house, think we will have to move her come the Summer. Yay to your fireplace indeedy Wheelie ! DH just bought me a cuppa and a mince pie bless him , l really need another mince pie lol l didn't say no lol !

We still have a load of homemade mince pies in the freezer, Mrs! Plus so much other stuff to get through!

Our lounge is gorgeously toasty when it's sunny, but if it's a gloomy spell it really struggles to get warm.

I bought a box of mince pies, there were 2 in the hamper and my aunt bought us 2. That's 1.25 boxes each.

Fluffy Your lounge sounds exactly like our living room!

Mrs I've never had a mince pie but I keep seeing them on the great british baking show and I want to try them lol

Psb I'm jealous! I think my country needs to embrace Mince pies!

I've made about 120, I reckon. Some went to DH's parents, some go school and some to our old neighbours. We've also had a fair few!

Wow that is a lot of Mince pies to make Fluffy , l do love them though !
PSB which ones did you like the best, we bought a several box or two and Waitrose all butter came up the best with us , blooming gorgeous.
Wheelie you really need to make the USA embrace Mince pies somehow l don't know how lol they are lovely!

Seafood I am envious of your knitting skills - learning is one of my goals for this year as it has been for the last 2
Your cross stitch is beautiful - you should be very proud of it!

Fluffy Does mystery cross stitch literally mean you have no idea what you'll be getting?

MrsMad you must be exhausted, that sounds like such a busy day.
And it is freezing isn't it? I finished work at 12, came home and put the heating on too as DH was sat doing lesson plans in fleece PJs with a blanket on 🙄

We live in an old stone house with high ceilings that has brilliant PVC windows but wooden front and back doors which lose a LOT of heat . We have a min temp of 14 and put it up to 21 when we get cold - but bedroom window is always on the catch until I close the curtains at around 9pm as it's the one room which gets too hot 🙄

Wheels Excellent news about your appointment. Do you know how long before you'll likely go in for the tube?

How did you fare with the Beast from the East MrsMad? We had crazy snow here in March last year Wheels - as I live quite high on a mountain we had a few feet. Our front steps disappeared! I hope we don't get it that bad this year!

I finished my admin in record time today so went for a small walk with the dogs to get out of DHs hair (he was on a lesson planning roll) before coming back and working on my giant blanket for my sister. It still has a million ends to sew in before I do the border although I feel like I've been sewing ends in forever 😫 Cannot wait to get it finished and handed over for her birthday!

Fluffy That's a crazy amount of pies!

Mrs Yes! I should find a good recipe and perfect it and give them out until other's crave it hahahaha take over the world one mince pie at a time!

Crazy I have no idea when I'll be scheduled for. It could be anywhere from next week to a few weeks out. I think it depends on when they can get an open bed for admission and things.

Sorry I seem to vent on here a lot but can I ask for good thoughts? I don't know if you guys are much aware that our government is shut down because of the orange turnip and his merry clansmen? Well our food stamps the money disabled and elderly and poor people with children get to buy food? Is only guaranteed through January. So it means that as of next month? There are going to be a lot of hungry and hurting people. Just send the innocent folks some good thoughts and prayers? I'm worried about elderly folks who rely on it as their only income for food :(

It started pouring down rain about 3:30 and now it's 2 hours later and it's still raining. Me and the kitties are cuddling on my chair though and just hanging out watching telly.

Crazy I missed your snow comments! Wow! Do you have any photos? Our biggest snowfall was about 10 years ago and we got about 31 inches (78 centimeters)

I really wish it would snow like that again! Just this year and then it can be mild for a few years again haha

Wheelie, l have a lot of US friends they have told me about Trump and the Govt , at least that is how l understand it to be, closing down all the benefit and tax rebates and the wages for a lot of ppl. It is disgusting and quite frankly l don't know how he hasn't been impeached.

Mrs That's exactly what he did. Even kid's school lunches are included in the funding that we can't get during a shutdown. So many people are out of work so they are suffering and I'm just scared a lot of people are going to die. I hope he'll be impeached soon. He's a terrible person and president

Pics of the snow past Winter Wheelie 😃