greent's mfw journey

Calfuray · 2 January 2015 at 1:01AM

greent wrote: »

Happy New Year, everyone! We spent the evening playing games with the children and with a takeaway - was good fun Am aware that the likelihood of (just) all the 6 of us being together for NYE for many more years is low - so made the most of it (turned down a sitter offer and 2 party invitations) Played more games this afternoon

Decluttering - have recycled all 2014 calendars, and have made tags from appropriate Xmas cards (found a few more!) - and put them away with the Xmas wrapping stuff!!!

Heating isn't working this evening Hot water is ok. Boiler lights are on, pressure is ok and reset button is fine - but no warmth in rads. Thankfully it's reasonably mild overall. We had fire on in living room earlier for about 90 minutes and have 2 electric heaters on upstairs by bedrooms. DS2 has gone to bed with a hot water bottle (others were offered the option of one or a wheat bag but declined) Will turn heaters off when I go to bed very soon. BGas engineer coming out in morning (sometime between 8 -1). I need to go to smarket (about 2 pints of green milk left, same of red - green will all go at breakfast time) so will aim to do that straight off (hoping hot water will still be ok so can jump in shower first!) and get some other shopping at same time (list written ready ). then have an abel & cole F&v box coming on Tues, along with some of their gorgeous sausages & bacon (yum yum) and a chicken (had a coupon to make it half price) Hopefully that'll be it until following weekend then ('cept for more milk & bread lol) Aiming to keep food spends low and regain some room in my freezer this month - it's too full at the mo

Haven't listed anything on fleabay today - will aim to list another min 5 items tomorrow. Need to check on homeworks before school next week too!

All decorations are still up - need to take them down over the next couple of days....... Would have started tonight in the family room - but it's freezing in there without the heating!!!!

Wishing everyone the best for 2015 - let's hope that we all have a fantastic one xx

Is it just me, or is the smell of those wheat bags amazing?

De-lurking to ask, how are the Abel&Cole boxes? What one do you get? I am very intrigued!

I need to put thing up on fleabay too _pale_

Hope the heating gets fixed!

Happy New Year,
Cal

apple_muncher · 2 January 2015 at 9:50AM

We do abel and cole too. Just the small veg box now, and only fortnightly. But I still think they are great!

Happy 2015, greent and clan! This is the year you get rid of the mortgage, no? Exciting times ahead!

RoaringTwenties · 2 January 2015 at 10:16AM

Hi greent, I made it here! Had a read through the last few pages but not your whole story as it were, will aim to do that sometime

I could have written what you've been writing about eBay though, right down to the bit about auto-relisting stuffing up the two weekend exposure plan :rotfl:. I had a bad eBay experience before Xmas but am determined it won't put me off, it's a good way to declutter & make money so am going to get back on the horse & get listing ASAP

Did I read somewhere it's free listing for a few days now?

I used to get the Abel & Cole weaning box when DS was a baby, might have to look into it again. Where we live is quite 'yummy' so there's organic stuff in abundance round here

Hope your heating gets fixed pronto, I shall hope for mild weather in Gloucs (beautiful place, we go there every year)

RT xx

greent · 3 January 2015 at 1:34PM

Calfuray wrote: »

Is it just me, or is the smell of those wheat bags amazing?

De-lurking to ask, how are the Abel&Cole boxes? What one do you get? I am very intrigued!

I need to put thing up on fleabay too _pale_

Hope the heating gets fixed!

Happy New Year,
Cal

I love wheat bags

DH burned my favourite one last weekend (he put it in for 5 minutes!!:eek:) I'm going to see if I can rescue part of it to make a smaller one.(I'm totally non-crafty, so this may take some time and end up a total bodge job!!)

This is what's in this week's A&C boxes

http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/weekly-box

We get the large mixed f&v one - and fortnightly appears to work for us with other f&v bought elsewhere (eg: there's only enough potatoes for 1 meal) - although I'm getting the medium mixed one this week - a combination of having some veg left still from Xmas (blame Mr T's reductions!) and I also won a voucher for a free medium box in a raffle :j Whoop for free food!!:j

I've had the marvellous meat box a few times (when I've had offer codes!!) - gorgeous meat but I wouldn't want to pay full price (but their chipolata sausages are our new family favourite food!) and cupboard stuff, dairy stuff, bread - I've tried lots over the years, normally when I have offer codes:D I never get veg boxes once the garden is producing - they are very much a Winter/ Spring thing in this household

apple_muncher wrote: »

We do abel and cole too. Just the small veg box now, and only fortnightly. But I still think they are great!

Happy 2015, greent and clan! This is the year you get rid of the mortgage, no? Exciting times ahead!

Happy new year to you, too! Yep - should hopefully clear it just before the end of the year :j(although we've come up with some scary :eek:££ spending plans on the house this weekend......)

RoaringTwenties wrote: »

Hi greent, I made it here! Had a read through the last few pages but not your whole story as it were, will aim to do that sometime I could have written what you've been writing about eBay though, right down to the bit about auto-relisting stuffing up the two weekend exposure plan :rotfl:. I had a bad eBay experience before Xmas but am determined it won't put me off, it's a good way to declutter & make money so am going to get back on the horse & get listing ASAP Did I read somewhere it's free listing for a few days now?

I used to get the Abel & Cole weaning box when DS was a baby, might have to look into it again. Where we live is quite 'yummy' so there's organic stuff in abundance round here

Hope your heating gets fixed pronto, I shall hope for mild weather in Gloucs (beautiful place, we go there every year)

RT xx

Free listing until Tues 6th Jan, RT - worth seeing if you can get a few things on

Thankfully weather has been mild, but wet.

DH and I are total Gloucestershire-fans

Love the fact that we can be in farmland in 5 minutes from here

We live on the edge of the Gloucester/ Stroud border (2 streets away is in Stroud district)

Heating has been fixed this morning - engineer came out yesterday and diagnosed the issue which needed a part which they don't carry as standard. Thankfully it was in stock to order and could be fitted by another engineer today - he arrived just after 8 and left just before 11.30, so it was a fiddly job - but it's done :T We now have a warmer house

Made a batch of courgette and tomato soup whilst he was here - my freezers are full, mainly of f&v, so I need to attack them to clear some! Used a large bag of over-ripe tomatoes which I'd frozen and 2 courgettes which I'd previously grated and frozen - and a tub of stock. Small start, but I need to try and work on reducing it every day

No soup left to go in freezer, either - just one portion left which DH will eat tomorrow for lunch

Mountain of washing to catch up on where we've had no heating... off to make a start on it

Wishing you all a lovely weekend

xx

Fortune_Smiles · 3 January 2015 at 2:59PM

I'm a big A&C fan too greent and do my meal planning around what's expected in the box. I got some surprise Heritage Tomatoes this week as they had run out of the planned Rebellion ones. The Heritage Tomatoes are all small but various colours and shapes - can't wait to try them.

I really like that the veg is organic, seasonal and British. They've encouraged me to try all sorts of things I wouldn't normally go for.

We are having fruit and veg in every meal and snack now so that's got to be good. Although I don't know what I'm going to do with 10 kiwi fruit :eek:

Fortune x

greent · 3 January 2015 at 8:58PM

Ooh - I've had their Heritage Tomatoes before, Fortune - and they were lovely (nicer than the Rebellion tomatoes, so I'd welcome that as a swap!) I try not to swap out many items, but do like it that you can (eg: chestnut mushrooms - I'm the only mushroom lover here, but chestnut mushrooms make me ill, so I always swap them) I have passed on the kiwis this week, though - and am glad I have if you got so many!! DS1 and I can just about cope with a kiwi between us - and everyone else dislikes them - I expect we'll get apples in exchange, which will be fine

DH loves their citrus fruit - says it's beautiful and much nicer than supermarket stuff

Decluttering news:
10 - dead iphone sent away for recycling
11 - 14 - unused silicone cake mould, curtain tieback, mensa gameset and photo holder thingy all taken to charity shop
15 - 6 gift bags sent back with m-I-l (they were the ones she used for our Xmas gifts - normally I reuse gift bags but she's a heavy smoker and they smelt, so I was reluctant to put them away in my Xmas box. She was delighted to have them back though - so a good win-win!

) (I've also got masses of them so didn't really want/ need any more anyway

(I think I will actively target using them ahead of paper next Xmas)
Have been tidying make up drawer......
16 - 1 separated nailvarnish - bin
17 - 5 gloopy lip glosses and 1 lipstick (strange colour) - bin
18 - numerous tops where items have been long used, bits of rubbish and an old strepsil which fell out of its packet - bin
(more stuff found which can be passed on so currently in 'pending' and other stuff relocated to correct/ more appropriate places

)

Xmas decs, all trees and the outside lights are all down. Real tree recycled and rest not yet put back up in garage loft - that's a job for tomorrow. I might get DS1 to get down the boxes labelled for DS2 and DS3 too, and have a sort through to see if there's anything that fits now, if there's anything which I don't actually want to keep which can be given away and also sort remaining items into labelled boxes in sizes - making finding next size things in future far easier!!!

Operation freezer-use-up: going to take a chicken out for tomorrow's dinner. Tomorrow I'll take out some runner beans (HG), red cabbage (HM) and sausagemeat (for stuffing) Sadly this will mean more stock and leftover chicken to go back in! (will likely use some of both in a risotto later in week)

Karmacat · 3 January 2015 at 9:03PM

You're going great! I like giving the bags back to the MIL - thats sort of mindful recycling, not recycling for the sake of it

greent · 3 January 2015 at 9:08PM

Karmacat wrote: »

You're going great! I like giving the bags back to the MIL - thats sort of mindful recycling, not recycling for the sake of it

Yep - I also pointed out that if she thought about it a bit she could even reuse the same ones for the same people - thereby negating the need to do anything with the gift tags on them, as they are already labelled!!:rotfl:

greent · 4 January 2015 at 10:50AM

Our boiler really is struggling - has been for the last couple of years. Combination of age, the size of the system (it was a big system already and has been added to with loft and garage conversions), plastic pipework in the walls (sludge is an issue and system can't effectively be flushed because of corroded heatbank in boiler (natural wear and tear) and narrow plastic pipes) When we replace it we're looking to go from a floor standing one to a wall mounted boiler (essentially same area, so not much pipework to be messed with)

That means messing about with kitchen cupboards, floor and worktop - so we're planning on getting kitchen re-done at the same time (our kitchen just a bit bigger than a double garage, so not a cheap thing to fully re-fit out!) - and we need some plastering, possibly the ceiling redone (hopefully not!) and the current floor knocked up (thick porcelain tiles) and redone - looking at Karndean (we have it elsewhere) Kitchen is cold - Northfacing with one radiator at one end of the room, so possibly looking at adding another one the other end. Front and back doors no longer fit very well (you can feel the wind whistling in, and we're at the right (or wrong!) angle for the cold winds at the time of year to come in! We were always going to replace them this year, but am considering also replacing the windows throughout (also now not brilliant and they are leaded - which I hate - I just want 'plain' windows.

Garage side door is rotting and garage front double door is dodgy (and heavy and when open I can't reach it to shut it due to slope on drive!) - so looking at new side door and electric front door.

Finally, hall and kitchen floors are different heights and it really winds me up - so may get hall floor done at same time as kitchen!

:eek::eek::eek:

Clearly this won't be cheap, but we're looking to stick some on 0% CC. Mtge should end Oct at mo (will still look to complete by Dec even with any extra spending). I want to love my house and I don't - I don't even particularly like it. I also want it to be warm and weatherproof and all rooms usable (more spends required to make office and family rooms lovely - but that may be following year!!) We should therefore hopefully end 2015 MF, but prob not debt free (although if this is on 0% I'm more than happy with that):D

easylife73 · 4 January 2015 at 11:23AM

Good luck with your home renovations greent, we're still making our house a home, and I know how it feels when you don't really love where you live. I hated so much of our house when we moved in, but we're finally at a point where I really like it

Still lots to do though, my biggest issues at the moment are the garden and the porch.

greent's mfw journey

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