Further financial faux pas and even more disasterous decisions

moo2moo

Have started the day in a v. positive way by requesting a £25 Amazon voucher from MyTNS and a £20 one from Shop and Scan. Will eventually use them for Christmas gifts.

Managed to do achieve some of the things I set out to do yesterday. Another 10 foot of overgrown hedge has been masacred filing two more wheelie bins. Abandoned trying to weed thanks to an assistnat who thought this was an excuse to dig craters in the garden. Even found the bottom of the laundry basket only to arrive home to find it full again. PC desk is still under siege but these things take time. Swapped 18 eggs for a jar of homemade jam. Still have 6 or so dozen in the fridge though, think I need to bake more. Managed an hours blissful cross stitching whilst OH watched NCIS reruns. Feeling more like me.

OH has booked a v. palatial hotel for his next away trip. Some company deal means its £90 a night instead of £300. Even then I think its horrifically expensive but then his company is picking up the bill. Almost fell off my chair when I discovered a burger at the bar was almost £15 and beer £8 a pint. Thats madness.

Plans for today involve defluffing the bathrooms having first flea bathed both dogs. Again. Oh joy. OH will be on hand to laugh as I get totally drenched. Need to degrot the downstairs hallway where several small muddy three dimensional handprints have materialised.

And finally having opened an account with the Halifax I get a letter informing me they're shutting the nearest branch. At least I can do the basics via the Post Office counter but it does mean a major trek to a cash point.

moo2moo

Woke up to a house that reeks of wet dog. Hairball no. 2 is still wet despite attempts to dry her with several dozen towels, even her own contributions, namely rolling on my duvet, failed to do much. Shes v. white and v. v. fluffy although loose hair is dropping out everytime she moves. I forsee much vacuuming being required this week. Hairball no. 2 loved being flea bathed although had a bit of a fight to get her out afterwards as she was having too much fun. At least now shes stopped scratching. Bathroom is v. clean and shiny apart from the shower which will be tackled today in and amongst everything else which includes remebering to take my car to the garage for its MOT and most importantly reminding OH to collect me as I can't wedge my bike in the back no matter how hard I try and boy have I tried. Its a fab cycle home.

Spent most of yesterday morning decluttering like a woman possessed. Theres nowt like a couple of mouse droppings to spur teachers into action. Have thrown tons and tons of tat away. Not that this will make any difference long term since this is the third time in six months that dropping have been spotted in the same place. Perhaps it will encourage them to keep their open boxes of chocolates elsewhere though. Perhaps pigs might fly.

Read some truly heart stoppingly awful news on another thread which has made me more thankful than ever that the DDs are happy and healthy despite annoying the heck out of me on a daily basis. They are the sole reason we do what we do day in, day out. A hug from them seems to make everything managable.

Eager_Elephant

moo2moo wrote: »

Read some truly heart stoppingly awful news on another thread which has made me more thankful than ever that the DDs are happy and healthy despite annoying the heck out of me on a daily basis. They are the sole reason we do what we do day in, day out. A hug from them seems to make everything managable.

I know exactly what you mean Moo, I have not posted on her thread as I am just not sure what to say - I well up just thinking about it.

I remember when my DS's father had a child with his new girlfriend, she went full term and it had died in the womb. I sobbed for ages - my DH thought it was because I still cared about ex - no it was because a little life had been lost before it had really been started and it could have happened to anyone including us.

Went to work yesterday and one of my clients came in to say a member of a team he runs had committed suicide - only 14 years old!!! How devastating for everyone.

moo2moo wrote: »

Swapped 18 eggs for a jar of homemade jam. Still have 6 or so dozen in the fridge though, think I need to bake more. Managed an hours blissful cross stitching whilst OH watched NCIS reruns. Feeling more like me.

I thought it was me with loads of eggs - I have loads as well including duck and goose eggs!

Luckily we can sell 5 dozen a day at the gate which helps, we also take some to work. Unfortunately no one appears keen on goose eggs - I suppose they are quite expensive.

So on Monday I baked cakes, made brownies, made a quiche (kind of pastryless) and then found a recipe for curried rice and pepper frittata (had some left over rice from curry the other day)

I managed to use about 10 goose eggs but there is stil another 6 or so in the fridge :eek:

Last night when we collected the eggs I noticed that in the 'old' pen - where the chickens over 3 live - who should be slowing down have laid an egg each - Well done girls.

And of course in the 'young' pen - where they are all under 3 unless they are a bantam - also had laid one each.

So last nights count was 65 eggs :eek:

To top it all I had some mystery shopping to do and it involved specifically buying eggs :eek: so now I have 2 dozen eggs from a reputable supermarket - gotta think how to use these up - guess more cake is on the menu!!

Have a good day and hope you can get some more cross stitch done - I have a cross stitch I started when I was 16 for my friend - a picture of a clown (as at the time she loved them) - well 13 years later it has not senn much daylight and is barely completed.

I brought DD some mini cross stitch from ebay for Xmas - she loves them but we haven't had much time recently with the good weather and being outside.

EE

moo2moo

I couldn't cope with 65 eggs a day. Find a dozen tough enough. We don't have any passing foot traffic so don't sell any at the gate. Pretty sure I could shift them at a local mums and toddler group but the amount of fuel and time required to do this makes it unviable. Am v. impressed at your baking exploits though.

Got an e-mail yesterday to sya my fave cross stitch designer, the one of mondays many links, is having a half price sale with a 5% logged in customer discout and free postage. Am v. v. tempted but also v. aware there are only so many hours in the day. Will stick to sourcing completed charts from elsewhere.

Eeek of the day - already - have rescued OHs v. expensive all signing all dansing home entertainment centres remote control from the four legged fiends mouth. Fortunately shes not a chewer but she does like to drool on things before carrying her treasures to a dusty hole in the garden and bury them. Doubt he would be very amused.

Did have fun last night playing spot the inapproriately dressed 11 year old at schools [STRIKE]trainee hooker night[/STRIKE] leavers disco. Am expecting the aftermath to be dire. Oh joy.

And finally OH is in a most excellent mood and is still being v. v. helpful. Awaiting a v. expensive suggestion involving project Land Rover and his far flung holiday plans.

Have to remember to collect my car at some point today. Did have a minor hiccup yesterday when I made it as far as the drive and found it suspiciously empty. First thought through my head was who on earth would want to nick that? before I remembered. Duh.

Shower still not cleaned. 3D handprints still on the wall at the bottom of the stairs and the windows really really really do need washing. Still theres always tomorrow.

moo2moo

Thank Crunchie its Friday!

Seems to have been a never ending week on the great haster wheel of life. Frantically racing around chasing my own tail but never reallly getting anywhere. Managed to wash the downstairs windows at the back of the house. Four down, six to go. Of course now I've done the outsides the insides need doing. Bah. OH is back at work today so hopefully I should get far more done than I've managed whilst hes been around. Came home to find him ironing yesterday which is superficially fabulous. Still didn't mean he had any shirts for work this morning but our towels are like cardboard. The mind would boggle but apparently his mother used to do it that way. Of course. Makes perfect sense now.

Plans for today involve mucho housework and the aquisition of a crisp £20 note when I eventually figure out which account has cash in it, assuming at least one of them does. Payday is a very very long week away.

Car sailed thorough its MOT leaving me with a bill for £141 and instuctions on how to treat the giant patch of rust in the boot with the kindly supplied can of aerosol wax so as to prevent it faling its MOT in two years time as structurally defective and suitable only for the great scrap heap in the sky. At least that gives me a time frame for starting and indeed saving shed loads in Moo's New Car Fund. Technically this should be called "Moo's slightly less knackered geriatric shed on wheels fund" but it doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

moo2moo

Happy Sunny Saturday Morning!

Have lounged about in bed like a woman with nowt better to do alternating between rereading Bridget Jones Diary and Cross Stitching. Sadly by 7am I'd had enough of this and started emptying my inbox. Have done lots of surveys and am v. v. v. close to payout with Global Test Market. A mere 5 points away in fact. Just need to do one more survey and then its asta la vista baby. Am sick of spending 5 minutes completing questions only to find I don't qualify and theres no remuneration whatsoever. Once isn't two bad but when you end up spending an hour doing surveys with the same outcome it gets very annoying.

On the plus side now I'm doing fewer surveys I have far more time in my day. Not that it takes a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Equally now that I've mastered the art of supermarket avoidance I'm spending less. Not that this means that the extra cash doesn't come in handy but at the moment time is of far more importance. Having time to sit around and do nothing, not that i sit around and do nothing, but the ability to do it if I feel like it is a very nice feeling. Means if I'm cream crackered I can sit and watch a film without feeling guilty for not tackling surveys or playing bingo etc. etc.

Still I need to rethink my debt free plan as I was clearly barkingly optomistic when I decided that we could throw 50% of this years income pre tax and NI and pension deductions at the debt. Its very very obvious that thats not going to happen. More importantly we're not going to shift the final 10K in the next four months, not without a substantial lottery win or a newly aquired Nigerian friend who just happens to have a sick mother in law and be related to the royal family. Even at £1K a month which incidentally is still wildly optomistic it will take us until Easter 2011. Thats a darn sight better than September 2020 though which is our predicted date as supplied by the wonderful people at the bank who would love us to pay an extra £24,000 in interest by doing things their way. I think not money grabbing barstewards.

Need to be v. careful I don't become complacent or worse still start purchasing little bits and pieces that we really don't need just because it would be nice. Clearly thats why Wii Band Hero arrived in the post yesterday morning. Am hoping it will stop OH watching CSI reruns on the telly box. I'm soooo sick of CSI.

Plans for today involve chaufeuring duties, riding lessons, even more laundry and a very through sort out of the DDs wardrobes. They have more clothes than space and some of DD2s t-shirts are more like crop tops. Need to persuade OH to do the same as I'm sure there are quite a few pairs of trousers which are circumferrentially challenged.

beanielou

Happy rainy Saturday to you.
Typical T in the Park weather here.

moo2moo

No chance of rain here, despite what the forecasters have been threatening. Our English neighbours even have a hosepipe ban. Tis a rather balmy 17 degrees outdoors and 22 indoors. Thats with every available door and window wide open and a gale force wind battering the trees. Hate to think how hot it will be by mid afternoon. At least we're getting our moneys worth from the solar panels this year.

In theory we should have been spending the day baking alive in a field in the middle of nowhere attempting to hit 15mm of metal 45m away with 2mm wide airgun pellets but since DD1 has been in and out every 20 minutes since 3am with earache thats not going to happen. Incidentally why is it that the moment you abandon your own bed because sleeping is hopeless the child in question miraculously manages to fall asleep and stay that way for several hours?

Am back on my frugal domestic godess kick aka as can't be bothered doing any shopping between now and our holidays especially since OH is away on a course for a big chunk of it so with that in mind last night I fed the DDs rice and three different brands of chicken nuggets with coleslaw whilst the OH and I had I can't belive its not chicken slathered in a jar of nuclear waste obtained from a tombolla at a fair a very long time ago. The manufacturers claim this is tikka massala but my tastebuds know otherwise.

Dug out a whole chicken to do a roast tonight and sandwiches for lunch tomorrow which also means I can use some of the rhubarb from the garden to make crumble, try out a recipe for rhubarb buns if I can figure out where I saw it.... make some ordinary buns just in case and most important of all bake DD1s fimo creation as a leaving gift for this years class teacher. DD2 is making Hama bead hearts for hers.

Will be ready on Monday for the end of term mug sweepstake of which we have two categories, teacher with the most mugs (usually a fella) and the best one of all total number of mugs gifted to staff. We were all way out last year when the total reached into the 50s.

Spent most of yesterday manically tidying. Well at least I intended to. Instead I spent a laborious afternoon shrinking the contents of the filing cabinet so that I could file the last two months post in their thus stopping an averlanche of paper landing on the worktop everytime I open the cupboard. Its now all neatly away and I have a bag of stuff to shred over the hols. Tis great having access to an industrial shredder and vastly faster than using our cheapo one that jams on every other sheet.

Started decluttering the PC desk by which I mean I put one single solitary cable into a drawer and scanned and sent this weeks till reciepts to the lovely people at shop and scan who have sent £50 of gift vouchers in my direction since joining them in February. Tis way more lucrative than any of the surveys and far less hassle.

Listed 50 or so magazines, several craft books and a few cross stitch kits that I've aquired but will never ever attempt last night. Have had enquiries about one of the books but no interest on anything else. Still if I shift on some of it it will free up some more space even if it doesn't generate much cash. Whilst I was being ruthless I stuck a few more books on a pile for charity. Clealy I wasn't thinking when I decided Voltaire's Candide would be fun bedtime reading. Its not. Nor is Les Miserables.

Have started on my quest for the perfect clothes airer. My current one is about to die not helped by a cat deciding to climb it so as to avoid dog, only for dog to decide that if cat can climb it dog can too. Cue mangled bent airer and bemused looking dog. It wasn't exactly straight to start with having moved house over a dozen times and been utilised as a den by two children and an assortment of pint sized friends. Am trying to persuade myself that £30 for one from lakeland is a sound longterm purchase although theres one in the Argos sale at £8.50 but the reviews on it aren't very good. Am torn between getting a good one that will last a decade, if the dog doesn't decide to prove its not a parrot, and a cheap one that can be replaced if the dog does decides to have another go at sitting on top of it. Descision, descisions. Not that I actually need it until winter but I do like to be prepared.

moo2moo

Had the mad idea of tackling DD2s bedroom. 2 binbags of rubbish later we've only managed to get as far as two toyboxes and a book case. Opened her wardrobe to find it piled high with folded laundry. No wonder her drawers are easy to shut. Attempting to persuade her to get rid of some jigsaw puzzles but shes as stubborn as I am. Things are not going according to plan.

beanielou

Cheap & cheerful me thinks.
Not sure even a Lakeland one would survive a dog.