Carry on Questing

Lula-Hula

Hey Skinty :wave:

havent seen you about for a while; hope all is good with you § sorry for zeird looking sy,bols; keyboqrd is szapping the letters about again :huh:

zed is a q and vice versa; so it takes ages to type as I need to hunt for each letter :mad: Have no idea zhere the sy,bol for %and% is :rotfl:

It is drving ,e nuts so zill reboot 7 try qgqin :::

skint_spice

Hello Lula :wave:, I've been about, mainly lurking as I've been feeling a bit meh and have nothing to say! Watched Child of Our Times tonight with DS and my eyes leaked a little... I'm fine but need to think up a diabolical plan to get out of here as neighbours are driving me batchy:D.

Horace

Hi Lula

You are putting me to shame with all this beavering in the house - I wish I could be so productive as I get distracted by other things.

I withdrew £100 from the bank today and spent nearly all of it:eek: I went to Blenheim Palace because they had a craft fair on so I paid £18 to get in (this covered the park, the house and the gardens), it seems a bit extreme but there is method in the madness as with the day ticket I can upgrade it free to an annual pass:cool: I tried to do it there but their servers went down and when I got home I discovered that I need to upload a passport photo (what kind of person happens to have passport pictures on their computer?), so I need to make another trip within the next 7 days to upgrade my ticket...sigh

I don't do hats but now I do do hats having fallen in love with a linen hat which I promptly bought and then I decided I wanted a rain hat from the same company and how have a blue velvety hat with blue flower on it - I admit that I bought these on my card. I got 3 free jars of jam from Tiptree but I did buy a jar of grapefruit marmalade (they didnt have any medlar jelly or quince jelly). Had a spot of lunch which wasnt too pricey and then I wandered around various marquees until I ended up back where the hats were and saw this delicious man selling handmade garments, so I splashed out on a cardigan that is multi-use because I can wear it as a cardi, fold the sleeves up so it looks like a waistcoat or wrap myself in in it...it was a bit more than I wanted to spend but I was so charmed by this chap (alright, I admit it, I was having a darn good letch:eek:). I did avoid the handmade soaps, the cornish pasties, the Lime Tree Pantry pies (which are yummy), I avoided all sorts of other things too.

Came home via the scenic route and scared myself driving down Fish Hill (a 10% hill with run off places). I hate Fish Hill, driving up is hard and driving down is hard...at least now it doesn't go into Broadway but bypasses it as there is a new bypass. Methinks when I go back at the weekend that I will drive to Moreton in Marsh and go along the A44 to Oxford thus avoiding Fish Hill altogether which is on the Evesham side...or I could go along the motorway like I did today and not take the scenic route home. Mind you, I am now wondering if they have charity shops in Woodstock because that would be a fab place to pick up some cheaper clothes as they are all loaded around there.

I have a busy week this week and tomorrow at 9.10am I shall be sitting in the dentists chair having a filling without anaesthetic:eek: because its the tooth where I have had the root canal done and the filling has broken (its all those toffees)...then I have a meeting at the black country living museum. I am barely in this week.

Lula-Hula

Testing, testing,

aaaah it all seems to be fine now :j

sorry to hear you've been feeling a bit 'meh' & that neighbours are a pain; oh for a nice detached property eh . Screamy baby downstairs just wont give up when it gets going & although it does make me so tense I have to remind myself that at least it's better than the previous occupant who had the foulest mouthed friends who screeched & whooped along to awful bangin music at 4.30 am nearly every weekend :mad:. It was like living above 'Eastenders goes on the lash to Benidorm'

Moving swiftly along, but before I start declaring my good deeds I'd just like to know whether anyone else ever uses kitchen roll instead of a plate when all the washing up is done & the kitchen is clean ?

I had to declutter the final pitta bread & slice of ham, the bin was drying on the draining board & I didnt want to make a plate dirty & kitchen roll can be composted so .... it seemed like a good idea to me

No, I do not drink my G&T from a kiwi/orange skin, it simply doesnt have the required volume

I lost 2 of my ebay bids today so saved myself £19.00 but won 3 others which cost me a total of £ 19.98 which I shall have to declare on the Clothes Challenge. A pair of jeans, linen trousers & wrap top. I've also recently spent a rather scary £79.13 on shoes/sandals & a bag but thankfully that doesnt count so we'll just pretend that it didnt happen ok . NB - I make sure all my payments are made via Quidco so at least I'm recouping a small amount.

I've had a very nice email from Quidco to say that they will be paying £61.18 into my secret saving account which will bring that to a rather tasty balance of £185.24 :T. I seem to remember that this account was going to fund the refurbishment of DDs room, I'm so over decorating for the time being. There's a paint tin still sat under the bathroom sink & it might as well get comfy.

I have the rest of my life to decorate & refurbish; I have just 10 months to repay the debt at 0% while also not having to pay Council Tax. Like a blue moon, this is both rare & very fortuitous, I must make the most of it.

The plan is simple :

Earn as much as possible from work & home jobs while still retaining good health & sanity.

Live within the £200 a month Grocery & Household budget

Live within the £100 a month 'pocket money & miscellanea' budget I've given myself - This will have to include treats such as booze, cosmetics, books & any charity shop treasures as well as 'essentials' like car & window cleaning.

Live within the confines of the Clothes Challenge budget & accept that while I do still 'need' a black handbag, I do not need any others

Maintain all the Savings Funds to avoid any further CC expenditure.

It's only for 30 weeks.

The 0% actually runs until April, but I hope to use that to buy new cooker and/or laptops ...

I did have to rock down to the co op earlier to buy bread + they had cartons of drink for DDs packed lunches on a bogoff ie 20 for the price of 10 so had to get them, & some more salad ... £7.20 later I now have £110 left out of my grocery budget.

Brain hurts so off to bed now,

night night

PS - Hello Horace, glad to hear you had a good letch today & hurray for clothes itmes that can multitask , hope the dentist trip goes well, no anaesthetic ? Are you quite mad, woman !! I always say I can still feel things so they shoot me full of extra stuff ... I blame it on having watched Marathon Man at an early age


xx

Lula-Hula

Today has been rather stressful .

Was up at 6.30 & thanks to Dragons Wake-up Call Challenge I managed to drag myself out of bed to do some exercise - not much but even 20 minutes is better than nothing.

Was all organized for getting DD off to camp; water bottle, packed lunch etc & left 5 mins early so I could complete the reams of forms required each time.

On arriving we were greeted with dubious welcome by the guy who runs the camp telling me that it's a shame I hadnt booked as the camp was cancelled :eek::eek::eek:.

I honestly thought he was joking & launched into the tale of how great it was to have had a phone call asking if DD wanted a place & how I'd given my contact numbers & been told that I didnt need to pay up front & could pay on arrival at which point I started waving my £60 about.

He wasnt joking & according to his records DD wasnt booked & they'd cancelled as they didnt have enough people to make it worthwhile :huh:. My sense of humour started to fail at that point & I suggested that perhaps if his staff actually managed to record the bookings they touted for then they might get a clearer picture of how many kids will use the camp :mad: & as I was due at work in 10 minutes which was why DD comes to the camp in the first place then did he ahve any suggestion as to what I was meant to do now :mad: & had he thought of maybe changing the website so that we can download a booking form that is a bit more recent than Easter 2009 & perhaps getting his staff to check the answerphone & reply to messages left about booking places would improve the numbers required :mad::mad:.

I was fuming & having rung boss to ask if DD could come in & got a 'yes' I did not drive out of there at the requested speed of 10mph .

I fumed all the way to work interspersed with worrying how DD would cope with being in the environment, how it would affect my tasks & also how I was going to cover the remaining 2 days of half term .

DD was fine & thankfully it wasnt too frantic a day in the office so I managed to get the important stuff done although there was a steady stream of colleagues popping in to be nosy :rotfl:.

Came home & made a couple of calls which resulted in DD spending the day with a friend tomorrow whose lovely mum offered after I'd asked if she knew of any childminders ... turns out she has a neighbour who minds next door who will be having DD on friday & is amenable to having DD during the summer hols & also future half terms :T.

Sadly, this will put my childcare costs up by £100 a week _pale_ but if DD is safe & happy & I can book in advance with the reassurance that I wont be let down at the last minute, then for holiday childcare it will be worth it. It's only for a couple more years & I will just have to save a sum towards the cost each week.

Cant see me ever giving up that home-job now :wall:

Other than that it's been a NSD

Need my bed now
xx

moo2moo

Yay to an an understanding boss but mega carp to extra childcare costs. Might be worth pointing this oout to Grumpy and Gropey and seeing if you can work extra hours during term time to allow you a little more time off in hols or if you could do a day from home once in a while.

Lula-Hula

Thanks for the thougts Moo ,

believe me I've tried very hard to [STRIKE]suggest[/STRIKE]tell Boss that if only I had a shiny new laptop then I could work from home. I think I may need to start wearing lower cut tops & maybe a skirt or dress now & then ...

I'm not doing any more hours until I get a payrise , but have already made it known that holiday childcare is costing a fortune. Just as with all other expenses; as long as I save up for it, then it wont be so tough. I might look into whether I can recoup any costs now, I did check previously & was told that the tipping point was £500 a year.

Anyway, it's been a NSD & after supper we went for a bike ride along the canal so that always inspires me t keep paying off the debt, particualrly as we went past 3 camper vans too :heartpuls

DD1 is off work tomorrow so she's coming to spend the day here & make use of the washing machine. It's not just me being kind; I've been trying out a washing powder for survey points & dont like it so will be grateful for someone else to use it too .

She is also going to show me how to get photos onto ebay & do listings ... :eek: I need to recoup some expenditure.

So glad I'm not at work job tomorrow & plan to cut the grass before it becomes a jungle again.

Bye for now

Souk08

Hey Lady, I guess you know that it's free listings on ebay on Sunday...so a good time to get on with it! X

sarahb123_3

Lula-Hula wrote: »

She is also going to show me how to get photos onto ebay & do listings ...

:j:j:j:j Make sure you set lots of time aside:( It will be worth it when the money rolls in though:D

Lula-Hula

Hello,

thanks for the ebay encouragement ladies :A at the back of my mind is the idea that when I am debt free & able to quit / drastically reduce the home-job I will need some other way to have a teeny bit of income. It's not just about the money, I just like having a 'side-project- other than work.

DD really enjoyed her day spent with the childminder yesterday; they spent most of the day at the park with a picnic & games so I feel confident that this arrangement will work for the future holidays & half terms . She has always enjoyed going to the summer camp & I've felt happy about it too as I know that they do lots of activities & also spend a lot of time outside in the woods & park. There is structure to the day but also choices & flexibility about which activities they do.

The sports camp has always felt like a compromise & when I had my wobbly about giving up home job, I think a lot of that was to do with my feelings of guilt about sending DD to sports camp when I knew that she wasnt really enjoying it as much as other things she could be doing.

Yes, I do feel slightly pale at having to wedge out £145 a week but as always, if I've already saved the money beforehand, then it just doesnt hurt so much. I cant put a price on DD being happy & well cared for so will allocate £15 a week towards the fees.

As usual, I have a whole heap of chores & duties to get done over the weekend so here is my list :

[STRIKE] Hoover everywhere [/STRIKE]done
Wash floors
[STRIKE]Tidy, a lot [/STRIKE] done - ish
[STRIKE] Laundry[/STRIKE] all done, in one day
[STRIKE] Ironing[/STRIKE]done
[STRIKE] Cut the grass[/STRIKE] done
Weeding & tidying
[STRIKE]Ring relatives[/STRIKE] done half, remainder today
[STRIKE] Allotment[/STRIKE] done
Attempt to list on ebay _pale_ avoiding :shhh:

NB - there will not be any attempts to paint the bathroom

DD1 gave me a quick briefing & I'm not overly confident about the technical side of getting pics from my phone to the listing but do need to try it out while there is a free listing day.

Right, enough chat I'm off to load the washing machine

bye for now
xx