Further financial faux pas and even more disasterous decisions

moo2moo

Why is it only when you return to work that you develop the ability to sleep in in a morning? Needless to say this morning will be a bit of a rush... hoping that five minutes ramble and a quick cuppa will be enough to encourage my a va voom to work a Lambourghini speeds rather than those of a Reliant Robin.

Abandoned all attempts at eradicating anti-vandal paint from my skin, nothing I've tried so far seems to shift it. Looks like I'm stuck with black arms for a while as it seems to have stained my skin. Lets hope it does the same to the little barstewards that have bent all the lightening protection strips on schools roof requiring the services of a specialist contractor to visit and refit them. Bah. I hate teenagers.

Arrived home from school utterly exhausted last night. I've obviusly been far lazier than I thought over the hols. Had to del with many irate parents since the glos on the railings stubbornly refuses to dry many of them had rad marks on their hands despite notices advising them that the paint was still wet. Apparently you couldn't see the signs for people leaning on the fence. Muppets.

Still three hours of mind numbingly boring vacuuming does give me lots and lots and lots of time to think and so I have been thinking which is never good. This Flylady malarky is all well and good but I seem to be forever cleaning or avoiding cleaning since the two are essentially the same thing. It might only take me 15 minutes to clean out a cupboard but I manage to avoid this for at least an hour before tackling it. If I had a cleaner I'd expect them to work miracles in two hours.... but then if a cleaner can do it in two hours so can I. So my plan for today is to find a two hour slot post cuppa and do as much as I physically can in two hour with no interuptions, no getting side tracked and no stopping for coffee breaks every 15 minutes. Perhaps then I'll make some headway. Besides which y River Cottage books arrived yesterday and they look fab although I've not had chance to sit and read them yet, but the bits I've flicked through look fab.

Meanwhile its less than two weeks to payday. I still have cash in my account and the house insurance renewal isn't as steep as I've anticipated. Have a feeling I'll struggle to beat it unless I can find a £100 cash back offer.

Being the first day back at school the DDs bags contained multiple demands for cash and so I'm a fiver lighter than I was anticipating but since that covers a years worth of saling lessons for DD1 thats most bargantastic... if only I could persuade them to let me join in.

MrsMoo2U

Hi Moo,
sounds like you have a lot planned. I am lounging away and need to find my vava voom too. In regards to the cleaning. Have you ever read Hypno's diary? There is a lady on there called Mrs R who is a professional cleaner. She says that you can get everything done in 2 hours. Have a look at her list on the diary, it is quite precise and I think very doable. Although I do expect that your house has to be at a certain level of tidiness to start with (unlike my bedroom which looks like an American bargain basement after the sale has finished. For that read - clothes all over the floor that arent worth a cent)
Happy cleaning, and thanks for popping over the fence to give some really good advice. I have answered, I think that I may be finding obstacles purposely - what is that all about?

whatatwit

Hi Moo,

We did have a cleaner before we moved to the derelict house!
2 ladies for 2 hours every fortnight. But, I had to keep the place tidy or I spent all evening before they came moving stuff. I pushed the hoover around in between times, but they wiped the paintwork and did the windows. If you don't have to re-house anything then the actual cleaning doesn't take that long....I do keep hoping that one day all my tat will find a home :rotfl:

My take on the flying lists is that for most of us, until the decks are clear then level 1 is a great achievement, any forays into levels 2 & 3 are above and beyond the call of duty. Although I suppose that if I tackled the oven with its many months of accumulated grot, then the next time it cropped up on the list, then the task would be easier and quicker :think:

moo2moo

Nah. The unwritten law of oven cleaning states that the nano second the oven is clean something sticky will lurch out of the dish on the first available opportunity and weld itself to the inards of the oven so that the next time you clean the oven it takes just as long as it did the time before. The secret to a clean oven is never to cook. Sadly though starvation is not an option.

Discovered I had done too many hours already this week so escaped super duper early which is always a good day to start a friday. First load of washing on the line, second in the machine and the washing up is done. Puppy is happily destroying a cardboard box which will no doubt block the vac later in the day but for now all is peaceful.

Need to do a cupboard inventory before shopping on Monday as I appear to have five jars of coffee. Can't quite figure out how as I don't recall buying anymore than normal, perhaps I'm just drinking less of it. I've been shopping on autopilot again.

moo2moo

Ironing done. Pre 1995 laptop turfed. Decluttering a giant bag of crisps before commencing housework. Have zero enthusiasm but needs must. Will take the hounds for a hike once I'm done.

mooomin

moo2moo wrote: »

Apparently I should be v. cautious that FF is not a forty something balding man desperate to get in my pants.

I meant to say yesterday, if you're on FB then let me know and I shall friend you and you can see from all the (horribly unflattering) pictures that I'm not forty-something or balding.

moo2moo

Facebook Failed me... unless of course you are the smug looking forty something with his foot jauntily perched on the step of his JCB with the rather ample beer gut overhanging the trouser waistband. I chose not to invite that particular person to be my friend though. I have more than enough saggy beer gut owning men in my life as it is.

Was rudely awakened at 5:30 by a wet Oh plonking himself on the bed to dry off post shower, haven't managed to get back to sleep since so figured I'd do something productive like veging on the sofa with a cuppa and the remaining half of "Preserves" which makes for strangely fascinating reading, not half as fascinating as the one on hedgerows though. It had me chortling slightly before I guffawed. Tis not quite what I expected. Forget the dull this is a picture of a tree, this is where you find it and how you eat it, ooh noo, the chap in question goes on to tell you that eaten raw it tastes disgusting, cooked it tastes revolting and then recommends steeping it in alcohol and drinking it. In fact most of the recipes seem to have a variation involving alcohol. Have learnt tons already though, mostly completely ridiculous irrelevant facts that I will remember forever. Its most definately my kinda book. Sat reading random chunks out loud to the DDs last night. They quite fancy making Dandelion Marmalade and Compost Heap Jelly. Mostly though they just fancy the idea of leaving the house and wandering along picking anything and everything thats edible to make something because that in itself is cool. At least now I can do something with the rosehips that are in abundance in the hedgerows surrounding the house. Its all a bit exciting. Will need to do lots of improvising though, am debating whether a non-stick wok can be used in place of a preserving pan because it doesn't sound like any ordinary pan will be big enough. Will also need to venture into civilisation in search of wax discs to avoid all manner of toxic lurgi.

Yesterdays houseblitz was productive in an unforseen way. I didn't get anywhere near as much as I'd hoped done but I do have several v. clean and tidy rooms. Will be having another go today whilst I await the arrival of the DD2s new bed. The key to it all seems to be in the decluttering though which is pants because its nearly always someone elses stuff thats underfoot.

Suffered a sweater avalanche in the wardrobe yesterday which is the major flaw in reaching the bottom of the laundry pile. Didn't put it back on the shelf though, not because I'm a lazy ho (which I most certainly am) but because I'm going to turf some more out. Figure if I keep doing this I will eventually be able to put everything away without cramming stuff into cupboards and drawers. As fast as I chuck stuff ot OH seems to buy new which is infuriating in itself. Still can't do anything about that without a barney and its so not worth it. Hes in a foul mood again as things at work go nouts. The extra person they were promised to ease the workload is not happening but his boss and the boses minion are both going to other sites for a week, the same week, which requires OH to surrender his down time to cover it. Only OH has plans for these days and can't and more importantly won't do it. He hates the place and wants to spend as little time there as humanly possible. Meanwhile one of his co-workers has booked off every weekend hes rostered on between now and Christmas meaning OH can't take any weekend leave or any vacation running over a weekend. Despite the ridiculous amount of time hes had off so far this year he still has two weeks holiday to use.

Got an unexpected gift of a bottle of vino and some chocolates for the DDs from a random stranger who made the mistake of knocking on the door to ask about our solar panels last week. The chap stayed for over an hour and exchanged technical speak with OH for the duration of this time. Whatever he learnt saved him several thousand pounds so he went away a very happy chap and returned an even happier chap, with a DIY installation on order, bearing gifts which is always a fab!

moo2moo

Its now 32 days until I turn 35. In order to be debt free by then I merely have to overpay around £300 a day. Clearly thats not gonna happen, nor is being debt free by Christmas *sigh* on the basis that £1000 a month is realistic most months, but probably not this month as I've been very spendy indeed, we're looking at another ten months. Pants, pants and pants again. After that assuming things keep progressing at that rate it will take four months to save enough to replace the remaining double glazing which is now driving me bonkers. More and more of the sealed units have failed so that yoou can't see out the windows in question. After that six months will see the house re-rendered and thus the walls waterproofed, ten months should reroof the sagging section of the house and another six months will cover a new car. Meh. Thats another 36 months where almost every penny is accounted for. Still at the end of it the house should be watertight for another century. No doubt immediately after that OHs car will need replacing which will add another year. Just thinking about it is sooo depressing.... then we'll get four free years during which time something will come requiring outrageous amounts of cash... delappidated house on a clifftop overlooking the sea in the middle of nowhere being the first thing to leap to mind.... and then we'll be funding the DDs through college or Uni or whatever it is they decide they want to do. Such a depressing way to start a sunny weekend.

moo2moo

Two more bin bags of clothing ready to be recycled. Still can't cram everything in. OH seems to have three times the amount of stuff I do which isn't helping. I'm sure a good chunk of it doesn't fit but trying to get him to try stuff on is almost impossible. Almost but not quite..... must catch him in a good mood although I doubt that will last when he discovers just how many suits are several inches off fastening.

Next on the agenda is poopa scooping before I attempt to wake a sleeping DD1 who was absolutely exhausted last night. Atropy of the brain had set in over the holidays. Briefly bunged my head round DD2s door. Am clueles how she expects to get a new bed in there. Yesterdays clean and tidy floor is covered in jigsaw puzzles and very elaborate and extremely fragile Magnetix models. Guess that needs sorting asap too.

mooomin

moo2moo wrote: »

Facebook Failed me... unless of course you are the smug looking forty something with his foot jauntily perched on the step of his JCB with the rather ample beer gut overhanging the trouser waistband. I chose not to invite that particular person to be my friend though. I have more than enough saggy beer gut owning men in my life as it is.

I think that's because I have my privacy settings set to stun

I found you using your email address though and have sent you a friend request.