13 Moons ... ( *** Off, I'm Fabulous )

Lula-Hula

Morning all,

woke up to hideous headache - thanks Gordon - which I'm fighting off with a healthy dose of Vit C & peppermint tea.

Intl Rellie has this sweet but outdated & somewhat deluded image of a large happy family spending time together & enjoying eachothers company. We actually all manage to co-exist quite happily by maintaining various different, infrequent & quite separate relationships with/from eachother.

We actually dont want to be interfered with & Intl Rellie s infrequent but 'heraldic' visits tend to just stir up long buried & forgotten resentments & issues.

Anyway, I spoke to my Dad who just gets amused by it all & says he is quite happy to be running around in the car collecting & delivering peeps as he will be out of the house. He also reminded me to bring my keys to his place as flights are now leaving Heathrow as normal :rotfl:.

DD is still in bed, I cant be bothered to go to the shops or wash floors & bake cakes yet, & would rather play with my money instead

Wages + bonus are in :j but rather than get all excited I've decided to do mentally deduct the rent & all bills for January, do the necessary transfers & get it all done before new year.

So, I have now transferred the £80 to DDs account ( yes, I borrowed it to do mega food shopping before wages went in)

I have also repaid the £100 I borrowed from myself ( savings acct) to ensure Virgin CC was paid without using the overdraft

I have done the £150 transfer to savings funds account, details below :

Car Tax = £ 70 ( due Jun 2011)
Car Ins = £ 80 ( due Nov 2011)
Car S/S = £100 ( service & mot due Aug 2011)
Gas = £222
Electric. = £227

That little savings pot is my pride & joy; keeps the home warm & cosy & my car on the road with no drama or nasty surprises. It's taken 2 years to get it to this stage but so worth it for the peace of mind.

I've received a gift cheque from distant rellies & have decided to pay this into the dormant cashminder account. This account will be for my personal spends only - any spare pocket money or paypal from surveys will go into this account which is ideal for that purpose; I can make online payments via paypal, set up direct debits for magazine subscribs etc, use it as a debit card or withdraw cash, but it has no overdraft facility.

Just need to go work out how much money I have to live on in Jan then will report back ...

Shoe_Gal

Merry Christmas :xmastree:

Have a lovely time hun, and when everybody annoys you just remember it's only once a year :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Lula-Hula

Thanks Shoesy - you're right & I have enough booze here to make me very mellow, might leave Gordon on the shelf for a bit though

DD still in bed, although reading rather than suffering & as she'll be spending the next 2 days socialising I'm just letting her get on with it.

Being a sad individual means that I've been doing sums for my January budget & have worked out that after rent, bills & regular CC payments, I have approximately £280 to live on for the month. Bearing in mind that I am well stocked with most household items & will also be very sick of food & desperate to keep the weight loss going I reckon that's plenty.

Further calculations & a bit of cunning & clever shuffling between accounts, means I'm also confident that I can be DF by 1st May :cool:

I am going to be the Countess of Clever & Cunning Frugality

taxi73

Being DF by 1st May sounds fantastic.You have the savings pots down to a fine art now as well.Which is fantastic...go you.

makeup

Wow Lula, DF by May??!!!

Fabulous! (as always!)

Feeling furious on your behalf re: Intl Rellies...you've spent ages preparing for Xmas Day precisely so you don't have to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow sweating over a stove!

I'm actually celebrating Xmas on Boxing Day as my bil has to work t'row (boo to nasty employers who change their mind about Xmas leave, two weeks before the day!)

My nieces are tiny, big enough to be excited about presents and Santa but small enough to not be able to read a calendar and their clever mummy has faked the advent calendar so they don't realise that today is in fact Xmas Eve.

I'm happy too as I've wrapped nothing yet (well except for the gifts I've given already....)


Anyway hope you all have a fabulous and fantastic Christmas and that no relatives are too annoying!!

taxi73

Have a great christmas

Lula-Hula

Thanks Taxi,

I'm sat here waiting for DD to go to sleep ( could be hours yet as I forgot give her the cough meds at bedtime ).

It looks like tomorrow will be a bit subdued; Intl Rellies called earlier to say that they had spent the whole night in the bathroom with nasty noro virus & all day in bed. They & grandmother wont be turning up until just before the meal & probably wont eat much, so looks like I'm in charge of the kitchen :eek: & we'll have loads of food left over .

Hey ho, it's just one day of the year

taxi73

that doesn't sound good but at least you'll not have to put up with them for long

Shoe_Gal

Hope you and DD have a lovely day :A

Lula-Hula

Yay - its Boxing Day & a bright sunny one here :j.

Well, christmas day didnt quite go according to plan. DD was delighted with all her stocking bits & gift from me & very impressed with the wii fit plus that santa left under the tree. We felt a bit bad about leaving Dad to get started on the meal so headed over to his earlier than planned & arrived just after 11.

The turkey was in & he was in the process of unpacking veg & wrapping a gift for DD so I urged him to complete the wrapping, got DD organised with laying the table which left me get on with the meal. His kitchen is a nightmare Mum used to keep it immaculate & all the worktops clear of clutter so they can be used. Things have changed.

I made myself a stiff coffee & started on the veg before realising that there was no space to do anything. I had to clear an enormous boombox, 12 cds & 8 cassette tapes :huh:, the fruit bowl which was actually hosting a party for old & mishshapen microwaveable tupperware, 3 bottles of wine & a mountain of various pills & potions, keys, business cards, rubber bands & 3 moths :eek:

Scooped the whole lot down one end & set about cleaning it. No ecover squirty or cloth to be seen, so made do with some kitchen roll & a bottle of flash.

20 minutes later it was safe to continue so I got the bacon, sausages, stuffing,roasties & parsnips ready to go in the oven & wished I was at home. Dad reappears just as the phone rings ... I overhear him say 'oh, I am sorry, I must tell Lula as she's in the kitchen now'. I hover by the oven with a feeling of impending doom ... Dad wanders in to inform me that Intl Rellies are still laid low with virus & wont be attending. At all.

Bearing in mind that when the idea of having christmas meal at Dads was organised & the food ordered we were due to be 9 & now there are just 5 of us, of whom one is a frail elderly lady & one a child recovering from a cold, we have a whole lot of food. I contemplate ringing up local shelter or homeless charity, but realising that I am now totally alone in driving the good ship chrimstas dinner ... :eek: I decide that perhaps it's better just to poison my own family rather than random strangers. We decide to throw half the veg, bacon & sausages in the freezer & carry on regardless - we still need to eat

Frail elderly grandmother (having succesfully passed noro virus on to Intl Rellies) is fighting fit & raring to go so Dad sets off down icy hill to collect her & pop in to see if Intl Rellies need anything ( while under strict instructions from me to stand well away from them & make no physical contact whatosever ). In the meantime DD1 arrives in usual tornado style & settles herself into chat chat chat whilst not actually doing anything to help. Frail elderly Grandmother & Dad arrive & I send DDs off to entertain her while dragging Dad into the kitchen to help by opening wine & showing me how to use his microwave.

Eventually a meal is ready & we sit - very spaciously indeed - around the extended table & eat . Frail elderly grandmother has the appetite of a small horse & eats the lot & then enquires as to the availablity of seconds, praise indeed - although I do feel I should point out that the majority of this meal came ready to cook having been beautifully prepeared by those lovely people at M&S & worth every penny :A


We retire to living room & just as I think it's time we went home, Dad offers tea, cake & mince pies. He offers it , but I prepare & serve, but as he had many, many years of intensive training & succesful from my dear mum in the art of 'clearing away, loading the dishwasher & washing up pans & baking trays etc its a team effort :T

At about 7, Grandmother is ready to go home & declares that she's had a lovely day so off they go & I send him with lemonade & hobnobs for Intl Rellies & reiterate strict instructions to wear gloves, cover his nose & mouth & leave supplies by the door.

We dont want to leave while he is gone so hang aroud for a while longer. He's gone for over an hour, having decided that would be the ideal time to search for Grandmothers hearing aid which had disappeared overnight - DD1 is flagging, it's now 13 hours since she finished her night shift, has only had 3 hours sleep 7 has an hours drive to get to her bf's where she's staying the night. DD looks like a child who has spent the day with old people, & has a home full of pressies gifts she's desperate to play with, if only they werent 10 miles away .

Dad eventually returns & offers yet more food, after a polite chat having not wanted to leave him on his own, we all eventually escape about 9.15 when the temp is -4 & our cars fully iced up. DD & I drive home really slowly looking at all the lovely christmas lights & finally unload the car with all the new acquired pressies & unrequired food & are greeted by hungry Cat who has spent the whole day peacefully snoozing on the sofa - lucky thing.

I down a couple of Baileys, DD downs more chocolate, we watch eastenders then she heads off to bed & I just sit while trying to erase the words my Dad uttered as we finally left his house, some 10 hours after arriving; " That was really succesful, I think we'll do that again next year "

:eek::eek::eek: