Juggling, Organising, and Holding it All Together - 2011

Triggles

Our downstairs bathroom is about 2/3 stripped of wallpaper right now. It looks a complete tip at the moment, but I think by tomorrow evening we'll have all the wallpaper off and can then decide how to proceed. The wall is quite smooth and in good condition so far (which is unusual, as most of the walls in this house have been awful!), so we're hoping for the best. Still contemplating colours and such, but definitely leaning towards nautical and navy blue. I may browse ebay and see what deco stuff I can find that is inexpensive.

Carer's allowance has gone through, so that helps. I was surprised that it went through so quickly, but that's excellent. One less thing to worry about.

We're still on the lookout for another bookcase. I'll need to look at secondhand places for awhile. I don't like the cheap MDF stuff as it seems to chip and break easily.

I made a chocolate cake, which turned out okay. But I think next will be my mum's brownie recipe. Yummmm! Haven't had those in YEARS!!! :j

Birthday party to go to tomorrow with DS2. Thankfully within walking distance, so while we filled up the car with petrol, we're trying to keep from using it except for emergencies now. My understanding is a strike is possible now, but unknown when. We don't really have anywhere to go that we can't either walk or use public transport for the next couple weeks anyway. :cool:

brizzledfw

Wow..what I cant get over Triggles is the sheer energy in your posts..you put most of us to shame!! Its amazing and your OH too..powering up for the house refurbishment of a lifetime!!

You don't by any chance live in Bristol do you? I could do with some of your energy over here!!:rotfl:

Hope party goes well..does DS2 get overexcited? or is it all manageable?

have a great weekend

Triggles

Nope, not Bristol, but close - Gloucestershire.

Yes, he gets very overexcited. Thankfully, we're familiar with the venue for the party, and the mum is a very close friend of mine, so it should be manageable. And if we have to excuse ourselves early, she won't be offended.

I don't FEEL energetic. :rotfl: I just want to get this stuff done! Believe me, we've been here a few years and STILL have tons to fix up.

I'm thinking ahead to our living room now. When I lived in AZ, we had shaded mirror tiles with gold veins running through them on the top half of one wall (very 70s, eh? ) but I absolutely loved them. They looked great, made the room look brighter and lighter, and reflected the Christmas tree lights really well. :cool: I would love to do that here, but can't locate the tiles. Too retro, I suppose (some might say too cheesy ). So I guess the default is one of those large mirrors with the old fashioned wood frames. There is a local store that has them for a fairly reasonable price and always has them in stock, so that's going on my list of "to buy in future."

brizzledfw

Ahh.. well thats close enough!!

Well its all impressive stuff Triggles..I am still in awe hun

I think you should have what you like in your room..and anything that brings the light in/makes a room feel brighter has to be a good thing!

Brizzle

Triggles

Birthday party we attended went brilliantly. They had two huge bouncy castles, and as DS2 is very sensory seeking, he had a blast!! Big layout of different foods, so he could pick and choose what he liked. All in all, probably the absolutely best set up for DS2 to cope with. :j

DH is sleeping, catching up on a bit of sleep. DS2 & DS3 in bed, although while DS3 is sleeping, DS2 is still chattering to himself and listening to Christmas songs on his CD player (can hear it over the monitor). Bit of a relaxing evening for me.

Such lovely weather today that we focused on just getting a small amount done and enjoying the day. A bit of laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, got the grocery shop out of the way, purchased something small to send as a treat to DGSs and for DS2 & DS3, a bit of cleaning up in the garden, and then we let the boys run loose with the dog in the garden (fenced, obviously) and get messy and play with some water and such. Then I made some potato salad and DH cooked some hamburgers and sausages on the grill, and we had a lovely relaxing dinner. (although if I'm going to be honest, neither boy would eat the meat, but then that's fairly typical of them, we just added some fruit to their plate)

We poured salt and boiling water on some weeds the other day, and I'm pleased to see it killed them. Now we'll need to do that for some other areas of the garden. We have someone coming out to look at the tree and fence in our back garden this week. There is a huge tree (more spread out really) and it's literally pushing the fence over sideways - this fence provides the back fence for about 3 separate gardens, so it doesn't just impact us. It's a council property, and we plan on asking them to remove the tree (as it's growing pretty close to the house, which is unnerving as well) and repair the fence. The fence is wood panels, and I understand that the council is no longer replacing wood panels but are now putting chain link fences up instead. We're hoping that because it backs up against these other 3 properties, plus because a chain link fence would be dreadfully dangerous with DS2 (runner with no sense of danger), that they will simply repair/replace the wooden panels instead. If not, we'll have to see if they will replace them (do the work) if we pay for the panels ourselves. We could most likely go through the OT again and get it paid for (as they have done other household adjustments for us for DS2's safety), but they've done so much, we don't want to keep bothering them with stuff.

I'm still looking at nautical stuff for downstairs bathroom and quite enjoying it. I got a raised eyebrow (but I note he didn't say No!) when I mentioned that I had seen some really cool porthole mirrors on ebay and was thinking about putting one in there. :cool: I just love that idea. (yes I'm probably a nut!)

Diet Coke was on sale today (only time I'll buy soda pop), so I bought some. I'm going to relax a bit and drink my Diet Coke with a slice of lime and enjoy some time browsing the web.:D

Triggles

Ooooooh... a lovely sausage and potato pie for tea tonight. Bless Nigel Slater's yummy recipe. Easy to make and very tasty! We used frozen sausage meat from Iceland that we had tucked in the freezer at Christmas (I think it was £1), some potatoes, an onion, and a shortcrust pastry that was yellow stickered at the supermarket (supposed to be £1.79 and was 47p). :j

Meatloaf tomorrow (with Sains basics mince), mashed potatoes, and peas. Another easy yummmmy meal! It's been warm during the day, but chilly in the evening, so still nice to have more filling meals.

I was reading through the "offal" thread today, and realised I had never really had liver. I love the smell of it (have been around others cooking it) but not eaten it myself. So I'm going to ask MIL to show me how she cooks it and go from there. DH may need to be convinced though. :rotfl:

Triggles

Today's excursion will be to B&Q to look at the garden stuff. We will be picking out some things to grow (herbs, lettuce, etc) on the window sill. I will measure it out before we go and see what we can use that is inexpensive, but still looks presentable. I've looked around our garden and shed and can't find anything that we can use (well, that's remotely presentable, anyway).

I'll have DS2 help me get it all set up and planted, so he can help with the watering and such.

Hopefully DH will be able to get more of the wallpaper stripped this evening as well. We're basically doing a bit each day, as time allows.

The fence (and tree) are being looked at today, so hopefully we'll get some answers as to what we can and can't do. I see no point in leaving this tree in place when it's damaging the fence and so close to the house. I'm not sure why it wasn't removed years ago, to be honest. The question now is will they be able to get the stump/roots out? I hope so. It's good for shade, yes, but not at the expense of the fence.

Triggles

Hmmm... well, we didn't get to B&Q the other day, as fence guy didn't show up in the morning as planned, he didn't show up until the afternoon. He then had to trim back quite a bit on the tree and remove all the debris.

He came back again yesterday and finished removing the tree debris and did a quick temporary fix on the fence. Hopefully it will be repaired completely in the next couple weeks.

Since we didn't go to B&Q, I'll probably check Poundland when I go into town next week and see what they have. Most likely cheaper anyway, right? :cool:

I used my craft supplies and stamped up a card and gift bag for the birthday girl for the party DS2 went to recently. I was really pleased with how it looked, and I've realised I need to do more of this stuff. I enjoy it, it's cheaper than buying stuff like that (as I already have tons of supplies), and it's unique. Goal - make more cards and gift bags, don't buy them anymore.

We had to turn the heater on again, due to the cold weather. I try to only have it on as little as possible, but still need to run it. Hopefully it won't do too much to the electricity/gas bill.

We managed to buy a couple chocolate eggs for Easter at Sainsburys when they were buy 1 get 2 free. The next day they were buy 1 get 1 free. :cool: Quite happy we got a good price. I remember in the states how Easter was such a organisational nightmare - Easter basket, fake grass, jelly beans, chocolate bunny, marshmallow peeps. It all added up. Now here a simple chocolate egg and everyone's happy. Have I mentioned I love the UK?

Happy Easter!:)

Triggles

Easter is officially over. Next holiday? Is it Father's Day? Technically it's Mother's Day in the US, which is in May, and I need to make sure I'm organised and get a card to my mum. We'll need to make Father's Day cards this year (another one of those "must be organised" things), and I've already got a present for DH from the boys - bought it on sale 2 months ago and tucked it aside. :cool:

I've noticed that DH has really been struggling with his temper and his moods again lately. He is ringing to get back in to see the GP this morning, as he feels that the depression is increasing again and wants to get in to be seen and possibly get back on some meds before it gets worse. The signs have been there, I'll admit... sleeping much more during the day and then not able to sleep at night, incredibly touchy and crabby about everything, unreasonably moody. But to his credit, he's recognising the pattern and doing something about it. Fingers crossed that it means it won't be as bad this time. I've asked him to take the dog for a walk this morning and then we'll have a good breakfast, as I think it's important that he gets some fresh air and exercise, as well as regular meals. He's also going to help me with some baking this morning, so that he's not tempted to nap. I hope that staying awake during the day will help so he can sleep better at night.

I won't lie... this temporary backslide is somewhat upsetting for me as well. I worry that he will swing right back into that horrible depressive state where things were miserable and he just walked around in such a tear that I felt that the life was literally being sucked out of me. I don't know if I could cope with that again. Fingers crossed the fact that he's recognised it is hopefully a good sign. I'm not trying to be selfish; I know this is difficult for him, but I also know that when he is struggling to cope, I end up with more stress on me.

Anyway...on to other things. We gave up trying to find an inexpensive wooden bookcase for DS2's room at secondhand shops and bought a flatpacked bookcase instead. So we're going to freecycle the chair that is in his room, as it's not used as much now, and that will give him room for the bookcase.

Still trying to get the wallpaper off the walls in the downstairs bathroom. It's stalled a bit as DH has been sidetracked, and I simply haven't had the free time to get in there and work on it. I can't leave the boys unsupervised while I'm working on it. We're also working on starting potty training for DS3, which is a bit chaotic. (I cannot begin to describe how frustrating the phrase "mummy I've pooed" is... I want to be told BEFORE he poos, not AFTER!!! :rotfl:)

The slight up side this week is that I won £300 on free bingo this weekend, so that is being withdrawn and used to boost up our savings. I suspect our freezer may be not long for this world :mad: so I want to put the money aside to buy a new one. We COULD go without the second freezer and just use the regular one with the fridge, but it would be much easier to have both.

DS2 is rather wired today. All he wants to do is play his DS, but we've imposed a time limit on how much he can play it, so he's all over the place. I'm going to take the boys out into the garden in a bit so they can run around and get some energy out. :cool:

In the meantime, tons of cleaning to do. ho hum...

brizzledfw

Hi Triggles, sorry i haven't been popping in recently.. It's been all go with trying to be very MSE.. ( with mixed results!).. And work, kids and stuff.

You are ALWAYS so so busy. You put me to shame. And the work you are doing to put the house in order and the way you want it...that also puts me to shame!

Sorry to hear about your DH. That's rough on both of you. Openly the GP will help and at least you can recognise the signs and are not putting your head in the sand..

Have a good day. Assume kids are back next week...it will be weird having the place do quiet again won't it! (sorry written that and then realise i don't know their ages, but know you wrote about Pre-school..think you may not have a reprieve as your DS3 is not school age?!)

Brizzle