Work It!

I’ve started a fitness class.  Maybe I should have prefaced that with, I’ve joined the gym!  The latter isn’t surprising.  I went to the gym six days a week before I left New York.  It was 90 seconds from my apartment.  So no excuses.  Well, I still managed to come up with excuses or I wouldn’t need to still lose another 25 pounds.  

The gym I’ve joined now is about a 15 minute walk away, but it is not just geographically miles away from my gym in New York.  My gym in New York was basic, just a handful of machines and some weights, no classes.  Oh, let’s not forget, the very pushy trainers.  I felt like every time I walked in they would think “ouu, fat girl, I can make some cash off of her!”  That might be why I started going at 5am instead of in the evenings.

At my new gym I wasn’t even pressured to hire a trainer during my induction.  Everyone is smiley and nice, not overbearing and pushy.  They remember my name!  After a few trips to visit the treadmill and elliptical, sorry cross trainer, on my own I decided to go to boot camp. 

The class is only 45 minutes and the time flies.  Oddly, Gerry, the instructor, looks like my brother in law, whose named Jarrod.  It’s a bit weird and sometimes I want to challenge him when he tells me to move faster or try harder.  But I don’t, I get my ass in gear!  The class is definitely a challenge, but not so much so that I want to just give up.

Of course you get out of a gym membership, or a class what you put into it.  Therefore I go hard, hard as I can.  Some days I can do a lot more than on other days.  I’m never really sure why.  At my last class there were a lot more students than usual.  One of the women was middle aged and definitely had a ways to go in her fitness journey.  When Gerry was going over what we were going to do next she said very loudly, “we should take turns, so we can all rest more.” The class laughed.  None of us were there to rest!

As for me, there will be no rest.  I’m determined to became and thinner version of myself. 

Thrifty Finds

It’s Monday again and time to share my thrifty finds.  This is the best part about Monday!  Almost makes the whole thing endurable!

Both of these are slight cheats, they were from eBay.  Now that I’m working, except for the weekly antiques fair at Spittlefields and the occasional rummage thru my village charity shops, there just isn’t much time for charity shopping.  I used to make it to about 25 charity shops a week, now I’m lucky if I hit one or two.  

 

First up was a big surprise.   For some reason when I ordered it I could have sworn that it was a milk jug.  My mother and law offered to go to the post office and pick a few packages that I had missed and I assured her that they would be tiny.  This package was not and I had no idea what was in it.  Imagine my surprise when the milk jug I had bought ended up being the size of my head!  It’s Grindley Peach Petal and I just love it.  I can almost see a part of my future welsh dresser as a place for all of my jugs to live.   This piece will be the biggest!

 

I was a bit shocked about the size of this mini tea cup and saucer as well.  I didn’t realize that it was going to be mini.  It’s Grindley Almond Petal, like the one I picked up at Spittlefields but is unusable.  I love that they match and I’m ok with the size.  I have so many teacups for everyday use, this is really just a nice addition to my collection.

Did anyone else find anything good this week?  Or maybe you’ve found a non-eBay solution to not having any time to thrift properly?  

I’m going to link up with Her Library Adventures and Flea Market finds, Magpie Monday at Me and my Shadow, and Thrift Share Monday at Apron Thrift Girl.

Book Review Thursday

Time for another book review that continues on my theme from the previous two weeks.  However, this time I’m going to write about a genre of books, not just one.

Almost a year ago my mother in law handed me a boot about a nurse in the 1940’s for my plane ride back to New York.  It was called a Nurse in Time and was by Evelyn Prentis.  I took it not having very high hopes so when I finished it only a little while after the plane took off (I read in the waiting area) I was shocked and I wanted more.  A Nurse in Time is about a girl from a farm whose mother decides that she is to be a nurse.  Prentis goes into great detail about her training, the matrons and the close friendships she formed with the other girls in her year.  It was mesmerizing.  And, of course, hard to find in the US.

When I finally moved here in October my MIL lent me a few more books in the same genre.  I read about a midwife named Jenny in Call the Midwife (currently on TV right now), and about growing up in an east end slum in Four Meals for Four Pence.  

For Christmas we each bought each other a few more books, luckily, we didn’t get the same ones so we both have loads more to read.  

I love that these are true stories about a time in history that isn’t a million miles away, but still far enough away that those who lived thru much of it are gone.  I guess I should mention that my degree is in WWII, so I’m sure that helps to fuel my obsession a bit.  They each paint a vivid picture of London and of the people who lived in conditions that we can’t even really imagine any more.  I highly recommend these books to anyone, but especially if you enjoy history but struggle with dry facts.  The narratives and larger than life personalities bring you into the book and you don’t even realize that its history until it’s over.  

I decided to write about these as a group to prevent myself from writing about each individual one!  I’m beginning to feel like I would like to read a straight up history book, but then again, my husband just read the hunger games trilogy so that is calling my name as well!  Any recommendations?

Ring Holder

I came home to this sitting by the sink.  My husband feels that it's a perfectly suitable wedding ring holder. 

This is actually a bottle opener that we got as a wedding gift from my husbands 9 year old second cousin. 

I hope no one is offended by this rude little man. 

Weekly Thrift

I mentioned that I have a new job, I just didn’t mention that its right next to Spittlefields Market.  Every week on Thursday they have an antiques fair.  This is just too much for little old me to resist!  
 

On my first visit I found a stall that had boxes and boxes of random bits of china.  After sifting through all of it I found a Grindley Almond Petal tea cup and two saucers for a pound each.  What I didn’t notice was that the handle was glued on.  It came off in the first wash.  I think that this will be a show piece!  I’m glad I have it, but am still a bit disappointed that it’s not really useable.  

I’ve also found my first piece of utility china in my own town!  I almost missed it checking out a pyrex like dish that turned out to be a fake in poor condition.  When I turned this coffee pot caught the corner of my eye.  It’s a Johnson Brothers Greendawn. 

Doesn’t it look nice next to its blue and smaller sibling?

I have a few bits that are expected soon in the mail, but I find these random bits found randomly to be the most exciting!

Anyone else do well in the hunt?

I’m going to link up with Her Library Adventures and Flea Market finds, Magpie Monday at Me and my Shadow, and Thrift Share Monday at Apron Thrift Girl.

Book Review Thursday

Sucking Eggs: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You about Diet, Thrift and Going Green by Patricia Nicol

The last handful of books that I’ve read definitely have a Brit theme going on.  This week’s review is on Sucking Eggs: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You about Diet, Thrift and Going Green.  I was very thrifty and green when buying the book as I got it used off of Amazon.co.uk.  

When I ordered this I thought it was going to be much more of a lifestyle book than it turned out to be.  This book was overflowing with wartime and ration history.  Nicol did an amazing job of taking events that were not only 60 years past, but really far removed from the way we live today and finding a way to relate it to modern life.  For example, clothing was rationed and people work hard at keeping what they had in good repair and use that material in any way possible until there was nothing left of it.  Today clothes can be found so cheaply that they’ve become disposable.  We own dozens of everything.  I’m definitely guilty of buying without need.  

Nicol spent a large portion of the book discussing food rationing.  In our house we work really hard at not letting anything go bad, no matter how, um, interesting dishes sometimes become.  She also discussed travel and the high cost of not just moving ourselves around but also our food and clothing. 

I don’t think that this book will cause me to really change my lifestyle, but it was definitely a good read and provides a lot of food for thought. 

Beetroot Brownies

As the snow was coming down on Saturday my husband and I decided to give beetroot brownies a go.  We used this recipe.  I’m not going to repost it, but more so give a commentary on our attempt.

My husband braved the cold and snow to run to the corner shop (actually about a 4 minute walk away) to get the candy bar.  During that time I measured out all of our ingredients.  We didn’t have enough beetroot, so we had to subtract a third of the recipe.  I was really excited to finally get to use some of my Christmas gifts.  This was the debut for the ceramic nesting doll measuring cups and the nesting doll measuring spoons.  The Tala Dry measure also had its debut.  I’d been lusting after one of these for some time but didn’t want to spend the £7 or so on it.  Then I found it at Morrisons for £4.  What a steal! 

 

I don’t want to miss out the other tools I used to hold our ingredients.  The metal cup is something that I picked up when travelling in India. I have four of them and use them all the time to hold soon to be used ingredients.  The bowl is, of course, a Woods Ware Beryl soup bowl.  I just love fun and funky cooking and baking supplies!

After laying it all out we melted the chocolate and the butter a bit for easier blending.  We didn’t start with beetroots that needed to be cooked to soften, so we skipped that step.

 

While the Brit blended I mixed the eggs and sugar.

 Once all that was done we folded the very smelly beetroot and chocolate mixture in with the sugar and eggs, flour and coco powder.  The whole thing still smelled very highly of beetroot, so we mixed in a bit more coco powder.  We kept mixing it in until the color went from super red to more of a brown color.

 

We then popped it into the oven for about 25 minutes.

 

For some reason these pictures make the brownies look a bit burnt, they weren’t burnt at all.  I blame the lighting in our kitchen, it’s really very dark!

These came out super moist, almost more so than you would expect brownies to be.  I can’t taste beetroot much at all, which is good, because I don’t like it.  If we’ve got beetroot lying around again I can see us making these brownies again.  

Anyone else try any creative baking recently?