Mindfulness, money, meals, movies

Hi there. It’s a post full of MMMMMMMs. It should be Monday.

1 Mindfulness

I’ve just finished reading this book on mindfulness. This author was recommended by my blog friend Liz from Liz’s onward journey. I found this book to be very peaceful and powerful at the same time. I really enjoyed it. Some of the sentences are truly beautiful. Thich Nhat Hanh died earlier this year.

From page 170, one of many quotes I felt inspired by:

“We need to expand our definition of family to include not only our friends and community, but also the sun, the sky, the trees, the birds, and the hills around us. Practicing mindfulness is much easier when we do it together”.

Isn’t that beautiful? I love that feeling of connection to the natural world. I think I already consider Mr and Mrs B the resident blackbirds in our garden to be part of our family. David joked the other day about needing pet insurance for them so I guess he feels the same 🤣.

2 Money

David’s just been adding up our monthly expenditure and paying the credit card bill.. and panicking a bit! I’m sure we’re still fine but obviously the cost of living has increased a lot recently and also we’re going out again more compared to the last few years of pandemic, and starting to holiday abroad again. Spend, spend, spend!

3 Meals

As I’ve got my herb wall in full flow, I’ve tried to cook meals using the herbs a bit more, rather than just enjoying watering them, watching them grow and then die. For lunch today I had some lettuce from the wall with cold chicken as well as pickled beetroot, cucumber and some cheese oatcakes from Ocado.

Recently I have cooked chicken thighs with garlic, rosemary, thyme and chives (above). That was tasty, especially the sauce which was made using brandy and chicken stock. We had it with new potatoes which were lovely and some green beans that were not (stringy). The recipe is here.

I also made a spicy sausage pasta with basil from the wall. Yum 😋

Of course we also had grated cheese on the top…

I’ve started using this Grana Padano cheese instead of Parmesan as it’s very similar and cheaper (£2.65 rather than £3.45 for 200g from Ocado).

4 Movies (or films as we Brits call them)

Having only managed to see one film on my Odeon cinema membership last month = Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I’m making up for it this month. So far I’ve seen Top Gun = fab, loved it, Happening = a very shocking French film about 1960s France when abortion was illegal, not relaxing viewing but made its point, and then Downton Abbey which I surprisingly enjoyed and found a bit emotional on a Wednesday afternoon by myself. I’d got bored of the TV series a long time ago but I enjoyed the film. Next stop, Jurassic Park. That will be 4 films so far for June on my £14.99 monthly membership. Might do a couple more yet!

Hope you enjoyed the MMMMMs today. Happy Saturday 😎🥂Xx