Juggling, Organising, and Holding it All Together - 2011

Triggles

Well, I got some paperwork done today - a few letters to DCAs, and one to the paediatrician giving her an update re DS2.

We took DS2 to our local Riding for the Disabled Association to see how he would deal with riding a horse. He was a bit stressed over the riding cap/helmet, but he seemed to do very well sitting on the horse and being led around. We think he could benefit from regular sessions and so did the personnel. So we're going to get the paperwork in and get that going. It's nice to find things that he can enjoy and that will benefit him, as he can't do "team" sports and group lessons.

Things are a bit stressed around here. I think a lot of it for me is just being emotional, still struggling with things, but hopefully it will even out a bit soon.

I had to put my dental appointment off due to my cold/sinus infection and all the coughing I was doing. Hard to have the dentist work on my teeth when I'm coughing practically nonstop. But then my father passed away, and I delayed going in again. I finally had to stop in today and make another appointment (thankfully for tomorrow) to get things sorted as the temporary crown actually fell out last night. Not painful, but needs to be sorted. It'll be a relief to get it done actually. I'm tired of dental appointments.

Little bit of a caffeine headache, so drinking a bit of diet coke tonight... bought on sale, of course. LOL

I will say that I am a bit horrified about a lot of recent government developments - them looking at local government not being responsible for providing certain things that they are required to currently - such as "equal access to education for disabled children" and such. :eek::mad: I cannot believe it! And now they are looking to slash child tax credits for those families with disabled children receiving DLA. So basically, they're cutting services provided to disabled children, which are already relatively poor in some areas so that parents have to pay for some things privately for their child. Then they say they're going to move as many as possible to lower rate of care or off DLA entirely. And those who are left will have their child tax credits slashed. Wow. We're starting to feel as if there is a target painted on families with disabled children. Says a lot about society as a whole if this is allowed to go through.... that old saying about you can tell much about a society by how they treat their most vulnerable.

Triggles

Oh what a week. Tired and tired again. LOL

Dental work finally finished. :j DS2 to eye appointment at hospital today, and his eyes were dilated for the exam. He's been off the walls all afternoon as it's thrown him so much. I made a nice dinner of meatloaf, mash, and peas, and hardly anyone ate any. DH works tonight so said he'd sleep in the afternoon instead of the evening so we could relax a bit together. And so he slept. And now he's tired and going back up to sleep again. grrrrrrrrrr:mad: I HATE HATE HATE when he does that. Don't tell me you're going to be awake and spend the evening with me, then change your mind and go to sleep. So basically, nothing done this afternoon and nothing done this evening. AND it's left me to deal with everything - kids, cleanup, all of it.

Anyway, I'm going to put that out of my mind as I'm going into town to meet a new friend for coffee tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Plus I have a few errands to run, so I can get that done too.

I'm thinking of breaking apart the leftover meatloaf (currently in the fridge) and heating it up with tinned tomatoes and making a spag bol sauce out of it. Maybe freezing it for later use. I'll have a think on it. I don't want it to go to waste.

The food bins seem to be working well so far, although we're a bit shocked at how much food goes into them. Granted things like banana, orange, and potato peelings go in there, which adds up quickly. We do probably have more food waste than we should. part of it, admittedly, is simple poor planning. Part of it is DS2 and DS3 - have to offer certain foods to them to work them into eating them, but they don't always, so it gets tossed. Hopefully we can get better about this.

Triggles

Better day today. I think we're all feeling a bit more like people instead of just "getting through" the day.

DS2 had an Easter assembly today and has been going about the house singing "I'm a spring chicken, my feathers are fluffy...." and then "hallelujah" over and over. I'm pretty sure he's mixed up two different songs. I can't imagine that they go together.... :rotfl:

Leftover meatloaf tonight for tea, with macaroni and cheese. Yummmm! Love leftover meatloaf anyway, and hate wasting food, so happy with that. Probably mince, beans, and rice for tea tomorrow night - cheap and easy and the boys both like it.

Taking DS3 to local park for picnic and to let him play a bit while DS2 is in school tomorrow. DS2 doesn't have school for a few weeks so wanted to give DS3 a chance for a quiet outing more geared to his speed tomorrow. I think he'll enjoy walking about and playing. And it's a nice enjoyable day that's inexpensive as well. Win -win!

The play tents are still going strong - sooo sooo glad we bought those instead of the more expensive "sensory" tents we'd seen. Much cheaper at £10 instead of the £50 for the others. And the boys are really enjoying playing in them.

I haven't done much browsing on the competitions or free boards lately, so think I will be taking a wander through them over the next few days.

Got another letter from one of our accounts regarding the PPI reimbursement. They are still working on it. Seems to be taking quite a while, but we'll wait and see what happens.

We've finally got all the paperwork in to update the wills (and paid the money to update them) as well as DH getting his driving licence picture updated for £20. All these things just add up so quickly. I think I will need to start looking to sell a few items on ebay. Perhaps it will clear out some older stuff that we're not using much of. We have a fair few baby clothes, but I just don't know if they sell that well. I'll have to do some brief research and see.

We need to wash our car, but don't want to pay to take it to a carwash. I think as the weather is going to be nice over the next few days, I'll take the time to wash it at home and use it as an "exercise" opportunity. LOL

Triggles

Well, the one day we decide to take the bus and do some extra walking on our outing to the park.... and the school calls as DS2 had an asthma attack and is quite ill (fever, shaky, upset) and it seemed to hit quite quickly, so we need to pick him up. Cue a frantic pack up of all our picnic stuff at the park, tossing it (and DS3 - although more "place" than toss LOL) all back into the pushchair, walking quickly quite some ways to the bus stop, waiting for the bus (as one had JUST driven by just before we got to the bus stop! :mad:), catching bus, walking from that bus stop to the school. Then, walking back to bus stop with DS2 as well, catching bus home, getting car, and driving to surgery to be seen. gasp gasp... okay, after all that I was beginning to think I was going to need medical assistance myself!!

Anyway, DS2's asthma meds have been doubled and he's on calpol/nurofen alternating to get the fever down. It's morning now after a stressful night. Still feverish and coughing somewhat, have had to use his ventolin inhaler a couple times. But seems more alert and himself, which is a huge relief.

I was full of plans to get massive cleaning done this weekend, but that's not looking likely now. Very little sleep last night and DS2 still ill. Plus MIL is stopping by to visit this afternoon, so have to focus on some general pickup and vacuuming the living room, sweeping the kitchen. MIL would never ever comment on the cleanliness (or lack of :rotfl:) at our house, but I do like it to be clean when she visits. Just a matter of pride, I suppose.

Got partway through making banana bread and realised I was short 1 ingredient (no... not the bananas! I do have those! ) so have to make a quick trip to the supermarket. DH walked down to the nearby shop only to discover they were closed due to renovations. They have had signs up recently saying "open during renovations" so it was a surprise, to be sure.

Anyway... off to the supermarket I suppose.... wearing blinders so I don't pick up anything else :rotfl:

Triggles

Banana bread finally completed and wrapped up in fridge. Both boys love it as a snack, so it's nice to have on hand for this week when DS2 is home from school. It freezes well, so I may make another 2 loaves and pop 2 in the freezer.

DS2 is still coughing a lot and needing his ventolin inhaler a lot today. Still has a fever this evening but not as high as last night. Calpol in strawberry milk (only easy and reliable way to get meds in him), and Nurofen later in orange juice if it goes up at all.

Still going back and forth with one creditor about an account. It's currently unenforceable and they keep sending it to different DCAs, even though the account is actually in dispute, and then it gets forwarded to solicitors (even though we advise the DCA that the account is in dispute). The solicitor sends account back to DCA, we then have to insist the DCA returns the account to the original creditor so they can resolve the dispute, and the original creditor sends it to yet another DCA. :mad: Such a complete and utter waste of postage back and forth.

We have some hot cross buns that need to be used, so I think I will make them into bread pudding tomorrow morning. Cheap, easy, and tasty. Yummmmm! :j We're waiting to have a roast dinner on Monday. Not for any other reason than because we forgot to take the roast out of the freezer to defrost earlier today. :rotfl: As good a reason as any, I suppose.

Triggles

Oh, the bread pudding came out lovely. I made it in loaf pans (silicon ones) and I'm going to try to freeze one to see how it does.

We've had a lovely evening. A couple glasses of cider and a fire in chiminea (okay, that fire was our paper to be shredded so it was nice to kill 2 birds with one stone) in the rear garden after the boys were asleep. Tea for the boys was a spag bol freezer meal that was taking up space in the freezer as well as a garlic baguette. We are being incredibly lazy and having fish finger sandwiches with ketchup. LOL But easy, cheap, and silly enough, a favourite of ours for late night tea.

DS2 feeling much better today, so took him to the local centre for a swim (free for us!) and then picked up bread and milk at Farm Foods on the way home (again, Farm Foods much cheaper for bread, milk, and loo roll!). We also picked up a box of fish cakes, as they have a particular brand there very inexpensive that we all like very much.

DH got tons of garden work done today, and I managed to pitch in and help some as well. We're ripping out all the ivy planted by previous owners, as it keeps cropping up.

DH & I were able to have a nice long chat tonight about finances and the state of the things we need to get done on the house while we were relaxing in front of the fire. I finally, for the first time in months, feel like we're on the same page! Here's hoping we can take time for this more often. I think it's so very important!

pennywisepoundstupid

Sounds like you had a lovely evening, i love fish finger butties as well.

Triggles

Bit of an up and down day today. We were up at 4am as DS3 woke up and then woke up DS2. So an early morning. Then we went to ASD family play group for 2 hours this morning. Stopped at home and had a quick lunch, then I took DS2 to his PT appointment. Good news is that from a PT standpoint, DS2 is doing well. Although he's been doing well most of the day, DS2 is now wired and all over the place. It's been a most exhausting afternoon. The family play group had a soft play, and then he's been running around in the back garden today. But now I think he might be a bit over-tired.

Family issues cropping up here and there, but while annoying, not much we can do about them, so just letting them go for now. We have enough to worry about.

Lazy meal tonight. We made fish cakes and chips for the boys, and we'll be eating chicken pie (frozen kind) later tonight. We just wanted to have a "no fuss" meal for both the boys and us. We had garlic chicken last night that we bought at the local butchers (roast pack - gammon, pork, beef, lamb, and 2 chickens for £25) - very very yummy!!! :j

We've gotten some more work done on the garden today. DH mowed it, and we've done a bit more cleaning - mainly play equipment (slide, trike). A friend's coming over with a bigger slide later this week, which DS2 will love! I think I will get a bit of bleach out and just clean over the trike and plastic paddling pool. :rotfl:

Plans being made for wedding of friends that a few hours away - it's not until October, but circumstances with DS2 being what they are, we decided that DH is going to go (as groom has been DH's close friend since childhood and DH is involved in the wedding) and I will stay home with the boys. That way DH can enjoy the wedding and such, without worrying that I'm stressing over keeping track of the boys. DS2 would find it hard to cope so he would be better off at home anyway. As much as I would love to go to the wedding, it's just not feasible. But DH will be attending the groom's stag night and the wedding, so we need to budget money for that over the next few months. We'll probably budget a bit extra for a takeaway for myself and boys while he is gone that weekend, so we can have a little treat ourselves. :cool:

Triggles

I've been thinking about getting rid of some clutter by selling on ebay. We've got some stuff that might get a few quid, so might as well make the effort. Any money earned can be put towards debt. I am going to try to pay for one week's worth of groceries per month, so £50 per month while cleaning out some clutter. That way I don't overdo it and list too much at once to keep up with.

We're still waiting on a definite response on our PPI reimbursement from one account. Hopefully that will be refunded and soon. Then we can use that money to offer a F&F for the main account, which is with a DCA now. That'll be one account done and dusted then. We have another that we're hoping we can make a F&F on by Christmas, and that'll be two accounts taken care of. Then we'll reassess and see where we're at. We have a few accounts that are unenforceable. We've been debating offering them a very low F&F (once we've managed to put the money together), using the leverage of it being unenforceable to broker a low F&F and get it cleared up rather than waiting the 6 years until it's statute barred. Something to think over anyway. Normally I would feel a bit uncomfortable with this, but we offered reasonable payments ages ago to these companies, communicated with them openly and frequently, attempting to come to some sort of agreement when we began having financial problems, and they were dreadful, some refusing to communicate by post, only sending letters saying "ring us to talk to us" rather than actually communicating by post as we'd asked numerous times, sending to various DCAs and switching things all over the place. And Santander has been positively unreasonable - doing things that are clearly harassment such as sending us numerous default notices and letters daily for over a month and a half! Had they been willing to meet us halfway, we probably would have been able to sort things much sooner and in a manner more satisfactorily to everyone involved. Just frustrating! :mad:

I was going to wait until the end of the month (new monthly budget) to pick up the new Harry Potter film (to take out of next month's entertainment budget) but DD bought it for us when she spotted it for £6 at Tesco on a 24 hour limited sale! :j So very nice!! Loved the film! And really looking forward to the next one coming out! We don't ever go to the cinema for first run films as it is just too expensive. We generally wait until a film comes out on DVD and buy it. It's cheaper in the long run - no babysitters involved, no parking, no petrol, and we can pause it if we need to. :cool: And we tend to watch movies again so it means we have movies available at home for entertainment. We don't generally go out much (in the evening) due to circumstances, so we do pay the extra to have a good TV package at home. We figure one couple going out for the evening for dinner and a film would cost about the same as we pay for our TV package, so we're not worried.

Menu plan done for the next week. Looking forward to garlic chicken curry tonight. Boys had a light dinner tonight, so we're going to relax with our curry and catch up on our recorded programmes for this week. Lamb roast tomorrow and chicken soup with dumplings on Monday (from chicken carcass). Tuesday is cottage pie.. and I can't remember the rest of the week. LOL MIL took us all out for chinese meal on Friday. It was absolutely delicious - and the boys were actually trying different foods, which is quite unusual for DS2. :j

Still feeling a bit under the weather - lots of coughing - but slowly improving. Both DS2 & DS3 are much better, thankfully. DH thinks my resistance is down because I'm worn down so much lately. So making an effort to take better care of myself.

Triggles

Wooohoooo! Progress! I love it when we get things done! :j

We went to a garden centre this morning to look around and get some idea about prices of plants vs seeds and such. We bought DS2 a small pumpkin plant for 99p. He's absolutely thrilled, and he and DH have planted it in a box planter that we had in the garden. An hour later he was checking to see if the pumpkin had grown yet. :rotfl:

While at the centre, we found a shed/gazebo/summerhouse place next door and looked around. Wow!! They were brilliant!! And not too bad on price, with a bit extra for installation, which we're happy to budget for. I think that's something we're going to sit down and scrounge through the budget for - it's worth it to pay a bit more for a good quality shed put together by people who know what they're doing. Ah, just when we think we've sorted our summer outgoings and how we're going to do things, something else crops up. Now we have to analyse and see if we want to alter our previous plans. Decisions, decisions. I will fully admit I'd rather someone else put it together on site than us. DIY always ends up being stressful and often results in argument. Plus these are much better quality sheds.....and the one we liked is a corner one, which would fit our rear garden ever so much better than a bog standard square one!

Anyway, came home and got some garden work done (trees trimmed, plant boxes begun to sort) while DS3 napping. DH is making roast dinner (smells lovely!!) And now we can relax a bit.