Word of the Week – Dehibernating

Happy New Year to all of you! We want to wish you all the very best for the year ahead. Be kind. Have compassion. Hold on to your faith and make efforts to strengthen your faith too! In 2024, be the best you that you can be. Don’t allow anyone to use or abuse you. Be humble. Humility is a gift but meekness is not to be confused with weakness. Be strong and brave and go after the things you want and need. If you are one who usually make new year’s resolutions and they work for you, go for it! If making a vision board is your thing, go for it too. It helps, at different times of the year to check back on your plans and make committed efforts or change course if needs be. That’s our suggestions for you for this year.

Now what did we get up to this week? Well since just before Christmas we were hibernating. Yes for real! It was really needed though! At the start of the week, we started by putting away the Christmas decor including the tree. The room felt so much bigger and more airy. Then we changed out decor for some neutral ones. So far we have finished downstairs.

So yes we are stealing ourselves away from the endless hours of watching Netlix documentaries and games and YouTube videos. We have actually started to do some work, cook more often and get up earlier, and by earlier I mean between 8 and 9 am. In the middle of the week we headed to Ikea primarily to have a mooch around but also to check out a new induction cooker that we’d like as part of the kitchen upgrade in the Spring. We did come away with a few small items that we needed for the kitchen as well. It was a lovely day out too.

That same night Jo decided that she needed a new bed. She had been complaining of hip pains and she attributed part of it to her bed being too low. Well she decided on one that was hundreds of pounds and decided to get it from Argos as they had a delivery date that was only a few days away. Well just minutes after deciding on it and paying, we both thought: we should have checked the charity shops on the High street before deciding to pay for that one! We could definitely save some money there and she would not need a new mattress so there was no thinking of using a used mattress. We decided we would go on the High street the next morning to check. The plan was, if we found a decent-looking one, that was high enough and for a decent price, then we could cancel the one we had got on Argos.

The next morning saw us on the High Street. OMG. We had not been there for some time and the place had changed so much! Many of the shops/stores we knew had changed and had been replaced mostly by food shops including some from Pakistan and Kurdistan which sold all sorts of foods including meat and freshly made bread, samosas, and other treats. We love all things multicultural so we peeped in at some of them and resolved to check in again when we had more time.

We had a look in one charity shop that sold furniture but unfortunately, there was nothing at all suitable. That too was a nice morning out walking on our High Street and we did get to pick up some meats, seasonings and frozen pizza. We had ordered some drinks from Iceland over the festive season and to get the tally to reach £40 to be eligible for free delivery, I had added 2 sweet chili chicken pizzas. Well, they were delicious so we were glad to find them in the store and got the girls some more.

Perhaps you will remember that we had brined turkey for Christmas. Well, the brine flavour was nice so we decided on doing another brine but this time putting chicken wings in the cooled brine and storing them in the fridge for 2 days. I do like KFC’s hot wings and it seems to me that it usually tastes like it is seasoned to the bones (well at least that from some branches). Well, The drained wings were coated in a spicy mix I made up and fried. They were delicious! I wonder if this is the next area I am to go into! Selling brined chicken wings! Lol. What a thought!

It has been a relaxing week of de-hibernating. We have left the house more, cooked more, relaxed less, and are looking forward to fully immersing ourselves in work in the coming week. Today one of us has to endure doing a cervical smear! Not looking forward to it but I would rather get it over with, get the (good) results, and move on with life.

Yesterday too, when the NS&I results were announced, one of us won again! (We both won in December too!) So we are happy. It’s something we always suggest. If you have some cash or savings, put some in NS&I. You can’t lose!

Have a good weekend and a week ahead. Remember our advice to be kind.

Thanks, Anne for this opportunity to share what our week has been like.