My new favourite knife

I just bought one of these non stick knives on a whim, whilst buying my fathers christmas present. It was pretty cheap, about £6 I think, but bright green and zingy. Since then it has been in use nearly every day. For those of us with weakened hands through chronic pain, anything that helps every day activities such as cooking is very welcome. I cant believe the difference it has made to some of my food preparations. Cutting vegetables seems to only take half the effort. It doesn't work on everything - especially very sticky things like glace cherries, but then nothing does, and for that amount of money this has to go down as one of my best buys of the year.

Pacing - the only way to survive Christmas with fibromyalgia

Just a little reminder to all that pacing is the only way to get through the next few days. Come the start of January, you wont regret having done frozen peas instead of sprouts, or having handed over presents in bags not neatly wrapped, but you will regret it if you spent the day in bed as you overdid it trying to prepare!

I managed to do too much tidying yesterday, getting carried away, and as a result didn't wake up until lunchtime, so now have to truly prioritise or suffer tomorrow. I want to eat christmas pudding, so thats next on the list, and maybe wrapping, but thats it for me. I have sent out to Waitrose entertaining for ready prepared vegtables, and a christmas cake. The local butcher Sumblers has prepared the meats, and amazon has provided almost all the presents - the others were from a couple of shops near work, or other web shopping sites. However looking back on this. it probably worked out at about the same costs as preparing early gave me web discounts enough to cover the extra in food ordering, so I think next year I will get amazon to gift wrap everything too!

Happy holidays everyone, and don't panic about the small stuff - just remember its your time that counts, not your perfection.