Juggling, Organising, and Holding it All Together - 2011

Triggles

The bacon and brie rolls were excellent! All basics products! Will definitely be having those again! Yummmmmmm!

We took the puppy to a "puppy party" at the vet office yesterday. It was hilarious watching them running all over the place and playing and jostling around. And there were two chihuahuas that literally held their own as well.

Let's see. I've gotten two major paperwork commitments done. Must go through and see what else I've got to get done. Cleaning is taking a high priority today as well.

Puppy is going for his first trim tomorrow morning. Can't wait to see how he looks afterwards. He's getting a bit shaggy at the moment, so I'm glad we scheduled it! :rotfl:

We've tried the boys on a different wheat bread as well as rye bread this week, and they ate it quite happily. Not even sure that they noticed it was different bread. :rotfl: But we're a bit of a 3 bread family sometimes. DH likes wheat breads with seeds and such, but boys don't really like those and I can't eat them. We like the boys to eat wheat bread as much as possible, so they get a bit of a mix of white and wheat. I eat mostly white bread with some wheat bread here and there. I prefer wheat bread, but when diverticular disease is acting up, I have to stick to white bread. Ah, the complications, eh?

Well, off to work cleaning I go..... :cool:

Triggles

Whoops. A few days since posting, but it's been a bit chaotic around here. Not that it isn't normally... :rotfl:

What have I done recently? Hmmm....I hung some pictures on the wall in our bedroom. The walls and baseboards need painting and it's rather cluttered right now, but for some reason, the pictures still help. :cool: I've gotten some cleaning done in here (I'm sitting at the desk in our bedroom right now), so we're slowly getting it under control. We took a few things to the charity shop, gave a couple things away, and have started a "sell on ebay" bag. We probably won't get it started on ebay for another week or so, when DS2 is back in school. A bit easier to organise with just one child running around during the day than two.

I'm trying very hard to be good with my money. I did play some free bingo the other day and won £200, which we used to repay DD some money we had borrowed on a day out, paid for a little bit of fun money for me, and a little bit of fun money for DH (meaning he was able to go to his best friend's stag do and help pay for drinks and such without worrying about where the money would come from). Yes, I suppose we could have paid it on a bill, but I think DH needed a bit of time with his mates. And that way this all didn't come out of our budget.

One of our smoke detectors is beeping. We have a zillion of them in the house (okay, maybe not a zillion, but there's quite a few!!!!). It's the "I have a low battery" beep. I just need to figure out which one it is. :rotfl: DH and I are going to have to listen for it together to pinpoint it, as it's so infrequent, we never seem to be near enough to one to catch it when it goes off!

I'm currently copying all my photos onto a flash drive. I have been meaning to do it for ages, and finally decided enough was enough, and got it started. I don't want to waste money printing pictures unless I need them for something, so I like having them on the flash drive, so I can look at them or bring them up to send to family via email when I'd like. Plus then I can empty the silly camera card! LOL

I saw the microwave sponge recipe on the OS board, and think I may try it tonight. Looks delicious and easy!! Yum!!

Oh, I need coffee.... going to go get some and get back to work on my paperwork.

pennywisepoundstupid

Well done on the bingo win and i think you were right to spend it on a treat for yourself and for hubby to have a night out.

BEAT_THE_DEBT

hi which bingo site did you use? Do you need to register with a card?x

Triggles

There are a couple sites that you can play free bingo games on - some of them require card registration and some don't. I think a few that I play on do. There are free games on jackpotjoy and the sun bingo, as well as free vouchers in mags regularly for tombola. Jackpotjoy was having extra free games over the holiday weekend, which they sometimes do, and I happened to win on one. I think foxybingo has free games as well. You can search on the internet and find a number of sites that do free games. Check with freebingohunter as well, they have free draws - DH has won £10 iceland vouchers there before.

We've had some bad days lately in terms of stress, but today hasn't been too bad. DS2 was a bit up in the air, but he doesn't like any change in routine and the summer holidays seem to bring changes every day, which really throws him.

DH made some banana bread today, which I think he looked upon as a personal challenge. I've talked him through it a few times, but today he wanted to do it all himself. Turned out quite nice. :T I'm going to make some lemon drizzle cake tomorrow I think, as I have all the ingredients and it's lovely to nibble. (although I suppose not the best on the waistline! :rotfl:)

I have decided I really need to bump up what the internet does for me. I've started doing reviews on dooyoo and have set a goal of one per day. It's not much, but as tesco says every little bit helps, right? I'm also going to browse the boards and find the survey sites so I can sign up for a few of those as well. Even if it only makes a tiny bit of money, it's better than nothing, right?

DH & I were going to go out this weekend, to one of DH's old friend's do for his wife's birthday, but we've decided not to go. We've had so much going on and so much upheaval, we just are not up to it. It's the cheaper option anyway, I suppose, but still... I don't know this friend or his wife, and just am not up to spending the evening with strangers. DH is simply tired lately and doesn't want to go out.

DH started working on the paint stripping with the hot air gun, only to find that it sets off the smoke detectors. They're wired in with a battery backup, so even if he turns them off at the fuse box, they'll still go off. It's rather maddening as before the smoke detector went off (sending DS2 into a panic!), the air gun was doing a great job of stripping the paint down to the wood. :mad: I think he's going to either have to remove the battery and turn them off at the switch just when he is working on them, or cover them so they don't go off. And then obviously restore them to working order as soon as he's done for the day.

Still negotiating with one debt. Waiting for SAR on another, and SAR & CCA on yet another. Busy busy busy. :rotfl:

Triggles

Day 3 of doing my daily dooyoo reviews. Another one completed today. I rated someone else's review as well. Will read through and rate a couple more tomorrow.

I meant to sign up to some survey sites today, but got sidetracked as I wasn't feeling well today.

We did, however, manage to go to Sainsburys and pick up some groceries. Purchased a few more new basics items to try:

- jaffa cakes (very good)
- mince (not tried yet but at £1.20 for 400g I'm happy to give it a chance!)

I did get some correspondence done today and have one more letter to print off tomorrow and send. My "to do" list is getting shorter (slightly), but more to be added to it I'm sure. I still need to iron all of DS2's school clothing for next week. :eek: And I was so enjoying that brief break from ironing! :rotfl: I knew it wouldn't last long...

I'm taking DS2 to a soft play tomorrow along with DD and DGS1. It's a nice local place, that has only one exit from the play area, so DD and I can relax a bit with a coffee and let the boys run and work out some of their energy.

Oh! and I burned (in our little chiminea) our stack of "papers to be shredded" so that job is done now. Lovely little fire, cup of tea, feeding papers into the fire. DH will empty out the ashes into a bag tomorrow. Definitely cheaper and easier than buying a shredder. :cool:

We bought a very nice clothes drying rack in Sainsburys today - was less than half price on sale for £10. We were discussing putting one in our bathroom for towels and clothing by the radiator - so it was perfect timing as it's pretty good size so will work brilliantly!

And thank goodness the council came out and sorted out the beeping upstairs smoke detector as it was driving us all nuts. It was an older model, so they replaced it with a newer one.

Hmm... slight headache developing, so will take my leave for tonight. All in all not a bad day. DH had a few bad moments, but I'm hoping (with fingers crossed) that perhaps his meds are kicking in some now. The GP said she still needs to up the dose one more time before he'll be up to the proper dose. Yikes! But if it helps him to get into a better frame of mind, so he can start dealing with his issues, that's fine - he certainly can't continue the way he has been. He's been really off-kilter lately, definitely not in any condition to be working yet, which worries me a bit. I just have to give it time, I know. It's stressful for all of us, really.

Triggles

Whoooops... slacking off for a bit and not posting. Shame!

Let's see. DH's work is willing to move him to dayshift, thank goodness, so when he is ready to go back, he can go back on days. Much better for him, as his meds are sedatives (something the GP initially neglected to mention and had him taking them in the morning, so he was unbelievably groggy and off all day! :mad:) so he can take them in the evening and get up early for work with no problems.

It will mean that I need to juggle two children for the school run a couple mornings a week, but I am hoping that both DS2 & DS3 will be cooperative as obviously I can't push 2 pushchairs. We have DS2's Maclaren Major and a buggy board, so I'll probably have DS2 in the pushchair and DS3 on the buggy board (as DS3 is getting too big for the buggy board). Thankfully 3 mornings a week DD is along on the school run as well, so DS2 can walk those days, and we can bring both pushchairs in case he has to use his. But DH will be home in time for afternoon school run so that'll be nice!

Of course, it all hinges on when the GP says DH can go back to work as well. He'll find out more tomorrow on that.

On a more day-to-day note, we tried the basics mince and it's absolutely fine. So at £1.25 for 400g, we're quite happy with it. We have used it a couple times now, and really haven't noticed a difference. We've used it for tacos/burritos, spag bol, and hamburgers, and all came out great. Definitely will be buying that again. :j

Short tonight, as I'm going to browse a few threads I haven't looked at for awhile.

pennywisepoundstupid

HI Triggles good to hear from you.

Excellent news that when hubby goes back to work he's on days, fingers crossed about the doctor today.

Triggles

Brilliant, brilliant!!! DH got his schedule for his dayshift position - 5 days per week, and goes in early so he's home by school run time in the afternoon. Excellent!! He's actually looking forward to it. I really think this will be a positive thing for him, which can only help him overall.

The puppy is settling a bit now. He was really nipping a lot, but has calmed some, thank goodness. He is still jumping up a bit, but we're working on that. Part of the problem is the boys get too excited to do the "turn around, cross your arms and ignore" thing when he jumps. :rotfl:

We bought some mince puff pastry things today - basics - just to share our testing with the online world, of course. Making a sacrifice, you know. LOL They were inexpensive (64p I think?) and looked yummy. I'll report back. :cool:

DH is still struggling with things a bit, but at least appears to be improving. I think at this point it'll help for him to go to work. Now that he has a decent level of meds in his system, I think what he needs most of all is a schedule and normalcy. (and we need some time apart here and there! )

Electricity and gas paid for this quarter. Approximately £170 total for both, about average. Just got the water bill (6 months at a time) so £160 to pay in October, plus friend's wedding, involving transportation, hotel, gift, etc. :eek: It just all hits at once, doesn't it? We'll get a bit of a breather in November and then Christmas in December and MOT & road tax due in January, plus electricity and gas again. I'm normally a lot further along in presents/cards preparation than I am this year - too many things going on. But I did buy some Christmas cards for DS2 for school at poundland the other day, so that's sorted without a huge expense.

We pulled out the winter clothing, but didn't get it all sorted yet. Our bedroom rather looks like a clothing shop exploded right now, but slowly we will get it back under control. :rotfl: Can't believe how chilly it is in the mornings now. We haven't turned the heater on and not ready to by a long shot, but still ... brrrrrrrr!

pennywisepoundstupid

Fantastic news, hopefully hubby will feel brighter once he gets back into the work routine.