Further financial faux pas and even more disasterous decisions

moo2moo

Morning all!

Ebayqueen you must have got the general gist by the end of the first dozen posts. I'm currently going through a pretending to be obsessive about housework phase without actually doing much about it whilst attempting not to go anywhere or do anything that involves spending money although just funding the DDs basic activities seems to eat through £35 very nicely each week. Funny thing is I'd think that spending that much on gym membership for myself on a monthly basis was obscene. Anyhow welcome!

Cherisong - sorry you can't make it. Hopefully you'll find affordable insurance and a sensibly priced motor sometime soon. If its any consolation the temperature has plummeted again so chances are it will be very very cold on Sunday and very wet according to the weather forecasty people although quite possibly not as wet as yesterday when the hound from hell and I ventured out into the local mudbath and arrived home liberally splatterd with mud. I nipped upstairs to change and eradicate the worst from my hair and face whilst the daemon dog rolled on the sofa. More sodding blankets to wash. Think I managed to get my displeasure across quite nicely as she did her best ever impersonation of a very well behaved pooch for the remaining five minutes that I was at home and even consented to being shut in puppy land with minimal pathetic unloved unfed pathetic doggy howling.

Plans for the week ahead have changed yet again. OH has wangled Friday off so hopefully hes going to paint the bathroom leaving me free to continue pootling around pretending to be a domestic diva. Managed to clean out another kitchen cupboard yesterday thus reaching the halfway mark. Of course I've saved the biggest messiest ones for last but thats purely so OH isn't about to witness the amount of carp I'm planning to dispose off. Also going to get my head around menu planning in the hopes that a tiny bit of thought before hand means I don't run in the door at 7:30 to chuck chicken nuggets under the grill whilst the DDs whip up tinned sphaghetti on toast. One night of thats Ok but an entire week of it will be dire, besides which I'm pretty sure there are only half a dozen nuggets in the freezer and I'm going to avoid shopping until the day OH is due back in the hopes of making some headway thorough the woefully out of date food mountain thats cramming the cupboards to bursting. OH seems to be incapable of cooking anything that isn't accompanied by a jar of tasteless pasta bake with added frozen veg and if we're really really unlucky a tin of tuna.... I should be grateful and I was the first half dozen times or so but now i'm thoroughly bored of it. It will be sooo nice to have a week free of the stuff. Remind me I said that after a week of frazzled children and very late nights.

moo2moo

Why do the simplest things always go so wrong?

I've rebuilt so many toilets recently that I was beginning to feel like I'd finally figured it out. I'd aquired a stash of all the right parts needed and the tooling and every concievable replacement seal imaginable and so I figured repairing one would be a doddle. Clearly that was my first and most obvious mistake. My second was in assuming that a stoptap would stop the flow of water. Wrong again. Although it did reduce it to a trickle even a trickle generates a rather large puddle followed fairly quickly by the beginnings of a lake when you realise that the PTFE tape is at the other end of the building. Changed the obviously brorken bit and more importantly tightened its innards up to stop the loo peeing water over the floor. Mopped up the mess before flushing the loo to check all was working only to discover nothing happpened. Turns out something else had snapped quite some time ago. Nicked the crucial bit from a diused loo in another part of the building, incidentally the disabled loo only some person ingeniously plonked a sink in front of the door so that its only accessible by limping limbo dancers. Finally got this bit sorted and flushed the loo emptying the entire contents of the toilet cistern straight onto the floor. Apparently a rubber seal a gazillion miles away from where I'd been working decided to die. Obvioulsy this is the only seal I don't posess and more importantly the chances of me getting to it without smashing the loo are slim to non-existant thanks to the disintegration of the screws holding the loo to the wall. Did the only thing I could do and applied half a tube of silicone sealant to the pipe in the hopes that this creates enough of a diversion and persuades the water to flow into the loo rahter than onto the floor. OK even I know this is woefully optomistic but its worth a try and on the basis that its a loo in a boys toilet its highly unlikely that anyone other than me ever flushes it anyway. Boys are such disgusting creatures.

Was supposed to have a pleasant evening building cricket nets but that didn't happen. Thankfully the PE teacher managed to do it on his own.

Plans for today involve flushing the loo with my fingers and toes crossed and hoping that it works. Plan B involves a large out of order notice and a screwdriver to lock the door to make sure the little darlings don't ignore it. Also need to bung up a noticeboard and assist the sparky to reassemble the lightfitting we dismantled yesterday to change a bulb only to discover the bulb had gone to bulb heaven in a blaze of corroded glory and was firmly refusing to shift. And thats all before 9am.

Finally got shut of the laminate flooring so am now £50 better off although I promptly blew £8 on a tae kwan do suit for DD1. Now just need to find a smaller one for DD2. Also need to drag them to the shoe shop as DD2 has managed to do something to the buckle on hers which has been mangled beyond salvation by repeated use of pliers to get the things to hang together. Considering I was expecing to have to replace them over Christmas (and forgot) I'm amazed they've lasted this long.

Further plans for today involve assisting OH in packing his suitcasse which means washing and ironing al the stuff he lobbed in the laundry basket yesterday as this will form a crucial part of his wardrobe. Also want to bung the final bits of outgrown stuff in the bag for dropping at the recycling centre on Saturday which means figuring out if its worth selling fancy dress costumes on flea-bay whilst avoiding doing too much random surfing.

ebayqueen_2

Afternoon Moo

You are up with the larks in the morning aren't you! You done well getting rid of the flooring. I tried to sell some solid wood and eventually had to give it away as it wasnt enough to do a small room. You are a busy bee and very handy too. I'm sure you agree that everytime you tackle a job you learn something new.
You are never done with housework are you. My house is a mess at them moment due to being down with flu for a week. Have someone arriving next friday to service the oil burner and will have to check all radiators throughout the house .... so I have a massive job to make the place look the way I want it. Have to maintain my image only joking.
You seem v happy with your job moo. What did you do before the kids or have you worked there for along time. Sounds like a very interesting place to work.
Hold on to the fancy dress outfits and list at halloween. I think there is always a bit of a market for these types of items ...birthday parties etc.
Hows the little pup:)

moo2moo

Halloween? Are you barking? I intend to have a tidy house by Easter. Hanging onto stuff for another niine months really doesn't fit in with the plans.

Little pup is humungous. Am assuming shes topped 40kg as I can no longer pick her up and OH struggles. Equally am not brave enough to let her trash Pets at Home in order to weigh her, although its rather tempting.

I love my job.. well apart from the endless vacuuming and toilet scrubbing it entails and the random vomit and the opening of the drains to find out precisely what that lingering smell is.. but apart from that and the abysmal pay and the lousy hours its perfect

Even better my bodged toilet repair actually worked. I flushed it twice to make sure and then spent the morning randomly popping into the boys loos to see if it had started leaking. The Head found the whole thing most amusing.

Life before this job was awfully different. I had a thoroughly uneventful seven years as a stay at home mum !!! avon rep, freelance bookseller and generally pauperish existance where the need to get out of the house to somewhere with other people to stop me going insane was outweighed by the need to buy food with the same money it would cost to go to the church coffee mornings and mums and toddlers groups where I didn't fit in and hated every minute of it but needed to speak to people even if they were from alternative universes.

Finally lost my temper well and truly after an awful 18 months living in a four roomed flat with a toddler and the worlds least hygenic lodger as well as OH and quit big city living to move to a dilapidated house with a leaking roof, several absent windows and a distinct lack of heating in the middle of nowhere where my only access to anything was to wander with the pushchair through a myriad of country lanes. I couldn't have been happier! It took OH another six months to find a job that didn't involve a 250 mile daily commute, although he rented a room close to work and stayed there all week.

Things have changed quite considerably since then and life before children happened to another person entirely.

I have a week of lone parenting to look forward to. Its much harder than normal but a lot of fun too. The DDs tend to behave like much older children when there are just the three of us as they attempt to be much more responsible and helpful. This usually lasts to mid week by which time we have total and utter melt down.

All the things I had in mind for the week are on hold already. Can't see 10m in front of my nose, its minus five again and its going to take an eternity to get anywhere today. The idea of braving a car park full of other people who can't see a thing is not in the slightest bit appealing. May well delay shoe shopping until tomorrow.

Further plans for the weekend involve dusting and then painting the bathroom. Also plan to empty, clean and inventory the storecupboard and then meal plan using the oldest ingredients first. Ingeneous but not althogehter nutritious as this is likely to involve half a dozen cans of condensed milk. Horrible stuff. OH insisted we bought it and then never used it.

MrsMoo2U

condensed milk = banoffee pie or key lime pie, not horrid at all. In fact two of my favourite desserts. Girls would enjoy making the banoffee pie too I bet. It will keep them busy. All you need is digestives, butter (or marg at a push) condensed milk and bananas, easy peasy.
Place the condensed milk tin in a pan of boiling water, boil for 11/2 hours. pour on top of crushed biscuit base, add bananas and if you feel really lush a load of whipped cream. Scrummy

moo2moo

cherisong wrote: »

condensed milk = banoffee pie or key lime pie, not horrid at all. In fact two of my favourite desserts. Girls would enjoy making the banoffee pie too I bet. It will keep them busy. All you need is digestives, butter (or marg at a push) condensed milk and bananas, easy peasy.
Place the condensed milk tin in a pan of boiling water, boil for 11/2 hours. pour on top of crushed biscuit base, add bananas and if you feel really lush a load of whipped cream. Scrummy

Scrummy yet highly toxic to a lactose intollerant child. May well have to send them to bed early and then scoff the lot without them suspecting a thing. I feel a plan for the evening coming on.

Meanwhile having lost all feeling in my toes at the riding school we pootled further down the road to the clothing recyclers where we exchanged five bags of many tat for a crisp tenner and a few coins before rapidly parting with these to purchase bones and doggy chews for the hairball and accomplice. Have already stubbed my toe and trodden on a couple of sharp bits of bone but at least its keeping them occupied although I forsee much sweeping up in the not too distant future.

Arrived home to find DD1s dobok had been delivered, its huge and shes squeaking with excitement. She'll grow into it eventually but its not that big that she can't wear it, at least the trousers are the right length. Will need to find one thats two sizes smaller for DD1 but keep being outbid on fleabay, perhaps I'm being a bit optomistic with my bids.

Meanwhile the house is colder than the inside of the fridge so have elected to light the fire considerably earlier than normal, although its resisting.

Am awfuly tempted to veg in front of the fire with a book for the afternoon but that seems like a bit of a waste of a day. Perhaps I'll feel more enthusiastic about things after lunch.

makeup

cherisong wrote: »

condensed milk = banoffee pie or key lime pie, not horrid at all. In fact two of my favourite desserts. Girls would enjoy making the banoffee pie too I bet. It will keep them busy. All you need is digestives, butter (or marg at a push) condensed milk and bananas, easy peasy.
Place the condensed milk tin in a pan of boiling water, boil for 11/2 hours. pour on top of crushed biscuit base, add bananas and if you feel really lush a load of whipped cream. Scrummy

my sister cooks several tins up at the same time. She then writes on the tin and puts them in the cupboard so the next time there is no waiting for ages for the condensed milk to cook and I guess it is also a bit mse as you are only using the gas / electric once?

Do you or the girls ever get invited to potluck things? Where you have to bring a dish? It might work for that so that you can use it up for that and not have to worry about your daughters eating it? And then you're not spending much money on buying something for these kind of events.

moo2moo

makeup wrote: »

Do you or the girls ever get invited to potluck things? Where you have to bring a dish? It might work for that so that you can use it up for that and not have to worry about your daughters eating it? And then you're not spending much money on buying something for these kind of events.

Nope, nothing like that ever happens. Its not like I've made many friends here. Its very much one of those places where you're an outsider unless you've lived here for a couple of decades and even then it takes some fitting in. Not helped that the local shops are hot beds of village gossip. Hello! have nothing on this lot. Conversations about those new people (the ones who moved in in the mid '80's) and the outrageous things they've done..... imagine the response I got for having purple hair.... lots of Ooh love I can't imagine Margorie (the village hairdresser) did that.... did you ask for your money back? and many others congratulating me on being brave and enquiring as to whether this meant I was one of those queer folk.

Still avoiding the cupboards. Suppose I'll just have to get it over and done with. Have found a whole heap of cookie recipes using tinned milk so may well end up making some and knocking together something else that DD1 can eat.

moo2moo

Well it wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared, the emptying part that is. now all I have to do is cram it all in in sort vague sort of order in the hopes of finding stuff at some point in the distant future. As always discovered we had ridiculous amounts of some things.. like pasta... about 30kg of the stuff in a variety of shapes and colours. Have also aquired 5kg of icing sugar although I don't actually recall buying any recently.

Planning to bung lots of dried beans in to soak in order to make farty bean curry tomorrow. Am also tempted to keep out the ingredients to make dahl which will also use up the naan breads lurking in the freezer. Actually dahl sounds far more appetising.

Next step is to attempt to get as much stuff as possible back in resorting to leaving out only those things whic I'll definately use up this week. Even then its going to be a very tight squeeze.

moo2moo

That went surprisingly well. I even have a couple of empty shelves although the breadmachine is now occupying the dining table and the kitchen worktop is liberally strewn with all manner of pulses. The vast majority of the geriatric foodstuffs were desrt based things so plans for the week involve consuming two xmas puds, rice pudding, strawberry jelly and the aforementioned condensed milks although I think shifting six cans in a week is a little excessive.

The most geriatric stuff I've unearthed dates back to 2003 which is really quite scary. Fortnately its all packet sauce mixes rather than actual food so its not likely to be completely inedible. Thus the majority of this weeks meal planning will involve Chicken Balti mix (clearly Sunday night is curry night), sweet and sour sauce and a rather revolting sounding creamy pepper and mushroom sauce... I'm vaguely wondering if this would work with mushroom lasagne... only vaguely mind you.

Still thats another chore out of the way. Really can't be bothered doing anything else today. Tis just too cold to feel enthusiastic.