Further financial faux pas and even more disasterous decisions

Eager_Elephant

Hi Moo

Do not mention Harris to me!!!!

I also lost my points in October last year but did not realise until Jan when I started my thread.

I emailed them and all they did was quote the new rules to me and that was it!! I lost 2330 points - it is only 2500 for payout. I was so annoyed and was going to cancel my account but decided to learn from it instead and make sure I do all my surveys now!!!!

EE

moo2moo

I've had one of those mornings where I seem to have been wading through jelly but not actually getting anywhere. In the space of three hours at school I was told that the new boiler had been condemmed only to be told by the person who condemed it that it was repairable only in attempting to repair it he ballsed up and so its a write off anyway. Either way it means that we've had to improvise hot water for the school kitchen. I've never been so glad that the dishwasher is of the self heating variety.

Other exciting tasks involved hanging a picture on the bosses newly painted wall. Allowed him to do the honors as I have a habit of bending nails and removing large chunks of plaster whilst not managing to get the nail to stay in the wall. Turns out he has exactly the same problem. Ended up drilling a hole and hiding the crater we'd made behind a picture. Need to persuade him to try minimalism otherwise I have another 20 or so pictures to hang and thats just in his office.

Was reminded that as off next week there will be lots more cleaning to do, oh joy. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done and I don't want to miss any more time in the evenings with the DDs as most days I'm lucky if I get 45 minute with them after school. The extra cash would be nice but not at the expense of bedtime. Will have to come up with a compromise that involves me starting earlier and the teachers being banned from the staffroom for half an hour - can't see that being particularly popular though.

Stupidly came up with the ingeneous idea of hanging the fridge door so that it opened the opposite way. Didn't realise what a pain in the bum that was going to be. Mind you it killed half an hour v. nicely.

moo2moo

I managed an entire puppy free post - perhaps I'm over my obsession with the demonic thing. Shes now officially old enough to insure so I've gone for a deluxe covered for life policy rather than one of the cheaper policies where a condition is restricted to a year. Hopefully she won't develop anything long term but for the sake of an extra £4 a month its really not worth the gamble. Got a multi pet discount because I insure the other animals with them and I wangled £26 cashback via Quidco too.

Goingto grab an early lunch because I'm starving. Dug out some frozen soup from the bottom of the freezer as part of my masterplan to minimise expenditure this week. Still need to go to the Co-op on the way home though as the DDs made milkshakes last night using up all the milk. DD2 was not impressed when she had to have soya milk on her cereals.

moo2moo

Started the day rather strangely with a survey that required me to score words according to how positive or negative they made me feel. The posh term for this is Semiometrie (I knew that... of course I knew that). The gizmo then goes on to score these words against those of the rest of the population and stereotype you as either Community, Duty, Pleasue or Autonomy..... I guess if you'd asked me which I'd fitted into I would have said Community but apparently not, I am in fact the opposite of a community minded person being so deviant that I'm lumped into "autonomy" which is apparently a polite term for anarchists. Guess I shouldn't be all that suprised really.

And then it gets worse. The survey goes on to indicate I am both dominant and combative... Who little ol' me? .... with a negative attitude towards sex, religion and family. Eek... and me a married mother of two on first name terms with the vicar

Mags_cat

moo2moo wrote: »

And then it gets worse. The survey goes on to indicate I am both dominant and combative... Who little ol' me? .... with a negative attitude towards sex, religion and family. Eek... and me a married mother of two on first name terms with the vicar

We knew there was a reason we loved this diary!:rotfl:

moo2moo

Had three attempts at taking houdini the puppy out for a drive in the car as a practice run for going to the vets. Didn't get as far as turning the key in the ignition the first time when she landed on my lap wagging her tail as if to say look at me aren't I clever.

Second time round I dug out the adjustable dog guard from the shed which is clealry not intended for use within a mobile shoe box nor with a puppy as she fits under, over and through the bars. She was having a lobely time.

Attempt three involed a fine mesh cargo net and the afore mentioned dog guard Managed an entire 150 metres before she arrived with her very waggy tail. Turned the car around in next doors driveway and returned home. Am now thinking I'll purchase a padded chest harness (which was planned) and a v. short lead with the clunk click part of a seatbelt on it so that I can stick her on the back seat and tether her to the seatbelt point. The risk of wee or worse on the v. absorbent spongy seat is a tad too high for my liking but needs must. The boot isn't big enough for a cage and even if I could wedge one in there I wouldn't be able to open the door to get her in or out. May need to liberate a giant v. thick industrial bin bag from somewhere with thick giant industrial bin bags and cover it with a blanket to limit damage.

This puppy owning malarky is far far harder than you expect. Pretty sure I was less sleep deprived with a howling baby. At least then I was more likely to wake up at 2am, realise I'd had 2 hours consecutive sleep with no disruption, wonder vaguely if the child in question had suffocated in their sleep and doze back off only to wake 30 minutes later in a mad panic because I'd dropped off to sleep without checking they weren't dead. Neurotic? Moi?

moo2moo

E-mailed OH with many suggestions regarding secure methods of puppy transport. He ingeneously suggested borrowing a cage from the neighbours. Super as a one off but I can't see tham being overly enamoured with me doing that each and every time I take her out in the car. Still its a start.

Thought I'd investigate the many harness options. Turns out the little darling is between sizes. Shes almost too big for a small but likely to be too small for a medium and its not like I can take her to the shop to try one as I can't get her there so on the assumption that her first one will be sacrificial in that shes likely to chew it I've put a bid one a small one on E-bay that will set me back an entire £3 including postage. That way if she gets very little use out of it I won't be horrifically upset and most definately not as upset as I would be if I'd paid £16 for it. Now need to wiat unti Monday to see if I'm outbid.

The frugal eating plan seems to be going well. The contents of the freezer are reducing slowly although I'm sick to death of having soup for lunch it is at least getting it out of the way. Clearly its been in there for some time as there was trather a lot of ice on top of the box, then again DD2 has a habit of not quite shutting the door so it may not be as geriatric as I fear.

Have £130.69 remaining of Aprils budget and two days of April left to go. I should come in hugely under budget this month for the second month in a row. Still way over budget for the year but I am finally getting there. had I not splurged on the puppy things would be looking even better but then I'd probably have left the house more and so spent far more money. Unfortunatley I've been so abysmally awful at keeping a spending diary this month that I keep remebering things I haven't included so I may well have overspent after all. OHs spending has been minimalistic though as he has the squits and is confined to his hotel room or a 20m radius of a loo.

moo2moo

OH is due home tomorrow. Will be rather glad to have him back. I've had more than enough me time for now. Remind me I said that in 36 hours time! I have made the most of the temporary change in lifestyle to do selfish things. Things like staying up till midnight two nights in a row in order to read two superb books. Obviously even I know that reading 500 pages in a day is excessive but its fun and its nice to be able to say aw sod it once in a while. I haven't been killing myself to do housework but then we've barely been here so other than paw prints and puppy poo the place really isn't that bad... apart from the bathroom which is truly disgustingly awful in a way that only children can make it.

Plans for today (post puppy playtime) involve a quick vac, some putting away because theres lots of clean laundry to rehome and the dreaded cleaning of the bathrooms. Need to do some ironing too, but not much.

Normally I'd leave this until tomorrow but since I have to squeeze in two hours of official paid tidy up time at school in preperation for the unofficial opening of the extension thats not going to happen although I will be £20 better off and it really isn't going to be that difficult a job as the builders have done a pretty good job of cleaning it already. It just needs a bit of a polish.

Which is of course precisely why I'm sitting on my bum surfing t'internet whilst hoping that the house will miraculously clean itself. Its days like this that a cleaner would be fab becaus then I could take the pooches to the park, have a couple of hours fun and then return home to a sparkly Chez Moo. However, crashing down to earth with a bump, thats unlikely to happen anytime soon and a cleaner would just annoy me. I'd be the sort of person that cleaned manically before the cleaner arrived making the services of a cleaner pointless. I don't have that as an incentive at the moment though. Going to munch my way through a giant packet of crisps whilst having a quick read through the diaries and then make a start.

moo2moo

I'm tired, grumpy and the DDs are being obnoxious. Puppy was excited to see them when they got home from school, they managed 5 minutes with her before turning on the telly and complaining that she was leaping up at them for attention which was blocking the screen. Turning it off was not a popular move.

Puppy was particualrly demonic right up until they stomped off to bed at which point she curled up in the middle of the floor and went to sleep. Having a heck of a fight to confine her to puppy land during the day though. My arms are covered in claw marks. Daft thing is once the door is shut she goes and lies down on her bed, the problem is getting the door shut with me at one side and her on the other.

Meh.

On a vaguely more positive note I did do manic amounts of cleaning earlier and have only the ironing left to do. Its not going to happen tonight. I can barely keep my eyes open but have animals to feed and medicate and chickens to lock up before bed. Planning to indulge in several mugs of posh frivalously expensive hot chocolate before then though. Need to be in a better mood when OH arrives home otherwise I'll bite his head off when he tells me how awful it is being stuck in a 5* hotel with laundry service and a generous expense account on which to peruse the restaurant menu and a days work thats finished by 11:30am.

moo2moo

Finally got a good nights sleep. Puppy slept through the night and woke without howling. I'm still sporting the panda look with big black circles round my eyes but no longer feeling totally and utterly exhausted.

Manged to clean everything I wanted to clean yesterday but didn't get as far as the ironing. Washing machine is already on. Its going to be a mad day.