13 Moons part 2 - Freebird & Frugabulous

Karmacat

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Right,

washing out on the line and all the towels currently being swished about at a very un-eco temperature ... but this does clean out the pipes & machine thoroughly so tuff .
And we like maintenance, as opposed to running a machine into the ground so yay to you

Yesterday's washing up also done. "Quelle slutte" :eek: I hear you exclaim in horror. Yep, that's me at the weekend, all slutty & chaotic .
Je suis une plus grosse slutte que toi! Nya nya :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Je suis tres bored avec le housework.

Back to yesterday; girls safely deposited at cinema & in spite of having the cash on me, I found myself using the Custard Coloured Co op Credit Card :wall:. I think I need to stop carrying it about with me. Full of glee at having 2 hours of child-free shopping I headed straight into TK Maxx & found myself holding on to the most divine pair of purple sequinned peep toe 3 inch stilletoes with a cute little ankle strap. They are truly magnificent.

I didn't try them on, I just carried them as though they were my life force. Erm, Lula! Just re-read that sentence :eek: There was nothing in the homewares department that I was tempted by, no sumptuous bags, no clothes I wanted ... but a rail of very tempting leather jackets. I was unwilling to set the shoes down for fear of someone grabbing them & running to the till whilst I was trying on a jacket so I didn't although they were extraordinarily bargainous at about £60. At that point I realised that I really wanted the shoes (which were £50) because I believed they were beautiful, rather than because I had a specific occasion to wear them for.
I had an absolute rainbow lightbulb moment on my backpacking travels many years ago - that I can admire something for how beautiful it is, without wanting to own it. I wish I'd remembered that during my collecting phase

This led me to recognise that my current life isn't really conducive to the wearing of such shoes on a regular basis. The leopard, patent & suede 4 inch ones are mad enough, but I can get away with wearing them to work as a statement item when the rest of my outfit is fairly plain. Satin with sequins on & sparkly ankle straps are a bit more difficult to justify when working where I do.

I put them back but have resolved to return there next week & buy if they are still there & they fit when I try them on.Fitting is good. We like fitting, for shoes

I was very proud of myself & wandered off to Sainsbugs in search of licorice tea bags. Thankfully they had them so I felt rewarded for being so sensible. Yes :j:j:j

I then became rather bored ( that whole sequence only lasted 30 mnutes) so I wandered in & out of all the usual shops in search of bargains, entertainment or inspiration. I became really really bored & actually rather resentful that I was there rather than in my garden doing constructive things. Not one of the shops enthused me & in the end I became rather disheartened by the whole business of shopping. All the usual ones were rammed with rail after rail of stuff, that is never going to sell because there is just too much of it.
Isn't that the truth, when you start to see through the charade of consumerism? Its boring, it doesn't have anything in itself, its just the meaning we assign to it - omigod, I've gone serious again, even on Lula's thread

**smacks self upside the head**

Granted, out town is very much just full of the usual high street stores & there are no little boutiques, craft or indiviudal stores with unique items & my god was I jaded after 2 hours of it. I did end up in a bookshop & bought DD the Twilight series with the white jackets & red edged pages that she yearns for. This is meant as a birthday gift so they're stashed in my car for now. That was another £23.97 on the CC. Yes, I have looked on Amazon & no they didn't have that edition of the books. I did get a loyalty card ( yet another one to carry about with me - life would be simpler & less cluttered if I just bought nothing) so now have the grand total of 71p on that :rotfl: Bleeping loyalty cards :rotfl:

Finally collected the girls & took them for a quick meal which cost £8. That was paid in cash as was the parking - £4.20 :mad:. Dropped DDs friend back & then came on home feeling what a wasted afternoon it was. I could have gone to the gallery, but DD made me promise I wouldn't go without her so that's another trip we can do together for very little outlay.

Awwww..........

With the birthday season fast approaching I am faced with a bit of a shortfall for DDs laptop unless Quidco suddnely pays out all the money that's accruing - unlikely ! I do have the present fund, but with DD1s birthday just 2 weeks before little DDs & my nieces 18th neatly sandwiched between them, that uses up all the fund :think:

Having gained another £2 coin somewhere, I decided to count up the contents of the sealed-ish pot. I was pleasantly surprised; I have £120 in £2 coins & another £60 in £1 coins so a total of £180, more than I reckoned .

Well done you :j:j:j

The solution to the laptop shortfall is obvious :idea: & although it will mean not having that cash for christmas - which it was intended for - I believe I can easily make that up & do still have co op vouchers, Amazon vouchers, Boots points & another 16 weeks of home-job to re-fund the presents fund by December 1st.

Typically, DD has since said that she's not too bothered about having a laptop immediately, within the next couple of years will be fine. I've assured her that this birthday is what I was planning towards & it is achievable but to think whether she might prefer something else for her birthday & to wait for christmas.
Thats very grown up - good for her.

I know it's an expensive gift, but by financing it purely from Quidco rewards & £2 coins savings is completely painless & actually very satisfying. If I could determine whether techie guy had managed to sell my previous one for parts, that may contribute to the funding as well.

Due to yesterday & fridays spends, the CCCCC is now sporting a balance of £1040 . I really do need to just pay the damn thing off. It's annoying me now, I want to be free again. I want to start my Escape From Reality fund NOW. I need to work towards a goal before I become bored, disillusioned with work & my focus drifts off again.
Yes! I want to watch the Escape From Reality Fund build (ooh, I left the 'd' off 'fund', and look what it spells )

I have to do something drastic to shift that balance.

Off to update sig & then plant something in the bit of ground I cleared yesterday, which was turned into a kitty latrine overnight :mad:.

I'm wondering if planting big dogs might work

Ah, I recognise that problem - one solution I've found is to bash down the ground a little bit after I've dug it. The other is to take pruned branches and stick them in the ground, so the kitties have no clear area to use

Lula-Hula

Thanks for your thoughts on various matters KC, you always seem to manage to tune in to how my mind is working - very clever :A.

I have managed to fill the spaces in the fresh ground using a mix of bits of plants I dug up from elsewhere & chunks of broken pots. I really do need to get some more variety & colour into the garden. I concentrated so hard on getting shrubs that take care of themselves & fill space, that I have far too few flowers at this time of year. My lovely nemesias seem to have left me along with the fab orange, white & yellow traily things that I've forgotten the name of .

I need to get some crocus bulbs to plant in the lawn so that when spring comes around, I'll have little splops of colour all over the place

There are so many small projects I want to get on with but am suppressed by the CCCCC. I'm not sure how I manage to justifiy some of my clothing & shoe purchases & yet wince at spending £50 in the garden centre. I think it's becasue I know that really, I need to spend about £500 in the garden centre to really make a difference; veg boxes, more paving slabs, canes, plants, seeds, pots etc... etc .... & that most of my clothing purchases are via ebay so vindicated in that they're recycled .

While on holiday I decided that I would no longer stick with the same dull routine clothes for work but would wear all my clothes in rotation. I set myself a challenge to wear a different outfit everyday & even if it felt a bit funny or I got negative vibes off people, then it wouldn't matter because the next days garments would be something entirely different again.

A full freedom week

I did this every day at work & it was actually quite fun. I really enjoyed just choosing random pieces to wear together & I'm sure that working with men has a lot to do with my confidence in doing this. Women are far more critical about appearance & far less forgiving about fashion faux pas. ( I should know, I've been perfectly vile about some of the Goblins outfits - shame on me)

It's also very soothing to choose my pieces before I go to bed at night, no more trying on 10 different things in the morning whilst trying to make packed lunches, feed the cat, watch the news & locate the car keys.

Making my lunches for the whole week was fab too & I think I've hit upon my perfect no-cooking required meal planning. I made a huge salad for lunch today & have enough left over to do another 2 meals. I then boiled up some pasta & threw in some tuna, sweetcorn, peppers, seasoning & mayo & that's another 4 meals done.

I could happily live like this, just making up meals one day for the whole week & then having toast, yoghurts & fruit for extras. Very cheap too

I completed the ironing, hoovered & mopped the floors & the place is still quite tidy so not in need of de-dusting for a while longer. DD eventually crawled out of her pyjamas to go in the bath, & then put on a fresh set. I forgive her lethargy as it permits me to do my own thing.

It's been a NSD - cant remember what number though & I've been scrabbling about in my accounts & siphoning off bits here & there & have transferred all but the absolutely necessary for funds/bills to my current account. Once it's all in I'll be making a payment to the CCCCC so will report details once it happens.

I'm avoiding using the laptop & sealed pot money for now, DD would like the laptop for her birthday as initially agreed & I will not allow that money to be used to pay off my debts.

Got to get some sleep now, I have day in the office with just Gropey for company _pale_

G'night
xx

Karmacat

Loving the salad idea .... I wish I loved salad - its okay, but .... and I confess, I've got out of the habit of even chopping things up tho I did chop a tomato up last night and chuck it into my pasta thingy ... its that phrase again for me, "when my mother's gone" ...

:eek: I need some serious house-related help (as in commitment to an institution )

Lula-Hula

Je suis revenue my lovelies,

I have been absent & I apologise for not updating, but life has been rather mundane & work-filled this week.

This is good as I've been keeping out of mischief, off ebay & just earning money .

Monday it was just Gropey & myself in the office & as expected I didn't get a lot done. He is one of those chaps that feels that if there is another being in the same space, then they need to communicate. I prefer companionable silence when I have shed loads of work to do. I have had over 50 separate but related documents to prepare this week & I got just 5 done on Monday .

Tuesday Grumpy was in the office too & we had a good day, just getting on with work, a bit of banter & a good atmosphere.

Techie came in & brought wonderful things with him. He brought in my old disk which I will now be able use as my permanent back up once I've purchased the usb caddy - about a fiver from Amazon .

He also brought in a spare lead for the lappie. It's not the same one that he took away with the laptop. but it actually has a longer lead & work fine so that's ok.

He also brought in £120 that he managed to get by deconstructing & selling all the sellable bits of my old lappie :j. This is the sum after he'd taken off his paypal fees & postage costs so I'm delighted.

I'll give him £20 & have bought a really decent bottle of his favourite wine to give him. I really am chuffed to bits & once my new usb caddy arrives he's going to transfer all the info that was on the old lappie & help me set up the back up. I might ask him how to do the phone linking thing too, as I just cannot get it to work

I was doing home-job until 10.30 last night & then opened a bottle of lush wine to help me wind down. I'm finishing it off tonight .

The roads have all been flooded here & when we got home after work & playscheme, we noticed that our bathroom light fitting was dripping water :eek:.

A quick call to the landlord & an electrician arrived within 10 minutes to isolate the supply. Tomorrow a roofer will be round to replace the presumably lost tile & another tradesman to replace the light fitting.

This even exceeds the speed of service when our loo handle was mysteriously broken when we arrived home from holiday. I'm very impressed with the speed & efficiency of maintenance crew :T. It just compounds my non-financial reasons for renting too.


I'll be going to Sainsbugs early tomorrow as the fridge is almost bare - great time to give it a good clean out, which I did earlier - so the CC will be used, but due to the payments made earlier this week, the balance is now £700 & will be coming down again once I've paid laptop & home-job wages in .

It's been a really busy week so I'm off to bed now with my book, will update spends, NSDs etc tomorrow & also get started on the new venture.

G'night
xx

makeup

Lula-Hula wrote: »

.

A quick call to the landlord & an electrician arrived within 10 minutes to isolate the supply. Tomorrow a roofer will be round to replace the presumably lost tile & another tradesman to replace the light fitting.

This even exceeds the speed of service when our loo handle was mysteriously broken when we arrived home from holiday. I'm very impressed with the speed & efficiency of maintenance crew :T. It just compounds my non-financial reasons for renting too.


xx

Wow, brilliant service from your landlord. This is often the cause of many complaints that I deal with in my job so impressed they have managed to get this part of the service right!!!

Hurrah! :T

Karmacat

Wow, Lula, what an amazing post! And the balance on your cc! Thats part of the amazingness.... brill landlord, brill result with the lappie, lots of money from the homejob as well, you deserve a bit of steadiness.

I'm glad the wine is lush

Wordsmith

Lula, that's a fabulous week - financially and otherwise. I especially approve of your end-of-day winding-down methods.

RosaBernicia

Hurrah for lovely techie guy, hurrah for superspeed maintenance people and 'nother hurrah for attacking CC :j

Rosa xx

Lula-Hula

Wordsmith wrote: »

Lula, that's a fabulous week - financially and otherwise. I especially approve of your end-of-day winding-down methods.

Well that's lucky wordsmith - because there will most likely be more of it tonight

I'm glad I made sense in that previous post, I actually felt a bit detached from MSE things, it happens when I don't log in for ages ( sad, but true.

makeup - I fully appreciate how lucky I am with the landlord; although I was once told that they do try to provide a great service to those tenants who are polite, appreciative & work for a living !

I've been a whirlwind of activity today; dropped DD off at playscheme at 8.40 then whizzed straight to Sainsbugs - not been to Waitrose in weeks, maybe I'm cured) to do my shopping as I'd promised I'd be home by 10 to let in any workman.

Typically, not even a hint of workman. I'm fully expecting them to arrive in the half hour when I'm out collecting DD from playscheme. I'm not allowed to arrive until the final minutes as apparently she was about to win sleeping lions when I arrived yesterday.

I've not yet decided how to spend the 30 minutes between leaving work & the end of playscheme next week. I've actually earned a few hours overtime in the last 2 weeks by hanging around at work, but as my role in the big project is now completed & the Goblin was back to her usual mean tricks yesterday, I wont be staying later.

I might well take a book & sit in the car to read ... or I could go for a brisk walk around the park .

Sorry, I have to release my Goblin-Rage :

She is such an old bat & at least 3 times yesterday I really wanted to raise an eyebrow at her & tell her to just F off. She started the day off by trying to be all pally, but having fallen for this twice before & then been back-stabbed by her, I was not about to be suckered in again, so just kept my head down & concentrated on getting my project finished. Both Highly Annoying & Design Dude noticed how 'spiky' she was with me.

She got the hump because I asked for an overtime form & because I had to tell her how to change an entry on her precious new computer system & again because I cautiously said that while I was happy to use the system, I didn't think it was right for our business.

She told me that if I even 'dared' to mention my thoughts to Grumpy then he would "put a rocket up my @rse". I could tell she was torn between being outraged at my daring to disagree with him & willing me to tell him so that he could indeed lose his temper with me.

I wont proffer my opinion unless asked but I did say to her I thought he was just forging ahead with it because he would never admit to being wrong. In my opinion, it takes a big man to admit they're wrong. Grumpy is now determined to leave the business and for his share in the business he says he'll now take an IOU from me :rotfl:.

It's a shame because he really is the steadying influence while Gropey just charges about with new ideas, new purchases & systems ... but never follows them though. Never mind though, I'll just keep turning up everyday until they stop paying me .


Rant over .

Lula-Hula

So,

I swooshed round Sainsbugs at breakneck speed this morning.
Partly because I had to be back by 10, but mainly because it is just so damn cold in there :snow_laug.

I got load of goodies; fresh fruit & veg, dairy, bits for the freezer & rather naughtily one of the meals for 2 in a box. I opted for the curry version because it was £1 cheaper than the chinese one. I also rummaged through all the boxes to find the one with the longest date on - which was at the back, of course. We will be having that tomorrow night & I also have a vague idea of meals for the next 7 days too.

It was a total spend of £55.02p which is great value for what I brought home, but means that my grocery & household spends are a shocking £186.59. Thankfully the lovely Souk is away on holiday so I wont get told off. I'd better make the most of not ironing much this week too :rotfl:.

I've noticed that most of the salad veg I buy can be grown so if I make a serious & determined effort to get the home-grown produce prepared this year, then next year I'll not need to buy much .

I whizzed to post office on my way home to post letters & pay in cash & I'm now very proud to declare that with a bit more shuffling & juggling & rounding up accounts, I have paid another £100 off the CCCCC.

Balance is now £600 .

I don't think I'll be able to clear it completely by the time DD starts High School on 7th September, at least not without creating some serious cashflow issues for myself & I do need to pay the school fund, & the terms GG subs, & still buy her shoes, trainers, school bag etc etc ... BUT as of now, the weekly amount payable in order to clear it by the end of the 0% is just £60 a week :j.

I admit I was starting to panic what with needing to top up lunch money card every week, birthdays & not having the full laptop amount yet, but £60 a week is doable & I still aim to have that cleared before then.

I've been pondering on the issue of doing home-job the week of the Bank holiday & have decided that whilst it usually really depresses me having to work on the Thursday, I wont actually be at work-job that day so can just chill out a bit. I also need the money as DD is at lovely childminders on the Tuesday & Wednesday & I have kinda spent the fees on the CC payments :whistle:.

Whoops ... I usually give her a cheque & have banked on my wages being in before it clears. Fingers crossed .

Still no sign of tradespeople, but I have hoovered throughout so only have to do some laundry & clean the bathroom this weekend .

Going to treat myself to some book reading now,

bye for now
xx