Juggling, Organising, and Holding it All Together - 2011

Triggles

Absolutely brilliant!! The Wii console, games, and accessories that I won arrived this morning! So we spent a bit of time this morning playing with it. It's very cool - and they included a few extra games and are still sending another one, plus apparently a spare controller set! We're well pleased!! :j

DS3 has been demanding cake since yesterday. I finally organised myself and presented him with some cake to hear "no cake, want breadroll!" :rotfl:

Trying to get through to DH that shouting over everything is a waste of time. Children don't really respond well to it, they learn to just tune it out. And DS2 just gets more stressed. sigh Yeah, he's depressed. yadda yadda... so am I. Doesn't make it acceptable to be shouting all the time.

The boys are obsessed with Toy Story 3. I suppose from a MSE standpoint that's good, as they're not asking for new movies. :rotfl: But I'm thinking that I know the dialogue by heart now. :eek:

Pasta and garlic bread for tea tonight. Both boys eat it well, and it's filling. Looking at letting DS2 stay up just a bit late tonight to play the Wii. He's generally a huge creature of habit, doesn't like routine thrown off, but he's so excited over the Wii that I think it'll be okay. We'll see...

I put a few sheets and tea towels out on the line - it was nice and sunny. It promptly rained like crazy. Figures.:rotfl: So now it's a bit sunny again, I'll leave them out for a while to see if they dry.

sigh.... DH kicking off again over something minor... argh....

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Whew. This is so tough. I am really trying to give DH the benefit of the doubt here. He is really fighting with his depression, and on antidepressants. He has arranged to meet with a counsellor recommended by Relate - in fact, has made arrangements to meet with him weekly for as long as needed. We've cleared the finances in the budget for that as well, as we feel it's extremely important (obviously mental health is a pretty high priority). Last night I could have cheerfully kicked him to the curb. But I know part of that is my own stress talking. Yes, he's been unreasonable and unbelievably difficult to live with lately. However, he IS making an effort overall (the counsellor is on holiday, so the appointments are starting in just over a week or so), and to be fair, he is trying very hard to be polite and reasonable this morning so far. If he'd always been this way, I wouldn't be willing to wait through the counselling. But obviously I've known him long enough to know that this is just not him. There was a significant improvement once his dosage of antidepressants got put right. Now hopefully the counselling will teach him how to deal with stress and anger so that he can get past it or do something constructive with it, rather than destructive.

Okay. Towels and sheets on line (hopefully won't get rained on today!), DH & DS2 are playing on the Wii, DS3 taking a nap, and I'm going to get a few bits of cleaning done, then settle down to rifle through my craft supplies and organise them a bit better.

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Hmmm.... email today from British Gas, advising that prices are going up. Not a horrible shock, to be honest, as they've been saying that prices are on the up in the press for weeks. But they're offering the rates lock if locked in by 18 August, until 2013. Is this a good thing? Probably is, but I'm such a waffler when it comes to utility stuff. All the different tariffs and such just make my head spin. At least we've got a bit of time to think about it. I imagine it'll be discussed somewhere on MSE, so I'll have to go look.

Our "pumpkin that wasn't a pumpkin" marrow is huge now! The onions are coming along nicely. The carrots were mutants and had to be sacrificed to the gods. :rotfl: The cucumber plant is suddenly shooting all over the place, as are the strawberries. The peppers and actual pumpkin are still rather finicky, not dying but not doing a lot of growing either.

We did a little playing on the Wii last night, but things were a bit strained as DH was not very sociable. Much better day today, so another evening of Wii playing planned - MarioKart. LOL

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Well, we've established that both DH & I are rather poor MarioKart drivers. But at least it gives us something to practice together.

We're going to be putting together teacher gifts this weekend. DS2 has a number of TAs and teachers, so we'll need to keep the expense down. We'll be using my craft supplies and DS2 will be stamping up a bookmark for each of them, and then printing "Thank you" and his name on the back. We'll then punch a hole in one end, and loop a ribbon through. He can give them each in a card to his teachers. And we'll make the cards as well. Simple and not expensive. We figured most teachers are readers, and you can never have too many bookmarks, right?

DS2's school is having a "seaside" day on Friday. Water fun on school grounds, playing in sand, ice creams, and fish & chips in a cone for lunch. I imagine it will be lots of fun - but he won't eat the ice cream (doesn't like it) or the fish (most likely) - although he will probably eat the chips. LOL Still had to pay for it all. sigh. And will end up sending a packed lunch and snack anyway, as he will still need to eat something during the day. Small annoyance though, really, as he probably will have a pretty cool day. :cool:

Another week and a half of school. Wow, this school year has brought so many changes (both good and bad). I think it will be a bit of a relief though to have the summer break now.

Still dealing with the court paperwork from one debt account. Managed to get paperwork sorted on our PPI request (the medical evidence they asked for of a pre-existing condition as we pointed out it was mis-sold due to that), through the surgery, and it will hopefully be all copied tomorrow. What a huge relief that was!!

We've decided to do online shopping for a bulk of our shopping for the next 30-60 days. We want to see if it helps us keep within our budget better. We kept cheating at the cash option and using our card. So we're going to try this option now instead and see how we do. There will be a small amount of cash for the few things we pick up at Farm Foods, but everything else will be online. We also are trying to decide whether to use our Iceland vouchers during the summer or hold them off for closer to the Christmas holidays, as they always have some nice fun foods at the holidays (and then we don't feel guilty using the vouchers :rotfl:). Can't believe we're already thinking of Christmas food shopping! Scary!!

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We picked up the new puppy yesterday. He's doing quite well. We're reading the newspaper again, as I can't bear to buy it just to have a puppy wee on it! :rotfl: We got a coupon for a free package of puppy food worth £15, so we picked up that at the shop. We found that Poundland has a pet section, so we picked up a few items there - saved a fair bit of money that way on food bowls, collar and lead, and a few small fleeces for the puppy bed. :j After looking around at the pet store, it saved us about £16! So we were well pleased!

DH has been making a good effort, and things have been much better in that regard. It makes the stress over the court stuff for the one debt as well as all the rest so much easier to deal with. I don't feel like I'm coming unglued. Just that one thing makes it easier to cope for me.

I will say that having a puppy in the house makes you up your cleaning! :rotfl: Making sure shoes and toys aren't laying around and everything is picked up. So it's pushing us to be more on top of things as well, which is certainly not a bad thing!

Short trip to the shop today to pick up milk. Then it's time to get some baking done this afternoon. And a roast dinner this evening. Raining out, so no laundry today. Which is just as well, as I have a stack of ironing to do. And the mealplanning for the week....

I have a couple letters from DCAs re debts. I'll have to put together a response for them. Most likely work on that tomorrow when DS2 is in school and DS3 napping. And MIL coming over tomorrow so I need to do a bit more cleaning.

Triggles

Still dealing with court paperwork from one debt. A bit of a mess.

Can't elaborate at the moment, but will once I get some stuff sorted on it.

DS2's birthday tomorrow, so want to focus on that.

Triggles

Lovely day today. DS2's 5th birthday. This is the first year he's actually understood what was going on, and he was so excited! He had a few Toy Story toys, a child-safe dart board, a ball, a hopper, and some clothing (between us and the rest of our families), so he was thrilled! We made cupcakes with icing and decorative stars on them, which we took in to school for him to share with his class. And then we had cake and ice cream after school with family. He's now upstairs in his room playing with his new toys. I will say, though, that the spring in that SlinkyDog is a bit noisy and I'm wondering how long before he wraps it around all over the place!

There is a definite benefit to having his birthday right at the end of the school year - no pressure to have a birthday party and invite kids from school! :rotfl: Some of them are just lovely children, but it's an expense we'd rather not take on right now. DS2 was thrilled just to take the cakes to school and share them with everyone, so we're happy with that.

I have a few other things to note down, but am struggling with a headache right now, so will come back after the paracetamol takes effect. Soon, I hope, as DH is making a yummy chicken curry for tea tonight! :cool:

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Wow. It's been awhile but things have been busy here. Just lots of appointments and house stuff and debt stuff occupying me all the time.

I have to help DH ring the opposing solicitors to propose a payment schedule order through the court this morning. Nerve-wracking, but will have to be done. Hopefully they will be cooperative.

Cleaning bathrooms today. Big excitement, eh? hahahaa No seriously, just trying to do a bit of deeper cleaning - one room at a time. DS2 and DS3's rooms were first - and other than just an extra hoover around, that's done. Now the bathrooms. Then the dining room and living room. Kitchen always last as it generally gets a basic cleanup a couple times per day anyway. And of course, our bedroom - which seems to always be the messiest in the house. Mainly because nobody else sees it, so it tends to be the clutter area and/or the last place we clean when doing the house as we know nobody will see it.

Puppy doing well - microchipped and another vaccine yesterday, along with worming. eewww.. vet said if we are buying the worming tablet from them, they'll happily give it to the puppy. Fine by me!! bleugh

Money's a bit more tight than usual this month with the vet bills, but we expected it. From here on in, they will be budgeted for. We are starting to narrow down the pet insurance as well. We do qualify for the PDSA care for the puppy, but we really like the particular vet that we have, so we'll opt for the insurance, even though it will stretch our budget a bit - we'll just have to be a bit more careful to make sure everything's covered. I hate it when people don't take proper care of their pets, so it's important to have the insurance coverage in place so we can afford to do so.

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DH & I have discussed it and we're going to delay paying for the tax disc for the car. We have the money, however, if we pay for that, and get hit with an emergency over the next week, we'd be in big trouble financially. According to the form, we can wait up to 14 days from the date it expires to pay (without fine) and it'll be fine as long as we're not driving the car or keeping it on a public roadway. It's on our drive, so that's fine. There's really only one place I NEED to go, and that's a birthday party at a play place next week, and we'll take the bus for that (which would be cheaper than the parking fee anyway!!). It's really only 6 days that we need to hold off anyway, so we feel that's the best plan. Not going to spend the money on other things, mind you, just holding it off, pretending we've paid for it and the money isn't really there in our account, just to make sure we're covered in event of a real emergency.

We're going to do a little switching around for our curtains upstairs. We have lined blue denim squared curtains on our windows, however, DS3 has thin Winnie the Pooh curtains on his windows that are too thin and let too much light in during the summer. So we're moving our curtains into DS2's bedroom (as he likes them), and we're then moving DS2's lined cars and trucks curtains into DS3's bedroom. Then both boys have lined curtains in their rooms. I've got a bag full of denim material (old blue jeans that have ripped or worn thin in places) and am going to make cushion covers and pennants (like banners) with trim for DS2's room to match the curtains, which I think will really spruce up his room. It'll make good use of the material I have on hand, and I've got a perfectly serviceable sewing machine for it.

Such a huge relief to have a new gate now on DS2's bedroom door, so he can't just wander when he wakes up. I can almost sleep comfortably (when he's sleeping, anyway!) now. DS3 is adapting to his jr bed now, so although it takes him slightly longer to get to sleep because now he spends a bit of time playing in his room, he seems to be sleeping longer in the morning (sadly, we can't still as DS2 wakes up obscenely early! :rotfl:)

The dog is settling in a bit more. Still nippy, but we're slowly dealing with that. That's puppies, eh? :cool:

Triggles

Wow - more stuff showed up today from Nintendo for the Wii. So they've sent us a fair bit of stuff - quite cool! And free -which is always the best price!

We took a nice long walk with the boys today up to Sainsburys and Aldi's. Two pushchairs with us, so we had a small amount of room for the shopping, and couldn't overbuy as no room! :rotfl: I think we may do that more often while the weather is nice. Not something I'd want to do in the winter, to be fair, with snow on the ground!! Picked up some plums and peaches, as they were the 69p fruit (their super six or whatever it's called), as well as some lovely strawberries (both boys love strawberries, so we like to buy them when they are good and reasonably priced).

We bought 6 boxes of Frosties, as they were on sale cheaper than the store brand - and it has codes on them for a free character cereal bowl, which we thought the boys might like. So we saved £6 on cereal we would have bought anyway, plus get 2 free bowls (don't think we even have to pay for postage and packing, as you put the codes in online). I'm happy with that! Always nice to get a fun freebie for the boys!

Interestingly, Sainsburys had a number of fruits listed as £1, however, they were re-packaged, so it wasn't a sale, but simply £1 worth of fruit. Not really such a great buy then. I don't like it when supermarkets pull that, as it's misleading, IMO.

Quick pop over to freebingohunter to register for the free iceland vouchers and then off to browse the MSE forum as I haven't prowled some of the other areas lately, and I'm looking at starting some Christmas projects and am looking for ideas. Yay!!!:j

Aldi had some nice stuff, I'll admit. We don't stop there nearly as much as we should. I may start popping by there on a walk with DS3 in the pushchair once school starts back up again.

We're going to look at purchasing all our meat at the butchers from now on. The one that comes to the local market on Fridays has good quality meat and always has decent prices. So it'll be an experiment to see how it goes. There are a few things that I sometimes buy at the supermarket that I haven't seen him bring to the market, but I can always ask, and perhaps place an order for it and pick it up the next week or something, I suppose.

We bought a calendar from VistaPrint last year that was very inexpensive - and we downloaded photos that we liked, and it was put into a calendar - if I remember correctly, we only had to pay postage for it. So now we're using the blown up pictures (covering the tiny hole in the top with matching paper and blending) and framing them. Nice inexpensive way to blow up pictures! I'm quite pleased!

And we've managed to hang some more pictures up. DH cleaned the downstairs bathroom today - including the toilet and sink - so hoorah that I didn't have to!!! :cool:

Our tomatoes are growing slowly, but growing, so that's okay. Cucumbers finally showed up - hurrah!!! I'm so pleased to see them!! I love cucumbers but nobody else in the house eats them - DH & DS3 are allergic and DS2 won't touch them.