Hi guys. Welcome back to my channel and to a productive day with me. Today,
I thought I would just take you through what I get up to in terms of working from home,
the meals that I'm making, and the things I'm trying to get done. There's a little
bit of DIY in this and there's a random story time as well, but I hope you really enjoy it.
First off, I'm going to get ready for the day, have breakfast, and then get on with some work.
Good morning guys and welcome back to my channel and to a getting stuff done video. Today,
I have so many things to do, so I thought we'd just film parts of it and hopefully give you a
bit of insight or a bit of inspiration into a typical day for me of working from home,
being a mum, doing some cleaning and cooking, and all of that stuff. First thing this morning
we got ready, we did the school run, took Kiki out for a walk. Normally I walk her first thing
for like 30 minutes, just get it out of the way, but now I need to do a little bit of work.
If I can, I try to do it first thing. I feel like my brain is best first thing. You know when the
kids go to school, they do english and maths in the morning because that's when they're most ready
for the day. So I'm just going to do some prep for it now. It's an Instagram job that I actually
need to go into store and buy the products and then talk about it. But before I go,
I'm just going to have a look through all the information because there's a competition
involved, so I just want to make sure that I know all the ins and outs of that. I try to always do
a lot of prep before I film anything. I feel like it's so much better to be completely prepared than
have to overly edit or heavily edit. So even with my videos, I'll try and script things roughly,
unless it's a vlog or a video like this, I'll really try to know what I'm going to say.
And I'm hoping to organize a few little things today. Jackson's bookcase is out of control,
a few things in the boys' rooms as well, and I might try and do a little bit more planning,
and then show you what I make for dinner and stuff. And tonight Fraser is actually
having a friend sleepover because the house, it is from next month, it's not going to be as
livable. Obviously, we're still going to be living here, but I said to the boys if they
want to have some people over to play, do it now because for the next three months from February
it might not be possible because it won't be as safe. So, that is the plan for today.
Hope you enjoy this video, but let's go. Right. So I've just arrived at the store
that I'm going to. I nearly got lost on the way, but luckily my sat nav saved me. Thank God for sat
nav because directions is one thing that just does not click in my head. It may as well be
another language. When I look at a map or if Matt ever tries to tell me directions, I'm like, "It's
just not clicking at all." I've always struggled with that and maths as well. I have enough maths
to obviously get by, run a business, take 20% off of an item of clothes and stuff, but when
it came to maths at school, I really struggled. Actually, I'll just do a quick story time because
this is quite a funny story. But in GCSCEs I failed my maths exam, so I guess that's like
the high school equivalent of maths. And basically I needed to get A, B, or C on that exam to do the
marketing degree that I wanted to go ahead and do at university. So I failed it once in GCSCEs and
then during A levels, I retook it again. I did all the revision, studying, and everything and I still
failed. I got a high D, but it wasn't a C. So then I had to take it a third time because I was like,
"If I don't pass, I just can't go to this degree." So I took it again and I passed.
I did loads of revision, all the books, it kind of became my life and I got a C. So that was amazing.
But then when I went to university, on the very first day there was an assembly with hundreds of
us doing this kind of business degree and they said, "To start off tomorrow we're going to do
a simple maths exam and english exam, just to see where you are. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You
don't need to revise. It's nothing harder GCSCEs." And I was thinking, "Oh my God, I do need to
revise." So that night, I didn't really tell any of my new roommates or anything, but I literally
studied so hard for this simple maths exam that we were going to have on the first day of university.
And then we went along to the exam. I did it. And then the next time we had an assembly,
they said, "Oh, we've got your results from the maths exam." This was to everyone.
And they were like, "Could the following people please stand up?" And then they said,
"Emily." They said Emily Dean, which was my name at the time, and I was... I remember I stood up,
everyone was there, and I was thinking, "Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed." They only called out
like 10 names that had to stand up in front of everyone. And then they went, "All of you pass
with flying colors. You can just leave and don't worry. The rest of you, we're going to
do a bit of a maths lesson and teach you some of the things that you didn't get in the exam."
So because I'd revised so hard I was allowed to leave and then everyone else had to retake
the test. And my roommates were like, "Oh, you're so good at maths." And I was like, "Yeah."
But it was just because I was so worried about failing that I studied again. Anyway, I don't
know if that's a really boring story or not, but I just think it's funny. If you do something enough,
you can get good at it. But I just don't know if that will ever happen with maps and directions.
But anyway, massively digress. I'm now going to go into Home Bargains, film what I need to do.
Okay, so I'm back now, and another job that I wanted to do today is clear out this airing
cupboard. I showed this in the Ikea video and it's still a complete mess. There's things drying
everywhere. So I'm just going to clear everything out of it today, hopefully paint the shelves.
They're natural wood. I'm just going to paint them white. And then I've ordered a few more baskets
from John Lewis and hopefully soon this will be a beautiful, more usable linen closet or airing
cupboard. So hoping to have a transformation very soon on that. And I've set up the Ikea railings
that I got, so I'm also going to move all of my clothes out of our bedroom and obviously just hang
the ones that I'm going to need for winter here. All of my clothes are still in the cupboards in
our old bedroom, which now is absolutely freezing and not really livable.
There's holes in this room. And this will soon become our en suite on our bedroom and then half
of it will also be the utility room upstairs. So all of that's going to start happening,
so I really need to get out of this room. So I'm just going to try and keep the essentials,
maybe just a couple of dresses and a few things for winter, and hang them out on that railing.
Okay. So now that that first coat is just drying, I'm going to sort out Jackson's bookcase. It is
so messy. It's been driving me crazy, so I'm actually going to take everything out
and I'm going to try and organize it in the Home Edit way, which is doing it in colors,
like rainbow. I don't know how that's going to work out, but I'm going to give it a go.
Okay. So this is how it's looking so far. I have also decluttered all of these books
over there and I'm so sad. They're all my favorite baby books. So what I think I'm
going to do is actually box them up, put them in the loft for our grandchildren,
which I can't even believe I'm saying. But there's a few in here that I just cannot part with that
I've read with all the boys like this one I just love so much and like The Hungry Caterpillar,
We're Going on a Bear Hunt, all of those ones. Like Jackson... Obviously we can still read them,
but he's kind of grown out of them because he's starting to read himself and have longer books.
So anyway, I'm going to get rid of all of these. But I do have lots of space in here,
so I might even put Caleb and Fraser's books in here and then this just become a bit of a library.
Okay. So I've added the other books and I'm so pleased with how this turned out. It actually took
me nearly an hour to do this though, but I think it's going to really work. It's like a bit of a
library now because Caleb is kind of reading some of Fraser's old books and now they're all in one
place, so they can just all come here and have a look. So we've got white, yellow, red and orange,
blue and green. There's actually loads of blue books. And then black and purple at the top.
Look who's home and taking over the painting job. You. So it's just painting...
What they called again? The um...
Yeah, so he's just painting the brackets, and then going to do another coat on the shelves,
and then put it all in. And hopefully... It doesn't look great now, but it will when
everything's in and tidy. It better be.
Okay guys, it's actually the next evening. Last night we had Fraser's friend sleepover,
so we got a takeaway and we were really busy with the kids. But I did want to give you
some foodie inspiration in this video and what I'm making tonight is so simple and it's one of the
kids' favorites. Often when I make this, they'll ask for a second helpings, which is rare. So
it's a tuna pasta bake. It's so easy to make and it's made of things that you normally have
in anyway. So I'm going to make a huge one tonight because I love to batch cook anyway,
but as some of you will know, we're soon not going to have a kitchen for three months. So
my plan is to make a big one for tonight and then make another one that we can freeze.
But I'm actually going to put it in these dishes that fit into the air fryer so that when we don't
have a kitchen, I'll be able to pop this, which will be full of pasta bake, into the air fryer
and actually heat it up that way. So I've got that dish and then I also have these. I actually
bought these in Poundland. They're tinfoil dishes that you can use to batch cook. So you could put
shepherds pie in that or lasagna, something else like that. And I can actually fit two of those
into the air fryer as well. So yeah, my plan is to make a big one, then make a second one as well.
So I'm trying to do that in the lead up to us not having a kitchen, just have enough meals
in the freezer to help us out. Obviously there's Deliveroo and I can buy things fresh,
but I really would like to maintain us eating healthily even when we don't have a kitchen,
even though I know it's going to be tricky. But let me show you the ingredients and I'll
be sure to put them in the description as well. Sorry about how dark it is, but here are all the
ingredients laid out. I've just weighed them out on this little scale here. And as I said,
I'm making quite a big batch, so you might even want to just use half of these ingredients
depending on how many it's for. But I've got 600 grams of macaroni, but you could use any pasta.
I've got 600 ml of milk, 250 grams of grated cheese, 50 grams of butter, and 50 grams of flour,
three cans of tuna, and then about 300 grams of peas, but you could use sweet corn if you
wanted. You could use frozen carrots or no veg at all, completely up to you.
And the base of this is pretty much I make a cheese sauce with these things,
cook the pasta, and then chuck in the peas and the tuna, and then put a bit more cheese on top and
stick it in the oven. And it's really delicious. It's like all things that your kids probably like,
like pasta, cheese, tuna, peas. It's a bit of a winner. So anyway, I'm going to get cooking.
Okay. So first up, I'm going to put the macaroni on to cook. It only takes about eight to 10
minutes, so I've just boiled the kettle and that could be cooking away while I get on and make the
sauce. And it's pretty much the same as you would make any other cheese sauce for a mac and cheese
or for a cauliflower cheese. So first up, I'm just melting the butter. And once that's all melted,
I'm adding in the flour and with a whisk, I'm just going to stir that all together until it is
a paste. And then once it is, I'm going to add in the milk. And then I just stir constantly until it
thickens and it becomes a sauce. And I actually wait until it's boiling. And once it's boiling,
then I pretty much know that it's ready, so I'll turn off the heat and then add in my grated
cheese and just stir it until the cheese is all melted. And that is literally how simple it is.
And I'm using some new pans that I just got for Christmas and I am really enjoying them.
So anyway, then I'm going to add in the cheese sauce to all of the macaroni. I've made a ton of
it. And then you just add in the tuna, obviously I'm stirring it all up. Then I've actually drained
the tuna and then I'll chuck that in. And then same with the frozen peas. I'll just put that in
and stir it all up. I don't bother cooking them before because we are going to put this
into the oven, so they will cook while they're in the oven.
And that's literally it. Then I'm just going to put it into the serving dishes and I'll top them
off with cheese and, as I said, bake them. So today I'm making this quite large one for us to
all have tonight and then I'm going to some other small ones, which I'm going to freeze, as I said.
And yeah, it's literally that easy. Such a delicious dinner as well. It's a really hearty one
for this time of year. Obviously it's not the healthiest if you are trying to
diet as an adult, but you can have a little bit of this and then maybe something on the
side if you wanted to. And yeah, that's it. So our dinner is now in the oven. I'm just
going to wait for these to cool down before I put them into the freezer. And on the lids I've just
written down what they are and how long to cook them for in the air fryer, so I've put 15 minutes
on 180. I actually normally do it for 20 minutes in the oven, but I find the air fryer always cooks
things quicker, so I've put 15 minutes. So I'm going to put that on top in a sec and then I
might add a label to this as well. And then that's handy. That's another dinner in the freezer for
us, possibly two. That would feed all the kids, that could feed all the kids if I just wanted
to do them one a night. So, I'm quite pleased. So I think I'll end the video here. I'm just
going to do some dishes, clean up, do dinner, all that stuff. But I hope you enjoyed this
video. Thank you so much as always for watching and I'll see you in my next one. Bye guys.