Juggling, Organising, and Holding it All Together - 2011

Triggles

Whew!! I can type again!! How marvelous!! She shortened the nails, so they're pretty AND functional now.:rotfl:

It's been a pretty busy day today. Two loads of laundry, reorganised and cleaned the kitchen (except for mopping, which I'll do tomorrow), put together a lovely toy cabinet from Lidl's (£20) for DS3's room (and then had to convince him to put toys in it ), baked some lovely pumpkin raisin muffins, and did some cleaning upstairs in the bedrooms and put away a bunch of clean clothes. Feeling very productive... and it's not even 2:30pm!!! :cool:

Quite a few rainy days lately has meant that the laundry pile has been growing. I do a load every day, but children's clothing and bedding takes up one daily wash and fills the airer, so it just keeps falling further behind. I need one particularly good sunny and windy day to catch up!

We are going through the toys tonight to toss anything that has missing pieces/parts or is broken. Anything they rarely play with but is in good condition is being put aside for charity shop.

Now time for a coffee and a bit of Kitchen !!!!!! (that would be the Lakeland catalogue! :rotfl:)

Triggles

Well, a lovely sunny day yesterday and lots of jobs completed. DH did loads of work on the back garden - it's looking wonderful. The fence has now been repaired (can't remember if I mentioned that or not), but it looks amazing!! We have a few things we'd like to finish up in the garden to make it look nicer, but for the moment, it's looking good and is safe for the boys, which is the main thing! We were able to relax and have coffee this morning while the boys played on the slide.

We did take the dog for his annual jab today, costing £36, but money well spent. It's one of those "responsible pet owner" things, eh?

Bread pudding made the other day took care of some bread getting old. Cakes for DS2's birthday took care of eggs that needed to be used. Shepherd's pie tonight to use some potatoes.

DH is currently working on the front garden and driveway today. He is off work for two weeks holiday, although we're not going anywhere. :rotfl: We're using it to get a lot of the clean-up and DIY done around the house. I've managed to get a load of laundry washed and hung up, another washing now, and one more of towels to go, then all the laundry is caught up! Doesn't happen often, so I have to enjoy it!

I'm also going to be doing some general cleaning as well as hopefully sanding our table and then oiling it. We've been meaning to do it since we bought it (4 years ago! :eek:), but just haven't made the time for that job.

We found a nice winter coat for DS2 in Asda for a tenner the other day, so we bought it. He's outgrown last year's, although DS3 has a choice of 2 or 3 this year that will fit him. They both have boots that fit, but DS2 needs new nightclothes, as he has outgrown them as well! These children are their tendency to grow can really wreak havoc on clothing costs!! Thank goodness that his hand-me-downs to DS3 are all in very good condition (and DS3 loves getting DS2's clothing).

July is a dreadful month for extra expenditure. Birthdays include DD, DD's partner, DS2, DS3, DGS2, plus a few other family/friends. Even just cards means either expense (to buy and post) or time (again to buy and post or make and post). Roll on August!!!! :cool:

We'll soon be headed into my favourite time of year.... autumn and then winter. I love love love it!! The colour of the leaves falling, the crunch beneath your feet as you walk through leaves, the air getting slightly nippy, all those lovely recipes with apples and pumpkins.

Oh, final note. The LA has relented and given DS2 a place in the local specialised school. :j We are thrilled as it will be so good for him!! It will mean an increased petrol bill, as we're just at the 2 mile mark so no petrol allowance to help with transport, but we will have to drive every day, but I don't care! I'm so happy he's in this wonderful school!! And such a relief to avoid tribunal, as a date had already been set and everything. Whew!!:cool:

Triggles

We've had a very busy few days. Finishing up back garden, front garden cleaned up, and we've spent a lot of time scraping paint off our staircase, stairwell, and downstairs door frames. They were a horrendously sicky shade of green. I actually LIKE the colour green, and I didn't like it. It's been a bit challenging, as the boys are obviously here all day, but with a bit of time management and swapping off activities between myself and DH, we've managed to get a fair bit done. :j We've waffled so much over paint colours, that we're reaching overload at this point. I'm seriously thinking of just staining the wood and going for a natural wood finish on the stairs and doorframes. Then some time in the future, I'd love to get the stairs carpeted, but with those lovely old-fashioned bolts and bars at the base of each step (with a carpet runner in the middle of the stair). Not sure that description makes sense. :rotfl:

More banana bread made - the boys love it. And I took some rhubarb that I froze awhile ago out of the freezer to thaw. I think I'll make some type of cake with it tomorrow. :rotfl:

I won £50 the other day on free bingo, so I'm just waiting for that to go into my account. We realised today that our lovely sofa (sofabed) is in not great condition structurally. It's safe, but will most likely need replacing within the next 6 months. We'll be looking at the local furniture recycling place as there is one that always has very nice stock for good prices. I cannot pay a few hundred pounds for a sofa at the moment, when the children are still small and prone to spillage and mayhem. I'll be much more willing to put more money into a sofa when they're older.

We had a hot lunch today, instead of supper (cheese potato and ham bake), so supper tonight can be a nice relaxed easy meal with little fuss. The last of the laundry is on the line drying. Kitchen is cleaned up. :j Nice relaxing evening ahead.

NewLeaf_2

i have sofas with slip covers so I can wash them up often.

Painting and decorating makes the whole atmosphere in the house feel better. good luck

Triggles

NewLeaf - thank you.

Well, another day and more DIY done. DH finished stripping the paint off the door frames and the stairs today. I used money I won from free bingo to pay for a sander, so he can the sanding quicker and easier. :j We still have the baseboards to finish on Monday. Tomorrow is a "break day" and time to spend doing fun stuff with the boys.

We've done some inexpensive activities with them - painting (which looked quite funny drying on the clothes line), lots of playing outdoors with bubbles, balls, the dog, a few different outdoor toys, water guns (which we bought awhile ago at Sains for quite cheap and they normally use during bath time :cool:). MIL has bought them a paddling pool so we'll probably put that up soon as well.

We watched the most recent Superscrimpers episode this evening. Some of it was interesting. We are sometimes guilty of spending too much money on the children - heaven knows they both have lots of toys. We're going to watch this closely and curb it. It gets difficult sometimes because we buy things that will help DS2 with something he's struggling with - imaginative play, a game that helps with coordination, and such - and then we buy something for DS3 as well, as we don't want to buy a toy for one and not the other. It's a bit tricky really.

We're discussing Christmas at this point. I'm hoping to make gift baskets for a couple family members, with some homemade items in them as well as things we've bought with free bingo money. Fingers crossed we can get by with a very inexpensive holiday season this year. As soon as I finish my list of prep work, I'll post it. Still about halfway through it right now. That and my "getting ready for winter" list. EEEEK! too much to do!! :eek:

Triggles

Wow - the stairs really look different! They were painted white (and 2 layers of a tan/brown colour), but are now back to the original wood and need to be sanded. Most of the banister downstairs is done, just the upstairs remaining now. And then the side of the stairs against the wall. :j Progress being made slowly.

Trip to supermarket today under budget (by £2) and that was with buying nappies that were not on sale (grrrr they were out of the nappies in DS3's size that were on sale!).

Laundry done and hanging up inside, as it's looking like rain outside.

A couple family birthdays tomorrow. Busy family day, so most likely won't get any DIY done.

Triggles

Whew! Okay birthdays sorted. Back to DIY work again. DH is still working on the stairs, while I am keeping the boys entertained, as we obviously don't want them near the tools and such. The hot air gun that DH is using to strip the paint has set off the smoke detector a few times - which upsets the boys (and does nothing good for the headache I'm struggling with today ). So he has opened the doors allowing a flow-through of air, which seems to have improved things. It does mean, because of DS2's SNs, that I have to keep them in one room. It rather limits what I can do - as the cleaning and such I need to do is all in other rooms. It also means I cannot make the phone calls I need to make this morning, as I cannot get anything done on the phone with 2 shrieking boys in the background. I'll have to take care of that this afternoon, hopefully.

Triggles

DH back to work now, but at least we've made good progress on the DIY stuff. It's been cleaned up nicely, and now on hold for a couple weeks until the boys go to school in the beginning of September. The noise and chaos was taking it's toll with DS2, and we had to put it aside for a bit, as he just couldn't cope.

Nice day out with the boys today - we took them to a soft play and met friends there. It's the easiest play environment for DS2, even if it is more expensive than the park. It's enclosed (he's a runner), and padded (he's prone to injury due to coordination problems), and both boys enjoy it.

I found a tree by the side of the road, that has a bunch of yellow fruit on it. Small, round. Damsons? I don't know. I'll either do some research or drag my friend over there to find out, as she loves to forage for fruit and such. I also need to check out DD's back garden - there is an apple tree backing up to it, and we pick from the branches hanging over her fence, as well as blackberry bushes growing all over. MIL loves blackberries so we want to pick some for her as well.

We have DGS1 here two days a week while DD is at work (she has other arrangements for her other work days), so it's going to be quite chaotic here for awhile with 3 children 6 and under! :rotfl: I've got a box full of art supplies, a back garden with some water guns, and snacks. I think we're ready for it. :cool: If all else fails, the 6yo boys can play on the Wii to give us a bit of a break.

Meal plan for this week has fallen apart - it's been a stressful week. But getting right back on the horse, I'm reorganising it tonight, and have tomorrow night's supper planned. At least the laundry is caught up, as it's supposed to be rainy until Thursday - our next day of sunshine!

MIL bought the boys a paddling pool - I'm trying to figure out where to put it where the boys can play in it safely (supervised of course), it won't get in the way of the laundry line, and the dog can't reach it. What a challenge!! :rotfl:

NewLeaf_2

Hello triggles!

I was wondering, how did you strip the paint off? was it with a paint stripping liquid?

I bet everything looks wonderful being brought back to the natural wood.

Take care! NL

NewLeaf_2

PS 140 days until Christmas