My home is a mess

sonastin

I've certainly surprised my mum with how domesticated I've become. Even well into my twenties, probably my 30's, there seemed to be no hope for me ever showing any sort of house-keeping skills. Then I met OH and had to start keeping the place a bit tidier, learning how to cook food that was more than just fuel and generally fixing the way I was living once it started to affect someone else. Now the tidiness, such as it is, is purely a reaction to OH's ability to blame me for the mess even when its his and the cooking side comes entirely from being cash-poor and having to be creative to make ends meet. This website is a massive inspiration when it comes to living on a budget. And it's totally shocked my mother!

I've had a surprisingly productive weekend. Saturday was a deliberately lazy day - I woke with a headache and was determined to do very little. Managed to put a load in the WM but as it was going to have to be hung to dry indoors, only did the one load. Made a monster batch of bolognaise and cheese sauce for dinner and portioned up an extra 4 lasagnes for the freezer but that was about it.

Woke up this morning feeling remarkably refreshed and raring to go. Did a second load of washing first thing and then cleared and dusted my bedside table which has been cultivating a dust farm for several months now. Then I decided to tackle some of the boxes of clutter in the loft. I managed to condense 2 rather large boxes into 1 small one + 2 shoe boxes of photos. Of course I then got distracted by looking through all the old photos and reminiscing!

The weather here has been so bad today that we've had the woodburner lit all day. I told OH that it was to make sure the laundry dried properly but the truth is I found some old diaries and I didn't want anyone reading them so I burned them. They were from a time when I was suffering from depression and they didn't make for comfortable reading at all. I'm so glad I've been able to move on from that time. I just wish I could explain how I managed to move on so that I could help others who are stuck in the same black hole.

I'm just trying to persuade myself that an early night will be a good idea too, so I can feel just as refreshed tomorrow. Still need to strip the chicken carcass (sp) and clear the dinner pots away though. Because I can't face doing that, I'm not getting off my backside to go to bed. And OH has just brought me a cup of tea so I'll procrastinate a wee bit longer...

Emm-in-a-pickle

Hi Messies!

Sonastin, sounds like a fair balance for a weekend, one lazy day & one productive one. Finding those old diaries may have been uncomfortable but it`s enabled you to sort of measure how far you`ve come since the dark days when you wrote them. Even if you can`t explain HOW you did, the fact that you did is still a source of hope and encouragement to others.

Messy Status Report-
Garden - recent rain/sunshine is doing more for the weeds/undergrowth than it is for my `wanted` plants. I`m dying to see some nasturtiums & marigold flower, but the lavender, charlock (the thing I thought was potato or turnip!!) ,and elderflower blossom is keeping a lot of Bumbles happy in the meantime. My Swiss chard is now 4 inches high, and salad bag & rescued chives look healthy. Still haven`t seen any leaf-cutter bees, but spotted a wool-carder bee and a bumble nest in rubble beside garden shed.

House - wasn`t too bad till yesterday, DS suddenly announced his GF was coming down for a visit, just as we were leaving to be out all day yesterday. Got home around 4pm, found he`d cleaned HIS room and all his !!!!! dumped everywhere else around the house. GF arrived a few minutes after us, so I restrained my rant.
Have `politely requested` certain items to be moved today.
Will have proper rant later if necessary! Just simmering quietly for now though. GRRR!
Have a decent day, all. x

alec_eiffel

Afternoon all,

We've been fairly busy here. Got the cork floor down and I varnished it yesterday. Looks great, now I want it in the rest of the house! Garden is still ticking over. I've done some painting, redone the top of the sidwboard and waxed it. I find myself doing lots of the jobs that would normally get overlooked so that's probably a good thing.

Hope everyone's ok.

Emm-in-a-pickle

Hi Messies!
Alec E - well done with the cork, glad you`re pleased with the result. As for doing jobs that get overlooked, I`m still overlooking most of those here!

Yesterdays rant at DS was averted - he did move some of his clutter as requested, but this pattern is getting too regular now. I think once GF has gone home I`ll have to have Deep Speech with him about it. Again!
I cooked some ham in apple juice yesterday, and we had it for tea with salad & chips. Home grown lettuce & chives in the salad. It went down very well with everyone, and I confess to feeling quite smug!
I have some leftover chicken, leftover roast pork, and now leftover ham.
Undecided whether to use chicken & pork for a good hot curry tonight, and keep the ham to cut at, or whether to freeze the pork and do a chicken & ham pie. Decisions!

I have to go into town today, bank & other stuff. Not at all in the mood....

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all

Big news! I have got a job interview - for a proper job - going out of the house and getting paid for it!! As some of you know I care for my son who has Crohn's but he is growing up and managing his illness better and the time has come to go back to work. The job is perfect for me in terms of location and hours and the work sounds really interesting. OK I have only got an interview which is terrifying in itself but I will need all your good vibes sending my way on 16th July!

Glad to hear you have got a rough idea of when you might be back at work Emms. Sounds like you are keeping busy at home though. I have resisted letting our dog sleep on our bed so far, although he comes straight up on a morning and stays with OH until he gets up. I have just had to get rid of the lovely velvet throw I had on the bed because I am so sick of it just being covered in dog hairs all the time!

And Buffy, yeah you made the right decision. Not easy though is it? As least you know the piggies have gone to a good home.

Well I am half heartedly sorting out the cupboard under the stairs so I really need to get back to it as there are things strewn about all over at the moment!

sonastin

YORKSHIRELASS wrote: »

Big news! I have got a job interview - for a proper job - going out of the house and getting paid for it!! As some of you know I care for my son who has Crohn's but he is growing up and managing his illness better and the time has come to go back to work. The job is perfect for me in terms of location and hours and the work sounds really interesting. OK I have only got an interview which is terrifying in itself but I will need all your good vibes sending my way on 16th July!

:T woohoo - great news YL. Not just for the job interview but also that DS is managing his illness better now. Your posts have indicated some really dark times when he wasn't coping at all so it is great news that you're feeling confident enough to go back to work. And even better news that you've got the interview. Good vibes will be coming your way until 16 July :T


Chez sonastin? I've been away with work for 2 days. Came home to find
1) OH has put away the clean laundry that had been residing in the basket for over a month
2) refilled it with the clean stuff that was on the maidens in the living room and now obviously dried. I haven't checked the contents but I'm hoping its just my clothes in there and he's managed to put his own away
3) moved the spare matress that was living in the hall into the "store room" (will one day be a bathroom when we've got more rooms habitable to move clutter into ). Not sure if this is a good thing - the matress did take up half the hallway but it was right outside the bedroom door. Stumbling to the bathroom half asleep in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning was great when you could bounce off the "walls" coz it was a nice comfy matress :rotfl:

Most definitely a nice surprise to come home to :T

Emm-in-a-pickle

Hi Messies!
Yorkshirelass - great to hear from you again. I`m so glad to hear your DS is coping better these days, for your sake as well as his.
Well done on getting the interview - it`s not easy not to find it terrifying, especially as you feel is just ideal for you, but TRY to build up positive feelings about yourself and your ability between now and the 16th! I wish you all the luck in the world.((HUGS))

Re the dog-hair thing...even though Daftie-dog doesn`t come upstairs anymore, there is still somehow an awful lot of her hair up there. We are convinced that once shed, they have the power to levitate....in fact, we`re willing to bet that the next moon landing will find Daftie-hairs on the moon!

Yesterday`s indecision about food resulted in a lovely curry - I threw in the pork, the chicken, stock from both, leftover cabbage & cauli, Lord knows what else. It all sort of merged and festered together and was gobbled up with happy noises and compliments! I made a big panful and it all went. I was full up, but OH, DS & GF had seconds, and then DS wiped the pan with a slice of bread!
Another decision made yesterday - OH & I are going to get away for a couple of days. (Mid-week break, not full blown holiday - far less stress/advance planning, etc.)
Today, I`ve been busy:
I`ve booked the car in for this afternoon, oil change/tyre check & whatever. I know handbrake needs adjusting too. Local garage man is a star, really looks after me & doesn`t find jobs that don`t need doing, Bless `im!
I`ve booked a nice little B&B pub that does food all day as well (!), 2 nights the week after next. I`ve also done a couple of businessy phone calls, and I`ve made next GP & Occy Health appointments, so I know they won`t clash.

Freezer use-up mission: I`ve fallen off the wagon badly! I`m using DS`s GF visiting as an excuse, but at least I haven`t filled up the bit of space I had made - leftovers used up quite well without needing to freeze stuff.
Garden: Goosegrass & bindweed appearing & going rampant again in places, but it`s drizzling now so will have to wait. I could have done it earlier today before the rain, but I thought I`d better try to `tidy` the car a bit. (Collected a carrier bag full of rubbish, and put all shopping bags into one bag in boot) Still no nasturtium flowers yet, but plants look healthy.
House:
Kitchen & LR reasonable after a little effort this morning, but LR windows badly need cleaning... they`ve got that almost opaque look. I`m thinking about it....
Upstairs - no worse than usual, so I`m not thinking about it!

Have a nice afternoon all. x

Emm-in-a-pickle

Hi Messies!
Well, here I am saying "it`s Friday again, ANOTHER weekend..."
Weeks do seem to be flying by rather fast.
Maybe it`s because I`m thinking about when I can get back to work...but it hasn`t yet induced a sense of urgency to get on with getting the house straight. I did have it quite productively a few weeks ago but not recently at all.
I can make the excuse of GF`s visit as DS has put some boxes in spare room of Doom (mostly old computer bits) which he normally does, and takes them back into his room when she`s gone home, but I know I`m only making that an excuse.

No progress using up freezer stuff. LR windows still opaque-ish.
I did a load of very eggy fried rice for us all last night, using up some ham, eggs, and a lot of tired peppers & some herby cuttings from the garden. I`m so glad DS`s GF isn`t a fussy eater, Bless `er!
DGD is in residence a day early (school closed today), but neither of us have the urge to continue sorting her room today. Manyana syndrome seems to have set in for the day, really. I have to nip to farmshop for more eggs, fruit/veg for weekend, and I`m half considering making a Big Pie later. (Ham, YS turkey steaks from freezer, leeks, mushrooms.)
If I don`t go to FS now I`ll end up postponing that too, and the Big Pie will be sans mushrooms....
Drags self away to go buy mushrooms...

sonastin

I started a post at work on Friday lunchtime, largely agreeing with Emm that the weeks are flying by. Then I got interrupted with that pesky work type stuff and here we are now, Monday already and I still haven't gotten around to finishing it! No point saying what I was going to say because its all been and done now anyways!

We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday evening. There was the little voice on my shoulder all Friday evening and Saturday telling me I had to get the house cleaned and tidied before they came. OH asked if he could go down the boat to finish something off "should be no more than 3 hours". 5 hours later he got back. And announced he'd run out of steam and didn't feel like doing anything... as I was getting slightly panicked because shopping for ingredients took longer than planned and I was behind on everything I wanted to get done:mad:

I kept reminding myself that these particular friends don't stand on ceremony, don't clean their house specially whenever we're invited round, won't really care as long as its not completely minging and probably won't notice anyway. Quick swish and swipe round the bathroom and a sweep of the kitchen was about all the cleaning I managed. I also asked OH to clear his paperwork off the dining table which I think possibly resulted in him hoovering the lounge as well so he wasn't as unhelpful as I thought he was going to be. I could have done with him helping out a wee bit more but I did make him do the washing up after they'd left

Sunday was the lazy day for this weekend although as OH spent half the evening tinkering with his new bike with our friend, he made me go for a bike ride later on. I haven't ridden a bike properly (other than a dreadful aborted attempt a few weeks ago) for nearly 15 years so it was more of a wobble than a ride :rotfl: He kept reminding me that his nearly-80-year-old mother had no problem riding my bike but she lives on the hampshire coast, not the west pennine moors - I'd find it a whole lot easier on the flat too

Emm-in-a-pickle

Hi Messies!
I hope everyone`s well & had a decent weekend, either having fun or getting things done - keeping up with gardens etc., as well as trying to tackle indoors.

Weather here has been & still is very changeable, but enough dry time to get some more garden tidying/selective weeding/bee-watching done as well as some washing dried outside. (STILL no flowers on my nasturtiums though!) And there`s been enough rain not to need to water plants - see, I`m trying to be positive about the weather!

DS`s GF went home, DGD went home. The Sunday evening lull, I thought....
The Big Pie went down very well on Saturday night. The remains DS claimed for lunch on Sunday, but the Pie had other ideas. As he was carrying it through LR on a tray, "the plate sort of jumped off" and it all landed upside down. On white cotton rug. We have a term in this house `to commit pie` - this arose due to the way I have a mess of pie-making evidence in the kitchen. This time, especially considering the largeness of pie, there was surprisingly little mess - till DS made up for it with the leftovers!
It could have been worse, at least the sauce was white. The launderette was still open. The rug was already turned, and by then on it`s `second side` and getting due for washing. I put the clean spares down, took both LR rugs (wash only) but I`ve been waiting for the beeb weather forecast to come true, the bit where the passing showers pass and the sun comes out. I have to dry these rugs outside or they take ages, I`ve just put them out now, but don`t trust hat sky, somehow..,
Cunning Plan - If I clean the inside of LR window, I`ll be able to watch for rain at the same time!
Drags self away to clean window...