As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

kidcat

Ftm, you are so right. Sometimes you need time too, and its ok to admit you are tired your dd could have offered to help rather than expect to receive all the time. I appreciate how hard it is with both young kids and older ones. Thankfully my older two are teenagers but I do find myself trying to split myself in two to please them all.

grandma247

softstuff is the area you live in too posh for chuckout days? My friend in WA thinks they are great. Her dh collects shower doors to strip and weigh in the aluminium,furniture to use themselves or some they have sold at the auctions. He once got an old wardrobe and put it in the auction and it went for 150 dollars. They have hads loads of useful stuff. If we didn't have yobs here I would love something like it.

ginnyknit I have tons of plant pots to get rid of.

flowertot mum I know exactly how you feel. I have 25 years between youngest and oldest. I have slowly withdrawn help from my dd's as they began to find their feet as mums. i still help sometimes but no where near as much as I used to. I have very bad arthritis and cannot do what I once did. I feel so old sometimes. got to go family just arrived.

ChocClare

Hugs to you, FTM - you're quite right to say no occasionally. My DD can still be very cuddly when she's tired or poorly (and she's 15 1/2). She plonked herself on my lap the other day when I was trying to get the dinner and when I told her to get off, she said "but you're my mummy, it's your JOB". Admittedly she was only joking, but I do think that kids tend to think you'll put their needs before yours AT ALL TIMES - which obviously, we do, most of the time. But we are allowed time off for good behaviour after all :rotfl:

On the subject of wombling, I lived in a very carpy bedsit in amidst the poshness of Bloomsbury just after I left college. My flatmate and I got home from work one day to find a skip outside our building, where builders were renovating the flats opposite. I well remember standing in the skip and passing things out to Viv and then standing frozen to the spot as a very well-to-do lady came by. She just waved and said "carry on, gels, you get all the best finds that way!"

When the builders saw what we were doing, they used to ring our doorbell and offer us stuff. We'd lean out the window (we were four flights up) and they'd yell, "this any good to you, girls?" I can remember two hefty blokes staggering up our four narrow flights with a dresser for us, and when we tried to give them some money, they wouldn't take it: one of them said, "I've got daughters your age, and I'd like to think someone would help them out if they were living by themselves."

Anyway, my skip diving has netted me all sorts of useful things over the years. All the "original" doors for our last house came from the house opposite when it was demolished, as well as loads of stained glass. When we sold the house, the stained glass doors into the kitchen were one of the main selling points, with the estate agent going into ecstasies about all the "original features". Well, they were original - just not to OUR house...

I keep looking in skips, but I think the antiques roadshow has a lot to answer for these days :mad:

Glad to say that DD came home with a pile of books which someone had left in a shop doorway a few weeks ago - just a few doors down from the charity shop (rolls eyes). Glad to see the wombling gene is continuing...

ginnyknit

Ftm, its all too easy to run yourself into the ground helping your Dd maybe its time she stood on her own two feet. I help my Dd but only out of choice, we had an agreement the same as I had with my Mum so that grandchildren are a pleasure. Also as you have 6 children she should understand that they are all important to you. if she is as good a daughter as you are a Mum she will soon realise she is being silly.

Oooh what a successful bundle of wombles you all are :rotfl:The price of hiring a skip nowadays I am sure people will be glad to get rid of stuff in them.

just planted the plastic bottles in the pumpkin and courgette patches, am looking forward to a huge pumpkin now!

littlecal

FTM, Kidcat and anyone else in the same boat (((hugs)))


ginnyknit - I think my staple gun has eloped with your glue guns :eek:

ginnyknit

Littlecal, its a conspiracy to stop us crafting, I also lost the instructions to my sewing machine and cannot adjust the tension without it, its 25 quid for a replacement book so am using my Mums old singer which was originally treadle and its wonderful, I only hope I run so well when Im that old :rotfl: You know as soon as I buy a new glue gun the old one will appear, but I do have 2 staple guns!

littlecal

ginnyknit wrote: »

Littlecal, its a conspiracy to stop us crafting, I also lost the instructions to my sewing machine and cannot adjust the tension without it, its 25 quid for a replacement book so am using my Mums old singer which was originally treadle and its wonderful, I only hope I run so well when Im that old :rotfl: You know as soon as I buy a new glue gun the old one will appear, but I do have 2 staple guns!

There is definitely a conspiracy-have just looked at the EAs site and the house I was hoping would be perfect for me is "under offer" - :(bu@@er,bu@@er,bu@@er.Oh well,these things happen for a reason,where's the staple gun when I need it :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Bambywamby

FatVonD wrote: »

Could any of the companion planters on here suggest anything that positively repels butterflies/moths? I have a debilitating phobia of caterpillars which stops me growing fruit and veg/drying clothes outside/walking under trees in May and June but I have an old belfast sink in our back yard that's begging to have something useful grown in it and I'd be prepared to give it a go if I thought the chances of finding anything in/on it were slim.

My DP grows a lot of veg under fine mesh net curtain (from a charity shop or Feecycle of course ) to keep the cabbage white butterflys and aphids off the plants. It appears to work and the plant growth is not inhibited at all.

Bambywamby

lilykins wrote: »

I totally agree about Superscrimpers, was really looking forward to it but so disappointed that it really doesnt help people like us who have already cut right back, will keep watching it just in case.

The only "new" thing on that programme I had never seen before was the young lady who cut a neckline and two arm holes out of a pillow case and wore it as a dress. Fabulous idea for students and youngsters but I can't see many of us ladies fitting into a pillow case - the cases must end up being all of a dress size 6.

elona

Had an eye test this morning and they had a two for one offer and another 25% reduction so ended up ordering sets of variofocals with good lenses for less than I paid five years ago.:j

We got new door handles on all the doors of the house so now they open easily and no one should find themselves trapped. (Got the handles at Lidl a couple of months ago for a third of the prices the places like BandQ etc were charging).

DH has planted a laurel hedge at the front of the house and got each stem for £5 at Lidl last week but we had to go to six stores to get all we needed - the saving was worth it.

On the way home this morning I popped into a publisher clearance store in York - got three books for a fiver and a hardback for £1.99 by my favourite authors and also got some pots of herbs to plant and put on windowsill in kitchen. Got basil, thyme and mint for a fiver the lot in metal pots and a coriander pot in plastic for a pound.

DDs have gone out shopping and we are treating us all to fish and chips tonight and having a lazy day. It sometimes feels as if the more I save, the more I end up spending but things should eventually get sorted out and back to normal.

Hugs to all.